Sword of Darkness (15 page)

She hadn’t mentioned the tunic…

No sooner had the thought gone through his head than she grabbed Caliburn from his side. Kerrigan rose as she launched herself from the bed. The leather scabbard slid across his bare stomach before it clattered to the floor. She retrieved it quickly and pulled the sword free of the scabbard.

“What is this?” he demanded angrily.

He saw the sword’s power fill her eyes until they flickered like fire in the dim light of the room.
Power surged through the room while the sword acclimated itself to her.

Her eyes rolled back into her head as she shook all over. Lightning flashed, raising the hair on his body as it crackled.

Kerrigan froze. He’d been evil when he found the sword. Seren was good. He had no idea what the power of Caliburn would do to her. Unlike Arthur’s Excalibur, this sword had been created by the fey to channel the darker powers. It wasn’t meant to be held by a decent human. It was meant to be controlled by a dark Merlin.

“Seren,” he said firmly, yet he took care to not frighten her in any manner. With that sword, she could kill him easily. “Look at me.”

More lightning flashed as her pale hair whipped around her shoulders as if caught in the midst of an invisible wind. Her face went from human to ghastly, then back again.

“Seren, put the sword down. Slowly.”

“Nay,” she said breathlessly. “It is part of me.” She moved to swing it at him.

Kerrigan held himself completely still. “If you swing that sword, Seren, you will kill me. Instantly. That’s the power of it. I wear no enchanted armor to deflect the blade. It will cut through me like a scythe through wheat.”

Seren could see Kerrigan only through a blazing haze. His voice was distorted in her ears and sounded demonesque. She’d never felt anything like this. She was drunk on her own power, on the knowledge that no one could hurt her or her baby so long as she held this sword in her hands.

She was all powerful. Not even Morgen could touch her now.

Throwing her head back, she laughed at the victory. The entire world could be hers…Hers!

No one could stop her.

Ever!

“Put. The. Sword. Down.”

“Nay,” she snarled at him. She smiled evilly as she relished the battle to come. “Take it from me if you’re able.”

He held his hands out in surrender. “I’m not able to take it from you, Seren, and I know it. You’re going to have to look me in the eye and kill me.
Me.
The father of your child.”

Hissing, she angled the sword up shoulder high, grasped it in both hands, and started toward him.

Kerrigan held his breath as he waited for the hot sensation of the blade plunging through him.

It would be what he deserved.

And then just as the blade should have skewered him, Seren slammed her body into his, forcing him to take a step back. She threw one arm about his neck and buried her face into his shoulder. “Help me,” she whispered in a small, agonized voice that sounded more like the woman he knew. “Take it from me, Kerrigan. I don’t want it.”

“I can’t,” he said between clenched teeth as he held her against him. “No one can take the sword from the one hand that wields it. So long as it is free of the scabbard, I can’t do anything. You have to let it go.”

She screamed out as she tore herself away from him. He could see how much pain she was in. The sword wasn’t designed for her. She lacked the bloodline or magic to carry it. And if he didn’t get it back, the sword would burn her alive.

Summoning his own powers, he approached her slowly until he could pull her back against him. He held her to his chest and covered her soft, warm hands with his cold ones. She trembled against him. The scent of roses enveloped him as he leaned his head down to help steady her.

His heart thundered as he sought to help her any way he could. “Reach down inside, Seren, and force your will onto the sword.”

She let out a cry of despair. “It wants me to kill you. I don’t want to…”

He gentled his voice as he spoke softly to her. “The sword serves you, not the other way around. Focus on what
you
want.”

“I want the pain to stop.”

“Then hand the sword to me.”

Kerrigan jerked his head up as he heard the last voice he expected. It was a voice he hadn’t heard since the day he’d found Caliburn in the forest. And just as then, it was the same tall, dark-haired man who had tried to convince him to forsake Morgen and travel the road of the straight and narrow.

It was a path he’d gladly refused.

“Brea? Why are you here?” This was a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, a group of powerful and ancient Celtic gods who were supposed to fight only on the side of good.

