Alexander was so much bigger than her physically that Bronwyn couldn’t wrap herself around enough of him to be of any use to him. He’d retreated into that cold-eyed automaton again, and she couldn’t reach him.
Truth was, she was scared to try in case Rhiannon came back in and took her anger out on him. So she obeyed her instinct and wrapped herself around him like a big spoon, her cheek pressed between his shoulder blades, and listened to the steady beat of his heart.
Six days locked in this room together, and there were moments she could pretend they weren’t prisoners. Times spent lying side by side and talking, talking about everything and nothing, clinging to each other for sanity. Alexander stayed away from the huge, looming questions between them, and she let him, because she couldn’t deal with his possible answers yet.
Fuck, but she’d thought Rhiannon had killed him with her last attack. After stomping the rat into a bloody smear, she’d turned her anger on Alexander. Rhiannon had kept at him for so long that Bronwyn had screamed for mercy, but Rhiannon had only stopped when Alexander was passed out in a pool of his own blood on the floor.
Bronwyn had done her best to wipe away the dried blood around his eyes, ears, nose and mouth and had struggled with his dead weight until she got him on the bed.
Before Rhiannon had left them alone, she’d warned Bronwyn that any contact with Baile would result in swift retribution. Not to her, no because Rhiannon had all these plans for her, but Alexander. The crazy fucking bitch must have some plan to get her pregnant and keep her here until she had the baby, some next level Handmaid’s Tale shit that Bronwyn veered away from thinking too long and hard about.
By the steady, slow draw of Alexander’s breath, she guessed he was sleeping. Sleeping was good. Sleep healed.
She pressed her ear to his back. His heartbeat, slow but steady bwa-dum, bwa-dum, bwa-dum became the measure of time. She clung to the soft suck and blow of his lungs moving air in and out, in and out, as her ward against her fear.
If she’d done as Maeve had suggested and taken her pact with Goddess, she might have been able to help him. To take her magic and slip it beneath his skin and find the source of pain. She could even try to break the manacles Rhiannon has fastened about his heart. Fear had kept her passive, but now a greater fear might cost Alexander’s life.
No closer to understanding the insane connection between them, and not wanting to name the tight bundle of feelings she kept tucked deep inside, she took and gave what physical comfort she could.
The light beneath their door blinked out, and the deep black of night shrouded them.
Bwa-dum, inhale, bwa-dum, exhale—the soundtrack to her life, proof that he was alive, proof that she was alive and not alone. She and Alexander were fundamentally intertwined, and she would not, could not, let him die.
His breath hitched on a soft sound, and she froze and waited.
“Little witch?” So soft she barely heard him.
She gently tightened her hold around his middle. “I’m here.”
“I’m glad.”
A door slammed in the cottage, and he tensed. Footsteps moved away from them, and the door slammed again. More footsteps approached the window from the outside, clip-clopping on the paving stones, and then a car started up and drove off.
Tension drained from Alexander. “She’s gone.”
“Are you sure?” Bronwyn kept her whisper as soft as she could. Six days since Rhiannon had brought them there, and she’d never left once. Sometimes Edana brought their meals, and at others Fiona, but they could always sense Rhiannon like a dark, stinking cloud in the cottage.
“I can feel her moving away.” Alexander lifted her hand from around his middle and pressed it to his chest. “The tether she placed on me is like the bond Roderick and Maeve share, but her twisted version of that.”
Maeve and Roderick could think and feel like one person. “Does she know when you speak to me?”
“She can sense my attention on you.” His breath caught as he shifted position. “But that’s what she wants, so it doesn’t bother her. Right now, she’s not concentrating on me.”
“Good.” Bronwyn pressed closer to his back, using the most elemental of human comfort. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
But she knew he was lying.
“We need to talk,” he said. “And we might not have this chance again.” His muscles eased, and some of the tension drained out of him. There was so much about being here like this with Alexander that made sense to her. It sounded corny saying it to herself, but it was like they were meant to be.
“Dee.” She reached deep inside for her connection to her grandmother. “I think maybe I love him.”
Tree branches tapped against the window, and for a moment, she swore Deidre’s whisper rode the wind. Trust your instinct.
“Bronwyn.” Alexander raised her hand and kissed it. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“All of it.” He interlaced their fingers. “For being who I am, for not being honest with you upfront.” He took a deep breath. “And mostly because whatever there is between us will always be tainted by what is happening around us.”
“Yeah.” She couldn’t know if she loved him or not because of that stupid prophecy, and she didn’t know if she could trust him because of stuff that had happened hundreds of years before her birth.
He tensed and then stilled.
Bronwyn froze.
The faint stink of blood magic seeped out of him. After a few minutes he relaxed again. “She checked in with me.”
“And?”
“Saw my blank mind.”
Maybe a wiser woman would get as far away from him as the room allowed, but his heart beating in time with hers comforted her. “How does she do that thing where she hurts you.”
“The tether.” His grip on her hands tightened. “She tightens it around my heart.”
“Is there a way to get it off you.”
He shrugged. “Don’t think about that. Let’s concentrate on getting you out of here.”
But she did think about it and would continue to think about it until she had an answer. “Do you know how long she’ll be away?”
“No.”
From a distance, perhaps Rhiannon wasn’t as aware of magic being done. Bronwyn spread her hands over his torso and reached for the healing warmth.
He covered her hands with his. “Be careful. She can still sense the magic being used.”
“Then you let me know when she tunes in and I’ll stop.” Painfully slowly, she let the healing warmth spread through his chest. “Any better?”
“Thank you. Don’t spend your strength on me.” He sighed. “I’ve been alive a long time, Bronwyn, and for most of those years I’ve done things I can’t bear to even think about. I’m reaping as I sowed.”
