Once Upon a Kiss

by Nora Roberts

  “They will be.” Tynon gave her a long, measuring look. “They have to be.”

  The calm expression in his eyes soothed her. For some reason the knots in her stomach eased.

  “I’d best start, then,” she said, surprised by the note of resolve in her voice, and she moved to a stretch of grass and settled down upon it, spreading her skirts about her. She sat facing the keep, studying it intently as Tynon dropped down beside her on the soft grass.

  But she was soon distracted by the sense of being watched, and her heart fluttered as she saw his gaze on her. “Surely you must have something better to do,” she told him, smoothing back a wisp of hair that had escaped its plait.

  “Not at all. I’ve given my men their orders, and messages are being sent even now to those in the field. Everything is under control—except this.” He nodded toward the keep, just as several hawks swooped over the turrets, then soared toward the treetops and away.

  “Has there been any sign from my father’s troops?”

  “They’re marching toward the Marlbury border, but nowhere near the llachlands—yet. You have time yet to spare them.”

  The words chilled her, and a weight seemed to settle more heavily upon her shoulders. She focused her attention once more on the keep. She had to forget about Tynon and do something. But what? Closing her eyes, she tried to conjure up an image of whoever might have cast such a powerful spell.

  “Perhaps Artho of Glaives,” she murmured, half to herself. “He’s a grand-wizard, also something of a trickster.” Once when she’d been briefly under the tutelage of Cyrus the Sorcerer, Artho’s nephew had been one of her fellow students. He had shown amazing promise, while she…

  She groaned at the memory, and opened her eyes. Tynon lifted his brows.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I was just remembering the time I briefly took lessons from Cyrus the Sorcerer. Within a matter of days he sent me home, telling my father I wasn’t up to the demands of his class. He took only the best, you see,” she added with a wry grimace. “My mother was once his prize pupil. But he told me…oh, never mind.”

  “No, go on. What did he tell you?”

  She took a deep breath. “That I had power of a sort not derived from sorcery. Whatever that means. He said that when it came to magic, I would forever be a tinkerer.”

  She scowled at the sky, fighting the desolation inside her.

  “There are worse things,” Tynon remarked evenly. “Do your father and brothers berate you because you’re not a powerful witch?”

  “No. No, of course not.” She regarded him indignantly. “They’re the kindest, dearest souls anyone could ever—” She broke off at his skeptical glance. “The strange part is that I wouldn’t even care about the magic if only I didn’t feel so useless. My mother, and her mother before her, were truly able to help our troops in the border wars, but I’m only a sham who can no more aid our troops than—” She bit her lip, remembering to whom she spoke. “Oh, never mind.”

  Tynon studied that lovely face, the full lower lip pushed outward in a pout, the eyes dark and moody as the sea. For a moment he forgot about the hundred years of battle between their two families, about the fighting and the deaths. What mattered was only the two of them—he and this entrancing woman with the silky hair—all alone in a grassy meadow on a soft spring day, enveloped by the sweet scents of earth and of distant wildflowers carried on the breeze. Pure silence surrounded them, but for the melody of a bluebird singing its heart out.

  She thought she was a sham, but she was the most genuine human being he’d ever met. Honest, brave, defiant. And utterly beautiful.

  “You’re an enchanting woman, Erinn of Marlbury. That is a kind of magic in itself.”

  Now where did those words come from? he asked himself the moment he had spoken them. Yet they were true.

  She gazed at him, her eyes widening. Her lips, those luscious berry-pink lips that seemed to beckon him, parted. “If I didn’t know better,” she said after a moment, her tone light, “I’d think you were trying to flatter me.”

  He fought the urge to close the distance between them, to push her down upon the pillowy grass, to lie with her, upon her, and taste those lips.

  “I’m speaking the truth.” With a jerky movement, he pushed himself to his feet before he did something he’d regret. “Should we go in search of this Artho of Glaives, or of Cyrus the Sorcerer? Could he himself have done this?”

  “Cyrus?” Something jolted through her, something hot and pulsing. Truth.

