They’d decided to take the conversation downstairs to the living room, and while they waited for Fiona to return from gathering supplies for a cut on Brady’s foot, Kaida sat sideways on the couch, nestled between his thighs.
He hadn’t let go of her for more than three seconds since she’d woken up, and she had to admit she was grateful. Terror still had its claws in deep, and being held at least gave her a semblance of safety. Her back to his front, she burrowed into his warmth while the strong arms banding her torso clenched.
Something epic had gone down while she’d been asleep. And not just her dream. The Meath brothers no longer appeared put-out to be around her sisters. The tension in their frames seemed more out of concern and shock than fear or abhorrence. A switch had been flipped or a lock released because she got the impression they’d finally accepted the truth. Or their part in destiny.
From a chair, Ceara followed Tristan with her gaze over the rim of a teacup as he rose from the other couch and moved to sit on the table in front of Kaida and Brady. “What are you doing?”
“She’s got bruises.” Tristan’s worried gaze ran over Kaida as he gently lifted her arm. His fingers skimmed across her bare upper arms, where reddened marks were beginning to discolor. “How did you get these?”
“They’re from me,” Brady said through clenched teeth and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right.” She looked at Tristan. “He was trying to hold onto me in the dream.”
His gaze softened in understanding. “And these?” He brushed his knuckles over her throat, then quickly set his hands on his knees like he assumed touching her might be upsetting or he had overstepped.
She wondered if he realized how much he’d revealed in that one simple act.
Before she could respond, Brady quickly shifted and glared over her shoulder at her neck. Finger under her chin, he tilted her head to get a better look. The longer he stared, the heavier his respirations grew until his nostrils flared and he growled.
“He hurt you?” Vengeance infused his mossy eyes. “The man in the dream, the one in the bathroom. He was real? I’ll kill him.”
Fiona strode in, saving Kaida from trying to formulate a proper response. She had no more insight to what the heck was going on than him. Plus, she hadn’t a clue what to do with the fierce warrior side of him. Just like in the clearing the other night, his quiet intellectual self took a backseat to his protection mode.
Tristan returned to his seat beside an unusually silent Riley while Fiona lifted Brady’s leg, sat down, and set his foot in her lap. He had a scrape roughly the size of a quarter on his sole he’d apparently gotten running through the woods after he’d awoken. Or so Kaida had been told.
“I don’t even remember injuring it.”
“It doesn’t look too bad.” Fiona used tweezers to remove small bits of debris. “Got some pine needles in here. I’ll getcha fixed up in no time.”
Brady sighed. “If it’s anything like that stuff Mara put on my knuckles, you won’t need to bandage my foot.”
“Healing’s my specialty.” Eyes on her task, Fiona smiled.
“Speaking of, where’s Mara?” Riley rubbed the back of his neck. “Shouldn’t she be here?”
Ceara set her tea aside. “Eostara is tomorrow, a holiday for us. She wanted to give us time to bond with Kaida, so she’s with her coven on the mainland.”
“Coven,” Riley muttered through a laugh. “I’m trying to figure out when my life flipped upside down to include words like coven in casual conversation.”
“What do you mean by specialty?” Tristan frowned at Fiona as if his brother hadn’t spoken. “You said healing was your specialty.”
“Yes.” Fiona nodded while disinfecting Brady’s foot. “Besides wielding their element, all true witches have premonitions and some have extra gifts. Mine is healing. Typically, it’s through potions, but if I focus hard enough, I can do it with my hands.” She applied ointment to Brady’s sole. “Ceara can sense and manipulate feelings.”
All three men whipped their attention to the woman in question.
“I don’t abuse the gift,” Ceara said defensively. “If I do use it at all, it’s to sooth pain or help guide someone in the right direction. Only if they seem emotionally open to it and only in times of great need. And no, I’ve never gotten inside any of your heads or tricked you in any way. I would never invade your privacy like that.”
“Exactly.” Fiona bandaged Brady’s foot and gave it a pat, then she moved to claim a vacant chair. “And Kaida’s gift is astral-projection.”
Heart puttering, Kaida jerked her focus to her sisters.
“Say what?” Brady smoothed her hair as if sensing her turbulent mood. “Is that an actual thing?”
