Shadow Spell (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy 2)

“I won’t argue with that.”

So he dropped Branna off, and waited for her to go inside, though he doubted Cabhan could manage so much as a poke with a sharp stick that night.

“She’ll want just you,” Meara said quietly.

“You?

?re never out of place with us.”

“No, but she’ll want just you tonight. I’ve never seen her so frightened. We’re all standing in the kitchen, with her just pulling the chicken from the oven, and laughing over something I can’t even recall. Then she went white as death. It was Fin calling her, though I don’t know what he said.”

Gathering herself, Meara paused a moment. “But she said only, ‘Connor’s hurt. At Fin’s.’ And she grabbed my arm. Iona grabbed the other. And I was flying. A blink, an hour, I couldn’t say. All these years I’ve known you and Branna, and I never knew the like of that. Next I know we’re in Fin’s kitchen, and you’re on the ground, paler even than Branna.

“I thought you were dead.”

“It takes more than a bit of black magick to do me.”

“Stop the lorry.”

“What? Ah, are you sick. I’m sorry.” He swung to the side of the road, stopped. “I shouldn’t be joking when—”

His words, his thoughts, the whole of his mind dropped into a void when she launched herself at him, chained her arms around him, and took his mouth like a madwoman.

Like a hot, mad, desperate woman.

Before he could act, react, think, she pulled back again.

“What— What was all that? And where’s it been?”

“I thought you were dead,” she repeated, and latched that hot, mad, desperate mouth to his again.

This time he acted, grabbing on to her, trying to shift her around so he could find a better hold, gain a better angle. All the while her taste pumped into him like a drug, one never sampled, one he wanted more of. All of.

“Meara. Let me—”

She jerked back again. “No. No. We’re not doing this. We can’t do this.”

“We already did.”

“Just that—” She waved her hands in the air. “That’s all of it.”

“Actually, there’s considerable more, if you’d just—”

“No.” She threw her arm out, slapped a hand to his chest to stop him. “Drive. Drive, drive, drive.”

“I’m driving.” He pulled back onto the road, realized he was as unsteady as he’d been after Cabhan’s attack. “We should have a talk about it.”

“We won’t be talking about it, as there’s nothing to talk about. I thought you were dead, and it’s got me shaken up more than I understood because I don’t

want you dead.”

Because he could feel the chaos inside her roiling around, he tried for ease and calm to counter it. “Sure I’m glad you don’t, and glad I’m not. But—”

“There’s not a ‘but’ about it. And nothing more to it.”

She leaped out of the lorry almost before he pulled in front of her flat.

“Go home to Branna,” she ordered. “She needs you.”