The Wizard of Seattle (37 page)

Now, glancing across the valley, she saw the moon rise between two peaks and shivered slightly. Just a sliver now, but within a few days it would be a quarter, then a half… and eventually, in barely two weeks, the moon would be round and full—the final warning of the destruction of Atlantis.

“Serena?”

Realizing she had come to a stop, she turned her back to the valley and quickly caught up with him. “Sorry.”

Merlin had stopped to wait for her, and looked down at her with a slight frown. “What’s wrong?”

With forced lightness she replied, “I was just thinking how soon the fireworks are due to start around here.”

Steadily he said, “It happened a long, long time ago. Try to think of it that way.”

As they began climbing again, this time side by side, she said, “I’ve tried, but I can’t help it when that doesn’t always work. I think of Roxanne as my friend, you know, and we can’t be certain she’ll leave here with Tremayne. And then there’s little Kerry….”

“Is that the child whose mother was looking for her as we left Roxanne’s house?” Merlin asked, trying to distract her thoughts from the coming devastation.

“Um. She’s a little imp, always sneaking off and worrying people, according to Roxanne. Between them, she and Felice—who’s more of a foster mother, by the way—have their hands full watching Kerry.” With a slight grimace Serena added, “I’m not surprised the kid made herself scarce, though; with Roxanne leaving the city yesterday afternoon and Felice preoccupied because she’s trying to get pregnant, I imagine Kerry found herself at loose ends. And she’s a doer.”

“Do you want children?” Merlin startled himself as much as Serena with the question.

“I don’t know. Yes, I think so.” She cleared her throat. “To be honest, I haven’t thought a lot about it. There didn’t seem to be much use in it.”

They had reached the clearing that was their goal, and Merlin stopped, looking down at Serena. It was getting dark rapidly, but he could still see her lovely, solemn face. “Why not?” he asked her curiously.

“Because I thought you were beyond reach,” she answered candidly. “I couldn’t see myself getting married or making a baby with anyone else, not when I loved you. So it seemed … less painful to just not think about it.”

Merlin felt a strange sensation in his chest, as if his heart had turned over. Slowly he said, “You’ve gone out with dozens of men over the years.”

“And you’ve gone out with dozens of women,” she reminded him. “All a part of the social pretense of being just like everyone else instead of wizards.” Turning
away and shrugging off her backpack, she added dryly, “Of course, I didn’t have a bordello to go to.”

He followed her slowly, grappling with what she seemed to be telling him. As he shrugged out of his backpack, he said a bit absently, “I’m never going to live that down with you, am I?”

“Not on your life. Shall I put the fire here?”

“Yes—and be careful.”

“Something
I’ll
never be able to live down,” she murmured, recalling her youthful attempt to create fire back in Seattle that had nearly resulted in a four-alarm blaze.

The clearing was tucked back several yards away from a sharp cliff overlooking the valley, with trees climbing the slopes. It was as if someone had carved a large step from the mountain. Behind Serena and beginning some feet away was a rock-strewn gradient that eventually grew steeper and became dotted with trees farther up the mountain.

Merlin watched her, critical out of habit because he’d been her teacher for so long.

After dropping her backpack to the ground and pushing the edges of her cloak back over her shoulders, Serena created a small basin in the ground by circling her hand above it, and then prepared to make a campfire. But before she could begin, a deep, angry rumble signaled yet another tremor, and she found herself completely occupied in trying to keep her balance on ground that was suddenly no more solid than quicksand.

It seemed to get darker as the earth heaved and moaned underneath them; even the sliver of moon hid behind scudding clouds. Over the unholy racket of a continent trying to wrench itself apart, Merlin heard a different sound, and he sensed the threat hidden by darkness. Without thought and out of an instinct born of man rather than wizard, he leaped toward Serena.

She clung gratefully to him when Merlin’s arms closed about her. She was trying so hard just to keep to her feet that she didn’t hear the sharp, angry sounds of stones and boulders plunging down the gradient toward
them and only felt the impact of something striking Merlin’s body as he shielded her.

That sickening jolt was all either of them needed to remind them of their own abilities, and faster even than thought their combined energies formed a protective aura around them.

