It's five days' walk, so we'll need to leave in good time."

"Are there those in Geall who'll fight with us?"

"Any and all will fight. Any and all would die to save our home, and the worlds." The burden of it weighed down on her. "I have only to ask."

"You have a lot of faith in your fellow man," Cian commented.

She looked at him now, forced herself to meet his eyes. Blue, she thought, and beautiful.

Would they go demon-red when he fed?

"So I do. And in my countrymen, and in humankind. And if I did not, I would order it so.

For when I return to Geall, I must go to the Royal Stone, and if I'm worthy, if I'm the one as there is no other, I will pull the sword from that sheath. And I will be queen of Geall. I won't see my people slaughtered by what made you what you are. Not like lambs. If they die, they'll die in battle."

"You should know that the little skirmish you came through tonight was nothing. It was nothing. What were there? Eight, ten of them?

There'll be thousands." He got to his feet.

"She's had nearly two thousand years to make her army. Your farmers will have to do more than beat their plowshares into swords to survive."

"Then they will."

He inclined his head. "Be ready to train hard, and not tomorrow. Starting tonight. You forget, brother, I sleep days."

He left them with that.

Chapter 9

Glenna signalled to Hoyt, and left the others to King. She glanced back toward the kitchen, down toward the hall. She had no idea where Cian had gone.

"We need to talk. In private."

"We need to work."

"I won't argue with that, but you and I need to go over some things. Alone."

He frowned at her, but nodded. If she wanted privacy, there was one place he could be sure of it. He lead the way up the stairs, wound his way up to his tower.

Glenna wandered the room, studied his work areas, his books and tools. She went to each narrow window, opened the gla.s.s that had been put there since his day, closed it again.

"Nice. Very nice. Are you going to share the wealth?"

"What is your meaning?"

"I need a place to work-more, I'd say you and I need a place to work together. Don't give me that look." She waved a hand at him as she walked over to shut the door.

"What look would that be?"

"The 'I'm a solitary sorcerer and don't care for witches' look. We're stuck with each other, and with the rest. Somehow, G.o.d knows, we have to become a unit. Because Cian's right."

She walked back to one of the windows, looked out into the moonstruck dark. "He's right. She'll have thousands. I never looked that far, never thought that big-though, Jesus, what's bigger than an apocalypse? But of course, she'll have thousands. We have a handful."

"It's as it was told to us," he reminded her. "We're the first, the circle."

She turned back, and though her eyes stayed level, he saw the fear in them. And the doubt. "We're strangers, and far from ready to join hands in a circle and chant some unity spell.

We're uneasy and suspicious of each other.

Even resentful when it comes to you and your brother."

"I don't resent my brother."

"Of course you do." She pushed at her hair, and now he saw frustration as well. "You drew a sword on him a couple of hours ago." "I thought he-"

"Yes, yes, and more grat.i.tude for rushing to my rescue."

Her dismissive tone insulted his chivalry, and put his back up. "You're b.l.o.o.d.y welcome."

"If you actually save my life at some point, my grat.i.tude will be sincere, I promise you. But defending the damsel was only part of it, and answering that was only part of why he very nearly fought you. You know it, I know it, and so does he."

"That being the case, there's no need for you to babble on about it."

She stepped forward. He saw with some satisfaction his wasn't the only back up now.

"You're angry with him for letting himself be killed, and worse, changed. He's angry with you for dragging him into this, and forcing him to remember what he was before Lilith got her fangs into him. All of that's a waste of time and energy. So, we either have to get past those emotions, or we have to use them. Because as it stands, as we stand, she's going to slaughter us, Hoyt. I don't want to die."

"If you're afraid-"

"Of course I'm afraid. Are you stupid?

After what we've seen and dealt with tonight, we'd be morons not to be afraid." She pressed her hands to her face, struggled to even her breathing again. "I know what has to be done, but I don't know how to do it. And neither do you. None of us do."

She dropped her hands, went to him.

"Let's you and I be honest here. We have to depend on each other, have to trust each other, so let's be honest. We're a handful-with power, yes, with skills-but a handful against untold numbers. How do we survive this, much less win?"

"We gather more."

"How?" She lifted her hands. "How? In this time, in this place, Hoyt, people don't believe. Anyone who goes around talking openly about vampires, sorcerers, apocalyptic battles and missions from G.o.ds is either considered eccentric-best case-or put in a padded cell."

Needing the contact, she brushed a hand down his arm. "We have to face it. There's no cavalry coming to the rescue here. We are the cavalry."