Ceara nodded. “Yes, it is. Essentially, the physical body remains in a stasis while the spiritual self travels. They can’t go into the past or future, only the present, but they can pretty much drift wherever. Have you ever seen the meadow by the cliffs in person? Been there outside of dreams?”
“No,” he said absently, scratching his jaw. “I’ve got aerial shots in my office taken years ago for zoning purposes and I know the general layout, but I’ve not seen it in the flesh.”
“And in your dream world, was the cemetery or cottage present?”
Kaida stilled. “Huh. No, not in our shared dreams. The night before I boarded the ferry, both were there when Celeste appeared to me. If that was her, anyway. But when it’s just me and Brady, there’s nothing but the meadow.”
Fiona and Ceara exchanged an ah-ha look before Ceara leaned forward. “These merged dreams you both experienced didn’t make sense until now. You were, in fact, astral-projecting. Brady had no awareness of the cemetery or cottage, thus he went off what he assumed the area looked like. It started the day something significant happened to him, and he probably had us in mind as he fell asleep, which put him in the meadow.”
“Yep.” Fiona snatched a blanket from the arm of her chair and set it across her lap. “Aunt Mara and Mama’s spell on Kaida was intended to figuratively draw her to the island one day. Like, on an instinctual level. In this case, it happened literally. Because she already had the gift, she was able to project into your dreams.”
“Mind blown.” Riley dropped his head to the back of the couch, gaze on the ceiling. “This is like a Syfy Channel movie of the week. Thanks for not picking Sharknado, by the way.”
Normally, Kaida appreciated Riley’s use of humor in place of fear, but she was having a difficult time grasping all the crazy. “I didn’t come into my powers until I was a teenager. There’s no way I could’ve done that. Even if I had any control over...projecting, I don’t know how.”
“The ability has been inside you since birth,” Ceara said calmly like she was trying to diffuse Kaida. “The spell must’ve opened your capacity to activate the gift. The right place at the right time. Once that connection was made with Brady, you were able to keep doing it, completely unaware.”
“This also explains why you felt a numbing sensation when you touched in dreams. Because you weren’t physically there.” Fiona flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder. “Astral-projection takes years and innate skill to learn. It’s a very rare gift, one you taught yourself over the course of time. Somehow, you even mastered how to take corporeal form. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. Honestly, I’m in awe.”
“And that’s why you woke up with bruises. Brady was holding onto you and along for the ride. The blinking in and out he claimed to see was, no doubt, your energy depleting.” Ceara let out a quivering breath. “This is incredibly dangerous. The farther away your spirit is from your body, the harder it is to get back. Plus, you can take material shape. Meaning, if something happens to you while projecting, it’s permanent. If Brady hadn’t been there and come to us, you might’ve been lost forever.”
“Damn it.” He banded his arms tighter, burying his face in Kaida’s hair. “I knew it. I just knew something wasn’t right. All my instincts were shouting at me to not let go.”
Chest restricting, sinuses stinging, Kaida reached back and clutched his straining biceps, unable to speak. He’d saved her. Without knowing it, he’d saved her. Had cared and was worried enough that he’d come here, to her sisters, for help. To an unfamiliar place and to people he didn’t necessarily trust, all because he’d followed intuition.
“They were good instincts.” Fiona offered a reassuring smile. “You’d do wise to listen to them. For her and for yourself.”
“We have to stop her from projecting.” Brady cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, the roughness was gone from his voice. “Is there anything you can do to block her from doing it again? What if I’m not with her? She could—”
“Yes. I can help.” Ceara held his gaze a beat, her features composed like she was trying to instill the same peace on him. “I’ll work on it first thing tomorrow.”
“That being said,” Tristan ran a hand through his hair, eyes on Kaida, “what happened in your dream after Brady left? I assume by the marks on your neck the man was real. Did you recognize him?”
“No, I’ve never seen him before, but he seemed to know me.” She shivered at the memory. “He pushed me up against the wall and held me by the throat. I tried to get away and couldn’t.”
Fury lit his eyes. “Did he say anything?”
“Yes, his exact words were, I’ve been waiting a long time for this day of reckoning. I’m going to end you three witches and the heathens who aid you.” She sighed. “Then he quoted Exodus 22:18. You shall not permit a sorceress to live.”
