Serpent's Kiss

by Thea Harrison

Perhaps they were different stars altogether. Carling tended to think not, but ultimately it didn’t matter. Here, the stars were nothing more than a mystery and ornamentation. No weight of historical belief hung on their configuration. There were no myths attached to any constellations. There was nowhere to navigate to by their positions. No matter where one sailed, one always came back to the island. This little bubble of dimensional reality was nothing more than a seed pearl strung beside the goddess’s pendant moon.

  This had been a good place to retreat to when the rest of the world grew to be too much, a good place to find at least a measure of solitude and quiet whenever she could find time to attend to her research and studies.

  She supposed it had been as much a home as anywhere else had been, and it had been far better than most. She had made peace with the shy winged creatures that lived at the top of the redwoods. She set wards around the forest and refused to let anyone hunt them. In return, presents were sometimes left on her window ledge, a black iridescent feather, a perfect sea-shell, or a gold-veined rock, or sometimes a handful of tart red berries on a leaf, and once, there had been a string of strangely carved wooden beads.

  The place had not changed, but what peace she had managed to find here had fled, and she missed it. She missed it badly.

  All that it had taken to wreck it was the presence of one insouciant Wyr, a strange and ancient creature who, at his heart, was a compassionate man.

  She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and her attention shifted.

  Rune strode out in the champagne and ivory night. As she watched, he turned toward the cliff and started to run. With each powerful thrust of his long legs, he kicked to an astonishing speed, his vigorous wide-shouldered body moving faster and faster as he approached land’s end. Then he sprang like the great cat he was, landed in a crouch on top of the stone wall at the edge of the cliff, and leaped into the air, his arms spread wide, his athletic body thrown into a perfect diver’s pose.

  As he soared into the air, he changed. Enormous wings flared into existence. Moonlight glimmered on his broad-muscled back as his body turned feline. Colossal paws tipped the columns of his four legs. The strong length of his neck and head became the pure sharp arc of an eagle’s, with a wicked, razor-hooked beak that had to be as long as her forearm and a great fierce raptor’s gaze. In the full light of the desert day, he had shone hot with color, copper and gold. In the light of the witch’s moon, his colors were darker and sharper, bronze tipped with the palest silvery edge.

  Humans were not meant to bear the weight of immortality. Each Vampyre had to find her own way of coping with great age or eventually go mad. In the end, the best way to survive the endless onslaught of event as it turned into memory was to compartmentalize. Carling had countless closed doors in the corridors in her mind, doors that were shut against all the grinding relentlessness of the past. Those closed doors had, inevitably, become barriers to other things as well.

  As Rune took flight, all the many thousands of doors in all the corridors in her mind opened and opened and opened, until she stood in solitude, utterly naked, and felt as she had as a child.

  Rune was one of the oldest mysteries of the earth. His existence predated language itself. She watched him soar against the starry backdrop of the champagne moon, and just as the long-ago child Khepri had, she felt her soul leave her body all over again.

  When ten minutes became longer than a half hour, she stopped waiting and became busy with other things.

  The books screamed as she burned them. The screeching sound they made clawed at the inside of her skull.

  She was braced for it. She had made Rhoswen swear to not leave the main house. That had been a fierce argument she hadn’t seen coming, and really, she had grown too tired of how everything had become such a struggle. That was going to have to change.

  Then she had spelled a circle of protection in her cottage with salt around the fireplace. She stuffed her ears with wax softened with myrrh and smudged with sweetgrass and white sage, and she wore leather gloves that were also spelled so that no magic, dark or light, could cling to them.

  The task was still a noxious, exhausting business, and one that she had put off doing for far too long. It was just as well she did not need to breathe. The fumes from the fire were toxic. She was soot-streaked and cranky by the time the book-burning was over.

  Rune had made an excellent point. She had to think with a robustness that would help her fight to live. She must also act as if she were about to die. The black magic books were too dangerous to leave without a guardian, and she didn’t trust anyone else enough to keep them without eventually giving in to the temptation to use them.

  If she did nothing, sooner or later their magic would eat through the bindings she had carved into the cabinet. Either that or some damn fool would find a way to get to them. There was always some damn fool who thought he was strong enough to handle using black magic without letting it suck him in. Hubris, cruelty, greed and stupidity. They were the reasons why black magic had survived for so long. Dark Powers dined on those qualities as though they were the finest hors d’oeuvres.

  She had built the fire with cedar for more purification, and she stoked it with Power so it burned unnaturally hot and fast. When the last of the books had crumbled to ash, she stripped off her caftan and the gloves and threw them into the fire as well. Then she took the pitchers of water she had set out under the witch’s moon. She poured one pitcher of the moon-filled water over the ashes, so they were purified three times over, by salt, and fire, and water.

  Finally done, she took the other two pitchers into the cottage’s bathroom. She washed away the soot from her hair and body with handfuls of soft soap she had made for just such an occasion, with eucalyptus, frankincense and lavender. She emerged from the bathroom wearing a clean cotton caftan and smelling rather pungent, but at least her skin was clear of any hint of lingering dark magic.

  After checking the soggy ashes one last time, she left the cottage open so that it could air out and walked back to the main house.

