In spite of everything, Rune’s body tightened and an ache of desire erupted inside him. “One weekend? I think we can do better than that.”
Sighing in anticipation, Teresa unwillingly looked past Rune to the fallen immortal. Quickly, she looked away. “What about … ? We can’t leave him here.”
Drawing on the fire, Rune allowed the flames to cover both of his hands. “I’ll take care of it.”
He walked toward the body. Teresa didn’t watch.
Chapter 62
I
n a series of jumps, Rune took them across Spain, through France and then over the English Channel. From there, they made their way to Wales. And Haven.
On the evening of the thirtieth day, Teresa stood in the circle of Rune’s arms and looked up at the stillmajestic walls of Manorbier castle. Holding the moonsphere in her cupped hands, Teresa felt the steadying presence of Rune beside her as her gaze touched on the familiar scene stretched out in front of her.
Clouds scudded across a sweep of blue sky. October winds soughed in off the sea. Bracken and ivy climbed the stones and the neatly tended grass was an otherworldly green in the soft light of dawn.
Memories poured through her as she listened to echoes of the past ring in her mind. Laughter. The clash of swords. Babies crying. And the chanting of her sisters. It was all there. Like a song fondly remembered.
“Are you all right?” Rune whispered, dipping his head to hers.
“I am,” she said, still cradling the moon-wrought sphere of power that encapsulated the black silver. “It’s just … weird. Feeling so at home in a place I’ve never been before.”
“Your soul recognizes this place, Teresa,” he told her in the quiet. “It is where you belong. Where we both belong.”
She looked up at him, into those gray eyes that softened with love and understanding, and she knew that no matter what Rune said,
he
was where she belonged. Wherever he was, that was her home.
Glancing toward the cloud-filled, lightening sky, with the sweep of coral and crimson staining the horizon, Teresa took a breath and said only, “Haven’s waiting for us.”
He draped one arm across her shoulders and walked beside her as she headed for the stone steps leading up to the castle proper.
She led them unerringly. Her mind and heart and soul remembered the way as they crossed what had once been the great hall and walked through into the chapel.
“The coven made its home in the chapel?” Rune asked, clearly surprised.
She looked up at him, confused. “You didn’t know?” “No. You and your sisters guarded Haven even from the Eternals.”
Teresa stopped, looked around her at the stone walls sweeping up to highly arched ceilings. The stones themselves seemed to pulse with power, with magic, and she felt the rise of it inside her. As she turned to smile up at her mate, she could only say, “I’m sorry. For who I was then. For what I cheated us out of.”
“No,” Rune told her, cupping her face in his palms. “There is no need for apologies, Teresa. The past is dust. And the future is ours. At last.”
She smiled as a wash of love, deep and rich and pure, rose up inside her. How had she lived her life without him? How had she ever given him up so long ago? That was a mystery she might never resolve, Teresa thought. But he was right. The past was gone, dust in the pages of history. What mattered was
now
. Who they were, what they did.
Shifting the moonsphere into the palm of one hand, she linked her free hand with his and threaded their fingers together in a sign of solidarity. Then she continued to the far end of the chapel where a solid stone wall stood. She didn’t glance at the faded glories of the paintings still hanging in place. Instead, she released his hand, laid her palm flat on the cold gray stones and whispered,
“Haven.”
An opening appeared in the wall and Teresa smiled, took Rune’s hand again and together, they stepped into the dimly lit darkness. Instantly, the wall behind them sealed and they were left standing in a cavernous room.
Flaming torches set into silver brackets mounted on the surrounding walls threw dancing shadows and light across the interior. The walls themselves shone and glittered as the firelight touched the veins of silver embedded in the stone.
Teresa sighed and felt the soft push of power slide into her system. Silver enhanced an earth witch’s power and these veins that sparkled and shone were incredibly rich. Her gaze tracked over the symbols carved into the stone and outlined in silver. She knew them all. Her memory was clear at last and the sight of this chamber filled her with a sense of peace she had never known. All around her were carved symbols of power, of magic, of the coven that had once called this Haven home.
