Chapter 3
brANNA O’DWYER WOKE TO A GRAY, SOGGY, RELENTLESS rain. And wished for nothing more than to burrow in and sleep again. Mornings, she had always felt, came forever too soon. But like it or not, sleep was done, and with its leaving came a slow and steady craving for coffee.
Annoyed, as she was often annoyed by morning, she rose, pulled thick socks over her feet, drew a sweater over the thin T-shirt she’d slept in.
Through habit and an ingrained tidiness, she stirred up the bedroom fire so the licks of flame would cheer the room, and with her hound, Kathel, having his morning stretch on the hearthrug, she made her bed, added the mounds of pretty pillows that pleased her.
In her bath, she brushed out her long fall of black hair, then bundled it up. She had work, and plenty of it—after coffee. She frowned at herself in the mirror, considered doing a bit of a glamour, as the restless night surely showed. But didn’t see the point.
Instead, she walked back into the bedroom, gave Kathel a good rub to get his tail wagging.
“You were restless as well, weren’t you now? I heard you talking in your sleep. Did you hear the voices, my boy?”
They walked down together, quiet, as her house was full as it was too often these days. Her brother and Meara shared his bed, and her cousin Iona shared hers with Boyle.
Friends and family all. She loved them, and needed them. But God be sweet, she could’ve done with some alone.
“They stay for me,” she told Kathel as they walked down the steps of the pretty cottage. “As if I can’t look after myself. Have I not put enough protection around what’s mine, and theirs, to hold off a dozen Cabhans?”
It had to stop, really, she decided, heading straight toward her lovely, lovely coffee machine. A man of Boyle McGrath’s size could hardly be comfortable in her cousin Iona’s little bed. She needed to nudge them along. In any case, there had been no sign nor shadow of Cabhan since Samhain.
“We almost had him. Bugger it, we nearly finished it.”
The spell, the potion, both so strong, she thought as she started the coffee. Hadn’t they worked on both hard and long? And the power, by the gods, the power had risen like a flood that night by Sorcha’s old cabin.
They’d hurt him, spilled his blood, sent him howling—wolf and man. And still . . .
Not done. He’d slipped through, and would be healing, would be gathering himself.
Not done, and at times she wondered if ever it would be.
She opened the door, and Kathel rushed out. Rain or no, the dog wanted his morning run. She stood in the open doorway, in the cold, frosty December air, looking toward the woods.
He waited, she knew, beyond them. In this time or in another, she couldn’t tell. But he would come again, and they must be ready.
But he wouldn’t come this morning.
She closed the door on the cold, stirred up the kitchen fire, added fuel so the scent of peat soothed. Pouring her coffee, she savored the first taste, and the short time of quiet and alone. And, a magick of its own, the coffee cleared her head, smoothed her mood.
We will prevail.
The voices, she remembered now. So many voices rising up, echoing out. Light and power and purpose. In sleep she’d felt it all. And that single voice, so clear, so sure.
We will prevail.
“We’ll pray you’re right about it.”
She turned.
The woman stood, a hand protectively over the mound of her belly, a thick shawl tied around a long dress of dark blue.
Almost a mirror, Branna thought, almost like peering into a glass. The hair, the eyes, the shape of the face.
“You’re Brannaugh of Sorcha. I know you from dreams.”
“Aye, and you, Branna of the clan O’Dwyer. I know you from dreams. You’re my blood.”
“I am. I am of the three.” Branna touched the amulet with its icon of the hound she was never without—just as her counterpart did the same.
“Your brother came to us, with his woman, one night in Clare.”
“Connor, and Meara. She is a sister to me.” Now Branna touched her heart. “Here. You understand.”
“She saved my own brother from harm, shed blood for him. She is a sister to me as well.” With some wonder on her face, Sorcha’s Brannaugh looked around the kitchen. “What is this place?”
“My home. And yours for you are very welcome here. Will you sit? I would make you tea. This coffee I have would not be good for the baby.”
“It has a lovely scent. But only sit with me, cousin. Just sit for a moment. This is a wondrous place.”
Branna looked around her kitchen—tidy, lovely, as she’d designed it herself. And, she supposed, wondrous indeed to a woman from the thirteenth century.
“Progress,” she said as she sat at the kitchen table with her cousin. “It eases hours of work. Are you well?”
“I am, very well. My son comes soon. My third child. She reached out; Branna took her hand.
Heat and light, a merging of power very strong, very true.
“You will name him Ruarc, for he will be a champion.”
It brought a smile to her cousin’s face. “So I will.”
