VirtualHeaven (29 page)

She groaned and shook her head, her hair sweeping down to
brush like a cobweb across his bare arm. He shivered.

“Aye. You understand.” He used both hands to hold her, for
he sensed she would bolt. “I also remember the taste of Consuela’s chili that
gave me heartburn last night.”

“No. No.” Maggie tugged violently against his hands. He held
her captive.

“Accept it. I am Kered. And I’m Derek, too. Ask me anything,
any detail. Something only Kered would know.”

Maggie’s mind refused his words. Her head and heart ached
with equal agony. Try as she might, she could not stop the words that were
barely audible in the sylvan silence. “When did you first kiss me?”

Maggie heard the smile in his voice. “You kissed me first,
or perhaps I dreamed it was so. In the cave. On the Scorched Plain. I remember
falling asleep with your taste on my mouth.”

Then his voice grew somber. “Now. Something only Derek
Townsend would know. I saw you first in Santa Fe two years ago. In the square
by the Palace of the Governors. You were looking at the jewelry. There were two
children with you, and I remember your necklace, its design, both Navajo and
Celtic at the same time. I put you in the game.”

“Why?” she whispered. “How? How could this be?”

He clasped her hands and brought them to his mouth. “I do
not wish to explore the hows or the whys. I wish to explore what is still
between us.”

Maggie went into his arms. He growled as he clasped her
near. She buried her face against the warmth of his throat and breathed deeply
of the scent that was Kered and only Kered.

They slid closer in the bracken, bodies touching along their
lengths, and she craved all she had thought lost forever.

In the mad darkness his hands were the same—soothing,
arousing. His touch was at once rough and gentle as he explored her body from
knee to hip. The sound he made in his throat was the same Kered growl.

His mouth was hungry and insistent on hers. She groaned at
the familiar and knowing touch of his hands, the feel of his aroused body
pressed to hers.

The words he uttered in breathy gasps at her ear turned her inside
out. “I know you,” he said. “In any world. The way your hips lift against me to
tell me you want this, too. Open to me.”

She wrapped her arms about his neck. The scent of him was
intoxicating, the heat of his hands melting all resistance. Cool air bathed her
legs as he lifted her gown. “Ker,” she cried out as he touched her.

“Maggie,” he said, moving between her thighs. He could not
control the violence of his need. He crushed her in his arms and barely worked
the laces of his breeches open to shove them from his hips. Her mouth feasted
on the frantic throb at his throat and the same throb drove him to hurry,
hurry, hurry to join himself to her.

She dug her fingers into his shoulders and held on. Memory
swirled through her. As if stabbed by the molten knife he’d strapped to her
thigh, she felt the heat of him sear into her. A scream rose in her throat. She
felt the familiar fullness, the hot liquid desire to somehow make herself part
of him as he was part of her. She gasped his name again and again, hanging on
for the wild ride.

She was scorching heat. He knew how she would move with him,
meet his rhythm and take him beyond mere physical sensation. Her legs clasped
his hips and a brilliant flare of memory coursed through his brain. His release
was the echo and reverberation of each time he had met ecstasy with this woman.
It stopped his breath and tore apart his insides. With a mighty shout, he col­lapsed
across her.

Maggie lay there beneath his weight, lungs heaving, body
alive as if an electrical wire had been placed against her wet skin. “Oh, God.
Kered. Ker. Ker.” He didn’t respond.

She heaved him off. He rolled heavily onto his back and lay
like the dead. She knelt over him and cupped his face. “Kered. Derek. Wake up.”
She slammed her fists into his chest and slapped his face. “Don’t you dare die
just when I’ve found you!”

His hand whipped out and gripped her arm. “Enough. Would you
kill me twice?” With a groan, he sat up.

Maggie frantically searched him with her hands. Sweat
slicked his body, and she realized as she explored in the darkness that he was
enjoying her ministrations far too much. “Okay. What happened there?” She sat
on her heels and tucked her gown back down over her knees. Her body throbbed
from head to toe.

