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Her face was still pale, he noted, her eyes too dark. The hair she’d bundled up was slipping its pins, and her shoulders were stiff and straight.
“But there’s something that’s mine to tell, and I’ll give you that. I was born loving you. There’s been no other in my heart, even when you turned from me. Everything I am, or was, or will be, is yours. I cannot change my heart. I was born loving you,” she said again. “And I will die loving you. There is no choice for me.”
Turning, she bolted from the room.
8
She’d vanished. Calwent after her almost immediately but found no trace. He rushed through the house, flinging open doors, calling her. Then cursing her.
Damn temperamental female, he decided. The fury spread through him. That she would tell him she loved him, then leave him before he had even a moment to examine his own heart!
She expected too much, he thought angrily. Wanted too much. Assumed too much.
He hurried out of the house, raced for the cliffs. But he didn’t find her standing out on the rocks, staring out to sea with the wind billowing her hair. His voice echoed back to him emptily, infuriating him.
Then he turned, stared at the scarred stone walls of the castle. And knew. “All right, damn it,” he muttered as he strode toward the ruins. “We’re going to talk this through, straight. No magic, no legends, no bullshit. Just you and me.”
He stepped toward the arch and bumped into air that had gone solid. Stunned, he reached out, felt the shield he couldn’t see. He could see through it to the stony ground, the fire-scored walls, the tumble of rock, but the clear wall that blocked him was cold and solid.
“What kind of game is this?” Eyes narrowed, he drove his shoulder against it, yielded nothing. Snarling, he circled the walls, testing each opening, finding each blocked.
“Bryna!” He pounded the solidified air with his fists until they ached. “Let me in. Goddamn it, let me pass!”
From the topmost turret, Bryna faced the sea. She heard him call for her, curse her. And oh, she wanted to answer. But her pride was scored, her power teetering.
And her decision made.
Perhaps she had made it during the sleepless night, curled against him, listening to him dream. Perhaps it had been made for her, eons before. She had been given only one single day with him, one single night. She knew, accepted, that if she’d been given more she might have broken her faith, let her fears and needs tumble out into his hands.
She couldn’t tell him that her life, even her soul, was lost if by the hour of midnight his heart remained unsettled toward her. Unless he vowed his love, accepted it without question, there was no hope.
She had done all she could. Bryna turned her face to the wind, let it dry the tears that she was ashamed to have shed. Her charge would be protected, her lover spared, and the secrets of this place would die with her.
For Alasdair didn’t know how strong was her will. Didn’t know that in the amulet she wore around her neck was a powder of poison. If she should fail, and her love not triumph, then she would end her life before she faced one of bondage.
With Cal’s voice battering the air, she closed her eyes, lifted her arms. She had only hours now to gather her forces.
She began the chant.
Hundreds of feet below, Cal backed away, panting. What the hell was he doing? he asked himself. Beating his head against a magic wall to get to a witch.
How had his life become a fairy tale?
Fairy tale or not, one thing was solid fact. Tick a woman off, and she sulks.
“Go on and sulk, then,” he shouted. “When you’re ready to talk like civilized people, let me know.” His mood black, he stalked back to the house. He needed to get out, he told himself. To lose himself in work for a while, to let both of them cool off.
One day, he fumed. He’d had one day and she expected him to turn his life around. Pledge his undying love. The hell with that. She wasn’t pushing him into anything he wasn’t ready for. She could take her thousand-year-old spell and stuff it. He was a normal human being, and normal human beings didn’t go riding off into the sunset with witches at the drop of a hat.
He shoved open the bedroom door, reached for his camera. Under it, folded neatly, was a gray sweater. He pulled his hand back and stared.
“That wasn’t there an hour ago,” he muttered. “Damn it, that wasn’t there.”
Gingerly he rubbed the material. Soft as a cloud, the color of storms. He remembered vaguely something about a cloak and a charm and wondered if this was Bryna’s modern-day equivalent.
With a shrug, he peeled off his shirt and tried the sweater on. It fit as though it had been made for him. Of course it had, he realized. She’d spun the wool, dyed it, woven it. She’d known the length of his arms, the width of his chest.
She’d known everything about him.