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The pain cut deep. "I know. I'll remember for both of us."
She turned in his arms and rested her hands on his chest as she looked into
his eyes. Her lips brushed his I once, twice.
"Come to my bed, Magician. Show me the magic of love."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
In the pale gray light, that herald of the dawn, Michael reached for the woman
who filled his heart and his dreams and woke up, alone.
He lit the lamp on the bedside table, plumped up the pillows behind him, then
looked at the painting on the wall near the bed.
Sebastian painted that for me, Glorianna had said.
Quite a jolt to see himself in a painting that came from an incubus's
imagination and to wonder if his dreams had influenced the image Sebastian
had chosen for Glorianna's moonlight lover or if the painting had, somehow,
been the source of his own dreams and yearnings. Just as much of a jolt to
look past the romantic costumes and realize he and Glorianna had stood exactly
that way in the garden yesterday after discovering the new bed that
represented his home landscape.
They'd had their night of lovemaking, and he'd taken extra care to please her,
to pleasure her. He had wanted to absorb the music of their lovemaking, had
needed to fill his heart with the song of her when passion and love climaxed
and shone with a fierce Light.
Now ...
He pushed back the covers, went into the bathroom, and ran water for a bath.
As he waited for the tub to fill, he closed his eyes, turned his head toward
his shoulder, and breathed in the scent of her on his skin. He didn't want to
wash off that mingling of scents, but there was no telling what was going to
happen in the days ahead or when he'd have another chance at taking a full
bath.
So he soaked in the hot water and tried not to think about what was to come.
She'd been hesitant at first, almost shy when she brought him to her bedroom
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last night. It made him wonder how long it had been since she'd had a lover.
Then he'd stopped wondering and just enjoyed the way her mouth had opened for
him, the butterfly touch of her tongue against his. The feel of her skin
beneath his hands. Her moan of pleasure when he'd suckled her breasts. The way
her strong fingers had gripped his shoulders the first time he'd stroked her
body over the edge of pleasure. And the way ... Michael blew out a breath and
sat up in the cooling water.
"Maybe you don't need to be remembering quite so much right now," he muttered
as he picked up soap and washcloth.
Keeping his mind on the mechanics of what he was doing, he got washed and
dressed, and walked into the kitchen. That's when his heart got the first of
what, he knew, would be many bruises.
His pack was still by the door. He'd removed his clothing and personal gear
last evening while she'd been putting together a bit of dinner for the two of
them. The pack was too big and heavy for a woman to carry for long, but it had
everything she would need to set up a camp sleeping bag, pots and pans,
candles, matches, lantern. Plenty of room for her clothing and female things.
A camp, that's what he'd been thinking. And she hadn't argued with him, hadn't
disagreed.
But she hadn't taken it with her, had turned away from even that much comfort.
Had turned away from even that much of a reminder of him.
The perk pot still held koffee, so he heated that up instead of making the tea
he would have preferred.
He didn't have an appetite, and lost most of his interest in food when he
realized she hadn't taken any of that with her either, but he ate one of the
eggs she had hard-boiled yesterday, then took his cup of koffee and a thick
slice of bread and butter out with him. He didn't look at the walled garden,
didn't even consider going in. Not yet. Instead, he went to the new bed that
held his heart's hope and the belladonna.
"Wild child," he called softly. "Ephemera, can you hear me?"
It heard him, but he sensed a resistance, almost as if it feared what he might
ask of it. Did the world know what she intended to do?
"Listen to me, wild child. Don't let her Light scatter. Find a place for it
where it can be cherished and kept safe."
Ephemera didn't understand. Not yet.
Door of Locks. Stories and spirits and keys. He'd chosen a lock, based on
dreams of a black-haired woman he'd fallen in love with before he'd truly seen
her face or heard her voice or known her heart. But she, as Guide and
spirit, had used that key in his heart to open the door and show him a life he
couldn't have imagined. Because he hadn't known the possibility of being
accepted for what he was had existed.
He ate the bread and drank the koffee. He washed the dishes and the perk pot.
He repacked his clothes into the big pack, then took them out and put them in
the smaller travel pack. A change of clothes, a canteen, and his whistle were
all he needed right now. He slipped one of the one-shot bridges Lee had made
for him into his coat pocket. The others, wrapped in scraps of cloth and
stored in a drawstring pouch, he tucked into the pack.
Give me enough time. Magician, she had said. I couldn't bear it if someone
else was caught when I altered the landscapes.
He waited while the minutes crawled by. When the sun had risen high enough
that he could be reasonably sure that the folks in Aurora would be up and
about, once he actually got there, he picked up the travel pack and left the
house. As he followed the path that would lead him to the river, he slipped
his hand in his pocket, mapped his fingers around the one-shot bridge and
crossed over to the Den of Iniquity.
*
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