Island of Glass

  you gave your mother all of that, and it’s all a woman asks from a son.”

  “I wasn’t her only son.”

  “And evil took him, your young brother. She took that grief to her grave. But not for you, boy. Not for you.” She lifted her chin toward the house, smiled. “Your wolf is restless.”

  He glanced back, saw the light had come on in Riley’s room. “She’s not my wolf.”

  Brigid only sighed. “One who’s lived as long as you shouldn’t be so boneheaded. But that’s a man, I suppose, be he twenty or two hundred and twenty. I wish you a good journey, Doyle, son of Cleary, and happiness along your way. Good night.”

  “Good night.” He watched her go, saw her safely into the house.

  Then continued his rounds. Before he went inside for the night, he saw Riley’s room was dark again, and hoped she slept.

  • • •

  Riley rose at dawn, determined to get back to routine, to push herself through training. When she stepped outside, she aimed I-dare-you looks at the others.

  Maybe basic stretching brought on some pings and twinges, but she assured herself her muscles thanked her. And maybe shuffles, squats, lunges had her heart laboring, and those muscles quivering, but she gritted her way through them.

  And through nearly a dozen push-ups before those quivering muscles simply gave up and sent her face-first into the damp grass.

  “Take a break,” Sasha began.

  “Don’t baby me.” Hissing out a breath, Riley struggled back to plank position. She lowered halfway down, and sloppily, when she felt her arms giving up again.

  She cursed when Doyle shot a hand under her hoodie, grabbed her belt and pumped her up and down. When he dropped her—not too gently—she shoved up to her hands and knees, ready to snarl and bite.

  Sawyer crouched in front of her, poked a finger between her sulky eyebrows. “Do I have to give you The Talk?”

  For one soaring moment, she wanted to punch him. Then her anger deflated as completely as her biceps. “No. Tantrum avoided.”

  “You did more than anyone in your point of recovery has a right to,” Sasha pointed out. “It sort of pisses me off.”

  “Okay, that’s something.”

  “Three-mile run,” Doyle announced.

  “We do five,” Riley countered.

  “Today it’s three.”

  “I can do five.”

  “Bollocks. And pushing it to five only means you’ll be in worse shape tomorrow. Three, and we pace you.”

  She started to bitch, caught Sawyer’s arch look, decided she really didn’t want her own words shoved in her face. She got to her feet.

  “How about this? The five of you run the usual. I’ll use the machine in the gym, keep it to three miles. I’ll only slow you down.”

  “I can stay with Riley,” Annika said.

  “No need for that. I’ll be in the house, in the gym. Treadmill, three miles.” Riley crossed a finger over her heart.

  “Done. Let’s move,” Doyle ordered.

  She hated that he was right, already knew she could only manage five miles if she’d limped or crawled through it. Better to keep it to three, moderate pace, and try for more next time.

  She barely made the three, even with music to distract her.

  Dripping sweat, she sat on a bench, guzzled water. She made herself stretch, consoled herself she already had her breath back.

  And eyed the weight rack.

  She hadn’t promised not to lift.

  She picked up a pair of twenty-pound weights, set, began a set of curls.

  “Take it down to ten,” Doyle said from the doorway.

  “I can do twenty.”

  “And you’ll strain muscles instead of building them back up.”

  Sheer stubbornness had her doing another rep before she racked them, picked up the tens. “You’re right.” She reset her position for triceps kickbacks. “I don’t need a spotter.”

  “A keeper’s more like it. You’re too smart for this, Gwin. You know you’ll set recovery back by overdoing.”

  “I won’t overdo, but I need to work it some. I’ve never really been sick, not seriously. A couple of days, stomach bug, a cold, whatever. Hungover, sure. But I bounce back. I need to bounce back.”

  Saying nothing, he walked to the rack, took a fifty. He sat, smoothly curled.

  “Show-off.”

  She switched to shoulder raises, moved to chest curls, onto flies, found a simpatico rhythm with him working nearby.

  “That covers it,” Doyle announced when she finished a second set.

