Song of the Ancients (Ancient Magic Book 1) (38 page)

Nicholas shouted in triumph. I slumped into his arms.

* * * * *

I stirred in the darkness, feeling strange and light-headed. No, not quite darkness. A faint violet light ran lazily up and down my hand resting on the feather pillow. I watched it dance and flicker, lighting the bed with its glow.

"Lie still." Nicholas turned on the lamp beside me. He held a stone mortar bowl filled with a pungent-smelling paste. He lifted my arm and rubbed a finger full of the stuff onto my hand. As he soothed it into my skin, the arcing fire eased and subsided.

"It absorbs the charge," he said calmly. "I've been experimenting with the native plants here for new potions. This area is a goldmine of naturopathic remedies: Aloe, mimosa, creosote, desert barberry, and golden smoke plant."

I brought my hand to my nose and sniffed. It smelled like tar with a hint of flowers. I looked at him uncertainly. "What happened?"

He took another dab and massaged it into my arm. His touch was deft and cool and surprisingly gentle. "Every magickal act creates energy that attaches itself to the person performing it. In this case, you created a hell of a light show." He pointed gingerly at the Phurba on the night stand. Purple sparks still crackled from its tip. "The discharge is more intense at the end of pointed objects."

He worked his way slowly up my arm with the salve, kneading my bicep and shoulder. "Should be enough," he murmured. "The Phurba needs to be cleansed and grounded, but I'm leaving that creature to you." He wiped his fingers on a washrag.

I put my arms around his neck and leaned back, resting my head on the fluffy down pillow. "No point in doing things halfway."

His pupils dilated, turning his eyes to dark reflective pools. He leaned in on an elbow and brushed my hair out of the way, kissing the sensitive spot in the hollow of my throat. He skimmed kisses over my temple and across my cheek, before settling deeply onto my lips. For the moment, his mouth became the center of my universe.

After a long while Nicholas broke away. "Tell me if you don't want this." His husky voice tickled my ear. "But tell me now."

I pulled him in closer in answer, opening my mouth to his urgent kisses. His breath came in low gasps, and he crushed his cheek to my hair. His hands traveled across my belly, slipping underneath my shirt, and his mouth found mine again as his fingers opened the buttons. He fanned the fabric away. I held my breath as he sat up and reached out to trace a finger over the curve of my breast. I realized I was clutching the edge of the bed and closed my eyes, caught up in the exquisite agony of wanting, raising my hips to help him. He pulled my jeans off and flung them on the floor.

Those teasing fingers disappeared for a moment and I heard a zipper and the faint rustling of fabric. Then Nicholas climbed onto the bed beside me. Bare, smooth chest and bare skin all the way down. I ran my hand slowly down his centerline, lingering at his belly button, again at his hips, and down further until he growled and pulled me onto him.

I peppered his eyelids with kisses, feeling his thrumming heartbeat against my chest. He made a small sound, half moan, half curse. "Oh my...ah." I straddled his hips and took him into me. We began to move slowly. Nicholas threw his head back on the pillow, black hair tangled over his face. The lamplight glistened on his skin, damp with the heat we fueled in each other. The sight made the blood sing in my ears. Oh, he was beautiful.

I leaned over and kissed him, and his response sent me spinning beyond pleasure. A roiling heat built and built until we both trembled with the tension. Opening my eyes, I saw Nicholas watching me with such hazy desire that my own orgasm began, sending me sliding toward oblivion. Arms locked around each other, we pushed ourselves to the edge, and over.

I woke slowly, feeling cozy and smug. The closed curtains glowed faintly from the morning sun just touching the windowsill.

Nicholas had his face burrowed deep into the pillow beside me. He had flung one hand across my breast. My heart beat against his palm. There was faint dark stubble on his cheeks and chin but only downy hair on his arm.

I let my gaze trail down his body brazenly, to the one leg thrown outside the sheets. Not much hair on his legs either. I examined this, and a dozen other details I'd never noticed before. The dark lashes brushing his cheek, longer than I remembered; the shape of his mouth, relaxed now in a near smile; and the way he curled up on his side, not stirring. A million little details I could never examine while he was awake. He was much too intense for such frivolity. But I could do whatever I wanted right now. I leaned over and put my nose to his neck, inhaled his scent, examined the stubble on his cheek. The thought struck me: He will be intimate with me now, he will touch me, and he will kiss me. He will look at me now and tell me with his glance that he desires me. We are lovers.

