She would think France had unusually swift storms, except she sensed the explosive tension that could be only Murdoch approaching. He'd been gone most of the day, but it was not yet dark. She hadn't expected him to return until he could no longer see to plant.
Alarmed at the pain she sensed in him, she gathered up her skirt, leapt to her feet, and raced down the road. She should never have left him alone for a minute.
“Go away,” he ordered, holding his hand against his chest awkwardly. “I can Heal myself.”
He probably could, and had frequently done so if the scars on his back were any evidence, but Lissandra couldn't bear to feel pain and do nothing. She clenched her fingers in her skirt to prevent herself from reaching for him. “What happened?”
“A minor altercation. It is nothing. Go burn some soup or something.” He strode faster while the sky darkened.
“It is
something
if you end up flooding the valley with the storm you're conjuring.” She danced in front of him, attempting to get some glimpse of the hand he hidâthe hand with the ring on it.
He glanced skyward and shrugged. “I didn't do that. It's a summer storm.”
He lied. Or refused to accept the truth. “Look at your ring.”
He glanced at the glowing black pearl on his finger. “It could light a cave. I'll save on candles,” he said dismissively.
Lissandra watched as the glow faded with his distraction. “When you are calm and accepting, the spirits enter you and the ring's light diminishes. When you reject the gods with your fury and frustration, the spirits flee to the ring.”
“Superstition,” he muttered, stalking into the cottage.
“How can you deny the gods?” she asked in exasperation. “Superstition is merely ignorance mixed with old wives' tales to explain the inexplicable. Some people blame their troubles on evil forces, but the most evil force I've ever met is human nature. Magic exists in all the beautiful gifts from the gods, the twinkle of stars and a baby's smile. They've given you more than you deserve.”
Without asking permission, he rummaged through her bag for a bandage. “You sound like the priest.”
“That's because I am the closest thing to a priest that we have on Aelynn. People need explanations, and I've been trained to provide them. Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“No.” He threw back the curtain over the doorway to the bathing room.
Determinedly ignoring his hostile vibrations, Lissandra followed him. “If you're spilling all your energy into raising a storm, you won't have any left for Healing.”
He knelt down beside the rock pool and dipped his injured arm into it. She winced at the bloody gore and torn tissue visible beneath the thin cloth of his sleeve. “Shall I help you off with your shirt?”
He shot her a scathing look that said he'd drown before he'd let her help him.
“Oh, botheration.” Without a second thought, she stepped forward, planted her foot between his shoulders, and shoved Murdoch headfirst into the pool. Only because she caught him unaware and off-balance did she succeed. The splash caused by his massive weight soaked them both.
“What in Hades did you do that for?” Cursing, flipping his wet hair out of his eyes, he floundered to a seated position, keeping his arm below the water's surface.
His crude shirt clung to his broad shoulders and was plastered to his chest, revealing the dark whorls of hair there. Lissandra fought her attraction by firmly thinking of him as her patient. “Stubborn cantankerousness harms the Healing process but usually dissolves in hot water. You are not the first recalcitrant male to refuse my services.” She knelt beside the pool and reached for his wrist.
He ought to smell of sweat and blood and anger, but to her, he smelled of musky masculinity sweeter than flowers in spring. She wanted to splash the warm water in frustration, but that was not how an Olympus behaved.
Dignity and decorum at all times
, her mother's voice said inside her head. Shoving Murdoch wasn't dignified, but she considered it justified.
“Services? Is that what you call it?” He leered down her wet bodice while she raised his arm to examine it. “Had I known you offered
services
, I would have helped myself long ago.”
She'd earned her icy reputation by freezing rowdy men into silence with a practiced glare, which she granted now, while she slid her fingers over the irregular tear in his flesh. “You've cracked a bone. You can't Heal this yourself.”
Applying her energy, she knit the fracture to give it strength, then located and sealed torn blood vessels, concentrating on taking away the pain. He threw back his head and grimaced at the ceiling, and his wet hair streamed down his neck. She had to let down her shield to Heal, so she was grateful he kept his in place.
“Look at your ring,” she ordered, distracting him from what she was doing.
He glanced at it and scowled. “It's not as bright as it was outside.”
“Do you hear thunder?” His sword arm was so heavily muscled that she had some difficulty mending the torn ligaments. Her own flesh sang with the joy of stroking his. The connection between them was so close that she could feel his heart beating in tandem with hers.
But years of restraint had taught her well, and her placid demeanor revealed none of her inner turmoil while she applied her skills.
He concentrated on the blue glow on his ring. “I only hear light rainfall.”
“The thunderheads must have spread into normal rain clouds. I'd love to know how you do that without even thinking about it.”
“The same way I create wind and fire.” He allowed no regret to tinge his harsh words. “My energy builds until it finds some release. I can suppress it only to a point.”
Ian had warned her that Murdoch's powers had lost almost all focus, even more so than before their mother had banished him and attempted to strip him of his gifts. Lissandra wondered whether she could somehow heal Murdoch's inner wounds and give him the control he needed. But believing she could do what her parents had not was no doubt arrogance on her part.
“I don't think there is anything innately wrong with strong emotion, even fury, if that's what stokes your energy,” she said, thinking aloud. “But the energy is more useful if directed toward a purpose. Say, if you're angry because your ax has become stuck in a treeâinstead of calling up a storm, you could direct all that pent-up frustration toward tugging out the ax.”
“Or splintering the tree,” he corrected. “How should a skilled swordsman direct his frustration? Removing the blade from a dead body won't bring it back to life.”
“Rain rusts metal, so calling up a storm is scarcely a productive direction if you wish to control your sword.”
“Maybe I wish to destroy it.” His pent-up storm of emotion finally dissipating with the rain, he leaned back against the rocks and let her work her Healing on his arm.
