by LETO, JULIE
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 unpure 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 have 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.”
2
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 manuever 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.
He’d free her momentarily. Once he was certain she’d listen. For as much as he’d always craved his freedom, he’d known for many years that this world was entirely unlike the one from which he’d come. The way she spoke testified to drastic change in time and place. Aiden had no idea where he was, how he’d gotten here, or whether any of his brothers had suffered the same fate as he, but he intended to find out at the first opportunity. And chances were, he’d need her help to proceed.
Unfortunately, she didn’t seem the least bit cooperative. She raised her head and, in a whirl of movement, slammed her forehead hard against his. Dazed, he had no defense when she shoved hard against one shoulder and rolled him off her body.
When he’d regained clear vision, he found her standing, legs balanced on bouncing feet, arms curved, hands open, eyes wide and focused. She was ready for battle.
He rolled over onto his back and tried to contain his laughter.
“Stand down, my lady. I am not here to hurt you.”
“As if you could if you wanted to, you thug,” she said, kicking out with her foot. Her heel connected with his knee and he yelped.
She moved to repeat the painful strike, but he reacted quickly, grabbing her foot and yanking upward so that her momentum sent her flying onto her curvaceous backside. She landed with a thud, but before he could offer an apology for his unthinking reaction, she arched her back, kicked up both legs and landed upright, back in the fighting stance.
Air rushed into his gaping mouth.
She quirked a grin. “Thought all my moves were special effects and stunt doubles, did you?”
Aiden drew himself to his full height. A good row was an excellent way to work through pent-up need. But having the woman who’d fueled his carnal desires as his opponent? He thought he might explode for the lascivious beauty of it.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, my lady, but it would be ghastly of me to take advantage of you in physical combat.”
She laughed. “Think you can?” With a curl of her fingers, she invited him to strike. “Bring it, brother. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Aiden grinned. The fear he’d caught in her eyes earlier had totally disappeared. The woman oozed confidence, and while Aiden knew he should have been scandalized by her attitude, instead he was enamored. He’d seen such feminine bravery only once before—in Scotland. On the opposing side. One of the rebellious clans had allow
ed a few chosen women to fight, though under great subterfuge. Nonetheless, once their ruse had been discovered, Aiden had been thoroughly disgusted that men would allow their womenfolk to face death . . . completely unlike the way he felt now.
He feinted left, then charged right, but she’d been ready for his false move. Grabbing him by the forearm, she spun, using his own momentum to twirl him around, then kicked his midsection with her powerful leg so that he went flying across the soft floor. Tucking his shoulder, he rolled and popped back to standing, just in time to catch her foot before he suffered another hard kick to his stomach.
He held her steady.
“You fight like a man,” he assessed.
“No need to insult me,” she countered, leveling a punch to the side of his jaw.
He staggered and released her foot. She spun behind him, then flattened him with a kick to his back.
Expecting her to pounce, he rolled over. Instead of diving atop him, as he so desired, she soared overhead in an arc worthy of an acrobat. When she emerged on the other side, she’d reclaimed the sword he’d so carelessly tossed aside. Once again the blade was leveled at him, but this time she didn’t seem so intent on cutting him to ribbons.
The edges of her mouth tilted upward in a tentative grin while her breasts bounced lusciously.
“Tell me . . . honestly,” she demanded, breathless. “Who . . . are you?”
With a sniff, Aiden stood, took two steps back and bowed as he would have to any of the gentle ladies he might have met at the court of King George II, his sovereign monarch. “I cannot tell you more than I already have, my lady. My name is Aiden Forsyth. I’m the second son of Lord John Forsyth, Earl of Hereford. I was a soldier in the army of George the Second, victorious under Cumberland at the Battle of Culloden, and was journeying to my family at the colony in Valoren when I was cursed by a black-hearted, vile sorcerer named Rogan and trapped in the sword you are now pointing at my heart.”
She blinked. “You’re either a very good actor or you’re a crazed fan.”
“I’m no actor,” he assured her. “And frankly, I have no idea what a ‘crazed fan’ is. So I can neither confirm nor deny if I am one.”
