Healed (Book Three of the Castle Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel Read online

  “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said warmly. “Someone’s been waiting to speak to you.”

  Before Hailey could ask who, Liona went to open the door. Instantly, Piers was through it. He gathered Hailey up in his arms, and held her tight.

  “Hailey,” he breathed into her hair. “I’d almost given up. But you’re back. By the gods, you’ve come back to me.”

  Hailey let herself be swallowed up in his embrace. Yes, this was the safety she had thrown herself into the void to find. She could smell him, she could touch him again, and that was all that mattered. For this, she would throw herself into the darkness a million times. She felt his cheek pressed against the top of her head. There was a dampness there that told her he was crying.

  She hugged him with a ferocity that bordered on mania. She didn’t want to lose him for even an instant, but then he pulled back.

  “Darling, I need to get Mathias up here to look you over, all right? After that, we can look into getting you fed.”

  “I don’t want to see Mathias and I don’t want food,” she growled. “I want you. I want you and–”

  Kieran.

  The name was on her tongue. She bit down on it in surprise, but Piers had already pulled back. His face was still joyful, but perhaps there was a sadness there, something lonely and lost.

  “First Mathias, then food if he’ll allow it.”

  He walked to the door, but before he left, he turned back to her.

  “When you fell into your sleep, I did everything I could to bring Major McCallen here. I swear that to you. I am still trying.”

  Before she could even think to answer that, he was gone, closing the door behind him. She was left staring.

  Liona, who had sat forgotten by her side, shook her head.

  “Now there’s one who will never hear a thing until it strikes him upside the head, make no mistake about it.”

  Hailey started to ask Liona what she meant, but the graceful woman rose and left before Hailey could speak.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FOUR DAYS LATER, Hailey was heartily sick of the infirmary room, of the kind visits of her friends, of bland soup and fruit puree, and of promises that she would be allowed out soon.

  “I’m hardly an invalid,” she had tried to argue.

  Piers had shaken his head. He had been neglecting his duties as much as he could while she was unconscious, but now that she was back, he had to attend to them again. He could manage a few visits a day, perhaps even a meal, but otherwise, she was left to her own devices.

  “You’re recovering. You need to build up your strength, and that means taking things slowly. The last thing you want is to push yourself harder and find you’ve relapsed.”

  “Piers…”

  “Hailey. That’s enough.”

  There was a tone of quiet command in his voice. Though the twinkle in his eye told her that he knew exactly what it did to her, it was still serious. When he used that tone, it made her want to bend and obey him. It brought a blush to her cheeks. She glanced down at her twisting hands.

  “And somehow, despite all this rest, you don’t think I’m well enough yet for that.”

  “Oh there will be plenty of time for that soon enough, don’t worry. Just rest now, darling. More than anything else, I need you healthy.”

  Hailey bit down on another protestation. Instead, she let him plant a kiss on her forehead before leaving the room.

  She was just beginning to wonder what she was going to do for another long day bed-bound when there was a crisp knock at her door. When she gave permission to enter, the door opened, and Liona came in bearing a thick savory stew. The smell of it made Hailey’s mouth water. She started eating as soon as Liona set it in front of her. It wasn’t the hamburger she’d been craving, but it was far better than the bland foods she had been allowed before.

  “So I’m allowed to eat like an adult now?”

  “Mathias couldn’t see the harm any longer, and sent me up with it. I thought I would keep you company.”

  Liona chatted with her about the weather, about finding her way around the Castle, and about other minor things until Hailey was done. When Hailey set the food aside, she took a good, long look at Liona before speaking again.

  “You really are her, aren’t you? Liona di Orsini, I mean.”

  Liona raised a pale eyebrow. “I’ve never pretended to be anyone else.”

  “It’s just…strange I suppose. They say many things about you.”

  “I’m sure.” Liona’s smile was sly. “Do you mean the things where they speak about me drinking the blood of babies, or the things where all of the founding members of the Magus Corps are my illegitimate children?”

