Surrender (THE DRAGONFLY CHRONICLES) (39 page)

“No,” she seethed and closed her eyes, forcing her magic into the rock, boring into it with her mind until she felt it vibrate.

“Kailin,” Anthony said. “Cleo.” He grabbed her hands gently. “You’ll crush it.”

“I don’t care. It’s useless.”

He pried gently as her claws dug into the rock until its weight was no longer hers to hold. Her hands pressed down upon the warm wetness that continued to spread out from the hole. Cassy knelt beside her.

“Here.” She balled up a frilly length of torn petticoat against the gaping hole.

“Jackson,” Kailin called. “You have to wake up. You have to make the orb work. Or say you gift it to me.” Then she could heal him. Why had she ever gifted the orb away? “Please, Jackson. Don’t leave me.” Her vision blurred as tears turned her eyes to oceans. She was drowning. For the first time ever she’d found someone who wasn’t afraid of her powers, wasn’t worried she’d accidentally snap their neck or throw them through the air. She’d found the one who was her equal. “No, don’t leave me.”

Kailin’s hands shook as she moved them across Jackson. Her magic couldn’t even button his shirt, let alone push together his flesh. He was her soul mate. Her magic didn’t work with him. What fool created that rule?

“Drakkina!” Kailin yelled, her gaze searching the empty air above them.

Anthony was asking her things, his face a mask of worry. Probably for her sanity and then the safety of the world. She almost laughed. What would happen if she went insane? If Jackson…if he…she couldn’t think it, wouldn’t think it.

“Drakkina, where are you? When are you? I need you now!”

Her birthmark tingled and Kailin drew in a breath. Was it her first breath since he’d been shot?
Oh God! Jackson!
“Drakkina get in here now!”

“Child, I’m here,” Drakkina’s voice echoed inside Kailin’s head. The ageless woman materialized next to her, causing several gasps.

“He’s been shot.”

“Again? A bad habit he’s developed,” she said.

“He’s dying.”

“And you gifted the orb to him.”

Kailin’s focus remained on the dark red wetting the delicate lace of the petticoat. “Can I get it back?”

“No.”

“What will happen to it if…?” Anthony left the words hang.

“It will revert back to its creator, Eógin. He’s dead,” Drakkina said, “so it will go to me.”

Kailin’s eyes snapped to Drakkina. Would the crone let Jackson die so she could have the orb again?

Drakkina stared back as if reading her fiery gaze. Her lips quirked half-sad. “I’ll forgive you that, as you don’t know me very well. Merewin will heal him.” She vanished like a flame being snuffed.

“Drakkina!” she yelled but the witch was gone.

Kailin turned back to Jackson, his head heavy in her lap. She leaned close to his face and fanned her hand across his broad chest. A shade of pale worked its way across his tanned skin. Was his heart slowing? It seemed like it wasn’t trying as hard. “Damn, Black, stay with me,” she whispered. “You promised to take me to your prairie, wide open sky, remember?”

She pressed her lips in a one sided kiss. “Please, Jackson. I…I love you. We love each other. You said it, can’t take it back.” He didn’t move, and a sob rolled out of Kailin. “Don’t leave me, Jackson. The world may not survive me if you leave me.”

Kailin bowed over his face and rested her forehead against his. She inhaled his familiar scent, ran her hand down his scratchy cheek, her fingers spreading through his hair. Soaking him in. Her fingers curled into his shirt.
Not letting go, never letting go
. She’d surrender everything else, but not him.

Behind her Cassy gasped, but Kailin continued to fill her senses with Jackson. Something slammed against the wall. The sound of papers flapping against the ceiling made Kailin look up. The room swirled with a low level of magic. But whose magic? She was holding onto Jackson.

“Cleo,” Anthony said, close to her. “Try to control it.”

“It’s not me. I’m holding onto Jackson.”

Anthony’s lips pursed into a sad line. “He’s fading and so is his ability to mute your power.” The realization that Jackson was really dying struck Kailin like a physical blow.
Crack, crash!
A line of glass beakers along a table exploded. Jars on a long shelf against a wall shattered as a wind swirled up, scattering papers. Mrs. Pierce and Cassy screamed. Moghadam left the bound Ian on the floor and fought his way through the roiling turmoil whipping through the air to shield them.

“No!” Kailin screamed and lines in the granite around them cracked down the walls. She sobbed and the floor shook, knocking books off the shelves.

