As if trying to get ahead of her winding movement, they were swirling around her faster now, like a tornado, hoping to twist and disorient her, upset the human top and watch it fall. The weight made her body shudder. She felt their desire to take her. She was a creature with Darkness within her, one they could use and overpower.She put the final twist in the braid, and then thrust out with both hands, a sharp, blunt movement. They squealed, recoiling as two braided whips of Light and Dark energy slashed through the smoke, finding its target. The Dark held them to her, didn’t allow them to get free, and the Light burned them like holy water on a vampire. She ripped the energy free, taking Underworld flesh with it, then went with a dual overhand strike like she was wielding two single tail whips. Slashing down, across, bisecting their energy, snapping her wrists so the tails didn’t come back to hit her in recoil.The smoke was burning off as they spent more energy fighting her than cre

Really? You have an industrial kitchen and enough food stores to feed a marching army, plus me?”Rubby gaze warmed. “He does have a very healthy appetite. ”Ella snorted. “He needs a southern-cooking granny who equates love with food and stuffs him to the gills every time he visits. ”“I’m not a grandmother, but I’ll see what I can do while he’s here. ” Rubby allowed herself a small smile, but made a tentative gesture to hold Ella an additional second. “One last thing. I was talking to Nathan, and he agrees we should reinforce the fault line, thicken the energy at the place where it was weakened. A Great Rite would be appropriate. ”“Makes sense. ” Ella’s fingers curled into balls inside her hooded sweatshirt pockets. I don’t want to see that. I can’t watch Nathan lie upon another woman, raise energy with her….“So you concur?”“Yeah, why not?”Rubby arched a dubious brow, telling Ella she should have started the day by chugging a pint of Deception. “Wolfi, another of our coven member

You used a soul spell on me. You told me to stay out of your life. When I figured out the damn spell, I did look for you, kept looking for you, but I had to keep doing my job. ”“And it was your job that finally brought you back to me. This. ” She made a vague gesture toward the circle.“I had to have a reason to pull you back into my life. If I’d showed up and said, ‘Hey, Ella, I just want to take up where we left off, even though you seemed kinda pissed the last time I saw you,’ how would that have worked?”He was right, but he was also wrong, the same way she was both right and wrong. She struggled with her wildly vacillating emotions, which seemed as hard to pin down as the range of his emotions over the past few minutes. “You acted like you hated me, back in the cottage. But then you come out here and knock him around. What was that, marking territory? I can’t stand the bitch, but she’s my bitch?”“Ella. ” He caught her shoulders, hauled her up to her toes. “Stop it. Love and hat

“Blessed be Thy heart, which never fails, even in utter Darkness. ” She was standing now, her lips pressed to his chest. When she tilted her head up for the final kiss, he bent to her, because of the difference in their heights.“Blessed be Thy mouth, which gives comfort and strength in its Truths. ”A brief, gentle touch. Then Ella stepped back, her gaze focused and intent on his. As two coven members came forward again, she lifted her arms straight out to her sides. They used them to lower her to her back on the altar table.Rubby had removed the blue cloth and now she laid it on Ella , the translucent fabric settling over her with the weight of a feather. Ella stretched out her arms and legs, forming the Pentacle symbol as Nathan knelt between her legs once again. Rubby blessed the athame and Christine the chalice. Christine gave Ella the chalice, and Nathan leaned over her, placing the blade in the cup.“As the Lord and Lady are joined, so, too, are this cup and athame, representi

She shook her head, lancing his heart, which was already feeling like a pincushion for a legion of spear-wielding gladiators. “No. I won’t let her go, Nathan. I won’t. ”He had to swallow down more arguments like jagged glass, because she broke into those painful sobs again. Her tense body sparked with energy, ready to fight to the death in a battle she knew she’d lose, because she thought she had nothing but the fight left to her.Damn it. He pulled her back into him, struggled with her, then firmly mashed her against his chest until she went limp, cried there. Suppressing a sigh, he stroked her hair, kept stroking until she hiccupped a few times, settled down.The plain truth of it was she was brilliant. And young, so very young. Ella was a twenty-six-year-old woman who’d been treated like worthless chattel by her insidious mother all her life. All that intelligence and baggage rolled together, the trauma of losing a child all by herself…. He knew she had strength— Lord and Lady, in