Page 9 of Shadow Spell

Would it feel like the hair on her head? He desperately wanted to touch, just there, and know.

Cabhan’s head came up, a wolf scenting the air. He rose so quickly, the silver cup upended, spilling wine red as blood.

Brannaugh twisted Eamon’s fingers painfully. Though he yelped, flushed as red as the fire, he brought his focus back.

Still, for a moment, a terrible moment, Cabhan’s eyes seemed to look straight into his.

Then he walked to the woman. He gripped her breasts, squeezed, twisted. Pain ran over her face, but she didn’t cry out.

Couldn’t cry out.

He pinched her nipples, twisted them until tears ran down her cheeks, until bruises marred the white skin. He struck her, knocking her back on the bed. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, but she only stared.

With a flick of his wrist, he was naked, and his cock fully erect. It seemed to glow, but not with light. With dark. Eamon sensed it was like ice—cold and sharp and horrible. And this he rammed into the woman like a pike while the tears ran down her cheeks and the blood trickled from her mouth.

Something inside Eamon burst up with outrage—a vicious, innate fury at seeing a woman treated thus. He nearly pushed through that fire, that smoke, but Brannaugh gripped his hand, twisting bone against bone.

And while he raped her—for it was nothing else—Eamon felt Cabhan’s thoughts. Thoughts of Sorcha, and the terrible lust for her that he’d never quenched. Thoughts of... Brannaugh. Of Brannaugh, and how he would do this to her, and more. And worse. How he would give her pain before he took her power. How he would take her power before he took her life.

Brannaugh quenched the fire quickly, ended the vision on a snap. And as quickly grabbed Eamon by both arms. “I said we were not ready. Do you not think I felt you gather to go?”

“He hurt her. He took her power, her body, against her will.”

“He nearly found you—he sensed something pushing in.”

“I would kill him for his thoughts alone. He will never touch you as he did her.”

“He wanted to hurt her.” Teagan’s voice was a child’s now. “But he thought of our mother, not of her. Then he thought of you.”

“His thoughts can’t hurt me.” But they’d shaken her, deep inside herself. “He will never do to me, or to you, what he did to that poor woman.”

“Could we have helped her?”

“Ah, Teagan, I don’t know.”

“We did not try.” Eamon’s words lashed out. “You held me here.”

“For your life, for ours, for our purpose. Do you think I don’t feel what you feel?” Even the secret fear drowned in an icy wave of rage. “That it stabbed a thousand times to do nothing? He has power. Not what he had, but different. Not more, but less, and still different. I don’t know how to fight him. Yet. We don’t know, Eamon, and we must know.”

“He’s coming. Not tonight, not tomorrow, but he’ll come. He knows you...” Eamon flushed again, looked away.

“He knows I can bear children,” Brannaugh finished. “He thinks to get a son from me. He never will. But he’s coming. I felt it as well.”

“Then we must go.” Teagan tipped her head to Kathel’s flank. “We must never bring him here.”

“We must go,” Brannaugh agreed. “We must be what we are.”

“Where will we go?”

“South.” Brannaugh looked at Eamon for confirmation.

“Aye, south, as he is still north. He remains in Mayo.”

“We will find a place, and there we will learn more, find more. And one day we will go home.”

She rose, took both their hands again, let the power spark from one to one. “I swear by our blood we will go home again.”

“I swear by our blood,” Eamon said, “we or what comes from us will destroy even the thought of him.”

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