Shadow Spell by Nora Roberts Page A

Connor polished off his bacon, sighed. “And I feel not only human again, but fit and fine. It’s a pity we can’t take the bastard on again now.”
    â€œYou need more than a full fry in your belly to take him on.” Rising, Meara gathered dishes. “All of us do. We hurt him on the solstice, and that’s a satisfying thing, but we didn’t finish him. What did we miss? Isn’t that the thing we need? What did we not do that we need to do?”
    â€œAh, the practical mind.”
    â€œSomeone needs to think practical,” Meara tossed back at him.
    â€œShe’s right. I’ve poured over Sorcha’s book.” Branna shook her head. “What we did, what we had, how we planned it, it should’ve worked.”
    â€œHe changed the ground,” Boyle reminded her. “Took the fighting ground back in time.”
    â€œAnd still, I can’t find what we might add to it.” Branna tossed a glance toward Fin, just a beat. He only gave her the most subtle shake of head. “So we’ll keep looking.”
    â€œNo, you sit.” Iona took more dishes before Connor could do so. “Considering your dawn adventure, you get a pass at kitchen duty. Maybe I wasn’t strong or skilled enough last summer.”
    â€œDo you need reminding of a whirlwind called?” Boyle asked her.
    â€œThat was more instinct than skill, but I’m learning.” She glanced back at Branna.
    â€œYou are, yes, and very well indeed. You’re no weak link if that’s what you’re thinking, nor have you ever been. He knows more than us, and that’s a problem. He’s lived, in his way, hundreds of years.”
    â€œThat makes him older,” Meara put in, “not smarter.”
    â€œWe have books and legends and what was passed down generation to generation. But he lived it all, so—smarter or not—he knows more. And what he has is deep and dark. His power has no rules as ours does. He harms who he wants, no matter to it. That we can never do and be what we are.”
    â€œHis power source—the stone he wears around his neck, wolf or man. Destroy it, destroy him. I know it,” Fin stated, clenched a fist on the table. “I know it as truth, but don’t know how it can be done. Yet.”
    â€œWe’ll find the way. We must,” Connor said, “so we will.”
    Fin rose when Connor reached over the table to lay his hand on Branna’s, and joined the others across the room with the clatter of dishes, the whoosh of water in the sink.
    â€œWorrying for me won’t help, and isn’t needed. I don’t have to look,” he added, “to see.”
    â€œAnd if he’d harmed you and the boy, where would we be?”
    â€œWell, he didn’t, did he? And between us we gave him a solid boot in the balls. I’m here, Branna, as ever. We’re meant for this, so I’m here.”
    â€œYou’re a thorn in my side half the time.” Her hand turned under his until their fingers curled together and gripped. “But I’m used to you. You’ll have a care, Connor.”
    â€œI will, of course. And the same for you.”
    â€œThe same for us all.”
    * * *
    IT AMUSED HIM, AND TOUCHED HIM WHEN MEARA FELL INTO step beside him as he left the house for the falconry school.
    â€œAre you leaving your lorry then?”
    â€œI am. I want to walk off that breakfast.”
    â€œYou’re guarding my body.” He slung an arm around her shoulders, pulled her in so their hips bumped.
    She’d dressed for work at the stables, rough pants and jacket, sturdy boots, and with all that hair braided back to hang through the loop of her battered cap.
    And still she made a picture, he thought, the dark-eyed Meara with the gypsy in her blood.
    â€œYour body can guard itself.” She glanced up, watched the hawks circle in the heavy sky. “And you’ve got them keeping an eye