Spellbound Falls [5] For the Love of Magic (16 page)

Kitalanta appeared out of the darkness as silently as a ghost, jarring Titus out of his musings. He instructed the wolf to make his presence known to Rana and keep her company until he returned and, after a glance to see her still staring into the flames, he quietly turned away and walked through the pitch-black forest toward the sea.

He actually chuckled, remembering Rana asking if he remembered she was with child when he’d told her they would be walking home. He knew she was expecting him to get
even more
overprotective, whereas in truth, he suspected she was more worried about her pregnancy than he was. But they happened to be living in the twenty-first century at the moment, and had access to medicine not even imagined when Carolina had been born, which was why they were
not
sailing back to Atlantis like she assumed.

Which he would tell her, once he recovered from the scare she’d just given him.

In the meantime, he intended to have her undivided attention for the next few days. And while he had it, he thought as he reached Bottomless and began undressing, he should probably let her in on
his
life-altering little secret.

“You and your warrior may go feed,” Titus said softly when he reached camp, which made Kitalanta immediately rise from being pressed up against Rana’s back. “But return to us in the morning. And Kit,” he added, making the wolf stop and look back. “Bring your entire pod and have your bellies full enough for a four-day overland hike.”

Titus would swear the wolf actually grinned just before it turned and bolted into the darkness. He stashed the items he’d salvaged from the sunken sloop under the end flap of the makeshift tent, then crouched to his heels and added branches to the fire his sleeping wife had let burn down to embers. He sat down with a tired sigh and took off his boots, pulled off his shirt, then sat staring into the slowly building flames.

Some days—especially days like today—he wondered how much longer he could go on pretending he cared. He’d so far managed to fool everyone except most likely Rana, probably because she was so intimately tuned to him. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d noticed him growing tired of dealing with the incessant petitions of mortals looking for easy solutions to the messes they kept making, and the reason she’d run off really had been to force him to remember what truly was important.

But for the love of Zeus, there were tens of thousands of years of accumulated knowledge sitting in the Trees of Life, available to
anyone
willing to journey inward. Yet mankind continued to grow dangerously closer to destroying the planet; if not by smothering its air and oceans, then by blowing it to Hades in mindless disputes born of self-righteous arrogance and fueled by the ridiculous notion that progress was desired only if it didn’t require
change
.

Could mortals truly not understand that
nothing
was static, not even the very universe they were but a small part of? Change was inevitable. It was also the energy behind the magic, which thankfully went about its business whether or not people believed. Atlantis couldn’t exist if it didn’t.

Then again, neither could he.

“Were you able to discern if the new entity survived?” Rana asked softly.

“It appears to have escaped,” he said, adding branches to the fire. “Though I don’t know if it will survive what I suspect were fairly vicious wounds.”

“Do you know if it was a god or goddess?”

He shrugged. “Even the great whites couldn’t tell.” He reached into the supplies he’d brought back, grabbed the wine bottle—which he’d guzzled down when he’d come ashore—and handed it to her. “I found a spring not too far from here. You must be thirsty from your salty swim.”

She took the bottle and pulled out the half-seated cork, and there was enough light from the burning fire for him to see her arch a brow. “You drank all the wine and brought me water?”

He made sure to stifle his grin. “I believe they established sometime in the last century that wine is not good for pregnant women.”

She suddenly sat up. “Do you think that may have been my problem with Carolina? I drank as much wine as water back then.”

Titus rested back on his elbow and let his smile burst free as he shook his head. “It supposedly hurts the child, not the mother, and I don’t see that it harmed Maximilian or Carolina in any way,” he said with a chuckle.

She frowned at the bottle in apparent thought, then took a long drink. “Perhaps,” she said slowly, wiping her mouth on her sleeve as she looked down at him, her expression neutral, “this is a good century in which to have a baby.”

Well, no one could ever accuse his wife of being slow of mind. “Perhaps,” he agreed with another shrug. “Are you hungry?”

She scowled, apparently not caring to have the subject changed. “I’m still full from swallowing half of Bottomless.” She nevertheless looked over at his stash of supplies. “If you were able to recover the wine, what else did you get?”

