by Julie Leto
The familiar pull of the sword forced her to cut her conversation with Marco short.
“Thanks for not snitching on me,” she said hopefully. “I think I owe you another case of that Australian wine your wife likes so much.”
He frowned deeply at first, glanced at his watch, and then patted his nightstick.
“You don’t have to do that, Ms. Cole,” he answered.
“Don’t you have your daughter’s wedding coming up? I bet that wine would be perfect for the rehearsal dinner.”
His grin returned, and after assuring her that no one would interrupt her private workout session, he left. She released the breath caught in her chest, then relocked the door. It was barely midnight. She had at least until five a.m. to figure out what the heck she was going to do next.
Because stealing the sword was one thing. Keeping it was something else entirely.
She slid across the mat and dropped to her knees again. At Ross’s house, she’d barely had time to remove it from the case, wrap it in the blanket, and hightail it out of there. The last thing she needed was to be caught by someone on Ross’s staff. She had the legal right to the sword. Her attorneys had assured her that she was entitled to anything Ross had purchased for her as a gift during their marriage. But legal mumbo jumbo aside, taking the sword could mean the end of her career.
Ross had been indulgent during their marriage, but only when it suited his needs. Right now he needed her to star in the final Athena film, the fifth in an action-adventure series that had made her an international sensation. She’d agreed, since pocketing her generous salary, as well as a healthy portion of all residuals, had been her plan all along. One more movie with her ex and then she’d be free of him forever.
But he’d balked at letting her use the sword for the film. He’d laughed at her request in front of everyone, from the director to the key grip during a preproduction meeting.
In private, he’d reminded her with pointed ruthlessness of what he could do to her career if she challenged him so boldly again. There were things he alone knew about her past that could destroy her. One tip from him to the tabloids and she’d be finished.
That threat had been the final straw.
The old Lauren, the Lauren who’d once made her own way in the world and didn’t depend on anyone else—ever—would not have asked permission to use the sword. She wouldn’t have worried about consequences or folded under some jerk’s bullying.
And even if Ross gave up her secrets, he’d pay a hefty price himself—not only for keeping her secret, but for harboring a few of his own.
So tonight, to celebrate the final divorce decree, she’d broken into her former home and stolen the sword. Now, gingerly grasping the edges of the camel-colored blanket, she peeled aside the buttery soft wool until the lights above her flashed off the sword’s polished blade. She gasped, then moved to touch the steel, stopping when she realized that her fingerprints would mar its beauty. No, the only part of this sword she needed to touch was the handle.
She shifted so that her fingers slipped into the masterfully crafted grip, which seemed to enclose her hand. Immediately warmth spread through her flesh, causing her fingers to buzz as if she were gripping…her vibrator? She snickered at the thought, but erotic images quickly filled her brain. The impressions deepened. Darkened. Expanded.
Like the gold on the handle, naked bodies intertwined in her mind. Not anyone she knew—or did she? His hard sex pressed against her skin like the pommel and hilt of this magnificent sword.
Her nipples tightened painfully, and she released the weapon. A gentle throbbing intensified between her legs.
What the hell? She knew swords were the ultimate phallic symbols, but she’d been around the damned things since her first turn as Athena six years ago. She enjoyed swordplay, but she certainly never got all hot and bothered over it.
Laying the blade gently on the blanket, she tore off the cropped jacket she’d worn over layered tank tops. The room had suddenly become stifling, so she scrambled to the door, lowered the thermostat and doused all but the few dim blue lights her trainers used to simulate fighting in the dark. When she turned and caught sight of the sword, she gasped. The handle sparkled and glowed.
Intrigued, she crept forward. The mat shifted beneath her, moving the sword as she walked. Jewels in the handle, fiery red amid the polished gold, captured the scant light and reflected back a brilliance that was nothing short of ethereal.
