Powerful Magic (46 page)

          
"I didn't know."
 
Raising her gaze to meet Rhiannon's, Megan beseeched her to understand.
 
"I didn't know how much Kenric meant to me."

          
"Have you told him of Roger and his evilness?"

          
Stunned, Megan stared.
 
“How did you know?”

          
Rhiannon lifted one shoulder.
 
“Something in the way you look every time you say his name.

          
"Roger."
 
She was right.
 
Even speaking the name made Megan cringe inside.
 
"I never want to see him again."

          
"Aye, but have you told Kenric what Roger did to you?"

          
Megan chewed on her bottom lip.
 
"Not yet."

          
"Why not?"

          
"There wasn't time.
 
I
did
tell him I planned to break off the engagement."

          
Curiosity shining in her violet eyes, Rhiannon cocked her head.
 
"Did he not ask why?"

          
“No.
 
He knows I don’t love Roger.
 
That is enough.”
 

          
“Kenric should know everything.”

          
“Maybe.”
 
Megan considered.
 
“But he’d want revenge.
 
And Roger is not a kind man."
 
That
was the understatement of the year.
 
Thinking of Roger and his myriad methods of cruelty, she could only feel relief that she had somehow escaped him.

          
"Most men are not kind."

          
Megan took a deep breath.
 
“Unkindness doesn’t even begin to cover the way Roger treated me.”

          
“Why did you allow it?”

          
“He manipulated me, somehow convincing me that I deserved to be treated the way he treated me.
 
The
 
ridicule and the threats escalated over time, becoming outright abuse until finally I simply had to retreat inside myself, enduring it because I believed I should.”

          
And he'd wanted her to change her will.
 
Did he plan then, to finally kill her instead of simply hurting her?
 

          
Unable to stop the torrent of words once they’d begun, Megan continued.
 
“So I wondered and suffered and tried to decide what to do.
 
Until one day I rose with the sunrise and looked in the mirror.
 
I saw my brusied face, my swollen, black eye and realized I didn't want to live this way anymore.
 
That was when I knew I’d have to tell Roger I didn't want to see him again, or die trying.”

          
“Die?”
 
Rhiannon sounded shocked.
 
“Surely he wouldn’t have killed you?”

          
“I don’t know,” Megan answered.
 
But she suspected she did.
 
“I never got to tell him. Instead, I was struck by lightening and transported back in time.”
 
Freedom from all that was a heady feeling.
 
The love of a good man like Kenric was even more.

          
She looked up to find Rhiannon watching her closely.
 
"Roger was worse that most.
 
So I’m okay without him.
 
I don't want to ever see him again."

          
Smiling broadly, Rhiannon reached over and patted her hand.
 
"I believe everything will be fine."
 

          
"I hope so."

          
Rhiannon's smile faded, replaced by a frown that made fine lines appear in her flawless forehead.
 
"As long as we win the battle.
 
Only
then
will everything be fine."

          
Megan thought of Kenric and of the powerful love they shared, even if Kenric himself wasn't ready to admit it. And of Edmyg and Kenric's sister, who seemed well on their way to their own love.
 

          
"Love is a powerful magic."
 
Rhiannon said, startling Megan.
 

          
"Did you read my mind?"

          
Rhiannon's laughter trilled on the night air.
 
"No, dearheart.
 
I didn't have to.
 
If you could have seen the lovesick expression on your face, you would have understood.
 
It didn't take magic to know what you were thinking."

#

          
Though he had been forbidden to by the rules of his training, Kenric came to her that night.
 
He could no more stay away then he could stop breathing.
 
He refused to allow these Faeries and their foolish rules to govern him.
 
He would learn what they had to teach, practice until he could weld his knowledge of it like his finely sharpened sword.
 
And it would not take as long as they thought it would.
 
Inbred in his very soul, Magic came natural to him, even though he'd always before fought against it.
 
He would be ready long before a fortnight had passed.
 

          
They could train him until he could no longer stand. But they would not, could not, keep him away from his Megan.

          
In the deepest part of the night, he found her room.
 

Creeping silently in the darkness, he disrobed swiftly.
 
Though half asleep, she welcomed him with a glad cry, holding out her arms to him and pulling him to her.
 

          
Megan
.

          
He felt a sense of homecoming, along with a fierce, deep possessiveness.
His.
 