“Interesting.” Fiona frowned. “That’s some pretty outdated verbiage he used. And he knew you guys were onboard helping us. Anything else?”
“He spoke a word in another language I didn’t understand. Something about the brethren of whatever raining fire to smite sinners.”
“Venatores,” Ceara whispered, clearly shaken. “Latin for hunters. Our family grimoire makes mention of them, but they’ve always left the Galloways alone. Mara doesn’t know much about them, either. Just stories passed down and rumors.”
Tristan straightened. “I need a cell phone or laptop. We left the house in a rush and I don’t have mine with me. Can I use one of yours?”
“Sure, if you promise not to call Tokyo.” Fiona rose and left the room, returning moments later and passing Tristan her cell.
His thumbs flew over the keypad. Rising, he walked over to Kaida and showed her the screen. “Is this the guy you saw tonight?”
A handsome gentleman with light brown hair interspersed with gray stared back at her. Fan lines spread from the corners of his green eyes and unsmiling mouth while deep grooves marred his forehead. “No, the man I encountered was ten or fifteen years older. In his sixties, perhaps. He was heavier and his hair was white. It fell to his shoulders.”
Brady and Tristan exchanged a cryptic look Kaida couldn’t decipher, then Tristan handed the phone back to Fiona, reclaiming his seat. “That was a shot of our uncle from our corporation’s website. The picture is five years old, but he couldn’t have changed that much.”
“What made you think it was him?” Riley asked.
“Remember all that training he made us do? Karate, hand-to-hand combat, defensive moves?” Tristan looked at Kaida, then each of her sisters. “You said in the clearing that the Meaths were the original hunters. From the age of ten until we turned seventeen, our uncle had us do these exercises. Like he was preparing us for something. An hour every day, at least. Sometimes two or all day. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, just followed orders, but it seems weird looking back on it.”
Brady set his chin on the top of Kaida’s head. “They stopped suddenly, too, as if he thought we were a...lost cause.”
Tristan’s gaze met hers. “Was there anything else you can recall about the man tonight?”
She went to shake her head, but then something flickered to mind. “He had a tattoo on his left pec, over his heart. It was about three inches long.” She straightened, making Brady shift his hand to her hip. “I need something to draw on.”
Ceara stood and went to a shelf, bringing back a pad of paper and pen.
Kaida spoke as she sketched. “The upper half resembled a cross, the old Orthodox or Celtic kind. It had the tell-tale intricate design over the top part and the two crossbars. The bottom node was more like a blade, though. Or a dagger. It was too short to be a sword. The sides were straight, had clean edges, but the point had a slight jaggedness at the tip.” She turned the pad around for the others to see.
Ceara paled. “That’s the Venatores symbol in our grimoire.”
“Color me stupid, but what’s a grimoire?” Riley asked. “Twice you’ve mentioned it.”
“A book of spells,” Kaida and Brady said at the same time.
“We don’t have much intel on the Brethren of Venatores,” Fiona added. “About fifty years after Celeste was burned, that symbol and the name began spouting in covens and circles. There are nine original bloodlines of the craft. They’re pretty diluted now, but a lot of the family members with genuine magick have been murdered by the organization. They leave a calling card by engraving that mark on the arm of those they kill. Rumor has it they are very selective in who they let join.”
She sighed. “If there’s any truth to it, legend says there’s a blade that looks just like that, and if a witch is slain with it, it takes her powers. Forever. In other words, no descendents can inherit her gift.”
“Magick genocide.” Lord, Kaida’s stomach rolled. “Which Meath formed the group? Finn?”
“Doubtful.” Brady shifted on the couch and faced forward. Taking her hand, he linked his fingers with hers. “According to accounts, Finn didn’t back Minister Meath in his fanatical quest. Though he never got over Celeste, Finn did marry and bore two children. Boys, of course. My guess is a cousin or close family member continued where the Minister left off.”
Riley shook his head. “If the Venatores are an actual faction, why would they leave the Galloways alone? They hated you most of all.”
“Because of the curse.” Ceara stared at the table, her voice hollow. “Our families have been forever tied since that day. Eliminate the Galloway line, and it all but eliminates the Meaths, too.”
“That’s putting a lot of faith in one woman and one spell,” Riley argued. “You’re assuming they believed her.”