  A laugh burst out of Hailey’s mouth before she could stop herself. She shook her head.

  “Neither, though I’ve heard those. You…you were there. You saw the future and you made it happen. It’s like having King Arthur bring you stew in bed.”

  “Ah Artos. He had a bent for service. I will tell you that stew wasn’t all that that man would bring you in bed.”

  For a moment, Hailey only stared.

  “I…wait, you and King Arthur?”

  Liona laughed, a soft and warm thing. She might have lived for centuries, but right then, she looked like a girl who had played a prank on a friend.

  “You mustn’t be so gullible, Hailey. When you live as long as I have, you become fond of playing tricks.”

  Hailey thought for a moment.

  “You didn’t say you didn’t know King Arthur.”

  “That I didn’t,” Liona said smoothly.

  Hailey stared at her hands for a few moments before turning back to Liona again.

  “Something important is happening, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here.”

  Liona’s look was opaque, but Hailey knew the stories. Liona was a seer, one of the most talented and powerful clairvoyants that the Wiccan world had ever produced. What she said would happen, happened. No matter what twists or turns the story took, she was right. She had stood on the edge of history, watching with her famous black eyes. Empires rose and fell, just as she had predicted.

  The fact that she had appeared from a centuries-long absence to come to Hailey’s bedside in Wyoming meant something. Hailey could feel the cold wind of history against her face––and it frightened her.

  “My gift is a strange and capricious thing, even after all these years,” Liona said finally. “It is not a window to the future but a mirror. And what I see is often clouded. Still, there were only a few times in my history when I could see as little as I do now. I woke up one morning a month or more ago, and found that I was next to blind to the future.”

  “Like the rest of us.”

  “Exactly so. I don’t know how you stand it,” Liona said teasingly. Then she sobered. “The number of times my vision has been clouded can be counted on one hand. I concentrated, I worked, I researched, and from what I can tell, the key to this uncertainty came from the Castle. Namely, it came from you.”

  Hailey shook her head.

  “I don’t want to be something that changes the future,” she said, and Liona took her hand with a kind smile.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that you do not have a choice. If I am wrong, I would be very surprised.”

  Hailey could feel the weight of a thousand years hanging on her shoulders. If she thought about it for too long, she was convinced she might go mad.

  As if sensing her dismay, Liona came to a decision.

  “Move over, Hailey.”

  Surprised, Hailey moved over in the bed, allowing Liona to climb in with her. They were both slender and fit easily.

  “Lay down,” Liona said, her tone light, and yet the word something between a request and a command.

  But if Liona di Orsini said to lay down, then you laid down. Though Hailey didn’t know what to expect, Liona laying down next to her had not been it. But the easy way Liona nestled close, and the way they fit together made it f
eel natural. Liona draped her arm companionably over Hailey’s hip. In only moments, Hailey felt safe and warm, even a little drowsy.

  “The world can wait until you heal,” Liona said quietly. “You looked like you were ready to fall over.”

  They rested in comfortable silence for a few moments. A thought drifted through Hailey’s head.

  “Liona?”

  “Hmm?”

  “When your vision has been clouded, has it always been a disaster? Is there ever a place where it turns out well?”

  Liona sighed, her breath ticklish against the back of Hailey’s ear.

  “The future is an uncertain thing, even to me. However, what might begin as tragedy and pain may lead to wonderful places. Sometimes the pain is better than the lack of it would be.” She paused and shifted. “Shall I tell you of the first time my vision was clouded and what happened after? It’s your story, just as it is the story of every coven in the world and every branch of the Magus.”

  Hailey nodded.

  Liona’s voice, soft and husky, carried her back to another time and another land, where a young woman prepared for her evening engagement.

