wards hemmed the entire thing, so Raquel had dressed for a hike.
No snow yet, which was good, but there was a thick layer of fallen leaves on the ground she knew from experience could be slippery as hell, especially since there were no real trails maintained through the trees. The clan did its best to discourage trespassers as much as possible.
Parking at Aiden’s farm, which adjoined the property, they rode horseback to the edge of the woods. It was a beautiful day. Blue sky, high and cloudless. The farmland was long since cleared but still stubbly with the remains of harvest. Yellow grass, brown brush, black crows peppering the empty fields looking for lunch.
Lois was silent. She’d been pretty quiet since picking Raquel up, but when they passed through a break in the brush, she turned slightly. “You’ll set the runes. I’m here to observe. I want to see exactly how much power you have to work with.”
Raquel raised her brows but didn’t comment. Lois should be able to sense that without having to see her in action. Raquel could sense Lois’s power—middling for a clan witch but nothing to sneeze at. Nearly on a par with Kathy, who was very competent and who Raquel respected immensely. Raquel hoped that once Lois saw she didn’t mean to force her out of the coven, they could come to work together peaceably.
It became hillier the closer they got to the lake, rockier too, and eventually they had to abandon the horses. Dismounting a short distance into the woods, they secured the reins to the saddle so they wouldn’t snag. The horses were ?sir stock, intelligent, loyal and responsive creatures. They wouldn’t wander far and would come when called.
Raquel extended her senses, checking the edges of the fault for weakness. It didn’t feel as if there had been a recent breach even though she knew it had happened only two nights ago. Usually, there was a slight thinning to the wall separating their worlds around the new moon and full. That was what allowed the demons to push through. Raquel tapped at her thigh where she’d strapped the Skimstrok blade her father had given to her on her twelfth birthday.
“It’s like they punched a hole through a solid brick wall and someone patched it up again. There aren’t any weak spots now.”
Lois pursed her lips. “I assure you there was a breach. Ask Aiden if you don’t believe me. A demon damaged the Abrams house and one of the hounds was injured. We can go see the claw marks in the siding if you need proof.” She sighed and shook her head. “Poor Dan. You can’t put an insurance claim on something like that.”
“Brian,” Raquel said. Lois gave her a blank look. “Poor Brian, you mean. He was the one who was injured, wasn’t he? Christian said he’s all right but still limping a bit.”
Lois shrugged. “I’m sure Alan will be able to fix that. Dan is Julia’s husband. It was their house.”
Raquel bit her tongue on a sharp response. Really, the more she got to know Lois, the less she cared to.
Lois seemed to be struggling with the uneven terrain, but Raquel didn’t offer her arm. When she paused at a patch of disturbed earth where there’d obviously been a struggle, Lois kept walking. The leaves were churned up, revealing dark, damp earth. Hoofprints and paw prints. A black, sticky substance splattering some of the leaves and a nearby rock. Raquel shivered. Fen had been here, risking his life to protect the clan. Christian too.
“Over here. I found one.” Lois squatted to brush the leaves off the first rune stone and Raquel turned away from the bloody patch of earth to do her part in protecting the clan.
Fen had done the heavy work of placing the stones precisely as she’d ordered them in a circle ringing the ward stones. Those stones contained the fault and kept it from spreading. They kept the portal from opening in town or worse, in an area populated by humans. They couldn’t prevent the portal from opening during the lunar surges, but they
And yet, this one had done just that.
She could feel the wards buzzing along. A familiar sound, reassuring. These were weak, no doubt about that. A hundred years was the outer edge of their life expectancy. All magic dissipated eventually. Strange to think that the founding witch of Ragnarok had set these so very long ago. Kathy had replaced their own as her first order of business once she took over as clan witch. Apparently Aiden had expected Raquel to do the same. She wished she could. It was hard to be excited about the wedding when she was so hyperaware of how badly she was letting everyone down.
Christian... He hadn’t even spoken to her since her revelation.
Dry leaves crunched underfoot. Everything was painted in shades of brown except for a couple of tall pines and some stubborn tufts of grass poking through the leaves. It was quiet and very peaceful. But not safe, particularly not now.
She knelt on the ground when she came to the next stone and covered the rune with her hands. It was warm to the touch. All potential energy there, keyed to draw energy from the ley line. It wasn’t necessary to direct the flow to the ward. The power stones would soak it up, store it. When the wards were activated by a threat, they’d pull from the nearest available energy source. A simple design, but those were usually the best.
She closed her eyes and felt the magic along with the wall that blocked her from that pure, deep well. She wanted to dive in, let all that power flow into her body. She wanted to dismantle the failing wards while the fault was quiet and create blazing pillars of protection that would last for another century. She had the raw power to do it. But a gigantic wall stood between her and her birthright, with no way to breach it.
She’d tried. Heaven help her, she’d tried everything she could think of. Meditation, yoga, crystals, pain because her last idiot of a boyfriend had suggested that as a way to break the block. She still had the scars on her thigh to disprove that theory. She’d been so desperate and so stupid. Fen had promised to help her with the tattoos. Those would be permanent too, but at least he wouldn’t place them until she was ready. She was so fucking ready to break down that wall she hurt with it.
She found a tendril of power, a leak, the slenderest of threads, and she held onto that, drawing at it until she had just enough to burn the gap she’d left in the rune to complete the figure. She smiled as it powered up. She could feel it link to the ley line, feel it connect to the nearest ward stone as well. Standing, she brushed her hands off on her jeans and met Lois’s haughty stare.
Lois was just waiting for her to screw up. Only two stones left.
Christian walked down the front steps of the home he’d rented for Raquel’s family. It was his sister’s home, but she’d married into another clan last year, leaving it empty. It was the house they’d grown up in, small but well kept because his father believed in living simply. He’d been an ?sir purist and a warrior of the Spartan variety. Disciplined, stern, demanding.
Christian had put a second bathroom in for Wendy off the master bedroom, sparing no expense—a steam shower and heated towel rods, marble tile surrounding the big tub. It had given him great pleasure to put such a lavish room inside his father’s home. The kitchen was new too. They’d expanded it, adding an attached four- season room that overlooked the park. Now when he visited, he barely recognized the old place. Some of his father’s ideals were too deeply ingrained for him to question, others not so much. He hoped Raquel was comfortable here. He hadn’t had more than an hour alone with her since she’d arrived to find out.
She wasn’t home now and he was at a loss. Not that he expected her to sit on her hands and wait for him to show up, but why of all people would she go to Lois? He shoved his hands in his coat pockets and started walking toward the shop. He should have tried harder to draw her out after the mess the other night, should have taken the day off. But there’d been a problem at the grain elevator. Beth had called in sick, and Jim couldn’t find the records he needed on her computer. Before Christian knew it, he’d lost half his day. But he’d make it up to Raquel. He had his whole life to make it up to her.
This should be easy. He genuinely liked women and women had always liked him. Raquel had seemed nervous and excited but content with the match that first day. And within just a few short hours, she’d become wary. He didn’t know what he’d done to screw up, or even if it was something that he had done. This secret her parents had wanted her to carry had to have been an awful burden. There were the pressures of adjusting to a new town, Lois’s antagonism and her discovery of the problem with their portal. All of it had probably combined into a perfect shitstorm that made her doubt the wisdom of continuing with the wedding. He’d like to believe that she’d made her confession about her block because she trusted him, but he suspected she’d done it to test him—