Slowly, she looked at Riley, and even Kaida felt the chill from the icy glare across the room. “They believed in her power enough to drag her from her home in the middle of the night, away from her newborn baby, strap her to a post, and set her on fire. They believed enough to start an entire organization for the sole purpose of eradicating others of her kind. One that, three centuries later, is still in existence.”
They stared at one another as silence hung until, finally, Riley sighed. Shoulders sagging, he dipped his chin in supplication. “Touché. I apologize.”
A swallow, and Tristan glanced at his brothers, then focused on Ceara. “What they did to her, my family, it was wrong. Let me go on record to say we’re not them. Riley, Brady, and I had no knowledge of this organization, and even if we had, we’d want no part in it.”
Ceara studied him. “I believe you.”
“Which is why you’re here in our home, having this conversation.” Fiona nodded. “Curse or no curse, we let you in. Both sides took the initial step. Now it’s up to us, all of us, to blow three-hundred years of hate into oblivion.”
Eyes burning with unshed tears, Kaida turned her head toward Brady, only to find his affectionate gaze already watching her. Dark stubble covered his jaw as his lips curved in a secretive smile. The mossy green eyes behind his glasses held tenderness and radiated trust.
Warmth filled the cold corners inside her the longer they locked gazes. In all her life, no one had ever looked at her the way he did. Like he not only knew her, every hidden part and guarded emotion, but as if she...mattered.
“Look what you did,” he whispered, his face close to hers. “And all because you found me in a meadow by the cliffs.”
“No, not me.” Forgetting everything else, she pressed a quick kiss to his lips and eased away. “A world of our making.”
When he drew a breath, she faced the group again. Four sets of eyes were trained on her and Brady. His brothers looked at him with respect and a severe degree of awe, while her sisters stared in wonder with a slight jealousy chaser.
If Kaida didn’t know any better, she would’ve sworn not a one of them knew what having a connection or being in a trusting relationship felt like. Then again, sadly, maybe they didn’t, judging by the stunned silence. Fiona and Ceara were very close, as the Meath brothers seemed to be with each other. But what about friends? Lovers?
Kaida had, of course, dated other men. A few even had the potential to be serious until she’d broken it off and had walked away for whatever reason. She didn’t know what category to lump her and Brady in just yet, and their circumstances were very different than anything she’d experienced, but if she were being honest, she hadn’t had a good support system. Her family had been emotionally distant and friends were a commodity never afforded.
Still, as she met the gazes of those in the room, it appeared they had no concept of romantic trust. Not even a flicker of recognition. Perhaps she wasn’t such an outsider, after all. If not for Brady, she wouldn’t begin to know how to detect it, either.
Tristan cleared his throat and straightened as if just realizing something. “Do any of you girls have self-defense training?”
They shook their heads, but Fiona was the one to respond.
“We’re not exactly helpless damsels in need of a knight in shining armor.” To prove it, she wiggled her fingers and a brisk wind whirled through the room, disrupting papers and making chaos of Riley and Tristan’s hair.
“Hilarious, Fi.” Scowling, Riley reshuffled his strands. “I might get used to your powers by the time I’m ninety.”
“I know you’re not helpless,” Tristan said as if nothing had happened. “Nor did I imply you were. But Kaida was pinned against a wall with a hand around her throat. The man who attacked her tonight essentially announced he was coming after all of us. You can bet he has fighting expertise if he’s part of this brethren organization, and magick won’t save you in all instances of attack. We don’t even know how many of them there are.”
“What are you suggesting?” A wrinkle formed between Ceara’s brows. “We start preparing for battle or something?”
“Yeah, actually. I say we train.” Tristan dug his fingers into his eye sockets before refocusing on her. “I can teach the three of you some moves. It won’t hurt for me and my brothers to brush up, too. It’s been awhile since we’ve utilized the skills we learned.”
“It’s not a bad idea.” Fiona tapped her lips as if mulling theories. “Protection and counter magick on our end. Physical readiness on theirs. Combine our resources. We should be prepared for anything.”
“Sure, why not?” Riley rolled his head to stretch his neck. “Fellowship of the ring and all that. I refuse to be the dwarf in this scenario, though. When do we start?”