  She’d have argued, for form, but a third set was beyond her. “I just want to do one set of bench presses. One set. I’m a little sore, but it’s a good sore. You know what I mean.”

  He walked to the bench. “One set.”

  She replaced the free weights, swiped her face with a towel, then crossed over to lie down. “I won’t say I don’t need a spotter, because I’m not an idiot.”

  He set the weights, nodded. “I’ve got you.”

  Something tapped at her memory at his words, stirred something, then slipped away. Riley focused, fixed her grip. “Okay, I felt that,” she muttered as she pressed one. “One set of three. That’s all I’ve got.”

  And the third rep was shaky, but gave her a lift of satisfaction.

  “Okay. Okay, that’s it. That’s good enough.” It wasn’t until she sat up she noticed the weights. “You cut it down to ninety.”

  “I’m impressed you could manage that. Day after tomorrow you can try for a hundred. Stretch it out.”

  She decided ninety wasn’t mortifying given the circumstances. And besides, she felt good, accomplished, healthily fatigued rather than exhausted.

  “I’m bouncing.”

  “According to Bran’s grandmother, the wolf accelerates your recovery time.”

  “Probably. Like I said, I’ve never been down like that before.”

  She stretched, and so did he. When he did, she noted, everything rippled and bulged and sleeked out in exactly the right way.

  She had to give it to him, the man was shredded.

  What if he did have a kind of a little thing going for her? She had her own lusty—perfectly normal—thoughts in his direction.

  They’d even managed a gym session without busting each other’s balls. It followed, logically, another form of healthy exercise—mutual—might just cap it all off.

  “We could have sex.”

  He had his left arm across his chest, cradled in the crook of his right for the stretch. And moved only his head in her direction. “What?”

  “It’s not like it hasn’t occurred to you.” She went for another bottle of water, then studied him as she would a potential bootie buddy.

  Sweaty, as she was, the mass of dark hair curling a little from the damp. Green eyes watched her suspiciously out of a face with hard planes and angles.

  And the body? Well, Jesus, what woman wouldn’t want to play with that?

  “I’m single, you’re single. I’m here, you’re here.” As she spoke, she wagged a finger toward him, toward herself. “We’ve already had a lip-lock that wasn’t half bad.”

  “Half bad.”

  “I’m good at it. I’m just saying.” She swigged water. “Or so I’m told. I’m betting you’re pretty good at it, too. Straight sex, Doyle, which I haven’t had for eight months and five days.”

  “That’s very specific.”

  “I was on a project in Brittany, ran into an old friend, scratched an itch. My record for a dry spell is eight months, twenty-three days. I’d hate to set a new one, frankly.”

  “You want me to help you keep your current record intact?”

  She shrugged. It didn’t trouble her he’d continued to stretch, continued to watch her. If you couldn’t be straightforward about sex, what was the point in being an adult?

  “Unless I’m reading you wrong—doubtful but possible—you could use a roll the same as me. It also occurred to me
we’re going to be right back in the bloody thick of it anytime. I don’t want to go down without getting laid if I can help it. So I’m saying you could scratch my itch, I could scratch yours. No frills, no worries.”

  She capped the bottle. “Think about it. If it doesn’t work for you, no problem.”

  She got halfway to the door when he gripped her arm, spun her around. “People spend too much time thinking about sex.”

  “Well, it’s an endlessly fascinating and diverse activity.”

  He fisted a hand in her shirt, hauled her to her toes. “Thinking and talking about sex means you’re not having it.”

  “There’s a point of agreement.”

  Both amused and aroused, she sprang off her toes, jumping lightly to hook her legs around his waist. “So? Want to think and talk some more?”

  “No.”

  He took her mouth, that clever mouth that talked entirely too much. She tasted of cool water and hot salt, and the sound she made wasn’t words—thank Christ—but transmitted pure pleasure.

  Her body, warm, limber, damp, pressed against him as he gripped her hips, as she gripped his hair.

  Not enough, he thought. Not close to enough. They’d finish this, start and finish what had been wound tight inside him for far too long.

  He turned with the single idea of carting her to his room.

  And Sasha stepped in. “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry! I’m— Oh, God.”

