At Moira’s voice, Ryan shuddered, feeling chilled to the depths of his soul. “I no longer want the power!” he declared passionately as he searched for her. He knew she was there. He could feel her presence.
Of course, you want the power. Why else would you have used the wishing wand?
Ryan shuddered again, recalling that Moira had been the one to encourage him to use the wand. “I used the wand to save Shana from you.”
Then why did you ask for the magical skills to save her from me? Why did you not just wish her safe? Because I gave you a taste of the powers after the accident by giving you the ability to read her mind. And once you had that taste, you wanted the powers back!
“That is not true!” Ryan declared, shaking his head frantically.
Just as it is not true that you want me? That you have always wanted me? she taunted. When you make love with Shana, it is not her you see. It is me. It has always been me. That is why I could assume Terza’s identity. It is why I can now exist inside Shana. Love is not enough for you. You want the power and the excitement I can give you. You want me!
“No!” Ryan yelled. I don’t want you. I never wanted you.”
Then prove it. Resist me.
There was a flash of blinding light, and when it disappeared, Ryan caught his breath. Moira was standing in front of him dressed in a white robe just like Shana’s. He told himself to turn away from her. He had to resist her. He had to!
But she was so beautiful he couldn’t pull his gaze away from her. As he stared at her face, he suddenly realized that he couldn’t describe her. She seemed to change from moment to moment, which had always been a part of her allure. Whenever he looked at her, he felt as if he was looking at all of womankind in her many and varied appearances, and God save his soul, she was right. He wanted her.
Resist me, she ordered, as she walked to him.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his. He mumbled a curse, but it came out as a groan of need. He knew he shouldn’t—couldn’t—touch her, but he couldn’t stop himself from doing so. As his hands skimmed over her, he groaned again. Beneath the robe, her body was full and ripe and soft. But it was her scent—a heady aphrodisiac—that sent his senses spinning.
“Damn you!” he declared hoarsely as he tumbled her to the ground and came over her. “Damn you. Damn you. Damn you.”
Her only response was to cup his face between her hands and seal her lips over his.
IT’S WORKING! SHANA thought in relief, when Ryan suddenly began to return her kiss. He’s regaining consciousness. He’s coming back to me!
She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him more passionately. Suddenly, he groaned and wrapped his arms around her. Then he rolled so that she was beneath him. As he pressed his hips against hers, she wanted to gasp at the hard evidence of his arousal. To do that, however, she would have had to release him from the kiss, and it was too wonderful to let it end. Instead, she contented herself with a moan of approval.
When she did, he thrust his tongue into her mouth and began to slide it in and out in the ardent rhythm of lovemaking. Desire exploded inside Shana, and she began to arch her hips against him in urgent appeal. The intensity of her passion frightened her, because it was almost as if these emotions were not her own. It was as if someone else were using her body. Even more terrifying was that she didn’t care. All she wanted was Ryan deep inside her, and she eagerly reached for the zipper on his pants.
At her touch, Ryan jerked away from her with a cruel, vindictive curse. Alarm again stirred inside her, but when he grabbed the hem of her robe and began pulling it over her head, it quickly died. He might be cursing her, but it was clear he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.
When her robe was discarded, he quickly shed his boots and pants. He then positioned himself between her thighs, and, with a guttural groan, dropped a hand to the ground on either side of her head.
As he lowered his lips to hers, Shana experienced another wave of alarm. This was the same scene she’d seen in his mind when she had connected with him after his motorcycle accident. But as his mouth branded hers with his passion, her alarm was replaced with a need so strong she thought she might die from its intensity. When he suddenly flexed his hips and sheathed himself inside her with one quick, hard thrust, she cried out in wonder at the glorious feel of him.
“Damn you,” he cursed softly as he began to ride her urgently. “Damn you, damn you, damn you.”
“I love you!” she cried, closing her eyes as her climax hit with such pleasurable force that she felt as if she were flying.
