He looked around. “But here? Alone in your forest? Nothing at all to protect me?”
“Why would you need anything to protect you? Aye, I see. It’s because your wand is gone.”
“I don’t think so,” the prince said. “I was in your fortress. I’d tied you down, but then, even without your wand, you disappeared. Where did you go, Brecia?”
“I didn’t go far, just off to your left, if you would know the truth. I wanted my wand back. I heard you laughing.” Why, she wondered, had she told him the truth? She never had before. He was too dangerous, this wizard prince was too powerful, this prince she’d wanted so desperately three years before. She said, “I think you simply decided to leave my fortress, to leave my oak forest, but you tired and decided to sleep here.”
He frowned.
“And why not? You are so arrogant, so above all mortals and immortals alike, you wouldn’t believe any wild animal would dare come near you. As for your enemies, why, they are as nothing to you. You could whistle at them and they would sink into swamp mud.”
He gave her a quizzical smile. “You believe I am that good?”
“Don’t toy with me, prince. I am not one of your women, eager to fall at your feet, praising your skills.”
“I can see you at my feet,” he said. “I can see my hands sifting through your hair whilst you are there before me.” He could also see her coming up on her knees, see her hands touching him, see himself in her mouth, and he nearly expired on the spot. By all the ancient gods who ate men’s flesh, he would spill his seed right here in front of her if he didn’t get himself under control. He focused on her, on that exquisite face of hers, and realized he didn’t want to look away. He’d wanted her for so very long, perhaps even forever. Such wild red hair she had, long down her back, braided in the front with white ribbons. Hair red enough to burst into flames. He smiled at that, and said, “Would you like to?”
“Like to what?”
“Fall at my feet and praise my skills? Perhaps you could also vow eternal devotion to me? Mayhap do other things as well?”
“I am your equal, prince. I do whatever I wish to do. But you refuse to accept that, don’t you? I must be your slave, bow deep to you. Let you put your foot on my neck.”
“My equal? Well, you did get away from me, Brecia. You were lying there on the altar I created for you. Such a beautiful slab of stone. You looked remarkably beautiful lying on it. I would have liked to whisk away your clothes and have you stretched out there on the bluestone and I would come over you—”
Brecia’s eyes nearly crossed. “You arrogant son of a witch’s cursed alliance! Think you I would ever willingly mate with you?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Oh, yes. You know that we are meant to mate, Brecia. Why do you fight me? I don’t wish to make you my slave. Actually, I believe I should prefer your foot on my neck. You have lovely feet, Brecia, not like the ghosts, whose toes are far too long.”
He was not acting the way he should. He was different. She was tempted to blink at this idiocy from a powerful wizard’s mouth, but she didn’t. She held firm. He was probably playing a game with her. Since she didn’t have her wand, it could lead to bad things. On the other hand, he didn’t have his wand, either. Were they equal in power? She didn’t know. She said, “I don’t like you, prince. I wish you to leave my forest. I don’t know how you managed to find me, but it doesn’t matter. Leave. I don’t wish to see you again.”
He laughed, held out his hand to her. “You will never bore me. Never. Come, Brecia, it is just the two of us. A man and a woman. Forget our skills, our magic, our sense of what is of this world and what is not. Come with me.”
He was different, she thought yet again, staring at him, staring at that hand of his, and she didn’t know what to do. She’d believed he was the most beautiful man in all the earth until she’d realized what he really was, what he really wanted, and that had been to take her and to take a wife as well. He was a wizard who wanted a son by her—and not just another wizard, but the most powerful wizard the world had ever seen. He would destroy her and her sacred grove and all her people in his quest to mate with her, if he deemed it necessary.
But then again, he seemed different. It knocked her off balance. When she’d come across him sleeping as soundly as if he’d still been in his mother’s womb, she’d stared down at him, not really wanting to look away, but then he’d awakened. She’d expected him to try to enchain her immediately, to overwhelm her. But he hadn’t. She still didn’t move. “Where do you want me to come with you?”
He looked thoughtful at that. “I suppose I must retrieve my wand first, yours as well, then we will go to my fortress atop the Balanth promontory.”
“I have never been there before. I hear it is frightening, so tall that if a mortal falls, he dies.”
“No, it is merely my home. It’s true that the fortress stretches not only to the heavens, but also to the shadows deep in the earth beneath the promontory, but it is for protection. You would be safe there forever, with me. I haven’t yet had a mortal fall into the lower reaches.” He paused a moment, frowned. “I cannot remember if a mortal has ever even seen Balanth. It was not designed for a mortal’s eyes.”
“No.”
“Neither is your fortress. I didn’t see it until you unveiled it to me.”
She waved that away. “How came you to be here?”
He frowned a moment, scratched his head. Ah, she loved that black, black hair of his, thick and long. The bastard. “I suppose I must have been searching for you. As you know, when you disappeared, I was nearly beyond anger.” He raised his hand. “Nay, listen to me. You know I didn’t roast any of your ancient ghosts over their campfires. I didn’t send them hurtling into an uncertain pocket of space to gasp out their breaths and wiggle their naked toes.”
“No,” she said slowly, frowning. “You did not even try to do that. I saw you turn away from the bluestone and yell, yell very loudly, your voice so strong that the blue smoke dissolved and re-formed like clouds in a mortal sky over your head. And then you walked out of my fortress. My people and I watched you go, watched your anger simmer in the very air, turning it red as a human heart.”
“You believe that I merely became tired and lay down here, built no fire to warm me, and fell asleep?”
“It would seem so. But your wand is gone, prince. No wizard is safe when his wand is gone.”
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