Spellbinder

by Thea Harrison

  His brilliant hazel gaze fixed on her, and he walked toward her. To her starved eyes, he looked more vital, more compelling than ever, his strong, bold features calm, even contemplative. The tanned skin around his eyes carried laugh lines she had barely gotten the chance to enjoy. The stern cut of his mouth was relaxed.

  He looked for all the world like a handsome, charismatic man might look on holiday.

  Panic ran over her, shrieking like a freight train. Whirling, she sprinted in the opposite direction.

  Her hearing was sharp enough now that she could hear him swearing from a block away. As she glanced over her shoulder, she saw him running after her in pursuit.

  She pelted down the sidewalk. She couldn’t move fast or far enough away from him, and between one stride and the next, she changed into a lycanthrope. Exclamations sounded all around, and someone shouted in alarm.

  From one moment to the next, something shimmered and changed. She could feel the magic, like she had never felt it before in her life. She was running in some kind of bubble, and while several people pointed back to where she had been, nobody looked directly at where she was.

  Had he thrown a cloaking spell around her?

  It didn’t matter. Tossing out all speculation, she lowered her head and ran for all she was worth.

  And he followed.

  He followed her out of town, and along the road that led into the North York Moors National Park. He followed her when she plunged into the park and ran across the wild, open space. The magic bubble encasing her dissipated. Glancing back again, she saw that he had changed into his lycanthrope form as well.

  She couldn’t outrun him. If he chose to, he could keep pace with her forever.

  Sidonie, will you stop? he said telepathically. We need to talk.

  No. No. The panic locked up her mind.

  Changing course in a giant circle, she raced back to her farmhouse. Once there, she shapeshifted quickly back into her human form. With shaking hands, she dug into her pocket for the key, let herself in, and slammed and locked the door.

  Backing away until her shoulder blades hit the nearby wall, she sank to the floor.

  Her lycanthrope senses were such that she knew the moment when his footsteps sounded outside. Something thunked against the door. His hand, perhaps, or even his head.

  She also heard him say quietly to himself, “What the hell.”

  * * *

  As Morgan watched the ruins of the summer palace slide into the sea, he wondered, where did one go after an age has ended?

  What was one to do with the rest of one’s life when one actually had a choice?

  At what point did one stop seeking justice and vengeance, and began, instead, to seek out his own life?

  Was it enough, now that he had killed Modred? Could he stop looking back, and begin to look forward?

  Isabeau’s kingdom was in disarray, and he had injured her badly.

  She wasn’t dead. Yet the thought of going after her seemed unutterably wearying. Her histrionics were so tawdry. She had enemies enough in the world… she and Oberon’s Dark Court were still at one another’s throats. They could kill each another. He no longer needed to be a part of it.

  Besides, the sword he bore wanted to go back to its holder. He could feel the pull from where it was sheathed in its scabbard. Its job was done.

  So he let it be enough.

  He rode back to the lake and offered the sword to its Lady. As he threw it, and her arm emerged, he whispered, “Thank you.”

  She caught the sword by the hilt and held it straight. His last sight of it was as she drew it down into the water. When the sword disappeared from view, somehow he knew he would never see it again.

  What was past could finally lie in the past. It settled into its grave with one last sigh. He hoped he had brought it a measure of peace. Now, what he had to do was make amends for some of the things he had done. It didn’t matter if he had done them while acting under the influence of the geas. Some wrongs needed to be put right.

  Riding to the closest crossover passageway, he went to Earth. For the next several days he traveled along the Welsh Marches and removed all the cloaking spells he had placed on crossover passageways, both those leading to Lyonesse and those leading to Avalon. He couldn’t do anything to repair the passageways he had ruined, but he could at least open the ones that were still useable.

  As he worked to clear the last passageway, a huge black stallion with fiery hooves galloped to up him. The horse reared and changed into Robin, who eyed him warily.

  “This is a surprise,” Robin remarked.

  Morgan raised an eyebrow. “I could say the same of you.”

  “I took your hunter’s spray to your cottage, but of course, you weren’t there.” The puck eyed him curiously. “I found the castle ruined, and the town all but empty.”

  “Indeed.” Morgan turned back to complete his task.

  When he was finished, Robin asked, “I no longer sense the darkness on you. So you are free from Isabeau’s control?”

  “It would seem so.” He rubbed his chest, which ached, but not because of the mortal wound Isabeau had given him. It ached from what had come after.

  After a moment, Robin asked, “Where is she? What happened to Sidonie?”

  “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  She became something else. She wrapped chains around me, and freed me at the same time, and I grew outraged and left.

  I left the best thing that has ever happened to me.

  The thought ate at him in the night. Where had she gone? What was she doing? The news of her kidnapping had hit all the major newspapers and television channels. He scoured each story for clues, but there were none, just a professionally prepared news release in which she thanked her fans for respecting her privacy while she recovered from her ordeal.

  He and the puck stood awkwardly together, in the middle of the sunlit clearing where the passageway shone clear and bright again.

