He strode out, sending the swinging door slapping.

Eight

There was one thing Ripley hated more than feeling guilty. It was feeling ashamed. It took her a while to get there, as her temper wasn’t of the flash-and-fade variety.

She wallowed in anger, enjoyed the way it bubbled and churned inside her and kept clear, rational thinking at bay.

She rode on that blissful annoyance most of the day, and it felt good. It felt just. The energy it gave her had her whipping through a backlog of paperwork at the station house and taking Zack’s turn at cleaning the premises. She did her patrol on foot, then, still raring to go, volunteered to take her brother’s cruise shift.

She drove all over the island, looking for trouble. Hoping for it.

When trouble didn’t cooperate, she spent an hour at home, beating the hell out of her punching bag. Then common sense began to trickle through. She hated when that happened. That trickle opened a crack, and through the crack she was able to view her own behavior with distressing clarity. She’d been stupid and that was hard to swallow. She’d been wrong and that was a bigger, nastier gulp. Feeling like an idiot made her depressed, so she skulked down to the kitchen when no one was around and ate three of Nell’s brownies.

She could hardly believe she’d worked herself up into that sort of a state over a man in the first place. Not that it had been jealousy, she thought, contemplating a fourth brownie. He was completely wrong about that. But she had overreacted, big time.

And she, she decided as the feeling of stupidity began to slide toward the first sticky edge of guilt, had treated him shabbily.

She’d teased him. She had no respect for women who used sex as a weapon, or a bribe. Or a reward, for that matter. But she’d used it as bait and punishment.

That shamed her.

Replaying her actions in the gym drove her to brownie number four.

Even if he had been interested in Mia, which she was now convinced he hadn’t been, he was a free agent. A couple of lip locks with her didn’t make them exclusive, or oblige him to fidelity. Though she firmly believed that if you were nibbling on one cookie, you finished it off before you picked up another.

But that was neither here nor there.

The best thing to do, she thought, rubbing her now slightly unsettled stomach, was nothing. Stay out of his way, nip any personal connection in the bud, though it was probably a little late for the bud stage, she admitted.

They would just pretend nothing had ever happened—which, of course, it shouldn’t have. She crept back up to her bedroom, closed herself in, and decided it would be wise to avoid all human contact for the next eight hours.

Sleep didn’t come easily, but she put that down to overdosing on chocolate and deemed it fair punishment for her crimes.

The dreams, when they came, seemed harsher than she deserved.

The winter beach was deserted. Solitude weighed like chains around her heart. The moon was full, ripely white so that its light washed over the shore and sea. It seemed you could all but count every grain of sand that glittered in that beam.

The sound of the surf drummed in her ears, a constant sound that reminded her she was alone. Would always be alone.

She flung up her hands, called out in pain, in fury. The wind answered, and spun those sparkling grains of sand. Faster. Faster.

Power sliced through her, a blade so cold it burned hot. The storm she called roared and built until it blocked the light of that pure white moon.

“Why do you do this?”

She turned in the torrent and looked at her lost sister. Golden hair shimmered, blue eyes were dark with sorrow.

“For justice.” She needed to believe that. “For you.”

“No.” The one who had been Air didn’t reach out but stood quiet, hands folded at her waist. “For vengeance. For hate. We were never meant to use what we are for blood.”

“He spilled yours first.”

“And should my weakness, my fears, excuse yours?”

“Weak?” Magic dark boiled inside her. “I am stronger now than ever I was. I have no fears.”

“You are alone. The one you loved sacrificed.”

And she could see, like a dream within the dream, the man who had held her heart. She watched him, watched again, as he was struck down, taken from her and their children by the bitter edge of her own actions.

The tears that swam into her eyes burned like acid.

“He should have stayed away.”

“He loved you.”

“I am beyond love now.”

Air turned over her hands, hands that gleamed as white as that blinding moonlight. “There is no life without love, and no hope. I broke the first link between us, and lacked the courage to forge it back again. Now you break the second. Find your compassion, make your amends. The chain grows weak.”

“I would change nothing.”

“Our sister will be put to the test.” Urgently now, Air stepped closer. “Without us, she may fail. Then, our circle is broken once and forever. Our children’s children will pay. I have seen it.”

“You ask me to give up what I have tasted. What I can now call with a thought ?” She flung out a hand and the great sea rose to rage against the shimmering wall of sand—a thousand voices, screaming. “I will not. Before I am done with this, every man, every woman, every child who cursed us, who hunted us like vermin, will writhe in agony.”

“Then you damn us,” Air said quietly. “And all who come after us. Look. And see what may be.”

The wall of sand dissolved. The furious sea reared back, froze for one throbbing moment. The moon so white, so pure, split and dripped cold blood. Across the black sky, lightning slashed and whipped, stabbed down toward the earth to smoke and to burn.

Flames erupted, fed by the wild and greedy wind, so that the dark was blinded with light. The night became one long, terrified scream as the island was swallowed by the sea. However upsetting the dream, Ripley could convince herself it was a result of guilt and chocolate. In the light of day she could shrug off the anxiety it had caused and expend her energy shoveling the latest snowfall.

By the time Zack joined her, she’d finished the steps and half the walk. “I’ll do the rest. Go in and get some coffee, some breakfast.”

“Couldn’t eat. I gorged on brownies last night, so I can use the exercise.”

“Hey.” He caught her by the chin, lifting her face for a long study. “You look tired.”