Damn, she’d known the sword was beautiful, but she’d never truly seen it, had she? The antiques shop had been dingy and dusty and gray. The case that Ross had enclosed the sword in had diminished its real beauty. Now she could see it. Now she could touch it.
She wanted to fight with it—cut the air with the blade and make the weapon sing as she parried and thrust. This was the weapon Athena would carry during this film, Ross be damned. Her final hurrah as the warrior goddess summoned to an alternate universe to smite the sadistic and pummel the impure demanded a sword of unparalleled beauty and scarlet power. Invigorated, Lauren hurried to the video camera. Once Ross saw how she used the sword, once he witnessed the magnificence of it, he’d never deny her.
Not, at least, in front of the production crew, who would be wholly bowled over by the way the sword captured the light and reflected back pure power. They’d save a bundle on special effects, she was sure. At least, that was the argument she intended to use.
Once she had the video rolling, she dashed back to the sword and lifted it again, this time holding the weapon with a straightened arm to get a full feel for the weight. She’d never held anything so perfectly balanced. Warmth washed over her again, and in response her heartbeat accelerated.
She sliced the sword through the air once, then twice, instantly finding a controlled rhythm marked by the quiet swish of the blade. She spun and chopped downward, skillfully pulling up before the blade touched the ground. She turned and, with a precision that shocked even her, stopped dead before she connected with the hanging workout bag she imagined was an attacking foe.
“Wow,” she said, breathing hard, not from the exertion of lifting or wielding the sword, but from the overpowering surge of electricity shooting through the handle and into her arms. The steel reflected a luminous ruby gleam. It was as if the blade were…alive.
I am alive.
The voice was deep, masculine, but so quick, so soft, she knew she’d imagined the words.
“Marco?” she called out.
No response.
She bent her arms at the elbows, bringing the sword parallel with her body, the blade shining a fiery red, the same color as the jewels prickling with heat on the handle. Leaning close and then gazing upward, she realized the steel couldn’t reflect the light from this angle.
And besides, it was the wrong color.
The light was coming from…within?
Touch me. Don’t be afraid.
The voice, louder and more insistent this time, echoed in her brain. She hadn’t heard the command; instead the message had vibrated up her arms. She tried to drop the sword, but the handle seemed to curve tighter around her hands, tangling her fingers, encircling her wrists, holding her captive.
She knocked into the hard canvas workout bag, then, flying on the momentum, threw herself hard against the wall. Nothing dislodged the sword from her hand. Her vision swam. The blue lights above her merged with the luster of the blade, nearly blinding her in a purple haze. She turned the sword again, more slowly this time, trying to find a way out of the twist of metal, when she saw them.
Eyes.
As silver as the blade.
Powerful. Hypnotic.
Do not forsake me, Lauren Cole. Only you can set me free.
Desperate and afraid, Lauren ran toward the light switches. Was this some sort of trick? Special effects? Was Ross paying her back for stealing the sword, or was her conscience twisting her triumph? But Ross couldn’t know she was here. And even if Marco had alerted him, he wouldn’t hav
e had time to do anything more than burst in and demand her weapon back.
Forget him. You want me.
“Who are you?” she asked desperately.
Embrace me and find out.
Lauren struggled all the way to the door. She tried to reach for the lock, but her hands remained imprisoned by the handle’s coil. Stunned, she slid to the ground and lifted the blade.
Images flashed again. The naked bodies. The hard sex. The muscled man with hair the color of night and eyes as silver as storm clouds. She knew him. She’d wanted him.
Did she want him now?
“Tell me who you are,” she demanded.
Touch me and know.
She swallowed thickly. Her heart slammed hard against her ribs. She squeezed her eyes shut, then forced them open, trying to see clearly, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The ghostly red light had not diminished. If anything, as her fear increased, the glow intensified.
And so did her desire.
She dropped the blade. The flat side of the metal touched her calf and stretched over her thigh. Intense sensations nailed her to the floor. Not pain. Not blood. She hadn’t been cut. She’d been…captured?
