Irresistible Forces

by Catherine Asaro

  Worse, though they had lowered the barriers between them enough for embarrassment, they were still woefully short of being fully capable of sharing energy. If he needed more than Isabel was ready to give, she might lash out at him instinctively, with disastrous results.

  But try they must. The Armada was critically near Edinburgh, and if they didn’t act right away, it would be too late.

  His mind still chasing itself, he stopped in the kitchen for a quick meal of bread and cheese, then picked his way down to the stone circle. It was a night fit for witches, the ley lines that intersected at the circle a glowing spiderweb of power. The wind was rising in fitful gusts, shaping and tearing clouds so that footing on the lane was uncertain. The sea beyond the bluff was lighter than the land, and he could hear the harsh beat of waves against the shore.

  He felt a curious fatalism as he cleared his mind and began to lay the foundations of his spell. He would do his best; no man could do more. If he did not survive this last great working, may God defend Scotland and those he loved.

  Silent as the wind, Isabel joined him, almost invisible in a dark cloak. She handed him a similar cloak. “Wear this. The night is chill, and fair weather will not return soon.”

  He accepted the cloak but said mildly, “A sorcerer should be able to rise above heat and cold.”

  “Why waste energy suppressing discomfort when it can be used on your weather working?”

  He smiled into the darkness. A practical sorceress. The contours of her face were barely discernible. He had thought her austerely beautiful from their first meeting, and the intimate knowledge he had gained during their work together had multiplied her beauty a thousandfold. “Are you ready?”

  “As ready as I can be.”

  Knowing he might not survive the night’s work, he made a formal courtier’s bow to her, the cloak flaring around him. “It has been a pleasure working with you, Isabel de Cortes.” Then he buried personal thoughts, grounded himself in the circle’s earth energy, and reached for the winds.

  As his awareness spiraled upward, he saw that the North Atlantic was blanketed with a vast patchwork of choppy clouds and gusty rain. The Spanish ships were strewn along the Narrow Seas, the leading wave already approaching the Firth of Forth, the gateway to Edinburgh.

  He started by sharpening the winds across Scotland, making it difficult for the Armada to sail up the estuary. But that was only a temporary measure to delay them while he constructed a tempest.

  Piece by meticulous piece, he began to weave vicious winds, drowning rain, and lightning that could rip the sky and blaze through rigging. It must be so powerful, so well-wrought, that it would continue onward even after his own strength failed. The storm must rage for days, sinking ships, driving others onto rocky shores and into the grip of deadly North Sea currents. The Armada must be destroyed to the point where it offered no threat—and may heaven have mercy on the souls of the sailors.

  Already he was drawing heavily on Isabel’s deep reserves of power. Her bright awareness followed him as he spun the winds into a pattern that fed on itself. She helped him concentrate the rain from many thousands of square miles into a smaller, more lethal storm. And she soared with him when he forged the lightning.

  A dark, sullen dawn was breaking, the sun only a dim glow on the horizon. The overall spell was complete, but the structure was fragile. He needed a massive infusion of energy to set the pattern so that the tempest could become a force in its own right.

  A gust of rain knocked him to his knees. Gasping, he reached for his partner, but for the first time he was unable to tap her strength. Though she had reserves still, they were beyond his reach.

  “Isabel…” He tried to call, but his voice was a thin whisper lost in the rising wind. He was on all fours, most of his strength and awareness devoted to stabilizing the tempest with none left for holding him upright.

  Her arms came around his shoulders. Though her touch stirred a wisp of energy, it was nowhere near enough to seal the spell. He tried harder to connect with the silvery pool of her power. She was struggling equally, he sensed her frantic effort, but there might have been a glass wall between them. Impenetrable. Impossible…

  “Macrae.” Her husky voice whispered in his ear. “The alchemical marriage—the mating of opposites to form a greater whole. It is the only solution left.”

  With shock, he realized that she meant a physical mating. His dazed mind tried to evaluate whether her proposal had a chance to work. There had been strong attraction from the beginning. In another time and place he would have courted her, or perhaps swept her onto his horse and carried her off to the Highlands, but he had buried such thoughts as inappropriate to the work they were doing together.