I would wake him a little later. For now, I put my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes, content.

Later, we lay facing each other in the center of the bed, our legs tangled together. As amazing as last night had been, I was restless.

"Last night, in circle," I began. "The second cord?"

He moved his leg from between mine, rolling over onto his back. "We need to talk about that."

I pulled away the blanket and looked at his naked body stretched out on the white sheet. I traced the outline of the sharp bones of his hips, keeping my eyes averted from his. "You didn't just go to that Black Mass. You participated, didn't you?"

"Yes." His voice was low and strangled.

I looked at him then. "Why?"

His eyes held a haunted look when they met mine. "I wanted you bound to me just like you were to Nuin. It was a terrible thing to do, and I did it for the wrong reasons—distrust and self-preservation." He sat up, his head bowed. "You were not a willing participant. It was done without your consent, and I am truly sorry."

You were not a willing participant
.

"I wasn't a willing participant for any of this, well, until last night." I thought of the severed cord to Nuin, pulsing so bright. The cord stretching to Nicholas had been dull and thin in comparison. But then we made love.

"Are there other ways to bind someone to you? Or to strengthen an existing bond? Is the bond stronger if I am a willing participant?"

His anguished expression betrayed the answer.

A lump formed in my throat. I forced it down, swallowing the sour truth.

"So that's what last night was all about." The flatness of my tone surprised me. I sounded like I was discussing the morning news.

"That's a low blow."

I sat up and reached for my clothes. "I only wish I could aim lower."

He grabbed my arm. "Samantha, please. Please." His voice was tight and I watched his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. He looked absolutely stricken.

"No. Don't." I held up a hand, palm out, to block his words. What good did it do to question why it had happened? Conflict had brought us together in the first place. The truth was, I knew from the beginning. He thought of nothing but war and defense, while I thought of love. He tried to make me a warrior. He didn't want a lover.

I closed off the pang in my heart, closed off the part of me I had just opened to him. I walled it up and sealed it away from harm. From Nicholas. "You did the logical thing."

Stunned, he gaped at me. "How can you say so?"

"The binding works to our advantage, adding to communication abilities, right?

Nicholas nodded.

"And we just made it stronger?"

He looked suddenly shy. "It's stronger if the pair is fond of one another, tuned-in, so to speak. If they, ahem, continue to be intimate, the binding continues to strengthen."

"Well...a reason for sex if I ever heard one." My voice matched the new iciness in my heart.

Turns out, it hadn't taken a raven totem to make me a warrior. It had taken a premeditated lover.

Chapter 56: Warrior

I was in the perfect mood for weapons practice.

The Phurba looked dull and clumsy, hardly capable of inflicting damage unless you hit someone over the head with the pommel. Once in my hands, however, it transformed. Simply by rolling it between my palms as I set my intention, I could launch it through the air like a tiny warhead. As Nicholas watched from a safe distance on the back steps, the Phurba sprang again from my hands to strike a small boulder at the end of the property, gouging a large chunk out of the center. I raised my hand, the dagger pulled itself free and flew back into my palm. I smiled in satisfaction and gently returning it into the pot of soil to rest.

"I don't suppose there's any chance you're this good with other weaponry?" he asked with a sardonic smile.

I sat down on the step beside him.

"I grew up in the Midwest in a family of hunters. Deer, quail, duck in season, rabbit and squirrel in the offseason. I learned to shoot whether I wanted to or not." I shrugged. "I'd rather not."

"What about small caliber?" Nicholas asked. "I have a pistol. You could take it tonight to the gallery show."

"Actually, I have my own. I nodded toward my purse. "I take threats to my life seriously. Don't worry, it's licensed, and this is a concealed carry state." I picked up the Phurba pot. "But I prefer this guy. It's more personal." I left him shaking his head and headed into the house to shower.