“I…can’t…breathe.”
Two
Every muscle in Aiden’s body tightened as if he’d been pressed between two hot iron walls. Pain erupted in his skull, and for the first time in centuries Aiden Forsyth remembered what it felt like to face death. He lifted his chin, determined to face his demise straight-on, but a slice of fiery steel burned across his middle and he doubled over. He waited, panting, expecting to feel the ooze of bloody heat from his disemboweled innards, but the sensation never came. Instead he dropped onto a soft, leathery surface.
He opened his eyes, but he could see nothing but shadows and a dim blue light. The odors that assailed his nostrils were instantly familiar, yet completely foreign. He smelled no blood, but the distinctive salty sweetness of sweat and the cold sharpness of forged steel. And woman. Oh, yes, the unmistakable scent of warm, clean skin and musky desire raked through his senses and brought him to full consciousness.
The floor he lay on was soft and scuffed. Above him he spied the source of the odd blue gleam, but he wondered how stars could be contained within four walls. Though the corners of the room were muted by shadows, he knew he was closed in. Captured. Contained. And yet freer than he’d felt in hundreds of years.
Cautiously he moved his arms and saw that he hadn’t been cut open. He bore no injuries that he could see. The more he moved, the more his blood pumped through his body. With a great breath he inhaled every bit of air he could take into his lungs. The sensation was marvelous. Was he free? Finally? After all these years?
He spotted the woman just a few steps away. Her cascade of flaxen hair draped across her face, then fell in a soft veil over her generous breasts, which rose and fell with weak but steady breaths. She’d collapsed against the wall, the sword that had been his prison lying across her leg, the pommel nestled between her thighs.
At once aroused and shocked, Aiden crawled to her, his hand hovering above the hilt, above her skin. He’d been trapped inside the weapon for centuries. If he touched it, would he end up back inside?
But touching her? She was worth the risk. Familiar and powerful lust spiked through him, and he couldn’t resist brushing aside her hair and curving the golden strands behind her ear. Her cheeks were flushed. Despite the blue light above her, her skin was pink with exertion. And he remembered…
She’d wielded a sword like no woman he’d ever watched, though he’d sensed more than seen her prowess with the weapon. Now more than ever he craved her. Winning her could be the greatest victory of his sorry, sordid existence.
“Lauren.” Her name croaked from his lips, his tongue and teeth unused for so long.
She stirred, but didn’t wake. The sword slid off her body, and almost instantly her eyelashes fluttered.
He smiled, remembering the blueness of her eyes. Since the first time he’d become aware of her in the dusty Dresden shop, he’d longed to possess her. Years had passed since she’d coaxed her lover into purchasing the sword, and when Aiden had finally become aware of her presence again, she could not hold him. He was encased in glass out of her reach, even as he’d known somehow that only her touch would release him. How many times had she pressed her fingertips against the barrier between them, clearly wanting him with as much passion as he wanted her? Each instance had caused a surge in his awareness, a spike in the torture that was his prison.
Aiden glanced down at his hands. Scars cut furrows in the flesh around his knuckles. A few from early duels. Some from training. Some from battle. All from the time, centuries ago, when he’d been nothing more than a soldier and a son. Was he now truly free of Lord Rogan’s Gypsy curse?
With effort he stood, shifting his weight from side to side to regain his balance. His breeches and shirt retained the dampness from his night ride all those years ago. He tore off his waistcoat, desperate to remove the restraint of the snug material across his chest. If not for the presence of the woman who’d kept him clinging to consciousness for the past few years, he would have stripped his body bare and run out immediately into the daylight. Only moments before it seemed, he’d been trapped in the house above the ocean, but clearly she’d moved him somewhere else.
A doorknob was just above her head. He glanced around, but between the clutter of crates and machinery in the room and the deceptively mirrored walls on one side, he saw no other exit.
