Daughter of the Spellcaster (20 page)

Ryan looked right back at Lena, and then he bent and met her lips with his. Everything inside her was shouting
I love you, I love you, I love you!
It was hard to imagine he couldn’t hear her on some level.

Then he scooped her up into his arms and carried her, somehow making her feel tiny and light, into his room and laid her down on the bed. He closed the door softly, turned the lock and lay down beside her, kissing her again. The kiss grew hotter, their tongues entwining, mouths open, as if he’d been as starved for her as she had been for him. Her blood heated, and rushed faster and faster through her veins as her heart galloped. Eagerly, she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it down off his shoulders. And her hands ran over his skin, his hard shoulders and delicious corded neck, and she moved her face over it, too, tasting him, inhaling him. It had been so long. She wanted to drink him into her.

He lifted her blouse over her head, but she caught the bottom edge and pulled it back down. He covered her hand with his own. “I want to look at you.”

“Like this? Ryan, I’m—”

“You’re like a rare fruit, all ripened and ready to fall from the tree. You’ve never been more beautiful, I’ve told you that. I want to see you. I want to see you all full of my baby.”

Blinking, still self-conscious, she nodded and let go of the blouse. Ryan tugged it up over her head. Then he peeled off her bra and tossed it to the floor as his eyes roamed her breasts and darkened with appreciation. “Wow.”

“Yeah. I know. Two cup sizes, and they tell me once she gets here, I’ll go up another one.”

He smiled. “And you didn’t want to show me this?” He caressed her heavy breasts, kissed them, gentle, easy. He pushed her pants down and she kicked them off, and then he was running his hands over her belly, kissing it all over. Eventually he shifted and lay on his side next to her, head propped on one elbow, his free hand tracing her body up and down. “I wish I were an artist,” he said. “I’d paint you just like this. You’re amazing.”

Then he kissed her again, and again, and again. And it was beautiful and amazing, and she wanted him inside her. She wanted to make love. But he didn’t. He just kissed her and caressed her, and continued to rub her all over. “It’s so close to your due date,” he said. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt the baby. Would it? If we...?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t had any reason to ask.” His hands, rubbing circles on her lower back, were absolute heaven. His touch, the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes, everything was light-years beyond what they had been before she’d left him.

It was happening, she thought. He was falling in love with her. Right there, right then, she was watching this man fall in love with her.

“I can wait for the sex,” he whispered. “But I want you to know it’s killing me.”

“I think that’s for the best—and it’s killing
me,
too.”

“But I can hold you, kiss you. I can touch you.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And maybe we can stay right here for the next two weeks, until the baby comes.”

“That’s okay by me.”

It was good. Lena’s entire being told her that it was good. Everything was good. It was all going to be fine. Not only was Ryan
not
hiding a ritual dagger or planning to kill her with it, he was starting to embrace his emotions, to let them escape through the widening cracks in his armor. He was becoming that prince she’d loved lifetimes ago. And it was only a matter of time before he loved her as much as she loved him. Only a matter of time.

* * *

They spent the day putting together the crib Ryan had brought home. Yellow and green, with a matching dresser. They took the musical mobile Selma had found ages ago and attached it to the head of the crib, then wound it up to let it play its tinkling version of Brahms’s Lullaby, watching as a herd of colorful stuffed animals—elephants, giraffes, hippos...all with wings—swirled and spun. Lena brought out the boxes full of baby clothes she and Selma had been collecting for the past six months, and started putting them away in the little dresser. It was truly a beautiful set, she thought. They even put a sheet on the crib mattress and laid a receiving blanket on top, ready and waiting for someone to swaddle.

Lena looked around, her throat tight, her eyes moist, as they had been for most of the day. “This makes it all so...so real.”

“I know what you mean,” Ryan said.

“We still need curtains. And an electrician to install the light fixture.”

“And a crystal prism to hang in the window. And my mother’s rocking chair.”

“And diapers and bottles and—”

“We need to shop.” He grinned at her, apparently in love with the prospect.

She pressed her hand to the small of her back. “Tomorrow, okay? I’m about all-in tonight.”