There were pentagrams and the sacred circle that signified unity and female power. The Bindu, circles with a single dot in the center—the circle as woman, the dot as man, joined as they were meant to be joined. She also spotted an ancient Medicine Wheel and the carving of a snake devouring its own tail—the symbol of life, death and rebirth. And there was the spiral.
Teresa let go of Rune’s hand and drew her fingers over the coiled symbol that represented the female and the birth, growth, death and rebirth of the soul. Power shimmered inside her at the contact and she smiled, letting this place and all that it had once meant to her welcome her home.
“Welcome.”
Teresa and Rune spun around to face the woman who had spoken. But there were two women standing there. Two witches, flanked by their Eternals. The women were tall, each of them had waist-length red hair and each of them was dressed in a white togalike garment that was cinched at the waist and fell in a column to their bare feet.
The togas they wore were one-shouldered, baring their left breasts to the room, displaying their mating brands proudly. One woman boasted a circlet of red roses, while the other’s skin was marked with dark red flames. Their mates stood behind them, matching tattoos on their bare chests.
Teresa blew out a breath, stunned, a little shocked and yet proud that she belonged with these women. She, too, wanted to show the world that she and Rune were matched. That they were a single unit, bonded by love and trust and magic.
The women came closer.
“Teresa,” the older one said with a smile, “we’ve been waiting for you. I’m Mairi and this is my niece, Shea. Welcome to Haven. Welcome home.”
“Thank you,” she said as Rune stepped past her to greet the other Eternals. “It’s good to be here. At last.”
“You’ve brought your shard of the Artifact,” Mairi said, with a glance at the moonsphere, still glittering with power and caged lightning.
“We have,” Rune said, returning to Teresa’s side to drape one arm around her shoulders.
“Then the ceremony will begin as soon as you’re ready,” Mairi told them. “Shea and Torin will show you to your quarters.”
Chapter 63
A
n hour later, Teresa and Rune reentered the main chamber. Teresa wore the traditional toga, baring her tattooed breast in a show of respect and pride. The light of purest magic filled her, making her dark hair shine white and her eyes glow.
Rune watched her near-regal procession across the firelit main chamber. Shadows swam and the light danced across the silver-studded walls as Teresa, holding the black silver in her cupped palms, approached the far wall. There, three cages made of living flame snapped and hissed in the silence. The first cage held the Artifact returned to Haven by Shea and Torin.
Teresa walked to the center cage, deposited the black silver inside and then watched as the flames surrounded it. The living flame would hold it safely until the other pieces could be brought back and the Artifact reassembled. Then the coven would ritually destroy it for all time. Only then would the world be safe.
Teresa took a step back, bowed her head and crossed her arms over her chest. She chanted softly, as if the words were drawn from a memory as ancient as the room in which she stood.
The past is gone
Yet still lives
My test is won
This Artifact I give
I am home where I was meant to be
My debt is paid through eternity.
The light left her, returning her hair and eyes to the rich chocolate color that Rune knew and loved. Teresa turned to bow her head toward Mairi, the once and future high priestess of her coven. She exchanged a smile with Shea, then looked deliberately and solely at Rune.
Mairi, Shea and their Eternals slipped out of the chamber, leaving them alone for a moment, to celebrate their accomplishment. To share only with each other the moment when their world had, at last, righted itself.
He held her and felt the heat of her bare breast against his chest as the greatest gift he had ever known. They were one, as they had always been meant to be. “You were magnificent.”
“
We
were great,” she whispered, linking her arms around his waist.
As he held her, the mating brand burned brightly through each of them in one last fiery jolt of heat, completing the tattoo on their bodies that would join them for eternity.
Teresa sighed at the magic of the moment, then laid her head on his chest and smiled. “Your heart is beating.”
Rune laughed shortly. “It feels … strange.”
