Sea's Sorceress (6 page)

Gripping his strong shoulders, her nails dug frantically for purchase and met only the heavy wool of his black cloak.

“I need you.”

“Daemon.” She fell with her husband onto the soft grass. Heard the wind quiet and felt the air inside the dance warm. The breeze flitted across her skin as he put up a barrier to block out the world. He slipped the robe from her shoulders, parted the material until she was naked beneath him, and then quickly shed his clothing. He rose above her, slid into her waiting heat.

She looked into his eyes and they were Skye’s familiar lightning blue. Cupping his face with her hands, she kissed him, moved with him as the past and present blurred.

“I love you. I’ll never leave you, Rhia.”

“You can’t make that promise.”

“Always, my love. Be it five or five thousand years, my heart will know yours.” He sighed in her ear as they fell over the edge together.

The alarm clock beeped on the nightstand, jarring Rhiannon out of the disturbing and yet familiar dream. She looked over at the dial. Four o’clock. She had barely slept. Used to the dreams, their meaning didn’t worry her, but the ache around her heart was unbearable. How could she miss him? How could she feel the love of a man she’d never known? At least she hadn’t known him, but it was obvious Briella had. Residual memories. Past life? Whatever their label, it didn’t change the visions, couldn’t stop the dreams she’d had since childhood.

Rhia had grown up too close to the Corrigans to have never heard Liv’s legend. The witch and the healer dominated her dreams, always from Brie’s perspective. Funny she called her that. She could still hear the way Daemon said the name, a scorching whisper full of magic, lust, and unending love.

I love you. I’ll never leave you, Rhia.
A hot shiver caressed her skin with the remembered words. Daemon’s voice, Skye’s words. Okay, the words she had always wished Skye would say, until last night. He called her love, honey, darling all the time, but in the spirit they’d been given, the endearments had hurt all the more. Now he’d declared his love in his usual all-out style. She’d told him she loved him and now she was terrified of the magnitude of that love. What it might cost terrified her.

No point in lying abed when there was work to be done. She tossed the blanket aside and climbed out of bed. Padding across the hall into the bathroom, she locked the door and turned the shower on hot. Stripping out of her nightgown, Rhiannon stepped under the spray and tried to drown her thoughts in the steam.

It would take at least two trips to get everything over to the upstairs apartment at the pub, and several hours to get it all put away and set up. Maybe she should call him, ask for help, but could she handle seeing him yet?

Her heart broke a just a little more. She wouldn’t wake within the familiar room of her childhood again. Here, where the water ran hot and she was alone, salty tears slid down her cheeks as Rhia finally cried out her heart.

Chapter 5

Another kiss. Another taste. He met his love on the soft grass, cushioned her fall with his arms. So beautiful and kind. Mine. My Brie. The night air was cool around them. Summoning his magic, Daemon cast a wordless spell conjuring a barrier between them and the world outside the standing stones. Whispering another incantation, he used his manipulation of fire to warm the air inside the dance.

“Brie.” Just her name brought a thousand fantasies to mind. Fantasies he didn’t dare name. The demon inside begged to unleash those dark delights, but her touch calmed the monster. Gods how he loved her.

Daemon slipped the velvet robe down her shoulders, brushing the exposed pale skin with his fingertips. His mouth traced the line of her throat, nipping her collarbone, and back to her lips. Teasing her, taunting. “I need you.” Her tongue met his in a playful dance and she tasted like heaven.

Desperate for her touch, he removed his clothing. She pulled him into her embrace, welcomed him, and kissed him as he pressed into her. Then the healer he’d loved for so long, so completely in that other life he could barely remember except in dreams, shifted and became Rhiannon. Her green eyes open on his, her fiery red hair spilled out across the grass. It was Rhia’s body he craved and held.

“I love you. I’ll never leave you, Rhia.” His heart ached and wanted to give her those words over and over until she believed him. Would he ever have the chance to make love to her as he did now? Did she remember their shared past? Could she accept what had been? He gentled his pace, moving slowly, savoring the feel of her touch, the warmth of her body. The sweet thump of her heart against his chest. Her eyes clouded, lips parted, fingers dug for purchase into the bare skin of his shoulders.

“Always, my love. Be it five or five thousand years, my heart will know yours.”

Skye woke hot and achy with the ghost of his dream still lingering in his thoughts. Rhiannon. He had to see her. She’d all but kicked him out of the kitchen after their steamy kiss last night, claiming she had to work on the books, write payroll.

He moved around the house, turning off the lights he’d left on the night before. Sunday meant no work today. Normally he’d spend the time painting, or trying to, since none of the paintings he’d started lately had turned out right. Why did he feel like he needed an excuse to drop by her house and see her? Because she wasn’t just a friend anymore.

It was way too early for anyone to be up yet. That was it. Breakfast. He could bake muffins and take them over this morning. He started coffee and began to get out the ingredients to make muffins, deciding on lemon poppy seed since they were Rhia’s favorite, just a little sweet and tart. Preheating the oven, Skye mixed the batter and filled three twelve-cup pans with the mixture. He remembered to set the timer and went to dress while they baked.

Twelve minutes later, he walked back into the kitchen in faded jeans, boots and a black t-shirt. The timer chimed. Slipping on an oven mitt, he opened the oven. Ready. Turning off the stove, Skye removed the pans and set them on the counter to cool.

