Chapter 11
Roslyn stirred and then froze. For the first time she’d arrived in Oregon, she wasn’t alone in the narrow bed where she’d collapsed each night after tending to Malachi all day.
He lay next to her, cleanly etched profile outlined against the dark curtains that obscured the view outside.
As far as she could tell, he was still asleep, incongruously dark lashes fluttering against his high cheekbones, his chest rising and falling in even rhythms. She couldn’t know this for sure, but she had a feeling this was the first time he’d slept so deeply in a very long while.
And then he stirred, eyes opening. For the briefest moment, he stared up at the ceiling before he rolled over on one side so he could gaze at her.
“Morning,” she said. Unbelievably inadequate after what they’d shared the night before, and yet she somehow knew it was what he wanted to hear. Malachi Van Horn wasn’t someone who needed or wanted her to tell her how incredible it had been.
He knew, just as she knew, and that was enough for both of them.
“Good morning,” he replied. He shifted again and seemed to wince slightly. “I don’t believe this bed is any more comfortable than the chair in my study.”
“Probably not,” she said lightly. “But I still prefer lying down to sitting up while I sleep, so you can keep your chair.”
A wisp of a smile touched his lips. Even after living together under this roof for the past three weeks, she’d still never seen him smile broadly, hadn’t seen anything close to a grin.
And that was all right. Those half-smiles felt far more earned than a wide grin from someone with a less guarded nature. To be honest, if she ever saw him grinning broadly, she’d probably think that the strain of watching over all those artifacts had finally gotten to him.
“Ready for breakfast?” she asked, and he nodded.
“In a few minutes.”
Which probably meant that he wanted to use the bathroom before he went downstairs.
“I’ll get the kettle going,” she said, and he nodded.
She noticed that he kept his gaze downcast as she climbed out of bed and retrieved the clothes she’d discarded the night before. Despite the intimacies they’d shared, it seemed clear he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the change in their relationship.
Well, the morning after was generally awkward, even with someone who hadn’t spent the past seventeen years of their life fiercely celibate.
Or at least, she assumed he hadn’t been with anyone during all that time.
He’d admitted that it had been a very long while, and she certainly hadn’t been in any position to ask further questions.
No, she’d only wanted to sink onto the bed with him and finally allow herself to feel all the things she’d been wanting but had been too stubborn to acknowledge to herself.
After slipping on her flats, she headed downstairs to the kitchen. Everything looked exactly the same, the dishes from the night before sitting on the drain next to the sink, the curtains of the sink pulled shut, and yet Roslyn couldn’t help thinking it had all changed.
The last time she was in this room, she hadn’t yet made love with Malachi Van Horn.
Her cheeks flushed a little, even as she told herself that she was an adult and could be with whomever she liked. Still, she knew if any of her friends or family had been around to see her this morning after, they probably would have been asking her some pointed questions about Stockholm Syndrome.
This was nothing like that, though. Or at least, she didn’t think it was.
Malachi had done everything he could to keep her at arm’s length, but the more she learned about him — the more she understood why he had done the things he had done — the more she’d come to the realization that she and everyone else in her clan had misjudged him.
She remembered how Brianna had told her about the battle on the promontory, where Malachi had come with some of the people who worked for him in an attempt to take the artifacts the McAllisters had in their keeping.
Bree had told the story with her usual flair, but one particular detail seemed to have taken up permanent residence in Roslyn’s mind.
Near the end of the confrontation, Malachi had cried, “You don’t know what you’re doing! ”
Bree, of course, had related this as yet another ploy, something that of course the Collector would say if it would get them to back off.
But now Roslyn realized that hadn’t been Malachi’s intention at all.
He’d known, while they didn’t, that destroying him or imprisoning him would cause the kind of disaster they could barely comprehend.
Those words hadn’t been a ploy.
They’d been a warning.
She’d meant it when she said they couldn’t stay here.
