Dance of the Gods by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

like an hour—and I thought he was going to yell at me.”
    â€œFor doing something well?”
    â€œGetting in the way. And, not yell, really. He never raised his voice; that’s all about control. I figured he was going to tell me to go back up with my mother. You know, dismiss me. But he didn’t. He told Mick to go upstairs, and it was just him and me. Just me and my father, and he was finally looking at me.”
    â€œHe must have been very proud, very pleased.”
    â€œHell no.” Her laugh was short and without any humor. “He was disappointed. That’s what I saw when he finally looked at me. He was disappointed that it was me and not Mick. Now he was stuck with me.”
    â€œSurely he…” Larkin trailed off when she turned her head, met his eyes. “I’m sorry. Sorry his lack of vision hurt you.”
    â€œCan’t change what you are.” Another lesson she’d learned hard. “So he trained me, and Mick got to play baseball. That was the smile. Relief, joy. Mick, he’d never wanted what my father wanted for him. He’s got more of my mother in him. When she left, filed for divorce, I mean, she took Mick, and I stayed with my father. I got what I wanted, more or less.”
    She stiffened when Larkin put an arm around her shoulders, but when she would have shifted away he tightened his grip in the comfort of a one-armed hug. “I don’t know your father or your brother, but I do know I’d rather be here with you than either of them. You fight like an avenging angel. And you smell good.”
    He surprised a laugh out of her, a genuine laugh, and with it, she relaxed against the wet rock, with his arm around her shoulders.

Chapter 3
    O n the cliffs, the circle was cast. Now and again, there was the sound of a car passing on the road below. But no one walked here, or snapped their pictures, or stood on his headland.
    Perhaps, Hoyt thought, the gods did what they could.
    â€œIt’s so clear today.” Moira looked skyward. “Barely a cloud.”
    â€œSo clear, you can see across the water all the way to Gaillimh. ”
    â€œGalway.” Glenna stood, gathering strength and courage. “I’ve always wanted to go there, to see the bay. To wander along Shop Street.”
    â€œAnd so we will.” Hoyt took her hand now. “After Samhain. Now we look, and we find. You’re sure of the location where we’ll send any if we can transport?”
    Glenna nodded. “I’d better be.” She took Moira’s hand in turn. “Focus,” she told her. “And say the words.”
    She felt it from Hoyt, that first low rumble of power, thereaching out. Glenna pushed toward it, pulling Moira with her.
    â€œOn this day and in this hour, I call upon the sacred power of Morrigan the goddess and pray she grant to us her grace and prowess. In your name, Mother, we seek the sight, ask you to guide us into the light.”
    â€œLady,” Hoyt spoke. “Show us those held beneath this ground, against their will. Help us find what is lost.”
    â€œBlind the beasts that seek to kill.” Moira struggled to focus as the air began to swirl around her. “That no innocents will pay the cost.”
    â€œGoddess and Mother,” they said together, “our power unite, to bring into day what is trapped in the night. Now we seek, and now we see. As we will, so mote it be.”
    Darkness and shadows and dank air, fetid with the foulness of death and decay. Now a shimmer of light, glimmers of shapes in the shadows. There was the sound of weeping, so harsh, so human, and the moans and gibbering of those who had no tears left to shed.
    They floated through the maze of tunnels, felt the cold as if their bodies walked there. And even the mind shuddered at what they saw.
    Cages, stacked three deep, four high, jammed into a cave washed in a sickly green light. But their minds saw through the gloom of