“You’re too powerful, Cleo,” Anthony pleaded.

No! He can’t die. Not now. Not when I’ve just found him, just forgiven him.
Pain gripped Kailin’s body, prying open the gates she held around her magic. Surrendering.

Through the pain flooding Kailin’s head, a small but tenacious voice shot deep like a needle. “Calm yourself, daughter of Gilla. We are here.”

“Sister,” a different voice called and Kailin glanced up. A woman floated nearby. Her red-brown hair swirled in the flows of Kailin’s misery. She held an infant to her breast and looked to Drakkina.

“Don’t drop her. Hauk’s probably already planning to slice you through for borrowing me without warning.”

“You had to bring the babe?” Drakkina complained and took the swaddled infant as if it were some rabid animal.

“Ariana was attached at the time you decided to whisk me away,” the younger apparition snapped. “Another moment and Hauk would be here too. He was lunging for us last I saw him.” She turned back to Kailin with a calming smile.

“Cac
,
”
Drakkina cursed. “No place for a bairn.” She pulled the baby closer into the shelter of her arms.

“She may be the one at the final battle,” the mother threw back over her shoulder while approaching Kailin cautiously.

“Only one babe at the final battle, a newborn,” Drakkina said as if it was a consecrated rule. “Unless the final battle starts today, your child will be too old.”

Merewin knelt beside Jackson. Kailin stared at her. “Can you save him?”

“I will try, little sister,” she said, giving a worried smile. She closed her eyes and laid her ethereal hands along Jackson’s chest over his gaping hole. Her smile grew and she opened her eyes to look at Kailin.

“His life force might be fading but it’s stronger than any I’ve felt. He beats back death.”

Kailin wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it sounded wonderful. The woman, her sister, inhaled long and closed her eyes again. “By the Earth Mother, heal this man. He has much yet to do with my sister.”

A little giggle escaped the baby, along with a burp. Drakkina gasped. “She spit up!”

“All the time,” Merewin murmured.

Kailin watched Jackson. Was his face regaining some color? His eyelashes! They…moved. Eyes, gray as a coming storm, opened, clear and sparking with life. “Kailin?”

Merewin’s shoulders slumped as she sat back on her heels. “Very full of life force.”

“Jackson?” Kailin said and ran her hands along his face. The world around them had calmed back to normal. “You…you’re whole again.”

Jackson looked down at his bloody chest, running a finger over the healed gunshot. He gave her a lop-sided grin. “Seems so.”

Kailin laughed though it sounded a lot like a sob. “I thought…you were going.”

“I promised to take you to big sky country,” he said.

“We will talk another time, sister,” Merewin called as she pulled the infant girl from a grinning Drakkina. She tucked her tightly against her shoulder.

Drakkina fussed at a stain on her robe but smiled at the baby as the infant tried to follow one of her circling dragonflies.

Kailin stood, Jackson with her. “Thank you,” Jackson said.

“Yes,” Kailin said. “Thank you. It’s not enough—”

“It is.” Merewin cocked her head. “You do look like Kat. Drakkina, you need to bring us together.”

“The final battle is coming soon enough,” Drakkina said, frowning.

“Perhaps a festival first, at Ribe. My people know how to celebrate,” she said with a wink. Her body began to fade. “May the Earth Mother be with you,” she said in parting and nuzzled the baby as they disappeared.

Jackson swung Kailin toward him, his hand going to her face. The emotion in his eyes said more than a book of words. There was nothing he could utter that could top the love she saw there.

Kailin leaned her forehead into his. “Me too.”

He hauled her up against him in a crush of love. She yielded into his kiss, surrendering to the onslaught of power surging through her. It wasn’t the power of her magic though. It was the power of love. Uncontrollable, immense, overwhelming love.

Behind her Samantha screeched, Moghadam growled, Ian cursed, and Anthony’s calm voice answered questions posed by several of the local authority. Cassy giggled and Mrs. Pierce hushed. Jackson pulled slightly back to smile down into Kailin’s gaze. A bubble of laughter broke from her smile.

He chuckled and shook his head slightly.“It’s a hell of a lot quieter on the prairie,” he said.

He’d heard her when he’d been unconscious. Kailin’s smile grew. “Time for a new adventure.”

“Together,” he qualified.

