mythean arcana 07 - witchs fate (33 page)

He set her on the bed, then knelt down before her. 

“I made a mistake, Sofia. I never should have chosen power over you. I love you. I’ve loved you for centuries, I was just too stupid and stubborn to realize it.”

She leaned over and kissed him, drawing him up to sit next to her. “You were stupid and stubborn, but you’ve more than proven yourself.” She kissed him again as if she couldn’t get enough, holding her face near his. “And I love you. I know that now. I was just fighting it because I was scared. But I think maybe we’ve always loved each other and that the battle—and your death—were part of fate’s curse.”

“But now we have forever, with nothing standing in our way. We’ll rebuild your city. You’re free of the High Witches. You can do anything. We can live here or in Scotland. Anywhere. Felix and Aurora spend half the year on holiday traveling around in a big motor home. We can do that if you like.”

She grinned and pressed her lips. It sent a burst of warmth through him.

“I know I want to be here part of the time. But then, let’s just see.”

“Excellent.”

She reached up and played with the hair at the base of his neck. The gentle touch—and the knowledge that there would be more—felt like heaven. There’d been no time for touches like these before. And she’d been too angry and afraid to touch him like this.

“I swear, Sofia, I’ll make you trust me again. I’ll make it all up to you.”

“I do trust you. After what you’ve done, how could I not? Things are going to be great from here on out. I’m free of the High Witches and we’re free of your curse. And I’d say that your sacrifice more than makes up for whatever happened in the past.” She grabbed his shirt, then pulled him down on the bed on top of her. “But I can think of a way you could continue to make it up to me.”

He grinned and kissed her, running his palm down her side to her hip. “I’d be delighted to.”

EPILOGUE

Malcolm’s Home in Glencoe

December 23
^rd

“I’d say it turned out all right, what do you say, Kitty?” Sofia looked down at Kitty, who wore a festive red bow around her neck.

Kitty meeped and Sofia nodded her agreement, then sipped her mulled wine and looked toward the fire.

Malcolm’s library was decorated for Christmas with every strand of garland and ornament that she could find. Red and gold, silver and green—it really was a bit gaudy, but she loved it. It was their first Christmas together—and the first Christmas she was able to spend outside of the jungle—and she wanted to enjoy it.

They’d debated spending the holiday in Bruxa’s Eye—which was now entirely rebuilt after a solid month of reconstruction—but had decided it would be nicer to spend it in the cold. This way, all the Christmas songs about snow didn’t make her long for it, because she could go right out into the stuff and roll around.

Which she wouldn’t be doing tonight, because they had guests. Everyone from the university who’d helped them in Bruxa’s Eye had been invited over for a thank-you dinner. They all sat around the fire now—Felix and Aurora, Andrasta and Camulos, Diana and Cadan, Warren and Esha, and Vivienne. Inara and Aleia were pouring themselves wine from the table and gossiping, as they’d gotten into the habit of doing. 

Mouse and Chairman Meow, the two other familiars, lounged in front of the fire. If she wasn’t mistaken, Mouse was sitting a bit closer to the Chairman now. He looked pleased. And festive, in his green bowtie. 

Everyone was laughing at something Vivienne had said. Snow fell outside the window and holiday music drifted out of discretely placed speakers. The smell of the turkey was making her mouth water. 

In short, everything was perfect. She almost couldn’t believe her luck. But life had been so good lately that she was starting to accept it.

She glanced at the door. Malcolm should be here by now. He’d gone to his aether room in the basement to make a last minute gift for Inara—who they’d thought wouldn’t be here. 

He appeared in the doorway.

“Finally,” she said as she went to him and kissed him. His mouth tasted of wine and spices. Divine. “What took you so long?”

“A letter arrived. Shot right out of the aether when I opened a portal.”

“From Corrier?” Nerves danced in Sofia’s stomach. For an unknown reason. Malcolm’s warlock powers, and his ability to access the aether, hadn’t disappeared with his death. With the curse gone, they’d assumed his powers would go too. When they’d first realized it, she’d been worried that the curse was still upon him. Though Mnemosyne had said it wasn’t, they’d gone to Corrier to confirm. 

But he hadn’t been there. They’d left a message with his apprentice. Hopefully this was the answer.

“It was,” Malcolm said. 

“And?”

“It’s fine. Death broke the curse, but I’d already learned the skills required to be a warlock. Hence, I keep the power. He said that some warlocks believe you’re more powerful after death. It’s a transition. A magnifying glass.”

Her brows rose. “Wow. That makes sense though. You have to refuel your power so much less often, even when I siphon some off you for my own use.”

He pressed a quick kiss to her mouth. “Which you’re welcome to do anytime you like.”

She grinned and pressed another kiss to his mouth, squeezing the shoulder that bore her tattoo. 

She couldn’t get enough of kissing him now that he was back with her. The last month and a half had been divine. They’d settled into their routine—which wasn’t very routine at all—and it was like slipping into a comfortable chair.

