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I stood alone, with little to do besides watch. Rafe barely noticed Margaret, let alone his mother. Or me. I tried to tell myself he was rightfully distressed by the attack, that he needed time to recover.
We barely knew each other, and we were all in danger. Rafe and I would find our way under more secure circumstances. Or so I hoped.
Once the wounds were clean, Margaret took down the jar of salve and smeared some on Rafe’s wrists. “I don’t dare put it on your lip,” she murmured.
“It’ll be fine,” he said. The memory of those lips against mine made me flinch, a physical urge that burst from deep in my belly. I made fists with both hands, fighting off the feeling I could do nothing about.
At my nod, Margaret took the other seat, and then we all waited to see what Rafe would say next. The silence lengthened, making it clear that he was going to need a prompt. “Who attacked you, Rafe?” I spoke gently, hoping I wouldn’t distress him.
Or get my head bit off.
“Two men tied their skiff up to the dock sometime after midnight last night.” His voice was heavy, with no inflection to give his words color. “I was in my workshop, so heard them despite their stealth. I meant to chase them off, but one of them possessed an inordinate level of power. I managed a spell that kept them away from the house, though that brief distraction allowed them to restrain me.”
“Who were they?” Della asked.
“Not sure. Likely Ollie Stevenson sent them.”
Della’s glare grew hot. “That man.”
“Could the demon spirit have helped them?” I guessed the answer would be no, but wanted certainty. My own experience with the spirit of the Ferox Cor left me sure it would be a contrary partner.
Rafe raked his hand through his hair, a gesture I was coming to associate with uncertainty. “I’m…not sure. Either they managed to use the Ferox Cor or they had another source of power.”
“Would they have been able to use the Ferox Cor without the amulet?” Margaret asked.
I took a sip of coffee to calm myself, grateful for her common sense. “From all that you’ve told us, they shouldn’t have been able to. I have the impression that the Cor doesn’t obey anyone willingly.”
Della stared at Rafe, as if she wanted him to argue the point.
“You’re right,” Rafe said, without acknowledging his mother. “The Cor will possess creatures, but not on command.”
I glanced from Della to Rafe and back, a sense of dread hardening under my breastbone. I had perhaps more experience with the thing than anyone except Della, yet I said nothing. Rafe knew, as he had helped me fight it off. Hell, he’d saved me.
Instead of making a confession, I said something even more terrifying. “So we have two enemies; the Ferox Cor, and someone or something just as strong.”
Rafe spoke without looking up from the floor. “Yes.”
“That would seem to make finding the amulet even more important.”
Margaret’s jaw tightened, as if she shared my desperation. “We have a few days till Samhain,” she said. “Surely we can find the amulet by then.”
“We will. Find it and destroy it, before it causes any more trouble.” Rafe’s certainty should have settled my nerves.
It did not.
Chapter Seventeen
If I thought Rafe and I had reached a new level of accord, I was mistaken. Rather than stay and help us plan, he absented himself, leaving me in the front room, fighting off the sense that I’d made an awful mistake.
I could not discern whether my kiss was based on true desire or because he’d saved me. Did I want him for himself, or was he another shell my hermit-crab-self wanted to crawl into? Rafe was strange, and he could be hard. Underneath that, however, hid the soul of an artist, a sweetness I’d only seen in glimpses. His infrequent smiles, the time he’d called me brave, and his rare moments of vulnerability all hinted that there was more to him than his cold exterior. There was more to him than his power. I knew that in my bones.
Still, worrying about matters of the heart was easier than anticipating our next challenge. I was still wrestling with the memory of that thing, the spirit that had tried to possess me.
That sense that I’d been drowning in darkness.
Darkness I could still feel, like a pebble in my shoe. Was it the same darkness, or something that had always been there, some part of me I’d never recognized? I couldn’t be sure. I sat near the front room’s window, gritting my teeth to keep from shivering. Little of the kitchen’s heat reached this far, and the slate grey sky did less to warm me.
I rarely regretted my liaisons with men, but the longer Rafe stayed away, the worse I felt.