“Together,” she agreed and tugged at the back of his head to pull his lips closer. The chaos in the small, underground room dissolved as Kailin lost herself in Jackson’s all-consuming kiss.

Epilogue

“That one is definitely a rabbit,” Kailin said and pointed directly above from where she lay flat on the quilted blanket.

“I’d say more like a two-headed snake,” Jackson said next to her and squeezed her hand.

Was he kidding? “There are no two-headed snakes.” She turned and stared at his profile. Her stomach flipped gently as she studied his handsome features. Tanned and healthy, strong and virile, he was the most exquisite example of a cowboy living and thriving west of Missouri Territory. He turned his face to her as if he knew she was admiring him.

“I’ve seen one.”

“One what?” She couldn’t help but grin at his teasing boast.

Jackson pushed up on his elbows and leaned over her. “A two-headed snake.”

She exhaled on a tiny laugh. “One that’s mistaken for a rabbit?”

He leaned in and kissed her lightly. “It was obviously a snake.”

She laughed at his stubbornness and sent a small burst of magic toward the sky. “Oh really.” She pointed above and he glanced up.

His laugh jumped through her like lightning, warming her giddiness into a deep comfortable heat down in her stomach.

“Only you could change a vicious legendary snake into a fluffy bunny.” Kailin smiled up at her creation in the clouds. The too-perfect-to-be-natural rabbit floated along on the continual breeze across the wide open prairie sky. As Kailin released the magic that sculpted the mist into shape, it began to melt once again into a normal cloud.

Kailin met his gray eyes. Even after years now of staring into Jackson’s gaze, the love and respect that shone there still comforted and thrilled her at the same time.

He leaned on his elbow over her. His lips moved with purpose and Kailin’s heart started its wild thumping. Mmmm…this picnic had been a grand idea. His fingers slipped over the buttons running down the front of her simple blouse. A touch of her power and she’d shed the clothes within seconds. But he enjoyed the task and going slower made the fun last longer. She sighed in melting pleasure as Jackson kissed a path down her neck.

“I told you the wide open prairie was amazing,” he mumbled by her ear.

“Mama! Papa!”

Jackson’s exhale turned to a groan. “She got away from Cassy and Tenebris.”

“Cassy has her hands full with little Jack,” Kailin said. “Maybe she’s coming to get me to nurse him.”

Jackson rolled off Kailin as one thought refastened her buttons. Her fingers tucked at the curls that had sprung from her upswept hair. She glanced at their beautiful daughter skipping through the scattered clumps of bending wildflowers.

“Someone’s with her,” Jackson said. He unbuckled the strap over his pistol.

“Maybe Anthony’s early.”

Jackson helped her stand. “It’s not him.”

Kailin squinted. “Who is that?”

“Come here, little treasure,” Jackson called and their daughter, Emma, leapt through the grasses toward them. She laughed as he caught her in his arms. “Who’s with you?”

“Drustan,” she twirped in her five-year-old voice. “He’s nice.”

As the man moved through the grasses, they seemed to bend away from him. Kailin frowned. “Something’s odd.”

Emma giggled. “He said that you’d think he was strange. He said everyone does, but I don’t. I think he’s funny.”

The click of Jackson’s gun showed he agreed with Kailin’s assessment.

“Don’t shoot him, Papa!”

“Hush, Emma,” Kailin said as the man, or rather the boy approached. He was too young to be called a man, yet he was tall. His hair hung across his eyes and he walked with a grace that belied his youth, like a young cougar stalking unconcerned in his own territory.

“Who are you looking for?” Jackson called out and the boy stopped, several long strides away. Emma wiggled down from Jackson and took off back toward the stranger.

“Emma, no,” Kailin called but didn’t reveal her magic to the stranger. He was just a boy, an odd boy, but just a boy. Why then were the hairs on her nape standing as straight as a pharaoh’s staff?

“Come meet them,” Emma called as she ran up to him.

Stop!

“Stop!” the boy yelled in perfect sync with Kailin’s mental scream. But Emma barreled ahead and grabbed the boy’s hand to pull him. “No,” he yelled and yanked it back.

Kailin was already running. Something was terribly wrong. The look on her young daughter’s face was a mix of shock and pain. She dropped to her knees in the tall grass. Jackson somehow beat her to Emma and scooped her up.

“Papa?” she rasped.

“What did you do to her?” Kailin yelled at the stranger.