  Then Morgan turned to face Robin. “I am attempting to right a few of the wrongs I committed in Isabeau’s name. All the crossover passageways are now clear again. Your king has fallen under a spell of mine. I would be glad to reverse it, if they would let me.”

  Robin laughed. “They would all, to a knight, die before they let you anywhere near Oberon. But I will pass on your regards and the message.”

  Morgan nodded, unsurprised. “Modred is dead,” he told Robin. “Isabeau is alive and in hiding. I don’t know where. I did manage to wound her, and she no longer commands the Hounds. I do. Tell this to the Dark Court as well—I mean them no harm. I never did, and I will take no further action against them as long as they leave me and mine alone. I’m done, puck. Do you hear me? I wash my hands of the war between you and the Light Court.”

  Robin smiled. “That was everything I had ever hoped for, sorcerer.” Then his smile died. “When you find her again, would you please tell her a thing from me?”

  Morgan didn’t have to ask who Robin meant. He already knew. “What?”

  “She offered me forgiveness once, even though, she said, she knew I did not want or need it. Could you please tell her I ask for her forgiveness now, even though she has already given it?” As he watched, Robin changed into the horse again. “After all, what would we have if we didn’t have forgiveness?”

  Morgan rubbed his eyes. “Good-bye, puck.”

  “Good-bye, sorcerer.” The horse paused. “Despite all that came between us before, I say fare thee well.”

  Forgiveness.

  Forgiveness might be given, even if one has never asked for it.

  Raising a hand, Morgan watched the horse gallop away. Soon the puck was lost in the distance.

  Morgan still wasn’t done. He had a culling to do, and when he reached the Hounds’ encampment outside Shrewsbury, it was bitter, ugly work.

  By the time he, Harrow, and a few trusted others had finished, he had cut the number of Hounds from nearly eighty down to just thirty-two. When the
last of the murderers and the criminals had been killed, he went off by himself and vomited until he had nothing left in his stomach.

  Forgiveness was hardest to give to oneself. Even when he knew the geas had compelled him to do things, he still remembered doing them. But nobody could walk that road of forgiveness for him. He would have to find his way by himself.

  He disbanded the rest of the Hounds and sent them off to live their individual lives, and then, when he lifted his head from all the wrongs he had worked to set right, he saw nothing ahead of him. Nothing, but what he chose for himself.

  I order you to go find joy wherever you may, with whomever you may—to find love, if you like, with someone clever, kind, and educated while you sightsee all the beauty in the world.

  Oh, Sidonie, he thought, while the pain in his chest swelled to overflowing. How could you chain me and then just give me up?

  He couldn’t do it.

  He couldn’t just walk away, and his inability to do so had nothing to do with the geas and everything to do with what they had shared for such a brief time.

  I order you to follow your heart and your best impulses.

  So he did. He cast a spell of finding that had brought him across the country, to this private farmhouse by the moors. And when she saw him, what did she do?

  She ran away, and kept running.

  What the hell?

  Had he injured her that badly?

  Leaning his forehead against the door, he said, “I know you can hear me. I know just how good your hearing is now. Sidonie, please don’t run away anymore. We need to talk. I need to talk to you.”

  He paused to listen, but nothing happened.

  Well, something happened, but it didn’t seem to have any connection to him. He could hear her footsteps as she walked away. They went up a flight of stairs. She had retreated to the upper story.

  Bewilderment mingled with pain. Her inexplicable behavior was unlike anything he had imagined when he’d thought about finding her. He had never felt at such a complete loss before.

  He did the only thing he could think to do. He kept talking.

  “Even though I want very badly to come in, I would never force open a door you closed on me,” he said. “But I need to talk to you, so I’ll wait here until you’re ready. It’s okay if it takes some time. I’ll be patient.”

  A window overhead opened. As he looked up, Sidonie threw a paper airplane out. It sailed downward in loops until it nose-dived into the grass.

  Walking over, he picked it up and unfolded it.

  Scrawled across the blank page, she had written, Please leave. I’m afraid to talk to you. I’m scared something I might say will trigger the geas.

  Ah. That.

  Understanding illuminated everything.

  Folding the paper with care, he tucked it into his pocket, turned, and sat on the porch stoop. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he looked over the acres of green pasture where a flock of sheep grazed.

  “I love you,” he told Sidonie. “I think I fell in love with you during one of my visits to you in the prison. It was when you snuggled against my side. You said, ‘I can’t really trust you, can I?’ Yet you still put your head on my shoulder. Do you remember?”

  Above him, she whispered, “Yes.”

  The single, tentative word shot hope into him. Lacing his fingers together, he looked down at his hands and thought, Be easy. Don’t blow this.

  “I thought, how could you possibly do that? How could you reach for me, when I tried to warn you away? But you didn’t have many choices down there, did you?”

  She sighed. “I had that choice. Nobody compelled me to do it. I understood I wasn’t supposed to trust you, but I did anyway.”

  “You were in an impossible situation,” he said. “They should never have done what they did to you.”