A wave of sadness rolled through him as he filled the covered basket with the last muffins. Rhia had finally given in to the grief she’d been fighting since learning of her father’s prognosis. He fought back his first instinct, comfort. She would want to be alone. Snatching his jacket off the peg by the door, Skye grabbed his keys and the basket, locked the door behind him, got in the lorry, and headed toward the O’Malleys’ farm. Her father couldn’t have passed away. Not yet, he prayed.

* * * *

Rhia was trying to muscle an iron headboard into the back of her Da’s lorry when Skye pulled up in the yard. Leaving the basket on the seat, he shut the door and made it across the way just in time to catch the heavy iron railing before it could bobble and whack her in the head.

“Easy there. You’ll hurt yourself.” He lifted it over the tailgate and wedged it so it wouldn’t fall out. She wore a red flannel shirt and faded jeans against the morning chill. Her hair was pulled back in a braid, meaning she had serious work planned to do today.

“I can handle it.”

“Mmm-hmm. I like helping you.” Skye twirled a loose tendril of her hair around his index finger before tucking it back behind her ear.

“It’s six o’clock in the morning. What in the world are you doing here?” Her pretty face flushed. Clearly she wasn’t prepared to see him so soon after last night.

“Bringing you muffins. Helping load furniture, apparently. Why are we loading furniture? And where are we taking it?”

“I decided to move into the apartment over the pub. I’ve already made two trips. The bed is the last of it, but I could use a hand setting it up.”

Skye pulled her into an embrace and waggled his eyebrows at her.

“Setting up, not trying out.”

“Pity. I can still dream.”

“Skye. Mama’s up. Someone might see us.”

“I’m wildly, madly in love with you and I don’t care if the world sees us. You’ve been in my dreams all night, Rhia.” He whispered into her ear. “I heard your sighs while I slept. Felt you wrapped around me. I want you and it’s killing me. Kiss me good morning, love.” When his mouth met hers, she melted into the kiss.

“All your good nights and mornings are a bad influence on my morals.” She closed her eyes and seemed to consider something. “Hell, you were in mine too. Just one more.”

“Ah. No longer worried about propriety, are we?”

“I’m worried about how I’ll get over you when you cast me off like the others. I must be crazy.”

Her body was a fever pressed against him. Skye felt the line of every curve as she took the kiss deeper than he expected. After the erotic dream, to hold her and not have her was sheer torture.

“Open your eyes and look at me, Rhiannon.” When she did, Skye looked deep into them, begging silently for her to see his soul. He echoed the words from his dream. “I’ll never leave you.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Yes. I can. Unless you really want those morals shot to hell, we’d better go inside. Maggie is watching from the kitchen window.”

Rhia’s face turned beat red. “Oh, God.”

* * * *

Rhia opened the door and walked into the kitchen with Skye. As he’d predicted, her mama was standing at the sink pretending to wash dishes. Rhia was sure she’d been watching them. A soft, wistful smile graced her face.

She hadn’t seen her mother smile in weeks.

“Good morning to you, Skye.”

He surprised her by setting the basket on the table and kissing Mama on the cheek. “Good morning. I brought you muffins. How is John doing today?”

“Aren’t you the sweetest man. Thank you, dear. He’s probably resting. I had to give him another pain pill about an hour ago, so I expect he’ll be out of it for awhile.”

“I wanted to see him for a moment, but it can wait.”

Mama set a stack of saucers on the table. “No. Go on in and see if he’s awake. John still keeps farm hours. I guess years of habit are just too hard to break. Even when you are–” She crumbled into Skye’s arms and wept.

He caught her, let her cry on his shoulder, so used to others’ emotions reaching out to him.

“Dear God. How can I do this? How can I just sit back and watch my John die?”

“There now.” He patted her shoulder.

From out in the hall, the tin sound of a bell rang.

“I’m sorry. I can’t,” Mama said.

Skye motioned for Rhia to check on her father.

“I’ll see about him, Mama.” She mouthed a thank you to him, and stepped out into the hall.

* * * *

“You’ll be alright, Maggie. You’re strong. You have to be strong for John now. He needs you. Take it one day, one moment at a time.”

“I wish we had found out sooner. Maybe we could have done something. He has so many regrets. He’ll never see his daughter marry or hold his grandchildren. Never see another Christmas.”

Skye listened while Rhia’s mother poured out her heart. Maggie was his mother’s dearest friend. He’d known her since he could crawl. Rhia’s parents had always seemed so close. This illness, the coming separation was tearing her apart. Their pain was a living beast that suffocated him, but he bore it even though he could feel death waiting. It wouldn’t be long. A few days, maybe a week. Rhia had been right. Magic couldn’t save him. The cancer had eaten away at his organs, claiming territory in every inch of his body.

When Maggie finally settled a bit and began to dry her eyes, Skye pulled away, poured her a cup of black coffee and gave her a plate of the muffins. He couldn’t do anything to help them. Nothing except be there.

“I’m so embarrassed. I don’t normally cry like that, at least not in front of other people.” She smoothed her hair back into place.

“There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Curse of the empath, just blame it all on me. You can’t help yourself. I know what it’s like to grieve, Maggie.”

“I suppose you do.” She took a bite of the poppy seed muffin. “I saw you and Rhiannon outside.”

“Warning me off?”

“And if I was?”

“I’d respect that and tell you too bad. I love her. I think I must have loved her all my life.”

“She’s in love with you. She may not know it yet or want to see it, but she is. It’s good. I want her to be happy.”