I took my time getting ready, as Nicholas paced: Black skirt, black tights and jade green sweater to match my eyes. He stopped pacing long enough to watch me pull on the thigh-high boots, and smiled slightly when I slipped the Phurba dagger into the right one, folding the boot top down for easy access. I tucked Renard's map in my purse and turned to him. "I'm ready."

"By now they've discovered the binding has been severed," Nicholas said tersely. "They'll be looking for you."

I nodded.

"I still think it's crazy for us to go tonight. We can stay here, bunker in, I'll increase the wards on the house."

"What would you do if I wasn't in the picture? Sit here alone and let them surround you?"

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "You studied the map of the gallery? Memorized the exits if you need them?"

I nodded again.

"If I'm not beside you, I will be on the second-floor balcony, watching."

"Nicholas, we've been over this a dozen times."

"Humor me and repeat it once more. If we're separated?"

I picked up my cloak. "The fountain, across the street."

He took the black wrap and settled it around my shoulders, holding me for a long moment, pressing his lips to my hair. "Samantha, I want you to know, just in case I…we." His voice sounded harsh and ragged. "I am so sorry I hurt you. I will never doubt you again."

I put my palm to his cheek.

"I know."

Chapter 57: New Year Resolution

The sky overhead was clear, although a thunderhead built on the northern horizon. The full moon hung low in the east in brilliant opalescence, waiting for its later star performance.

Every nerve in my body was twanging. Nicholas kept a suspicious eye on a ring of teenagers huddled with their backs to us. As we passed them, a flash of light sizzled.
Bang!
I jumped backwards and Nicholas muttered a quiet curse. "Fireworks. Damn fools."

Rod Standing Bear stood outside the ornate, wrought-iron double doors, greeting visitors as they entered.

"Samantha. I hoped you would come. How are you?"

"Couldn't be better," I lied. "I'd like you to meet a friend of mine."

He gave me a penetrating look before turning to shake hands with Nicholas. I realized my palms were sweating. I rubbed them down my skirt and took a deep breath.

"Please find me inside when we can talk longer," Standing Bear told us.

Nicholas left me to do a quick reconnaissance from the upstairs balcony, while I walked the gallery row, following the flow of the crowd and keeping in plain sight.

He leaned on the second-floor balcony rail and scanned the crowd in the vaulted gallery below. The interior was dimly lit, to showcase the painting spotlights, and he gave his eyes a moment to adjust. He had already spotted Samantha stopped about a third of the way down the far wall. She'd been in front of a particular painting for quite some time; the rest of the patrons parted and moved around her, like water flowing around a rock in a stream.

The whole setup made him twitchy. There were far too many shadowed crannies where a person could hide, two floors and five exits, counting the elevator and the fire escape. He swept his eyes around the room again, studying each face, looking for a man with long blonde hair, or one with his hands in his pockets, or someone with a tense set to his shoulders.

Outside the gallery, it was even worse. It was New Year's Eve, for fuck's sake, and downtown Sedona. The street had filled with revelers in costumes: Vampires, bats, witches, and fetish wear, it looked like damned Halloween all over again.
Add a full blood moon to the mix, and we're asking for it.
No wonder he was a loner; the mundane world was full of lunatics and crackpots.

The stars shone as pinpricks of silver, and the light breeze soothed his nerve-heated skin. He looked up at the full moon, thinking that nothing of the madness of the world here below reflected in the tranquil heavens above.

All his life, Nicholas thought, he had done what he was meant to do, what was expected of him. He had turned away from his own needs, his own desires, to devote himself to this path. I protected my family, my tradition, he thought.
Of course you did, the cynical voice in his head replied. That worked out well for all involved, didn't it?

And now he was protecting Samantha, trying to keep her close and at arm's length at the same time.
I thought killing would be the hardest thing I'd ever do. But love is harder, knowing I could lose you.
His lips moved, forming her name like a caress. The pain of it burned into his heart. Happiness could be his. He wanted to believe it more than he'd ever believed anything.

He flicked his gaze again around each exit and over the crowd below. Samantha was still in front of the painting. Giving his tense neck a quick roll, he descended the stairs to join her.