She hurled the fire, one ball, then the other, only to watch them burst into smoke inches from the wolf that stalked her. Desperate, she struggled to conjure another, but her hands shook, and her mind clogged with terror.
Quiet mind, she ordered, but it wanted to scream.
All real, she thought. It had all seemed so fanciful, so otherworldly—sorcerers, curses, fighting an evil that lived in shadows.
But it was all very, very real. And it meant to kill her.
She saw the wolf poised, ready to spring. Then on a feral scream, the hawk dived out of the sky. Its talons scored the wolf’s flank, drawing blood as black as the hide before the hawk soared up again.
A moment’s hot relief doused when a second growl sounded behind her. When she whirled, relief poured back. Kathel stood snarling. Iona sidestepped to him, laid a hand on his head, and felt a ribbon of calm wind through her fear even as Connor, then Branna, stepped through the fog.
Connor lifted one gloved arm so the hawk glided down to land, wings outstretched.
“Take my hand,” he told Iona, keeping his eyes calm and cold on the wolf.
“And mine.”
Connor and Branna flanked her, and when hands joined it wasn’t calm she felt, but the hot rise of power filling her like life.
“Will you test us here?” Branna challenged. “Will you try it here and now?” A bolt of light, jagged as lightning, flew from her outstretched hand, arrowed into the ground a bare whisper from the wolf’s forelegs. It retreated. The red jewel glowed, fiercely red; its snarl sounded like thunder, but it retreated.
Fog gathered in on itself, boiled into a smaller and smaller mass. Connor lifted Iona’s hand with his. Light glowed from it, spread and strengthened until the fog tore and vanished.
And with it, the wolf was gone.
“I . . . God, I was just—”
“Not here,” Branna snapped out at Iona. “We’ll not be talking here.”
“Take her back to the cottage. Roibeard and I will have a look around, then we’ll be home.”
Branna nodded at Connor. “Have a care.”
“I always do. Go on now with Branna.” He gave Iona’s hand a steadying squeeze. “You’ll have a tot of whiskey, and you’ll do fine enough.”
With Iona’s hand clasped in hers, that power still humming at the edges, Branna strode briskly through the woods. Wanting nothing more than to get inside, Iona let herself be pulled along despite her shaking knees.
“I couldn’t—”
“Not until we’re inside. Not a bloody word about it.”
The dog led the way, always in sight. As she saw the cottage through the trees—at last—Iona watched the hawk circle through the heavy sky.
The minute they were inside, Iona’s teeth began to chatter. As gray teased the edges of her vision, she pressed her hands to her knees, lowered her head between them.
“Sorry. Dizzy.”
“Hold your guts a moment.” Though her voice rang with impatience, the hand Branna laid on the back of Iona’s head stayed gentle, and the dizziness passed as quickly as it had come.
“Sit,” she ordered, giving Iona a shove into the living room, flicking her fingers toward the smoldering fire to have the flames leap up and spread more heat. “You’re having a bit of shock, that’s all. So sit, breathe.”
Briskly she walked to a decanter, poured two fingers of whiskey in a short glass. “And drink.”
Iona drank, hissed a little, drank again. “Just a little . . .” She sighed. “Scared shitless.”
“Why were you off the path, and so deep?”
“I don’t know. It just happened. I didn’t turn off, or don’t remember turning off. I was just walking home, and thinking about stuff. Boyle,” she admitted. “We made up.”