"I think she was wrong. I think he took his own life rather than be enslaved to me, to my will, my command over him. I didn"t understand it at the time. I do now. His blood addicted me and I couldn"t let him go. I needed him."
Vail was quiet a moment as he prepared the tea. "Do you think it was possible that he simply died of his injuries?"
Baris shrugged. "I don"t know. He seemed all right when I took him back to the inn. I fed on him but I was careful not to take too much." He shook his head. "No, I think he killed himself to escape bondage." He shuddered, thinking of Ella and the possibility that he had enslaved her as well.
Vail looked up as Baul returned, his arms laden with kindling. The young Vector dumped the entire load near Vail.
"There! That should be enough to last until tomorrow morning." He looked at Baris. "You look better. How are you feeling?"
"That"s a powerful question," Baris told him. "How do I feel? Weak, hungry, thirsty and, above all, foolish. I cannot believe that I allowed myself to fall into such a trap."
"Well, you might have had some help," Vail said with a grimace.
"What do you mean?"
Vail looked over at him. "You reek of witch magic."
Baris started. "Quentin said the same thing."
"Quentin?"
"A Vector Elder I met in...well, I can"t remember where now. But he said the same thing. Deirdre said she was using magic to help me relax."
Vail snorted. "Relax? More like "respond"."
Baris shook his head, confusion raging through him. "I don"t know what you"re talking about."
"She was seducing you, Baris, using love spells on you."
The words stunned him. "No," he protested. "No, she wouldn"t have done that. She knows I love Anika. Why would she...? No."
Vail shrugged. "What"s going on with you and Anika? You said she was gone. Gone from where?"
"From me," Baris said. He drew himself up. "Anika asked me to leave."
Vail gasped. "Leave? Why? She"s madly in love with you."
"I don"t know. I was attempting to take her to Jaeger and Rhiannon. I thought perhaps one of them could find out what ailed her. Then Thale...by the Sovereign! Thale!" His thoughts flashed suddenly to his small son, and grief tore through him, as memories suddenly a.s.saulted him. "Thale got bit by a snake. I...I took him to the Lair. Ani ran away. I couldn"t find her."
Vail frowned, exchanging a confused glance with Baul. "You couldn"t find her? Why would she run away? That doesn"t sound like Anika."
Baris sighed, rubbing at his face "I don"t know. Anika...well, she"d been sick. She wasn"t herself. That was obvious when she left Thale after he"d been bit. I could never have thought she would ever abandon her own child."
"This makes no sense," Baul said quietly. "The whole village knew of Anika"s love for you and your child."
"A spell!" Vail cried and his eyes widened. "A spell! Of course! I"ll wager anything Deirdre was behind Anika"s sudden change."
"Deirdre?" Baris huffed out an annoyed breath. "Why must you keep accusing Deirdre? She has been nothing but kind, sympathetic and caring. She tried to help Thale when he was bitten but Anika wouldn"t let her. She scryed for Anika numerous times but could never find her. She scryed for you and..."
"Told us to go in the wrong direction," Baul interrupted.
Baris looked at him. "Perhaps I was mistaken. Maybe she did say Terska. I was not thinking clearly most of the time. She took care of me, helped me."
"And spelled you," Vail repeated. "And I wouldn"t be at all surprised if she didn"t start this plan of attack months ago by working on Anika."
Baris nearly threw his mug at the young man. "Will you stop! I cannot blame Deirdre for my failures. They were mine. I did something to drive Anika away. It was me, not Deirdre. She doesn"t even have that kind of magic. She made herself sick on numerous occasions trying to do things that she didn"t have the power to do."
"Deirdre?" Vail gasped in astonishment. "Baris, Deirdre has more power in her little finger than I do in my whole body. She"s extremely gifted. She can manipulate people with just a thought, make them bend to her will. I"ve seen her do it a dozen times. Add to that, she"s a great actress. She can turn on the tears and trembling at the drop of a hat."
Baris stared at him, stunned, speechless. His gaze shifted to Baul, who merely shrugged, not knowing Deirdre that well.
Vail sighed. "Maybe you"d better tell me everything that"s happened to you since leaving the village."
