Powerful Magic (38 page)

          
Rhiannon's sigh contained a wealth of meanings.
 
Unfortunately, Megan couldn't decide which ones they were.

          
Head bowed, Rhiannon stood silent.
 
Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving, as if in silent prayer.

          
Megan waited, wondering what tangled knots she had unraveled now.
 
"Is this good or bad?"
 
She finally asked, when Rhiannon went silent.
 

          
The other woman seemed not to hear her.
 
"Edmyg.
 
Blessed Goddess, I have searched for him for years."
 

          
She raised tortured eyes to meet Megan's gaze.
 
"Somehow, for some reason, he has been hidden from me.
 
That explains why I could not find you - the spell must have hidden you from me even as it kept you safe from Myrddin."

          
Myrddin!
 
Good Lord, Megan still had to tell Kenric about him.

          
"We ran into Myrddin."
 
Megan said slowly.
 
"He fought Kenric."

          
Rhiannon appeared to shake off her sudden melancholy.
 
"That explains the disturbing ripples we felt in Rune.
 
Ripples of power, great power, untamed power.
 
I though it might be either Kenric or Myrddin."
        

          
"It was both."
 

          
Sagely, the fairy queen nodded.
 
"So it will be once again, in the final battle."

          
Megan waited for Rhiannon to elaborate, but the Faerie Queen fell silent, lost in her thoughts.
 
Things were beginning to remind Megan more and more of some giant weaver's loom, like in the myths of ancient Greece. Edmyg and Rhiannon, Myrddin and Kenric, and she herself.
 
All mysteriously entwined, rushing toward some inevitable conclusion.
 
Eventually Megan supposed that this too would come to light.
   

          
"Do you still wish to return to your home?"
 
Pitched low, Rhiannon's voice was serious.
 
"To your own time?"

          
The question caught Megan off guard.
 
She found herself unable to meet Rhiannon's eyes, choosing instead to stare at her hands which, for some reason, she found herself twisting in her lap.

          
Did she want to go back
?
 
She thought she might already know the answer to that.
 
More importantly,
did she have the right to stay?

          
Megan realized she had to give some sort of an answer.
 
"I don't know."
 
She finally said.

          
"Ah."
 
The beautiful Faerie Queen nodded wisely.
           
"Do you love my half-brother?"

          
Whoa.
 
Admitting it to oneself was one thing.
 
Saying it out loud to Kenric's sister was another.
 

          
At Megan's silence, Rhiannon smiled.
 
It was a gentle smile, full of sympathy. "I understand you are betrothed to another."

          
Roger.
 
"I was about to break the engagement when the lightening sent me here.
 
He is an evil man."
 
Megan admitted, relieved to have the truth out at last.
 
If only it were that easy to tell Kenric.

 
        
"Then why do you have my half-brother seeking this Roger?"
 
Nothing but mild curiosity colored Rhiannon's voice.
 
Megan got the eerie feeling that Rhiannon might already know the answers to any question she asked.

          
"I didn't know what else to do.
 
I woke up in the middle of winter, freezing, in some isolated cave with a giant man who dressed like a barbarian.
 
He wanted land, I needed protection. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

 
         
"Kenric would not hurt you.
 
For him, it would be like hurting himself."
 

          
Thin slashes of rose appeared in the sky to the east.
 
Soon, the sun would rise.
 
Megan was seized by a sudden fear that Rhiannon would vanish with the morning.
 
This time, she needed some answers before the Faerie Queen left.

          
"I need to understand what is going on.
 
Do you know what happened to me?"
 

          
Expression grave, Rhiannon gave a slow nod.
 
"You were needed."
 

          
Megan waited for her to say more.
 
When the silence stretched on, and Rhiannon didn't seem inclined to elaborate, Megan realized she would have to ask pointed questions if she had any hope of getting answers.
 
"Needed by whom?"

          
"Kenric needs you."
 

          
Something in the other woman’s expression told her this was not a complete answer.
 
"And?"

          
"We need you."
 
Was that reluctance that colored Rhiannon's silky voice?

          
"We?"

          
"All of us."
 
Every inch the regal Queen now, Rhiannon waved an arm at the lightening sky.
 
"Especially Rune and the land of Faerie."

          
Now they were getting somewhere.
 
"Why?"

