Mystic Warrior

by Patricia Rice

  “How can I believe you? Why would my father lie to you?” she screamed over the wind. “Challenge all Aelynn if you must, but please, please, don’t lie to me.”

  Black water swirled around their ankles. Murdoch touched her jaw. She would have shaken off his rough caress, but the white-hot blast of his pain stunned her senseless.

  Her knees gave way, and she crumpled toward the sand until Murdoch caught her and set her on the slippery rock. He said nothing, simply let her feel what he felt—

  His shields were down.

  No wonder he hadn’t wanted to let her inside his head or his heart. She couldn’t survive the onslaught of horror and guilt that consumed him. She didn’t have enough fortitude. Frantically, she shut him out, but she dug her fingers into his hard shoulders so he could not back away. If she could Heal him with her touch, she would, but the black hole eating at his soul wasn’t curable—not by her.

  “Tell me,” she commanded. “Use words.”

  And for the first time in memory, he obeyed.

  “Do you have any idea how long I’d waited for his permission to court you?” he asked. “I have known you were my future, my life, since I was barely old enough to know what such a bond meant. I told your parents we were meant to be, and they were horrified. Very polite, but horrified. They insisted I give you time. And I did. I honored their wishes and sailed off to make my fortune so I could prove myself worthy. But by that night . . .”

  He shuddered, and she had to clench her jaw to remain rigidly disbelieving. Here was the man she’d desired all her life telling her that he’d wanted her, too, but he’d waited for her father’s permission to court her? The most powerful man she knew, and he’d asked to court her, instead of simply taking what he wanted?

  When she said nothing, Murdoch continued. “By the time you turned twenty-one, your father had to admit that you would look at no one else, and he agreed—with conditions. Selfish, arrogant beast that I was, I had no doubt that I could pass his test, and I was ecstatic at his agreement. I threw up my arms, not in anger, but to release the energy of my joy into the sky. I wanted to light the night with bonfires, declare my intentions to the world. But I could not, not until I proved myself.

  “I had already set up the fireworks to celebrate my homecoming. And Luther gave me more reason to rejoice, even if he did not mean to publicly announce his approval. But he . . .” Murdoch tensed, searching for words he’d said to himself over and over, excuses that no longer rang true even in his own ears. But this was Lissandra. She deserved to know the full extent of his culpability.

  “I was focused on the fireworks, waiting for any word or phrase in his speech that would justify releasing my elation with a spectacle.”

  He held himself rigid and spoke coldly. “Instead, Luther named Trystan Guardian and all but offered him your hand. I knew it for the challenge it was, a test to see how I would react, and I tried to control my rage.”

  He released Lis and stepped back, trying to spare her his dark guilt. “But in my joy, I’d already focused on the fireworks, and I couldn’t redirect my focus fast enough. I lost control, as usual, brought down lightning, and killed him.”

  He bent his head and walked toward the ocean. If he was lucky for once in his life, he would drown before he had to see Lissandra’s disillusion with the hero she’d invented in her mind. The white knight that he would never be.

  Eighteen

  Murdoch waded into the water. Whitecaps had formed on a tide that should have been pulling back to sea. Clouds scudded across the moon. No matter how far he swam, he doubted he would drown. More likely, he would accidentally raise a cyclone and wipe out a village. And she wanted him to stop running away?

  He lived in terror of accidentally killing Lis as he’d killed her father.

  Before he could dive, a wave he hadn’t called forth curled from the depths to slap him in the chest. He staggered, caught off-balance.

  An abnormal gust of wind hit him from behind. The powerful blast of air cast him face forward into the pounding surf. He broke his fall by bracing his arms in the gravelly sand and coughed up a lungful of water as the tide swiftly withdrew—unnaturally so. And he wasn’t doing it. He could swear he wasn’t.

  Waves crashed over his head, drenching him, dragging him far from shore, nearly drowning him with their powerful undertow. He opened up his mind, seeking his tormentor, verifying he hadn’t gone mad and done this to himself. Lis! Her fury and tears swept through him as powerfully as the ocean’s tide. The damn woman could drown him—and he didn’t have the skill or strength to stop her.

  Humbled by that realization, he fought the force of the undertow, unwilling to die so ignobly. Was she even aware of what she was doing?

  The tide abruptly receded, as it should, as if the bizarre tempest had passed on. Stunned nearly senseless, floating on the eddying current, Murdoch thought perhaps he’d just rest there a little longer rather than stand up and face Lis’s wrenching disillusionment.

  “You turned your back on me and your friends and your home, for what?” a haunted voice cried over his head, beyond the water frothing in his ears. Lissandra.

  Shoving up on his elbows, he shook his head, and his wet hair smacked him in the face.

  “I became what you made of me,” he growled, climbing to his knees and pushing his hair back. He ought to face her, but the pull of the dark sea was strong. “Your parents turned me into a freak who should never have been born. I became a man without a home, a mercenary for hire, a warrior without a cause. Not one of my so-called friends came to my aid when I was banished.”

  This time, she slapped him with her mind, nearly tumbling him back into the waves.

