Free Sea's Sorceress by Brynna Curry Page A

her into the cool, dark room. Vanilla and jasmine scented the space around her and she knew who held her prisoner. Maegan.
    “I hear congratulations are in order. Did he propose while still inside you?” Maegan hissed in her ear and pressed something cold and hard to her temple. A gun? “Nice little trick, that. Don’t bet your soul on the ring.”
    Something hard struck the side of her face across her cheekbone. She whimpered as pain bloomed behind her eyes. Crying out, she struggled to wriggle free of the other woman’s grasp. Blood trickled sticky and warm down her neck into the collar of her shirt.
    “Bet you enjoyed that? Hmm?”
    Rhia’s head jerked backwards as Maegan yanked her hair. She tried to focus. Stay alive. Stay alert until Skye comes looking . She tried to scream and kicked back with her booted feet, but hit only air.
    “Clever girl, but you’ll be dead before he can save you.”
    Rhia whimpered and shouted out with her mind. Help me! Skye! Have to stay alive .
    “How does it feel to know I had him first? He still wants me.”
    No. Terrified, Rhiannon closed her eyes and held on to the vision of her child and grandchild, Meara with the ruby hair and lightning eyes. She would survive this.
    “Say goodbye.” The resounding click of the hammer chinked through the air.
    “A shield I cast with this cry, heat the air, fill the sky.” Devin’s spell preceded his flash into the room. “Protect what is dear to me. As I will, so mote it be.”
    Maegan pulled the trigger. The bullet bounced off the shield Devin created around Rhiannon, rolled harmlessly across the floor and bumped into his boot. A finger twitch, nothing more, and the bullet was in his hand. “You okay, cousin?”
    “Yes.”
    “What are you?” Maegan snarled.
    “Fire.” The unspent cartridge disintegrated in his hand.
    Something tugged at the ropes binding her hands. Skye, and he pulled her away into the stairwell.
    “Don’t believe her,” he said. “I’ve never asked another. You became my wife in my heart that moment with your pledge. No ceremony is going to change that.”
    “Funny. That’s what I was going to say.”
    Maegan’s eyes went huge and dark as she swung the gun in Devin’s direction.
    “You do realize how pointless this is, right? I can kill you with a breath, if so inclined. Drop the gun.” Devin’s smile was blade thin.
    “No.”
    He chanted under his breath.
    The gun sprang from Maegan’s hands, dropped and clattered across the floor. Maegan’s eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped to the floor.
    “Is she dead?”
    “No. Bound inside her mind.” He tapped his temple. “I don’t like to play with someone’s conscious, but it was that or–well, you get the idea. Call the police, Skye. She’s not going anywhere.”
    “Already on their way.”
    * * * *
    The dance stood at the top of the rise overlooking the sea, each stone an ancient, weathered sentinel guarding the village below. He understood their duty, shared in that. And it was duty to the clan that brought him to stand outside the circle. He would give her a chance to gain the same freedom he had. Hope.
    Devin turned and looked down towards Liv’s cottage. The roof was covered with snow from the night’s storm. A trickle of smoke rose from the chimney into the crisp December air. He smiled when he thought of his cousins, many generations removed and the gifts their loves had given him. The spell had been broken, for the most part anyway. He was free. Free to return to McLoch lands in Scotland, though his clan was here in Ireland now. Did the castle still stand? He needed to see it, wanted to close that chapter of his life. After that? Well, he wasn’t sure, but he would always come back to Corrigan land.
    Jack and Liv would have their hands full in a few years with Raine when her powers emerged. It would be up to him to bind them and teach her how to control her magic. Ryan and Kate’s Allaina was a force to be reckoned with.