  She spun about and examined the keep. “Yes, yes, he could,” she exclaimed. “Cyrus is a master—a genius of sorcery, the very best wizard I’ve ever heard of. He could have, indeed. And…” she said wonderingly, her eyes lighting with excitement, as the pulsing flickered wildly through her. “I think he did. It feels…right.”

  “I’ve never even met him. Why would he want to do this to me?” Tynon demanded.

  “He didn’t do it out of malice, that much I do know from walking through the keep.”

  “Then why?”

  She shook her head, as baffled as he. “I can’t begin to imagine.”

  Tynon’s face was grim. “How do we find him?”

  “We don’t. Don’t even think about attempting it, Tynon. Tracking Cyrus down won’t work. He is too powerful. You’d never get close enough even to catch a glimpse of him if he didn’t want you to. It’s not the way.” She saw how his mouth was set tight with determination and knew with a surge of uneasiness that he was unswayed by her words. Stubborn man. Without thinking, she clutched his arm. “If you anger him…no…no, I won’t let you.”

  Her small hand upon his muscled arm held Tynon rooted to the spot. A surge of heat crackled through him at her touch. At her words.

  “What is this?” he asked, studying her sharply. “Don’t tell me you care that he might turn me into a rock or a tree?”

  “N—no, of course not. But I’m as anxious to end this as you are—to go home and keep my family safe. Let me see what I can do.”

  “And what do you think you can do?”

  “I’m going to review all of my undo, cancel, and reverse spells,” she told him. “I may not have power, but I have memorized every spell I’ve ever heard of or read about. Not that I can do them—at least, not the way they were intended,” she admitted. “But I can try.”

  “And if that doesn’t work, we’ll go after Cyrus?”

  “If that doesn’t work, I’ll find a way to approach him. Alone. You’ll have to trust me to handle it.”

  He frowned down at her. “I’m not accustomed to letting others handle my concerns.”

  “Then you’ll have to become accustomed to it.”

  From anyone else, at any other time, he’d have struck down the very notion, but when it came from her, he felt not irritation, anger, or resistance, but only amusement and a tug of something stronger, more intriguing. Attraction. He was attracted to her, Tynon acknowledged grimly. Attracted to her beauty, her directness, even her stubbornness. But it was only attraction, he told himself hastily. Nothing more.

  Wasn’t it? he asked himself with a jerk of panic.

  All he knew was that by all that was holy, he wanted to kiss her. He ached to kiss her.

  “Try, then,” he managed to say, using all of his self-control to resist the urge to sweep her close to him and see once and for all how sweet those saucy lips of hers tasted. “There are still several hours until the sun sets. But if you can’t come up with something by then—”

  “I will.” Erinn dropped her hand from his arm and gave him what she hoped was a confident smile. She stepped back swiftly, shaken by the way she felt when she was near him, when she touched him. Golden sparks seemed to fly between her flesh and his when they touched. Burning sparks, sparks that were not painful but pleasant. Too pleasant.

  “Whatever happens, don’t interrupt me,” she told him, backing away from him, returning to sit upon the grass, facing the keep, focusing al
l of her attention upon it.

  Tynon sat down a little way from her and began plucking blades of grass as the sun rose higher in the sky. It felt strange to be sitting quietly, doing nothing. Useless. He was accustomed to doing things, not waiting for things. Planning strategy, ordering the placement of his troops, riding into battle.

  Sitting still on a golden day, doing nothing, with a beautiful woman only steps away was a new experience for him. Nights he often spent with women. Days, no. Usually he wasted no time persuading them to give him what he wanted—they were only too eager to oblige. He seduced them the same way he fought a battle—with confidence, experience, and his rapt, undivided attention. But doing nothing—that was harder than leading a charge, harder than fighting three men at once.

  Especially when there were plenty of things he wanted to do with his kidnapped princess from Marlbury.

  Still, sitting here with her, enjoying the quiet of the peaceful spring day, wasn’t all that unpleasant. Except that he knew it would be even more pleasant if he was kissing her.