The old god glared at him with hatred and malice. “I’m here to set things right. Caliburn should never have been used by you or your kind. It is a sword meant for the gods and Brighid is tired of seeing it misused.”

Brighid was the sister to the Lady of the Lake, the nymph who had forged King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur. The two swords had been created together in order to bring balance so that no one Merlin would be the more powerful. Caliburn was the steel and Excalibur was the stone.

One sword to rule and the other to destroy. One a sword of light and the other a sword of darkness. It’d been a cruel twist of fate that Kerrigan had been the inheritor of Caliburn’s power.

Kerrigan glared at the god. “Caliburn is mine by right of birth and of conquest.”

Brea looked at Seren. He held his hand out to her. “You know what must be done, Seren. Return the sword to the side of good where it belongs.”

Seren cried out as she fought against the god’s powers. “Good doesn’t lie.”

Kerrigan didn’t know who was more stunned by her words. He or Brea.

The god frowned at her. “What?”

She trembled visibly in his arms, but made no move to leave them. “You lied to me. You told me…” She leaned her head back against Kerrigan’s shoulder. “Take your sword, my lord. I don’t want it.”

The moment her words were spoken, her hands fell away, allowing Kerrigan to take it back.

Brea cursed. “Imbecilic chit. Have you any idea what you’ve done?”

Seren was whispering to herself. An instant later, she shot a lightning bolt of her own at the ancient god. “I will not kill for you or anyone else. Ever.”

Brea’s face hardened. “Then you have damned the world of man to darkness. I hope you can live with that.” He vanished.

Kerrigan held the sword with the point against the floor as Seren turned to face him. Her eyes were once again the beautiful green shade that rendered him captivated. He saw the relief in her pale features and the fear.

She ran her hands over her arms as if to warm herself. “How do you handle the sword’s power?”

“I get a lot of aches in my head from it.”

She gave a short laugh before she sobered. “It burns like fire. It felt like it was trying to devour me.”

He nodded. “Power consumes. Always.”

She looked down at her open hands, then clenched them shut as if she’d seen something in her palms that had frightened her. “I don’t want that kind of power in my hands. Ever again. Only God should have the power of life and death over another.”

Kerrigan was completely baffled by this woman. Men killed to possess one tiny iota of what she’d had in her hands a moment ago. No one had ever taken this sword who hadn’t fought to the death to keep it. No one.

Until her.

She’d handed it over without the least bit of reservation. It didn’t make any sense to him. How could she have given away that kind of power?

She placed her hands over his. “I understand you now. The sword speaks to the worst part of you. To the animal that wants only to consume and kill others.” She looked up at him from beneath her long lashes. That open, honest look burned him. “Let go of it, Kerrigan. For once, stand here with me without the sword whispering to you.”

The sword cursed him in his head and demanded he hold tight to the hilt.

Kerrigan had always listened to it.

For once, he didn’t. He let go of the sword so that it fell against the stone floor, then cupped her face in his hands.

Seren trembled as Kerrigan claimed her lips. His scent invaded every part of her while he explored her mouth with his. Their breaths mingled as she ran her hands over his back.

Giddy with her victory, she pulled back so that she could hug him close.

Until her eyes fell to the floor where the sword lay.

His foot was on it.

“Kerrigan!” she castigated as she pulled away. She put her hands on her hips before she looked back up at him. “You cheated.”

He offered her a wicked grin. “A man can only do so much,” he said unabashedly.

She shook her head at him. “You really can’t let it go, can you?”

“I spent the whole of my youth hungry and beaten, wanting and aching for things that were beyond my grimy grasp. So long as I carry Caliburn, I know that no one will ever be able to mock or belittle me again. No one.”

She heard the anguish in his tone. The pain that not even the centuries could erase. “But that sword is cold comfort on a lonely night.”

“There you’re wrong. It comforts me on a level unimaginable.”

“And I would offer you even more comfort. If you would take it. Put your weapon away, Kerrigan. For one afternoon.”