“The figs and container of goat cheese, but I’m afraid the fish are feasting on Michelin’s soggy bread.” He gestured at the stash. “Knowing you always kept a change of clothes in an oiled canvas bag onboard, I managed to salvage them as well. And this,” he said, reaching in his pocket and then holding out his hand to her.

“A comb!” she cried, lifting one hand to her hair as she reached for the prize. “Oh, thank you for even thinking of it,” she said, clasping the comb to her bosom as the firelight reflected in her grateful eyes.

He lowered his gaze. “It was more for my benefit than yours, as I wasn’t looking forward to spending the next several days with a troll.”

She smacked his shoulder with the comb. “You’re always saying you love me most when I’m a disheveled mess,” she said, her musical laugh allowing him to take his first decent breath since the storm had hit.

“I believe we both know,” he said, giving a grunt as he pushed himself to his feet, “that I’m usually referring to your appearance after a night of lovemaking.” He took off his pants. “Not that I can remember the last time that happened.”

“Yes. Well,” she murmured, becoming very busy working the tangles out of her hair, “I guess that’s what happens when one grows too feeble of mind to remember what happened as recently as a
month
ago.”

He dropped to one knee beside her and clasped her chin to look at him. “Am I ever going to see you disheveled that way again, Stasia?”

She stared up at him in silence, and he saw her lower lip start to quiver and her eyes well up with tears before she suddenly tossed the comb away and lunged at him. She hid her face in his chest with a loud sob as Titus fell to his side, so damned glad to have her back in his arms that he couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m such a terrible wife!”

“The worst in all of history,” he whispered against her tangled hair.

“I argue with you and scheme against you, and . . . and sometimes you make me so angry I want to smack you. And just so you know, I get angry at the magic, too,” she confessed on another sob. “Providence thinks it’s so smart and benevolent and always doing what’s best for mankind, when it’s really arrogant and self-serving and . . . and just mean sometimes. The magic hates me because it knows I don’t like it.”

“It has no sense of humor,” he added gruffly.

“I don’t understand why you married me!” she wailed, her fingers kneading his chest as if she couldn’t decide whether to push him away or crawl inside him. “You never should have saved me from that dog at the tournament. For the love of Zeus, you’re a
theurgist
. You should have known I was mortal and that I’d be stubborn and opinionated and . . . and would never be a dutiful wife.”

“Yes, I should have known, because no, you certainly haven’t.”

“You were a powerful and handsome young warrior who was supposed to be looking for a sweet, obedient maiden to marry. A royal
lady
who would give you dozens of children and . . . and who wouldn’t sneak baby goats into the palace or knock a stupid emperor in the ocean on purpose or . . . or . . .” She leaned away to cover her face with her hands. “You could have married anyone you wanted!”

Titus barely stifled a shudder at the notion he might have spent the last forty years married to a sweet, obedient,
boring
lady. Although Rana certainly had tried—only to fail miserably, thank the gods. “I married you, Stasia,” he said softly, pulling her hands down so she’d see his smile, “because I wanted the most terrible wife in all of history. And I saved you from that dog to win a kiss from the stubborn, opinionated, irreverent, lusty woman I saw hiding inside the beautiful maiden giving me the fiercest scowl I had ever seen.” He gently ran a finger over her flushed cheek. “You were the only anyone I wanted, Stasia,” he continued thickly, “because the moment our gazes met, I saw a woman who would have the courage to love me
despite
who I was.”

“But I’m not brave,” she whispered, hiding her face in his chest again. “I can’t even drive up a stupid mountain alone.”

“Aye, but ye are brave, lass,” he said, quickly losing his smile when she reared back in surprise.

“A-Aye?” she repeated.
“Lass?”

“I’ve found myself admiring the Scots lately.” He kissed her frowning forehead and pulled her against him again before she caught his amusement. “In fact, they gave me the idea for us to walk home. Except the MacKeages usually kidnap their women rather than fish them out of the sea, then carry them off to a cabin in the woods and make love to them until the lasses promise to love them forever.” He felt her stop breathing, her tears apparently forgotten. “I’ve heard rumor ropes may be involved,” he continued with barely stifled laughter, “though I don’t suppose a lass would run very far if all her clothes had been burned.”

