Charmed Destinies

by Mercedes Lackey

  Again her fingers came, brushing his lips. Jarid pulled back, embarrassed that she would touch him intimately in front of strangers. He wished he could pull her into his arms and enfold himself in her serenity.

  Concern washed out from her mind, her emotions clearer to him than the moods of the others in the room. She ached to reach him, just as he wanted to hold her. She touched his lips again—and this time he held still, realizing her intent. Communication.

  Jarid mouthed two words: Free me.

  She lowered her hand. He sensed an argument among his captors, their determination to keep him bound. Another of the woman’s soothing spells flowed over him, a backwash this time; she had directed this one at his captors rather than him. An odd weapon, using spells of calmness, but perhaps more effective here than fists.

  Someone grasped his arms. Jarid held back the instinctual fear that drove him to resist what he could neither see nor know. He needed to stay calm. His wife was in the room. He didn’t want her to see him go berserk.

  A moment later he was glad he hadn’t struggled, for they were untying him. As soon as he was free, he brought his arms in front of his body and rubbed his wrists.

  The woman took his hand and led him forward.

  A sparkle of stars lit the sky and the moon silvered the landscape. Iris walked with Jarid, who held the crook of her arm as they made their way down a slope outside the castle. The night was cool but comfortable. Six officers accompanied them, five decahedron lieutenants and one orb captain. Brant Firestoke walked a short distance away, respecting Iris’s request for privacy but refusing to let her and Jarid out of his sight.

  Her husband took each step as if he expected to fall into a chasm. Iris closed her eyes, trying to experience the world as he did, and she immediately stumbled on ground that had suddenly become unfamiliar and threatening, though she knew the land here well.

  Opening her eyes, she murmured, “Would that I could light your vision the way Chime can light a room.” She was speaking more to herself than Jarid, knowing he couldn’t hear her.

  Unexpectedly he stopped and faced her, his face gentling. It gave him a boyish quality, open and charming, the way he might have looked if he had lived a life free of such devastating losses.

  He mouthed a word: where?

  Iris had no idea where she was taking him, only that she had felt his need to escape the castle. She understood why he resisted its lifeless halls; she, too, preferred the forest and hills to the inanimate confines even of lovely Suncroft.

  A wonderful idea came to her. She took his fingers and set them against her lips. “I will take you to a special place.”

  His forehead furrowed.

  She spoke more slowly. “To the woods. A special place.”

  Jarid continued to look puzzled, but he nodded. He traced her lips, his fingers lingering until heat spread through her. As much as he stirred her, he also made her self-conscious, given how little privacy they had with the guards and Brant here. She lowered his hand to her side, intertwining her fingers with his. Rather than taking her response as a rejection, he squeezed her fingers. Then he set off again, walking carefully, holding her hand. It gratified Iris that he would trust her this way without any idea of where she meant to take him.

  They entered the woods at the bottom of the slope, where the trees blocked the moon’s glow. Iris paused while her eyes adjusted. Jarid waited next to her, his head tilted as if he were listening to the forest on a level beyond sound.

  Iris made a decision then. She turned to Brant, who was standing by the moss-covered trunk of a nearby tree. “You must take these soldiers back to the castle.”

  He came forward. “Your Majesty, we cannot.”

  His address startled Iris; she couldn’t think of herself with such a grandiose title. But she had no doubt about one thing. “My husband needs to know these soldiers are gone.”

  Brant showed no sign of relenting. “He has no way to know they are here.”

  She glanced at Jarid, who stood silent, his eyes dark in the moonglow that filtered through the canopy of branches.

  “He knows,” Iris said.

  “We cannot risk it.”

  “It is’n my safety at stake, Lord Firestoke.” Iris took Jarid’s arm and he brushed his thumb over her knuckle. She caught a hint of his thoughts; he understood that she spoke on his behalf. Given that he had no way to hear her arguments, this trust he offered was a gift. It gave her a glimmering of how it felt to be accepted, making her wonder if she might have a place here after all. She hoped he didn’t regret his choice to trust her.

  “He must know he is not a prisoner,” she said. “Well then, if we guard his every move, how will he feel free?”

  Brant’s face was shadowed. “We must guard his every move, lest he hurt you or himself.”

  “It is’n a risk.” Iris willed him to believe her. She had no pure shapes to use here, only trees, rocks and ground. Her spells skittered around their incomplete forms and dispersed. But the woods and sky had an ancient power that called to her in a way the castle and its human-made shapes had never done. She reached to the moon itself. The disk wasn’t quite full, and its face changed its contours, but it was enough. Her power focused and the spell flowed through her with wonderful clarity. As it washed over Brant and his officers, she imagined soothing scenes, tranquil forest glades and burbling creeks.

  Brant sighed. “Iris, you must stop trying to influence me with these shape-mage spells.”