  The night had almost passed. Predawn was lightening the sky in the east. In the kitchen, she found Rasputin sound asleep on a cushion and Rhoswen drinking bloodwine. There was no sign of Rune, but then she hadn’t expected any. He would have known better than to interrupt her as she burned the books, but if he had returned, he would have been waiting just outside the cottage.

  She left the kitchen door open as well. Cool, fresh air wafted into the house as she sat at the table. A sleepy Rasputin roused and puttered over to lie across her bare feet. She picked him up, and he curled on her lap with a grunt, tucking his narrow nose under his fluffy tail.

  Then she smiled at Rhoswen and said, “You have given me more than I have ever had the right to ask, and far more than I ever expected. Thank you for your devotion, and for everything you’ve done. I need you to do one more thing.”

  “Of course,” Rhoswen said.

  “I need you to take Rasputin and go back to San Francisco. I know you don’t like to take care of him, so I want you to hire someone out of the household account. Make sure they pass all the required security checks, they get along with the rest of the staff, and they are available to stay in the town house. Then you are going to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life.”

  “No,” Rhoswen said. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  “You should take your time,” Carling said quietly. “I know what a big lifestyle change this will be for you. I have told Duncan to set up an account with plenty of money. He should have it ready by now.”

  “I won’t go.”

  “Yes you will,” Carling said. She kept her eyes and voice gentle and yet adamant. “It’s past time, Rhoswen. You have not been happy for quite a while, and I have been selfish and let you stay with me for too long.”

  “But I can’t go,” Rhoswen said. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” said Carling, and she was surprised to find that she mea
nt it. “But you have used me as an excuse to avoid living your own life, and I never gave you permission to try to curtail what I do or to control how I choose to do it. And I never promised that you could be with me for everything. I have some things I need to face on my own right now, and so do you.”

  “Please, don’t make me leave,” said Rhoswen. “I swear I can change. I’ll look after the damn dog for you. You just said you needed me to hire somebody anyway.”

  “No, Rhoswen,” said Carling. “That would not be the right thing for you, and I have been selfish for long enough. I’m sorry.”

  “You can’t do this to me,” said Rhoswen. “You can’t just discard me like this, not after everything I’ve done for you.”

  “I am not discarding you,” Carling said. She kept her voice even with an effort. Why did this have to be as much of a struggle as everything else had become with Rhoswen? “I am setting you up well and giving you plenty of time to adjust.”

  The next half hour was as difficult as she knew it would be, but eventually it had to end because she wouldn’t budge no matter what Rhoswen said or how she pleaded.

  Finally Carling’s patience came to an end. Her voice, edged with command, cut through the last of Rhoswen’s protests as she said, “That’s enough.” She sent Rhoswen, along with the dog, off to bed.

  The younger Vampyre fled, and Carling sagged in relief as the atmosphere in the kitchen lightened considerably. Then she opened a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and poured herself a glass. She could no longer tolerate blood or bloodwine, and Vampyres remained unaffected by alcohol, but she could at least enjoy the taste. She sipped a glass and listened as the birds outside started to bellow with early-morning exuberance.

  Then they fell abruptly silent, and she heard a giant rush of wings. Her spirit leaped at the sound. Moving with deliberation, she set her glass of wine on the table and stood to face the open door.

  Moments later, Rune filled the open doorway with his long rangy body and hot sunlike presence. At some point he had shaved and changed into a black T-shirt that molded to his long muscled torso and another pair of faded jeans that were torn out at the knees. His hair was windswept, and he smelled like healthy male and the ocean’s salty air. His lion’s eyes met hers with a shock of connection she felt to her bare toes.

  She remarked to no one in particular, “I notice that ten minutes was over quite some time ago.”

  From several feet away, she heard his heart kick into a faster rhythm, fueling the fierce energy of his body in hard, powerful strokes. Rune said, “Apparently I needed more than ten minutes.”

  She raised an imperious eyebrow. “Have you been sulking about something?”

  “No,” he said. “I have been thinking.”

  “That took you the rest of the night?”

  The sun-bronzed muscles in his biceps bunched as he crossed his arms. He tilted his head as he regarded her. “Thinking,” said Rune in a deliberately even tone of voice, “requires a great deal of thought.”

  “Well, that certainly is very Cheshire Cat– like of you. Along with your apparent knack for disappearing at times that are inconvenient for everyone else but yourself.” She tried out a scowl. It seemed to be an appropriate expression for such a morning.

  “Are you trying to pick a fight?” he asked. He gave her a sharp smile that showed the edge of his white teeth. “If so, cool.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet,” she said.

  He prowled into the kitchen. “Make up your mind. I like a good fight.”

  She began to tap a bare foot, and his gaze dropped to track the movement. His face went still as he focused on the moment with a predatory laziness, like a lounging cat that was too comfortable to pounce but was liable to change its mind at any minute. She said, “You left when we were in the middle of a conversation.”

  His smile vanished. “I’m well aware of when I left.”

  “It was a conversation that interested me,” she informed him.

  His mouth drew into that hard unhappy line from earlier. “It was a conversation that interested me as well, I promise you.”

