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  it. Now. I can’t hold much longer, much more. Get her clear.” His breath heaved as he called to Boyle, “Get Meara clear.”

  “You have to let it go!” Tears streaming, Branna shouted, “Fin, let it go, come to us.”

  “I can’t. He’ll go into the earth, into the belly of it, and be lost to us again. I can hold him here, but not much longer. Do what must be done for all, for me. As you love me, Branna, free me. By all we are, free me.”

  To be sure of it, he threw out what he had so the stone ripped out of Connor’s hand and into the cauldron. And as the light, blinding white, towered up, he called out the name himself.

  “End it!”

  “He suffers,” Teagan murmured. “No more. Give him peace.”

  Sobbing, Branna called out the demon’s name, and heaved the poison.

  Blacker than black, thicker than tar. Through the whip of it rose wild, ululant cries; deep, throaty screams. And with it thousands of voices shrieking in tongues never heard.

  She felt it, an instant before the light bloomed again, before the cauldron itself burned a pure white. The clearing, the sky, she thought the entire world flamed white.

  She felt the stone crack, heard the destruction of it like great trees snapped by a giant’s hand so the ground rocked like a stormy sea.

  She felt the demon’s death, and swore she felt her own.

  It all drained out of her, breath, power, light, as she fell to her knees.

  Blood and death follow, she thought. Blood and death.

  Then she was up and running as she saw Fin, still, white, bloody, facedown on the blackened ash of what had been Cabhan, of what had birthed him.

  “Hecate, Brighid, Morrigan, all the goddesses, show mercy. Don’t take him.” She pulled Fin’s head into her lap. “Take what I am, take what I have, but don’t take his life. I beg you, don’t take his life.”

  She lifted her face to the sky still lit by white fire, threw her power to any who could hear. “Take what you will, what you must, but not his life.”

  Her tears ran warm, dropped onto his burned skin. “Sorcha,” she prayed. “Mother. Right your wrong. Spare his life.”

  “Shh.” Fin’s fingers curled in hers. “I’m not gone. I’m here.”

  “You survived.”

  And the world righted again, the ground settled, the flames softened in the sky.

  “How did you— I don’t care. You survived.” She pressed her lips to his face, to his hair. “Ah, God, you’re bleeding, everywhere. Rest easy, easy, my love. Help me.” She looked to Sorcha’s Brannaugh. “Please.”

  “I will, of course. You’re all she told me.” She knelt down, laid hands on Fin’s side where his shirt and flesh were rent and scorched. “He is my own Eoghan to the life.”

  “What?”

  She squeezed Branna’s hand. “His face is my own love’s face, his heart, my own love’s heart. He was never Cabhan’s, not where it mattered.” She looked down at Fin, and touched her lips to his brow. “You are mine as you are hers. Healing will hurt a bit.”

  “A bit,” Fin said through gritted teeth as pain seared him.

  “Look at me. Look into me,” Branna crooned.

  “I won’t. You won’t take this. It’s mine. The others?”

  “Being tended right now. Damn you to bloody hell, Finbar, for making me think I’d killed you. It’s too much blood, and your shirt’s still smoldering.” She whipped it away with a flash of her hand. “Ah, God, some of these are deep. Connor!”

  “I’m coming.” Limping a little, Connor swiped bloodied sweat from his face. “Meara and Boyle are healing well, though Christ, she took a blow or two. Still . . . Well, Jesus, Fin, look at the mess you’ve made of yourself.”

  To solve things, he gripped Fin’s head in his hands, and pushed his way into Fin’s mind, and the pain.

  “Ah fuck me,” Connor hissed.

  Minutes dragged on for centuries, even when the others joined them. Before it was done, both Connor and Fin were covered in sweat, breathless, quivering.

  “He’ll do.” Teagan brushed a hand down Branna’s arm. “You and my sister are very skilled healers. Some rest, some tonic, and he’ll be fine.”

  “Yes, thank you. Thank you.” Branna pressed her face into Connor’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “He’s mine as well.”

  “Ours,” Eamon corrected. “We came home, and we had a part in destroying Cabhan. But he played the larger role in it. So you’re ours, Finbar Burke, though you bear Cabhan’s mark.”

  “No longer,” Teagan murmured. “I put the mark on Cabhan, and our mother put it on his blood, all who followed. And I think now that she and the light have taken it. For this is not Cabhan’s mark.”