  CHAPTER THREE

  OUTSIDE OF HER window, Liona could hear the sounds of the daylight life of Rome shutting down. The baker was closing his stall. The pot-seller was gathering her unsold wares back into her cart. People were calling good-night to one another, ready for a well-deserved sleep, before starting the exact same routine the next day.

  With a catlike smile, Liona combed her fingers––lightly slicked with perfumed oil––through her long black hair. It made it shine like polished jet. She called through the curtain for Augusta to come and braid it for her.

  “If you’re doing so well with the nobles, perhaps you can hire yourself a hairdresser, hmm?” her younger sister said. “Maybe someone who doesn’t have things of her own to be doing?”

  Liona playfully pinched Augusta’s thigh.

  “But I can’t find anyone so gentle as my darling sister, and besides, you do it best.”

  “I do,” sighed Augusta. “Now sit still before I take a pair of scissors to your head and sell it to the wig makers.”

  Liona examined her features carefully in the tiny disc of polished bronze she used as a mirror. She had a round face that was hardly the style for Rome’s severe looks, but her large, liquid black eyes made up for the softness of her features. Her mouth was wide and generous, and highlighted with red carmine from the east. They were easily her best feature. A shimmer of powdered green malachite gave her eyes a smoky languidness. Her fingertips had been dyed deep orange with henna. Two flashing pieces of polished glass, imported from Egypt, hung from her pierced ears.

  She was no Roman beauty, but in her saffron robe belted with a green silk sash, she was an exotic offering. Her skin had an olive tint to it; she could have been from almost anywhere in the Empire.

  Liona watched Augusta purse her lips in concentration, coiling the tiny braids she had created becomingly on top of Liona’s head, securing them with small copper pins. She was taller than her older sister, and by some trick of birth, despite being born of the same parents, she looked as pale as a Gaul, with sky blue eyes and fair hair that were cooed over whenever she went out.

  “There, now you’re done.”

  Augusta paused long enough for Liona to raise an eyebrow.

  “What’s the matter, rabbit?” Liona asked. “What are you worried about now?”

  “Nothing…nothing, it’s just that I wish you wouldn’t go out tonight.”

  Liona laughed.

  “Now you’re the one who can read the future. I better be careful or you’ll steal all of my clients!”

  Augusta made a face.

  “Oh Liona, do be serious. It’s just a feeling I have.”

  “Well I don’t have a single one except for the feeling that I’m going to make a lot of lovely money tonight. It’s fine. Before you know it, it’ll be dawn, and I’ll be back with my robes stuffed full of silver.”

  Augusta smiled, but she was still troubled.

  “Will you hire a man to walk you home? It has been so dangerous in the street lately.”

  And give up a fourth of my earnings just to walk two miles next to some bully? Not likely.

  Liona nodded, throwing her gray woven wrap over her head and draping it around her shoulders loosely.

  “If I think it will be a risk, I will do just that,” she promised. “Now give me a kiss and get some sleep. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Augusta dutifully gave her sister a kiss. Liona waited until Augusta had bolted the door to their tiny apartment before she made her way to the street. They lived in one of the many apartment blocks that housed the poorer citizens of Rome, but they were lucky. Their apartment had a small window, so she needn’t worry that Augusta would suffocate.

  In the dim light of dusk, the daytime life of Rome had mostly disappeared, and the nighttime life was beginning to come out. It was too early yet for the young merchant’s sons and nobles to come down to the gambling houses and the brothels, but the people who ran those establishments were getting ready.

  A pair of women sat on a balcony, letting their bare legs dangle down, tapping prospective customers on the head and shoulders with their long toes. A young boy trotted by, arms laden with fat hares for one of the larger gambling houses on the street.

  This was the life that Liona was used to. Her father had been a Roman centurion, and when he returned from the edges of the empire, he had brought her mother back with him. He didn’t have a fortune or a name to protect, and so they had married. Liona remembered her father as a thin man who was always laughing, tickling her or Augusta before presenting them with a new toy from the market.