When he took her, plunging deep inside her, she was warm and soft and ready for him.
 

          
All through the night he loved her silently.
 
Though she made soft sounds of gladness, they did not speak.
 
One hour before the dawn began to color the silver sky an angry scarlet, he left her sleeping.

          
Trudging back to the place where they kept him, he knew that, no matter what they said, he would come to her again.

          
He began his practice feeling renewed, alive. Happy. But the first few spells he'd tried had failed miserably, and he couldn't seem to summon more than a few sparks of power.
 
Even that had quickly fizzled.

          
Maybe these failures told them what he’d done.
 
Either way, somehow they'd known.
 
All morning long Arwydd had been shooting him angry looks of disapproval.

          
Still nothing worked. After two hours of practicing, Kenric stormed out of the sanctuary in frustration.
 
The truth of the matter was that they'd been right.
 
Making love to Megan had depleted him of the energy necessary to make magic.
 

          
Alone, he sat cross legged, emptying his mind of everything but the core that was his inner power.
 
Then, as he'd been taught, he focused, waiting for it to build within him, strong and sure.
 

          
Instead, he felt... nothing.

          
"You've been with the woman."
 
Arwydd's crusty voice crackled with age.
 
Moving much slower than Kenric, the elderly mage had taken ten minutes longer to reach the small corpse of trees where Kenric had taken refuge.

          
Weary, Kenric looked up at the elder through narrowed eyes and nodded.
 
He was not in the mood for the lecture that seemed certain to follow, but since he deserved it, he would suffer it in silence.

          
"So now you know,"
 
Arwydd inclined his head, flashing what looked to Kenric's astonished eyes to be a half-smile, "why we told you to stay away from her."

          
"I cannot bear to be without her."
 
Kenric admitted ruefully, wondering when such weakness for a woman had become part of him.
 
Still, it was only a powerful need, lust, not love.
 
Thank the fates for that.

          
"She is your soul half."
 
Arwydd agreed, again surprising Kenric.
 
"It is understandable."

          
"Then explain to me why I cannot see her."
 
Waving his hand, Kenric rubbed his temple.
 
“I do not understand.”

          
Arwydd nodded, his expression enigmatic.
           
"Why the magic will not work?”

          
"Yes.
 
If she and I are meant to be together, why does making love to her destroy the magic?
 
My sister always says love is a powerful magic.
 
Only together were Megan and I able to escape a spell at Lord Brighton’s keep.” Kenric hadn't known he could feel such despair over something he'd spent years trying to deny.
 
"How can I fight this battle with no magic?"

          
"The answer is simple."
 
Arwydd spread his hands.
 

“This is a different kind of magic than before.
 
This magic is masculine only.
 
We go to fight a war.
 
Therefore, you must stay away from the woman."

          
Stay away from...
 
every fiber of his being rebelled at the thought.
 

          
"No."
 
Though he kept his voice low, Kenric's agonized cry came from his very soul. "I tell you, I cannot."

          
Arwydd frowned, his normally dour expression becoming even more morose.
 
"If you must go to her, then you must not love her with your body.
 
That is the only way."

          
Astounded, Kenric could only stare.
 
What Arwydd asked would be torture.
 
To hold Megan, to caress her skin, touch her hair, taste her lips, to become fully aroused and then... nothing.

          
Arwydd pressed his advantage, laying a knarled hand on Kenric's shoulder.
 
"There are other ways you can pleasure her, which is allowed, but you must deny yourself release.
 
This is important.
 
You must win this battle.
 
The entire fate of Rune rests on this."

          
The rest went unsaid.
 
If he did not do as Arwydd, nay,
the magic
demanded, he risked not only the fate of Rune, but the fate of the entire world as well.

          
So he, no stranger to discipline, would have to learn to control his raging desire for Megan.
 
And, in doing so, he would experience the greatest sexual frustration he would ever know.

          
"It will make you stronger, help to build up power." This time, the knome-like man actually laughed, a dry gurgle of sound that had Kenric wanting, irrationally, to punch him.
 
He found nothing amusing in the situation, nothing at all.
 

          
"Fine."
 
He snarled, uncoiling his legs and rising.
 
"I

will do as you say I must.
 
Now, since it is apparent that I am no good to you for the rest of the day, let me take my leave and go in search of Megan.
 
I must tell her of this, to make certain she understands."