She was still hovering in that euphoric state when she felt Ryan shift above her. Suddenly, his hands closed around her throat, and her eyes flew open, startled. As she stared up at Ryan, terror flooded through her. He had metamorphosed into Aric.
Again, her first reaction was to struggle against him. Then she realized that, as during the regression, he was gripping her tightly, but he was not hurting her. That assured her Ryan was in control. All she had to do was remain calm and draw him out.
“Where is Ryan, Aric?” she asked, unable to keep a quaver out of her voice despite her determination to be calm. “You shouldn’t be here. This is Ryan’s life. Your life is in the past.”
As he stared down at her, his brow furrowed into a puzzled frown. Then he scowled at her. “You will not confuse me, witch! I know it is you, and I am going to kill you.”
“You can’t kill me, Aric, because I do not belong to you. I belong to Ryan,” Shana stated, trying to keep the panic out of her voice as his hands squeezed a little tighter. She sensed that if he recognized the extent of her fear, it would incite him. “So, you must leave now and let Ryan come forward.”
“You killed Terza, and for that you must die!” he yelled furiously, his grip tightening even more.
“I did not kill Terza!” she said, her voice no more than a quavering rasp. If he squeezed much harder, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Why wasn’t Ryan surfacing? Why was he letting Aric do this to her? “I am not Moira. I am Shana Morland.”
“You lie! You told me yourself that you exist inside this body. It is you!”
Suddenly, some of the missing pieces of the puzzle started dropping into place, and Shana’s heart began to beat in a fearful cadence. When she released Moira from the cards Moira had to have gone someplace. If what Aric was saying was right, then Moira was existing inside her. It explained how Moira was able to introduce her insidious thoughts into Shana’s mind. It was how she had managed to turn Shana’s fantasy lovemaking with Ryan into reality without her knowledge. It also explained why, whenever Aric appeared, he believed she was Moira, because that was the image Moira was presenting to him. And it was that image that would push him into killing her!
“If Moira is inside me, she’s using me. Just as she used you when she came to you in your dreams,” Shana told him frantically. “She’s also threatening the man I love—the man you have become in this lifetime. You have to let Ryan surface. Then we can fight Moira together, and I know that we can defeat her. You’ll finally find peace, Aric. Don’t let Moira destroy that chance for you.”
He shook his head in violent denial. “No. I will never find peace. My sin is too great, and it is your fault. I must kill you. I must!”
Again, his hands tightened around her throat, and she began to have difficulty breathing. Panic flooded through her. Every cell in her body was screaming at her to fight him, but she forced herself to remain passive as she managed to gasp. “You can’t do this, Aric. It is not your right to kill me. It is Ryan’s right. You have to let him surface!”
Again, he frowned in puzzlement, and she felt his fingers twitch reflexively. At that moment, she knew that if she didn’t reach Ryan now, it was going to be too late.
She stared deeply into Aric’s eye
s and managed to find enough breath to whisper, “I love you, Ryan. Come forward. Please. Do it now. Before it’s too late.”
“No! You must die!” Aric bellowed, but even as he spoke, his hands flew away from her neck. She let out a sob of relief when she saw that his face was changing back to Ryan’s.
OH, DEAR GOD, I almost killed her! Ryan thought in shock, as he stared down at Shana. Though her expression was one of relief, he could see the remnants of terror reflected in the depths of her eyes. But it was the marks on her neck that filled him with true panic.
He was straddling her hips, and he quickly moved to kneel beside her. Then he gathered her up into his arms, hoarsely asking, “Did I hurt you?”
“Of course you didn’t hurt me,” she answered just as hoarsely. She wrapped her arms tightly around him and buried her face in the crook of his neck. “I told you that it was impossible. You’re my . . . friend.”
“Yeah, well, with a friend like me, you’d be better off with a few dozen enemies,” he muttered gruffly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes,” she said, pulling away from his embrace and gazing up at him worriedly. “Are you?”