Like all the tremors of Atlantis, this one lasted no more than a minute or so, though it seemed much longer. The ground abruptly stopped heaving, and the dreadful groaning of tortured earth became utter silence, disturbed only by the clacking sounds of stone striking stone as the last few rocks cascaded down the mountainside.

“Richard, are you all right?” Serena demanded, easing back just far enough to look up at him. Their protective aura faded away, as it was no longer needed.

“It was just a glancing blow,” he said, straightening from the slightly hunched position he had assumed to shield her. The movement made him wince.

“Where did it hit you?”

“I’m fine, I told you.”

“Yeah, right.” Serena took a step away from him and briskly finished the campfire she’d begun. Then she built a roomy and sturdy lean-to just behind it, with enough space at the front for Merlin to stand up straight, even as she wondered why on earth they both kept sticking to this primitive stuff. Why not a nice little house? With a couple—no, with
one
big bed and a nice bathroom with a sunken tub and maybe a bottle of very good, very old wine….

Merlin barely remembered to throw out a protective screen around the clearing, hiding their presence from any other wizards who might be in the area. The stone, a large one, had struck his upper back just above his right shoulder blade, and though the blow wasn’t disabling, it hurt like hell and spread an ache over that shoulder and all the way down his right arm.

He had been injured rarely enough in his life for him to still feel a shock at the vulnerability of his own body. It was a very peculiar feeling. Always before, that sensation had troubled him long after the injury healed, but
this time he found himself far more interested in Serena’s reaction. He watched her as she conjured, with a rather impatient wave of her hand, a wide, thick pallet for the lean-to, then tossed her cloak over it and came back around the fire to him, frowning.

“Very good,” he noted.

“I considered creating a nice little house with all the modern amenities, but figured you wouldn’t approve. Stop being a teacher and come sit down,” she told him, taking his arm. “I want to see where that rock hit you.”

“Serena—” He started to protest, but he found himself led to the shelter and divested of his coat, which she absently folded neatly and then carelessly dropped onto the pallet. Then she reached up to begin briskly unlacing his shirt, and Merlin’s amusement faded. She looked very serious, he thought, very competent. But just as he wondered if she was thinking only of his injury, he saw the faint color across her cheekbones and realized she was as aware of him as he was of her.

“You don’t have to do this,” he murmured. “I mean, if you don’t want to.”

Her lashes lifted, and fierce green eyes glared at him. “That,” she said with emphasis, “was an asinine thing to say.”

That was his Serena, he reminded himself ruefully, frank to a fault and completely without guile. “Yes, it was,” he admitted.

“Then why did you say it?” She was watching her fingers, which were coping with the lacings of his shirt with far less dexterity than they had only a moment ago.

“Because I felt awkward, I suppose.”

“Not … not because you didn’t want me touching you?”

Merlin didn’t answer right away, because he was trying to find the words to tell her how he felt. Then she looked up at him again, and the flash of her eyes seemed to pull the honest response from him. “Christ, no.”

She looked startled, then smiled a little. “Good.
Now, why don’t you help me get you out of this shirt so I can take a look at your back.”

Silently he pulled the tail of his shirt from his pants and, with her help, since his right side had stiffened up a bit, eased the garment off over his head. Then he sat down on the pallet as she directed, half turning to the side so that the firelight illuminated his back.

Serena knelt behind him. “It’s a nasty bruise,” she murmured, hesitating only an instant before touching him. The ugly reddened stamp of the stone was as large as her two hands, and she could imagine how much it hurt. Without asking his permission, she glided her hand very gently over the bruise and concentrated on healing skin and muscle. The redness slowly faded, and the pain as well, and she felt him relax.

“Thank you,” he said. “That’s much better. No pain or stiffness at all—”

That was when she leaned forward and pressed her lips to him.

Instantly she felt him react, his muscles tightening in a purely sensual response, and she had the impression he wasn’t breathing at all. Her hands stroked upward to shape his shoulders, probing the hardness of bone and sinew and flesh. She rubbed her cheek against him slowly, her eyes half closing.

“Serena …” His voice was low, almost harsh.

