Something About Witches (29 page)

“I try to follow Their guidance in all things, Derek. And though your power and grasp of Their Will is greater than mine, on this night, I believe my path to be the correct one. I hope you will forgive me, if forgiveness is needed. Tonight I am ceding my position to another more appropriate for this Great Rite. She will await you in the circle.”

Derek swallowed. “She was leaving.”

“No. She merely thought you wanted her to leave.”

“I don’t.”

“Which is why she is still here.” A faint smile touched Linda’s lips.

On impulse, he held out his hand. When Linda took it, he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her. “Thank you,” he murmured.

“Oh.” Surprised, Linda gave a little laugh, then returned the hug in full measure. “I like you quite a bit, Derek Stormwind. And though Ruby worries me, she worries me in my heart. That means she’s good people. She needs you. She needs this. I think you both do.”

When he released her, she took
a seat in one of the chairs in the small sitting room, gestured him to do the same. “We have some time. Would you indulge me a question?”

“Linda, at this moment, you could probably ask me for anything.”

“Well, instant weight loss and a rapid metabolism that allows me to eat all the chocolate cake I want springs to mind, but I think it’s best you not reveal whether you have that power. You’d be mobbed by hordes of women.”

He grinned, enjoying her. “You’re soft in all the right places, Linda. I think you should give Sheriff Wassler a chance to find that out.”

“And now I know a secret’s not safe with Ruby. At least not from you.” She smiled again, though. “From the beginning, I sensed there might be something between you and Ruby. But when I saw you together, it was obvious. The two of you are…. timeless. That’s the word that’s stuck with me, so now I’m curious and nosy. Since we have a few minutes, and it might help you to get your mind in a different place, would you tell me about her, how you met?”

She was right. It would help. Now that he knew he’d be facing Ruby in that circle, he needed some time to adjust his thinking, be sure he was going there in the right frame of mind. Thinking how they started was probably a great way to do that.

“I met her when she was a little thing, five years old. I interacted with her mother on various matters, maybe three or four times a year, and after I met Ruby, I made sure that happened more often.”

He was used to leaning forward, splaying his knees and clasping his hands loosely between them, the pose more in keeping with his restless energy level. Despite the fact the Great Rite was done sky-clad, without clothes, he didn’t think it was good manners to flash Linda in the short robe. So he settled for rising and moving to the window, feeling better on his feet.

“That first visit, I conjured her a stuffed toy, a possum.
She smiled, this tiny expression, like a flower growing out of the crevice of a concrete sidewalk. Mary had another client there that day, and she said, right out, ‘Mary, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen her smile. How pretty she is.’ ” His expression darkened. “By the time I’d turned back around, Ruby had disappeared. She lived in Mary’s shadow, and that’s the way Mary liked it. The woman had as much business raising a child as a praying mantis. But I felt Ruby’s potential in that first meeting, and something else.”

He paused, deciding not to go there yet, wanting to give Linda a better order of things. “She almost never went to a regular school, was always schooled on the road as Mary was traveling.” His lips curved. “But when she was eleven, she got the chance to go for a couple months. During one of my visits, she told me about a boy she liked. Billy Morris.”

When Linda chuckled, Derek glanced at her. “What?”

“You remember his name.”

Derek gave a wry smile. “Yeah, I do. I kept track of my competition, even when he was twelve years old and could knock a softball out of the park. Oh, and he climbed trees as well. But he jumped right out of his tree when Ruby fell on the playground, helped her up, asked her if she was okay. And she was in love.”

Derek remembered how Ruby had told him about it. At first shy and hesitant, then more enthusiastically. When Mary had called out for her in that querulous voice that said she thought her daughter was getting too much attention, Ruby had cut herself off short. Derek recalled how she’d stopped at the door, looked back.

I don’t love him like I love you. But I do like him a lot. That’s okay, right?

“What did you say?”

Realizing he’d spoken aloud, he tuned back in to Linda. “I told her of course it was okay. And that if Billy didn’t keep treating her right, to let me know because I’d kick his ass. She almost giggled, but not quite.”