  She might be right that passion could forge their spirits into a single invincible blade, but the cool voice of his conscience pointed out that he wanted desperately to believe that surrendering to lust was the key to victory. Was he a Guardian, a man of honor, or a randy male who would lie to gain what he desired?

  Her lips touched his in a hesitant kiss. Her scent was of rain-washed roses.

  His numb body began tingling to life. Sensing the change, Isabel’s kiss became fierce, a demand laced with power.

  Primal passion exploded through him, bringing every fiber of his body to blazing life. Be damned to his doubts—he wanted and needed Isabel more than reason, more than conscience, more than honor.

  As he kissed her back, the shields he had borne from the cradle dissolved, allowing her access to the depths of his soul. Her fierce determination to conquer entered into his own soul, making them the invincible sword he had imagined. The gentle rain intensified into a downpour, fluid and fertile as it mated with the earth.

  “Isabel, my enchantress…” He rolled above her, pressing her long body into the wet grass as he kissed her hungrily, blending his essence with hers.

  Their lovemaking shattered the skies as the last barriers collapsed. Power was abundant, limitless, flowing through them and into the tempest, stabilizing the intricate structure of the spell. Lightning blazed until he was unsure if they were in Kent or soaring high over the North Sea in the heart of the storm.

  As their spirits melded, he discovered that at the heart of her power was a lonely child who was an outsider among those she loved, convinced she was too strange, too unattractive, to ever find the closeness she craved. Even John Dee, greatest alchemist of the age, had found his student disconcerting.

  Tenderly, Macrae showed her his vision of her unique, bewitching beauty. How she was a paragon among women, a mistress of mages. In return, she mirrored him back to himself. Was he really so darkly intimidating? Yet she was drawn to his strength, intrigued by his contradictions, so he gloried in his darkness.

  He was distantly aware of Spanish ships foundering, sails shredding and masts snapping. Without the anchors they had shed near the Low Countries to escape the English fire ships, they were helpless before the tempest.

  With a last paroxysm of power, the hurricane crystallized into a living entity, no longer dependent on its creator. They had succeeded. Against all the odds, they had won.

  Drained of every shred of strength and passion, he fell once more into darkness.

  Exhausted to ashy numbness, Isabel cradled her lover to her breast as the rain drummed into their panting bodies. She had not known the cosmos held such pleasure, or such pain, as she had discovered with Macrae.

  Part of her would have been content to lie there and drown, but now that passion had burned out she was aware that the soggy ground and cold wind were wickedly uncomfortable. She managed to pull herself out from under his dead weight.

  Dead? Alarmed, she laid her fingers to his throat. His pulse was strong. With effort she invoked subtler senses to look more deeply and decided that he was not profoundly injured as he had been by his earlier attempt on the Armada. Only…expended. He would sleep at least a day, perhaps longer.

  She tugged his cloak over him, shielding his face from
the rain, then stumbled her way up the long lane to the house. Luckily, the torrent disguised her dishevelment. Her household was used to odd activities from her; they would not suspect her of anything so plebian as coupling with a handsome stranger.

  A stranger? Her mouth twisted. She knew Sir Adam Macrae to the depths of his stormy, impatient, generous soul.

  As her numb fingers fumbled with the kitchen door, it swung open, and Mistress Heath pulled her into the warmth of the kitchen. “Thank the Lord you be all right, m’lady!” the housekeeper exclaimed. “’Tis worried I’ve been.”

  Terrified, more likely, but all Isabel’s servants knew better than to disturb her when she was working. “All is well, Mistress Heath, but send the men to the stone circle to bring Sir Adam to the house. He…he has not fully recovered from his illness and has been overcome by…his exertions.”

  The sodden cloak was swept from her shoulders and a mug of warm beef broth pressed into her hands. “Drink this, m’lady,” Mistress Heath said briskly. “By the time you’re finished, a hot bath will be waiting. Then it’s to bed with you. I’ll see to your Scottish savage.”

