Dark Witch (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #1)(48)

And speaking of doors cracking, the unexpected and thoroughly satisfying interlude in the stables gave both her ego and her mood a big, lofty boost.

Plus, she could see some very interesting possibilities through that crack.

Boyle McGrath, she thought. Tough, taciturn, temperamental. And a marshmallow when it came to the pretty, traumatized mare who adored him. She really wanted to get to know him better, to find out if all this fluttering and stirring equaled basic physical attraction, or something more.

She’d hoped for something more most of her life.

Plus, it boosted everything higher because he was reluctant, conflicted, and a little pissed off. He just couldn’t help himself, and that was so sexy.

Maybe she should ask him out, just something casual. A drink at the pub? A movie? First she’d have to find out where people went to movies around here.

If she could cook, she’d invite herself to his place to make him dinner. But there lay disaster waiting to happen. Maybe instead, she could . . .

She paused, baffled as she glanced around. She hadn’t veered from the path, had she? Maybe she hadn’t paid strict attention, but after taking this walk back and forth for days, it was instinct.

Yet, something was wrong, the direction seemed off.

She did a circle, rubbing arms that had gone suddenly cold.

And watched the fog crawl across the ground.

“Uh-oh.”

Iona took a step back, struggled to orient herself. On impulse she turned right, started down the narrow track at a jog. It took only seconds to realize she’d chosen wrong, and was moving deeper into the woods.

When she turned around to backtrack, trees wide as her arm span blocked the way. Fog oozed between their rugged trunks.

She ran. Better to run in any direction than become trapped. But to the right, trees pushed out of the ground, crackling, snapping as they broke through the turf. And forcing her to angle away.

The light changed, going gray like the fog. Wind, ice-edged, whistled through limbs as they knotted and tangled together to close out the sun.

Air, she thought frantically, trees through the earth, water in the form of fog.

He used the elements against her.

She forced herself to stop, pulled for power though fear rose with it. Throwing out her hands, she held twin balls of fire.

The chuckle sounded low, pricked over her skin like the legs of a spider. She shivered at the whisper of her name. Then every muscle quivered at the rustle, at the growl.

“Kathel.”

But what stepped out of the gray light was the wolf of her nightmare.

Not a dream this time. As real as her terror, as the wild beat of her heart.

As he padded closer, slinking toward her, she caught a glimpse of the jewel glowing red at his throat.

“Keep back,” she warned, and the wolf showed his fangs.

She’d never outrun it, she thought even as she took a step back. And the look in its glinting eyes told her it knew.

She hurled the fire, one ball, then the other, only to watch them burst into smoke inches from the wolf that stalked her. Desperate, she struggled to conjure another, but her hands shook, and her mind clogged with terror.

Quiet mind, she ordered, but it wanted to scream.

All real, she thought. It had all seemed so fanciful, so otherworldly—sorcerers, curses, fighting an evil that lived in shadows.

But it was all very, very real. And it meant to kill her.

She saw the wolf poised, ready to spring. Then on a feral scream, the hawk dived out of the sky. Its talons scored the wolf’s flank, drawing blood as black as the hide before the hawk soared up again.

A moment’s hot relief doused when a second growl sounded behind her. When she whirled, relief poured back. Kathel stood snarling. Iona sidestepped to him, laid a hand on his head, and felt a ribbon of calm wind through her fear even as Connor, then Branna, stepped through the fog.

Connor lifted one gloved arm so the hawk glided down to land, wings outstretched.

“Take my hand,” he told Iona, keeping his eyes calm and cold on the wolf.

“And mine.”

Connor and Branna flanked her, and when hands joined it wasn’t calm she felt, but the hot rise of power filling her like life.

“Will you test us here?” Branna challenged. “Will you try it here and now?” A bolt of light, jagged as lightning, flew from her outstretched hand, arrowed into the ground a bare whisper from the wolf’s forelegs. It retreated. The red jewel glowed, fiercely red; its snarl sounded like thunder, but it retreated.

Fog gathered in on itself, boiled into a smaller and smaller mass. Connor lifted Iona’s hand with his. Light glowed from it, spread and strengthened until the fog tore and vanished.

And with it, the wolf was gone.

“I . . . God, I was just—”

“Not here,” Branna snapped out at Iona. “We’ll not be talking here.”

“Take her back to the cottage. Roibeard and I will have a look around, then we’ll be home.”

Branna nodded at Connor. “Have a care.”

“I always do. Go on now with Branna.” He gave Iona’s hand a steadying squeeze. “You’ll have a tot of whiskey, and you’ll do fine enough.”

With Iona’s hand clasped in hers, that power still humming at the edges, Branna strode briskly through the woods. Wanting nothing more than to get inside, Iona let herself be pulled along despite her shaking knees.