The House Of Gaian

nighthunters broke the barriers inside him.
    And now...” She trailed off, remembering the mortified expression on Liam’s face.
    “It’s a natural function,” Selena said.
    “So is farting, and he’d probably have preferred to embarrass himself that way in mixed company than setting a pile of arrows on fire,” Breanna replied tartly. She picked up her cup and saucer. Selena’s sudden, rich laughter surprised her enough to bobble the cup, slopping tea into the saucer.
    “You’re younger than he is, aren’t you?” Selena’s gray-green eyes danced with humor.
    “What makes you think that?” Breanna asked warily.
    “Younger sisters have no mercy.”
    Breanna tipped her head. “You have a younger sister?”
    Selena walked over to the table, took her tea and a thin sandwich. “I do.”
    “Would she like a dog?”
    It was the caution in Selena’s expression, overlaid with humor, that confirmed for Breanna that, however powerful Selena might be, she was still one of the Mother’s Daughters at heart.
    “I don’t think so,” Selena said just as Gwenn limped into the room.
    “Is the tea still hot?” Gwenn asked, sounding grumpy.
    “Hot enough,” Breanna replied, setting her own down to pour some for Gwenn. “What took you so long?”
    “Donovan.” Gwenn flopped on the couch with no grace whatsoever. “First he tries to convince me to stay upstairs, in bed, to rest my ankle, which wouldn’t have gotten twisted in the first place if he hadn’t shoved me to the ground and thrown himself on top of me. Then, when I tell him I’m going to come down and have tea with the two of you, he wants me to have a bowl of chicken soup. I don’t want chicken soup. I don’t like chicken soup.”
    Breanna glanced at Selena, relieved to see the same puzzled expression she was sure was on her own face. “Chicken soup for a twisted ankle?”
    “I swear gentry fathers take their sons aside on the night before the wedding and tell them that chicken soup is the secret to a happy marriage, that it is the cure for anything that ails a wife,” Gwenn grumbled.
    “I never would have guessed chicken soup as the subject to discuss on the night before a wedding,”
    Breanna said blandly.
    Selena leaned forward, her expression innocent. “Do you eat a lot of chicken soup, Gwenn?”
    Gwenn just grunted. “Then, when I tell him to go on since Liam’s waiting for him, he waits for me and carries me down the stairs.”
    “It would have been difficult to get down the stairs otherwise,” Selena said.
    “No, it wouldn’t. I could have slid down the banister most of the way.”
    Selena made a strangled, gurgly sound. “Oh ... Gwenn. You’re not still doing that, are you? You’re a baron’s wife. When the Grandmothers caught you at it, you used to tell them you were checking for dust.
    ”
    “Which is exactly what I tell the servants if they catch me at it,” Gwenn said. She sniffed primly. “
    Besides, how am I going to teach my daughters how to do it if I don’t practice once in a while?”

    Breanna choked on her tea.
    Selena’s face was turning red with the effort not to laugh.
    Gwenn gave Breanna a helping swat on the back that almost shoved her nose into the teacup, then said, “
    Breathe, Selena. You’re starting to look like a holly bush.”
    Maybe it wasn’t right to fill the room with laughter when there was so much death just beyond the door.
    And maybe, Breanna thought as she wiped her streaming eyes with the napkin Gwenn handed her, laughter was exactly what she needed to see Selena as a woman who could be a friend instead of a power to be feared.
    Liam noticed the tremor in Donovan’s hand as his friend raised the glass of whiskey and downed its contents in one swallow.
    “Do not wake the Mother’s Hills,” Donovan said softly, staring into his glass. “Well, they’re awake now, aren’t they? Mother’s mercy, Liam. Gwenny said Selena was powerful, and I hadn’t doubted her word, especially after seeing the storm that passed over Willowsbrook, but I’d never imagined a witch could do
    ... that . And I’ve met some of the women who come from the Mother’s Hills.”
    “Nobody imagined they could do that,” Liam said wearily. But he looked toward the closed study door and shivered, remembering the whirl of wind Breanna had created when he met her. She’d captured the earth Keely was flinging at him in a misguided effort to protect Breanna from the baron. If she could create a small