She heard the thoughtful man she'd once known behind his comment, and wished she knew what had finally evoked his attentiveness. “We generally don't cast off our hands if they offend us,” she replied carefully. “A warrior's swords are extensions of his hands.”
“But if I react with anger, with weapons in my hand . . .” He frowned and didn't finish his thought, no doubt contemplating the destruction he could wreak. Had wreaked.
“From what I know, your weapons are the only thing you
can
control. You use them as your focus. Perhaps we ought to find you a magic wand if you don't wish to use a sword again.”
He snorted and picked up a candlestick, waving it as if it were the wand of which she spoke. “You are toying with my mind.”
“Somebody needs to. You're not using it.” Now that she knew he was not seriously injured, Lissandra had difficulty restraining that part of herself that admired Murdoch's physical attributes. He was sprawled in the water, his clothes plastered to his long limbs, narrow hips, and . . . aroused masculinity. Desire coaxed her to join him, to show him that she was all he needed. She wanted to know how it would feel to have his hands on her. . . .
Common sense warned she would be playing with fire . . . literally. Sensing the bullet hole in his shoulder, she sent Healing energy up his arm.
He lazily pointed the candle at her as if it were a magic wand. “Ka-zaam, you're a beautiful princess.”
She laughed, well aware of the dirt she'd rubbed into her cheeks and her hair straggling from its pins. “You would have to turn me into something I am not if you wish to prove your magic wand works. Perhaps turn me into a
clean
princess.”
“Not modest, are we? Do all men proclaim your beauty these days?” he asked, finally succumbing to her soothing energy and relinquishing the violence in him. Momentarily.
“I've seen my reflection and will not deny what gifts the gods have given me.” She ignored the jealousy leaking from him and brushed a stray lock of hair from her nose, leaving a streak of diluted blood on her cheek, while she sought an answer he would accept without anger. This business of tamping down her own temper so as not to escalate his didn't ease her frustration. “Men who admire power and prestige will always see beauty in the person who possesses both. I'm sure that in this world where I have no authority, I am seen as no more than a paleâ skinny wench.”
“Men aren't that blind,” he scoffed. “Is that what you thought I saw in youâpower and prestige?”
“Of course,” she said matter-of-factly. “But they're also what kept us apart, so there was no beauty in them.” She returned to applying pressure to his arm.
“I was not such a dolt as to ignore your true beauty,” he protested. “Even a man with no eyes must see the worth of a woman who is willing to track him down to the ends of the earth.”
That declaration would have thrilled her, except there was nothing beautiful about their hopeless situation. Until Murdoch accepted the gods and learned to control his dangerous energies, he could not return to Aelynn. Could she admit failure and return without him?
Eight
“Quit treating me like a piece of porcelain.” Murdoch shrugged off Lis's aid in applying the confounded bandage.
Physical torture by gods would have been less excruciating than the tempting scent of Lis beneath his nose and having no means of touching her. Or, worse yet, having the means and not the right. He'd escaped the bath to get away from her, but she'd followed him back into the cottage instead of staying behind to take advantage of the warm water to bathe.
Stripped of his torn shirt, his loose peasant trousers still soaking wet, painfully aware of his physical reaction to her presence, he backed off far enough that he couldn't reach out and grab her, then finished wrapping the wound himself.
“You must learn to control
all
your passions, not just your temper,” she replied obliquely, without any indication that his words had affected her. He'd believe the woman was made of solid ice except her remark alluded to his obvious state of arousal. His ice princess knew what she was doing to him. Even years apart hadn't reduced their physical attractionâa no-doubt fatal attraction, should they act on it. Half Aelynn would have his head if he touched their princess with his tainted hands. But the temptation was very real . . . and very powerful.
He retreated as she approached to help him, until he hit a wall. Which meant he needed to consider an escape route. “You say the gods wish me to contain my
passion
?” He repeated the euphemism with mockery. “You may as well ask me to fetch the moon.”
“Other people do it all the time,” she replied mildly.
“Not me. I'm a man. You're a woman. If we share meals and a roof, the natural way of things is to think of sharing a bed.”
“Do you really want to find out what happens when you express your lust and I resist?” she asked in the dispassionate tone he despised.
He didn't need her veiled allusion to know that without some measure of restraint he might easily crack Lis in the same inexplicable manner he cracked the earth. Frustrated, he flexed his bandaged arm. Every sore tendon protested. “I'll go flaccid if I can't exercise this.”
She assessed his near nakedness, no doubt with professional interest, but his pride preferred to believe it was prurient.
“You once had the strength of ten men. Does it matter if one of them is currently weak?”
That she recognized his superiority despite his
aberrant
status caused need to rumble through him again. He wasn't imagining her desire. It was real. He'd tasted it when he'd kissed her. Despite everything he'd done to her, the magnetism between them hadn't changed.
Acting on a surge of renewed confidenceâor stupidityâMurdoch reversed his tactics and stalked his tormentor. She backed away until he had
her
up against a wall for a change. It felt good to trap Lis exactly where he wanted herâin his arms.
“Let us see if the earth trembles.” He bent his head and placed his mouth on hers.
To his bliss, she didn't fight him. She succumbed willingly to his rough pressure. Her lips were pliant and parted as if she was as eager as he was. She accepted the thrust of his tongue, matching it with a greedy demand of her own that thrilled him to his marrow. Her breasts were inches away, and he willed her to arch toward him. Too bad mind control didn't work on Lis.
As much as he longed to grip her sweet-smelling shoulders and drag her against him, he didn't dare test his luck by touching her. He restrained himself by digging his fingers into the timbers while he leaned in and drank deeply of the nectar he craved more than the breath of life.