Sean met Dougal's gaze again, reading sympathy in those hunter's eyes. He seemed to be offering an alliance.
The ugly little gnome is right: why do I let her treat me like a worm? Is it some witchery she brewed when we were babes together, or even in the womb?
Dougal shook his head. "Pain isn't always the best form of control, sweet Fiona. Not even with dumb oxen. Use too much pain on some animals and they'll turn on you. That's dangerous, often fatal. Sometimes rewards work better. Food, shelter, sex, even just a chance to sleep. Find out what an animal wants and provide it when the beast does what you want."
They sat for a while, in silence. Sean traced runes forming and falling apart within the coals of the fire, reading omens, meditating on the unspoken message Dougal sent. "I know what you want," those eyes had said. "I know how you feel about this bitch. I know how you feel about that Pendragon."
Sometimes, when Sean was away from her, he dreamed of her face flushing purple, her eyes and tongue popping out with the force of his hands squeezing at her throat. Then she'd lift one finger and his soul was hers. That hawk on Dougal's wrist had more free will. But when she sang . . . .
Fiona leaned back against a polished tree-trunk pillar, scratching her back like some sleek sensuous animal. No wonder she kept cats.
"The three of us can control Brian," she said, "if we get him here. His injuries might even be useful: they weaken him. The woman is untrained, can't use her powers yet, has no idea what they are. Brian could teach her, if we give him time, or he could just draw upon her strength. We should move soon."
Dougal stirred. "We need them in the half-world. We need them separate. Force isn't going to get us what we want. We need bait. We need a live-trap for dangerous prey."
"Ah," said Fiona, "but what's the bait, love? Brian's too smart to come here weak and unprepared. And the woman's strange. Before you set your heart on her, maybe you should study what's under that oh-so-cute red hair. She's nothing but freckled skin pulled tight over fear, with anger bonded to her soul. She went to shoot Liam before he even spoke to her."
Anger. Connections. Something clicked in Sean's memory. "You talked to her. Didn't your mention of a glamour set her off? When you hinted that Brian tampered with her feelings?"
"Yesss . . ." Her eyes slitted in the gloom, a cat accepting a chin rub.
"Wouldn't that mean his glamour worked? Untrained as she is, what worked once will probably work again."
"Ah, my lovely brother. Such a delightful snake you are."
Her words were sudden sunshine. She smiled on him, and the world was right again. For this, he'd do anything.
"I think we have our bait," he drawled. "Two sets of bait. A glamour set on Maureen to bring her here, then Maureen to bring us Brian. Tell me, Huntsman, will it work? Will it trap our prey?"
Fiona held up one finger. "Meet her in the light, meet her in public. Remember the fear. Liam died because of the fear, even though she didn't kill him. Dougal, love, you're going to have some problems there. The woman's strange."
"I suppose you think the rest of us are sane," Dougal answered. "I have ways to adjust her strangeness. But if I'm to cast a glamour on her and lure her to my bed, what do I need you for? Why should I help you trap your tiger?"
She laughed. "Dougal, Dougal, Dougal. A glamour's a weak magic. It works best where attraction's already growing. It can't swim against the tide. Forgive my rudeness, but you'd never do. I speak as a woman here, Maureen's tongue. We'll send my darling Sean to do it. He's much more suited."
Sean studied Dougal's eyes. A slight lowering of the brows told the whole story. "Get me the woman," those brows said, "and we'll work out a way to deal with this Pendragon. We'll have an alliance. I believe in rewards as well as punishments."
Sean nodded, one agreement for two distinct proposals.
Fiona's eyes glistened, hard rubies in the firelight. "When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning or in rain?"
"When the hurly burly's done," answered Dougal, "when the battle's lost and won."
A taste for cheap theatrics, thought Sean. Fiona loves making gestures. They won't always get you where you want to go.
"That won't be ere the set of sun," he said. "And I hope we don't have to move Birnam wood to do it."
Fiona smiled, her hard smile with the teeth in it. "Perhaps. On the other hand, I might like to play around in my gardens a touch. We'll see, my love. We'll see."
And we'll see about a way to kill our younger brother, love, thought Sean.
Chapter Ten
"Coffee, coffee, coffee," Jo chanted, under her breath. She knew she shouldn't have drunk so much of that stuff at The Cave, but she didn't plan to get a lot of sleep tonight, anyway. Her fingers twitched, and she slipped her right hand into David's jacket pocket just to give it something to do. The buzz had her eyeballs ratcheting.
Tomorrow was Saturday. There'd be plenty of time for a lazy morning in a shared bed. They'd wake up sometime around three, have breakfast for two at sunset.
Midnight on an icy sidewalk in the heart of a Maine winter wasn't what she'd call a romantic idyll. No place to stop and smooch for an hour, no inviting patches of warm dry grass under the stars. And then there was the cold-hands problem . . . .
Jo snuggled tighter under David's arm. Nice thing about the chem-free club, he even smelled good. No stale cigarette smoke,