  Stunned that she would actually try to drown him, Murdoch clambered to his feet and swung around to take her blows like a man. He couldn’t strike back. He would never raise a hand to her.

  “You did what you always do,” she replied scornfully, her voice rising above the roar of waves crashing against the rocks. “You went your own way, ignored the gods, followed your own misguided goals, forgetting those who loved you,” she added with anguish. “You did what you wanted instead of what was best for all. You thought of no one but yourself.”

  This time, the mental blow came from in front of him, staggering him backward. Spinning dizzily, Murdoch flung himself forward by sheer strength of will, catching Lissandra by surprise as he crashed into her and dragged her down with him to the sand. He wrapped his fingers in her windswept hair and forced her to look him in the eye.

  Her gaze flashed with a fury and pain she never showed the world. This was what she hid from others. Expressing passion had been trained out of her, but not passion itself. Her agony circled their heads, battering the wind and water around them but nowhere else. Lissandra had no trouble with control.

  She was a living definition of restraint—

  “That’s why the gods struck me down,” Murdoch cried over the noise, shaking her shoulders to force her to listen.

  Still wrapped in anguish, she stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  “The gods struck me down.” His voice was harsh with strain as he related the moment he’d tried to deny. “As we were escaping the brigands, the blue spirit ball arced out of the sky at the very same moment that the scoundrels shot me. Instead of dying, I was knocked to the ground, unconscious. Later, I remembered only the fire I had accidentally set. I should be dead.”

  The wind died to a normal breeze. Eyes wide with wonder, Lissandra shook her head. “No, you should be Oracle.”

  He stared at her, feeling his shirt plastered to his back and water running off his nose. The idea that the gods were real and had chosen a misfit like him for Oracle instead of killing him for his sins was so ludicrous that he couldn’t absorb it. Not while he had Lis beneath him, and his brain departed his head. If he accepted that the gods were real and he was Oracle . . . could he also have Lis?

  Apparently oblivious to the cold and wet, she slid her arms around his
shoulders as if in answer to his question. She lifted her tempting lips, and even thunderstruck as he was, he could do no more than obey the call of nature. He leaned forward and captured her mouth with his.

  It could be no other way. Out here, where the gods could watch over them and their wild instincts could fly free, they came together with a freedom they’d never dared elsewhere.

  If he believed in the gods . . . she was his. He desperately wanted to believe again.

  Murdoch sank into the sweet bliss of Lissandra’s mouth as if he were coming home at last. Releasing all his carefully manufactured restraint, he crushed her against his chest, possessed her with his tongue, and relished the joy with which she returned his kiss.

  He didn’t want her to pull away this time. He wanted his Lis, the loving woman, not the imitation Dylys who sought to teach him lessons.

  They were soaked to the skin, but steam rose everywhere he touched her. Moonlight illuminated the rapture on her face as he stroked her stiff spine until it softened, and he covered her cheeks with beard-stubbled kisses. That she could forgive him . . .

  He drew in air and tried to be reasonable, but his head was spinning too hard.

  “Don’t,” she warned before he could speak a word. “Don’t run away without explanation again. That is what I cannot forgive.”

  He filled his fists with her hair and stared down into her glistening eyes. “I have only ever wanted what was best for you.”

  She nodded. “I know. But understand that even I don’t know what that is, and I cannot expect you to know it either. We have been denying the gods instead of listening to our hearts.”

  She leaned forward and bit his lip, then licked the hurt with her tongue. The hard points of her nipples pressed into his chest through their wet linen, pillowed by her lush breasts, and a surge of lust nearly had him pushing her into the sand so he could cover her right there and then. Only a restraint as strong as his arms prevented him from doing so.

  His loins burned with desire. The woman he’d wanted his entire life was his for the taking. She was telling him that the price was his independence.

  He’d had complete autonomy for four years. It wasn’t all he’d hoped it would be, not without Lis. Melding his lips to hers, Murdoch pushed her back into the wet sand, cradling her head in his hands as his tongue plundered her mouth, possessing it as he meant to possess all the rest of her. She dug her fingers into his hair and gave him full access.

  This time, he would not run away from temptation. If this was what she wanted, he would not protect her from their tempestuous passions. He had learned his lesson.

  He ripped her soaked linen and filled his palms with the luxurious heat of her breasts. He pressed his groin against the juncture of her legs, rubbing to relieve the pressure while he leaned over to lick and suckle and claim.

  She bucked beneath him, coming up off the ground with passionate cries that were more music to his ears than the crash of surf on rocks. The tide continued its retreat, leaving them untouched.

  He didn’t want their first time to be so crude, but the gods would have to pick him up by the scruff of the neck and fling him into the cold sea before he could stop now. With Lis in his arms, it was a simple matter to will the wind to warm her bare flesh. He tore off his shirt and made a bed for her on the softest sand.

  Lissandra pushed up and found his nipple and sucked until he groaned and pushed her down again. There would ever be this struggle for dominance between them. Only now, freed of restraint by her words, he relished the challenge.

  “Do you want vows?” he asked. “I’ll give you all you ask and more.”

  She cupped his face between her slender hands and shook her head. “I want vows when we’re home again, on the altar before the gods. Tonight is just for us.”

