Earth Enchanted (15 page)

* * * *

Liv dreamed. She wandered through the dark in the moonlight, knew where she was going, but couldn’t find her way. Funny, she knew the way. Didn’t she? How many times had she walked this same path to the stone circle near her cottage? This time was different. She was dreaming, but she wasn’t chasing or being chased. There had been no storm called up to hinder her steps. She couldn’t hear anything at all, no night sounds. It was like a vacuum. Had she had been struck deaf? She was lost in the familiar. If anything, the circle should be easier to find without the rain. Against the night sky, she saw bright blue flames shoot high into the air. Liv took it for a beacon and followed them.

She let the light from the fire guide her to the ancient circle, not knowing what would be waiting there for her, or if anything would. The night was warm. It had always been cold before. She walked through the barrier that surrounded the stones.

“Hello, is anyone here?” she called out and was startled when she was answered. The woman lifted a hand in welcome, and when she lowered it again, it calmed down the flames. When she spoke, the words were in another language. Liv knew that, but she could understand her words just the same.

“Blessed be, Daughter, and welcome.”

Liv recognized the woman from her dreams and understood the sentiment. The man and woman she dreamed of so often had never actually addressed her before. Why was she doing so now?

“I’m Olivia. My mother is Molly. Who are you?”

The other woman chuckled. “They call you Liv, but that is for naught. You are one of the children of my child’s children. You are my blood. Though it is weak, the gift of sight is yours. How did you think you were able to see myself and the others?” Smiling at her, she waved the question away.

“I am Briella of Farrell, wedded into the clan McLoch.”

Liv took in the resemblance between herself and Briella. Both had the same long raven hair, but where her eyes were a stormy blue, Briella’s were pure gray smoke. Both were slim of build but Liv was slightly taller. Briella’s magic was a tangible force in the air.

“Why are you still here? Why have you come to me in dreams?”

“You came to me, Daughter. True, I wished for it and eased the way for your mind to follow, but you came for a reason. Danger seeks you. Death haunts your thoughts. Love waits unwilling. You seek guidance and safe haven. Do you not know these things already? Sight is yours. To find the answers, you’ve only to look.”

Liv had no doubt, at least not about Briella. Why not ask? She thought.

“I do have something I want to know. I guess I’ve always wanted to know.”

Briella gestured for her to go on.

Liv nodded. How did you word it exactly, she thought? Maybe witches’ spells were like a cook’s recipe. Ingredients or words were a secret kept. Why was she worried? She had been told to ask.

“I’ve dreamed since I was a little girl of the night you and your husband cast the spell that locked you all here. I guess I’ve wondered what the spell said. I could never understand it or translate it, though even from the first I could remember the words. It’s bothered me. People used to think I was crazy if I told them what I’d seen or heard. Will you tell me what it means?”

Briella frowned for a moment. “The answer you wish will not be an easy one for you to hear. Once you know the future, it is harder to look to the past and difficult to live in the present. It might give you cause to doubt yourself and others.”

Liv steeled her reserve to deal with whatever it was. At least then she would know. “Tell me.”

“I cannot repeat the words, but I will tell you the intent. Daemon, my love, was not a mortal. He had a great evil power within him. To cast his spell, he set it free. The elements were called, first himself, the sea, himself. Then he bade me, the earth, come. Arianne was wind and he called to her as well and forced her to appear here. The water locks the land of her prison. So in a sense he was the lock on her cage, and I am the key to our freedom.”

“I don’t understand,” Liv protested.

“She had brought down the price on all of us. We would be trapped here until three of all our blood calls to love and accepts the pain and joy without condition. Daemon and I will be free and Arianne will be imprisoned here with her own jealous heart.”

“Those were the conditions of his spell? He did this to you and yet you love him still?”

“Yes. Without condition. It was the only other way. I see now he had no choice.”

“Three? You think me and my brothers are the ones to break the spell?”

It was incredible. Why did she have to find this out now? What if what she felt for Jack was just the result of magic, not real? She wouldn’t believe it. She loved him. Didn’t she?

“I don’t want any of this!”

“Life is hard and has to be cruel at times. How else would we grow? You’ve met your young man and wonder what this means in what you have together. Love is the most powerful of all magic. Never doubt your heart. You must do as it tells you in all things. Danger comes. You will not be able to prevent what happens from now on. Watch, listen, and prepare for it. Time grows short.”

The world went black around her as Liv slid from one dream into the next.

* * * *

Jack couldn’t sleep, trying everything, counting sheep even, and nothing would let him rest, there was just too much on his mind to sleep. Pacing a path in the carpet on the office floor, he’d lain awake for hours thinking about Liv, just down the hall, sleeping soundly, safely. Keeping her that way was killing him. When it had occurred to him that he lay in the same spot where she had been only nights before, he’d abandoned his bedroom and fled to his office with the hope of driving her out of his thoughts with work. Jack had long since set aside his own writing. He couldn’t concentrate with Liv in the house and people plotting to kill them both. When it was over, maybe they could go away for a while. He liked the idea of that, spending time getting to know each other under less intense situations. They’d been practically thrown into each other’s arms. They were living together, albeit an entirely different situation for now. How long could he hold out against the sexual frustration and tension? Did Liv feel the same way he did? Was she fighting this lust? Why the hell should they?

He shoved his hands into the pockets of the worn out jeans he had pulled on, but shut the door quietly when he left the room.
No need in waking up Liv just because you can’t deal with all the things going on in your head.

