Kay Hooper - The Wizard Of Seattle

After what seemed like a long time but was probably no more than half an hour or so, Tremayne's aura gradually lessened in intensity, the colors fading, until finally it was no longer visible. As silently as he had drawn away, Merlin rejoined Tremayne at the balustrade.

"No wonder she told me I was mad." Tremayne's voice was drained.

Neutral himself, Merlin asked, "Does it change the way you feel about her?"

Tremayne's head snapped around. "If you're asking me if I consider her less than she was-I may be mad, but I'm not a fool. She was a victim of this place and can't be blamed for what happened to her."

"I agree," Merlin said quietly. "But it certainly won't make your task any easier. If, that is, you mean to try and persuade her to go with you when you leave Atlantis."

Tremayne looked shocked for an instant, but then an unsteady laugh escaped him. "I… think that is what I was hoping."

"Is it such a startling possibility?"

"Yes-you must know it is. Oh, we don't fight the way wizards here do, but I don't know of a single mated pair of wizards in all of Europa. Not one pair. We mate with powerless; it's always been that way."

Merlin nodded toward the Curtain spread out over the valley. "The way it has been here. And look what's happened. Maybe the blame for all this lies there, in our belief that we can't allow ourselves to be vulnerable- especially to the female of our kind."

"Because they can damage us, even kill us," Tremayne reminded him.

"You and I could kill each other." Merlin turned his head and looked at the younger wizard steadily. "If we became angry enough to use our powers against each other, the likelihood is that we'd both die. But that doesn't stop us from being friends. We're willing to take the risk among males-why not with females? What are we really afraid of?"

Tremayne frowned and spoke slowly. "Because… the friendship between male wizards is a fairly casual, unemotional kind of relationship. The one thing we all are, almost by definition, is alone. Wizards have always been separate, unique beings. So much of what we are is inside us, and we study and practice all our lives to harness and control the powers we were born with, including our emotions. We may marry, but when we do, we never give much, if anything, of ourselves. And our children leave their parents at a very young age, just as we did."

"Christ," Merlin muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. You're right, of course." And why the hell didn't I see it before now? We are solitary creatures, doing our best to control our powers - and our lives. We're closed, guarded, and to reach for intimacy with a woman means more to us than mere vulnerability; it means a loss of the command with which we center our lives. We learn at an early age to use what's inside us, to contain and control, to gaze always inward, not even suspecting that we can never achieve the perfection we seek simply because we've locked ourselves away from the ultimate test of our own humanity …

Tremayne shrugged wearily. "In that sense what's happening here isn't so different from the rest of our world. The wizards here are alone, even if they're surrounded by others. Varian, so frantically begetting sons, doesn't give anything but his seed. The number of his sons makes him more powerful, but gather twenty of them together in one room, and I'll bet he couldn't name them all. They're no part of him, merely… tools."

"It doesn't have to be that way," Merlin said. "Perhaps it is against our very nature to allow anyone to get dose to us, but we can overcome that. We have to. How can we call ourselves Masters otherwise?"

Tremayne smiled slightly. "You're the Master-I'm Advanced. But I suppose that's hardly the point. You're saying we can't be complete as wizards until we can allow someone to get close, because the fear of being vulnerable is… the final flaw in all of us."

"That's exactly what I'm saying." Merlin was abruptly aware of an urgent need to see Serena, to talk to her. She hadn't been out of his thoughts since he had left her in the city, but he had managed not to drive himself crazy struggling with the conflicting emotions she evoked in him. Now, though still conscious of that conflict, he at least had some idea of what he was struggling with . And why.

"How can you be so sure we can overcome that flaw?" Tremayne asked soberly. "I don't know anyone who has."

"Nor do I. But I think both of us had better do our best to change that."

"Both of us?" Tremayne looked at him curiously.

Merlin hesitated for all of a few seconds, then sighed and said, "I think I'll tell you about my… companion."

He didn't tell the younger wizard everything, of course, but he did confess that Serena was a woman of power (artfully disguised while they traveled together), and he did make it dear that he and Serena were struggling with feelings neither one of them seemed able to easily accept.

Even as he talked, he wondered if these last days had been as difficult for Serena as they had been for him. As painful and disturbing as it was being away from her, he liked even less the uneasy knowledge that she was in a city of women where male wizards were openly loathed and distrusted. Had Serena come to terms with the reason they were here in Atlantis?

And if she had, did she hate him because of it?

Normally Varian was interested in little except bedding his bitches and trying to think of some way he could ultimately triumph over that whore Antonia in her damned city. But when Tremayne returned from one of his frequent visits to the valley with a stranger from someplace called Seattle, a Master wizard named Merlin, Varian's curiosity had stirred.

And that wasn't all. His senses and instincts told him this wizard was unlike any he had ever encountered, and that made him decidedly wary. Merlin was polite and pleasant, but his black eyes were very, very sharp as they gazed about Varian's home, and he showed absolutely no interest in any of the bitches-unnatural, as far as Varian was concerned.

He had a new one in his bed tonight, a ripe young bitch from the village whom he had bought from her father while she was still playing with dolls; it was Varian's favorite tactic to stake his claim long before the other male wizards noticed an available powerless female. The farmer had kept her safe until Varian was ready for her, making sure she came to her Lord's bed a virgin. That had been a few days ago, and he'd spent quite a few hours since breaking her in.

"Oh-My Lord!"

"Do you like that, Mara?"

"Yes… please…".

Varian always took care to break them in right, devoting his considerable talents to the task of turning a dim-witted but innocent village girl into a dim-witted woman interested in nothing except physical satisfaction. The eagerness he taught them increased his own pleasure. Mara was just reaching that stage after nearly a week; by the time he was finished with her, she'd have his seed rooted in her belly and would spread her legs eagerly for any other male while she was breeding.

They were in her bed this night, and he was teasing her. He hadn't yet undressed, nor had he allowed her to do so; she was wearing a flimsy shift. Lights burned on either side of the huge bed; Varian strongly disliked sex in the dark.

He took her mouth until she was weak and quivering, fondling her breasts through the thin doth of her shift until they were swollen with hot blood, the nipples stiff. Still dressed, he mounted her. The pressure of his legs had parted hers, and he moved slowly to press his straining groin against the soft notch between her thighs. She moaned raggedly when she felt his hardness, then sighed and whimpered when he rubbed himself between her thighs.

He eased his hips back a bit and slid one hand up her thigh, slowly drawing the skirt of her shift upward. He tugged until the material was bunched around her waist, leaving her naked from there down, and then he settled back against her. He hunched slowly, rubbing himself against her leisurely while he held her wrists above her head on the pillow and gazed down at her flushed, strained face with satisfaction.