“Danu?” Shea shook her head and tried to think. But it was so hard with his hands on her.
“The Mother goddess,” he told her with a shrug. “She who created witchcraft and chose the women to wield it.”
“There is so much I don’t know,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his chest, listening to the silence where there should have been a heartbeat.
“I will share with you everything I know,” he promised. “But for now, you must know we have only until the next full moon to complete our mission. To find what was once hidden and get it to safety.”
“What is it?”
“Black silver,” he said and those two words dropped like icy stones into the room.
Shea swayed unsteadily as images raced through her mind at his words. A dark element created by witches, she thought. Black silver was imbued with power that had grown quickly and completely out of control.
“The Artifact,” she whispered, not sure where that word had come from.
“Yes,” he said, stroking his fingertips along the side of her breast. “You remember?”
She shook her head, frowning as her mind turned away from the memory. “No. Not really. It’s just that when you said ‘black silver,’ I got a flash of something-but it was gone too soon for me to grab it.”
“You will,” he said. “You must.”
“Right.” She nodded and looked down to where his fingers stroked lazily over her newly born tattoo. “You said there were others, like me. Awakening witches. Will we all have this tattoo?”
“Yes,” he said, bending now to flick his tongue across the tip of her nipple. “And each branding will be unique to that witch and her Eternal. Each of you will be marked according to your karma.”
“And what about you?” she asked, struggling to hold on to her thoughts despite the fact that Torin had taken her nipple into his mouth. “What do the Eternals get from this, besides a matching tattoo?”
He stopped what he was doing, pulled his head back and blew a gentle stream of air at her breast. The dampness from his tongue, followed by his soft breath, caused a shiver of chill delight on her skin. “We become one with the other halves of our souls. We stop merely existing and begin to live.”
His tongue stroked the tip of her nipple and Shea sighed. So much had changed in her life so fast that it was almost impossible for her to imagine that it was her life anymore. She looked down at his mouth on her breast and sighed again as another tiny red flame erupted from inside to appear just beside the first of the branding.
She was part of something now.
Permanently.
There was no going back. There was no altering her decision even if she wanted to.
Already, Shea could feel herself changing. It wasn’t just the tattoo, burning itself into her skin. It was something more elemental. More basic.
As she accepted who and what she was, the woman she had tried so hard to be-the everyday, ordinary middle school science teacher-fell more to the wayside. She wasn’t ordinary.
And she wasn’t going to pretend she was, ever again.
Not even to herself.
Chapter 28
Rune felt the wash of magic in the air. Sanctuary was close.
Thank the gods. Eight hours in a car with a curious, frightened little girl and her mother and grandmother were almost more than an Eternal could take.
Amanda hadn’t stopped talking since they left Vegas in the predawn hours. Her mother, Terri, was the opposite. Hardly spoke a word. But Terri’s mother had kept up a near constant litany of rosaries and prayers all along their route.
Their emotions and fears were battering Rune’s energies, eating at them like water on rock. He’d be glad to have this chore over and done with. Battling evil and searching out Awakened witches were beginning to sound like a damn vacation.
“Damn it.” He stomped on the brake, sending the SUV into a skid that had it sliding sideways on the narrow mountain road.
“You’re not supposed to cuss,” Amanda told him from the backseat.
“What is it?” her grandmother asked, fear ratcheting up her voice until it sounded as squeaky as an old gate.
“A roadblock,” Terri muttered from the front seat, sliding a quick look at Rune.
“That’s what it looks like,” Rune told her, then said, “Quiet. Everybody.”
Even Amanda closed her mouth. Not really surprising, since the child’s world had come tumbling down around her over the last week. She was probably ready for another crash to hit. And, he thought, it might have.
Boulders lay strewn across the road, blocking passage. At first glance, it looked as though it was just a rockfall from the mountainside. But Rune didn’t trust it. Seemed bloody convenient for a landslide to hit just before the boundaries of Sanctuary.
“I’ll check it out,” he told them, his voice soft but determined. “You three stay in the car.”
He reached for the gun on the seat beside him and pulled the slide back, sending a bullet into the chamber. Whoever was out there, they wouldn’t be taking Terri and her family back. Not without a fight, anyway. He had magic as well as bullets to draw on and he wasn’t above using either of them.
Before he could open the car door, though, women dropped from the trees. At least a dozen of them. Some simply jumped down to the road; others slid along ropes that snaked from higher branches like tentacles.
“What the…”
“Rune-” Terri shrank back in her seat and threw a guilt-filled glance at her daughter. “Whatever happens, save Amanda.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to any of you,” he muttered, keeping his gaze locked on the women stalking ever closer to his car.
Some of them held automatic weapons and looked way too comfortable with them. Others held their hands out, palms up, invoking magical powers and preparing to use them. He sensed the magic in all of them and knew he was dealing with witches.
The question was, were they reasonable or were they more apt to fire first and ask questions later?
“Who the hell are you?”
A tall woman with long, dark hair pulled back into a braid that hung to her waist shouted at them as her fellow soldiers moved into position around her. She wore faded blue jeans and a black sweater and held an assault rifle as if it were an extension of her arm.
To answer her question, he simply flashed into fire and appeared again outside the car. Weapons shifted to him and he felt the women’s hard, suspicious gazes as if they were knives slicing into him.
“You’re an Eternal.” It wasn’t a question. The dark-haired woman, clearly the leader, shifted to look at the car. “Who are they?”
“Humans,” he said. “Who the hell are you?”
One corner of her mouth lifted into a half smile. “You’re in no position to be asking questions, Eternal. There are at least a dozen guns on you-not to mention the magical weapons.”
“Immortal,” he reminded her, with a small smile of his own.
“But not immune to injury. I figure we can put you down if you make a wrong move, so don’t tempt me.” Her gaze narrowed on him, she said, “I’ll ask one more time. Who are the women traveling with you?”
Rune was as disgusted as he was furious. Felt like a damn fool. He’d stepped into a well-laid trap and couldn’t see an easy way out. He glanced at his surroundings, taking the measure of the situation. One side of the road was a steep, rocky face of the mountain. The other side was covered in trees so thick he couldn’t see beyond them. Behind him stretched a road that led back to civilization and danger for those whose safety had been entrusted to him. And ahead lay Sanctuary… if he could get past the witch guard.
Thoughts and options raced through his mind, but as long as he had Terri and her family to protect, there was only one choice. Truth. “Like I said. They’re human. One of them escaped from Terminal Island detention
