Lightning lanced from the sky, jagged bolts hammering into the earth on the borders of a circle carved into the dirt. Witches filled the circle, as they stood in the center of the tempest, skyclad, their naked bodies arched skyward, as if awaiting a lover.
“Don’t do it!”
The woman Teresa had once been turned her head slowly to find the source of that voice. Rune. Standing beyond the circle, forced to be on the outside with his fellow Eternals, locked away from the witches and what they had come here to do.
“Come to me!” he shouted over the roar of the sea and the crash of the lightning. She heard his voice despite the chants rising from her sisters’ throats. She heard it and responded because he was hers. In a way no other man had ever been, Rune was hers.
But she was more than simply his.
She was a witch. A member of the great coven. She owed her sister witches her loyalty even before him. And she had no wish to stop the events of this night. She knew they were making a necessary choice and that one day Rune would see that, too. Later, she would soothe him with her body and ease him with her touch. And he would see that the coven was right.
“Stay back,” she warned. “You cannot enter the circle!”
“Nor should you,” he cried. “Come to me now before it’s too late.”
She gave him a sad smile, knowing he would never understand her and why she did what she did. “You’ll see, Rune. This is the way. For all of us.”
She turned back to her sisters, lifted her hands toward Heaven … and watched, helplessly, as hell came down on them instead.
Shaken, Teresa staggered and found that Rune’s grip on her hand was the only stable point in her universe. She clung to him as the last of the memory slid away, hopefully never to return. He had shown her pieces before. Now, though, she had
felt
it all. Lived through it. And the knowledge and fear and pain were so real they were choking her. “How could I have done that?”
“What did you remember?”
She looked up at him, tears swimming in her eyes. He appeared blurred, but steady. Beside her. As he had tried to be then.
“The night hell opened.”
His features tightened, but so did his grip on her hand. As if his own memories were fueling his hold on her, he stared into her eyes and asked, “Did you remember more than what I showed you? Can you tell me why? Why wouldn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you step away?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered brokenly, still feeling the chill of that long-ago night creeping through her system.
“I
trusted
you,” he murmured, his grip on her hand even stronger now.
Ashamed of what she’d done and what the memory was making her feel, she tried to pull free of his grasp, but he wouldn’t let her go. A part of her was grateful. She needed his touch to mitigate the soul-deep chill crawling through her.
“I know.” Two words. Not nearly enough, but all she had to give. “I don’t understand why I did it. Why
we
did it. But I know it has to be undone. Finally and at last, it has to be undone.”
“And so it will,” he said, his voice as rough as sandpaper.
“The Mating makes us stronger, right?”
“Yes. Every day our powers will increase until we’ve gained enough between us to accomplish our task.” He paused and added, “We will share a … connection. Our minds will be linked.”
“You mean like mind reading?” That sounded horrible. How could you ever have privacy if someone else was able to go picking through your thoughts?
“No, not mind reading. It’s more a way of touching each other and being able to communicate silently. Our thoughts will remain our own.”
“Okay, that’s good. And?” she asked, knowing there was more. “Look, I know the bare bones of this. I know that the Mating will make me immortal. Will give me control of my powers and bind me to you. What do you get out of this, Rune?”
“My heart will at last beat. I will be at last what I was meant to be. A part of you. No longer separate and alone. I’ll be more fully human—able to feel more deeply, experience all that has been muted for centuries—and still immortal. And I’ll have you. At last.”
She flushed at the heat in his eyes, in the tightness of his words. Maybe she was wrong, but she didn’t think he looked very happy at the notion of finally “having” her. And that was probably best, she told herself firmly. It would set them on more common ground. Because immortal mate or not, she wouldn’t be staying with Rune after their thirty days were over. She’d be spending her eternity alone. In the long run—and eternity was certainly a long run—it would be better for her. Better for him.