He blinked at her is disbelief. “For God’s sake, Shana. I almost killed you, and you’re asking if I’m okay? What the hell is the matter with you? Don’t you have any survival instincts?”
“You didn’t try to kill me, Ryan. That was Aric,” she said, shivering as she rubbed at her neck.
“Shana, I am Aric, so I am responsible for his actions.”
She shook her head. “You and Aric share the same soul, but you are also separate. That became clear to me during the regression. Aric is nothing like you, and you’re nothing like him.”
“How can we be the same and be separate?” he asked impatiently. “That isn’t logical.”
“Of course it’s logical,” she argued. “It’s true that his life experiences have an effect on you, but you are not Aric. You’re an evolution of him—a conduit for his memories. If it wasn’t for Moira, nothing more than portions of those memories would surface. You might have unexplained nightmares or particularly vivid dreams. You might dislike something he disliked, or find extreme pleasure in something that he did like. Your intuition would be affected by his experiences, and you might have moments of déjà vu. But you would live your life, making your own mistakes and having your own triumphs.”
“I’ll concede that we’re different on one level,” Ryan said as he rose agitatedly to his feet. He grabbed his pants and began to tug them on. “But, again, that doesn’t change the fact that when Aric surfaces, I become him.”
“No,” she said again. “When he surfaces, his memories dispossess your consciousness. He psychically takes over your body, but you’re in control. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have been able to stop him from hurting me.
“I think that’s Moira’s Achilles’ heel,” she went on. “She keeps drawing Aric out, because she knows his strengths and his weaknesses. As you mortals say, she knows what buttons to push to get him to react the way she wants. I think that’s what Oran meant when he said she wasn’t playing by the rules. She isn’t supposed to be fighting Aric. She’s supposed to be fighting you.”
Ryan wearily dragged his hands over his face. “I’m not sure how you reached your conclusions, and I also don’t see what difference they make. The simple fact is, Moira is drawing Aric out, and every time he makes an appearance, he becomes more dangerous to you. She wants him to kill you, and I don’t know why.”
“I don’t either,” Shana admitted, watching the moonlight play over his face. He looked so distraught, so lost, that her heart went out to him. “But I think Oran can tell me.”
Ryan looked down at her askance. “Shana, Oran made it clear that he can’t interfere, so asking him anything would be a waste of time.”
“Oran can’t give me information that I don’t already have,” she corrected. “He can, however, confirm if what I do know is correct.”
“And you really think that getting confirmation is going to help us fight Moira?”
She shrugged. “It’s all we have at this point.”
“Well, I think that the best thing I can do right now is to stay away from you. If I’m not around you, then Aric can’t harm you.”
She frowned at him. “I disagree. The only real strength we have is each other. We’re . . . friends, Ryan. That means we have a bond that Moira is going to have trouble breaching. The stronger we make that bond, the more trouble she’s going to have.”
He frowned back at her. “And what if you’re wrong? What if your being around me costs you your life?”
“I will do anything to save you from Moira or anyone else who threatens you. I love you,” she said simply.
“That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve said to date,” he declared, glaring down at her. When she simply stared back at him, he began to pace. “You can’t possibly love me. We’ve only known each other for a few days. Love can’t evolve in that short a time.”
“I was destined to love you from the moment I was born,” she stated quietly as she also rose. “And it was the same for you, Ryan. If it wasn’t, you could have never accepted the witch’s vow from me.”
“Damnit, Shana,” he said coming to a stop and scowling at her. “I know you believe in all this mystical junk, but you’re talking about a piece of rock on a chain. It doesn’t mean anything. You don’t love me and I sure as hell don’t love you.”
“If you don’t love me, then you should be able to take off the witch’s vow. Try it, Ryan. Try to take it off,” she challenged.
Angrily, Ryan brought his hand up to his neck. The first thing he grasped was the quartz crystal, and he jerked on it, breaking the chain. He threw it to the ground and reached for the jade stone. He curled his fingers around it, but no matter how much he wanted to jerk it off, he couldn’t make himself do it.
