Morrigan's Cross (Circle Trilogy 1)

She took the vial from him, set it down. “Kiss me, would you? We both want that, and it makes it hard to work. Kiss me, Hoyt, so we settle down.”

There might have been amusement, just a sprinkle of it in his voice. “Kissing will settle us down?”

“Won’t know unless we try.” She laid her hands on his shoulders, let her fingers play with his hair. “But I know, right this minute, I can’t think of anything else. So do me a favor. Kiss me.”

“A favor then.”

Her lips were soft, a yielding warmth under his. So he was gentle, holding her, tasting her the way he’d yearned to the night before. He stroked a hand down her hair, down the length of her back so the feel of her mingled in his senses with her flavor and her scent.

What was inside him opened, and eased.

She skimmed her fingers over the strong edge of his cheekbone and gave herself completely to the moment. To the comfort and the pleasure, and the shimmer of heat flowing under both.

When their lips parted, she pressed her cheek to his, held there a moment. “I feel better,” she told him. “How about you?”

“I feel.” He stepped back, then brought her hand to his lips. “And I s

uspect that I’ll be needing to be settled again. For the good of the work.”

She laughed, delighted. “Anything I can do for the cause.”

They worked together for more than an hour, but each time they exposed the potion to sunlight, it boiled.

“A different incantation,” Glenna suggested.

“No. We need his blood.” He looked at her over the beaker. “For the potion itself, and to test it.”

Glenna considered. “You ask him.”

There was a thud at the door, then King pushed it open. He wore camo pants and an olive green T-shirt. He’d tied his dreadlocks back into a thick, fuzzy tail. And looked, Glenna thought, like an army all by himself.

“Magic hour’s over. Fall in outside. Time to get physical.”

If King hadn’t been a drill sergeant in another life, karma was missing a step. Sweat dripped into Glenna’s eyes as she attacked the dummy Larkin had fashioned out of straw and wrapped in cloth. She blocked with her forearm as she’d been taught, then plunged the stake into the straw.

But the dummy kept coming, flying on the pulley system King had rigged, and knocked her flat on her back.

“And you’re dead,” he announced.

“Oh, bullshit. I staked it.”

“Missed the heart, Red.” He stood over her, huge and pitiless. “How many chances you figure you’re going to get? You can’t get the one in front of you, how are you going to get the three coming at your back?”

“All right, okay.” She got up, brushed herself off. “Do it again.”

“That’s the spirit.”

She did it again, and again, until she despised the straw dummy as much as she had her tenth-grade history teacher. Disgusted, she swung around, picked up a sword with both hands, and hacked the thing to pieces.

When she was done, there was no sound but her own labored breathing and Larkin’s muffled laugh.

“Okay.” King rubbed his chin. “Guess he’s pretty damn dead. Larkin, you want to put together another one? Let me ask you something, Red.”

“Ask away.”

“How come you didn’t just tear into the dummy with magic?”

“Magic takes focus and concentration. I think I could use some in a fight—I think I could. But most of me is channelled into handling the sword or the stake, particularly since I’m not used to handling either. If I wasn’t centered, I could just send my own weapon flying out of my hand, missing the mark. It’s something I’ll work on.”