  “I am particularly interested in all the things that were left unsaid,” she said. “Why you were so upset, and why you had to leave so abruptly. You were also upset when I woke up. I had forgotten that until after you left. You were full of aggression, like you wanted to fight someone then too. I would like to know why that was, and who put you in that state.”

  “I have things I need to say to you,” Rune said. “They won’t be easy to say and they won’t be easy to hear.”

  “All right.” She gave him a curt nod and muttered a line from Macbeth. “‘Then ’twere well it were done quickly.’”

  SEVEN

  She turned away from him, toward her seat, and her gaze fell on the cool stove.

  She said, “You have not eaten in quite some time. You must be hungry.” She had witnessed just how much Wyr tended to eat at several inter-demesne functions, and again on the trip to Adriyel. They could put away horrendous amounts of food, especially those who were athletic. “Do you require sustenance?”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” he replied. “I went hunting when I was out.”

  She whirled in dismay. If anyone could break through the wards she had set around the redwoods, he could. “Not in the forest?”

  His expression changed. He said quickly, “No, not in the forest. I felt your wards and left the area alone. I went fishing.”

  She relaxed and took her seat at the end of the table, closest to the open door. After a hesitation, he sat at her right. She regarded her half-empty wineglass as Rune leaned his elbows on the table. She sent him a quick sidelong glance. He was staring at the table’s scarred surface, his gaze as turbulent and moody as the storm-swept sea.

  She had seen him in many moods, she realized—sharply predatory, laughing, angry, dangerously intent. This quiet contemplation of his added another dimension to those strong, handsome features. She wanted to ask what he was thinking, what had put the sharp lines between his brows, why he held that elegant mouth of his in such a straight, severe line. Reluctantly she realized just how fascinated she had become with him. What would she do, if they discovered a way to halt the progression of her disease, and then he simply went away, back to his life in New York? How strange, that she had so quickly become accustomed to his presence. She would . . . miss him when he left.

  She let her gaze fall to the tabletop as well, disturbed by the direction of her own thoughts and the intensity of her own reactions to him.

  Rune began to speak. “I was outside yesterday evening when Rhoswen called me,” he said. “It was close to sunset and you had faded again. We went up to your room, so I could see for myself.”

  None of that was news. They had already been in her room when she had come out of it. But it was apparent he had to take his own path toward whatever was the difficult part he had to say to her, so she curbed her impatience and simply nodded.

  He ran his thumb along a knife mark on the table. “When we got upstairs, I saw sunlight spilling out of your bedroom doors.”

  Wait. Whatever she thought he had been about to say, that wasn’t it. She sat forward, her sharpened gaze returning to his downturned face.

  Rune continued, “Rhoswen didn’t see it. We checked to make sure that the sunlight I saw—or thought I saw—wouldn’t burn her. It didn’t, so we stepped into your room. I went somewhere else. Rhoswen didn’t.”

  He went on with his tale, his tone expressionless and his words precise. By the time he finished, she was gripping her hands together so tightly the tendons were distended white ridges against the rest of her honey-colored skin. He put his hand over hers. His broad palm and longer fingers covered both of hers effortlessly. He held on to her with a hard, reassuring grip.

  He had thought about not telling her, as he flew over the ocean throughout the windswept night and tried to figure out what he should do. In the end, he couldn’t keep silent. He ref
used to keep from this proud woman information she had a right to hear, no matter how hard it might be to tell her. And in the end, he needed her expertise in helping him analyze what had happened. But it was unspeakable to watch her suffer and not be able to prevent it.

  She was whispering. He leaned closer to catch what she said. “. . . doesn’t make any sense. None of it does.”

  “Why not?” he said. “State your reasons out loud.”

  She looked up. Her eyes had dampened but their intelligence was sharp and clear. “My Power has built up markedly over the last several years,” she said. “I have so much sometimes it feels like I’m drowning in it. It flares up each time I’m about to go into a fade. But I simply do not have the kind of Power to create what you’re describing. My magic is based on skill and education. It is an entirely different thing from the kind of Power that you have. And I don’t have either the knowledge or the spells it would take to build something that huge or elaborate.”

  “How do you see the kind of Power I have?” he asked, curious.

  “Wyr have attributes. You can practice with them and refine them, and you can bring them to a high level of expertise, but they are an intrinsic part of you.”

  “Your Power is an intrinsic part of you, and you study and practice to refine it,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, I know. How can I explain this better?” She frowned at him. “Okay, here is an example. Tiago is a thunderbird, a creature of storm and lightning. He can call a storm or a lightning bolt without words or spells. It’s a characteristic, a part of who he is, yes?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  She told him, “I might be able to call lightning, but I would have to study it first in order to do so. I would need a specific spell, and time enough to recite it. You can shapeshift. It’s part of who you are. I can’t shapeshift. I don’t have the attribute, and I don’t have a spell for it. It’s all Power and it’s all magic, and yes it can all get better with practice and refinement, but the two things stem from very different places. Dragos has studied sorcery, or spell magic. He can use both spell magic and his attributes of Wyr magic. That’s one of the many things that make him so dangerous. You see?”