The Lady Of The Storm Part 32

Giles's vision started to clear. He raised his head. Cecily had stepped in front of his feet, physically blocking Giles with her body. He wanted to protest. It was his job to protect her. But his tongue would not work. Neither would his legs.

"In the same way that love will make us weak?"

Giles blinked. Cecily seemed to glow with her words, the scepter in her hand spitting forth streaks of liquid fire. Devil take it, the foolish woman would embrace the power she had rejected for so long. A power that she feared and loathed and thought would turn her into just as much of a monster as her father. All just to protect Giles.

He could not let her do it. Somehow he struggled to his feet. But the world spun and tilted at a crazy angle.

Breden of Dewhame did not hesitate. The sky rumbled again; Giles could actually feel the earth shake beneath his boots, and myriad lightning bolts flashed in the sky. The elven lord raised his arms to call them to him.

But Cecily had raised the scepter as well.

The lightning split. Half to Breden. Half to Cecily.

They would destroy each other.

"No," shouted Giles. But the word issued from his throat as a gravelly whisper.

The world exploded yet again. Again, Giles was lifted off his feet and thrown backward, far beyond the road into a hedge of bushes that broke his fall.

Giles heard a man scream. In anger and sheer agony.

Then silence.

A huff of wind warmed his body. He looked up into the luminous gaze of... the dragon.

"This is bound to happen when you fall in love with someone strong enough to wield a scepter," said the beast. "Can you stand?"

Giles nodded, although truly he didn't know until he managed it. He looked over at the road. Two bodies lay still within mud that steamed around them.

Something tightened his chest, his throat. He thought he might scream from the pain within his heart, if he could only manage it.

"She is alive," said Kalah. "So is the mad elf. But it remains to be seen if they are... undamaged."

Giles did not wait to ask what the dragon meant. He staggered over to Cecily, fell at her side.

Black smudged her nose. The front of her dress. She looked lovely, as if for all the world she did naught but sleep. Her chest rose and fell, but so faintly. She still clutched the scepter within her fist.

Giles leaned down and kissed her. Within that touch he put all the love he felt within his heart. All the apology he could manage for the way he had doubted her. Had he truly thought her love would not be strong enough to overcome something as small as a green mark upon his face?

When she would embrace a power she despised to save him?

"Cecily," he murmured. "Wake up, love. It is time to go now."

She did not stir. Neither did the elven lord.

"What's wrong with them?"

The beast's footsteps s.h.i.+vered the mud. He prodded Breden gently with his talon. "They have fried each other. The elven lord has always been mad, but managed to retain his faculties. It will be interesting to see how much of them remain."

Giles looked at Cecily in horror. "She will be insane?"

"Only time will tell. Why do you humans insist that we dragons have all the answers?" Kalah snorted a stream of lightning bolts and Giles flinched. He would never manage to sleep through a storm again. The beast curled his talons around the body of the elven lord and lifted him from the mud with a sucking sound. Those glowing eyes looked up at the sky. "The storm has cleared. Imagine that." And his wings spread to glorious proportions. A beat, and then another, making Giles hunch against the force of the wind he created.

And without another word, the dragon disappeared into the dark night.

Cecily did not wake until they were in the cabin of the Argonaut.

It had taken Giles some time to gather the horses and recover his sword, and another few hours to reach Bristol and find the s.h.i.+p. He did not know how much time they might have. But Breden of Dewhame had looked even worse than Cecily, and he thought the elven lord might have suffered the worst from the encounter.

They might manage to escape after all.

The captain did not ask any questions about their haggard appearance, nor inquire as to Cecily's unconscious condition, apparently used to his missions for the Rebellion. He just quickly directed them to a small cabin below decks and went about the business of raising sail.

When a seaman brought two buckets of water, a bundle of cloth, and a little jar of ointment that smelled like herbs, Giles bade him thank the captain. The grizzly sailor nodded, staring at the mark on Giles's face, and then crossed himself in fear.

To his surprise, Giles found that he did not care. Cecily did not bother with such a thing, and only her opinion mattered. He just wished he'd realized it sooner. What if she did not wake? What if her eyes held nothing but madness when she did?

He tried not to think of it as he gently undressed her, frowning at the burn marks here and there upon her smooth skin. He gently washed her, rubbed in the ointment where needed, and spoke to her the whole while.