“So, a heartbeat,” she said, laying her free hand on his chest to feel the stillness beneath his skin. How could any man be so vibrantly alive and still have nothing pounding in his chest? “Experiencing a full range of emotion and sensation. Is that it? Is that all you want out of this Mating?”
“No.” He caught her hand in his and held it tightly. “There’s more. There’s redemption.”
Redemption.
That single word seemed to reverberate throughout the cave, only to hang in the steamy air between them.
“You don’t need redemption, Rune,” she told him, pulling one hand free of his grasp. “That night, it wasn’t you who totally screwed up the world. It was us. My God, I don’t even know what to say to that. But you and the other Eternals tried to stop us. At least you can say that. We have no excuse for what we did.” Shaking her head, she whispered, “I know it was me, but I don’t see how I could have done that …”
He rubbed his hand against hers, palm to palm, flesh to flesh. Sparks shot from their joining, flashed brightly and disappeared, winking out like the sparks from fireworks.
“If the Eternals had been able to get through to all of you, the gates of hell would never have been opened in the first place,” he said, jaw tight, eyes ablaze. “But we failed you. The bonds we had forged between us weren’t strong enough to blast through the coven’s thirst for power.”
“Why not?” She had to ask. Had to know. She’d had one brief memory of that time, but Rune knew it all. He’d lived through it with her and his memories hadn’t been clouded and hidden by generations of reincarnated lives. “Why weren’t the bonds strong enough?”
“We hadn’t mated,” he said, letting his head fall back. Staring up at the crystals shining in the rock face, he added, “The coven refused to mate with the Eternals.” He lowered his gaze to hers again. Frustration and old anger radiated off him in thick waves that seemed to reach for her and draw her closer to share in his frustration. As if he believed that she deserved to experience what he had felt that long-ago night. “Sex was all they wanted from us then. You and your sisters closed yourselves off from what we were meant to be together.”
She rubbed at the spot between her eyes as if she could massage more memories into life. But nothing came. There were no images filling her brain; there was only the sinking sensation that he was absolutely right. That she and her sister witches had tossed aside everything good and pure in a futile search for more power. Unaware or unconcerned that with that power would come a darkness they couldn’t control.
“We were meant to be mated. Two halves of the same whole. Our god, Belen, created the Eternals as equal partners for the witches created by his lover, Danu.”
“The mother goddess,” Teresa whispered, remembering some of the things her
abuela
had taught her about the origins of witches and witchcraft.
“Yes,” Rune said. “She was a bringer of light, knowledge, magic. It’s said she gave birth to the witches so that her children could share her with the world.”
She shook her head; she couldn’t help wondering what Danu would make of her children now.
“Belen was her lover. The sun god. In ancient times, Beltane fires were lit to encourage the warmth of the sun.” He smiled, as if remembering those days and, she supposed, he was. “For love of Danu, Belen created the Eternals. He drew us from the heart of the sun itself, molded the fire and breathed life into our bodies.”
She looked at their joined hands, and as she watched, fire leaped into life around them. Blue, yellow and red flames danced across her skin and his, joining them in a conflagration of heat without pain.
“We were
meant,
Teresa.” He stared into her eyes, his gray gaze swirling now into rich shades of silver and pewter. “But when you needed us most, there was no mating bond to anchor you.” Rune’s voice came fast and thick, choking with memories that ran soul deep in him. “You stood alone because you wouldn’t accept me as your equal.”
“If I had?”
“We’ll never know,” he admitted. “But I believe that mated souls are stronger together than apart. Otherwise why would we have the Mating ritual at all?”
“Good point.” She flexed her fingers around Rune’s hand and felt the flames quicken with her action.
The room was hot and steamy. The glow of the crystals shone through the mist and Teresa felt everything in her shiver. She wouldn’t again be the woman she had just glimpsed in her fractured memories. She wouldn’t risk the world for her own selfish desires and needs.