Everything seemed quiescent this morning — maybe the Gibsons or the Van Horns or whoever had been skulking around liked working under the cover of darkness — but she knew the current peace and quiet couldn’t last forever.
Even when he’d been at full strength, Malachi couldn’t have held back the force of an entire witch clan, let alone two, and he was far from full strength.
If they hadn’t been interrupted…if he’d been allowed to convalesce without having to pour more of himself back into those damn wards…then maybe in another few weeks he could have been up to eighty or even ninety percent.
As things stood, though….
A rustle at the doorway made her look away from the kettle she was filling. Malachi stood there, still too thin, still too pale, and yet she could practically see the contentment glowing around him.
It had been a different kind of healing, but healing nonetheless.
She set the kettle on the stovetop as he went over to the window and pushed the curtain out of the way so he could look out into the yard.
Why, she wasn’t sure — he could sense any changes in the wards and know whether someone was testing their defenses without having to see them — but she supposed a visual confirmation of the quiet might help to reassure him.
“The sun looks like it might want to come out,” she ventured, and his mouth gave that small quirk she’d begun to look for.
“The sun does that here,” he replied. “I’m afraid it’s a liar.”
Roslyn couldn’t really argue with that comment.
Lately, she’d found herself craving the clear, sapphire skies of Northern Arizona the way a junkie might crave their latest fix.
She knew that seasonal affective disorder was a real thing, even though she’d never experienced it herself, but she thought it might be a factor if she stayed here for too much longer.
And that brought her thoughts back full circle, to the uncomfortable reality that they couldn’t stay in this house but also had nowhere to go.
Even if they’d had all the time in the world, how in the world was Malachi supposed to pack up all those artifacts and take them somewhere else?
It wasn’t as if they could just pull up a U-haul truck, load them in, and head for greener pastures.
“Darjeeling or oolong?” she asked, and was glad she sounded almost normal.
“Darjeeling,” he said. “I’ll get it. Did you want the same?”
“Sure,” she replied. That seemed to be their pattern most days — Darjeeling in the morning and oolong at night. Early on, she’d realized that Malachi didn’t have any kind of alcohol in the house, not a single bottle of wine, not even some brandy in a decanter for a sip on a cold winter night.
It was probably just as well, because his weakened state didn’t need him to also be dealing with the effects of alcohol on his system, but she’d wondered at the absence.
Did he not trust himself to drink alone, or would even the smallest bit of alcohol affect his ability to maintain the home’s wards?
She didn’t know. While she wouldn’t count herself a big drinker, she liked to have a glass of wine at night to unwind at least a few days a week, sometimes a little more if she was at a family gathering or out with friends for a birthday or some other kind of celebration.
Well, she thought, if we get out of this somehow, then I’m going to have Malachi try some Arizona wine and see what he thinks.
Of course, that assumed they’d be going to the Verde Valley after this, which again seemed like a stretch at best. She sort of doubted the McAllister clan would welcome the Collector with open arms, no matter what she had to say about his true nature.
He went over to the kitchen table with two mugs, a little brown teapot, and a tea ball, and she came to join him, pouring hot water into the teapot and its waiting ball of Darjeeling.
“Eggs?” she asked. It felt like such a luxury to have things like eggs and cheese and fresh vegetables and fruit after subsisting on canned goods for so long.
“Yes,” he said. He glanced over at her, and although he was quiet, the glint in those deep, dark eyes made a little pulse of heat go through her.
Maybe they should delay breakfast and head upstairs….
But she reminded herself that he was still healing, even if he’d been enthusiastic the night before, and the tea was already steeping.
“I can do omelets with tomatoes and peppers,” she offered, and he nodded.
“That would be good…and a welcome change from chicken noodle soup.”
She lifted a brow. “I never fed you chicken noodle soup at breakfast.”
“I suppose you’re right. Although there was that one time with the minestrone….”
Roslyn caught the glint in his eyes and realized he was teasing her. Just a little, and very gently, but it still was a reminder of how far their relationship had progressed in just the past twenty-four hours.