  Grateful to be cared for as a child, Isabel drank her broth, then allowed herself to be led to her room. Macrae was being carried in as she left the kitchen, water pouring off him and the servants who had collected him. When she cast a glance back, Mistress Heath firmly tugged her onward.

  The hot bath was spiked with lavender, the healing herb soothing her frayed spirit. Isabel closed her eyes and willed herself to tranquility. What mattered was that they had succeeded. They had forged an alchemical marriage that generated the power they needed, and England would never again be threatened by Spain. Even without her scrying glass, she knew that with absolute certainty. She uttered a prayer for the souls of the Spanish sailors.

  Wearily, she rested her head against the edge of the wooden tub. She had sworn she would pay any price, and her virginity was small enough as costs went. Much harder was losing half of her soul—it would have been easier to give up her life. But that loss was not something that could, or should, be undone.

  She had found pleasure almost beyond bearing in their joining. Now she must face the anguish of knowing they must separate. Deep in Macrae’s mind she had seen his distaste at the prospect of being fettered by marriage. But Guardians were subject to great pressure to wed, preferably to other Guardians so the blood and the power would remain strong. He had accepted marriage as his fate.

  Before his intemperance had landed him in the Tower of London, he had been ready to offer for a gentle Guardian maiden called Anne, a blonde as sweet-natured as she was beautiful. Best of all in Macrae’s eyes was that Anne was a Scot when most Guardian daughters were English. He could not have tolerated an English wife—his disgust at the prospect had been achingly clear.

  Isabel clambered from the tub and began toweling herself dry. Her body was warm now, though her soul was chilled. She had a sudden yearning for her mother, who had never truly understood her strange daughter, but who loved her anyhow.

  As she donned her night rail and crawled into her bed, Isabel forced herself to accept that Macrae was intended for another woman. Even if he was not, his taste did not run to black-haired harridans, especially English ones. So be it.

  They had won a great victory today. It was enough.

  It must be enough.

  The sun was shining when Macrae awoke. Outside the diamond-shaped windowpanes, two larks perched on a branch and warbled to each other. He listened in lazy peace, scarcely able to believe that they had triumphed, and survived. Of Isabel’s survival he had no doubt; for the rest of his life, he would be aware of every breath she drew.

  He was climbing cautiously from the bed when the housekeeper entered. Eager to see Isabel, he said, “Tell Mistress de Cortes that I wish to speak to her.”

  The housekeeper’s brows arched. “You’ll have a wait, then. My lady left for London yesterday.”

  He stared, unable to believe that she was gone. “Why the devil did she do that?”

  Mistress Heath shrugged. “’Tis not my place to say.”

  She would surely go to her father’s house. “Where does the de Cortes family live?”

  Ignoring the question, Mistress Heath turned to leave. “One of the men will bring you hot water and food.” The door closed hard behind her.

  Isabel had left him. The damned Englishwoman had bloody left him! How dare she!

  Swearing, he opened the wardrobe and yanked out his cleaned and folded garments. This could have been settled easily, but nothing about Isabel de Cortes was easy. She would pay for this insult.

  Aye, she would pay.

  6

  As soon as her mother left the room, Isabel poured the latest tisane into the window box that hung from her sill. Though her flowers had been tattered by the great storm, already they were recovering. Perhaps the herbal brews were good for them.

  In her mother’s arms she had found the warmth and comfort she craved, but the maternal fussing was in a fair way to driving her mad, as were the incessant questions about what had happened. Perhaps someday Isabel would be able to speak of it. But probably not.

  Master Dee had visited and given her a magnificent ruby ring from the queen’s own hand in gratitude for what she and Macrae had achieved. But the visit was brief, for the royal conjuror was anxious to return to his family in Bohemia.