  Before a vibrating Riley could react, Doyle dropped her to her feet. “I’d say breakfast is ready. You need to eat,” he said to Riley, and walked out.

  “Riley. God, Riley, could I have timed that any worse?”

  “Well, we could’ve been naked.” She waved a hand in the air. “It’s okay. Shouldn’t have started that in a public area, so to speak. You know, I think I’m just going to sit down for a second.”

  Which she did, right on the floor.

  “I didn’t know— I mean I knew.” Babbling, Sasha came to sit beside her. “But I didn’t know. I just came in to tell you we’re about to eat, and . . . I should’ve known. I felt—I thought you were working out, like . . . pumped up.”

  Now Riley lowered her head into her hands and laughed. “We did, we were. We will again, absolutely. No way we’re leaving this undone. I am officially both shaken and stirred, and by God, I’m gulping down that martini.”

  “What?”

  “Popular culture reference. Don’t worry about it.” She patted Sasha’s shoulder. “I definitely need to eat. I’m going to need to be in top form for the next rounds.”

  She stood, offered a hand to Sasha. “What’s for breakfast?”

  • • •

  She ate like a wolf. Along with the others, she said her good-byes to Brigid, then took herself off for some time in the library before weapons training.

  Doyle didn’t join her, which she didn’t find surprising. He’d know as well as she did with the unfinished business between them they’d be rolling around naked on the floor inside ten minutes once they were alone behind closed doors.

  She’d wait, he’d wait. They’d wait. If he didn’t come to her room that night, she’d go to his.

  Situation settled.

  Anticipation gave her an edge, one she used as she selected books, opened her own notebook.

  In it she puzzled over Doyle’s notes. Apparently a few centuries of practice hadn’t given him clear and legible handwriting.

  Look to the past to find the future.

  It waits in the dark, cold and still.

  Blood of the blood frees it. And so the ice will burn bright as a sun.

  She read his notes again, read others. At least he’d marked down the books and the pages so she could verify.

  As she worked, she frowned over some of his translations, wrote down questions and her own interpretations.

  When she needed it, she bolstered herself with a ten-minute nap, made more coffee, dug deeper.

  “See the name, read the name,” she muttered as she read. “Speak the name. What name?”

  As she read on, Annika burst into the room. “Sasha says something is coming. To hurry.”

  Riley leaped up, left the question unanswered.

  By the time she got downstairs, ran out, the others were armed and waiting.

  “From the sea.” Sasha gestured. “It’s not her—she’s not ready—but she’s sending plenty. A dark cloud. I see a dark sweep of cloud, blocking the sun.”

  “We can take the towers. Me and Sawyer.”

  “Not this time.” Doyle searched the pale blue sky, the stacks of white and gray clouds. “We save that tactic for when she comes full force. This is a test run.” He gestured with the sword in his hands. “There, due west.”

  They came, swirling into a funnel that spun the clouds, darkened them. Until they became the clouds, black and alive. They spun, a kind of whip and wave inking the pale blue to midnight.

  “Impressive.” Sawyer drew both his sidearms. “But what’s the point?”

  At his words that whip cracked, a sonic boom that shook the ground, and smothered the sun.

  “That’s the point,” he said when the world fell into dark, absolute. “Can’t hit what we can’t see. Bran?”

  Then came the thunder of wings, the cyclone of wind. Bran struck against the dark, turned the black into a murky, green-tinged gray.

  “That’ll do.” Riley fired with her right, gripped her combat knife in her left. Red-eyed ravens, long-toothed bats with oversized heads and twisted bodies.

  Their wings, she knew, would slice like razors if they met flesh.

  But the bullets Bran had enchanted hit home. Nerezza’s winged army flashed in fire, fell in a rain of bloody ash. To her left, Annika shot light from her bracelets, pounded into a handspring, and shot again. Sasha’s bolts flew, accurate and deadly, while Bran burned a swath with twin lances of blue lightning.

  And all the while, even over the scream of wind, she heard Doyle’s sword sing and strike, the brutal music of the battlefield.