He nodded, then slid his arms around her and ran his big, warm hand up and down her back. All her breath whispered out of her, and she leaned in, resting her head against his chest. “That feels so good.”

“Then I’ll keep doing it.”

And he did, for a little while, until she lifted her head and said, “I smell something fabulous.”

“Thank you. I haven’t showered since this morning, but it’s good to know my natural musk—”

She batted him playfully. “I mean from the kitchen, but we’ve been messing around up here all day.”

And they had been. They’d lain around in bed, making out like a couple of high school kids. He’d given her a full-body massage. And then they’d played in the baby’s room for hours, talking and laughing and planning.

What kind of swing set should they get? They would design and build one themselves.

Were they for or against backyard trampolines? For.

How old should Eleanora be before she got her first puppy? Old enough to ask for one.

And what would her middle name be? Sarah, after Ryan’s mother.

Selma had made her grocery run and returned, put it all away, then busied herself downstairs for the rest of the day. She’d never set foot on the stairs. Because, Lena thought, she was the best mother in the world. And now...

“Smells like Mom’s cooking dinner,” Lena said.

“Oh. I suppose the polite thing to do would be to go down there, then.” Ryan pouted, then lifted his brows. “On the other hand, it smells
really
good.”

He kept an arm around her, as if it was the natural, normal thing to do, and they walked into the hallway. She stopped, turning to look up at him. “Are we...are we
together
again, Ryan?”

He frowned at her. “Well, we’re having a baby together.”

“I know, but...then what?”

He blinked and lowered his eyes. “I’m being totally honest with you here right now, Lena. I haven’t even had a chance to think that far. This is all... It’s happening fast. A few days ago I didn’t even know about Eleanora, so I’m just struggling to keep up.”

“I know. I know, I didn’t mean to push or...”

“Can we let it unfold for a little bit and see where it’s going?”

No
.

“Sure,” she said. “Sure we can.” And then she trotted down the stairs ahead of him and hurried into the kitchen, where her mother was opening and closing cabinets, and looking flustered. “What’s up, Madre?”

“Oh, hell’s bells, I’m just so absentminded.” She looked at Lena, made a sheepish face and pushed her hands through her curls. “I spent all afternoon making my special pasta sauce and meatballs—”

“We smelled it upstairs,” Ryan said as he came into the kitchen. “It lured us in like a siren’s song.”

“Well, there’s no pasta. Nowhere in this house is there a single strand of spaghetti.” She sighed, then brightened. “Ryan, I don’t suppose you would run down to the little store in town for me and pick up a box? The Grapevine is only fifteen minutes away, and they’re open for a half hour yet.”

“Only if I get the biggest meatball.” He headed straight for the door and grabbed his jacket, put it on and dipped into his right-hand pocket for his keys. Then he frowned, patting himself down. The keys jangled when he hit the left-hand pocket, and he pulled them out, still frowning. “Huh. That’s odd.”

Lena cringed, realizing her mom had put them back on the wrong side. Selma met her eyes and shrugged apologetically. “Just a box of spaghetti. We’ve got everything else.”

“All right. I’ll be back ASAP.” Key snafu forgotten, Lena thought. He headed out to the truck, but Lena found herself looking out the window, watching until the truck was out of sight.

“Things took a turn for the better today, hmm?” her mother asked.

Lena glanced her way, her face heating, and couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

“Oh, gosh, look at you. I haven’t seen you this happy since...well, since we left New York,” Selma said.

“I think it’s happening, Mom. I think he’s starting to fall in love with me. I really do.”

“Oh, baby. How could he not?” Selma smiled and turned back to the fridge, taking items from it one by one. Lettuce, salad dressing, a cucumber.

Lena turned for one last glance out the window and saw that this time someone was looking back at her. That black cat, sleek and gleaming, with huge green eyes. It was sitting halfway down the driveway with its tail curled around its body, watching her.
Staring
.

“Mom, there’s that cat I told you about again.”

Her mother came quickly, wiping her hands on a dish towel and leaning in to peek out the window beside her. “I’ve seen her twice over the past week,” Selma said. “She’s
such
a witch cat. I wonder if she’s lost and waiting for us to help her out, or if she’s trying to adopt us?”

