“Not now, no, and why should he? Tell me what you were feeling—before, during, after the vision came on you.”
“Before I’m not sure. I felt I’d been there before, like the abbey, but not . . . bright, not happy like that. It was dark and, well, sorrowful. I knew the layout, what things were, but I realize now it was her, our ancestor. I was thinking her thoughts, and some were pretty damn bitter. She knew she was dying, but more than death she hated passing the amulet, the power, the responsibility on to her granddaughter.
“I don’t remember going up the steps. It seemed I was just there. The old woman in bed, gray hair streaked with white. Her face gray, too, and shiny with fever. And the girl sitting beside her, bathing her face. Long red hair. Eimear—I think she called the young girl Eimear.”
“You don’t remember the Irish you spoke,” Connor prompted her.
“No, just what Boyle thought it meant, or what he understood of it. I remember sorrow and fear, then the light just bursting into the room. For an instant, a sense of power—just wild, huge. Like a, well, like a really excellent orgasm. Then it all went gray, and spinning. Dizzy, weak, disoriented, and when that passed, hungry.”
“The dizziness will ease after a time,” Connor told her. “It’s good you weren’t alone when you had your first. You weren’t expecting this then?” he asked Branna.
“Not yet, no. Not yet. I want to say she’s—you’re,” she corrected, and addressed Iona directly, “accelerating. I think it’s where you are, and who you’re with. We’re three together, so what you have is coming ripe more quickly than it might otherwise. It’s a good thing, this. You’ll be stronger, less vulnerable.”
“Should I expect any more surprises?”
“You’ll take them as they come.”
“Let’s backtrack a minute. The dream. Did Boyle and I share the dream because we were together?”
“The sex.” Connor leaned back, shot his legs out. “It’s a powerful link. Or can be.”
“So if I have sex with Boyle he can get dragged in with me? But it hurt him. His hand. The poison.”
“Which you tended to well. That’s good instinct.”
“But the next time it could be worse.”
“You take it as it comes,” Branna reminded her. “Cabhan hurt him, but Boyle hurt Cabhan as well. Cabhan felt the blow—a human blow and in a dream—and that’s interesting to me.”
“It was black, mixed in Boyle’s blood. I could see it. If it had spread before—”
“It didn’t,” Branna said briskly. “We deal with what is. You can’t cloud what is with what-if, and the emotions.”
“She loves him.” Connor rubbed a hand over Iona’s when she jolted. “Love clouds everything and shines through it as well.”
“I never said I . . . How do you know what I just figured out?”
“It’s coming through you so strong I can’t avoid seeing it.” He gave her hand another rub. “I don’t mean to peek through the door, but it’s wide open.”
“I haven’t said anything to him.” Couldn’t and shouldn’t, she thought, reminding herself of her vow to be patient. “I’m just sort of savoring it. I’ve wanted to feel this way for so long, tried to feel this way. And with Boyle I didn’t have to want or try. I just did.”
“That’s all well and good, and sure he’s one of the best men I know. But you can’t let what you have filter through the haze of love,” Branna warned.
“We have different ways of thinking on that,” Connor put in. “I think love only adds to the power. Where she is, yes,” he said to Branna. “And being with us. But I’m thinking what she feels is another reason she’s gaining so fast. How she knew the poison was in Boyle, and how she drew it out so clean, when she’d never done the like before.”
“I won’t argue. It’s different for everyone, isn’t it? Love, magick, and how we see and deal. And in each, the choices we make. I’ll only say you’ve had but a short time here, and with him, to think of love and the choices that go with it.”
“I knew the minute I saw him. Maybe that was a kind of vision. I don’t know. But I felt this flutter.” She pressed a hand to her belly. “And this rising.” Slid her hand to her heart. “Attraction, I told myself, because he looked so amazing riding in on Alastar. But it was more. I told myself I couldn’t go there because, well, at first I thought he was with Meara.”
She lifted her eyebrows when Connor let out a laughing snort.
“I don’t know why that’s so funny. They’re gorgeous together. Tall and fit and stunning. And they have this connection—it was clear from the start.”
“Sure like Branna and me, for they’re as close as brother and sister, and never been otherwise. But you thought they were more, so you pushed aside what you felt or might have felt. That’s to your credit. Not all would do the same. I’m wondering if I would myself.”
“Lo
ve at first sight’s a fairy tale,” Branna said, firmly.