The steady rock and hum of the Land Rover soothed Bronwyn and her tears dried. The retriever kept his head on her lap, big brown eyes assuring her he was there, and she was fine. Maeve and Niamh, pressed against either side of her, provided back up comfort.
“How did you find me?” She almost hadn’t believed her own eyes when Roderick had appeared behind Rhiannon.
“Ratty.” Niamh looked sad. “Before that bitch killed him, I was able to get enough details from his mind to guide us.”
“And Edana and Fiona weren’t that good at hiding their tracks.” Maeve snorted and scowled at the back of Roderick’s head. “That Edana was always trouble. I don’t know how she managed to convince people she wasn’t.”
Roderick shifted and cleared his throat.
“Some people.” Maeve raised her voice. “Thought rather too much of her.”
Roderick glanced over his shoulder. “Give it a rest, Maeve. I can’t undo the past.”
Maeve snorted and rolled her eyes.
Eyes alight, Niamh looked from Roderick to Maeve, and then winked at Bronwyn. “What—”
Alexander groaned and opened his eyes. He blinked at the Landy’s roof before his eyes tracked left and found her. “Bronwyn?”
“Yes.” The terrible blank look had gone from his eyes, but the memory of how strong he was, how effortlessly he’d overpowered her might take time to fade.
He groaned and flopped to his back. “Where am I?”
“At my mercy.” Roderick scowled down at him. “And I’d like nothing more than to end your suffering.”
“Roderick?” Alexander blinked at him and then at Niamh and Maeve. He looked at the retriever and said, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
“He’s clearly addled.” Roderick looked at Sinead. “I should end him.”
“I feel your pain, big guy.” Sinead gave him a sympathetic grimace. “But ending people is not really our thing, right?”
Roderick grunted and scowled at Alexander. “This is the only warning you get.”
“We were rescued,” Bronwyn said. “Rhiannon—” The words to tell him what had happened dried on her tongue, and she stared down at the retriever.
Niamh curled her lip up at Alexander. “You tried to rape Bronwyn.”
Paling, Alexander’s gaze flew to Bronwyn. “Please tell me that’s not true.”
“You tried, but you didn’t…” She shook her head. Tears threatened beneath her eyelids.
The retriever whined and pressed closer to her legs.
Bronwyn sank her face into the dog’s nape. Musty dog smell gave her an anchor.
“Bronwyn, sweetheart.” Alexander sounded pained. “Please look at me.”
“Are you making demands?” Roderick’s voice had gone deadly soft. “You don’t speak to her, and you don’t look at her. You don’t even fucking breathe in her direction.”
Alexander shifted. “Understood.”
Bronwyn could feel his gaze on her, but she couldn’t meet it. Since the moment she’d met him, she’d pinged from one emotion to the other. She couldn’t deal right now. All she wanted was her bed in Baile and space and time to make sense of all that had happened.
“Rhiannon made him do it,” she said.
“Sweetheart.” Alexander’s voice was unbearably gentle. “You don’t need to make excuses for me. Roderick knows only too well the depth and breadth of my sins.”
Surrounding traffic provided a bass hum to the silent vehicle interior. The wheels of the Landy swished over the damp road.
Bronwyn sat up and leaned her head against the side of the Landy. “Can you sense her?”
“No.” Alexander eased up and leaned his back against the front seats. “But she’s still alive.”
Roderick grunted.
“You should have left me there,” Alexander said. “She’ll come after me.”
Grunting, Roderick said, “Finally something on which we agree.”
“She wants both of us.” Bronwyn braved looking at him.
He didn’t look so threatening now. Pale, with dark rings beneath his eyes, he looked exhausted. His elbows rested on his raised knees and an air of defeat hung around him.
“And in this you’re as much a victim as I am.”
“Only a healer could think that.” He gave a humorless huff of laughter.
They rode in silence, and Bronwyn let the motion of the vehicle lull her. She had lost track of time when Sinead glanced over her shoulder. “We’re almost at Baile.”
“What should we do with him?” Roderick looked at her.
She didn’t know. Alexander didn’t belong in Baile but leaving him outside the castle was like handing him to Rhiannon on a platter.
“Bronw—” Alexander’s back bowed, and his face contorted in agony.
“It’s the wards.” Maeve dropped to her knees beside Alexander. “He can’t cross them.”
“He says he can.” Roderick leaned over the seat and grabbed his shoulders. “But we’re not crossing the wards now.”
“It’s her.” Bronwyn scrambled into the well beside Alexander. “Is it her?”
Face a rictus of pain, Alexander nodded. He clawed at his chest, gasping for breath.
“She’s killing him.” Bronwyn had never felt more helpless. Her pathetic healing hands were almost useless, but she put them on him anyway.
Beneath her palm, his chest labored, and his heart beat erratically.
“Hurry!” Maeve shouted. “Get him into Baile. Rhiannon’s magic cannot reach him there.”