  “What do you mean? It’s—” Fin twisted to look, and on his shoulder, where he’d worn the mark of Cabhan since his eighteenth year, he now wore a Celtic trinity knot, the triquetra.

  A sign of three.

  It stunned him, more than the fire of the poison, more than the blinding flames of the white.

  “It’s gone.” He touched his fingers to it, felt no pain, no dark, no stealthy pull. “I’m free of it. Free.”

  “You would have given your life. Your blood,” Branna realized, as her eyes stung with pure joy. “Its death from your willing sacrifice. You broke the curse, Fin.”

  She laid her hand over his, over the sign of three. “You saved yourself and, I think, Sorcha’s spirit. You saved us all.”

  “Some of us did a bit as well,” Connor reminded her. But grinned at Fin. “It’s a fine mark. I’m thinking the rest of us should get tattoos for matching.”

  “I like it,” Meara declared, and swiped at tears.

  “We’ve more than tattoos to think of.” Boyle held down a hand. “On your feet now.” He gripped Fin’s arms hard, then embraced him. “Welcome back.”

  “It’s good to be here,” he said as Iona just wrapped around him and wept a little. “But Christ, I’d like to be home. We need to finish altogether.” He kissed the top of Iona’s head. “We need to be done, and live.”

  “So we will.” Eamon held out a hand, took Fin’s in a strong grip. “When I get a son, he will carry your name, cousin.”

  They set the ashes on fire, more white flame, turned the earth, scattered them, salted all.

  Then stood in the clearing, in peace.

  “It’s done. We’re done with it.” Sorcha’s Brannaugh walked to her mother’s grave. “And she’s free. I’m sure of it.”

  “We honored her sacrifice, fulfilled our destiny. And I feel home calling.” Eamon reached for Teagan’s hand. “But I think we’ll see you again, cousins.”

  Connor took the white stone out of his pocket, watched it glow. “I believe it.”

  “We’re the three,” Branna said, “as you are, and as they are.” She gestured to Fin, Boyle, Meara. “We’ll meet again. Bright blessings to you, cousins.”

  “And to you.” Teagan looked over at their mother’s grave as she started to fade. “She favored bluebells. Thank you.”

  “It’s finished.” Meara looked around the clearing. “I want to dance, and yet I’m shaky inside. What do we do now that it’s finished?”

  “Have a full fry. Dawn’s breaking.” Connor pointed east, and to a ribbon of soft pink light.

  “We go home,” Iona agreed, laughed when Boyle swung her around. “And we stay together for a while. Just together.”

  “We’ll be along. I want a moment more. A moment more,” Fin said to Branna.

  “If you’re much longer, I’ll be making the eggs, and she’ll be complaining.” But Connor kissed Meara’s hand, then mounted.

  Iona cast one glance back, laid a hand to her heart, then swung it out toward Fin and Branna, forming a pretty little rainbow.

  “She has the sweetest heart,” Fin said quietly. “And now.” He turned Branna toward him. “Here, where you first gave yourself to me. Here, where it all began, and where we’ve finally ended it, I have a q
uestion to ask.”

  “Haven’t I answered them all?”

  “Not this one. Will you, Branna, have the life with me we once dreamed? The life, the family, the all of it, we once imagined?”

  “Oh, I will, Fin. I’ll have all of it, and more. I’ll have all the new dreams we make. And the new promises.”

  She stepped into his arms. “I love you. I have always, I will always. I’ll live with you in your fine house, and we’ll have all the children we want, and none of them to bear a mark. I’ll travel with you, have you show me some of the world.”

  “We’ll make magick.”

  “Today and always.”

  She kissed him by Sorcha’s cabin where the wall of vines had fallen away, where bluebells bloomed and a little rainbow lingered on the air.

  Then they flew, with horse, hound, hawk, into tomorrow.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  THE COLLECTOR

  by Nora Roberts

  Now available from G. P. Putnam’s Sons

  SHE THOUGHT THEY’D NEVER LEAVE. CLIENTS, ESPECIALLY new ones, tended to fuss and delay, revolving on the same loop of instructions, contacts, comments before finally heading out the door. She sympathized because when they walked out the door they left their home, their belongings, and in this case their cat, in someone else’s hands.

  As their house sitter, Lila Emerson did everything she could to send them off relaxed, and confident those hands were competent ones.