“See,” Shana said. “You can’t take it off, and the reason you can’t is because you love me.”
“You’re crazy,” he snapped, bending down to get his boots. He set them upright and stomped his feet into them. “And I’m getting the hell away from you.”
“You can run from me, Ryan, but you can’t run from yourself. You love me, and eventually, you’re going to have to accept that fact.”
Ryan opened his mouth to issue a retort, but he couldn’t think of a decent comeback. With a curse, he stalked over to his duffel bag and grabbed it off the ground.
He glanced toward Shana, stating curtly, “I’ll be at your house in the morning.”
With that, he headed into the trees.
AS SHANA WATCHED Ryan disappear into the darkness, she shook her head and sighed heavily. She knew he’d be back long before morning. He was her mate, and he couldn’t stay away from her any more than he could remove the witch’s vow. Why was he fighting against their love? Why wouldn’t he just accept it?
Unfortunately, only he knew that answer, and she couldn’t afford to waste time stewing about it. She needed to go talk to Oran about what she’d learned from Ryan’s regression.
She walked over to where her robe lay. When she picked it up, she was startled to see two Tarot cards lying beneath it. She pulled on the robe and then bent to pick up the cards. As she examined the top one, her heart skipped a beat. It was The Empress—the card Moira had left on Ryan’s chest when he had been unconscious. In her concern for him, Shana had dismissed the card. Now, she wondered how she could have possibly ignored its ramifications.
The woman on the card had her face, and Shana gave an awed shake of her head as her gaze drifted down to the figure’s swollen abdomen. The Empress represented fertility. Was Moira telling her that she was pregnant? Her first impulse was to deny the possibility, but she knew that it was common for a witch to conceive on her mating night.
As a mixture of excitement and fear rushed through her, she caught her breath and held it. If she was pregnant, then it proved that Ryan did love her. A witch could only conceive with the warlock, or in this case man, who was destined to be her lifetime mate. It also added more urgency to their predicament with Moira, because now she and Ryan wouldn’t be just fighting for their own lives. They’d be fighting for the life of their child.
Letting her breath out in a rush, she examined the other card and she arched a brow in surprise. It was The Hermit, a solitary figure holding a lantern and leaning on a staff. The Hermit provided guidance, and the old man portrayed on the card had Oran Morovang’s face.
“So going to Oran is the right thing to do,” she murmured thoughtfully. “But why did you deliver the card without your usual taunt, Moira? Up until now, I thought it was no more than your way of telling me that you’re in charge of the future. Now, I have to wonder if it’s possible that you aren’t as in control as you want us to think. Could it be that you aren’t predicting the future, but reporting on events as they happen?”
Of course, Moira didn’t answer, but Shana would have sworn she felt an uneasy stirring within her. It was so subtle that she might not have noticed it if Aric hadn’t accused Moira of existing inside her.
Instinct told Shana that her premise was true, and she tucked the cards into her pocket. She had to find Oran fast, because time was running out. Moira had only five cards left to deliver.
Chapter Seventeen
Strength Card
Courage and Confidence
WHILE WALKING along the wooded path to Oran’s house, Shana tried to put her thoughts into cohesive order. As she’d told Ryan, Oran could verify what she did know, but he couldn’t offer any information. She needed to make sure that she didn’t overlook anything that might be important.
She was so concentrated on her thoughts that she let out a startled yelp when a voice said, “Hello, Shana. I’ve been expecting you.”
“Oran!” she gasped, her hand flying up to her chest. He was standing directly ahead of her on the path, and she was surprised to see he was alone. Kendra was always with him. As the youngest member of her family, she had the most to learn from him. Shana suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for Kendra. All of them inherited coven responsibilities from their family. She was responsible for protecting the repository, but her job seemed like child’s play compared to Kendra’s work. The young witch had not only spent her entire life memorizing literally thousands of stories about their race, but she would also have to observe and memorize the events during her own lifetime. It sounded like an overwhelming task to Shana.
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