“That’s because we were almost out of everything,” she replied. “That’s why I had to go to the store.”
At the mention of her trip to get provisions, the glint in his eyes abruptly disappeared, and she wished she’d held her tongue. The last thing she wanted was to have reminded him of the way she’d been confronted by those Gibson witches while she was in town.
However, all he said was, “I suppose that’s true.”
“Let me get those omelets started,” she said quickly. “You can put out the dishes.”
She turned toward the refrigerator to fetch the necessary supplies. Behind her, she could hear him open one of the cupboards to get the plates, and then a small clink as he retrieved some flatware from a drawer.
Then, as she was cracking eggs into a bowl, she felt him come up behind her and lean down to press a gentle kiss at the top of her head.
“Thank you for making breakfast,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” she replied, and smiled.
It was late that afternoon when he felt the probes return. He’d been heading into the kitchen to check on Roslyn, who’d somewhat ambitiously declared that she was going to make rolls for dinner, when pressure descended on the house.
At once, his head began to ache, and he reached out to the doorjamb to steady himself. Roslyn looked up from the dough she was kneading, her lovely face already flooding with alarm.
“Malachi? What is it?”
“I fear our friends have come back,” he replied. A breath helped to steady him, and he continued into the kitchen and pulled out one of the chairs at the table so he could sit down.
“The Gibsons?” she asked.
He paused for a moment to study the quality of the oppressive force bearing down on the house. It felt coordinated, multiple witches and warlocks pressing from all sides.
And it also had a flavor he couldn’t ignore.
“No, this feels like the Van Horns,” he said, and at once, Roslyn’s mouth tightened. “I don’t believe the Gibsons have the resources to coordinate this sort of assault.”
She lifted her floury hands from the mass of dough on the countertop and wiped them on a waiting towel. “And the Gibsons just let the Van Horns waltz in here? That seems pretty laidback for a clan that sent three witches to pounce on me just for doing a little shopping.”
A grim smile pulled on the corners of his mouth at that mental image.
“I doubt it was quite as simple as that. I have a feeling that Victoria Van Horn — or whoever is leading this particular expedition — framed it more as taking care of the Gibsons’ problem for them.
After all, if I’m dealt with, then they no longer have to worry about a strange warlock camping in the middle of their territory.
And all clans would much prefer that such situations be taken care of internally, so to speak. ”
Roslyn’s full mouth was still compressed, but the way she didn’t make an immediate reply told him she understood well enough.
“So what are we supposed to do?” she asked.
“What we have been doing,” he replied, the only real answer he could give. “This was more than a probe, but they aren’t actively attacking. I will do what I can to shore up the wards, and then we’ll see.”
At once, alarm tightened Roslyn’s lovely features. “That’s the last thing you should be doing, Malachi. You’ve already spent so much building them back up.”
A response he’d been expecting. “And yet it’s the only thing I can do.” He paused, then added, “Those rolls look like they’re going to be delicious.”
That comment earned him a lopsided smile. “Malachi, they’re just a blob of dough right now.’
“True…but I can see what they will become.”
Into the evening and as night fell, the Van Horns continued to push on the wards, poking here, prodding there. Malachi strengthened the places that felt weak, pouring more magic into the wards than he knew he should…even as he realized he had no choice.
But he and Roslyn had been able to sit down for dinner, just cream of tomato soup and sauteed zucchini and the rolls she’d made — which had turned out to be excellent — and he was glad of that.
The good but simple food helped to restore some of his energy reserves, and although it couldn’t replenish the magic he was expending to make sure the perimeter wards held, it was still something.
Just as it was something to sit there with Roslyn, to see the lamplight glow in her hair and give that interesting greenish cast to her turquoise eyes.
The sight of her strengthened him, even as he knew how little he could actually do once the Van Horns gave up their probing and decided to mount a direct assault.
“Thank you for dinner,” he said, just as he’d thanked her for breakfast nearly eight hours earlier.
“You’re welcome,” she replied.