  Hai! He had realized her ploy.

  His stern visage gentled. “If I trust you, it will not be due to your spell, but rather because if you can calm me with such a strong spell, you can do the same for your husband.” He glanced at Jarid, his austere gaze hooded. “I hope he appreciates his fortune in this marriage.”

  Iris thought of Jarid’s inner light, his boyish mischief and his unspoken trust. “The fortune is mine.”

  “Ah, Iris,” Brant murmured. “You are a jewel.”

  She stared at him, stunned. Never would she have expected to hear such from the formidable Lord Firestoke.

  Then he became all business. “You must return to Castle Suncroft by morning. If you do not, we will come out and haul you both back regardless of what you say.”

  “We will be back before the sun clears the horizon,” she promised.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Aye, I am.”

  “The castle is a place of more…comfort.”

  She wondered why he sounded so awkward. “Jarid and I find comfort in these woods.”

  “You wouldn’t at least like a blanket?”

  Iris flushed, finally realizing why he thought she wanted to be alone with Jarid. “My thanks, but no.”

  He exhaled, but then he motioned to his men. They bowed to her and Jarid, and took their leave. Their minds receded as they returned to the castle, until she could no longer sense them.

  The entire time, Jarid had stood without moving, like a stag in the woods when a human ventured into his territory. When they were alone, completely alone, he turned toward her, his expression questioning. Iris took his fingers and set them against her mouth. “They have left.”

  He strok
ed her lips. Then he bent his head.

  She didn’t realize what he intended until his lips brushed hers. A tingle went through her, but the kiss was so unexpected that at first she couldn’t react. She thought his feather-light touch would vanish, but instead he deepened the pressure of his lips. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and leaned into him, her arms going around his waist.

  Iris had never believed a person could really feel the beat of her lover’s heart through his clothes, but it was true; his came to her, strong and steady. His hands roamed her back, catching her clothes and pulling her curls, making her even more aware of how he did everything by touch.

  Eventually he drew back enough to press his lips on her forehead. When he lifted his head, she took his hand and spoke against his fingers. “I have a gift for you.”

  He hesitated, and she could tell he wasn’t sure what she had said. But he went with her as she led him deeper into the woods. They walked more slowly than before, Iris needing almost as much caution now as Jarid, with so little moonlight making it past the canopy of branches overhead. But in this forest she knew so well, she could have found the place she sought even if nothing at all had lit the way.

  Spheres turned in Jarid’s mind, spinning in an endless glistening dance. Never had he envisioned them with such clarity. Yet for all their beauty, even more than usual, they spun so fast that they gave him vertigo, which had never happened before. He shut them away, wanting to clear his mind of everything but the woman.

  Breezes cooled his face, a change he craved after his imprisonment in the castle. He would have sung his joy at this freedom, if only he had the words. At Stone’s cabin, he had known the land well enough to walk on his own as long as he didn’t stray far. He had recognized all the many and varied scents of the mountains. He missed his home. He missed Stone. Surely he would know if these people had harmed his foster father. Jarid couldn’t believe Stone would give him up so easily. No. Stone wouldn’t do such a thing. The soldiers must have prevented him from following his son. Jarid vowed he would find a way to contact his father.

  The woman guided him through a screen of heavy foliage.

  Branches snagged his clothes and he stumbled. He was surrounded, caught, penned in, imprisoned. Suffocated.

  Just as Jarid started to balk, the woman pulled him free of the branches, into an open place.

  Jarid froze.

  Spheres!

  They jumped in his mind, spinning, spinning, spinning, throwing off sparks of light. Dazed, he pressed the heels of his palms against his temples, trying to relieve the intensity of his reaction. Mist sprayed his face, hinting of a waterfall nearby. He smelled fresh water, a lake perhaps, more likely a pool, given the enclosed feel of this place. The fragrance of shape-vines tickled his nose and he drew pure air into his lungs.

  The woman was taking his hands again. She put his fingers against her lips, those lips he wanted to kiss until she groaned, though he would never hear her pleasure. He hungered for her, all of her, but lost in his darkness and silence, he couldn’t find a path to her through the maze of his emotions.

  She spoke against his fingers. Jarid. Husband. Her full lips tantalized his sensitized skin. The scent of fresh soap and flowers hung about her like a delicate perfume.

  He mouthed two words. Your name? When puzzlement came from her mind, he tried again. Name?

  Iris.

  Iris. It made her more real to him, less of a mystery, a woman of colors he felt rather than saw: the ruddy warmth of her touch; the gold of her emotions; the sunlight of her intellect; her fresh serenity, like leaves unfurling in spring; the open spaces she gave him, as blue as the sky he never saw; and her indigo moods, the sadness that so often filled her.

