Kay Hooper - The Wizard Of Seattle

"Which is what happened. Is that-what we saw-is that what you see when you reach out with your senses?"

He nodded.

Serena was impressed. "I do have a long way to go. Alone, all I get are faint impressions."

"Time, Serena. It takes time."

"And I'm impatient, I know."

He kissed her again, then said, "Why don't we start down now? Tremayne, Roxanne, and Kerry won't reach Sanctuary today, I think, but if we cut across the valley, we should meet up with them before dark."

"Okay. I'm curious to find out what that kid's doing with them."

After leaving the clearing the way they'd found it, they made their way down the mountain, careful of the rain-slick slope, talking idly, not about anything really important. Being lovers, Serena realized happily, had removed barriers and constraints and made them closer, but it hadn't changed the familiarity that came of years together. Being lovers added dimensions and layers and depths. It was wonderful.

They reached the dirt road late in the morning, and before they could even turn toward the west another tremor rumbled through Atlantis. It wasn't a bad one, over in seconds.

"I don't like them," Serena told Merlin in the tone of one who has made a personal discovery.

"No, they aren't pleasant," he agreed.

Serena looked ahead to the dark, dreary forest and said, "I have an idea."

"Which is?"

"Why don't we go just far enough into the forest to be out of sight if anybody happens to be watching, and conjure ourselves a little house or something. Then we can stay there all day, and even tonight, and when Roxanne and Tremayne are close enough early tomorrow morning, we can just pop over." She eyed him hopefully.

In a mild tone he said, "That would be cheating."

"No… just taking a little shortcut, is all. Besides, which would you rather do, spend the day walking through that dreadful forest, or spend the day in bed? With me." To make certain he understood his options, she wreathed her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

Merlin wrapped both arms around her and lifted her off her feet, an abrupt and intense hunger evident in him. Against her lips he murmured, "Woman, do you plan to use your body to get your way with me from now on?"

"Only when I think it'll work," she confessed.

He shifted his hold on her, cradling her in his arms, and began carrying her toward the forest. "Well, it's working now," he told her ruefully.

Varian prowled the terrace of his palace restlessly. His hand lifted often to touch the place on his chest that had been burned by the two wizards from Seattle, even though it was healing rapidly and scarcely hurt at all now. It wasn't pain he felt at any rate; it was bewilderment and unease, coupled with a growing sense of eagerness and anticipation.

It had to be a portent, he thought, a sign to him. Forty years here without even an instance of power mating power, and yet in a single morning he had encountered not one, but two pairs of wizards. First the pair from Seattle, that redheaded whore Serena and Merlin, and then his own crafty kinsman Tremayne and his whore from the city. Two pairs .

And it wasn't just the fact of them that disturbed Varian. The two from Seattle… their powers had combined. Combined . He had never felt anything like the jolt that had sliced through his own energy and knocked him off his feet, and he knew he'd never forget it.

"My Lord…"

He looked at one of his concubines as she glided out onto the terrace and smiled at him. He thought her name was Elena. She was very young and ripe to bursting with libidinous juices, and since he'd broken her in right, she was eager for him. She cupped her own breasts and lifted them invitingly, the nipples stiffly visible through the filmy material of her shift.

"My Lord… please take me."

He didn't want her.

The thought was so shocking that he waved her away without a word and retreated to the end of the terrace to try to understand what was wrong with him. Why didn't he want her? He had never in his life turned away from a willing bitch, not unless he was exhausted, and he wasn't -in feet, he was half hard, partially aroused, but not by Elena.

It occurred to him slowly that he was growing excited by the possibility of taking a woman of power to his bed.

Why not, after all? If Tremayne had managed to do it, then surely he could. He thought of spreading the legs of some haughty whore, her eyes filled with vibrant life like those of Merlin's mate, that Serena, and Varian felt himself twitch urgently.

Of course, he'd have to find a willing one; those whores in the city were reputedly swift to fire off a shift of energy right to a man's groin, which was the last thing Varian wanted. He wondered how Tremayne had avoided that particular fate.

He reached down and fondled himself absently as he gazed out over the valley. A willing whore…

"I like that," Roxanne said, eyeing her friend's new outfit.

"What, this old thing?" Serena grinned as Roxanne looked uncertain, and added, "Never mind. I'd be delighted to conjure up something similar for you."

After a moment's thought Roxanne smiled. "No, I don't think so. It suits you, Serena-it wouldn't me."

They were sitting on a fallen tree near the bank of a stream not an hour from Sanctuary, where the two couples and Kerry had met up only minutes before. Merlin and Tremayne were standing several feet away talking, and Kerry was kneeling at the stream washing her doll Chloe's face.

Nodding, Serena said, "So, tell me-if you don't mind, of course-why you left Sanctuary."

Roxanne hesitated, but then confessed her intention of destroying the men who had attacked her. She spoke quietly, telling Serena what had happened when Kerry had followed her and Tremayne away from Sanctuary.

"It was my fault she was put into danger. If I hadn't been so wrapped up in my desire for revenge, I would never have left Sanctuary without making certain there was someone to watch out for Kerry. Felice… well, she wants a child of her own, as I told you, and the older Kerry grows, the less Felice is interested. She probably didn't even notice the child was missing-"

"Day before yesterday," Serena said. "Before Merlin and I left Sanctuary, she asked me if I'd seen Kerry. She didn't seem worried, though."

Roxanne sighed. "No, probably not."

"But it was hardly your fault that Kerry sneaked out of the city, Roxanne. I thought the Sentinels were there to keep the kids in, as well as unwanted males out."

"Yes, but Kerry was still my responsibility. And if Tremayne hadn't been with me, those men would have hurt her so terribly, perhaps even killed her-" She swallowed hard. "One of them… was one of the men who attacked me."

Serena frowned. "What did you do?"

Roxanne explained what had happened when her power had combined with Tremayne's, and added, "I don't understand it, and neither does Tremayne. The Curtain should have punished us for trying to use power…"

Serena was more interested in another question. "Roxanne, do you trust Tremayne?"

"I-I don't know. Perhaps."

"But the possibility is there?"

"Yes," Roxanne answered honestly. "When he helped me to save Kerry so instantly, without hesitating. I felt… I felt I could learn to trust him."

Serena didn't push it. "I see. So, you two saved Kerry and destroyed those two village men, one of whom was one of your attackers. And then? You changed your mind about going after the other two?"

"It didn't seem important anymore. The anger inside me just faded away to nothing."

"You know, I think that's probably a good thing," Serena told the younger wizard. "We have a saying in Seattle-what goes around comes around. The men who hurt you will pay for what they did, one way or another."