Chapter 12 #3
Since she deemed it more mortifying to struggle, Branna allowed him to carry her into his house.
“You’ve made a scene for no reason, and will have tongues wagging throughout the county.”
“Cabhan going at you in the middle of the road in the middle of the day is reason enough. You’ll have some whiskey.”
“I won’t, but I’d have some tea if it’s no trouble to you.”
He started to speak, then just turned on his heel, leaving her on his living room sofa as he strode off to the kitchen.
In the moment alone, she tugged at the neck of her sweater, looked down at herself. She could clearly see the imprint of Cabhan’s fingers on her skin over the top of her bra. She rose, deciding the matter would be best dealt with in private.
And the rest of her circle, along with her dog, crowded in.
“Don’t start. I want the powder room a moment first.” She sent a look at Meara, at Iona, the request clear in her eyes.
So they followed her into the pretty little half bath under the stairs.
“What is it?” Iona demanded. “What don’t you want them to see?”
“I’d as soon my brother and your fiancé don’t get a gander of my breasts.” So saying she stripped off the sweater. And on Meara’s hiss of breath, the bra.
“Oh, Branna,” Iona murmured, lifted her hands. “Let me.”
“If you’d lay your hands over mine.” Branna covered her own breasts. “I could do it myself, but it’ll be faster and easier with your help.”
Branna searched inside herself, brought up the warmth of healing, sighed into it when Iona joined her, and again when Meara just put an arm around her waist.
“It’s not deep. He only had me for a fraction of a second.”
“It hurts deep.”
Branna nodded at Iona. “It does, or did. It’s easing already, and my own fault for giving him even that small opening.”
“I think it’ll go faster, hurt less if you look into me. If you boost what I can do with what you have. Just for this, okay? Look at me, Branna. Look into me. The hurt lifts out, let it go. The bruising eases. Feel the warm.”
She let it go, opened herself, twined what she had with Iona.
“It’s clear. He’s left no mark on or in you. You’re . . .” Iona paused, still searching for injury. And her eyes widened.
“Oh, Branna.”
“Ah, well, I supposed that’s next.” She unhooked her pants, let them fall to reveal the streaks of bruising up her inner thighs.
“Bloody bastard,” Meara muttered and took Branna’s hand in a strong grip.
“It was the fog, a kind of sly attack. More a brush than a squeeze, so it’s not as dark or painful. Have at it, Iona, if you wouldn’t mind.”
She let herself go again, let herself drift on the warmth Iona gave her until even the echo of pain faded.
“He wanted to frighten me, to attack me on the level women fear most. But he didn’t frighten me.
” Calmly Branna hooked her pants again, slipped into her bra, then her sweater.
“He enraged me, which gave him the same chance to rush my defenses and find that one small chink. It won’t happen a second time. ”
She turned to the mirror over the sink, gave herself a hard look—and a very light glamour.
“There, that’s done the job. Thank you, both of you. I’ll see if Fin’s made a decent cup of tea and tell you all what happened.”
She stepped out. Connor stopped pacing the foyer, strode straight to her, caught her up against him.
“I’m fine, I promise. I . . . No prying into my head, Connor, you’ll only annoy me.”
“I’ve a right to be certain my sister’s unharmed.”
“I’ve said I am.”
“He left the mark of his hands, black as pitch, on her breasts.”
At Meara’s words, Branna twisted around, astonished by the betrayal.
“There’s no holding things back.” Meara stiffened her spine. “It’s not fair or right, and not smart, either. You’d say so yourself if it was me or Iona.”
When Connor started to pull up her sweater, Branna slapped his hands away. “Mind yourself! Iona and I took care of it. Ask her yourself if you can’t take my word.”
“There’s not a trace of him in or on her,” Iona confirmed. “But he’d put his marks on her, up her thighs, on her breasts.”
“He put his hands on you.” Fin spoke with a quiet that roared like thunder.
Branna closed her eyes a moment. She hadn’t sensed him come up behind her. “I let him rile me, so it’s my own fault.”
“You said you weren’t hurt.”
“I didn’t know I was until I got back here and had a look. It was nothing near what Connor dealt with, or Boyle, or you. He bruised me, and where he did is a violation as he meant it to be.”
Fin turned away, walked to the fire, stared into it.