  “They should never have done what they did to you either.” Her voice was soft and held so much sadness, he wanted fiercely to put his arms around her, but he couldn’t. “I shouldn’t have done what I did to you. I knew it, and I did it anyway. You were dead, and I-I couldn’t—”

  Her words cut off abruptly. Hurting for her, he clenched his fists and waited, but she didn’t continue.

  Bravery, he thought, was facing the impossible and saying, What’s next? Which was exactly what she had done.

  “When I think of how you confronted Azrael, I’m speechless,” he told her. “And when I think of what you managed to win from the god of Death, I’m in awe. Here’s the thing, my love. If I had faced what you had faced—if I had seen you killed, I would have done exactly the same thing as you did. I would have done anything I had to do in order to keep you. Anything. I realized I would do that the first time we made love.”

  “But the one thing he offered was the one thing I knew you couldn’t accept,” she whispered. “I took it anyway, because I needed to know you were somewhere in the world, even if you weren’t with me.”

  The pain in those simple, whispered words was so clear, his eyes dampened. What a desperate choice she’d faced.

  “I’m here to ask for your forgiveness,” he said.

  “You? What do I have to forgive you for?”

  Leaning forward, he put his head in his hands. “When I awakened, and you told me what you’d done, I reacted badly.”

  There was a small silence. “Well, for God’s sake, you had your reasons. You had died.” Her voice broke, but she picked up again quickly. “Died and then woken up again to discover you were still under the geas. I’d say you get a pass for reacting badly to that, Morgan.”

  He chuckled as he wiped his eyes. “Okay, but I still hurt you, and I can’t take that back. I wish I could.” Standing, he stepped back from the house to look up at her. She had crossed her arms as she leaned on the windowsill, and she looked so vulnerable and beautiful at once, he wanted to claw his way up the side of the house to her. “I’m sorry it took me a few weeks to work through it. I had a lot of baggage I needed to clear out of the way, and a lot of years of struggling against the geas. Those years taught me I wasn’t supposed to trust anyone who held me in their control, but I trust you anyway.”

  Her gaze flared wide, and her expression came to life, but not with the kind of emotion he had hoped so much to see. “You—trust me?” she repeated bitterly. “How could you be so stupid? I don’t trust me!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It took a second for that to sink in. He demanded, “Why not?”

  “When I saw you walking down the street toward me earlier, the first thing I wanted to do was order you to stay!” she shouted. “That’s why I ran! That dumb god never should have offered it to me. You can’t trust me with the geas. But I also don’t ever want to see you look at me the way you did back in the great hall.”

  “Please believe me, if I could take that back, I would.” Frustration gnawed at him. She still kept her distance. She still wouldn’t walk down to open the door for him.

  But she had opened a window.

  Striding away, he turned back to the house and took a running leap at the window. As he grabbed hold of the windowsill, she stumbled back. Quickly, he hauled himself inside. When he straightened, she sat on the edge of a bed, staring at him, both hands clapped over her mouth.

  Kneeling in front of her, he gently pulled her hands down. “Stop denying what we both want. Don’t try to push me away anymore. I know now that you love me, and that’s why you let me go. You thought you were doing the right thing, and hell, at the time, you probably were. I needed to absorb what had happened. But I’m here now, and I want you more than I’ve wanted anything in my life.”

  Longing filled her gaze, along with a lingering reserve. She stroked his cheek. “What if I activate the geas? What if I accidentally say something it takes as an order—or what if I actually give you an order? Go to the store, and get some milk. Pick me up a sandwich on your way home. Order a pizza for tonight, will you? People say things like that all time.”

  “I don�
�t know. I don’t have all the answers.” Giving in to what he had been wanting to do for a long time, he pulled her into his arms. The rightness of her body aligning with his brought such relief, he sighed and laid his head on her shoulder. Her arms tightened around him. “If you activate the geas somehow, I’ll tell you to cut it out, and you’ll stop. We can’t live our lives in fear of it.”

  Her breath shuddered, and she tightened her arms. “We could if you left. You could have the entire world—everywhere except for where I am.”

  “I don’t want the entire world.” He pressed his lips against her neck. “I want you. I’m not going to lie to you, Sidonie. I think it will probably get messy sometimes, and I know we’ll make mistakes. Neither of us has lived a normal life, and even when people have the best of intentions, they still hurt each other. But do you know what that damn puck said to me the other day?”

  She nestled against him. “What?”

  “He said, ‘What would we have if we didn’t have forgiveness?’” Closing his eyes, he breathed in her scent. With her becoming a lycanthrope, it had changed. It was deeper, wilder, and it resonated with all the wild places inside him. “We can make this work. We have to make it work. I want you too much to let go, and I will do anything I have to do in order to keep you. Anything.”

  “I want you too, so much,” she whispered.

  He murmured in her ear, “Then take me.”

  * * *

  Take me, he said.

  It had been so impossible. Now could it really be that simple?

  Pulling back, Sid searched his face. She saw nothing but love and determination.

  “That whole resurrection thing is totally on me,” she told him. “But this one is on you.”

  Laughter, like fire, lit his gaze. “I’ll take full responsibility,” he promised. “You can throw this back in my face every time we have an argument.”