Page 49 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

EIGHTEEN

Ithink I would know if I were in love,” I objected, seating myself on the chair opposite the couch and pulling the flannel shirt over my knees. “The whole problem with Liam was that Iwasn’tin love with him. If I had been, then he would have become fully human.”

“I didn’t say you loved him,” Duncan said, leaning back on the couch and arranging the afghan over his chest like the folds of a Roman toga. “I said your heartbelongedto him. He must have bound you to him. He doesn’t want you to love anyone else.”

“No, he wouldn’t…” I began, but then I recalled what he’d said in my dream about the threads of Aelvesgold linking true lovers. Had that been his way of telling me that we were bound together?

“The bastard,” I swore. “He might as well have put a chastity belt on me.”

Duncan looked at me curiously. “So you don’t want to be bound to him?”

“I most certainly do not! I want to make up my own mind about loving him…” Too late I realized what that soundedlike. Duncan looked away from me, something flickering darkly in his eyes—disappointment, I guessed, although it looked almost like anger.

“So you’re really not sure how you feel about him.” He started to get up, remembered he was naked under the afghan, and cast a spell that conjured clothes—tightly fitting jeans, a soft white shirt, and a black leather jacket. The perfect outfit to make me sorry that he was going. He winced as he adjusted his shoulders under the jacket.

“I haven’t healed your back,” I objected, following him to the door.

“My wounds will heal,” he said with a wry smile, “probably faster than your feelings for Liam will change.”

“How can I know how I feel when I have these wards on me?” I asked. “Is there some way I can remove them?”

Duncan turned to me in the doorway. The porch light shining through the red pane in the fanlight cast a ruby streak across his face, making him look like a savage in war paint. “Do you really want them gone?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

He nodded.

“They can be removed the same way as the wards that are blocking your power can be removed. Through transformative magic.”

“But that hasn’t worked,” I objected.

“Itisworking,” he said. “You felt the power tonight when you were an owl, didn’t you?”

“I did, but then it faded.”

“But you were still strong enough to heal me. And the fact that Liam’s wards are visible is a sign that you are growing powerful enough to shed them. One more transformation and you’ll be strong enough to break through them all.”

He leaned toward me. I felt the wards flare up on my skin,but I clenched my fists and willed them down, long enough for Duncan Laird to place a chaste kiss on my cheek. “See,” he said, leaning back, “you’re stronger than you think.”

I was expecting the dream that night. Liam was there beneath the willow tree, wearing nothing but leaf shadow and honeyed sunlight, but I was dressed in a magnificent gown embroidered with a thousand golden spirals.

“Ah,” he said, reaching for my hand. “You’ve found them!”

I snatched my hand away from him. “You branded me!” I hissed. Coils unwound from my sleeve like long supple snakes and hissed with me.

“It’s not a brand,” he said, holding up his hand to the rippling coils. “It’s the history of our lovemaking written on your skin.” The coils approached his hand tentatively, as if sniffing, and then slipped onto his hand and wound themselves around his wrist and forearm, twining themselves into golden patterns on his skin. As they traveled up his arm I felt a corresponding tug on my arm pulling me toward him.

“You bound me to you!” I cried, pulling back, even in a dream determined not to give in to his seduction.

“I am equally bound,” he replied, looping his arm in the air and wrapping a long skein of twisted thread around it. The dress made of coils unraveled as I fell to my knees by his side. The threads spread across his chest and I felt a corresponding tug in my own chest, a tightness coiling around my heart and tickling my bare breasts. My dress had vanished. Golden coils writhed on my bare skin. I knelt naked on the mossy bank beside Liam, entwined with him in a shimmering net of desire.

“Our desire,” he whispered, crouching beside me, our knees touching. “When we make love, we create friction.” Helifted his hand and held it, palm out, an inch above my skin. Gold tendrils quivered in the air between us. My nipples tingled and hardened. He lowered his hand to my navel and twirled his fingers. The spirals coiled back on themselves and formed a knot. There was a tightening in my core, a small knot of tension that felt…good.

“We can shape that heat and tension…” He moved his fingers and the spiral knot began to revolve. The warmth expanded and spread. I moaned. It felt delicious…so what if he was binding me to him…

“No!” I cried, grabbing his hand. As soon as our hands touched, the golden coils tightened, taut as violin strings. His eyes locked on to mine. He squeezed my hand and the knot inside me exploded. I came, gasping at the suddenness and force of the orgasm. Liam cried out at the same instant, his face suffused with golden light. The spirals around us unwound and snapped in the air, sputtering and sparking like loose electrical cables. As their energy rippled outward the air buckled and cracked with thunder and lightning.

“You are mine!” he cried.

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