Derek turned to look at the priestess. “I know you’ve guessed I don’t have an age line like most humans, so it’s different for me, Linda. I didn’t have any inappropriate feelings for her at that time. She was a child, and I thought of her as a child, saw her as a child. But my heart knew. In this quiet, understated way, it knew. And the thing is in what she said, so serious, too serious for an eleven-year-old, I knew the same subconscious part of her knew as well.”

“Soul mates,” Linda murmured the words, weighting them with reverent amazement.

He sighed. “It changed when she turned twenty. For various reasons, I hadn’t been able to come see her for a couple years. At that time, it was the second longest stretch of time we’d been apart since we’d met. But at that point, it all just clicked. We were both aware of the change, but I didn’t act on it, didn’t push it. Those first couple years, I moved slow and cautious, because twenty is a time of a lot of changes, choices, and I never wanted to take anything away from her. Mary had done enough of that.”

The bite of it was in his voice, but he quelled it. Tonight wasn’t about that. “But she never…. the way she looks at me, her heart in her eyes, it’s that thing.
There you are. You’re it.
And I feel the same way when I look at her. Always have. Even when I first met her. In a very non-creepy way, I promise.”

Linda laughed, rose to lay her hand on his arm. “I get it. Nothing about you strikes me as the child molesting type.”

At twenty-two, Ruby had lost patience with his gallantry. She met him at the door, stepped right into him, went up on her toes, and put her mouth against his. Their very first real lovers’ kiss. He’d ended up taking it over, his arm banded around her waist, pushing her up against the doorframe, her toes practically off the ground. Everything he wanted to feel was in that kiss. When he finally lifted his head, she’d been breathless, flushed. A smile reached all the way into her eyes, made them shine. “Wow. That left Billy in the dust.”

He’d realized something earth-shattering then, long past the age when he’d expected such life-altering surprises. When she smiled like that, it was a reaction she had toward him alone. Trust, faith. Joy. It swept him with humility and eternal gratitude. He’d found someone who touched his soul. He was no longer isolated and alone.

Coming back to the present, he knew that was what he’d missed most these past several years. He was going to get it back, because life wasn’t worth going on without it.

“Better?” Linda asked.

He laid his hand over hers on his arm, squeezed. “Yeah. Better. Thanks.”

When she stepped back, the mantle of priestess dropped over her again, though her gaze remained warm. “It’s about time to go. The Lord and Lady wait. Best not to keep them. Come out when you’re ready.”

When she left him, Derek closed his eyes. The elemental energies were gathering, both Light and Dark. They knew what was happening here tonight and, as Linda had pointed out, best not to keep them waiting, either.

He left the cottage, a small bungalow in the woods near the main house, one a little more remote than the other guesthouses. After returning from his mountain, he’d materialized within it, spending the rest of his day there in meditation, gathering energy. It was why he hadn’t realized Ruby was still on the property. He’d simply assumed she was gone because he’d been such a bastard about it.

As he emerged, half of the coven was there to precede him down to the ritual site. When Jocelyn came forward, he bent to accommodate her as she placed the antlered crown on his head, symbolizing the Horned God. Since it had been blessed, the energy settled over him like a mantle. As above, so below. Like the Lord Himself, Derek knew there was just one essential component missing.

Her. The Goddess.

As he walked down the path to the circle, the coven
members scattered flower petals ahead of him, singing chants praising the Lord, asking for His power and strength as a hunter, as a protector, to safeguard the fault line. When they emerged from the woods, he saw a similar procession making its way from Ruby’s cottage. The petals they were scattering for her were shades of white, the color of the moon, whereas his were yellow, orange and red, the colors of the sun.

Linda and Christine waited at the North and South points of the circle. An altar had been set up in the center, a sturdy oak table with a wide blue cloth on it, the veil for the Goddess. He’d used a small bit of magic earlier in the day, after breakfast and before Mikhael, to move the heavy ritual object for the ladies. The metal of the wine chalice and jewels in the hilt of the athame blade caught the setting sunlight. The ritual flogger was spread out in a fan shape between them.