Coffee. Lots and lots of it. Coffee cures all
, his weary mind reasoned. What did he care if it was two in the morning? His alarm clock would go off in another three hours anyway. Sleep wouldn’t come before then. Jogging down the stairs and into the kitchen, Jack found the filters and coffee right where they should be, if he had a habit of putting things where they were supposed to go. Since he didn’t, he figured Liv had done that in here like she had every other room in the house. Yesterday morning he’d been able to find matching socks, without searching. They had been folded and balled together in a nice little pile in the sock drawer. It had been a momentous occasion.

She liked to bake little things. He grinned when the thought came to him, and began to scout out the cookie jar. Mmm, chocolate chip, he thought as he stuffed one of the homemade gooey treats into his mouth. If he could have coffee at two, why not have cookies to go with it? His hand in the mouth of Serena’s favorite Santa Claus jar, Jack heard Liv scream. The jar shattered when he dropped it and bolted back up the stairs toward her room. He spared only a moment to grab his pistol out of the desk in his office. Liv’s keening wails carried down the hall, swamping him with fear.

His heart still skipping every other beat, he burst into the room.

All the breath in his body whooshed out on a sigh of relief. She sat in the middle of the poster bed holding her pillow to her chest.

* * * *

It still hurt so much. Oh sweet Jesus, her Jack. That was how she thought of him. Only a nightmare, Olivia, shake it off, she tried to tell herself. How was it possible for a body to stand so much pain? She could still see him stepping in front of her, into the bullet, saving her, watching in slow motion as it struck him in the head, his blood and brain splattered onto her face. It had been a nightmare, but her body and heart hadn’t quite caught up to reality. Liv cried his name over and over into the pillow, thinking she was alone.

Jack went to her, pulled her into his lap and stroked her hair as if she were a child. “Liv, it was just a dream. It’s okay.” He soothed, but when he gently pushed her away, she shook her head and clutched him close.

She wrapped her mind in the feel of his arms and the scent of him. He was safe, alive. Not dead. She had known, but she had been so afraid. It had seemed so real, and it had been her fault.

“I’m sorry.” She shivered. “I’m sorry I woke you, Jack. It was awful, so awful.” She looked up into his eyes and for a split second she saw what she had witnessed while sleeping.

“Tell me. Get it out of your head. You’ll feel better for it.”

“You tried to save me. You were killed in front of me. Oh, it hurts so much. When I woke, I thought it had really happened. You were dead and it was my fault.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re okay and I’m still breathing. You didn’t wake me. I was raiding the kitchen for your cookies.” That made her smile. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Was that the crash that woke me?” She tried to imagine actually wanting the disgusting combination of chocolate chip and coffee at two in the morning, but couldn’t quite manage it.

“I must have dropped the jar. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was downstairs when I heard you screaming.”

She snuggled in closer to him, as if it were possible to do so, and became aware of the fact that all he wore was a pair of unsnapped jeans.

“Why couldn’t you sleep?” She was yawning now, in spite of her nightmare. Sleep was trying to claim her again and she was fighting it like a warrior. She couldn’t bear the thought of going back to that horror.

“I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since you’ve been here. I lie awake thinking of you just down the hall. Not being with you is driving me crazy. My pillow still smells like your shampoo. I wonder how your skin would feel under my fingertips and…” He stroked a fingertip down her cheek.

“Not the best thing to say to slow the heart. We’re in a right fine mess. Aren’t we, Jack?”

His laugh was little maniacal when he agreed. “Yeah, I guess we are, and I’m not trying to slow your heart. I want it wild and racing for me, but I can be patient. Maybe. Try to go back to sleep. I’ll go down and fix you a cup of hot tea.”

She reluctantly peeled herself away from him. “I could ask you to stay and we’d be with each other, but we would both question the reason in the morning. I don’t want that for either of us.” Or did they know each other better than she thought they did?

“You’re right. Bad timing, and I’d really hate having to turn you down.” He laughed at himself. “If I could.”

“So instead, I know it’s silly, but I’ll ask you to stay until I fall asleep. Will you? If you’re here, maybe the dream won’t come back.”

“Okay.”

She sighed in relief and said as he walked out to make the tea, “Mind the broken crockery, Jack.”

* * * *

He wished he’d had a chance to hold her while her breathing slowed and became deep.
I want to watch you dream.
Jack pulled the quilt up to her chin. He could slip, and Liv would never know if he’d been there and gone. He took a sip of the tea, now wasted, set it on the nightstand, then lay on top of the quilt beside her. He couldn’t help the shudder that rippled through him when he pulled her close.

He lay awake for a long time, watching her sleep, listening to her breathe softly. Liv was twisting something in him. He felt it turning slowly each day that passed, and wondered how he’d be able to give her up when the time came. He couldn’t love Olivia, but he needed her, just to be there with him. He wanted, cared, and needed, but would she let it be enough?
How can I let you go?
He twined his fingers with hers, brushed a kiss across the knuckles, as he’d done so many times by now he’d stopped counting. The words slipped from her lips while in dreams. “I love you, Jack.” His heart shattered. No, it would never be enough for Liv. He held on tighter and willed himself to fall into dreams with her.

He floated somewhere in a half world. One where everything is reality, yet nothing is fact. It is the one place where your sweetest hopes and wishes are there for the taking, while fear haunts you unmercifully. Dreams whisper back life’s hopes and feelings like an ethereal mirror. Lord knew he needed that mirror right now to work out all he felt, past and present. Then maybe he could finally look to the future. Could he have the future with Liv that he couldn’t with Serena?