"I have been a fool. But you know that, don't you? I just hope you will forgive me. Wake up, dearest, so I can tell you what a dolt I've been. You would enjoy that, wouldn't you?"

Her eyelashes did not flutter. Her face looked serene and peaceful. Giles kissed her, but apparently he did not have the magic of a prince, for it did not wake her.

She still held on to the scepter as if it had been welded to her skin.

"I will not allow you to suffer because of me. You will wake and you will be whole. But... but if you are not..." His throat closed and he could not continue. But Giles knew he would not abandon her, as she had not abandoned him when he'd been touched by that wild magic. He would not allow her to push him away. He would feed her if she could not do it herself. He would dress her, care for her. Nothing would come between them ever again.

He would love her unconditionally. As Cecily had always loved him.

Giles gently covered her with a rough blanket, and began the task of a.s.sessing his own injuries, stripping off his clothing and tossing them in a corner atop Cecily's. Their cabin was small, containing little more than a bed and a cabinet that latched, and a lantern hanging from the beam in a ceiling so low that Giles had to keep his head ducked. He did not have much room to maneuver, and it became worse when the s.h.i.+p began to sway even more as the captain left the dock in the dead of night.

But he managed to get washed, and it appeared his hand had suffered the worst. He bound it with a clean cloth and glanced at the clothing the captain had provided them. Seamen's clothes that would be too small for him, and would manage to swallow Cecily whole.

Giles sat on the edge of the bed and brushed the hair away from her cheek.

"I love you," he said.

Her eyelids flew open. Panic and fright. He could not tell if madness lay in them.

He brushed his fingers against her hair with a gentle but firm touch, as he had soothed Apollo when he'd forced the horse into the s.h.i.+p's hold. "It's all right, Cecily."

"Where am I?"

"You are on the Argonaut. You are safe."

Her eyes grew enormous as she gazed around the tiny cabin. "The elven lord?"

Giles breathed a sigh of relief. She remembered. "He is alive. But Kalah said... Do you know who I am?"

"Don't be a goose. Of course I know who you are."

"Can you release the scepter?"

Cecily looked at her hand in surprise. Her fingers twitched. "They're cramped."

"Indeed." Giles stood and gathered her stays, the only piece of clothing that had managed to survive their battle relatively unscathed. "Can you drop it in here?"

Cecily shuddered. "Gladly." But it took her several minutes to unlock her fingers enough to drop it in the garment. Giles used the laces to tie it into a bundle and stored it in the cabinet, giving the latch a firm tug to close it.

Cecily sat up, holding the blanket over her chest, shaking her hand back to life. "Why did you ask if I knew you?"

Giles resumed his seat. "The dragon said that you and your father had injured each other, in a way that might have... addled your mind. Thank G.o.d you seem unaffected. But Breden of Dewhame. It appeared that he got the worst of it."

Cecily slumped. "I did not want... do you see why I have rejected that power all these years?"

"You did it to save my life," murmured Giles.

"I remember," she whispered. For a moment, madness flickered in her eyes and Giles feared for her. Until he realized he but saw the power of the storm. "I called the lightning. I felt it course through my body, my soul. It filled me with a might that compelled me to set it free. To destroy, to burn..." She shuddered. "I felt it when my father attacked me with his own power, but the scepter protected me. It wants to go home..."

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. "I don't know. I didn't want to know. I did not want the thing whispering its secrets to me."

Giles leaned forward and folded her in his arms, placed his mouth against her hair. "Hush. It is all over now. You have done a great service for the Rebellion. When we pa.s.s the barrier, the scepter will no longer have any power over you. Indeed, you shall have no power at all."

She pulled away from him, looked up into his face. "I have tried to deny it all my life, so it will be no great hards.h.i.+p for me. But you... you have always wanted to serve the Rebellion. I suppose you shall return to England after the s.h.i.+p leaves me in Wales?"

The thought of ever being parted from her again made him crush her to his chest. "I think I shall enjoy a good fight without the interference of the curse on my sword." His devil-blade hummed an angry protest from beneath the pile of their ragged clothing. "I imagine that I can still serve the Rebellion in Wales. They will need me to protect you and the scepter, at the very least. And our children will need a father to teach them of our enslaved land. I want you to marry me, Cecily. That is... if you can forgive me."