“Give me a meatball. I’m going to see if I can lure her inside. Or at least leave it out there somewhere. I think she’s been bunking in the small barn.”

Selma rushed to the pot on the stove, while Lena headed to the front door to put on her parka and boots. Her mother brought her half a meatball, mashed into small pieces in a plastic bowl.

“Don’t be long, okay?” her mother said. “And be careful.”

“I need some fresh air, Mom. A walk will do me good. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

“All right.” Selma returned to making the salad, and Lena went outside into the dusk, where she could see her breath. The cat just sat there, still watching her—waiting for her, she thought. Odd, when it usually ran away the minute she made eye contact.

She was glad her mother had seen it, too. At least she didn’t have to worry that she might be imagining it.

She walked down the driveway toward the cat, which waited until she was almost close enough to touch it, then turned and trotted away, straight into the copse of trees behind Bahru’s cabin. Unlike the woods where Selma had wandered the other night, these led all the way to the lakeshore. The cat entered near the start of a narrow trail, one Lena had never explored very far before.

She was intrigued, because the cat paused at the trailhead and looked back at her, then moved on again, almost as if it wanted her to follow.

So Lena left the bowl on a rock and followed, calling, “Here, kitty kitty” in a silly falsetto that she had to admit would never have worked on her, had she been a cat.

Every little while the sleek black feline would stop and wait for her to catch up, then stalk forward again.

She found herself following the meandering path through the tiny woodlot and out the other side, then uphill for a little way, until she emerged at the prettiest spot she had ever seen. She’d known it was here. The log cabin that had once been owned—maybe still was, for all she knew—by a priest, was farther along the path, which took a steep upward jog from here. This spot was plus or minus the halfway point in between, and while she’d glimpsed it from below, she’d never come up here to check it out, though she’d wanted to.

A waterfall tumbling from an even higher spot splashed into a small pond. The pond hadn’t frozen over—probably couldn’t, with that waterfall pounding down into it.

The cat was sitting near the water’s edge, waiting for her. She moved closer, and saw that just to the right of the pond the ground dropped off sharply—and it was a long way to the lake below. On the far side, behind the waterfall, there was an opening.

A cave?

And voices. Definitely voices.

The cat bounced from its spot to the top of a boulder on Lena’s left, then jumped off the back. Lena ducked behind the boulder, too, wondering why she felt as if she had some reason to keep from being seen.

And she guessed she did have. A gut feeling. No more than that. But she always trusted her gut. Her mother had taught her that, and yeah, maybe she’d been hallucinating some stuff lately, but still...better safe than sorry. So she crouched there, peeking around one side and waiting to see what happened.

To her utter shock, she spotted Bahru. He seemed to be coming out of the cave, but he stopped just on the other side of the waterfall. He was a liquid blur of red and white. But he was speaking loud and clear, and despite the cascade’s splashing, she heard every word.

“If I had known they would banish you from the house, I’d have convinced them not to, Master. I swear I would. But it does not matter.”

Did he just say “Master”?

“It won’t matter. Once the baby comes, it will be done. Her power will die. And you will live again.”

Lena gasped, then clapped a hand over her own mouth to shut herself up. What the hell was going on here?

“It has to be soon. She is catching on.”

She leaned out a little further, trying like hell to see who he was talking to. There was definitely someone else there. But she couldn’t make him out. Just a dark shadow beyond the waterfall.

Wait a minute, a dark shadow?

If I had known they would banish you from the house...

Was it their house ghost? Was their house ghost—or whatever he was—conspiring with Bahru? And what the hell did all this have to do with her baby?

The cat bumped Lena’s hand with its head, and she looked down as she complied with its demand to be stroked. And that was when she noticed that it wore a collar with a phone number woven into the fabric. No dangling metal tags to disrupt kitty’s hunting fun. It must have particularly insightful people. Lena made a mental note of the number, crouching lower as Bahru emerged fully from the cave, walking right through the waterfall, though he held a dark cloak of some sort over his head to keep him from getting soaked, and—