by Kay Hooper
“Somewhere else,” she said tightly, gritting her teeth to keep from saying something she might regret later. Such as the words that made up the spell to turn an enemy into a toad. Would it work on another wizard? She had no idea, but she was willing to experiment on him.
“I don’t recognize that mark,” he said. “If your Lord isn’t in Atlantia, then—”
“He is,” a new voice said calmly.
The wizard turned and eased back from Serena in a clear gesture of giving way as he watched another tall, dark wizard coming toward them. His frown smoothly became a smile. “Merlin. She’s yours?”
“Yes, Varian, she is.”
“May I make an offer?”
In a polite tone Merlin said, “I couldn’t allow you to waste your time. She isn’t for sale.” He stepped past the other wizard to join Serena, giving her a quick, unreadable look before he faced Varian again.
“Bitches are always for sale, Merlin,” Varian retorted, still smiling.
“She isn’t for sale. Not now. Not ever. And I won’t change my mind.” Merlin’s tone was equally pleasant, but there was a note of steel underneath.
For a moment it seemed Varian would either continue to insist or challenge Merlin in some other way, but finally he inclined his head in an ironic little bow and shrugged. “So be it. You should keep a closer watch on her if you don’t want her stolen away from you, my friend. Not all the wizards here are as reasonable as I am about such matters.”
“Thank you. I’ll remember that,” Merlin told him, still cordial.
Varian glanced at Serena again, much in the hungry way some men eyed sleek red sports cars that fired their passions, then said to Merlin, “You’re certainly welcome to bring her to my place on your next visit. In the meantime I’ll leave you alone with your property. I’m sure that after several days apart, you’re eager to lie between her legs again.”
Serena felt her mouth drop open as she stared after the departing wizard. She closed it carefully, very conscious of Merlin’s silence beside her. And his closeness. After Varian’s crude statement, she thought she might be blushing for the first time in her adult life.
In a dispassionate tone Merlin said, “He’s the most sexual creature I’ve ever encountered.”
She took a couple of steps away from his side and turned to face him, hoping she didn’t look as stiff as she felt. However she might have greeted Merlin after having been separated from him for so long, Varian’s presence—and his words—had made her feel emotionally paralyzed. “Yeah, I got that impression. Was he a good host?”
“I didn’t see much of him.” Merlin was gazing at her steadily. “What I did see, I didn’t like.”
Serena glanced around them at the dead city, avoiding his scrutiny. She was uncomfortable with Merlin for the first time in her memory. “I know the feeling. Sanctuary is a pretty weird place. It’s funny … I got a close-up look at the nearest thing I’ve ever seen to pure sisterhood, and I didn’t like it much. Not that the city isn’t run capably; it is. And most of the women seem fairly content when they aren’t dreading the night. But there’s absolutely no mental stimulation at all. Nobody disagrees, because they all think the same on almost every subject. Sometimes they sound like parrots, especially when they blame all their troubles on the male wizards.”
“Do you disagree with that?”
Serena crossed her arms beneath her breasts and sighed. “In a way I do. Oh, the males were unquestionably bastards when they encouraged the rape of female wizards and when they refused to allow the females to have at least a mountain of their own to get above the Curtain. And their practices of owning powerless women and murdering their female infants hardly qualify them to be members of the human race.”
Merlin smiled slightly. “But?”
“But … the women in Sanctuary aren’t even trying to do anything about their situation. They stick close to the city and go on with their lives day to day. If you ask them, they tell you how rotten the males are, but some of them have never spoken to a man—powerless or wizard—in their entire lives. And as far as I could tell, no female wizard has tried to climb one of the mountains in years. I’ll bet the male wizards don’t even bother to guard them anymore.”
“They don’t,” Merlin confirmed. “According to what Tremayne told me, they haven’t had to worry about that in ten years or more.”
Serena shook her head. “That figures. I asked one of the women why somebody didn’t try, and she looked at me like I was crazy. The female wizards don’t think beyond what they’ve been told, never questioning, never even considering that it might be possible to find a way to coexist with the males. Even though it was done here once.”
“Yes, I know. I heard about this city from Tremayne.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
He nodded. “I wanted to take a look at it before I returned to Sanctuary, and when I saw Varian, I decided to follow him. He hadn’t said anything about coming down to the valley when Tremayne and I left this morning.”
“Where’s Tremayne?”
“He was going straight to Sanctuary.” Merlin hesitated, then said, “He wanted to see Roxanne.”
“They know each other?”
“She didn’t tell you about it?”
“No …” Serena frowned. “But now that I think about it, if she’s interested in Tremayne—in spite of what happened to her and all they’ve tried to drum into her in Sanctuary—that could explain why she asked so many questions about you and me, especially after she figured out I was a wizard.” She briefly explained Roxanne’s deductions.
“And she seemed most interested in our relationship?”
Since he had asked the question coolly, Serena replied in the most unruffled tone she could manage. “I think so. The fact that we were together in any sense of the word obviously intrigued her, and she specifically asked if you’d ever hurt me.”
“I hope you told her I hadn’t.”
