If Not For You

“I need her now, seer.” Connor Malone bunched his hands into fists as the frustration of his existence once more slammed into him. There was a gnawing ache of loneliness within him that almost nothing could assuage.
Old Katie nodded. “I know.”
He didn’t doubt that. Old Katie knew everything—past, present and future. She was the one person who had managed to keep him from straying off track and misusing his gift. Connor shook his head. Gift. Sometimes he wondered about that. It was more a curse than a gift to be a Celtic warlock who could command nature at will for the aid and benefit of his countrymen. It was harder to contain the tornado of need and wanting inside him than the one created by nature’s fury. Sometimes his own needs surged so hard and rough that he felt powerless to stop the emotion from spilling over onto the land he’d promised to honor and protect when he turned thirteen and had come fully in control of his powers.
“When will she come?”
“Soon Astrid will cross the ocean to meet you.”
Astrid. It was a good, century’s old name meaning ‘divine strength’ in Old Norse. She’ll have to be strong to put up with me. Connor knew he wasn’t the easiest person to be with. The need to control and create often pushed him to the point of obsession. He needed a foil to counteract that intensity. I need my woman.
“And she is the one?” No one but other warlocks, who were, sadly, a dying breed, understood the crushing pressure they were under, and even then, his own kind tended to keep to themselves in order to guard their emotions.
“Yes, she will answer to the part of you that no other can.”