Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(49)
Author: Anne Rice

“And you’ve come back,” he said, looking at her again, trying to put the lid on these feelings that were about to explode out of him. “You’re Rowan again, and you’re here, and there are things to live for other than vengeance.”

That was it, wasn’t it? He had not roused her from her waking sleep. It had been Aaron’s death that had done the trick, bringing her back to all of them.

If he didn’t think of something else quick, he was going to lose his temper again, the hurt was so intense, it was so out of his control.

“Michael, I love you,” she said. “I love you very much. And I know what you’ve suffered. Don’t think I don’t know, Michael.”

He nodded. He’d give her that much, but maybe he was lying to both of them.

“But don’t think you know what it’s like to be the person I am. I was there at the birth, I was the mother. I was the cause, you might say, I was the crucial instrument. And I paid for that. I paid and I paid and I paid. And I’m not the same now. I love you as I always did, my love for you was never in question. But I’m not the same and I can’t be the same, and I knew it when I was sitting out there in the garden, unable to answer your questions or look at you or put my arms around you. I knew it. And yet I loved you, and I love you now. Can you follow what I’m saying?” Again he nodded.

“You want to hurt me, and I know you do,” she said.

“No, not hurt you. Not that. Not hurt you, just … just … rip your little silk skirt off, perhaps, and tear off that blazer that’s been so skillfully painted on and make you know I’m here, I’m Michael! That’s shameful, isn’t it? It’s disgusting, isn’t it? That I want to have you the only way I can, because you shut me out, you left me, you …”

He stopped. This had sometimes happened to him before, that in the midst of cresting anger, he had seen the futility of what he was doing and saying. He had seen the emptiness of anger itself, and realized in a moment of utter practicality that he could not continue like this, that if he did, nothing would be accomplished except his own misery.

He sat still and he felt the anger leave him. He felt his body grow relaxed and almost tired. He sat back against the back of the seat. And then he looked at her again.

She’d never turned away. She looked neither frightened nor sad. He wondered if, in her secret heart, she was bored and wishing him safe at home as she plotted the next steps she would take.

Clear away these thoughts, man, because if you don’t, you can’t love her again, ever.

And he did love her. There wasn’t any doubt suddenly. He loved her strength, he loved her coldness. That’s how it had been in her house on Tiburon, when they’d made it beneath the bare beam roof, when they had talked and talked, with no possible inkling of how they had, all their lives, been moving towards one another.

He reached out and touched her cheek, very aware that her expression hadn’t changed, that she seemed as totally in control as she ever had.

“I do love you!” he whispered.

“I know,” she said.

He laughed under his breath.

“You do?” he asked. He felt himself smile, and it felt good. He laughed silently and shook his head. “You know it!” he said.

“Yes,” she said with a little nod. “I’m afraid for you, always have been. It’s not because you aren’t strong, aren’t capable, aren’t everything you ought to be. I’m afraid because there’s a power in me that you don’t have, and there’s a power in these others—these enemies of ours who killed Aaron—a power that comes from a total lack of scruples.” She flicked a bit of dust off the tight little skirt. When she sighed, the soft sound of it seemed to fill up the car, rather like her perfume.

She lowered her head, a small gesture that made her hair go very soft and longish around her face. And as she looked up, her brows seemed especially long and her eyes both pretty and mysterious.

“Call it witch power, if you will. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Maybe it’s in the genes. Maybe it’s a physical capability to do things that normal people can’t do.”

“Then I have it,” he said.

“No. Coincidentally, perhaps, you have the long helix,” she said.

“Coincidentally, like hell,” he said. “He chose me for you, Rowan. Lasher did that. Years ago when I was a kid and I stopped at the gate of that house, he chose me. Why do you think he did that? Not because he ever thought I’d be a good man and destroy his hard-won flesh, no, that wasn’t it. It was for the witch in me, Rowan. We come from the same Celtic root. You know we do. And I’m the worker’s son and so I don’t know my story. But it goes back to the same beginnings as yours. The power’s there. It was there in my hands when I could read the past and the future in people’s touch. It was there when I heard the music played by a ghost especially to lead me to Mona.”

She gave a small frown, and her eyes grew small for one tiny instant and then large again and wondering.

“I didn’t use that power to bring Lasher down,” he said. “I was too scared to use it. I used my strength as a man, and the simple tools, as Julien had told me I would. But the power’s there. It has to be. And if that’s what it takes for you to love me, I mean really love me, then I can reach down inside me and find out just what that power can do. That has always been my option.”

“My innocent Michael,” she said, but it had the tone of a query rather than a declaration.

He shook his head. He leant forward and kissed her. It was not the best thing to do, perhaps, but he couldn’t stop himself. He held her by the shoulders, and he did press her back against the seat and cover her mouth with his mouth. He felt her instant response, the way her body was united at once in passion, arms sliding up around his back, mouth kissing him back, back arching as if she would press her entire self against him.

When he let her go, it was only because he had to.

The car was moving swiftly along the freeway. The airport loomed ahead. And there was no time now for the passion he felt, for the consummation of anger and hurt and love that he needed so desperately.

This time it was she who reached out for him, who clasped his head in her hands, and kissed him.

“Michael, my love,” she said, “my one and only love.”

“I’m with you, darling,” he said. “And don’t ever try to change it. What we have to do—for Aaron, for Mona, for the baby, for the family, for God knows what—we do together.”