The House Of Gaian

Great Mother is air. Yours is earth. It would help to have fire and water as well if it comes down to a fight here.”
    “Not everyone will break the creed. Even with what they know, with what they’ve seen.”
    “I know.” Breanna tucked some strands of dark hair back into her loose braid. She looked at the bow in her hand. Even if they didn’t use their power as a weapon, there were still ways for the witches to fight back. “Do you know how to use a bow?”
    Fiona made a rude noise. “Of course I do.”
    “We might as well get some practice in before our ‘instructors’ show up to give us some practice.”
    Fiona laughed, but there was an edge to it. “I imagine Baron Liam and Lord Falco just want to be sure you’re available and waiting so that you can protect them when they show up.”
    “Protect them from what?” Now that Fiona had said that, she realized Liam did tend to stay close to her when he visited, and when he wasn’t with her, he spent his time with his mother Elinore, who, along with his little sister Brooke, was also living at Old Willowsbrook for the time being, or with her grandmother, Nuala. And Falco tended to head for any group of men if he couldn’t be with her. What would two adult men need protection from that they would behave that way?
    Breanna felt laughter bubbling up, threatening to burst free. It was the look on Fiona’s face that made her force the laughter back. “Jean? You think they’re going to that much effort to avoid Jean ? Mother’s tits, Fiona, the girl is only sixteen.”
    “And flirts outrageously with anything in trousers that has a handsome-enough face.”
    “All right,” Breanna said, uncomfortable with the anger rising in Fiona, “she flirts.”
    “You make it sound as if she’s too young to think of men and beds,” Fiona said fiercely. “And perhaps she is too young to think of men in that way, but she’s already become a predator where men are concerned. She wants, and expects, male adoration. She wants, and expects, men to fulfill her every wish and whim.”
    “Didn’t we all want that at that age?” Breanna asked cautiously. The anger and contempt in Fiona’s voice worried her as much as the word predator . “Didn’t we all want the romance of being special?” Don’t we still want that ?
    “You were never sixteen in that way. Neither was I. You never would have ...” Fiona pressed her lips together until they were a thin, grim line. “She doesn’t always live by the creed when she feels slighted by a man’s lack of attention.”
    A chill raced up Breanna’s spine. That spike of fear sharpened her voice. “What are you saying?”
    “That Liam and Falco have a good reason to be wary of being alone with Jean—especially when it’s clear to everyone but Jean that neither of them are comfortable with her interest and don’t want to play the ardent lover.”
    “You can’t be serious. You actually think she would use magic to harm them because they aren’t interested in her?”
    Fiona nodded slowly. “Because they aren’t interested in her... and because they are interested in you.”
    Breanna stared at Fiona, too stunned to speak.
    “Oh, not in the same way. I don’t mean that,” Fiona continued. “But you’re the one they both inquire about first. You’re the one they look to in order to understand our way of life. Jean resents your ‘power’
    over them because she wants it for herself.”
    Breanna shook her head, not to deny what Fiona had said but because she still couldn’t accept that Jean might be a danger to Liam and Falco. It was one thing to consider breaking the witches’ creed in order to defend her family and home; it was quite another to break that creed and do harm simply because you could do it. “Have you any proof that Jean ever harmed a boy because he wasn’t sufficiently attentive?”
    “Proof? No. Suspicions? Oh, yes. But she always acted the darling around the elders, and they wouldn’t believe sweet, pretty Jean has the heart of a cold-blooded bitch. There was nothing serious, you understand. Just little spiteful things that could have been easily explained as simple accidents if they hadn
    ’t occurred soon after a boy she wanted showed a preference for another girl.” Fiona sighed. “I didn’t want her to come with us. Even knowing what she would have faced if she’d stayed, I didn’t want her to come with us. All during the journey, I was afraid she would do something that