Blood bubbled out of Alexander’s mouth. He coughed, and fresh blood poured down his chin.
“What should I do?” Desperately, Bronwyn turned to Roderick and then Maeve. “I’m a healer. I can help him.”
Roderick frowned and glanced at Maeve. “Goddess Pool.”
Maeve gasped. “That might kill him.”
“It’s all he has.” Roderick looked grim. “It might not. Either way we’ll know for sure what’s in his heart.”
Convulsing, Alexander jacked his knees to his chest, his mouth open in a silent scream of pain it was unbearable not to hear.
“Go faster.” Roderick urged Sinead. “Get behind the wards.”
The Landy’s engine screamed as they hurtled around corners. Bronwyn slammed into the side. Niamh wrapped her arms around the dog and held on to him.
Dust and sand sprayed as the tires hit the side of the road. The Landy rocked on its axle and recovered.
And then it all stopped as the wards brushed Bronwyn’s skin.
Alexander slumped on the floor.
She scrambled to his side. He had no heartbeat. Her ear next to his mouth gave her no breath sounds.
“No.” She refused to give up. She had lost so many people in her life, too many. If she was this powerful healer, then it had to count for something now when she needed it most.
Roderick was out before the Landy had fully stopped. He hauled Alexander’s limp body over his shoulder.
Bronwyn stayed right behind them, taking the stairs to the caverns three at a time.
Alexander’s head lolled from side to side over Roderick’s back, but there was no time for gentleness.
Goddess Pool was pale, milky lavender.
Crashing into it, Roderick dropped Alexander in the water.
Sloshing in after them, Bronwyn reached for Alexander and held him suspended in the water. “How do I do this?” She looked at Roderick. He had to have the answer. “How do I heal him?”
“I don’t know.” Roderick shrugged and touched his fore and middle fingers to her breastbone. “Listen to what your power tells you.”
“Trust your instinct,” Deidre whispered.
How long had Alexander been without air? He didn’t have time for her to work this out. “Goddess!” Her voice rang through the caverns. “Wherever you are. If you’re even there. I need you.”
Roderick’s harsh breathing, or maybe it was hers broke the silence.
Niamh and Maeve stood by the side of the pool, arms around each other. Mags ran in with Sinead and Alannah behind her.
“Your magic,” Maeve shouted. “Reach for it.”
Bronwyn yanked for her magic. Honey and sage filled the air. “Please, Goddess. I need to save him.”
Alexander’s hair floated like seaweed around his head.
“Child.” So soft she nearly missed it
“Mother.” Bronwyn reached for the voice. Words she had never known popped into her head. “Mother, in water I come to you, in water I serve you, in water bind me to you.”
Light flared beneath the pool, lavender darkening into purple and finally changing into cobalt blue so pure it almost hurt to look at it. “Blessed, you are mine. You are of me and I am of you.”
Blue light surrounded her, sliding through her and around her, holding her in its nascent power. It burst through her pores razor sharp and pure, and Bronwyn screamed. Blue light surged out from the pool in blinding glory, swallowing Roderick and then Maeve and Niamh. It reached Mags, and she smiled as it enveloped her and went on to surround Alannah and Sinead.
“In water are you born, child, and water is born through you.”
A chime rang through the caverns, so clear it hurt the ears.
Honey and sage swelled to her command and Bronwyn gathered it and pushed it into Alexander. It surged through his veins to his still and broken heart. Bronwyn pulled water and the power galloped through her, almost too strong to control.
“Hold it.” Roderick’s voice reached her as if from down a long tunnel. “The power of water is yours to control and channel, don’t let it take you over.”
It was hers. It responded to her touch. Bronwyn ripped the dark, roiling manacles away from Alexander’s heart. They surged into her and through her and shriveled and died as she shoved them into Goddess Pool.
Then she eased up and used gentle, precision arrows of her gift to knit the broken flesh together, to repair the torn arteries and clear the spilled blood from Alexander’s heart chambers.
His heart contracted and grew dark red with fresh, healing blood.
Alexander’s heart beat. Once, twice, and then fell into a rhythm. His lungs filled with air and he took a breath.
“Let it go.” Roderick cupped her elbow.
Bronwyn’s knees buckled as she let the power rush away from her.
Roderick supported her as she almost collapsed and sank beneath the sparkling blue water.
“Look.” Maeve stared at the cavern walls in wonder. “Water lives.”
All around the caverns, blue crystals flickered into life and glowed. There were large dark areas on the cavern walls where crystals still lay dormant but for today, they could celebrate the waking of water. One of the four elements was alive.
Along with Rhiannon’s son.
Alexander had dragged himself to the side of the pool and lay on his back looking at the crystals. He turned to look at her and smiled. “Little water witch. You did it.” He wheezed a chuckle. “Mummy dearest is going to be so pissed off.”