The House Of Gaian

held on to them fiercely, determined to remember them when Keely acted more like her little sister than her mother.
    “The harvest will be good,” Breanna agreed. But would there be enough? Oh, there would be plenty for the table during the harvest season. The plants were producing more than they’d ever done, and already there were vegetables to be picked for cooking. But would there be enough to feed all of them and still preserve what would be needed to see them through the winter? There had to be enough.
    But for how many? If the fighting came to Willowsbrook and other families lost kitchen gardens or farmers lost entire crops, would there be enough to share so that everyone got through the winter?
    Everyone who survived . The thought made Breanna shiver, so she pushed it aside. Not so easy to push aside the feeling that had been growing throughout the morning.
    There was a storm coming. Something dark and violent.
    She looked to the west, studying the blue summer sky and the puffy clouds that leisurely floated through it. She looked to the east and saw the same.

    But something had shivered on the wind that morning, waking her suddenly out of a sound sleep when the air from her open window brushed against her skin. She’d realized then how foolish it had been not to fasten the shutters and make do with the air through the slats. There were still some nighthunters out in the woods, somewhere. They hadn’t seen any recently, but there had been signs of them. Dead trees.
    Half-eaten animals. The Fae who had taken on the task of riding the boundaries of the Old Place rode in pairs—and rode cautiously.
    She still wasn’t sure she liked the Fae being around so much, still wasn’t sure she liked the Fae—with a few exceptions.
    Remembering Fiona’s offer to find another place to sleep if she wanted her bedroom to herself so that she could have some private time with Falco made her face hot. She refused to think about that. She was hot enough as it was, and thinking about his kisses and the way his hands caressed her through her clothes whenever they found a few minutes to be alone wasn’t going to make her feel cooler.
    It would have been easier if they could have taken a moonlit ride, found a clearing that pleased them, and explored in private the intimacy of becoming lovers. But it wasn’t safe to go into the woods after dark.
    Not with nighthunters around.
    Maybe she should take Fiona up on that offer after all.
    “I don’t like Jean,” Keely said suddenly, sounding like a girl again. “She’s sneaky.”
    Breanna sighed. Jean had become a thorn in all their sides. “What’s she done now?”
    “She knows children aren’t supposed to be in the pantry.”
    “She’s not a child, Keely.”
    Keely ignored that. “She knows we’re supposed to ask if we want something to eat.” She dropped the dipper back into the bucket, then curled her arms around her body as if giving herself a comforting hug. “
    When Brooke and I saw her and told her she wasn’t supposed to be there, she—” Keely bit her lip.
    “She what?” Breanna’s stomach tightened.
    “She said she’d make us sorry if we told anyone she’d been in the pantry. She said it was her own business and none of ours. But she’s sneaky, and she’s mean, and I don’t like her. Why can’t she stay with Liam? He’s got a big house.”
    That’s precisely what Jean would like to do. Stay in Liam’s house. Be waited on by Liam’s servants.
    Have Liam in her bed until he felt obliged to do the honorable thing and offer her marriage so that she’d always live in a big house with servants to wait on her. There was no point telling Jean that gentry men didn’t feel obliged to wed a woman they’d bedded, especially if the woman wasn’t from a gentry family.
    There was no point telling Jean that Liam was more touchy about making a child out of wedlock than any man she knew, so he’d think hard about being a lover to any woman he wouldn’t be willing to marry, and trying to force him with some kind of love charm would kindle hatred rather than love. And there was no point telling Jean that, while the Fae Lords looked at Fiona with cautious interest, she’d seen something ugly slip into their eyes whenever Jean appeared.
    When she’d pointed out to Falco that the Fae’s habit of using persuasion magic to seduce a human woman wasn’t really any different than Jean making her love charms, he’d surprised her by not defending the Fae