  I suppose this is what life would be like should the border war with Marlbury ever end, he thought suddenly. There would be time…time to find a wife, start a family, groom an heir. Time to see to the needs of the people, to watch the villages flourish, to plant and to build. And in the evening to stroll with my wife through the halls of the keep as the sun sets and to hear the laughter of our children—

  He gave a start. For when he pictured that fabled wife of his imagination she looked just like Erinn.

  His mouth tightened with the memory of all that lay between them, and he pushed the image away.

  But his gaze shifted right back to the Erinn before him, the one whose pert countenance was fixed intently upon the looming keep, her eyes narrowed and unblinking.

  “I’m going to try something,” she muttered suddenly.

  “What?” Remembering the sword circling crazily above his head in the chamber, he wasn’t sure if he felt eagerness or fear.

  “Maybe you should tell me what you’re doing first.”

  “It’s a reversal spell.” She still hadn’t taken her eyes from the crumbling walls of the keep. “It’s quite simple, really, and it could work on a transformation such as this.”

  She stood up, and raised both arms before her, stretching them outward toward the keep, her fingers arced upward.

  “Keep quiet and don’t move,” Erinn said in a commanding tone. “Don’t even blink.”

  Tynon tensed, watching—without blinking—as she began to speak in a low, rhythmic tone.

  “Winds of change, hear my call.

  I summon you—undo it all.

  What has been wrought, shall be lifted and tossed,

  Blown like leaves before the frost.

  I beg this spell be borne away,

  Blown and tossed by light of day.”

  No sooner had she uttered the last words than there was a huge clap of thunder. Then a wind tore across the bluff and the meadow, roaring like a storm. It lifted Erinn clear into the air, swept her high off her feet, and threw her backward, straight into a clump of thick grass, upon which she landed with a thump, flat on her back. The wind died instantly and the clearing was quiet again, except for the stamp of Tynon’s boots as he sprang toward her.

  “What the hell—! Are you hurt?”

  He knelt beside her, his face taut with concern.

  Erinn stared up at him shakily. “I don’t…think so.” She swallowed. “Did the keep change back?”

  Tynon glanced toward the bluff. He hadn’t even looked before now. He’d been too stunned when he saw Erinn swept through the air as if she weighed no more than a feather. Now he saw that the spell had had no effect on the keep at all.

  “No change.” He kept his tone neutral.

  “Ohhh!” She sat up and looked for herself. Then she clenched both fists in frustration as she glared at the ruin of the keep. “I don’t understand,” she muttered between clenched teeth. “I did it exactly right, I know I did. It should have worked. Only they never work!”

  “It worked, it worked—in a way,” he said hastily as he saw the frustration and distress in her eyes. “You did blow yourself backward. That’s something.”

  “It is not something. It’s nothing! Blowing myself backward was not what was supposed to happen. What kind of a witch performs a spell on herself? What kind of a witch sends herself flying backward only to crash into the earth?”

  Tynon felt the grin start at the corners of his lips and spread. He couldn’t stop it. The sight of Erinn, along with her sputtered words of outrage, struck him hard, and he could only stare at the woman who just hours ago had left Stephen’s home so elegantly attired and coiffed. The tremendous wind had blown her hair loose from its plait; in fact, it had sent the ribbon sailing into a tree, and now it hung over a branch, flying like a miniature banner. Her hair tumbled wildly around her cheeks, which were filmed with dust, and her glorious eyes were shimmering with self-reproach.

  She looked disheveled and adorable, and as he stared at her, it occurred to him that this was the witch of whom his troops had so long been terrified, this passionate, delightful girl whose spells never worked as they ought to had inspired fear in a thousand men.

  He started to laugh—at the absurdity of it, of his men, himself, and at how infuriated she looked right now with the world. He couldn’t stop even when he saw her staring at him, saw the fury darken those magnificent eyes. He laughed harder because she looked so angry, and so damned appealing.

  “How dare you! I’m trying to help you—against my better judgment and everything I’ve always believed—and you…you’re laughing at me. Stop laughing. Stop, do you hear me?”