A sexy, comfortable chair.

“Have you brought the gift for Inara?” she asked.

He nodded and held up the bag. “Good. We’ll put it with the others. And the turkey should be done soon?”

“Twenty more minutes.” He’d started cooking from scratch lately instead of using his magic, and she couldn’t wait to see how the turkey came out.

“Perfect.” Her grin was so big that it hurt her face. Fates, she loved this life. It was more than she’d ever hoped for.

“You know you’re everything to me, right?” he asked. His golden gaze was intense, devouring. It made her shiver. 

She was damned grateful for what fate had finally given her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and met his gaze. “I love you—”

“More than life.” He finished her sentence for her. It’d become their thing, and though it was a bit morbid, it suited them. Because she did love him more than life, as he did her. And that’s what had saved them.

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If you liked
Witch’s Fate
, there are six more books in the series
.
If you’d like to read an excerpt of
Braving Fate,
book 1, turn the page. If you’d like to know more about the mythological and historical inspiration for
Witch’s Fate
, there is an Author’s Note after the excerpt. You can read the excerpt, or
click here
to get to the Author’s Note.

BRAVING FATE EXCERPT

PROLOGUE

Central England, AD 60, eve of the Roman conquest of Britain

The woman he loved lay dying in his arms. Blood spilled over her breast, trickling from the dagger she’d sunk into her chest. Drops of blood hitting the dirt floor of the stone roundhouse echoed hollowly in his ears, amplified by the dawning knowledge of what he’d done. What she’d done. What they’d done.

“Why, Boudica?” His heart and voice were breaking. “Why do this?” 

She shuddered in his arms, her broken body cold and fragile with looming death, but no less fierce than when she’d fought on the field of battle the previous dawn. She was their warrior queen, the force that had drawn thousands of British Celts together to revolt against Roman occupation, and he her top general. 

She was his love. The one bright spot in the miserable spectacle of blood and death his life had become. 

Boudica drew a harsh breath that rattled in her wounded chest and glared at him, her eyes alight with hatred. 

“Why?” It was clear she would have screamed it if she could. Another faltering breath. “After your betrayal, you ask me why?” 

“Betrayal? I did it for you.” 

Her bitter laugh died on a cough. “I thought you knew me. I was wrong. You only know what you think me to be. I’m a warrior, the leader and symbol of our beaten land. I led my people in battle for our lives, our homes, our freedom.” She paused to catch her breath. “But we’ve lost. Irreparably.” 

His jaw clenched, his chest aching with the weight of their past and his future. For she would die this night, her future forever erased.
Because of him.
Because he hadn’t been able to protect her. As he hadn’t protected his village and family before he’d joined her.

“The Roman dogs are at our door.” She coughed. “My daughters dead at their hands. Our lands stolen. Why would I live when capture is inevitable and my very life will be used as leverage? My head will be on a pike in Rome before summer’s end. More likely, they’ll use me against our people.” She raked him with a scathing glance and coughed again. Blood marred her colorless lips. “What would you do, O great warrior?” 

“The same.” His throat burned. Capture
was
inevitable. And unbearable. Now, with the final battle lost and thousands of their families and allies dying in the fields around them, the fate that awaited her at the hands of the Romans would be worse than death, not only for her, but very likely for her people as well. 

He’d tried to save her from this, but she hadn’t let him. He would have committed any deed, no matter how terrible, to save the woman who’d changed his life when he’d met her a year ago. But Boudica was a warrior first, his woman second. And she would die believing he had betrayed her.

She coughed, her pallor more pronounced. “And yet you would deny me my honorable death?” 

“I love you. I’d do
anything
to save you.” 

“And I thought I loved you,” she whispered. And as her eyes closed, the enormous life force that had propelled Boudica, Celtic Queen of the Iceni, evaporated.

The crushing weight of grief squeezed the breath out of his lungs. Collapsing over her, the black night swallowed his roar of pain.
He would have vengeance.

CHAPTER ONE

Cadan Trinovante jerked awake, the sheets tangled in his fists. He ignored the vibrating phone that had awakened him from the nightmare and stared at the wide wooden rafters supporting the ceiling above him, struggling to catch his breath. Of all the memories that had faded in his two thousand years of life, the memory of Boudica’s death was the one that never had.

Guilt tugged at him and he reached for the phone. 

“Cadan,” he said as he glanced at the clock on the bedside table. The gleam of Edinburgh’s streetlights shone on hands pointing toward one a.m. The yells of revelers stumbling from pub to pub filtered in through the open window. 

“Cadan, it’s Warren.” 

Cadan merely grunted in response and walked to the window. He listened with half an ear as he stared out at the gothic spires of Edinburgh’s churches and the soot-blackened stone of the surrounding buildings. They rose tall and narrow, pressed cheek by jowl on either side of the sloping cobblestones of the city’s oldest street. Cadan shut out the cool night air and the sound of fading revelry.