Kay Hooper - The Wizard Of Seattle

If she had done it.

Serena eased up and away from him, still not wanting to disturb his sleep. But she was wide awake and restless, and the faint gurgle of a nearby stream (created by one of the wizards on this mountain, Merlin had noted when they'd climbed up here; the fresh water was undoubtedly careless runoff from some pleasure pool higher on the mountain) sounded awfully tempting. The bathing facilities in Sanctuary were adequate, though hardly inspiring, and the idea of bathing under the brightening sky of Atlantis appealed to Serena.

Why not? With a little luck Merlin would wake up and come looking for her, finding her rising up out of the water like… like who? Neptune (or Poseidon) was the malegod of the sea, she remembered, but who was the femalegod? Anyway, she'd be rising out of the water like the femalegod of the sea, all naked and wet and tempting and-and she'd probably be draped with the decidedly unattractive freshwater equivalent of seaweed, because that was just her luck…

Smothering a laugh at her own absurd thoughts, Serena went to take a bath.

Tremayne reached Sanctuary in early afternoon after having parted from Merlin at the base of Varian's mountain hours before. He would normally have volunteered to accompany Merlin-more of a stranger here than himself-to the Old City, but after what he had learned of Roxanne's experience, he was anxious to see her, to try to convince her that he had no intention of harming her in any way. Tremayne hadn't needed Merlin's warning to know she was unlikely to put much trust in any male, even less a wizard, but he was determined to do whatever he could to win her trust. And there was so little time before he had to leave…

He was no more than a hundred yards from the gate and approaching from the southwest when he saw Roxanne pass through it, pause to speak briefly to one of the female wizard Sentinels, and then begin walking due west away from the city. She had a small backpack and used a walking stick nearly as tall as she was, around which her fingers whitened tensely when Tremayne approached her quickly.

She halted, knowing they were within view of the gate and that the Sentinels undoubtedly watched. Oddly, she wasn't afraid of the tall male wizard striding toward her, but her heart pounded erratically and she felt very nervous. She hadn't expected to see him… No, that was wrong. She had been expecting him ever since their last encounter, when he had said those incredible, stunning things she hadn't been able to believe. Something inside her had insisted he would return.

Especially after Serena had told her that Tremayne had invited Merlin to meet his distant kinsman Varian. She wondered dimly if only she among all of them felt this strange sense of fate weaving connections like an inescapable web.

Tremayne stopped several feet away and stared at her with a hunger that was alien to everything she knew and yet awoke sensations in her body she instinctively understood, however much they shocked her. For a moment he seemed unsure what to say. When he did speak, his voice was abrupt but not hard or harsh. "What in hell are you doing leaving the city this late in the day?"

Roxanne lifted her chin and fought inwardly to hold her voice steady. "Sanctuary is not a prison."

"I know that." He was impatient now, frowning, but his eyes were still darkened with more primitive feelings. "But it's afternoon now. You could be caught out here when the Curtain falls and be in danger."

"I know I'll be outside the city tonight, it's unavoidable." She didn't know why she was telling him this. "I have to cross the valley."

"The only thing on the other side of the valley is the village."

"Yes. It is."

"Why do you have to go there?"

Her chin lifted another inch, and the blue eyes flashed. "Not that it's any of your business, but my mother lives there."

Was she being truthful? Or had she given herself enough time to heal from what had been done to her and meant now to find the men who had attacked her? Tremayne hesitated, every instinct warning him not to admit to having knowledge of what had happened to her; if she wanted him to know, she would tell him herself. Before he could say anything, she was going on, her voice soft but not at all weak.

"Wherever I choose to go is my own concern. If you'll excuse me, I have a great deal of ground to cover."

She made as if to walk past him, giving him a wide berth, but Tremayne turned with her and fell into step. "I haven't seen the village yet except from a distance."

Roxanne didn't stop walking or look at him, but her fingers tightened around the walking stick. "I don't believe I invited you to accompany me."

"If I waited for that, I've a feeling I should grow old and crotchety before I heard it," he said a bit dryly.

She nearly smiled, but they had reached the forest, and she knew the Sentinels at the gate would soon lose sight of them. Did she really want to be alone in the valley with this male? Even if he seemed different from the other male wizards, a difference that roused strange feelings inside her, and even if Serena and Merlin's odd relationship made such a thing at least imaginable, could she afford the risk?

A part of her wanted to take the risk; but it was impossible, her mind kept insisting. Even if their trip across the valley was peaceful, he was bound to interfere with what she had to do, and the last thing she wanted was to be forced to fight him.

"Roxanne?"

"I don't need your company," she said carefully, refusing to look at him. He was an arm's length away from her side, yet she was overwhelmingly conscious of him, tall and powerful and a wizard . She should be afraid of him, yet she wasn't…

"You will when the Curtain falls," he said matter-of-factly. "If I'm with you when any of the village men see you at night, they'll assume you're my concubine."

"I belong to no man," she said, her intense voice so low, it was almost a whisper.

"I know that, Roxanne. But what's the harm of protecting yourself with a bit of deception? Come, allow me to travel with you, please."

"You ask for too much. I don't know you, but I know what you are, and I have no reason to trust that."

Tremayne was silent for several steps, then said, "At night both of us are unable to use our powers in the valley, and during the day you could injure me as easily as I could injure you; I would say the risk you run in trusting me is a lesser danger than the one you face from the village men. I wish only to be with you, Roxanne. Can't you accept that?"

She was silent.

Still Tremayne felt hopeful. She hadn't said no, after all. He kept his voice easy and neutral. "We should be able to cross the valley and return in two or three days, don't you agree?"

After a moment she said, "That is… the usual time it takes for the trip."

He managed not to yell in triumph and was even able to speak calmly. "Good. Is your mother expecting you?"

"No, though I usually try to visit every few weeks." Roxanne felt guilty as soon as she spoke, but the feeling didn't prevent her from lying to him.

"You plan to be in the village only during the day, of course."

"Of course."

Tremayne thought about it for a moment, then frowned. "Your mother is powerless?"

"Yes."

He looked quickly at her delicate profile, finding her expression a bit tense but composed. "Then your rather is a wizard?"

Guarded blue eyes met his briefly. "Yes," she replied in a flat little voice. "Though, of course, he knows nothing of my existence. If he had known, I would have been killed at birth like all his other female offspring."

Tremayne felt a sudden shock, a peculiar certainty that might have been psychic. "Roxanne… who is your father?"