  Frustrated by his inability to speak and aroused by touching her lips, he pulled her close, harder than he had intended, speaking with his body, his confusion mixed with his desire until he couldn’t separate the two. Love and anger, tenderness and rough edges: his emotions all tumbled together. The silken texture of her dress was foreign, like a rich dessert he craved. The unfamiliar softness of her skin excited him. He held her too hard and her alarm sparked, but he didn’t want to stop. Not now. He needed her. He needed. He didn’t know what to do with that need, how to make her want him.

  Then her hands moved, stroking his arms. Her orb-spell flowed over him, and he took an uneven breath, struggling for control. Instead of fighting him, she offered this spell of trust. It bewildered him, for she had no reason to believe he wouldn’t hurt her.

  Moving stiffly, Jarid knelt on the ground, drawing her down with him. The grass felt cool and succulent on his skin when he braced his weight on one hand, and the heady fragrance of shape-vines tickled his nose. He wanted to clench Iris until he sated his driving hunger. When he pulled her forward, pressing her body to his, she tensed and put her palms against his shoulders, trying to push him back.

  Jarid knew he should stop. He had frightened her. But it was so hard to let her go. He forced himself to ease his grip enough so she could jump to her feet and escape. To his unmitigated surprise, she stayed put. Instead, she relaxed in his embrace and moved her hands down his arms in a caress.

  Let me, he thought to her, but even if he could have spoken, he knew none of the sweet whispers a woman expected from a man. They were strangers; this fragile bond they were forging could shatter if he let his true nature show. His guilt went too deep. That crushing guilt. He pushed it down, refusing to acknowledge it. For this one night, he wanted to forget.

  Iris stroked his shoulders, his face, his chest. The sensuality of the way she smelled provoked him past reasonable thought, and the scrape of her skin against his, through a rip in his shirt, made his pulse leap. She tugged at his belt clasp and he would have groaned if he could have made a sound. Instead, he grabbed her wrists, his restraint crumbling. Pushing her backward, he unbalanced them both so that she tumbled onto her back in the sweetly scented grass. Before she could react, he stretched out on top of her, grasping at her small waist and full breasts.

  When she stiffened under him, Jarid feared he had pushed too hard, too fast. But no—she was responding, caressing his back, tentative but without fear. He would have known if she acquiesced only because she was his wife. He felt her excitement. She wanted him, no one else. Realizing he kindled her desire that way aroused him more than any expertise on her part could have done.

  Jarid kissed her neck, pressing his teeth against her skin, aware of how it gave under the pressure and hard edges of his bite. He must be too coarse; surely a man came to his wife more gently. But he didn’t know how to love her. He had lived a life more secluded than any hermit.

  And yet she didn’t find him repulsive. Her response flowed over him. That she would accept him now, despite everything, made him light, airy, almost happy, an emotion he had had little familiarity with these past years. Right now it made no difference that his world was dark; he saw her with his hands and felt her light-drenched moods. Nor did his silence matter; his touch spoke to her in a language that needed no words.

  Her healing spells wove around him, released by the power in this forest place. She had tried her spells earlier, in the palace, but he had been stone. Here in this enchanted sphere, his defenses weakened. After so many years, they finally eased. Her spells were pouring over him, through him, into him, with tenderness.

&nb
sp; So the two of them came together, protected within a sphere of life, misted with water. Her pleasure answered his, their moods blending as they loved each other.

  Sometime later, Jarid lifted his head. He was lying on his side now, tangled in Iris’s arms, warm from their earlier joining. She slept beside him, her mind tranquil, her body soft and tempting. He should have been happy, content, pleased—but he was breaking inside, the way the ice on a lake cracked after a long winter. His passion had surged through him in a catharsis, a great release of energy he couldn’t control. He hadn’t the words to describe what was happening; he knew only that he was shattering. He thought of Iris and the pain surged. This pleasure she gave him came at too great a price; she had breached his defenses and left him vulnerable. He would have cried out, but he had no voice.

  Panic hit. Jarid yanked on his trousers and shirt and lurched to his feet. The spherical hollow vibrated with energy, focusing his mind until he thought he would explode with the power coursing through him. A memory came to him from a night long ago, his mother weaving her final spell: the power of a life.

  No! Jarid strode away without even lacing up his shirt. He was dimly aware of Iris waking, of confusion replacing her contentment. He stumbled into the pool and slipped, falling to his knees. Angered by his inability to see, he scrambled to his feet, spraying water everywhere. Then he strode away, swinging his hands in front of his body as if he were fighting the air.

  A branch jabbed his palm. Ripping the foliage out of his path, Jarid plunged forward into the bushes that surrounded this hollow. He thrashed through the barrier, unheeding of how it tore his clothes and gashed his skin.

  Then he was free and striding through the woods, his outstretched hands scraping trees as he escaped the unbearable radiance of Iris’s mind.