  Isabel drifted to the window, wondering what more her life might hold. Her usual studies had no interest for her, and even her scrying glass was cloudy when she tried to see her future. She had been part of a great work that changed the course of nations, so perhaps it was greedy of her to want something beyond a long, desiccated spinsterhood. Though unlike the queen, she was no longer virgin…

  She heard a distant pounding, as if soldiers were banging on the front door. Then an uproar broke out downstairs. Her blood froze under an onslaught of horrified ancestral memories of the Inquisition coming to take members of the de Cortes family away to torture and death. Surely not here in London, not again!

  Heart racing, she darted from her room and to the stairs. She halted in shock when she looked down into the entry hall. Magnificently dressed and fierce as a wolf, Adam Macrae was holding two of her father’s menservants at bay with a sword.

  Her parents stormed into the hall. Seeing the sword, her father threw a protective arm in front of his wife as he barked, “What is the meaning of this, you insolent devil?”

  “You should be grateful, Master de Cortes,” Macrae replied in a voice of thunder. “I’ve come to take your stubborn spinster daughter off your hands.”

  Her mother gasped. “You’ll not touch her, you great brute! My husband is a friend of the Lord Mayor of London, and you’ll be hanged, drawn, and quartered if you assault a virtuous maiden.”

  “A virtuous maiden?” Macrae laughed out loud. “That is not the Isabel I know.”

  Her shock dissolved by fury, Isabel swept down the steps as if she were one of Macrae’s own tempests. “How dare you force your way in and terrorize my father’s household! Take yourself back to Scotland and marry that sweet bland blonde of yours.”

  His gaze snapped upward. “Isabel!”

  With a smile like the sun at high noon, he sheathed his sword and galloped up the steps three at a time. Meeting her on the landing, he swept her into an embrace that bruised her lips. Thunder and lightning, a storm in the blood. Her desire to shove him down the stairs dissolved, and she kissed him back. The damnable man!

  He murmured into her ear, “Did you think you could walk away from an alchemical marriage, my beautiful witch?”

  “But…but Anne, the woman you are contracted to…”

  “Likely wed to another by now.” His long, clever fingers began stroking the small of her back. “Anne had no shortage of suitors, and she found me alarming, which is why the contracts had not yet been signed.”

  A man cleared his throat heavily. Face beet red, Isabel looked down the steps to f
ind that she and Macrae were the object of fascinated gazes by half the members of the household. Her father said sternly, “You know this rogue?”

  “H-his name is Sir Adam Macrae, and he is a well-born Scot,” she stammered.

  “A Scot?” Her father snorted. “No wonder he behaves like a savage.”

  “Accustom yourself.” Macrae raised his hand, revealing a sapphire ring in a setting that matched Isabel’s. “Your queen herself has ordered Isabel to marry me, in return for my services to England.”

  “You called on Queen Elizabeth?” Isabel’s eyes widened with shock.

  “I wanted to make sure I held the high ground if you were so foolish as to try to refuse me.” He wrapped one arm around her waist and gazed down at Isabel’s parents. “I am wealthy enough to gladden any parent’s heart, and brave enough to take on your hellcat. As it happens, she and I share certain…unusual talents and interests. Now, if you will excuse us, I wish to speak to my affianced bride in private.”

  Her father’s eyes narrowed, showing the formidable merchant who had prospered in good times and bad. “I don’t care how wealthy you are, or if God Himself has given you permission to wed my daughter. No man will have Isabel unless she agrees to the union, and if you attempt to force her, you’ll face the swords of myself and my three sons.”

  Isabel’s mother placed a hand on her husband’s arm, a faint, knowing smile playing over her lips. “I doubt that anything is being done against Isabel’s will. Give them the chance to settle matters in private, David.”

  Isabel’s father started to protest, then subsided. “Very well, if Isabel is willing to speak with this rogue.”

  “I am willing. Matters between us must be settled.” Although she wasn’t sure if she would accept Macrae or cut his heart out.

  As he marched Isabel up the steps, she glanced back and saw that her parents were smiling. Smiling! As easily as that, this barbarian Scot had won them over.

  He led her unerringly to her bedroom. “How did you know where to find me?” she asked as he bolted the door behind them.