Frowning, he dropped to his knees beside her. Even unconscious, with her lips slightly parted, her skin gleamed with life. The ebb and flow of her breathing, marked by the gentle swell of her breasts, made his mouth water, not only because of the obvious fullness of her flesh, but because of what she was. Who she was. A living, breathing woman. A woman who could touch him. A woman who had touched him. A woman who would touch him more intimately, if he had his way.
And it had been so very long since Aiden had had his way.
He drew his finger over her cheek, causing a moan to escape her lips. The sound resonated through him, tugging hard from his heart to his groin.
“Lauren, love. Time to awaken.”
Her mewl told him she was resisting, or else was having trouble finding consciousness again. He had no idea why she’d collapsed, but no doubt Rogan’s black magic was to blame.
Shifting onto his knees, he cupped her cheek and spoke to her in an insistent tone. “Lauren, open your eyes.”
Her lashes fluttered and she groaned. The sound tore through Aiden. Was she in pain?
“Lauren?” he barked.
She instantly reacted. She sat up, flattened her back against the wall and wrapped her hand around the sword’s handle. He backed away, but not before she had the tip of the blade leveled against his chest.
“Who are you?”
He raised his hands in capitulation. He could disarm her, but he did not want their first interaction to be violent. “I am Aiden Forsyth, my lady.”
She squinted her eyes. “Who? Are you an actor?”
“Absolutely not,” he said, shocked by her assumption. Men of his station did not take to the stage, though he’d seen a fair amount of lively productions in his day. “I loved an actress once, though, if that makes any difference. Breathtaking creature. Threw me over for the son of a duke.”
Her gaze bored into him, but she did not speak. Then she made a quick scan of the room, all the time holding the blade steady. When she looked at him directly again, her eyes lingered, but not in any way he’d describe as flirtatious or coy. She was measuring him as a man would measure any opponent who’d thrown down the proverbial gauntlet.
“You’re on the set,” she said calmly. “But you’re not one of the crew.”
She pressed the tip of the sword against his shirt, and the bite on his skin raised his ire. He fought to remain still. Cheeky wench, this one.
“I am neither sailor nor actor, madam. I’m
a soldier, albeit one from a different time.”
With practiced skill, she slid her legs beneath her and, using the wall behind her as leverage, stretched to her feet. The blade, buoyed against the ties of his shirt, remained steady. Potentially deadly. Clearly Lauren Cole was not unskilled with weaponry, and that knowledge added another layer of excitement to their interaction. He’d wanted her, longed for her for years, and now she was driving him entirely mad with lust even as she threatened to run him through.
“You’re a soldier? What…Are you a consultant on the film?”
“I know not what you mean. I am not from this time, my lady. I was, until moments ago, trapped within the sword you are now holding against me.”
“Trapped?”
Confusion flitted across her keen blue eyes and gave him the advantage he needed. He snatched her wrist, twisted, pulled and shifted his weight until she was not only disarmed, but the sword was tossed into a shadowed corner. His maneuver ended with her beneath him, her arms pinned on either side of her head and her body flush against his.
The sensation of woman—the feel, the scent, the sound—nearly undid him. His cock tightened and blood rushed downward, leaving his brain deliciously befuddled with need. How long had he fantasized about this very woman, in this very position? Well, not exactly this position.
“Let go of me!”
He groaned. “If only ‘twere that easy.”
She narrowed her gaze until twin slits of sapphire burned into him. “It’s not hard,” she said, flicking a glance downward, as if she were talking about his private parts. “You just shift to the side before I make you sorry you ever touched me.”
“Actually, my lady, ‘twas you who touched me. Had you not, I would not be here, but captured still inside that infernal sword.”
She struggled, but Aiden outweighed her and easily kept her in check. He rather enjoyed the way her hips and groin writhed beneath him. His behavior was wholly ungentlemanlike, but he was too aroused, too alive to care.