It was Boyle who moved to Branna, put an arm around her waist. “Come on now, darling. You’ll sit down and have your tea. You’d do better with some whiskey in it.”
“My sensibilities aren’t damaged. I’m not so delicate as that. But thank you. Thank all of you for coming so quickly.”
“Not quick enough.”
She gave Connor’s arm a squeeze when he sat beside her.
“That’s likely my doing as well, and I’ll confess it, as Meara—and rightfully—has shamed me into bare truth.
I wanted just a moment or two, and took it before I called for you.
And before you all rain down on my head, it was but a moment or two, and I had good reason. ”
“Good reason?” Fin turned back. “Not to call your circle?”
“For a moment,” she repeated. “I’m well protected.”
Rage, pure and vicious, burned in his eyes. “Not so well he couldn’t put his hands on you, and leave marks behind.”
“My own fault. I’d hoped he’d change into the wolf, and he did.
The hound is mine, and a wolf is the same.
I thought I might be able to pull out the name of the demon, now that we know we’re looking for one.
But it wasn’t long enough, and all I found was the black, and the greed.
I need longer. I believe, I promise you, I could dig out the name if I had longer. ”
She picked up her tea, sipped, and found it strong enough to battle a few sorcerers on its own. And that was fine with her.
“He came as an old man, looking ill and sick on the side of the road. He thought to trick me, and did—but only for a handful of seconds, and only because I’m a healer and it’s my call and my duty to help those who need it.”
“Which he knew very well,” Connor said.
“Of course. But he persists in thinking of women, whatever their power, as less, as weak, and as foolish. So I turned the trick on him, pretended I thought him an old helpless man, then knocked him head over arse.
“It’s true I should have called for you right at that moment, and you have my word on it, I won’t take even that little time again before I do. He did what I hoped, as I said, came at me as the wolf.”
She took them through it, left out no detail, then set the tea aside.
Connor drew her tight against him. “Feed his cock to the ravens, will you?”
“It’s what came to me at the time.”
“And the stone?”
“Brilliantly bright at the start of it. And bright again when he took hold of me. But when my rain burned him, it went muddy.”
She took another breath. “And there came a kind of madness in his eyes. He called me Sorcha. He looked at me, and he saw her, as Fin said when he saw me in the cave. It’s still Sorcha for him.”
“Centuries.” Eyes narrowed, Boyle nodded. “Being what he is, wanting what he wants and never getting it. It would breed a madness, and she’s the center of it for him.”
“And now you are,” Fin finished. “You have the look of her. I’ve enough to see his thoughts to know he sees her in you.”
“She is in me, but there was a confusion in that madness. And confusion is a weakness. Any weakness is an advantage for us.”
“I saw him, glimpses when I took out a guided this morning,” Meara said.
“I saw him, too, on one of mine. I didn’t have a chance to tell anyone.” Iona puffed out a breath. “He’s feeling strong again, and getting bolder.”
“Easier to end him when he’s not hiding,” Boyle pointed out. “I have to get back to the stables. I can spare either Meara or Iona if you need, Branna.”
“I’m fine now, and I . . . Oh bloody hell!” She pushed to her feet. “I’d been marketing, and all I bought is still in the car.”
“I’ll see to it,” Connor told her.
“And put everything where I won’t find it? I bought a fine cut of beef, and had in mind to roast it.”
“With the little potatoes and carrots and onions all roasting with it?”
Meara cast her eyes to the ceiling. “Connor, only you would think of your stomach when your sister’s barely settled.”
“As he knows I’m fine, and if I wasn’t, cooking would settle me the rest of the way.”
“We’ll bring it in here.” Fin spoke in a tone that brooked no argument. “If you’ve a mind to cook, you can cook here. If you need something I don’t have, we’ll get it. I’ve some work in the stables, and more upstairs, but someone will be close.”
He walked out, she assumed to bring in her groceries.
“Give him a break.” Iona spoke quietly, got up herself, rubbed a hand on Branna’s arm. “Giving him a break doesn’t make you weak, won’t make him think you are. It’ll just give him a break.”
“He might have asked what I wanted to do.”
Connor kissed her temple. “You might have asked the same of him. We’ll be off then, and back in time for dinner. If you need anything, you’ve only to let me know.”
When they all left, Branna sat back down and had a good brood into the fire.