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He pushed her down, pinned her wrists to the ground and asked harshly, “What do you want?”
In spite of her vulnerable position, she smiled at him with what she thought was love.
“Easy,” she said. “I want you. I want music and, one day, I want babies. I didn’t think I wanted kids at all. Even earlier today... But I’ve changed my mind. Life is so short, so fragile.” She sighed and said again, “I want babies. I want to laugh and make love and occasionally just sit back to watch a particularly beautiful sunset. I normally miss the sunrise, but I’m sure they’re beautiful, too. Maybe I can learn to get up early enough to see it now and then.”
That was ridiculous. Small and unimaginative. “You can have anything.”
Her smile faded. “Anything?”
“Yes!”
“Love me.”
Rye rolled away and grabbed his pants. What she wanted was impossible.
“Well, you did say anything,” she said as she reached for her own clothes.
Pants on, Rye sat in the center of the stone circle and closed his eyes. The darkness he had reclaimed remained, but it was touched with something new. Something he did not want. It was Echo and Cassidy; it was this place of white magic. What he felt, what interfered, was warmth in a cold world. He pushed the warmth down, shook it off as he might an annoying insect.
Echo was dressed when she said, her tone serious, “I suppose what you’re experiencing now is very much like what a heroin addict goes through when they fall off the wagon. The rush is everything, and you don’t want to give it up. You have to think about what you must sacrifice in order to keep on experiencing that rush.”
Cassidy... There had been a time when he would’ve done anything for his daughter. And now Echo...
He couldn’t love her. It would complicate everything.
“Like any addict,” she continued, “I suspect this will lead to an early death for you if you don’t...let it go.”
“Most likely,” he admitted.
“Lock the dark away,” she whispered. “Give it up, put the darkness to sleep again.” And then, once more, “I love you, Ryder.”
He stood and ran.
* * *
Echo followed Ryder, running as fast as she could. It didn’t take her long to realize where he was headed.
Perhaps he wasn’t beyond hope, after all.
By the time she reached the cottage, he was already inside. The front door stood open, so she walked in. Ran in. She wasn’t sure what she would find.
On the far end of the living area, Cassidy stood with her grandmother on one side and James McManus on the other. All three looked terrified.
Cassidy’s eyes jumped to Echo, and she said, in a child’s terrified voice, “That is not my da!”
“Of course I’m your da,” Ryder said without emotion.
Cassidy shook her head, and again she looked to Echo for help. “He’s still in there, but he’s weak. He’s fighting, fighting.” She took a deep breath. This little girl who could see so much, do so much...she was scared. “The curse is trying to take over, and if it does...”
“God help us all,” McManus said in a lowered voice.
Ryder lifted a hand and began to wave it in the older man’s direction, but when Cassidy threw herself in front of McManus, Ryder’s hand dropped. Slowly. Echo found hope in that instinctive decision. The man she loved would not hurt his daughter.
“There’s no curse,” he said, flexing the fingers of his right hand as if he wondered why he’d lowered it.
Cassidy argued, “There is a curse. Echo sees it, too. Don’t you? Please tell me you see it.”
Echo walked around Ryder, studying him, wondering what Cassidy saw in him that she had not. The abilities she’d tried so hard to bury drifted to the surface, and with some effort she suddenly saw—sensed, felt—what the child had seen right away.