Kered rose, and from her place at his feet, he loomed like a
giant pine in the dark, faint light gleaming off his naked skin. He pulled up
his breeches and laced them, then crouched before her. “I cannot explain it.
When-when I gave myself to you, it was as if I was experiencing each time I
have loved you, again, all at the same time. My mind went red. I would imagine
a lesser man might have expired from such joy.”

Maggie stood up and dusted off her skirts. “Yeah, well, we
both know you’re not a ‘lesser’ man.”

With a wild whoop, he scooped her into his arms. Her stomach
lurched as he twirled her about, danced her among the trees.

“You are mine, Maggie. Mine and mine alone.”

His joy and exuberance could not be denied. She found
herself laughing and kissing him with a fervor that matched his own. Whatever
explanation these events had, she would think of them later. And later, she
would ask him why, if he loved her so much, he’d thrust her away.

Finally, he stood still. She slid slowly down his long, hard
body.

“Do you have doubts?” he asked. He realized that her answer
could kill him. The pain of her rejection would be more devastating than any
defeat a warrior might experience.

“Come.” She drew him to the edge of the grove. The orbs
overhead gleamed down on them. In the wash of light, she examined him. He
rubbed his hands up and down her arms to maintain contact with her. Goose bumps
broke out on her skin.

“There are a thousand small ways a woman knows her lover.
It’s in the touch of his hands, the way he moves as he loves her. No one tastes
like you, or has your scent.” She half turned away from him, heat rising in her
cheeks. “I have to call you Kered.”

Warmth swept his body. Relief and joy mingled in equal
measures in his mind. He enfolded her in his arms and kissed the top of her
head. “I understand and am filled with joy that you recognize me.”

Suddenly, Maggie knew she had ceased to exist for him as he
dropped his hands from her shoulders and turned his face to the Tolemac
heavens. His voice was awed. “I feel as if some part of me was lost and now is
found.”

Maggie followed his gaze. She gripped his arm and pointed
heavenward. “Look. Look at the moons!”

“What of them?” he asked, turning to look heavenward.

“Don’t you see? We’re early. My God. We’re early.”

“Early? For what?”

His exasperated tone made her stutter through her
explanation. “The conjunction—when I left. It hasn’t happened yet. Can’t you
see?”

He nodded slowly. He understood what she meant. The
conjunction was yet to come. Unconsciously, he gathered her into his arms and
held her tightly. “It makes no sense. The movement between Tolemac and…home
is—I can’t explain it.” The familiar sight of the moons’ alignment raised a raw
fear in him, a fear he could not set aside. “We must speak of Samoht, how we
may protect you against—”

“Do you know what this means?’’ she whispered.

Kered squeezed her tightly. “I can think only of how you may
be in danger.”

Maggie pushed away and pounded his arm. “Think! Think of how
the orbs were aligned when Samoht attacked us.”

Kered strode to a position on the meadow where he could
overlook the capital. He surveyed the shadows, the position of the stars and
moons overhead. “Aye. I see what you are saying. By all the gods, there is
still time!”

He grabbed Maggie’s hand and began to run across the green sward.
Maggie stumbled along behind him. She could barely get her breath to gasp out,
“We could stop the N’Olavan guard from accusing you.” It was then she realized
Kered had taken a direction away from his quarters—and Samoht’s. “Where are you
going? You’re headed in the wrong direction.” She dug in her heels. “We should
be looking for the guard and stopping him, damn it!”

Kered skidded to a halt and rounded on her. He gripped her
hands. “There is no time for that. I can stop the massacre of the soldiers who
guard the ice shipment. That must come first.”

“Sweet heaven,” Maggie whispered. Why was she surprised? Of
course he would think of others before himself. Maggie realized that this
concern for others was what she loved most about him—what made him Kered.
“Please. Oh, God. Please stop the guard. Then see to the ice shipment.”

“Seek the answer to that suggestion in the heavens.” He
shook her off and strode away.

Maggie stifled her grief. She then knew he still needed her
protection. She had no need to look overhead.

The die was cast. Kered would act whether it endangered his
life or not. He strode past the councilors’ hall, impervious to Maggie’s
presence. She walked quietly as any good slave would do, head down, several
paces behind him. He only became aware of her again when they passed the palace
and the rising wind whipped her skirts in a sharp snap against her legs.