“You said you didn’t mind me touching you,” she said softly.

He cleared his throat. “And you said we weren’t ready for this.”

“That was then,” she said. “I think we’re ready now. At least ready to try. Don’t you?”

Merlin was trying to think, which was virtually impossible, since she ended every sentence by pressing her soft lips to his back. It felt wonderful. Better than wonderful, it was utterly maddening. “You know I want you.” He expected to feel that familiar jarring sense of conflict within him, but this time it was no more than a faint uneasiness far in the back of his consciousness.

Serena drew away from him, which made him turn swiftly to stare at her. She slowly unlaced her vest,
pulled it off and tossed it aside, then pulled the tail of her green blouse free of her pants.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Merlin got rid of his boots and socks. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She looked oddly demure kneeling there on the fur cloak flung across the pallet, with her fiery hair loose around her shoulders and her expression so solemn, but the firelight danced in her vivid eyes like a pagan invitation, and her slightly parted lips were moist and enticing. While he watched, she dispensed with her boots and socks using wizardry, but began slowly unbuttoning her blouse with her slender fingers.

Merlin moved closer and rose on his knees, grasping her shoulders and drawing her up, as well. Serena felt her hands touch his hard, powerful chest, and then he was pulling her into his arms and hers were around him, and the most incredible sense of relief swept over her. She hadn’t been sure. Bravado aside, she hadn’t been sure.

But when his mouth closed over hers and she felt the hardness of his body against hers, she was. He was very much with her, she could
feel
it; there was no curtain being drawn in his mind because she was a woman, something to dread and be wary of. And she thought he knew that his need was like hers, emotional as well as physical.

Their bodies, pressed together, strained to be even closer, though they hadn’t moved apart long enough to rid themselves of what remained of their clothing. Her fingers clutched at his back, and his swept down her back to curve over her buttocks and bring her lower body tighter against his, while their kiss deepened sharply.

Serena suddenly, fiercely, wanted them both to be naked, and because she wished it, their clothing vanished. She tore her lips from his with a gasp, shocked by the stark sensations of her breasts flattened against his chest and her belly rubbing the swollen hardness of his member as he held her and moved sensuously against her.

His eyes, liquid black, burning, gazed into hers, and it was Serena who tried to struggle against this, not
physically but emotionally, all her fears wild in her eyes. For so long she’d thought him beyond reach, and it had been safe to love him, love Merlin, without risk or vulnerability, but now he was Richard, flesh and blood and the heat of need, and it was terrifying to think of giving so much of herself to him….

Merlin could see, as well as feel, her emotions, and her panicked defenselessness made him reach out with an instinct far deeper than any his ancestors had instilled in him.

“Don’t, Serena, don’t be afraid,” he murmured, both his hands lifting to surround her face, his thumbs gently smoothing the hot skin over her cheekbones. “You’ve been so brave and strong and clearheaded through all of this, even when I gave you so many reasons to hate me. Don’t leave me now, please. Fight the way you always have. So stubborn and fierce … my Serena …”

She caught her breath on a little gasp, and as quickly as it had surged inside her the trepidation was gone. She was left with a necessity that was almost frantic, a hunger for him that held all the intensity of a storm trapped under glass for too long. It felt as if she had wanted him forever.

“Yes,” she whispered, all her senses once more focused on the overwhelming contact of their naked bodies.

Merlin kissed her, his mouth urgent, and eased them both down into the softness of the fur-covered pallet. Leaning over her, kissing her again and again, he touched her silken stomach and felt it quiver, then slid his hand slowly up to cup her breast. She jerked and made a little sound, and he raised his head to look down at her. Her eyes were wide and fixed on his face, startled and wondering, color and heat blooming over her cheekbones as his thumb brushed over her nipple.

He kissed her once more, his tongue slipping between her lips to touch and play with hers until she answered the intimate little caresses eagerly. She made another little sound, this one of disappointment, when his mouth left hers to trail over her face. He touched her eyelids and forehead, her cheeks and nose and chin,
almost as if he were using his lips to memorize her every feature. Then his mouth moved down her throat, and she felt the shattering sensation of his tongue slowly tracing the little heart with which he had marked her as his.