“I wish I were that sure,” she admitted.
“You should be,” he insisted. “You’re not the witch you were so long ago. You’ve grown through the centuries. Your soul has been tested time and again and always you have met the challenges you faced with your head high and your honor intact.”
She smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder while his fingers continued to caress her branding tattoo. “If I remember those past lives correctly, it was pretty close a time or two. I didn’t always want to do the right thing.”
“True,” he acknowledged. “But you did, whether you wanted to or not. I was there, remember. Even when we weren’t physically together, I was there, watching over you. And I saw your growth. I saw you fight to become the soul you are today. I have no doubts about your heart, Shea. How can I?”
She sighed softly and felt just a tiny bit of the weight on her shoulders slide free. “You make me feel as if it’s all going to work out. As if I really am who you believe me to be.”
“Trust me in this, Shea. You are a part of me.” He nudged her face up so that he could look into her eyes and she could read the truth of his words shining out at her. “You are the best part of me. We are one and nothing will ever divide us again.”
He bent his head to claim a kiss and Shea met his passion with a rising one of her own. It wasn’t just desire pushing her, though; it was a need for tenderness. For the feel of his love wrapping itself around her, blanketing her in the warmth of the strongest magic of all. She linked her arms around his neck and leaned into him, feeling the burn of the branding tattoo on her breast and along her spine.
She accepted his need and offered him hers.
Sighs and whispered promises filled the air. And when their bodies as well as their spirits joined beneath the soft, pearly light of the moon, it was as if the goddess herself blessed them.
Yet still the Artifact shone darkly, its menacing promise alive in the night.
It was time.
Kellyn set down the scrying mirror, uninterested in watching Shea couple with her Eternal. She had seen what she needed to see. The first shard of the Artifact was free of its prison and on its way to her.
The very weave of the universe trembled at the possibilities spreading out before her. Even from a long distance, Kellyn felt the lush, dark call of the black silver.
She smiled to herself, hugging the nearly erotic sensation of power to her as she would have a lover. The magical metal created by the coven and lusted after by demons would soon be hers-and her hands literally itched to hold it.
Dousing the fire in her shelter, she leaned over and bathed herself in the coiling, shifting, thick black smoke, allowing it to seep into her pores. It filled her soul, not with the brightness of the light but with the absence of it. With the power of extinguishment. This was where the real power lay.
In the blackness.
In the shadows.
Night crept closer, now that the fire held nothing at bay, and Kellyn welcomed it.
The stain on her soul spread and she rejoiced in the inky crawl of it. She’d waited long enough. It was time to begin her own quest.
And the first order of business was to enlist Shea Jameson. She had no intention of turning the Awakened witch over to her partner or the Seekers or anyone else. She’d only used them to get what she wanted and what she wanted was Shea. And then the rest of the Awakened witches. To help her claim what the coven had given up so long ago.
To finish at long last what had begun centuries past.
To accept the dark, open the Hell gate and welcome a new lord and master.
Manorbier castle stood silent and empty in the hush of dawn. Over the sea, the sunrise spilled slowly across the sky in dazzling color that brightened with each passing moment.
Torin and Shea stood together in the inner ward, surrounded by the heavy stones of their joined past. The castle was testament not only to the passage of time, but to the enduring legacy of man. And here Shea and Torin would add their efforts to that legacy. They would, at last, set the past right and claim eternity.
Shea held the fire cage in an uneasy grip. She wouldn’t be able to relax until the black silver was inside Haven where it could do no more damage.
“We made it,” Torin told her, as if sensing her trepidation.
Another voice, unexpected, spoke up. “Took you long enough.”
Chapter 49
Shea whipped around at the sound of that impatient feminine voice. A woman stepped out from beneath the still-elegant curve of stone stairs sweeping up to the chapel. She was dressed in silk and denim and her short black hair was spiky, making her look almost elfin.
Until you looked into her eyes.
“It’s you,” Shea said, clutching the Artifact, still secure in the fire cage Torin had forged in Scotland. This was the woman she had seen studying them in a scrying glass. This was the woman who had done everything she could to trap them. To stop them. “You’ve been watching us all along.”
Beside her, Torin stiffened. “I should have left you in that prison.”
“Yes,” she said amiably, “you should.” Then she turned her gaze on Shea. “My name is Kellyn. But why not ask your Eternal who I am? He knows me.”
“Kellyn?” This was the witch who awakened when she wasn’t supposed to? Shea spared Torin a quick glance, somehow uncomfortable at taking her gaze away from the woman.
He stepped in front of Shea, moving to put himself between her and any possible danger. The dark-haired witch chuckled at the action.
“What are you doing here?” Torin demanded.
Shea sensed the tension in him. Every muscle in his body tightened, coiled, as if he were preparing to spring into attack. Shea stared at their adversary and had to admit she didn’t look dangerous. But there was an air of darkness surrounding her that sent warning bells ringing in Shea’s mind.
Torin kept his gaze fixed on the other woman. “What do you want here?”
Kellyn laughed dismissively and one eyebrow winged up.
Shea watched her. “Mairi told me that you weren’t supposed to have come into the Awakening yet.”
“Not everything moves to the schedule of the grand dear High Priestess,” Kellyn mused, her eyes sliding toward the stone staircase behind her that led to the chapel.
Shea followed the woman’s gaze, half expecting to see her aunt Mairi step through the open doorway. The last time Shea and Torin were here at the castle, they’d had to avoid the ambushers and race through the great hall to the back wall of the chapel to gain entrance. Had Kellyn arranged that trap? Probably. She had been working against them from the beginning, Shea realized.
“No men with guns today?” she asked.
“I don’t need guns.” Kellyn sneered and shook her head. “That ambush was not my doing.”
“And we’re to believe you?” Torin taunted.
Shea touched him briefly and felt his anger pumping through him. “What do you want, Kellyn? Why are you here? Now?”
“What do I want? Where should I begin?” She laughed, then changed the subject entirely. “How is Mairi?” she asked, her tone clearly indicating that she didn’t give a damn. “Still pontificating? Still warning all and sundry about the evils of too much power? Don’t suppose she bothers to recall that she too gave in?” Kellyn laughed again. “Remember, Shea? How she sent all of us out into the world, hiding shards of the Artifact?”
“Of course I-”
“But not her,” Kellyn mused, moving closer. “Not the great High Priestess. She didn’t have to go tromping off