"You give me problems, but no solutions."

"Maybe." She sighed. "Maybe. But you can't find solutions until you outline the problems. We're ridiculously outnumbered.

We're going up against creatures-for lack of a better word-that can only be killed in a limited number of ways. They are controlled or led or driven by a vampire of enormous power and, well, thirst. I don't know much about warfare, but I know when the odds aren't in my favor. So we have to even the odds."

She spoke the kind of cold-blooded sense he couldn't deny. The fact that she would say it was, in his mind, another kind of courage.

"How?"

"Well, we can't go out and cut off thousands of heads, it's just not practical. So we find the way to cut off the head of the army.

Hers."

"If it were so simple, it would already be done."

"If it were impossible, we wouldn't be here." Frustrated, she rapped a fist on his arm.

"Work with me, will you?"

"I haven't a choice in that."

Now there was hurt, just the shadow of it in her eyes. "Is it really so distasteful to you?

Am I?"

"No." And more than a shadow of shame in his. "I'm sorry. No, not distasteful. Difficult.

Distracting. You're distracting, the way you look, the way you smell, the way you are."

"Oh." Her lips curved up slowly. "That's interesting." "I don't have time for you, in that way."

"What way? Be specific." It wasn't fair, she knew, to tease and to tempt. But it was a relief to simply be human.

"Lives are at stake."

"What's the point of living without feeling? I feel for you. You stir something in me. Yes, it's difficult, and it's distracting. But it tells me I'm here, and that being afraid isn't all there is. I need that, Hoyt. I need to feel more than afraid."

He lifted a hand to brush his fingers over her cheek. "I can't promise to protect you, but only to try."

"I'm not asking you to protect me. I'm not asking you for anything-yet-more than truth."

He kept his hand on her face, bringing his other up to join it in framing her as he lowered his lips. Hers parted for him, offering. So he took, needing as she did, to feel and to know.

To be human.

It was a slow simmering in the blood, a lazy tightening of muscle, a flutter of pulse- hers and his.

So easy, he thought, so easy to sink into the warm and the soft. To be surrounded by her in the dark and let himself forget, for a moment, for an hour, all that lay before them.

Her arms slid around him, linking his waist as she shifted up on her toes to meet his mouth more truly. He tasted her lips and her tongue, and the promise of them. This could be his. And he wanted to believe it more than he'd ever believed anything.

Her lips moved on his, forming his name-once, then twice. A sudden spark flared, simmer to sizzle. The heat of it rippled over his skin, burned into his heart.

Behind them, the fire that had gone to embers flared up like a dozen torches.

He drew her back, but his hands still lingered on her cheeks. He could see the fire dance in her eyes.

"There's truth in that," he whispered. "But I don't know what it is."

"Neither do I. But I feel better for it.

Stronger." She looked toward the fire. "We're stronger together. That means something."

She stepped back. "I'm going to bring my things up here, and we'll work together and find out what it means."

"You think lying together is the answer?" "It may be, or may be one of them. But I'm not ready to lie with you yet. My body is,"

she admitted. "But my mind isn't. When I give myself to someone, it's a commitment for me. A big one. Both of us have committed quite a bit already. We'll both have to be sure we're ready to give more."

"Then what was this?"

"Contact," she said quietly. "Comfort."

She reached a hand for his. "Connection. We're going to make magic together, Hoyt, serious magic. That's as intimate to me as s.e.x. I'm going to get what I need, bring it up."

Women, he thought, were powerful and mystical creatures even without witchcraft. Add that dose of power and a man was at a serious sort of disadvantage.

Wasn't her scent still wrapped around him, and the taste of her still on his lips?

Women's weapons, he decided. Just as slipping away was a kind of weapon.

He'd do well to arm himself against that sort of thing.

She intended to work here in his tower, alongside him. There was good, strong sense in that. But how was a man supposed to work when his thoughts kept drifting to a woman's mouth, or her skin, her hair, her voice? Perhaps he'd be wise to make use of a barrier, at least temporarily. He moved to his worktable and prepared to do just that.

"Your potions and spells will have to wait," Cian said from the doorway. "And so will romance."

"I don't follow your meaning." Hoyt continued to work.

"I pa.s.sed Glenna on the stairs. I know when a woman's had a man's hands on her. I could smell you on her. Not that I blame you,"

Cian added lazily as he strolled into and around the room. "That's a very s.e.xy witch you have there. Desirable," he added at his brother's stony look. "Alluring. Bed her if you like, but later."

"Who I bed, and when, is nothing to you."