She tried to say something, but her words were m.u.f.fled against his chest.

"I vowed to tell you what a fool I've been. I owe you that, and more. I should never have doubted your love for me. I was a fool to think a woman's love could be weaker than a man's. I took my own insecurities out on you, and I shall happily spend the rest of my life making atonement for it."

Giles relaxed his hold, placed his finger beneath her chin and tilted her head up to look at him, gazing into those faceted eyes, knowing that she held his soul within their depths. "I love you more than life itself. Can you forgive me?"

"Yes. I forgive you for all the nights we've wasted apart from one another. But you shall have to start making up for them. Now."

Giles lowered his head. "Your wish is my command," he breathed against her lips. And then covered them with his own. Cecily's arms flew around his shoulders, pressing them even closer together, if that were possible. He uncovered the rest of her glorious body, tossing the blanket on the floor and lowering her down to the bed. He had only one hand to touch her with, although he managed to use the fingers of his right to good purpose.

Cecily moaned and arched her back. Magnificent lady.

Giles covered her body with his, maneuvering on the small bed with all the elven skill he had. He stroked her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with his tongue while his hand stroked the nub between her legs, until he felt she was wet and ready enough to join with him.

And then he did not hesitate.

With one smooth movement he thrust inside of her and gasped while she moaned. Slick, tight heat. She dug her fingers into his back, pus.h.i.+ng him against her, giving him the permission he badly desired.

Giles possessed her with a fury of need that had him pounding into her faster than the rocking of the s.h.i.+p. That had her calling out his name, thras.h.i.+ng her head and straining against him.

Giles strove to get inside of her as deeply as he could. Until he could not tell where he began and she ended. Until they became one in body as they were in mind, heart, and soul.

His pleasure washed over him as furiously as their lovemaking, Cecily crying out as her climax peaked with his. They drifted down to earth together, two beings as one.

Giles lowered his head and kissed her open mouth. "We became one long ago, didn't we? I was just too dunderheaded to know it."

Cecily smoothed the hair back from his face, coaxing it to lie over his shoulders. Giles did not flinch from her stare. She did not think him ugly. She never would.

"Hush, love," she whispered. "We have both been wrong about many things. But now... now we have it right."

Giles slid beside her, tucking her body half over his so they would both fit on the small bunk. He felt the smile upon his face and knew Cecily spoke the truth.

Their love might be the only right thing about their world.

But nothing else truly mattered.

A few hours later Giles awoke to early morning sunlight streaming through the open porthole, Cecily standing divinely naked in the middle of the cabin, small globes of water dancing through the window to twirl about her.

Giles crossed his arms behind his head and watched her play, a grin curving his mouth.

"You know," she said, after giving him a coy glance. "Now that I have discovered the joys of my magic, I think I will miss it."

The spheres reflected bits of sunlight within their depths, scintillating colors of the rainbow. They rollicked about the cabin, along the beamed ceiling, about Cecily's head and shoulders. Tiny dots of sparkling diamonds in swirling patterns, expressing her joy and happiness with a cl.u.s.ter here, bursting into a ray of stars, and a pattern there, twirling in a cyclone.

"We can always return to England."

She made a face. "I shan't miss it that much.

He laughed. "Come here, my little sorceress. I don't think I've finished making up for all the nights we missed together."

She made a pattern around his head, tickled his nose with a drop of moisture. "There, I have made a crown for you. Such a handsome face deserves to be crowned."

And she meant it. Giles saw the admiration in her eyes, the draw of his physical beauty. She did not see, did not care about- Suddenly her small spheres of water fell about them like rain, spattering the wooden planks and thoroughly soaking them both.

"What happened?" sputtered Cecily.

"We have crossed the barrier." Giles kneeled on the bed and looked out the porthole, as if he could see a difference. But the magical boundary the elven lords used to keep England cut off from the rest of the world was invisible, and it did not look any different on this side of it.

He turned around and studied his love. "Do you feel any different?"

She shrugged. "I can't... feel the ocean anymore. It has always seemed to pulse in my veins."

Cecily looked bewildered. A bit lost. And entirely liberated.

Giles slid off the bed and crouched, felt for his sword beneath the pile of clothing. It did not jump into his hand. It did not whine for blood.