"Why wouldn't I?"

"She's not the usual type you're drawn to, at least to dally with."

He set his teeth. "A grown man doesn't care to have his mother discuss his sex life."

"Oh." She waved a hand dismissively and set her rings flashing. "Sex, when tempered with respect and affection, is healthy. I want my only child to be healthy, don't I? You won't dally with her because you worry it will involve more than sex, more than affection."

"And what then?" Anger simmered in his voice. "Do I take her, engage her heart only to hurt her? 'An it harm none.' Does that only apply to magic?"

"No." She spoke gently, held out a hand to him. "It should apply to life. Why assume you'll harm her, Liam?"

"I'm bound to."

"No more than any man hurts any woman when their hearts bump together. You would take the same risks with her." She angled her head as she studied his face. "Do you think your father and I have loved over thirty years without a scratch or bruise?"

"She's not like us." He squeezed the hand he held, then released it. "If I take the steps, if I let us both feel more than we do now, I'd have to let her go or turn my back on my obligations. Obligations you know I came here to sort out." Furious with himself, he turned back to the sea. "I haven't even done that. I know my father wants me to take his place."

"Well not quite yet," Arianna said with a laugh. "But yes, when the time is right, it's hoped you'll stand as head of the family, as Liam of Donovan, to guide."

"It's a power I can pass to another. That's my right."

"Aye, Liam." Concerned now, she slid from the rock to go to him. "It's your right to step aside, to let another wear the amulet. Is that what you want?"

"I don't know." Frustration rang in his voice. "I'm not my father. I don't have his- way with others. His judgment. His patience or his compassion."

"No. You have your own." She laid a hand on his arm. "If you weren't fit for the responsibility, you would not be given it"

"I've thought of that, tried to come to accept it. And I know that if I commit to a woman not of elfin blood, I abdicate the right to take those responsibilities. If I let myself love her, I turn my back on my obligations to my family."

Arianna's eyes sharpened as she studied his face. "Would you?"

"If I let myself love her, I'd turn my back on anything, on everything but her."

She closed her eyes then, felt the tears welling in them. "Oh, it's proud I am to hear it, Liam." Eyes drenched she lay a hand on his heart. "There is no stronger magic, no truer power than love. This above all I want you to learn, to know, to feel."

Her hand closed into a fist so quickly, her eyes flashed with annoyance so abruptly, he could only gape when she rapped his chest "And for the love of Finn why haven't you looked? Your powers are your gifts, your birthright and more acute than any I know but your father. What have you been doing?" she demanded, throwing up her hands and whirling with a spin of white silk. "Prowling the woods, calling to the moon, spinning your games. And brooding," she added, jabbing a ringer at him as she turned back. "Oh, a champion brooder you ever were, and that's the truth of it. You'll torture yourself with the wanting of her, go keep her company during a storm-"

"Which I know bloody well Da brewed."

"That's beside the point" she snapped and skewered him with the sharp, daunting look he remembered from childhood. "If you don't spend time with the girl you won't think with anything but your glands, will you? The sex won't answer it all, you horse's ass. It's just like a man to think it will."

"Well, damn it, I am a man."

"What you are is a pinhead, and don't you raise your voice to me, Liam Donovan."

He threw up his hands as well, added a short, pithy curse in Gaelic. "I'm not twelve any longer."

"I don't care if you're a hundred and twelve, you'll show your mother proper respect."

He smoldered, seethed and sucked it in. "Yes, ma'am."

"Aye." She nodded once. "That'll do. Now stop tormenting yourself with what may be, and look at what is. And if your lofty principles won't let you look deep enough, ask her about her mother's family."

Arianna let out a huff of breath, smoothed down her hair. "And kiss me goodbye like a good lad. She'll be here any second."

Because he was still scowling she kissed him instead, then grinned sunnily. "There are times you look so like your Da. Now don't look so fierce, you'll frighten the girl. Blessed be, Liam," she added, then with a shiver of the light, spread white wings and soared into the sky.

CHAPTER 5

He hadn't sensed her, and that irritated him. His temper had been up, blocking his instincts. Now, even as he turned, he caught that scent-female, innocence with a light whiff of jasmine.

He watched her come out of the trees, though she didn't see him-not at first. The sun was behind him, and she looked the other way as she started up the rough path to the apex of the cliffs.

She had her hair tied back, he noted, in a careless tail of gleaming brown the wind caught and whipped. She carried a trim leather bag with its strap crosswise over her body. Her gray slacks showed some wear and her shirt was the color of daffodils.

Her mouth was unpainted, her nails short, her boots-so obviously new-showed a long, fresh scar across the left toe. The sight of her, muttering to herself as she climbed, both relaxed and annoyed him.

Then both sensations turned to pure amusement as she spotted him, jolted and scowled before she could school her expression to disinterest.

"Good morning to you, Rowan."

She nodded, then clasped both hands on the strap of her bag as if she didn't know what else to do with them. Her eyes were cool, in direct contrast to those nervous hands, and quite deliberately skimmed past him.

"Hello. I'd have gone another way if I'd known you were here. I imagine you want to be alone."

"Not particularly."

Her gaze veered back to his, then away again. "Well, I do," she said very definitely and began to make her way along the rocks away from him.

"Hold a grudge, do you, Rowan Murray?"