Page 28 of Wicked Love
Turning the reliquary around, I glared at the skull. “You want to explain what that was all about?”
“You’re already short on magic,” she said, not at all repentant. “And you’re going to go give more of it to some magic man? I don’t care what he does to you, it’s not worth your magic!”
“He’s not stealing my magic!” I shouted back. “That’s already gone!”
“After you gave yourself to him. Like you were about to again.”
“Yeah, and it would have been great,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “You can’t keep doing that. I like Jasper. I can’t see where we could go if you keep shouting about chickens.”
“The little death is indeed marvelous, but it is fleeting,” Zelda said.
“The little death?” I asked.
“The completion, the place where the sky explodes around you,” she said. If she had been standing in front of me, I would have bet she was grinding her teeth.
“Oh, orgasm.”
“Yes, the completion. When you orgasm,” she spoke the unfamiliar word slowly, “You are open as you are no other time. Your spirit, your magic, your very soul is vulnerable and on display.”
“That’s kind of part of the point,” I said.
“That’s when they steal it,” she insisted.
“What the hell happened to you?” If I was remembering my history correctly, Zelda Dupuis had never married. Never had children, although she’d taken in many during her time as the leader of our coven. One of my ancestors had a claim to her in that fashion.
“I fell in love. His name was Ronan. Ronan Dhu, Ronan the Black, for he was a tall, dark man, much like your own.” Her voice sounded distant.
“And he asked me to consummate our love, to pledge ourselves to one another. He was a Druid, a man of magic from the isles, and when he talked, his voice could carry me to green pastures in another world.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I agreed. What else would I do? My parents approved, even though he was Irish, not French. He was a Druid, and a scholar, and a man of repute.” She stopped.
A feeling of overwhelming sadness came over me. It wasn’t mine—it was Zelda’s.
“We met one night, under the full moon. He insisted. He wanted to see me by moonlight,” Zelda said. “And we spoke words that bound us, and then I let my dress fall. I was wearing nothing underneath—not stays, petticoats, nothing. He stared at me in the moonlight, and lay me down upon the furs he’d brought.” She stopped.
When she spoke again, her voice had lost the dreamy tone of memory. “Well, you know what happened next. As we reached the completion, and I cried out for him, I felt a hand reach inside of me.”
“What?” I asked, trying to picture this.
“No, not a physical hand. It was a cold shadow hand that reached beneath my heart. I looked up to see his face, and Ronan, the man who’d just pledged himself to me, was directing a shadow toward me, even as he proclaimed his loved for me. The hand tugged at me, and I knew it was trying to take my magic. The tugging was on my magical soul. I’d never believed in such a thing,” Zelda said. “But that night, I felt it.”
“What did you do?”
“I shoved at him with all my might, calling on the Goddess to give me her strength. He flew from me, and got to his knees, his mouth open and twisted in a snarl of anger. ‘Give it to me!’ he shouted, and he pointed at me. The shadow I’d seen below my heart came toward me with the swiftness of a snake. I sent a wall of flame toward him, tears streaming down my face. Then I cast a holding spell, and when the flames died down, I could see him, naked, arm still thrown up toward me.”
“Oh, Zelda,” I said.
“I dressed, crying as I did so. I cloaked him, for even as a young girl, I was skilled. I was already training then to be the High Priestess. I brought him to my home, and my parents… well, suffice to say my parents were not happy that I’d given myself to him before marriage. They were even less so when they’d learned of his deception.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“He was stripped of his magic, which is the punishment for one who would steal magic from another. Our bond was broken. I lost a piece of myself, as is appropriate. His memory was erased, and he was sent back to Ireland to live the life of a normal, fallen man.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“I was ruined. No one would have me, not after I’d given myself to him. Not only that I’d given myself to someone I wasn’t yet married to, but everyone knew. And I was questioned, for I had not seen his true nature.”
