Shadow Spell (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy 2)

“Branna says your power comes through your heart.” Lightly, Meara traced a cross on it.

“That’s her thinking, and it’s true enough. I couldn’t be if I couldn’t feel. He feels. Lust and rage and greed, with nothing to lighten it. Taking what we are won’t be enough. It will never be enough. He wants us to know the dark he knows, to suffer in it.”

It made her want to shudder, so she stiffened herself against it. “You found that in his mind?”

“Some of it. Some I can just see. And for a moment tonight, I knew what he felt—and it was a kind of terrible joy that he would take you from me, from us. From yourself.”

“You were inside me—in my head. He never called my name, not this time, but you did. I heard you call my name, and I stopped for just an instant. I felt like I stood on the edge of something, pulled in both directions. Then I was under you on the floor, so I don’t know which way I’d have gone.”

“I know, and not only because there’s no weakness in you. Because of this.” He lowered his head, met her lips lightly, lightly with his. “Because it’s more than lust.”

Nerves rose, a shiver of wings in her belly. “Connor—”

“It’s more,” he whispered, and took her mouth.

Soft, so soft and tender, his lips coaxing hers to give, seducing degree by aching degree. If his power came from the heart, he used it now, saturating her in pure feeling.

She would have said no—no, it wasn’t the way for her, couldn’t be the way. But he was already gliding her along on the sweet, onto the shimmer, into the shine.

His hands, light as air, skimmed over her, and even with such a delicate touch kindled heat.

Quiet, so quiet and stirring, his words asking her to believe what she never had. To trust what she both feared and denied.

In love, its simplicity, its potency. Its permanence.

Not for her. No, not for her—she thought it, but drifted on its silky clouds. What he gave, what he brought, what he promised, was irresistible.

For a moment, for a night, she gave herself to it. Gave herself to him.

So he took, but gently, and gave more in return.

He’d known, in the instant she’d stood between Cabhan’s dark and his light, he’d known the full truth of love. He’d understood it came weighted with fear, and with risks. He’d known he might be lost in the maze of it, accepted he would work through its shadows, draw on its light and live his life riding its ups, its downs, its stretches of smooth, its sudden bumps.

With her.

A lifetime of friendship hadn’t prepared him for this change, this tidal shift from easy love to what he felt for her.

The one. The only. And this he would cherish.

He didn’t ask for the words back—they would come. But for now her yielding was enough. Those breathy sighs, the tremors, the thick, unsteady beat of her heart.

She rose up, swimming up and over a wave of pleasure so absolute it seemed to fill her body with pure white light.

Then it was him filling her, giving her more, and more and more until tears blurred her vision. As she peaked, as she clung for glorious moments to that bright and brilliant edge, she heard his voice, once again, in her mind.

This is more, he said to her. This is love.

* * *

“WHY DOES IT MAKE YOU SO UNEASY?”

“What?” Meara stared at him, then looked around. “Where are we? Is— Is that Sorcha’s cabin? Are we dreaming?”

“More than a dream. And love is more than the lie you try to believe it is.”

“It’s Sorcha’s cabin, but it stands under the vines that grow around it. And this isn’t the time to talk about love and lies. Did he bring us here?”

She drew her sword, grateful the dream that wasn’t a dream provided it.