“He did. He understands desire well enough. Understands the hungers of lust, but nothing of the heart or spirit. He knows I want you, but he’ll never understand why. I turned it on him. Began to draw him to me. It surprised him I could, for a moment, I could, and it threw him off. I called for the three—for we’d promised that—and as he became the wolf I pulled the sword from the cupboard upstairs, enflamed it.”
He paused a moment, got his bearings. “I could have held him off, I’m sure of it. I could have engaged him, with Baru and Merlin with me, until you came and we went at him together. But he didn’t come at me. He streaked to the side, had Bugs by the throat. All so fast. I went at him, struck at him, but he shifted away. He went for the dog who barely weighs a stone, tore his throat, then vanished away before I could strike a single blow. He never came at me.”
“But he did. He struck at your heart. Baru, Merlin, yourself? There’s a battle. The little dog, a strike at you with no risk to himself. A fecking coward he’s always been, will always be.”
“He rounded behind me when I went to the dog.”
Because, Branna knew, Fin thought of the dog before his own safety. “He knew you would go to the hurt and the helpless. Go to what’s yours.”
“I would have faced him man to man, witch to witch.” Now Fin’s eyes fired, molten green, as rage overcame guilt. “I wanted that.”
“As we all do, but that’s not his way. You may come from him, but you’re not of him. He keeps at you, as he can’t conceive you’d make the choice not to be.”
“You left me because I’m of him.”
“I left you because I was shocked and hurt and angry. And when that cleared, because I’m sworn.” She closed a hand around her pendant. “I’m sworn by Sorcha and all who came after her, down to me, and Connor and Iona, to use all we are to rid the world of him.”
“And all who come from him.”
“No. No.” Outrage would have come first at any other time, but she still felt his guilt under everything else he felt. “You come from him, but you’re one of us. I’ve come to know that was meant. I’ve come to believe none who’ve come before us succeeded because none who came before had you. Had his blood with them. None of them had you, Fin, with your power, your loyalty, your heart.”
He heard the words, believed she meant them. And yet. “I’m one of you, but you won’t be with me.”
“How can I think of that, Fin? How can I think of it when even now I can feel the urgency of what we’re sworn to do building again? I can’t see beyond that, and when I do, when I let myself think about what might be once this is done, I can’t see any of the life we once thought we’d make together. We were so young—”
“Bollocks to that, Branna. What we felt for each other was older than time. We weren’t the young and foolish playing at love.”
“How much easier would it have been if we had been? How much easier now? If we only played at it, Fin, we wouldn’t be bound to think of tomorrows. What future could we have? What life, you and I?”
He stared into the fire, knowing again she spoke the truth.
And yet.
“None, I know it, and still that feels like more than either of us have without the other. You’re the rest of me, Branna, and I’m tired enough right now to stop pretending you’re not.”
“You think I don’t mourn what might have been?” Hurt radiated through her, into the words. “That I don’t wish for it?”
“I have thought that. I’ve survived thinking that.”
“Then you’ve been wrong, and it may be I’m too tired as well to pretend. If it was only my heart, it would be yours.”
She took an unsteady breath as he turned his gaze from the fire to her face.
“It can’t be anyone else’s. It’s already lost. But it isn’t only that, and I can’t act on might be. When my father gave me this?” She held up the pendant. “I had a choice. He told me I had a choice, to take it or not. But if I took it, the choice was done. I would be one of the three, and sworn to try, above all, to end what Sorcha began. I won’t betray you, Fin, but neither will I betray my blood. I can’t think of wants and wishes, I can’t reach for might bes. My purpose was set before I was born.”
“I know that as well.” There were times the knowing it emptied him out. “Your purpose takes your head, your power, your spirit, but you can’t separate your heart from the rest.”
“It’s the only way I can do what needs to be done.”
“It’s a wonder to me you believe all who’ve come before you would want you unhappy.”
“I don’t, of course, I don’t. It’s that I believe all who’ve come before need me to do what must be done, what each of us have sworn. I . . .” She hesitated, not at all sure she knew how to say what was in her. “I don’t know, Fin, I don’t, if I know how to do what I must and be with you. But I can swear it’s not wanting to hurt or punish you. It may have been long ago when I was so young and so hurt and frightened. But it’s not that, not at all.”
He sat silent for a time, then looked back at her. “Tell me this. This one thing. Do you love me?”
She could lie. He would know it for a lie, but the lie would serve. And a lie was cowardly.
“I’ve loved no one as I loved you. But—”