  Were they slower than before? she wondered. A multitude, no question, and even with skill, they’d be overcome without Bran’s powers. And still, she’d nearly misjudged a couple of targets, moving more sluggishly than others.

  She dived and rolled to avoid an attack, reloading as she moved, firing from the ground. She sprang up, punching out with her knife as one veered close. Then the wind gripped her like a hand, tossed her up and back. Her body, not quite healed, knew fresh pain.

  Winded, she fired again, fought her way to a crouch. Her blood froze when a swarm within the swarm peeled off, arrowed toward her.

  Not enough bullets, she thought, but made what she had count. She rolled, slowed to a crawl by the force of the wind. She felt the bite of a wing graze her calf, another bite into her shoulder as she kicked and slashed.

  Dozens fell around her as her comrades destroyed them, and still they came.

  She fired again, stabbed one before it could slice wing and talon over her face. Three coalesced, eyes bright and mad, lancing toward her as she struggled to reload.

  Doyle’s sword sliced through them, cleaved and struck as he shoved through that crazed wind. With one hand he reached down, gripped her by the neck of her sweatshirt, and dragged her behind him.

  “Stay down!”

  She didn’t believe in staying down. Using his body as a windbreak, she pushed up, reloaded. She stood with him, back-to-back, half mad herself as she peppered the air with bullets.

  Annika leaped through, bracelets flashing, then Sawyer, then Sasha.

  “Bran?” Riley shouted.

  “He said to get here, stay here,” Sasha shouted back, sent a bolt through one creature that continued through another. “And he’d—”

  For an instant, the light blinded. It carried a flood of heat, a burn of power that scorched the air. What died didn’t have the chance to scream.

  Overhead the sky bloomed blue again.

  Shaken more than she liked, Riley bent over, br
aced her hands on her thighs as she caught her breath.

  “You’re hurt.” Annika hugged arms around her.

  “No. Just a couple of nicks.”

  Though it did no good, she protested when Doyle yanked her sweatshirt off her shoulder, studied the wound. “A graze.”

  “Like I said.” She jerked the shirt back in place.

  “They swarmed you.” Sasha lowered her bow, looked back as Bran strode toward them. “I didn’t realize it until it was nearly too late.”

  “Quantity over quality, that’s what I was thinking.” Sawyer swiped a splatter of blood from his cheek. “Enough to keep us busy, but on the weak side.”

  “Yeah.” Riley nodded. “I thought the same. Then the wind picked me up, tossed me—like getting slapped by a tornado. A couple hundred of them banked toward me.” She snarled out a breath. “She knew I’d been hurt, figured I was the weak sister. Well, fuck that.”

  “We were too far away to help.” Annika rubbed Riley’s arm. “If Doyle hadn’t been closer, if he hadn’t . . .”

  Realizing she still held her gun in an iron grip, Riley made herself holster it, look at him. “Yeah. Thanks for the assist.”

  “All in a day’s.”

  His eyes said something different, she thought, something not so cool and dismissive. She kept hers locked with his as Bran checked her shoulder.

  She heard him speak, didn’t register the words. He and the others might have stepped into another world. Hers raced, pumped with adrenaline and lust.

  Doyle gripped her arm, said, “Now.”

  She sheathed her knife. “Now.”

  She moved with him toward the house. Apparently she didn’t move fast enough to suit him, as he plucked her off the ground. Since that was fine with her, she wrapped her legs around his waist, dragged his head down to hers.

  “Oh.” Delighted, Annika hugged her arms. “They’re going to have very good sex.”

  Sasha watched Doyle carry Riley up the terrace steps. “Shouldn’t we treat her wounds before . . .”

  Bran simply took her hand. “She’ll be fine for now. Let’s get cleaned up, have a beer, and let them . . . tend each other for the moment.”

  “Clean up. Good idea.” Sawyer grabbed Annika’s hand.

  “Oh, we’re going to have sex, too.”

  Laughing, Bran wrapped his arms around Sasha. “Sounds brilliant,” he said, and winked her straight up to bed.

  Doyle ignored the bed. The minute he kicked the terrace door closed, he spun