  For the next three weeks, while Jason and Macey Kilderbrand enjoyed the south of France with friends and family, Lila would live in their most excellent apartment in Chelsea, water their plants, feed, water and play with their cat, collect their mail—and forward anything of import.

  She’d tend Macey’s pretty terrace garden, pamper the cat, take messages and act as a burglary deterrent simply by her presence.

  While she did, she’d enjoy living in New York’s tony London Terrace just as she’d enjoyed living in the charming flat in Rome—where for an additional fee she’d painted the kitchen—and the sprawling house in Brooklyn—with its frisky golden retriever, sweet and aging Boston terrier and aquarium of colorful tropical fish.

  She’d seen a lot of New York in her six years as a professional house sitter, and in the last four had expanded to see quite a bit of the world as well.

  Nice work if you can get it, she thought—and she could get it.

  “Come on, Thomas.” She gave the cat’s long, sleek body one head-to-tail stroke. “Let’s go unpack.”

  She liked the settling in, and since the spacious apartment boasted a second bedroom, unpacked the first of her two suitcases, tucking her clothes in the mirrored bureau or hanging them in the tidy walk-in closet. She’d been warned Thomas would likely insist on sharing the bed with her, and she’d deal with that. And she appreciated that the clients—likely Macey—had arranged a pretty bouquet of freesia on the nightstand.

  Lila was big on little personal touches, the giving and the getting.

  She’d already decided to make use of the master bath with its roomy steam shower and deep jet tub.

  “Never waste or abuse the amenities,” she told Thomas as she put her toiletries away.

  As the two suitcases held nearly everything she owned, she took some care in distributing them where it suited her best.

  After some consideration she set up her office in the dining area, arranging her laptop so she could look up and out at the view of New York. In a smaller space she’d have happily worked where she slept, but since she had room, she’d make use of it.

  She’d been given instructions on all the kitchen appliances, the remotes, the security system—the place boasted an array of gadgets that appealed to her nerdy soul.

  In the kitchen she found a bottle of wine, a pretty bowl of fresh fruit, an array of fancy cheeses with a note handwritten on Macey’s monogrammed stationery.

  Enjoy our home!

  —Jason, Macey and Thomas

  Sweet, Lila thought, and she absolutely would enjoy it.

  She opened the wine, poured a glass, sipped and approved. Grabbing her binoculars, she carried the glass out on the terrace to admire the view.

  The clients made good use of the space, she thought, with a couple of cushy chairs, a rough stone bench, a glass table—and the pots of thriving flowers, the pretty drops of cherry tomatoes, the fragrant herbs, all of which she’d been encouraged to harvest and use.

  She sat, with Thomas in her lap, sipping wine, stroking his silky fur.

  “I bet they sit out here a lot, having a drink, or coffee. They look happy together. And their place has a good feel to it. You can tell.” She tickled Thomas under the chin and had his bright green eyes going dreamy. “She’s going to call and e-mail a lot in the first couple days, so we’re going to take some pictures of you, baby, and send them to her so she can see you’re just fine.”

  Setting the wine aside, she lifted the binoculars, scanned the buildings. The apartment complex hugged an entire city block, and that offered little glimpses into other lives.

  Other lives just fascinated her.

  A woman about her age wore a little black dress that fit her tall, model-thin body like a second skin. She paced as she talked on her cell phone. She didn’t look happy, Lila thought. Broken date. He has to work late—he says, Lila added, winding the plot in her head. She’s fed up with that.

  A couple floors above, two couples sat in a living room—art-covered walls, sleek, contemporary furnishings—and laughed over what looked like martinis.

  Obviously they didn’t like the summer heat as much as she and Thomas or they’d have sat outside on their little terrace.

  Old friends, she decided, who get together often, sometimes take vacations together.

  Another window opened the world to a little boy rolling around on the floor with a white puppy. The absolute joy of both zinged right through the air and had Lila laughing.

  “He’s wanted a puppy forever—forever being probably a few months at that age—and today his parents surprised him. He’ll remember today his whole life, and one day he’ll surprise his little boy or girl the same way.”

  Pleased to end on that note, Lila lowered the glasses. “Okay, Thomas, we’re going to get a couple hours of work in. I know, I know,” she continued, setting him down, picking up the half glass of wine. “Most people are done with work for the day. They’re going out to dinner, meeting friends—or in the case of the killer blonde in the black dress, bitching about not going out. But the thing is . . .” She waited until he strolled into the apartment ahead of her. “I set my own hours. It’s one of the perks.”