Kered stopped and looked about. She stood there, silently.
As if bidden, she raised her hand and offered it to him. He lifted her fingers
to his lips. His breath was warm and his touch gentle. “I want you badly, and
we have no time.”

Maggie nodded. He crouched down in the bright orb-glow by
the side of the road. He drew his dagger and quickly sketched a map with the
tip of the blade. “I can’t wait to see Vad. I know ‘twill seem to him as if we
left him but a day ago, but in a way,” he looked up, a twisted grin on his
face, “to me ‘tis twenty-odd years ago and one bloody night with my heroine
defending my life. I must conceal what I know—for now. And you must put your
fears aside. We know where the treachery lies. We can guard our backs this
time. I will need all my levels of awareness.”

Maggie watched him shake off his emotion with a visible
shudder of his shoulders. He peered at his drawing, then groped at his chest
where a pocket might be if he were garbed in other clothes. “How I wish I had
my glasses.” He added a few more details to the map. “Here is the most likely
place for an ambush—’’ Maggie’s gasp interrupted him. “What is wrong?”

She knelt and surveyed his drawing. “You should conceal this
sudden ability to draw. This is extraordinary.” The map he’d rendered was but a
few lines, yet it conveyed the terrain with uncanny accuracy.

“Aye. I see what you mean.”

Maggie duck-walked closer to his side and pondered the
drawing.

“Too bad there’s no United Nations army to protect the ice
shipment,” Kered said. Abruptly, he shot to his feet. “That’s it! The U.N. Why
didn’t I think of it before? It’s perfect.”

He strode off, leaving Maggie crouched in a swirl of dust.
She had to run to catch up to him. “How’s it perfect? And watch the
contractions. You’re Derekizing your speech.”

“Aye. I must be cautious. Hm. Do you not see that if I can
convince the council to make up an escort of, let us say, two men from each
chiefdom, Selaw included, there could not be any accusation of treachery? I
must share this with Vad.”

Maggie considered his words. “I see what you mean. And if
Samoht had any hand in the massacre—”

“Hush.” Kered raised his hand and swept her behind him. They
had reached the barracks. Kered left her with an eagerness she knew stemmed
from his friendship with Vad. Left in the shadows, Maggie bit her lip, waiting
for the men. Apprehension filled her.

Vad joined them moments later. He gave Maggie a quick,
friendly squeeze, then ignored her. After all, he could not know what had
transpired in the last few days. Grinning, Kered hovered close at Vad’s side
and said, “I have shared my plan with Vad. He thinks it as marvelous as I do.”
Kered’s grin of satisfaction made his teeth gleam in the torchlight of the
barracks entrance. “Come, we shall take it to the council.”

The men bantered back and forth as they headed for the
palace. They included her occasionally, but Maggie had difficulty responding or
meeting their eyes. She had to shake off the weird sensation that prickled her
spine. She could not respond to Vad’s gentle teasing about her suddenly humble
demeanor. He rolled his eyes at her as Kered waxed on about his marvelous
scheme.

Every now and then Kered stopped walking and stopped to
stare at Vad as they spoke. Maggie knew he looked at Vad with a different eye,
as did she. The men’s enthusiasm filled her with both apprehension and
admiration.

Maggie tugged at the back of Kered’s jerkin. “Kered. We have
a problem.”

The men faced her. “What problem?” Vad asked. The glow of
the orbs silvered his hair and made him look like a marble statue—unreal.

“A N’Olavan guard is going to accuse Kered of being
ensorcelled. He’ll accuse me of witchery. To Samoht.” There, it was out. She
didn’t care that she couldn’t explain how she knew. She only knew that Kered
would suffer, and the carnage of Samoht’s death would repeat itself, if she did
not speak up.

“Maggie—” Kered began, but Vad interrupted him.

“Where did you hear this ill news?” He dropped his hand to
his sword hilt, his eyes searched the shadows as if ready to challenge some
unseen enemy.

“It does not matter where I heard it. Slaves know stuff.”

Vad nodded. “Aye. Anna often knows some curious
information.”