He’d given it all a cursory glance to make sure everything was in place, but then his gaze went back to Ruby. As he drew closer, he lingered on her hair, loose on her shoulders. The naturally streaked brown hair always reminded him of an animal’s soft pelt. Then there were her eyes, the gray-green color with a thick dark ring around the iris. The impossibly delicate jawline and small, pink mouth. The generous bosom and slim legs, the toned body that was stronger than it looked.

She’d never stopped being beautiful to him, but since they’d reunited, her beauty had been overshadowed by weariness, anger, lies, betrayal. Tonight, the coven had truly prepared her, inside and out. She was balanced, calm, that inner power radiating through a cleansed aura, however temporary that was. Divine power enhanced a woman’s beauty, but it also brought out what was already inside, since the Goddess was present in every female soul. He was looking not only at a vessel for the Goddess, but the woman he loved. He could sense the calm mixed with an accelerated
heartbeat, anticipation of what they would do tonight, drawing energy down into their bodies for the ritual’s purpose.

He held her gaze in his as she and her contingent approached the northern end of the circle, and he and his approached the south. As he stepped into the boundary, his group fanned out, taking their places, and Ruby’s mirrored them. When the circle closed around them, he obeyed instinct, dropped to one knee and bowed his head to her.

She humbled him by doing the same. Lifting the hem of her silken robe so she wouldn’t catch it beneath her bare knees, she pressed both of them into the ground, held herself there a moment before rising to her feet again. He helped her up, his fingers closing on her slim ones.

It was an effort to let her go, but Linda had initiated the calling of Quarters. As she reached the Fire point, two coven members came forward. He straightened his arms, allowing them to unbelt the robe and take it off his shoulders. Two coven members did the same to Ruby so they faced each other naked. Following the parameters of the ritual, they stepped forward, closing the distance until there was only a pace between them.

Jocelyn spread the oil over his shoulders then. The scent of jasmine, representing the Lady, came to his nostrils. Because it was associated with Artemis, as much warrior as woman, he had to press his lips against a smile. They couldn’t have picked a more appropriate flower to represent the woman before him. They were using a blending of sandalwood oil on Ruby, a scent associated with the Great Lord.

“As the Lord and Lady are marked to belong to one another, so we mark you with those scents now, underscoring that their binding is what brings balance to all things,” Linda said.

Ruby’s face was open, the message in her expression clear. Tonight was for what they were meant to be. Vessels conducting energy, using the deep, soul-level bond between them to enhance and strengthen that effort, setting aside any
of the obstacles that stood in the way of that bond outside the circle.

Was it possible to divide the two that way? He expected they were going to find out.

As the hands of the coven members moved over them, coating their skin with the slick oils, the chants building in rhythm and strength, he concentrated on the energies gathering in the circle, on the energies in her, his Lady, directly before him. Her lips parted as if she was feeling it, too. He barely paid attention as hands handled his genitals, oiled them as well, slid over his buttocks. The Great Rite wasn’t about that. It was more intense than simple lust. Desire was sacred here, an offering to Them.

The aroma of the oil was dizzying, capable of taking them to a different plane of thought together. The attendants had returned to the circle, and now Derek knelt once more before Ruby, closing that last distance between them. Bending, he began the Five Fold kiss. Though Linda could offer the chant, Derek spoke, telling the priestess he was taking the option of saying it himself.

“Blessed be Thy feet, which brought you to this Circle.” When his lips brushed the tops of Ruby’s bare feet, he smelled jasmine and soap.

“Blessed be Thy knees, which kneel at the Sacred Altar of the Lord and Lady, a vessel of Their Will.” When she quivered, he remembered her knees were a little ticklish.

“Blessed be Thy womb, without which Life is not possible.” He stopped there a moment, his throat thickening. At this point, Ruby was supposed to straighten her arms out to her sides, like a bird taking flight, but she touched his head, her fingers whispering through his hair. He felt the hitch in her abdomen, the great emotion binding them together.

He straightened onto his knees, brushed his mouth over each of her breasts. “Blessed be Thy breasts, which nourish us all.”