  But as she beat a fist against his chest, and then another, doing nothing but hurting her knuckles, and his laughter only doubled, she suddenly felt laughter bubbling up within her as well. She looked at Tynon, at his handsome face creased in a grin from ear to ear, heard the deep rumble of laughter echoing from his massive chest, saw him helplessly clutching his middle, and she burst into laughter herself.

  “Stop laughing,” she gasped again, but this time she was laughing even harder than he.

  They both sank to the ground, unable to control the dizzying mirth, and before either of them realized it, they were tangled upon the grass, rolling together. And suddenly Tynon had somehow rolled atop her and she was laughing beneath him, her cheeks flushed like apples as she gasped for breath.

  Then, abruptly, Tynon stopped laughing. His muscled frame above her went still, and she realized that his face was only inches above hers. He reached out a hand and slowly smoothed a tendril of pale hair from her eyes. His touch was gentle, so very gentle.

  Erinn stopped laughing. She almost stopped breathing.

  Their gazes met, and neither could look away. They could only look ever more deeply into each other’s eyes, glimpsing things they had never allowed themselves to see before.

  “Erinn.” Tynon’s normally deep, steady voice was a hoarse croak.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  He leaned closer, hypnotized by the wonder in her widened eyes, drawn by lips that begged for a kiss. One kiss. Just one.

  Or so he told himself.

  He leaned down toward her, unable to resist the allure of this delicate woman whose tousled hair was fanned out like golden velvet upon the grass.

  “Tynon…no…” she whispered, finally forcing the words out through trembling lips. She searched his eyes and tried to remember all the reasons she should not let him kiss her, all the reasons she should not feel anything but hatred for this dark warrior of Bordmoor, but she could only remember the way he’d saved her from the outlaws, the way he’d gazed at her after she’d helped little Eadgyth, the way they’d laughed together just now while lying upon the grass.

  “Please don’t tell me no, Erinn,” he said very softly. “Tell me yes.”

  And though a voice inside her screamed at her to
struggle, to refuse and push him away, her heart bade her be still. Then he was leaning closer, closer still, and his gaze held her captive.

  By the angels, she heard herself breathe, “Yes.”

  He smiled, a smile that made her heart flip over, just as he kissed her.

  It was a kiss like none she had ever known. Like none she had ever imagined.

  And as it began, a wind started to blow.

  At first Erinn didn’t even notice the wind. She only noticed the kiss, that exquisite kiss. No quick, cautious peck was it, like the one she’d shared with Stirling of Chalmers. Nor was it rough and wet and unpleasant, as when Sir Rudyan had kissed her. Tender as the morning was Tynon’s kiss. Gentle and bursting with need. Heat flared like a torch within her as the kiss seemed to go on forever—or perhaps, Erinn thought dazedly, time is standing still. She only knew that she was drawn into a realm of dark, potent pleasure as his warm mouth slanted to hers, and she began kissing him back, kissing him eagerly, with a yearning she’d never known before, and a wish that this warm, spiraling pleasure would never end.

  And then the kiss changed, heightened somehow, as he took it deeper. It became possessive, commanding, as Tynon explored her mouth with a questing intensity that vanquished all thought, sense, and reason.

  And all of her defenses collapsed.

  His tongue thrust cleverly against hers, and sparks flamed inside her. Erinn could do naught but surrender to the onslaught of sensations taking hold within her, sensations that Tynon stoked into a glorious burning fire. Kiss followed kiss, touch followed touch, and then he was raining hot kisses upon her throat, her cheeks, her eyelids, and Erinn was clasping her arms around his neck, plunging her fingers through his hair, drawing him closer and closer.

  By the time he stopped kissing her, her limbs felt melted, her senses swam like stars in a midsummer night’s sky.

  And she couldn’t speak at all, could only stare dazedly into eyes that gleamed like bolts of blue fire into hers.

  “Perhaps I’m not…such a failure at kissing after all,” she murmured shakily, and heard a rumble of laughter.