Thank God Vad was open-minded, Maggie thought. “A guard on
the island must have seen me use my gun. He might convince Samoht that the
weapon is evil. That I am evil.”

“We cannot stand here in debate,” Kered snarled. “Come. We
must not waste time. If we cannot convince the council to send the proper
escort, worse ill will befall the men who bring the ice.”

Maggie gripped Vad’s tunic. “Please, Vad, please. You must
hear me. What good is Kered’s plan if Samoht accuses him of being under my
spell? They’ll never accept his ideas if it’s believed they stem from
evil—foreign evil.”

“She is right, Kered. Perhaps she should use the weapon on
Samoht.” Vad laughed—alone.

Kered avoided Maggie’s eyes. She dragged a toe through the
dirt. “The gun doesn’t have much power left. It will be useless after, maybe,
one more shot.”

Vad smiled and patted Maggie on the shoulder. “You could not
hurt a fly, my friend.” He turned to Kered. “Does not the idea of Maggie using
her weapon on Samoht make you want to laugh?”

This time, Kered joined Vad in laughter, but the sound was
hollow. Maggie shrugged away their mirth. Anger and fear made her tart. “I
would protect Kered with my life. He knows that.”

They sobered immediately. Kered touched her cheek. “Aye, my
Shadow Woman. You would defend me as fiercely as the worthiest of warriors.”

Vad smiled. At another time, Maggie would have been dazzled.
“I have an idea of my own,” he said. “One that will put Samoht in his place
without bloodshed.”

Vad crossed his arms on his chest. The council stared at the
game gun lying by Kered’s place on the council table.

Samoht shot to his feet. “What is the meaning of this?”

With a confidence Maggie admired, Vad said, “It is a weapon
from beyond the ice fields. This slave was abused by her master, dragged across
the barren wastelands. Even when her master perished of the cold, she kept
going. She brought his weapon to us. Our esteemed councilor, Kered, tested this
weapon on N’Olava.”

“This is absurd—” Samoht sputtered.

The councilor Tol interrupted Samoht’s indignation. “I wish
to know more of this weapon.”

Samoht subsided in his seat. Kered rose. He nodded to Vad,
who stepped back from the table. “We suspect it may harm the user.” He paused
for dramatic effect. It was important that he cover all the possible
accusations of the N’Olavan guard. “It is for this reason we took this slave to
the Sacred Isle to demonstrate it—slaves being expendable.”

Maggie had to bite her lip as several councilors made lewd
remarks and nodded their agreement with the final statement.

Tol gestured to her. “Step forward, slave.”

Maggie did as bid. She kept her head down and her hands
clasped reverently before her.

“Your master had this weapon?” Tol asked.

She nodded without lifting her head.

“Did he teach you to use it?” Samoht asked, skepticism in
his voice.

“No, Esteemed Councilor. I only saw it when he used it to
hunt. He kept it close until his death.”

She stole a glance at Kered. He sat silent and aloof at his
place at the magnificent table, the flicker of torchlight bronzing his
features—practicing all his levels of awareness, she imagined. How he must be
suffering. They were taking such a chance. It would be nothing for Samoht to
order her tortured to determine the truth of her words. She bit back bile as
she pictured the guard’s mutilated hands and mouth.

Samoht rose and circled the table. He lifted the weapon from
where it lay before Kered and brought it to her. “What is this material?”
Samoht’s pale blue eyes bored into hers.

Maggie dropped hers, feeling her face flood with heat,
remembering how he had challenged Kered for her in the bathhouse. “I do not
know. Many things are made of this material beyond the ice fields. I am but a
slave. I have not been taught such things.” She made herself sound as ignorant
as Vad had suggested.

Kered came forward from his seat. He plucked the weapon from
Samoht’s hand. “Shall we have my slave demonstrate its use?”

The cacophony of sound swept the room as the councilors
variously protested a demonstration and eagerly promoted it. Tol banged the
hilt of his dagger on the table to restore order. “How do we know the slave
will not turn this weapon on us?”

Samoht laughed and answered before Kered or Vad. “And face
the tortures of treachery? She must surely know that to disobey her master will
bring her naught but prolonged agony. Do you not know this, slave?”

