Kay Hooper - The Wizard Of Seattle

Serena nodded. "Then you should certainly go. We'll probably learn more if we split up, and there isn't a lot of time to waste. I'll be all right here. Roxanne is… very informative."

Merlin studied her face, wishing it didn't seem so unresponsive. He could hardly blame her for withdrawing from him, especially after he had confessed that he'd been ordered by the Council to take away her powers, but it hurt nonetheless. She had said she trusted him; didn't she know he could never deliberately hurt her?

Or had her confidence in him been shaken by what he had told her-and by this place? • Christ, was she afraid of him now?

"I think Tremayne might be the witness," he told her, keeping his voice matter-of-fact. "There's no way to be certain, of course, but the more time I spend with him, the better able I'll be to reach a judgment about that."

"And then?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, Serena. If Tremayne is the witness, it seems to me that our best chance of changing what will happen to the society of wizards in the future is to somehow change his report to the Council. To convince him that male and female wizards can coexist peacefully, that what happened here doesn't have to happen in the rest of the world."

Serena gazed up at him, remembering what he had told her yesterday, what he had explained about the society of wizards in their own time.

There have been no females trained as wizards for many long centuries. After what happened here, the more powerful male wizards outside Atlantis destroyed the females in some kind of violent purge. And after that the Council made it our most inviolate law that no woman should be instructed in our arts. Ever. The Council enforces that law with an iron fist. They don't even remember why, but the very concept of any woman with our abilities terrifies them.

Them.

Quietly she said, "How can you convince him we can coexist peacefully when you don't really believe it yourself?"

"Serena, I've risked everything I am to change that." His black eyes were suddenly naked. "Everything. At least give me credit for trying. I've been fighting my deepest instincts since I looked across a table one night and saw a woman instead of a child."

She hadn't expected him to admit that, and it shook her. "At least now I know why sometimes you'd go all cool and distant. I never knew before. I… I thought there was something wrong with me."

He lifted a hand as if to touch her, but then must have remembered the laws of Sanctuary. His mouth tightened as his hand fell to his side. "No, there was nothing wrong with you. And I didn't really know what was wrong with me until I had to face the Council."

Serena tried to hold her voice steady, but it shook with the.intensity of her chaotic emotions. "Knowing what's wrong doesn't seem to help very much, does it? I know you've never tried to hurt me, but now I know you could if you wanted to. You could destroy me with a simple wave of your hand. And knowing that scares the hell out of me."

"I would never deliberately hurt you, Serena," he said. "No matter what happens here, that won't change. Even if I have to fight the entire Council of Elders, I won't take your powers."

"But you could. You have the ability to take from me something I cherish. Something I need to survive. I'd die without my powers. You know that, don't you?"

A muscle leaped in his jaw as Merlin nodded. "Yes, I know that."

Serena nodded in turn, her eyes never leaving his. "So how should I feel about that? Frightened? Worried? A hell of a lot more vulnerable than I was yesterday?"

"I won't hurt you."

"I. want to believe that. But how can I be sure? How can you? You can't even let yourself trust me. And I know… there's a part of you that can't even bear to touch me."

"Serena-"

She shook her head to cut him off. "Like I said, knowing what's wrong doesn't help. You go along with Tremayne and try to convince him. Maybe somewhere along the way you'll convince yourself."

He knew she was right in the essence of what she was saying; until they got past the tangle of emotions that came of facing barriers neither of them had created, it simply wasn't possible to find a solution.

"All right. I may be gone several days, I don't know. After what happened to Roxanne, I hope you'll agree to stay close to the city."

Serena nodded, but then said, "Just in case I happen to get caught outside the gates when the sun goes down, maybe you'd better mark me so those village Neanderthals won't dare bother me." Her voice was unemotional. "The mark should be here." She touched the base of her throat, just below the hollow.

Merlin knew what she meant, because Tremayne had told him of the common practice. Evenly he said, "For the sake of your safety, I'll do it, but it doesn't mean anything, Serena."

She glanced down at the mark of power on the back of his right hand, then shrugged. "Just don't make it a pentagram, that's all I ask."

It was up to him to choose a symbol. Merlin didn't stop to think, he just looked at the spot and marked her.

Serena had been aware of no sensation, but she knew the instant it was done. And she felt… peculiar. Still wary and confused and more than a little frightened, yet at the same time conscious of a fragile and tenuous connection between them that hadn't been there before. Was the mark meaningless? No. It told everyone in Atlantis that she belonged to Merlin, and even if it was done as a ruse, there was something so damned primitive about being tagged with a mark of possession.

"Thanks," she said dryly.

He looked at her intently. "Serena… be careful."

"Yeah. You, too."

"I'll see you in a few days."

"I'll be here."

It wasn't until nearly an hour after that stiff leave-taking that Serena caught sight of her distorted reflection in the thick glass of a window, and saw the mark he had given her. It stood out clearly against her creamy flesh, its outline precise and perfect, its color a rich scarlet, and she had no doubt at all that no other wizard of Atlantis would have used the symbol.

That was probably why he had chosen it, of course.

He had marked her with a heart.

Tremayne had almost given up hope of finding her, but shortly after he left Merlin talking to his companion (whatever that meant) near the gates of the city, he turned a corner off the main street and saw the woman who had haunted his thoughts for so long.

She was standing on the bottom step outside the front door of a house. A small girl with red hair was hopping up and down excitedly in front of her, while the fair-haired young woman held a doll in her hands.

She was a wizard, Tremayne realized as he slowly approached the two. She was neatly repairing damage to the doll, injuries apparently inflicted when the child, also a wizard, had practiced using her own powers.

"There, Kerry," the woman said, handing the doll back to its owner. "Now, try to remember what your Teacher taught you about conjuring. Never practice on any object that means a great deal to you, not until you're more confident." Her voice was gentle, but also firm.

"I didn't mean to practice on Chloe, Roxanne-it just sort of happened," Kerry explained, cradling her restored doll happily.

Roxanne . Her name seemed to run through Tremayne's body like wine, making his heart beat faster and his breath catch in the back of his throat. Though he was still several steps away from her; he thought he could smell the sun-washed scent of her pale hair and sweet fragrance of her skin.

She>s a wizard . But it didn't matter. Right then, nothing mattered except his overwhelming need to… what? To touch her? No, that was forbidden here, and besides, he wanted something more than that, something deeper. He wanted to… make a connection with her, forge a connection, to somehow bind her to him.