  He had reenlisted, hoping for the chance to advance before he grew too old to make the attempt, but they had never heard from him again. Her mother, a stern, spare woman with Augusta’s fair coloration, had taken in sewing to get by. Before she died, she had given them enough so they wouldn’t have to sell themselves. Then, Liona had discovered her gift.

  She had been just past eighteen, and besotted by the baker’s boy. A number of hurried trysts had led to an awkward and fumbling awakening behind a cowshed, something she hadn’t found particularly pleasurable, but far from traumatic either. As she lay in the itchy straw, with the young man panting beside her, a vision had slid over her eyes. She could see the baker boy with the curly-haired candle maker’s girl, a pair of twins on his knees and an enormous smile on his face.

  “Liona, why are you laughing?” he had asked in confusion.

  “No, no reason at all,” she had said, kissing him.

  Then she had refused to see him again, found her mother’s finest clothes, and set herself up as a fortuneteller.

  When Augusta had sneaked home late one night, and the next day shot fire from her fingertips, scorching their breakfast bread, Liona had hugged her. She explained her theory to her sister.

  “When we lie down with men for the first time, it opens something in us. You control fire, and I can see into the future. They’re gifts from the gods. Remember how Mother seemed to make the water at the beach obey her, the day you almost drowned? I think she had it too.”

  “I wonder if others have it as well,” Augusta wondered.

  Time would prove that they were not alone. Once at an inn, Liona saw a pot boy surreptitiously light a fire with just a snap of his fingers. In the square, there had been a red-haired foreign girl who had used the wind to lift a man’s cloak, just enough so she could swipe his purse.

  There were other people with power in the world. If they were content to leave her and her sister alone, Liona was happy enough to let them be.

  As she walked on in the fading evening light, the neighborhood grew finer. Soon the clay bricks of her own quarter gave way to the marble pillars of the better houses. When she found her way to the one she was looking for, she addressed herself to the doorman and his huge dog. The burly man g
rudgingly sent her though the back courtyard.

  The other entertainers were already there. A pair of acrobats were stripped to the skin and applying handfuls of oil to each other’s bodies. A beautiful girl with hair as pale as Augusta’s tuned her cithara carefully.

  Liona took a bit of the warm bread that was set aside for the performers and dipped it in a dish of oil, eating while she had the chance. She was glad of this when the matron of the house came out to shoo them to their places.

  It was one of the finest houses that she had ever worked in, high on the hill, clad in marble and beautiful. As the night darkened and the torches were lit, she saw some of Rome’s most powerful men and women come to enjoy the party.

  In her corner, rattling a bowl full of polished tortoiseshell fragments that were inscribed with her idea of sacred runes, Liona watched the party climb higher and higher in intensity. Rome sat at the top of the world, and the people who ruled it wanted to enjoy every bit of it.

  The thick wine, undiluted with water, was being drunk more and more freely. A well-dressed young man, barely more than a boy, stumbled over to her corner, a wide smile on his face.

  “Hail pretty seer, do you have a fortune for me?”

  She did. It was one that would leave him cold and friendless on the slopes of an Anatolian river, his corpse pecked by birds.

  “A farm in the lands of Hispania await you, a Roman matron to be your wife, a lovely local girl to be your mistress and both to bear you children.”

  He wanted to hear more about it, and by the end, he was so giddy he insisted on giving her silver on top of what she was already going to be paid by the mistress of the house. She demurred when he came in for a kiss however.

  “I am sworn to the gods, and surely I would lose my gifts if I betrayed them,” she said piously, and with a sad sound, he moved off.

  The night wore on, and for several hours, she was telling fortunes as fast as she could. Most of them were true. Rich people who could attend parties like this one tended to end up better than the average baker or slave. Plenty of them threw her a bit of silver and, tossed into the bag stitched to the inside of her skirts, it added up. She and Augusta would eat well.