          
To Megan's surprise, Rhiannon closed her eyes and lowered her head.
 
"Twas not of our choosing.
 
Even Myrddin, who believe he acts only from his own desire for revenge, is caught in the web.
 
It is ancient legend, prophecy come to life."

          
This was not what Megan had expected to hear.
 
An awful suspicion made her stiffen.
 
Looking down at her hands again, she forced herself to hold them rigidly still.
 
She asked the question through lips suddenly gone dry.
 
"Was it you that made this happen?
 
Did you and your magic bring me here?"

          
Silence.
 

          
Raising her head, Megan realized she was speaking to empty air.
 
The faerie queen had vanished.
 
Rhiannon was gone.

#

          
Though he had an iron control over himself during the bright light of day, Kenric could not keep himself from dreaming.
 
And what dreams they were!
 
In them, Megan and he lay entwined, slaking their passion again and again.
 
When he awoke he was hard and aching.

          
Megan still lay sleeping, curled on her side with one hand under her chin.
 
In the faint light of dawn she was breathtakingly beautiful, her skin creamy and glowing, her hair a tousled cap of dark silk.
 
Hell, he admitted, merely looking at her took his breath away.
 
It had taken every ounce of will he possessed to keep from taking her up on the seductive invitation she'd issued the night before.
 

          
And now?
 
Unaware of his hunger, she slumbered, the sensual curve of her shoulder an invitation of its own.

          
How had this woman come to mean so much to him?
 
Grimacing, he forced his stiff muscles to rise.
 
Better

should he ponder the mysteries of the universe.
 
She belonged to him and, conversely, he to her.
 
That was the way of it, and his time would be better spent figuring out a way to have her and his other heart's desire, the land.
 

          
After he'd washed, he went to wake her.
 
Standing over her, his heart pounding in his ears, he knew he dared not touch her.
 
So instead he stomped around, talking out loud to the warhorse, banging the knife against a stone, and in general making enough noise to wake the dead.

          
Megan stirred, making mewling sounds of protest.
 
Unable to tear his gaze away from her as she yawned and stretched, he found himself hard again.
 
He cursed under his breath, telling himself to turn away.
 
But he was only human and, though he might deny himself the pleasure of her touch, he could not help but watch her.
 
Even though watching her made him ache.
 

          
When she stood, running her fingers through her short sable hair, and offered him a sleepy smile full of innocent sensual promise, he turned away.
 
It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

          
"We ride out shortly."
 
He told her, his voice harsh, his breathing raspy, even to his own ears.
 
"Take a few minutes to ready yourself."
 
This was time he would need as well, to get his errant body under control.
 

          
When they were once again mounted on the war horse's broad back, after breaking their fast with chunks of hard bread and leftover rabbit, he held to a surly silence.
 
To his surprise, she did not speak either.
 
He found he liked the quiet, feeling a camaraderie that he had felt with very few people since his father.
 
If only her scent weren't so distracting.
 
The light floral scent of her kept him on the edge of arousal.
 
He wondered how she did it, without scented soap or lotions.

          
"Have you talked to your sister lately?"

          
The question startled him.
 
They'd been riding two or more hours without exchanging a word, then out of the blue she asked this.
 

          
"My sister?"
 

          
"Yes.
 
Have you spoken with Rhiannon lately?"
 

          
God's blood, with Megan pressed against his back and her soft breath stirring the hairs at the nape of his neck, he could scarcely think.
 

          
"No."
 
Curious, he twisted in the saddle so he could see her eyes.
 
"Why?"

          
Her shrug seemed too casual and she would not look at him.
 
Suspicion made him rein the war horse in.
 

          
Before he could ask, she lifted troubled amber eyes.
 
"She came to see me last night."
 
She swallowed hard, biting her bottom lip in a gesture that sent the blood roaring

through his body, making it difficult to focus.
 

           
“Why?” he managed.

           
"I think she has some sort of plan for me and you."

          
Pretending her nearness had no affect on him, he nodded thoughtfully. Though she looked boyish in his overlarge tunic and faded cap, he knew what lush curves the ugly clothes hid.
 
Knew and longed to touch them.
 

          
“Kenric?”
 
Her voice brought him back to the present.
 
His sister, he told himself, desperately trying to focus.
 
They’d been talking about Rhiannon.