“Of course I did.” Serena didn’t remind him that he had come close to hurting her here, although she couldn’t help remembering it. She hesitated, then added, “I also told her there was a wall between us.”
“Is that the way you see it?”
“Don’t you? You told me there were boundaries we couldn’t cross, and what’s happened here makes it obvious what you meant, I think. When you left Sanctuary a few days ago, you didn’t believe male and female wizards could coexist. Has something happened to convince you otherwise?”
Merlin looked at her for a moment, then shrugged off his light pack and dropped it beside the flat stone where Serena had sat earlier. He took his coat off, as well, and tossed it over the stone. It was a warm day, but Serena didn’t know if he had removed the coat because of that or in a gesture like rolling up his sleeves. He wasn’t wearing his staff, and she thought he’d probably sent it into limbo until it was needed for the sake of convenience.
Answering her question obliquely, he said, “I told Tremayne what had happened to Roxanne after it became obvious to me that he was very interested in her. He wants her to go with him when he leaves here.”
From that response Serena gathered two things. The first was that Merlin was, for the moment at least, going to ignore how her question related to them personally. The second was that he had decided Tremayne was indeed the witness who would record the destruction of Atlantis for the future society of wizards.
Following his lead, she said, “How did he take it when you told him she was attacked?”
“He was furious enough to want to kill the men who attacked her; that was obvious. I was half afraid he’d blame her, but he didn’t. He has an unusually compassionate nature for a man, or wizard, of this time.”
“So you really did change history when you saved Roxanne’s life, didn’t you?”
Merlin shook his head. “There’s no way to be sure of that, not until we return to our time. There are so many variables that could affect the outcome. Not the least of which is that R
oxanne can still reject Tremayne, which would certainly leave him bitter and very likely to give his father and the other Elders on the Council of this time a negative report on what’s happened here.”
“What if she doesn’t reject him?”
“If she doesn’t reject him … if they’re able to overcome the beliefs, prejudices, and fears to which they’ve both been exposed for most of their lives and create a positive relationship for themselves, then his report would probably be far less harsh and certainly wouldn’t advise so drastic a step as destroying all women of power. If she leaves Atlantis with him, the future of our kind is likely to be very different.”
“But we can’t know for sure until we step back through the gate.”
“No, we can’t.”
Serena thought about it for a moment. “Do you think we should do anything else to try and change the future? I mean, have you decided that the best chance of changing what’s wrong in our present without screwing up everything else in our time is to help Tremayne and Roxanne overcome their doubts and wariness so they can leave here together?”
“It makes sense, I think. One person—if it’s the right one, that is—can make a small but very critical decision that changes everything. I believe Tremayne is honest and fair-minded enough to be that voice.”
“So you told him about Roxanne’s being attacked, and he went rushing right over to comfort her?”
Ignoring her mild sarcasm, he said, “I told him about Roxanne. And I told him that even though it’s against our very nature to allow anyone—anyone—to get close to us, we have to overcome that flaw.”
“We?”
“Serena, I don’t have all the answers. I can’t tell you that the past few days resolved all my doubts or changed me in some fundamental way.”
“But?” A dull ache between her shoulder blades told Serena she was standing too stiffly, too tensely, but she couldn’t seem to make herself relax. This was too important, too vital to her happiness.
Merlin spoke slowly, as if feeling his way through a mine field. “But seeing what happened here, seeing the waste of lives and energies, the destruction of the powerless people and the death of Atlantis … I know I don’t want any part of me to come from the wizards here, what they were and what they did. I know I don’t want to be so closed and guarded that there’s no room in my life for anyone else. No room for you. I don’t want there to be any walls between us, Serena. Or boundaries we’re afraid to cross. I know that.”
ELEVEN
“Does knowing make a difference?” Serna kept her voice matter-of-fact with an effort. “You still don’t trust me. I can feel it.”
“Do you trust me? Now, after knowing why we’re here and what I’m capable of doing to you? You were afraid of me a few days ago, Serena—are you now?”
She wanted to back off, to fence with words and avoid the emotions clawing inside her because they were so painful and disturbing, but she fought against the urge. All around them lay a ruined city, a doomed society, and a dying land; she was no more willing than Merlin to allow herself to be poisoned by what was happening here.
“Not afraid,” she denied at last. “But wary. And I do trust you, Richard, in so many ways … just not in all the unthinking ways I used to trust you.”
Merlin was a little surprised that it hurt so much to hear her say that. “I see.”
“I wonder if you do. You didn’t answer me; does knowing make a difference? Maybe you don’t want to be closed and guarded … but you are. Maybe this place and what’s happening here sickens you, but you still see and feel the boundaries created by what happened here millennia before you were born. I’m a woman and a wizard—and all your instincts tell you that’s wrong, unnatural, something to loathe and fear. We both know that. And knowing it doesn’t change a damned thing.”
He drew a short breath and let it out, wishing she weren’t right. “What do you want me to say, Serena?”
