Dark Witch (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #1)(12)

“Only for a moment.” And in that moment Sorcha grieved a thousand years. “Open. Take. Live.”

She kept only enough, just enough, then let herself slide to the floor when it was done. She was the Dark Witch no more.

“You are the Dark Witch, one by three. This is my gift, and my curse. Each of you is strong, and stronger together. One day you’ll return. Go now, and quickly. Day comes. Know my heart goes with you.”

But Teagan clung to her, kicked, cried when Eamon pulled her away.

“Take her outside, onto Alastar,” Brannaugh said quietly.

But first Eamon knelt to his mother. “I will avenge my father, and you, my mother. I will protect my sisters with my life. I swear this.”

“I am proud of my son. I will see you again. My baby,” she said to Teagan. “You will return. I promise you.”

Brannaugh turned to her sister, passed a hand over her head. And Teagan nodded to sleep.

“Take her, Eamon, and the packs you can carry. I’ll bring the rest.”

“I’ll help you. I’m strong enough,” Sorcha insisted. And she didn’t intend to allow Cabhan into her house.

As they loaded the horse, Brannaugh looked into her mother’s eyes. “I understand.”

“I know.”

“I’ll let no harm come to them. If you cannot destroy Cabhan, your blood will. If it takes a thousand years, your blood will.”

“Night’s fleeting, go quickly. Alastar will carry the three of you far enough into day.” Sorcha’s lips trembled before she found the will to firm them. “She is tender of heart, our baby.”

“I will always care for her. I promise you.”

“Then that’s enough. Go, go, or all is for naught.”

Brannaugh pulled herself up behind her brother and her spell-struck sister. “If I am your strength, Mother, you are mine. All that come from us will know of Sorcha. All will honor the Dark Witch.”

Through the blur of tears, she looked ahead, and kicked the horse into a gallop.

Sorcha watched them, kept them in her mind’s eye as they rode through the dark of the woods, away from her. Toward life.

And as day broke, she took the potion from her pocket, drank. Waited for the dark one to come.

He brought the fog, but came as a man, drawn to her scent, to the shimmer of her skin. To her power, false now, but potent.

“My man is dead,” she said flatly.

“Your man stands before you.”

“But you are not a man like other men.”

“More than others. You called me, Sorcha the Dark.”

“I am not a woman like other women, but more. Needs must be met. Power calls to power. Will you make me a goddess, Cabhan?”

Greed and lust darkened his eyes and, Sorcha thought, blinded him.

“I will show you more than you can imagine. Together we will have all, be all. You have only to join with me.”

“What of my children?”

“What of them?” His gaze shifted to the house. “Where are they?” he demanded, and would have pushed by her.

“They sleep. I am their mother, and I would have your word on their safety. You cannot enter until it’s given. I cannot join with you until you swear your oath.”

“They will come to no harm from me.” He smiled again. “So I swear to you.”

Liar, she thought. I can still see your mind, and the dark pit of your heart.

“Then come and kiss me. Make me yours as I make you mine.”

He pulled her hard against him, twisted her hair cruelly in his hand to drag her head back. And crushed his lips to hers.

She opened those lips, and with death in her heart allowed his tongue to sweep into her mouth. Allowed the poison to do its work.

He stumbled back, clutching at his throat. “What have you done?”

“I have beaten you. I have destroyed you. And with my last breaths, I curse you. On this day and in this hour, I call upon what holds of my power. You will burn and die in pain, and know the Dark Witch has you slain. So my blood curses your blood for all eternity. As I will, so mote it be.”

He threw his power at her, even as his skin began to smoke, to blacken. She fell, in blood, in agony, but clung to life. Clung only to watch his death.

“All that come from you be damned,” she managed as flames burst from him, as his screams tore the world.

“My death for his,” she whispered when the black ashes of the sorcerer smoldered on the ground. “It is right. It is just. It is done.”

She let go, released her spirit and left her body by the cabin in the deep green woods.

And as the fog swirled, something shifted in the black ashes.





3





County Mayo, 2013



THE COLD CARVED BONE DEEP, FUELED BY THE LASH OF THE WIND, iced by the drowning rain gushing from a bruised, bloated sky.

Such was Iona Sheehan’s welcome to Ireland.

She loved it.

How could she not? she asked herself as she hugged her arms to her chest and drank in the wild, soggy view from her window. She was standing in a castle. She’d sleep in a castle that night. An honest-to-God Irish castle in the heart of the west.

Some of her ancestors had worked there, probably slept there. Everything she knew verified that her people, on her mother’s side in any case, had sprung from this gorgeous part of the world, this magical part of this magical country.