Baris nodded numbly. He reached out to grip Baul"s arm. "First, though, will you do me a favor? Will you return to the Lair and check on Thale? I may have forfeited my rights as a father, but I still need to know that he"s all right, that he recovered from the bite."
Baul nodded. "Certainly. Would you also like me to have Darius find Anika?"
Baris hesitated. "Yes, I would. But tell him nothing, please. And tell her nothing. I just want to know that she"s all right. I pray that she is."
"I"ll be back shortly then," Baul said.
"Baul," Baris interrupted him before he cast his spell. "Please, don"t tell her where I am. I need to sort all of this out before I speak to her again, if she will even speak to me at all."
"As you wish."
"And bring back breakfast," Vail put in.
Baul grinned and cast his spell, disappearing.
"Now then," Vail said, looking to Baris. "Start from the beginning and leave nothing
out." "Nothing?" "Nothing."
CHAPTER 18.
Baris started with the att.i.tude Anika had developed over the previous several months. "I don"t know what it is, Vail. She refused to let me bleed her, even when she was ill. Yet, at the same time, she seemed to begging for my help."
"Explain that," Vail urged, his eyes narrowing.
Baris shrugged. "There were times when I saw the old Ani emerge. I could see desperation in her eyes, hear it in her voice. Then it would be gone as quickly as it appeared. She would turn away from me, discard me once again. That"s why I left. I wanted to find you, perhaps get some answers."
"Why was Deirdre with you?"
"She simply wanted to get out of the village. That"s all. She felt trapped. I can understand that, Vail. I have often felt the same way. I told her she could come along. And she was a great help with Anika and Thale."
Vail grimaced, but said only, "I see. Go on."
"Things are jumbled, Vail. I can"t remember exactly how everything happened. I remember Anika running. I couldn"t find her, no matter how hard I searched. Deirdre even helped me."
"How?"
"She scryed for Anika several times. It did no good."
Vail nodded, encouraging him to continue. "And the man Honey spoke of? What of him?"
"He attacked Deirdre," Baris said bluntly.
Vail grimaced. "Did he say anything in his defense?"
Baris thought a moment, then admitted the answer with difficulty. "Yes. He claimed she had paid him, that she had approached him, not the other way around. She denied it. And her dress was torn, her flesh abused. I had no reason not to believe her. I believe her still."
Vail sighed. "Go on."
Baris shifted uncomfortably. "We left the village soon after and found another. This one was quite a bit larger. I remember we brazenly walked into a party, became part of it. That"s where I met Quentin. And where another man..." He looked up at Vail, his uneasiness increasing. "Another man wanted to take possession of Deirdre. I broke his arm when he tried to stab me. Quentin told us to leave. We did so the next day."
"This man who tried to stab you, did he say anything?"
Baris shook his head. "I don"t remember. I just remember that he seemed entranced by Deirdre. He didn"t want to relinquish her to me."
"Entranced? Or spelled?"
The question ate at Baris" gut. He continued. "I can"t remember exactly where we went after that but we eventually ended up in Timmora. That"s where I met Antyn. And where I became addicted to hack."
"Why did you leave there? Because of Antyn"s death?"
"That and the other deaths I was responsible for." Baris rubbed his face, as if he could remove the horrible memories. "There were four men beating Antyn. I tried to stop them and one attacked me. I was so furious, I killed them all. But the hardest part is that I don"t think I killed them for Antyn himself as much as for his blood."
Vail was quiet a moment. "Think back, Baris. What stopped you from using your Vector magic to return to the Lair and ask Darius for help?"
"I don"t know if there was any one thing," Baris answered. "I just always seemed to have used up my magic and energy. I shapeshifted several times, once to save Deirdre from drowning in the river. She had fallen in and was washed downstream."
"Most likely she did it on purpose just so you would use your magic."
Baris shrugged, confused. "What are you saying? That she purposely found ways to keep me magically weak? So that I wouldn"t return to the Lair?"
"Exactly. I"ll bet she was plying you with her special herbal teas, too?"
Baris gasped and Vail grimaced.
"There you have it, Baris. You were spelled the entire time. Deirdre was using everything she had to make you hers. And she didn"t care what it took to accomplish that."