“On Samhain, we—the three and three more who are with us—battled Cabhan. Though we caused him harm, burned and bled him, we didn’t finish him. I saw you there. Your brother with a sword, your sister with a wand, you with a bow. You were not with child.”
“Samhain is yet a fortnight to come in my time. We came to you?”
“You did, at Sorcha’s cabin where we lured him, and in your time, as we shifted into it to try to trap him. We were close, but it wasn’t enough. My book—Sorcha’s book—I could show you the spell, the poison we conjured. You may—”
Brannaugh held up a hand, pressed the other to her side. “My son comes. And he pulls me back. But listen, there is a place, a holy place. An abbey. It sits in a field, a day’s travel south.”
“Ballintubber. Iona weds her Boyle there come spring. It is a holy place, a strong place.”
“He cannot go there, see there. It is sacred, and those who made us watch over it. They gave us, Sorcha’s three, their light, their hope and strength.
When next you face down Cabhan, we will be with you.
We will find a way. We will prevail. If it is not to be you, there will come another three.
Believe, Branna of the O’Dwyers. Find the way. ”
“I can do nothing else.”
“Love.” She gripped Branna’s hand hard. “Love, I have learned, is another guide. Trust your guides. Oh, he’s impatient. My child comes today. Be joyful, for he is another bright candle against the dark. Believe,” she said again, and vanished.
Branna rose, and with a thought lit a candle for the new light, the new life.
And with a sigh, accepted her alone was at an end.
So she started breakfast. She had a story to tell, and no one would want to hear it on an empty stomach. Believe, she thought—Well, she believed it was part of her lot in life to cook for an army on nearly a daily basis.
She swore an oath that when they’d sent Cabhan to hell she’d take a holiday, somewhere warm, sunny—where she wouldn’t touch a pot, pan, or skillet for days on end.
She began to mix the batter for pancakes—a recipe new to her she’d wanted to try—and Meara came in.
Her friend was dressed for the day, a working day at the stables, in thick trousers, a warm sweater, sturdy boots. She’d braided back her bark brown hair, sent Branna a cautious look with her dark gypsy eyes.
“I promised I’d see to breakfast this morning.”
“I woke early, after a restless night. And have already had company this morning.”
“Someone’s here?”
“Was here. Drag the others down, would you, so I’ll tell my tale all at once.” She hesitated only a moment. “Best if Connor or Boyle rings up Fin, and asks if he’d come over as well.”
“It’s Cabhan. Is he back?”
“He’s coming, right enough, but no.”
“I’ll get the others. Everyone’s up, so it won’t take long.”
With a nod, Branna set bacon sizzling in a pan.
Connor came first, and her brother sniffed the air like Kathel might do.
“Be useful,” she told him. “Set the table.”
“Straightaway. Meara said something happened, but it wasn’t Cabhan.”
“Do you think I’d be trying my hand with these pancake things if I’d gone a round with Cabhan?”
“I don’t.” He fetched plates from the cupboard. “He stays in the shadows. He’s stronger than he was, but not full healed. I barely feel him yet, but Fin said he’s not full healed.”
And Finbar Burke would know, Branna thought, as he was Cabhan’s blood, as he bore the mark of Sorcha’s curse.
“He’s on his way,” Connor added.
When she only nodded, he went to the door, opened it for Kathel. “And look at you, wet as a seal.”
“Dry him off,” Branna began, then sighed when Connor simply saw to the task by gliding his hands over the wet fur. “We’ve towels in the laundry for that.”
Connor only grinned, a quick flash from a handsome face, a quick twinkle in moss green eyes. “Now he’s dry all the faster, and you don’t have a wet towel to wash.”
Iona and Boyle came in, hand in hand. A pair of lovebirds, Branna thought.
If anyone had suggested to her a year before that the taciturn, often brusque, former brawler could resemble a lovebird, she’d have laughed till her ribs cracked.
But there he was, big, broad-shouldered, his hair tousled, his tawny eyes just a little dreamy beside her bright sprite of an American cousin.
“Meara will be right down,” Iona announced. “She had a call from her sister.”
“All’s well?” Connor asked. “Her ma?”
“No problems—just some Christmas details.” Without being asked she got out flatware to finish what Connor started, and Boyle put the kettle on for tea.
So Branna’s kitchen filled with voices, with movement—and she could admit now that she’d had coffee—with the warmth of family. And then excitement as Meara dashed in, grabbed Connor and pulled him into a dance.
“I’m to pack up the rest of my mother’s things.” She did a quick stomp, click, stomp, then grabbed Connor again for a hard kiss. “She’s staying with my sister Maureen for the duration. Praise be, and thanks to the little Baby Jesus in his manger!”