She reared back again, her eyes huge as she darted a worried glance at the rope holding up the sail, then at the fire, then back at him. “Um, you do know I already love you forever, don’t you?”

“Aye,” he said on a heavy sigh, “but I’m thinking ye may have forgotten, what with being such a terrible wife and all.”

That got him the feminine little snort he was after, though it was cut short when her completely dry eyes suddenly narrowed. “I thought you were angry at me.”

“I am,” he said, rolling her onto her back and smoothing a lock of hair off her face. “Which is why I’m giving you the next few days to make up to me.” He closed her slackened mouth with his finger then began unbuttoning her shirt. “Wives do still try to appease their husbands in this century, don’t they?” He stopped when her hand covered his, his amusement vanishing at her uncertainty. “I need to hear you sigh my name as I’m entering you, Stasia, and feel your warmth and aliveness surrounding me again.” He lowered his lips to just above hers. “I want to make love to the woman whose response has the power to make me forget who I am.”

“Oh, Titus,” she said on a sigh as she pulled his mouth down to hers.

In all their forty years of marriage, he never knew who he’d be making love to on any given night. Sometimes he would gather the shy maiden from their honeymoon into his arms, and other times the lusty woman who owned his heart would attack him with glorious abandon. And every so often, for reasons he couldn’t—and probably never would—fathom, his stubborn, irreverent, terrible wife would empty the palace of staff once dinner had been served, then over dessert quietly ask if he happened to know of a handsome warrior she could spend all that night, the whole next day, and the following night completely alone with. After which she would get up and silently walk away, and he’d follow her clothes strewn like breadcrumbs to the throne room, where he’d find her sitting on his seat of power wearing nothing but his royal sash and a smile that always brought him to his knees. And for the next thirty-six hours they would stay locked away from the maddening world, making love everywhere but in their bedroom.

The first time Rana had staged her grand seduction, he’d thought it was because she had been feeling neglected. But by the fourth time in as many years, he’d begun suspecting it was more for his benefit than hers, as it appeared to happen whenever he wasn’t feeling particularly benevolent toward mankind.

And she couldn’t understand why he’d chosen her, when he wanted nothing in life
but
her.

He soon found out who was in his arms tonight when she began trailing kisses over his jaw to his ear, into which she whispered a very unladylike word before gently nipping his lobe. She shoved at his shoulder as she slipped from under him, and Titus found himself on his back with his lusty wife straddling his hips—the campfire reflecting a familiar sparkle in her passion-filled eyes as she slowly finished unbuttoning her shirt.

“Did you also happen to learn how lasses
make up
to their husbands when they’ve been terrible wives?” she asked, opening the shirt just enough to expose only a portion of her plump breasts.

“I . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but the highlanders don’t seem to discuss what happens
after
they steal their women.”

He saw her glance toward the rope holding the sail, then arch an eyebrow as she looked down at him, apparently not realizing she was
caressing
her breasts while slowly moving her hips over him. “Then I guess I’ll just have to . . . improvise,” she whispered, the huskiness in her voice nudging a memory in the back of his mind—though he couldn’t remember if he should be alarmed or excited.

He was having no trouble, however, focusing on the fact that her moist heat was pressing against him rather intimately, since they were both naked. Well, except that she’d kept the unbuttoned, oversize shirt on, which was providing him with a rather erotic display as she slowly began rolling up the overlong sleeves, thus giving him tantalizing glimpses of her decidedly more defined cleavage.

She captured his hands before they could reach their prize. “Oh, no, my love,” she purred, tucking them behind his head, the action brushing her heavy, rose-tipped breasts over his chest as her moist heat slid over him again. “You’ve had a rather hard day, so just lie back and relax. I’ve got this.”

Titus clenched his hands into fists behind his head, suddenly remembering that that sparkle in her eyes and husky voice were telltale signs he should be alarmed.