  She was wise not to permanently bond them, but Murdoch knew she was his future, no matter what. He kissed her in gentle acceptance and let his body speak the rest.

  Lissandra finally surrendered to the need within her, to the accelerating desire between them that they’d fought for so long. At the insistence of Murdoch’s large hand, she yielded all her defenses, spreading her legs and raising her hips. She sighed and shivered at the exciting shock waves of the intrusion of rough male fingers against her sensitive femininity.

  He was being gentle with her, but she did not need gentleness. Desire poured hot and strong through her womb. She opened for his fingers, wept at his stroking, and clung to the bulging strength of his upper arms while her inner muscles spasmed under his hand.

  She had wanted this for too long to retreat into maidenly reluctance. She nipped at his arms, urging him to hurry.

  He tugged off his breeches, flinging them aside while she lay there and admired his beauty. She had no more fear of his male weapon than she did of his sword. She knew she was made to fit him as no other could.

  Her only fear was of their growing physical bond, but that could not be helped. The gods seldom granted children to Oracles unless they were mated in the sacred temple, so it was not that permanence she feared. It was the irrevocable bond of amacara that they risked.

  And still she surrendered, reveling in the ecstasy of Murdoch’s big hands caressing her breasts as if she’d gifted him with his heart’s desire. That she could please him in this manner thrilled her as much as his touch did. His hungry kiss lavished her skin with burning brands. If he was the volcano, she was the lava that spilled through him. They could no more be separated than moon and sky. They were already bound, vows or no vows.

  She arched her hips and urged him on.

  With a groan, he pressed his forehead to hers. “Aelynn give me strength,” he prayed.

  “Aelynn gave you more strength than you deserve.” She wrapped her legs around his hips and felt a rush of pleasure when the tip of his maleness slid into her cleft.

  “I just hope Aelynn gives me enough strength to remember you are as strong as I am,” he said against her mouth—before he took advantage of her position to plunge his hips downward, filling her in a single thrust.

  Lissandra cried out her pain and triumph as Murdoch’s thick maleness seared through tender tissue, invading and conquering and making her feel like the frail wisp he feared she might be. He stilled, giving her time to adjust to the initial sting and fullness, but she’d waited far too long to let a little pain stop her. She wanted him with every particle of her mind and body. For now, it was her body that ruled.

  She lifted her hips and gasped as he angled deeper. He abruptly withdrew until she was empty and tingling with the need for more.

  “Please,” she begged, rubbing her hands over the tensed muscles of his back, squeezing her legs to urge him on.

  He obliged with alacrity.

  The waves were akin to liquid smoke curling around their bodies as they came together. A gull called in the distance, echoing their cries. The moon bathed them in silver, and the magic of their memories wafted the jasmine scent of home upon the breeze.

  The pressure in Lissandra’s womb was too great. She feared she would come apart and never be whole again if he did not relieve the ache soon. She tried to force him to hurry, but Murdoch merely kissed her nose and adjusted their positions until he rubbed against the wall of her womb.

  And then he caressed between her legs with his thumb, and the pressure exploded. She bucked and cried and came apart in his hands, and spasmed again when he shouted his joy and plunged so deep she could see the moon and stars with her eyes closed. Saw them through his eyes.

  His shields were down.

  The shock and wonder of their mental joining was lost in the sensation of their physical completion.

  The hot fluid of his seed spilled deep inside her, lubricating his thrusts, encouraging her muscles to clench and relax until he’d wrung every ounce of pleasure from her and drained her to limpness.

  “I was your first,” he murmured in wonder, holding himself up to prevent crushing her into the sand where she lay languid beneath him.


  “Did you think I would take another and allow you to destroy the island with your jealousy?” she murmured in return.

  He chuckled, and finally, after all the years of denial, they relaxed together, as one.

  Nineteen

  Feeling strangely at peace with himself despite fearing he’d committed an irrevocable sin, Murdoch wrapped Lis in his shirt and carried her back to the house.

  The brief glimpse of the glory of Lis with her shields down was as close to heaven as he’d ever hoped to experience. It was probably best that they both retreat behind their emotional barriers before he started believing in her amazing confidence in him.

  Lis laid her head on his shoulder as if she were a docile, newly ravished maiden, but Murdoch knew now that she possessed a hard core of strength and volatile passion—and he stood in awe of what she concealed behind her starchy demeanor.

  She’d raised the tide with her mind, and slapped him down—the strongest man on Aelynn—thereby preventing him from destroying himself or possibly others.

  She might not wish to wield her warrior strength as he did, but she was his equal, his match, his mate.

  He still had difficulty grasping the concept of his sometimes gentle, often imperturbable Lissy summoning the rage to knock him over. Even her powerful brother had done no more than bring him to his knees, and that had been with sword and staff.

  Murdoch supposed he’d always known her strength, but she’d never used it in anger or with reckless zeal—as he had.

  She’d knocked him flat in more ways than one.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he murmured against her hair as they ascended the stairs to the room he’d claimed for the night.

  “Listen to me?” she asked drily.

  He snorted. “And hear you tell me again that I should be Oracle? Have you no more rational reason why the gods did not let me die?”