She took a jerky step toward him, her arms still crossed defensively. “It isn’t enough to define the problem. Change it, Richard. Fix it. Heal the wound the way you healed Roxanne’s, the way you mended my broken wrist when I was sixteen.” Completely beyond her ability to halt it, a hot tear slipped from the corner of one eye and trickled down her cheek. “Make it all right again, please,” she whispered.
Merlin slowly closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. He didn’t think about what he was doing even to realize he’d never done it before; all he knew was that her aching plea almost broke his heart. It reached inside him, past all the stubborn boundaries, deeper than instinct, and touched a part of him intended by all the beliefs and laws of his kind to lie forever dormant.
In all his life no one had ever looked at him as Serena did, expecting only the best from him and believing he was capable of near perfection. Her confidence in him had often disconcerted him and more than once had given him a sleepless night; and when he had fallen from the pedestal on which she had placed him, the landing had been brutal. Yet, even after he had disillusioned her by behaving as an all too human male, and even after she’d been frightened by the knowledge that he could destroy her, she still possessed an innocent and touching faith in his ability to repair whatever was broken in her life.
And, Christ, he didn’t want to destroy that….
He held her close, his head bent and his cheek pressed to her silky hair. “I wish it was that easy,” he told her reluctantly in a low, husky voice. “But a wizard’s power can’t heal his own wounds, correct his own flaws; you know that. What’s wrong with me can’t be fixed by me with a simple spell or a wave of my staff, no matter how much I want it to happen.”
“Then let me try to heal you.” Her arms crept around his waist as her tense body relaxed against him, and her cheek rubbed gently just above his heart. “Give me a chance to try, please. Let me be close to you. Let me in, Richard.”
It occurred to him as he held her that their only chance might well be Serena’s virtually untried ability to heal. Though his intellect would allow him to consider the possibility of their being involved as a man and woman, the taboo stamped in his very genes set up a potent emotional conflict he had little chance of winning—not without years of struggle. In any case the end would likely be meaningless because he was sure Serena would have left him by then.
If he could overcome his mistrust now to the point of allowing her close to him, then perhaps she could correct the flaws and wounds his ancestors had inflicted on him and in so doing make him whole. Perhaps …
But could he allow her close? She was close to him now, warm against him, soft and yet strong, the scent of her hair and skin going to his head like fine wine. Had they been this close before? No. Not this close. And the urge to comfort was changing into something far more elemental.
The banked desire he had felt for years flared up inside him, and the instant he admitted to himself that he wanted her, he could feel something in him trying to draw back, to pull away from her almost in horror, attempting to close itself off in safety. The instinctive withdrawal was overwhelming, but he struggled against it, trying to master the clamorings of a taboo he wanted no part of.
She was Serena, for nine years a central part of his life, and there was nothing wrong with how he felt about her, he told that wary part of himself fiercely. Nothing. She was no danger to him, no threat. She took nothing away from him, didn’t make him less than he was; she added to his life, to himself. He had risked everything to come back in time because he couldn’t bear to hurt her, to lose her, and surely the seeds of trust could be found in that….
“Richard.” She raised her head to look up at him with shadowed green eyes. “Just tell me you’re willing to try. Tell me I’m not alone in believing we’re more than Master and Apprentice. Tell me that what I feel isn’t wrong.”
He lifted one hand to cup her cheek, his thumb stroking satiny skin and slightly brushing the curve of her lower lip. Had he always known her eyes were bottomless?
He thought he could lose himself in them, a terrifying, seductive notion. “What do you feel, Serena?” he asked, his voice hushed.
Her long lashes quivered a bit, not veiling her brilliant eyes but betraying a pang of vulnerability, and her mouth twisted a little in painful self-mockery. “I … oh, hell, you have to know exactly what I feel. It’s not like I can hide it from you even if you can’t read my mind—”
Merlin bent his head and touched her lips with his. It was a careful, tentative kiss, very gentle and so fleeting that when it ended, Serena looked as if she wasn’t certain it had happened at all. “Tell me,” he murmured.
It took a tremendous effort for Serena to stop staring at his mouth, but when she met the liquid blackness of his eyes, it was like being kissed again—this time with all the heat and intensity she could see burning in him. Beyond any ability to lie or evade the subject, she whispered, “I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I’ve always been afraid you’d send me away if you knew….”
“I would have. Once I would have.” He was bending his head again as he spoke, covering her mouth this time with more certainty and a sudden hunger.
Serena was instantly caught up in the almost shocking whirl of sensations. His mouth, smooth and cool against hers, then warming, hardening as hers opened to him eagerly. His body, unyielding and powerful, muscles solid under her touch, his heart like a drum against her. The aching of her breasts longing for his touch, and the hollow feeling of wanting deep inside her. The tremors rippling through her and the faint shudders with which his body answered. The burning she could feel, a surging heat in him and in her that was a stunningly powerful need.
For the first time in her life, Serena felt the sharp, mindless compulsion of her body’s urgent passion. She had thought herself rather cool, uninterested in and unmoved by the desire of men who had wanted her, but Merlin’s desire ignited her own as a torch lit dry timber. She wanted him so wildly, so desperately, that to think of anything except satisfying her desire required incredible effort.