His eyes glittered with an unholy pleasure. Maggie knew that
he had put the N’Olavan guard to the test himself. He would savor her pain,
too, if given the opportunity. “I know of what you speak. I shall demonstrate
the weapon if it is Councilor Kered’s wish.” She hoped she had put the proper
amount of soppy devotion to her master in the final words. She looked at her
lover with blatant adoration.

Tol and the other councilors moved away from the table in a
rush. Kered walked toward her. He stepped close and placed the gun gently in
her hands. “I love you, in your world and mine,” he said softly, so softly that
no one but she could hear. “I will defend you—at all costs.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she nodded. Swallowing, she
stroked the gun. Kered moved back to join the councilors. “I am ready,” she
said. Lifting the gun, she did as Vad had suggested she do. She aimed it at the
tapestry of silk that hung from the back wall of the council chamber. Thumbing
the blue button, she vaporized the wall hanging.

A thunderous silence fell. A roar of excitement burst around
her. But she had eyes only for Kered. She knew her lines.

“The power of the weapon is almost gone,” she said into a
lull in the din. “It will soon be useless.”

The councilors questioned her for two hours. Maggie tried to
maintain an aspect of mental dullness. No, the weapon could not be made to work
once its power was used up. No, she did not know how the weapon worked, she was
a kitchen slave. She knew only that at the end, when he had anticipated his
death, her master had told her to use it sparingly, for once it ceased
functioning, it could not be made to work again.

Eventually, the councilors grew bored of the interrogation
and chatted among themselves as if she were no longer in the room. Vad was
given the weapon for safe­keeping and ordered to deliver it to the deep vault
that held the Tolemac gold reserves.

Kered rode the triumph of the weapon demonstration with his
proposal of a joint escort to bring the next shipment of ice.

Samoht was forced to take a backseat as Tol and others took
up Kered’s ideas. But Samoht’s hot eyes never left Maggie, and the cold in the
pit of her stomach rivaled that of the ice fields.

Kered woke her just before dawn. He gathered her close to
his body. The heat of his skin warmed her as no blanket ever could. He
whispered his hopes and dreams in her ear. She knew the man who bubbled over
with peace plans was Derek, too. The occasional reference to a “slam dunk” of a
plan reminded her that she must caution him again to guard his speech.

Eventually, his well ran dry. Maggie rose and threw open the
shutters. The sky was tinged with the first streaks of pink, rendering the
horizon a multitude of lavender hues. She lit a candle, walked back to the bed,
and looked down on Kered. Sleep had erased the care from his face. His hair lay
in a tangled disarray across her pillow. “I love you,” she whispered and kissed
his mouth.

He wrapped an arm around her and flipped her to her back.
“No more than I love you,” he growled.

The touch of his hands ignited a fire within her. He slid
down her body and worshipped every inch on his journey. The sight of him was a
visual feast. Candlelight gilded the muscles of his back and highlighted the
flex and extension of his biceps as he embraced her thighs. She was the glutton
who must sit at the table.

She buried her fingers in his hair, drew him up, and fed
upon the joy of his kiss. He whispered that she had made him whole, that she
was all he needed, in any world.

Except peace
, her mind whispered back, but then she
gloried in the moment when his touch was too much, his kiss too intense, and
all her senses flashed into overload, and so the elusive thought was lost.

Kered moved within her. Slowly, quickly, teasing her, trying
to draw her out. He feared a return of her doubts. It was only with his body
that he felt he could convince her of who he was and how much he needed and
loved her. She had claimed to know his touch. Claimed to know his taste. He
gave her both. Endlessly. He stroked and kissed and made love to her until she
lay weeping in his arms. He wanted her to go beyond simple satiation. He wanted
her sure of who loved her, who was lying at her side.

Finally, she closed her eyes and fell limp as a rag doll in
his arms. Her breath heated his chest as she lay asleep. The room filled with
the song of dawn birds.

Never in his life had he felt so complete. But the feeling
of wholeness did not come from finding that his night dreams existed as a real
world or that some part of him had lived another life. No. He felt complete
because Maggie was in his arms.