“Bullshit!” She’d take a lot from him, but that kind of defeatist crap wasn’t going to happen. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Little witch.” He half turned his head to look over his shoulder at her. “She’ll know the minute I leave here. It’s why she doesn’t care about leaving us alone. And she has people watching.”
“All we need is one lapse.” She sat up. This conversation was too vital to have lying down.
“She’s not big on lapses.” He rolled to his back, stilled and raised his hand. He relaxed.
Bronwyn wrinkled her nose at the faint smell of blood magic. “She checked in again?”
He nodded.
“But she does make mistakes.” Bronwyn would be damned before she gave up and withered. “Putting us together, that’s a mistake. Thinking this connection between us is only about that prophecy, another mistake.”
He rolled over and stared into her eyes. “Is it about more than the prophecy?”
“I think so.” In this room, there was no room for saving pride. Here they were both stripped raw. “I’m not sure. All I know is I feel it all the time, and I can’t be without you.”
“Sweetheart.” He touched her cheek. “You must leave here without me. I can’t leave with you.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Bronwyn.” His expression softened. “I need you to be safe. If I can accomplish only that in my long and misbegotten life, I can be at peace.” He kissed her forehead. “My little witch. You are so much more important than that fucking prophecy.”
“I’m not leaving without you.” Talking about it made it feel too real, and she was barely hanging on to her sanity as it was.
Alexander struggled into a seated position and took her hand. “Don’t be naive, Bronwyn. Neither of us can afford that. Since the day the coven chucked her out, she’s been obsessed with defeating it and taking over from Goddess. You’re her ticket to wonderland.”
“I know that.” The walls crept closer, and the air grew thinner. “She locked us in together for a reason.”
He cleared his throat and looked pained. “She wants you pregnant with my baby, and all the options for getting you that way scare the crap out of me. And they should scare the crap out of you.”
“I can’t think about this or I’ll lose it.” Not able to stay still, Bronwyn stood and paced the room.
Alexander watched her. “You need to think about how she plans to get her way, because she will get her way. The only reason she had a son was because of that prophecy. That prophecy is her one shot at the power she’s been craving for thousands of years.”
“So she created you for me to fall for?” As evil plans went, and if she were into the hatching of them, this one wasn’t bad. Except for a few pertinent details. “Did she have a contingency in case I didn’t even like you?”
A trace of his charming self crossed his face in a grin. “We didn’t think that likely.”
Despite everything, it felt really good to laugh. “Is that why you never…” Her face heated. “Why you never took things further with me?”
“Not for lack of wanting, but I couldn’t risk you falling pregnant.” He chuckled and then grimaced in pain. “I would never do that to any woman without her knowing the risk.” His expression gentled. “Least of all you.”
To get a woman pregnant without her knowledge or consent was too horrible to contemplate. “So, what happens now that the first part of her plan has failed?”
“You’re living it.” He gestured the room.
“And this is supposed to make me get it on with you?” She couldn’t afford not to think about the scary parts of being imprisoned with Alexander. Maybe due to circumstance, but the implications of what he was telling her were slow to sink in. “And if I don’t lie down like a good girl and allow myself to be impregnated?”
Alexander winced. “Now you know why you have to leave me here.” He took another Rhiannon check in break before leaning forward and taking Bronwyn’s hand. “This.” He indicated his chest. “Is partly to punish me for waking Maeve and Roderick and getting them to Baile.” He pulled a face. “But also so she has absolute control of me.” Turning her hand over, he pressed her palm to his cheek. “I’m a danger to you, sweetheart. She can make me do things I would never want to do.” His dark gaze held the burden of worlds. “That can’t happen.”
“When she has you under her control, it’s like the real you disappears and this robot takes over.” Cold, dark terror crept up her spine.
“Her robot.” Alexander nodded. “She can make me do anything she wants me to do, and I won’t even be aware of what I’m doing until it’s too late.”
They were silent for a long time. Bronwyn stared out the window. Like the last time she’d checked, the window was still barred and locked. The door was as well.
She couldn’t process the ramifications of all Alexander had told her, so she concentrated on the other part of what he’d said. “You said I’m more important than that.”
Hand raised, he let Rhiannon check in before he spoke again. “When you get out of here, I can cover for you for a while. But I can’t tell how long, and you need to get to Baile as soon as you can. You need to call a coven sister and let them send Roderick to meet you. He’ll get you there or die trying.”
In Alexander’s version of how the future looked, a lot of people would be dying to see her safe. “I’m only one witch. I can’t be that important.”
“Over and above the prophecy, you’re a water witch,” he said. “Which is why you’re here. You need to take your vow and activate the water cardinal point. Roderick and Maeve know that’s what has to happen, and I’m guessing were giving you time to get used to the idea. Free will is big with Goddess.” He gave a wry smile. “Free will is nonexistent with Rhiannon.
“I’m getting that loud and clear.” Regret piled on. “Maeve really wanted me to take my vow. I should have taken it”
“Yes, you should have.”
That was all very well to say now. “I wish I had.” But for more reasons than he believed. The idea of waking the water point paled in comparison to her need to get them both safely to Baile. If she’d taken her vow, she would have had access to so much more power now. Enough power to heal Alexander, maybe even enough power to destroy the tether Rhiannon had placed around his heart. Damn, but talk about your problem mothers. Alexander didn’t look open to the discussion, so she settled for saying, “I’m not leaving here alone. You’re coming with me, and we’re both getting to Baile.”
He gave her an enigmatic smile. “We’ll see.”
There he sat, looking all Yoda-like and thinking he was as stubborn as her and would get his own way. Show always worked better than tell in any case, so she said, “Yes, we fucking will.”