Page 26 of Druid Cursed
CHAPTER
Kellen sat in Caedmon’s study as his brother examined Cara.
Her eyes were glazed, her smile woozy, focused on Kellen even though ’twas Caedmon’s hand resting on her bare skin between her breasts.
She was sprawled out on the floor before the hearth, her white silken nightdress tangled about her thighs, her limbs relaxed as if only recently finished with a love r’s tryst, half drunk on satisfaction.
Unlike his own druid studies, Caedmon’s specialized somewhat in the dark arts, spells and curses intended to harm, not heal.
He understood the need to recognize the arsenal of an enemy, yet Caedmon’s interest had delved far deeper than practicality.
More than a few moments that untoward curiosity had made him question his brother’s morals and intentions, but that doubt never infected the bond between them. Caedmon’s loyalty never faltered.
With the black-tinted, sharpened fingernail of his smallest finger, Caedmon made a small slice above Cara’s heart. A single bead of blood appeared, bright red. He carefully collected it on his fingernail, sat back on his heels, and licked it clean. After a moment, he met Kellen’s gaze.
“Lust spell. Potent, but not permanent. I can redirect it without any problem. Considering the location of the book and the scavenger hunt unauthorized by the Ravenwood activity coordinator, I’d guess the spell was meant for Maggie.
” His eyes sparkled with ill-contained mirth.
“With the note allegedly from you asking me to meet in the library at midnight, I suspect Sorcha intended Maggie would activate the spell, see me, and fall madly in lust with me. Not that most women need a spell for that. But being that Sorcha knows what Maggie is to you…”
Mo chuid den tsaol .
From the moment Sorcha had named Maggie thus in the cemetery, any uncertainty had drifted away like ash on the moor.
A current of need roared through him at the memory of her tempting curves beneath his hands.
Arousal, still simmering at the surface, coiled into a hot lodestone in his gut.
Holding Maggie close in the library darkness, her wee hands in his hair, her sweet mouth claiming him as her own, had merely confirmed what his heart had already whispered since the moment she dared disturb his meditation in the garden.
Yet the acceptance of her identity changed naught.
As much as he wanted to tell her everything, if they found no alternative to sacrificing her blood, revealing the full truth was futile.
He would never trade his freedom for hers.
After Samhain, she would return to the life she knew without him, and he would spend the remainder of his existence in Sorcha’s prison, mourning every moment he missed with Maggie until madness took him.
He fisted his hand. How he wished he could send Sorcha to the pit for this cruelty to them both.
“I believe your vision now.” He released a long breath and met his brother’s gaze. “That Maggie is my soul mate.”
Caedmon lightly laid his hand on the book resting nearby and paused. “If you want, I can erase whatever influence the lust spell might have had on Maggie.” He offered a vexing grin. “I’m sure your misplaced sense of honor wouldn’t want her drooling over you until you’ve won her heart.”
Kellen glared. His brother knew him too well.
’Twas true, he needed to know if Maggie’s feelings for him were genuine, not merely born from a fated match.
In equal measure, he needed to know his own emotions were authentic as well, thus the turmoil rioting within him, strengthening with every moment in her presence.
Caedmon passed his hand over the book and muttered a word, negating any lingering remnants of Sorcha’s spell.
“My guess is the lust spell was a little side helping of mischief to ensure you won’t have a sliver of happiness while free.
” He turned his attention to the flames.
“A distraction while giving us the middle finger.”
“Aye, so we will know that with Wendy’s body she may slip past my wards whenever she pleases, that we are defenseless against her.
” Kellen scrubbed a hand down his face. “’Tis one matter, striving to imprison me for eternity, but she is no longer satisfied with such vengeance.
She wants all of Ravenwood for herself.”
“Which is why she’s destroying the wards this time.” Caedmon shook his head, his eyes narrowed. “What I haven’t figured out is where she’s getting the power to do it.”
After Sorcha had cast her spell in the graveyard, weakening his vitality, Kellen had been unsuccessful in reversing the damage to the second ward.
If she breached all three wards, she could access their birthright magic.
