“I did—or tried. There was something different in the shadows, in the fog. It was . . . like being closed into a box, tight, so there was nothing else, not even sky. I don’t know how Roibeard heard me or got through unless he was already inside the box, so to speak. The stone Cabhan wore beat like a heart, and the beats of it came faster when I called the elements.”
“In tune with him?” Fin wondered. “Showing excitement, temper, fear?”
“I don’t think fear, as he thinks so little of me.”
“Bollocks.” Meara stabbed a carrot. “He was mind-fucking you so you’d think little of yourself.”
“She’s right on that,” Boyle agreed. “Trying to get under your skin, he was. Weaken your defenses. It’s a common enough tactic in a brawl.”
“I saw you brawl once.” Iona thought back, smiled. “You didn’t say much.”
“Because I was punching the stupid. But if you’re thinking your opponent’s got skills, maybe even better than yours, mind-fucking, as our Meara put it, it’s a good tactic.”
“What the bastard thinks of me either way isn’t something I worry myself about.” Content enough now, Connor shoveled in potatoes. “The lightning strike gave me a jolt, I confess.”
“He didn’t strike you because you have the amulet, and that’s protection,” Branna considered. “And because he wants what you have more than your death. He tried to undermine your confidence, and put bad feelings between you and me, between you and Fin.”
“He failed on all counts. And here’s the thing. When I struck at him, the stone glowed brighter, but then—I felt something burn—nothing like it came to be, but a quick burning. And the gem, it dimmed after that. Dimmed considerable just as I struck out again, just before he vanished, and the shadows with him.”
“What he did to you took considerable from him.” Branna ran her hand down Connor’s arm. “To close you in, then cause you harm, to, well, show off for you as well. It cost him.”
“If I’d been able to call you, if we’d all been there.”
“I don’t know,” Branna mused.
“We do know he wasn’t willing to risk it. He’s not ready to take us all on again, or hasn’t the balls for it.” Fin looked around the table. “And there’s a victory.”
“He wasn’t weak, I’ll tell you that. I could feel it pumping out of him. The dark, and the hunger of it. I didn’t see him strike, and would swear he never touched me. Yet, I felt that burn.”
“Neither your jacket or shirt were scorched. But your shirt?” Boyle gestured with his fork. “Smoke came through it from the burn on your arm. Yet you’re wearing it now, and there’s no mark on it.”
“That’s grand, as I’m fond of this shirt.”
“He stayed as a man,” Meara added. “Because he didn’t choose to use his power for the change? He needed all he had to hurt Connor. If Fin hadn’t kept it from spreading until Branna got here, it would’ve been far worse—is that right?”
“Much worse,” Branna confirmed.
“And worse, much worse, would have taken more from you—from the three. He’s studied you all your lives, one way or another, so surely he knew Branna would come, and she’d put all she had into healing Connor—that Iona would add what she could. But that much worse might’ve put Connor down for a day or two, depleted the three of you. He wanted that, risked that. But he didn’t count on Fin,” Meara explained.
“I was nearly here,” Connor pointed out. “He had to suss it out here’s where I’d come.”
Impatient, Branna shook her head. “He’s watched you, studied you, but he doesn’t understand Fin at all. Not at all. He can’t see beyond the blood shared between them. That I would be called and come, yes, but that Fin would take the pain, the risk, the burning to stop the spread? He doesn’t know you at all,” she said to Fin. “He never will. In the end, that might be his undoing.”
“He doesn’t understand family, and because he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t respect. He won’t win this,” Connor said, and helped himself to more potatoes.
* * *
AFTER THE MEAL AND THE CLEARING UP, CONNOR DROVE Branna home, Meara with them.
“Will you be staying?” he asked Meara.
“No—unless you want me,” she said to Branna. “I know we’d planned a night of it.”
“Go sleep in your own bed. We’ll have our night of it, and wedding plans another time. Connor will drive you home.”
“I walked from the stables.” Meara leaned forward to look at Connor around Branna. “You could just drop me there.”
“I’ll drive you home. It’s late, and it’s an uneasy night at best.”