She reached up for a kiss. “You’ll get used to it.”
“As you will to being an immortal.”
Teresa kissed him again then, as her love for him erupted. Her life had become rich. Full. She had lost a lot, but in finding who she was meant to be she had gained everything.
“An eternity in your arms? Sounds just about right.”
As he kissed her, Teresa gave herself up to the
real
magic. The wonder and splendor of a love finally found and cherished as it should be.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Regan Hastings
is the pseudonym of a
USA Today
bestselling author of more than a hundred romance novels. She lives with her family in California and is already hard at work on the next installment of the Awakening series.
Read on for a sneak peek at the next book in
Regan Hastings’s Awakening series,
VISIONS OF CHAINS
Coming from Signet Eclipse in June 2012.
Deidre Sterling was used to being followed. Secret Service. Reporters. Paparazzi. But giant black dogs? That was new.
She peeled back the edge of the drapes and looked out the window of her friend’s apartment. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her stomach was tumbling like an Olympic gymnast. If she had any sense, she’d leave before things got worse. But then, if she had any sense, she wouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Three floors below, the street lay in complete darkness but for the puddles of light from the streetlamps gleaming on wet asphalt. Cars were parked along the curb. A newspaper hurtled down the street, tossed by the wind. Lamplight shone from a few other apartments facing her, and directly below her stood two men in black overcoats. Her Secret Service protection.
Hell of a thing to be a grown woman and not be able to take a walk without at least two armed guys following. But since her mother was the President of the United States, Deidre didn’t really get to make that call.
Still, here she was, planning to ditch her guards, just to do what she had to do. Her gaze moved on, checking every shadow, every slice of darkness that could hold—
there.
The dog. It moved with a stealthy sort of grace that gave Deidre cold chills. Its head was huge and its paws were like saucers. What the hell was it? Great Dane? Pony?
“What are you looking at?” Shauna Jackson walked into the room and went to stand beside Deidre.
“A dog,” she answered, feeling stupid. But she could have sworn over the last few days that the damn thing had been following her. Everywhere she went, she felt its presence, even though she’d only caught a glimpse of it once or twice.
Shauna took a quick look and shrugged. “Don’t see anything except your two human guard dogs in overcoats.”
“It’s there. At the mouth of the alley across the street.”
Shauna looked again. “Nope.”
Okay, why couldn’t her friend see the dog? Deidre wondered if maybe PTSD was becoming an issue for her. Was she seeing things? And if she was, why wasn’t she imagining fluffy kittens? Why a dog that looked as though it could—and wanted to—swallow her whole?
Deidre shivered as the huge animal tipped its wide head up and fixed its dark eyes on her. Okay, she was really freaking over this. The dog that couldn’t be there wasn’t looking at her. How would it know what apartment she was in? At that thought, she almost laughed. Crazy much? She let the drapes fall and told herself she was getting way too paranoid.
“You’re not trying to back out, are you?”
Deidre turned to face her friend. Shauna’s hair was clipped short, the tight, black curls trimmed close to her head. Her chocolate brown eyes were narrowed. “Dee, the execution is in the morning. You can’t really walk away, can you? You agreed that rescuing the witches was the right thing to do.”
“I know.” Five women were scheduled for the fires first thing in the morning. She didn’t know if they were witches or not. And she didn’t care. State-approved executions of witches and suspected witches were happening more and more frequently, despite her mother’s attempts to rein them in. The general public was scared. And when scared people came together they usually became bloodthirsty.
Deidre ran her hands up and down her arms, trying to dispel the cold that had been with her since the night of the last raid she had gone on, two weeks before.
But the cold wouldn’t lift any more than the memories would dissipate. She remembered everything. She saw it all over and over again whenever she closed her eyes. Her group, the RFW, or Rights for Witches, had infiltrated an internment camp to free the captive women inside. But something had gone wrong. Somehow the alarms had been sounded and guards had fired on them and men had been killed.