  She chose a ball—motion-activated—from the basket of cat toys in the kitchen closet, gave it a roll across the floor.

  Thomas immediately pounced, wrestled, batted, chased.

  “If I were a cat,” she speculated, “I’d go crazy for that, too.”

  With Thomas happily occupied, she picked up the remote, ordered music. She made a note of which station played so she could be sure she returned it to their house music before the Kilderbrands came home. She moved away from the jazz to contemporary pop.

  House-sitting provided lodging, interest, even adventure. But writing paid the freight. Freelance writing—and waiting tables—had kept her head just above water her first two years in New York. After she’d fallen into house-sitting, initially doing favors for friends, and friends of friends, she’d had the real time and opportunity to work on her novel.

  Then the luck or serendipity of house-sitting for an editor who’d taken an interest. Her first, Moon Rise, had sold decently. No bust-out bestseller, but steady, and with a nice little following in the fourteen-to-eighteen set she’d aimed for. The second would hit the stores in October, so her fingers were crossed.

  But more to the moment, she needed to focus on book three of the series.

  She bundled up her long brown hair with a quick twist, scoop and the clamp of a chunky tortoiseshell h
inge clip. While Thomas gleefully chased the ball, she settled in with her half glass of wine, a tall glass of iced water and the music she imagined her central character, Kaylee, listened to.

  As a junior in high school, Kaylee dealt with all the ups and downs—the romance, the homework, the mean girls, the bullies, the politics, the heartbreaks and triumphs that crowded into the short, intense high school years.

  A sticky road, especially for the new girl—as she’d been in the first book. And more, of course, as Kaylee’s family were lycans.

  It wasn’t easy to finish a school assignment or go to the prom with a full moon rising when a girl was a werewolf.

  Now, in book three, Kaylee and her family were at war with a rival pack, a pack that preyed on humans. Maybe a little bloodthirsty for some of the younger readers, she thought, but this was where the path of the story led. Where it had to go.

  She picked it up where Kaylee dealt with the betrayal of the boy she thought she loved, an overdue assignment on the Napoleonic Wars and the fact that her beautiful blond nemesis had locked her in the science lab.

  The moon would rise in twenty minutes—just about the same time the Science Club would arrive for their meeting.

  She had to find a way out before the change.

  Lila dived in, happily sliding into Kaylee, into the fear of exposure, the pain of a broken heart, the fury with the cheerleading, homecoming queening, man-eating (literally) Sasha.

  By the time she’d gotten Kaylee out, and in the nick, courtesy of a smoke bomb that brought the vice principal—another thorn in Kaylee’s side—dealt with the lecture, the detention, the streaking home as the change came on her heroine, Lila had put in three solid hours.

  Pleased with herself, she surfaced from the story, glanced around.

  Thomas, exhausted from play, lay curled on the chair beside her, and the lights of the city glittered and gleamed out the window.

  She fixed Thomas’s dinner precisely as instructed. While he ate she got her Leatherman, used the screwdriver of the multi-tool to tighten some screws in the pantry.

  Loose screws, to her thinking, were a gateway to disaster. In people and in things.

  She noticed a couple of wire baskets on runners, still in their boxes. Probably for potatoes or onions. Crouching, she read the description, the assurance of easy install. She made a mental note to e-mail Macey, ask if she wanted them put in.

  It would be a quick, satisfying little project.

  She poured a second glass of wine and made a late dinner out of the fruit, cheese and crackers. Sitting cross-legged in the dining room, Thomas in her lap, she ate while she checked e-mail, sent e-mail, scanned her blog—made a note for a new entry.

  “Getting on to bedtime, Thomas.”

  He just yawned when she picked up the remote to shut off the music, then lifted him up and away so she could deal with her dishes and bask in the quiet of her first night in a new space.

  After changing into cotton pants and a tank, she checked the security, then revisited her neighbors through the binoculars.

  It looked like Blondie had gone out after all, leaving the living room light on low. The pair of couples had gone out as well. Maybe to dinner, or a show, Lila thought.

  The little boy would be fast asleep, hopefully with the puppy curled up with him. She could see the shimmer of a television, imagined Mom and Dad relaxing together.

  Another window showed a party going on. A crowd of people—well-dressed, cocktail attire—mixed and mingled, drinks or small plates in hand.

  She watched for a while, imagined conversations, including a whispered one between the brunette in the short red dress and the bronzed god in the pearl gray