With such power, she would defeat Caedmon, destroy Ravenwood forever, and sicken the very land, the tendrils of her evil creeping through the entire island of Ireland.
Countless innocents would suffer. There would be no one capable of stopping her.
“And when all the wards are down and she has full access to both her power and ours,” Kellen said, his throat tight, “together with the energy of the new moon, thwarting her scheme to steal our birthright will be nigh impossible.”
“Yeah, not a big fan of her goals. But you were right not to confront Wendy with Maggie present, even though she somehow managed to elude Jeeves and my security system. Again.” Firelight danced in his brother’s eyes.
“Sorcha won’t hesitate to use Maggie against you, especially if it means saving her own forked tail. ”
Kellen nodded. “Her scheme includes Maggie. I feel it to my very bones. Sorcha knows who Maggie is to me, and whilst she has not caused any harm thus far, I fear the worst. What better revenge for her daughter’s broken heart than by shattering mine before stealing our land and caging me permanently, aye? ”
Caedmon’s fingers tightened around the book, leaving his knuckles bloodless.
Fie. He loathed how Sorcha chipped away at his hope, reminded him he was naught more than her creature to be controlled.
“If Sorcha thinks we’re powerless to stop her, she’ll underestimate us.” Caedmon rose from where he kneeled beside Cara and sat in the chair opposite Kellen. His black eyes gleamed, determined. “She’ll be overconfident.”
Kellen lifted his hands, and his sleeves slipped down, revealing the burn marks on his wrists where the protective iron cuffs, mighty relics of their ancestors, had been melted away by Sorcha’s magic. “Her confidence is not unwarranted, brother.”
“Neither is mine.” The unusual clip in Caedmon’s tone gathered Kellen’s full attention. “Stop believing that everything is your obligation, that you must handle every problem on your own, that you alone know best. If we channel our strength together—”
“Nay. I will not take that risk.”
“You made one mistake in your long, long life. One .”
“And it cost another druid his life.” Though centuries had passed, his stomach churned at the memory.
He would never forget that dark day, nor the face of the fellow druid who had perished as Kellen’s power burned through him, black in his veins beneath snow-white skin, his mouth open in a soundless shriek until the end.
If he had not acquiesced to the other druid’s request to combine power, a life would have been spared.
The needless death was his responsibility, a burden he would never release.
“Don’t allow one mistake to be a life sentence.” Caedmon raked his fingers through his hair. “Just this once, trust me to save you .”
Kellen held his brother’s burning gaze. As firstborn, even if by a few breaths, he was the one who should be hunting for manners to defeat Sorcha, shouldering the main responsibilities of their heritage, keeping the land, its primeval magic, and its occupants safe.
He should be the one to conduct any saving.
Alone. Endangering another innocent person by bestowing that control would never happen again.
“I do trust you,” he said. “I have trusted you since the day the curse was set and you cast a counter-spell that has bought us precious time. And hope. I trust you with my life. But I will not endanger yours or any other’s to save mine.
That is why I continue to trust you now to find an alternative to sacrificing Maggie, and the answer is not to sacrifice you . ”
After a moment, Caedmon looked away. Mouth tight, he nodded.
“I do need your assistance with something.” Kellen held up the metal key Maggie had retrieved from the library floor, fallen from his childhood tome.
“I am unsure what to make of this. ’Tis the original key to my tower, I am certain of it.
Maggie claims an exact replica is drawn on the second page of my book. ”
“Let’s check it out.” Caedmon passed the book to him.
Kellen carefully turned to the second page. At the illustration of the snake and brambles, a scythe nestled in the thorns and leaves—Sorcha’s symbol—a cold wire slithered through him, the heat from the fire powerless to stop it.
“Blood and bones, what is that?” Leaning over Kellen’s shoulder, Caedmon pointed at the base of the snake’s head, where a blot of utter darkness lay beneath a shimmering web.
Kellen couldn’t blame him for not touching it.
The shape appeared unwholesome, a diseased portion of the vellum.
As he studied it, the web dissolved, and the darkness beneath swirled into a colorless image of his castle in its glory years.
He could not look away as the picture changed, moving inside.