This bonding would make them both stronger and she knew that in the coming days they would each need that strength. She had to trust in what she was meant to be. Had to give herself over to the cause that was so much greater than her fears and reluctance to be bonded to any man for eternity. She was doing what she had to do, but she knew that she could never offer him all that she was. She couldn’t pledge her heart and risk an eternity of pain.
Nodding, she swallowed her uncertainties and looked directly into his eyes. “Then let’s do it, Rune. Let’s begin the Mating. I’m ready.”
He took a breath and studied her as if weighing her words. Finally, he said, “Once the Mating ritual has begun, there’s no going back. No changing your mind.”
“I understand.”
“Each time we come together, the Mating will take a greater hold on us. Entwine our souls more completely.”
“I know.” She glanced at their joined hands again and saw the fire burning inside their enclosed palms. Felt its heat snaking down through her system, charging her as if a live electrical wire was being threaded through her veins.
“At the end of thirty days, with our quest fulfilled, the Mating will be complete.”
“Why thirty days?” she asked. “Why not fifteen or twenty?”
“You know why. Somewhere inside you, you feel it. It is the cycle of the moon, Teresa,” he said. “The magic of the coven was drawn from the moon.”
“Okay.” Harder to talk now. It felt as though the heat filling her was cloaking every doubt and fear inside her. They were still there, but Rune’s presence was muffling them somehow. She took strength from his surety about what they were about to do.
But there was one thing she had to know before they began. “And if we don’t succeed at this mission? Then what?”
“Then the Mating will be incomplete and our souls will die.” His tone was flat, unemotional. He had accepted that this was their last chance—the Eternals’ and the witches’—to fix what had gone so wrong. If they didn’t succeed, maybe they didn’t deserve to go on.
Teresa felt the profoundness in the moment. This was eternal. Trepidation swept through her, but she battled through it. This man—this immortal—was her chance at atonement. The images of that long-ago night were still ripe and rich within her and Teresa knew that she had much to atone for. He was offering that opportunity and more. He offered to risk his own soul for the chance at redemption. Even though their shared past gave him no reason to give a shit if she succeeded or not.
He squeezed her hand hard enough that it should have broken bones, but didn’t.
“We begin,” he said. “Do you accept me, Teresa?”
She looked up into his eyes and saw how much this was costing him. That he should have to ask her for acceptance when she and her sisters were at the heart of this mess. Teresa felt the first flickering bond between them wrap itself around their joined hands. Though she wouldn’t love him, wouldn’t stay with him when this was done … she would be his partner in this quest. She would be his mate.
“Yes,” she said simply. “I accept you.”
“And our past?”
“Yes.”
“And our future?”
She quailed at that, knowing as she did that their joined future wouldn’t go beyond the thirty days of their mating. But a month was the future, too, wasn’t it? “Yes,” she said firmly. “I do.”
That invisible thread of bonding spun tightly around their joined hands.
“Do you take me as your mate? To stand beside you? To do battle with you and to put right what once went so wrong?”
She felt the magic bristling in the air around them. The steam swam and swirled as if stirred by a wind she couldn’t feel. The crystals shone more brilliantly and Teresa felt fire rush through her. His words echoed in the cave and rang with the insistence of truth and importance.
This, then, was the most powerful of his questions.
Teresa lifted her chin, met his gaze and said, “Yes, Rune. I accept you as my mate. I accept responsibility for what I did so long ago and I accept you, as my mate, to help me put it right.”
The churning flames surrounding their joined hands flared suddenly with the light and heat of a thousand suns. Teresa closed her eyes against the brilliance of it, but in the space of a single heartbeat, the fire was gone.
At that same moment, she felt a sharp, stinging burn in the center of her palm. Then that jolt of heat raced up along her arm until it ricocheted madly inside her chest, like a fireball looking for escape. She stood utterly still, her gaze locked with Rune’s as the fire inside her settled behind her left breast. The sizzle and burn focused into a pinprick and jabbed through her flesh above her left nipple.