beer, then shook her head. “I don’t want beer.”
Saying nothing, he turned, took the wine stopper out of the bottle of Pinot Noir she’d used in the marinade. When he poured her a glass, she sipped slowly.
“As for the second, I’m well rooted. He may think he has enough to pull me when and where he wills. I can promise you he doesn’t. I took precautions there when he tried luring Meara, and we fully understood how he can shift in time. You can trust me on this.”
“All right.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Just that?”
“It isn’t enough?”
“He meant to frighten and humiliate me, and did neither. Perhaps he did also mean to twist my sensibilities so I wouldn’t want your touch, but he failed there as well. But he appears to have well succeeded in enraging you. This he understands, the rage. You’re bedding me now, and you won’t have me touched by another.”
“It’s not that, Branna.” Calmer—marginally—he shoved his fingers through his hair. “Well, not just that. It’s what touched you.”
“He’d only understand the possession. He’d never understand your remorse, your guilt, for no matter how many times you show him you reject his part of you, it’s all he sees there. He can’t see past your blood. You must. We all must. I do or however I felt about you, I couldn’t have let you touch me.”
“It’s his blood I want. I want it dripping from my hands.”
“I know it.” Understood it, she admitted, and had felt the same herself more than once. “But that’s vengeance, and vengeance won’t defeat him. Or not vengeance alone, for whatever we are, we’re human, too, and he’s more than earned that thirst from us.”
“I can’t be calm about it. I don’t know how you can be.”
“Because I looked in his eyes today, closer than you are now to me. I felt his hands burning cold on me. And it wasn’t fear running through me. It has been; there’s been fear mixed in, even with the power so full and bright. But not today. We’re stronger, each one of us alone, stronger than he is, even with what’s in him. And together? We’re his holocaust.”
He skirted the counter, laid his hands on her shoulders again. Gently now. “We must stop him this time, Branna, whatever it takes.”
“And I believe we will.”
Whatever it takes, he thought again, and brushed his lips to her brow. “I need to keep you from harm.”
“Do you think I need protection, Fin?”
“I don’t, no, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give it. It doesn’t mean I don’t need to give it.”
He kissed her brow again.
Whatever it takes.
• • •
HE HAD BUSINESSES TO RUN, AND THE WORK DIDN’T WAIT until it was convenient for him. Ledgers had to be balanced, calls had to be made or returned, and it seemed there was forever some legal document to read and sign.
He’d learned early that owning a successful business required more than the owning of it, and the dream. He could be grateful Boyle and Connor handled the day-to-day demands—and all the paperwork, time, and decision-making on the spot that engendered. But it didn’t leave him off the hook.
Even when he traveled, he stayed keyed in—via phone or Skype or email. But when he was home, he felt obliged to get his hands dirty. That held the pleasure of grooming horses as he prized that physical contact and mental bond. More than using a currycomb or hoof pick, the grooming or feeding or exercising gave him an insight into each horse.
Nor did he mind cleaning up for the birds at the school or spending time carefully drying wet feathers. He’d gained a great deal of satisfaction in having a hand training the younger ones, and had found himself bonding particularly with a female they’d named Sassy—as she was.
Though the days grew slowly longer, there rarely seemed enough hours in them to do all he wanted or needed to do. But he knew where he wanted to be, and that was home.
Nearly a year now, he thought as he stood with Connor in the school enclosure, kicking a blue ball for Romeo, their office manager’s very enthusiastic spaniel. The longest straight stretch for him since he’d been twenty.
Business and curiosity and the need for answers would call him away again, but no more, he hoped, for months at a time. For the first time since the mark had come on him, he felt home again.
“I’m thinking the winter, and the slower demand, makes