She knew the sword was still whispering to him. Somehow she could hear it now.

Stepping into his arms, she embraced him again.

Kerrigan couldn’t think as Seren reclaimed his lips. The taste of her mouth nourished him in a way that defied description. She pressed her body closer to his as her tongue swept against his.

He could feel her nudging the sword away from him with her foot. It should anger him, but it didn’t. It only amused him. Pulling away from her, he kicked the sword up from the floor and placed it in the brackets that were embedded in the stone above the bed. It would be within arm’s reach, but not in their way.

He turned back to find Seren pulling her tunic over her head to bare her body to him. His breath caught in his throat as he saw the puckered tips of her small breasts.

Using more magic than he should, he conjured
a large gilded tub of hot water and placed it before the hearth.

She gasped as it appeared.

“I thought you might wish a bath,” he said as he closed the distance between them to help her remove her breeches.

“Aye, thank you.”

As she stepped out of them, Kerrigan paused. He was kneeling before her with his gaze level on her belly. Deep inside her, his child was already growing.
His
child. A tiny part of him and her…

He looked up to find her staring down at him with a tender smile on her face as she played idly in his hair. In all his life, he’d never known anything like this one quiet moment.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, fingering the frown on his brow.

“Nay.” He rose up from the floor so that he could pick her up and place her into the tub.

Seren sighed as the hot water lapped against her cool skin. Kerrigan kissed her lightly on the lips as he gently stroked her breasts with his cool hand. She wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer to her.

His breeches melted from him an instant before he joined her in the tub.

“Careful, my lord, you’re expending your strength.”

“I know, but I didn’t want to wait for you.”

She tsked at him. “Some things are best when savored.”

“And others are best when devoured.”

Seren bit her lip at the wave of desire those words conjured.

He sat back in the tub, then pulled her forward to straddle his waist while he soaped a small cloth.

Seren leaned forward to nibble his chin. His whiskers scraped her lips, making them tender, and yet she loved the prickly sensation against her tongue. Nothing had ever tasted better than her demon knight. As he soaped her breasts and teased them, Seren closed her eyes and imagined what she wanted for her future.

How she wished she could keep Kerrigan with her, like this. Just the two of them.

But she knew that she couldn’t, and she didn’t want to think about the future right now. In the past, she’d always known her plans. To become a journeywoman who owned her own shop and to find a decent man to marry.

Now…now she didn’t know what the morrow would bring. She couldn’t even begin to conceive it. She would be a mother to a powerful child that she would have to protect. Seren had no idea how she would even begin to manage such a new life.

Scared, she held Kerrigan close. He was an anchor for her. He was solid and real, and at least for this moment, he was keeping her safe.

Kerrigan held Seren close as she hugged him with a fierceness that astounded him. It wasn’t a sexual hold, it was one of comfort. Her cheek was pressed against his as she held him in a death grip.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m frightened, Kerrigan. I don’t want anything else to change.”

“Everything changes in time, Lady Mouse. It is the way of things.”

She sat up with her expression imploring him. “Can’t you take your powers and make it stop? Can’t you find some way to lose us here in this one moment for eternity?”

How he wished. But that wasn’t possible. He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Nay. Those are far beyond my abilities. I don’t know of anyone who can do such a thing.”

“How I wish I could,” she breathed. Then she fingered his lips, her face tender as she studied his features. It was as if she were trying to commit them to memory. “You are so beautiful. Were you always like this?”

“Nay. I used to be warm.” And then he realized as he spoke that for the first time in centuries, he was warm again. Warm in a way that didn’t make any sense.

His heart pounding at the thought, he kissed her deeply. Her hands skimmed his body as she returned his caresses. Unable to bear the separation, he lifted her up and placed her on top of him.

Seren moaned as Kerrigan filled her with his thickness. He leaned back against the lip of the tub to stare up at her. “Take your pleasure from me, Seren.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant until he lifted her up ever so slightly, then slid her back down
on him. She hissed at the sensation of his long, deep stroke. Taking his cue, she rode him slowly, deeply.