"But why?" Baris breathed. "I"m nothing special. Why would she go to such extremes for me?"
Vail grinned. "Perhaps you"re more of a catch than you think. It could be plain obsession, but knowing Deirdre, I think there was more to it." He paused, then went on. "I think it boils down to jealousy and retribution, Baris. And it goes a long way back. When we were younger, Deirdre fell in love with a boy named Ris. Unfortunately, Ris didn"t share her feelings. He cared for Anika. They were quite a couple. They were always together, despite Deirdre"s attempts to separate them. Ris had more than enough magic to thwart even the best of Deirdre"s spells. Then one night, she asked him to meet her. He chose instead to be with Anika for a night of moonlight swimming. He dove in, hit his head on a hidden snag and drowned. Deirdre never forgave Anika for that. She claimed that if Ris had met her like she wanted, he would still be alive today."
"Anika never mentioned this Ris to me."
"I suspect she never will. It was too painful. She did blame herself for his death for many years. She may still. I don"t know. The point is that when Deirdre saw how much Anika loved you, she was determined to hurt Anika as much as she felt she had been hurt by Ris. If Ris rejected Deirdre, then Deirdre was going to see to it that Anika lost you. If Deirdre could have you and flaunt it in front of Anika, so much the better."
Baris shook his head. "No. I cannot see how an incident that happened when they were children could make Deirdre do all of this. There has to be more."
Vail sighed and nodded. "Oh, there is. What did Deirdre tell you about her time away from the village?"
"That she was in school. Why?"
Vail snorted. "School? No. She was incarcerated, Baris. Not a jail like you"re thinking. More like a--an asylum. She became so angry after Ris"s death, so cruel and violent with her magic, that she was sent away, sequestered where she couldn"t use her magic to hurt anyone. She only returned to the village when she had convinced the priests that she had reformed, that she had shed her anger. Just in case, the priests also ordered she be betrothed to Holt, because he was the only one deemed strong enough to handle her magic."
"Holt?" Baris stared at him, wide eyed. "But she said that her father had promised her to Holt. She detested the man. That was one of the reasons I allowed her to accompany me. I could not see her being forced into a marriage she did not want."
Vail shook his head. "Of course she didn"t want it. Everyone thought that Holt had the ability to control her magic. Apparently he wasn"t as strong as they hoped. He must not have sensed Deirdre"s use of magic to spell Anika. Or you."
"But why Anika? Why me?"
"Because it was Anika"s testimony, along with mine, that put Deirdre into the asylum. And you, you were an easy way out of the village. You had magic, strength, presence and the ability to keep Deirdre healthy. Not to mention that it was the perfect opportunity for Deirdre to get the revenge she so wanted on Anika."
Baris was silent as all of the information sunk in. Then, he shook his head. "But I killed for her," he whispered. "From what you"re telling me, the man was innocent. I killed an innocent man and a.s.saulted another."
"He was no innocent!" Honey put in vehemently, startling them both. "I can tell ye that."
Baris looked over at her. "But he was innocent of any crime against Deirdre."
"I"m sorry, Baris," Vail said. "Deirdre is ruthless when it comes to getting what she wants."
Baris covered his face with his hands. "And what of Anika? What would Deirdre have done to her?"
"I don"t know. I don"t think she would have killed her outright but I don"t put it past her to allow it to happen. If she spelled Anika out into the forest--" His words drifted off.
Baris looked up at him but before he could say anything, Baul returned. The Vector wore a smile.
"You"ll be relieved to know that Thale is fine. He"s fully recovered and giving Darius a severe workout in trying to keep up with him."
"Thank the G.o.ds!" Baris breathed. "And Anika?"
Baul hesitated, glancing at Vail. "She"s with another Vector, Baris. He"s been caring for her for a few days now."
The words bit into Baris" heart and he dropped his head to keep the others from seeing his tears. "Then she"s well?"
"I guess so. I don"t really know her condition. Darius didn"t say. I didn"t press for answers."
"That doesn"t mean anything, Baris," Vail tried to rea.s.sure him. "She"s your wife. Isn"t there some sort of Vector code that keeps one of you from intruding on another Vector"s lifemate?"