The Summoning: A Northlanders Tale
    
    Shelby Morgen
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
    Prologue
    
     
    
    Soft footfalls echoed across the inn’s old wooden floor. Someone was following her. How had he gotten into her room? Why wasn’t she afraid? She should have been terrified. The dark presence looming behind her should have had her screaming for help. Instead she stopped, waited, watching the shadowy figure in the old-fashioned dressing mirror reach out to her.
    
    Come back to me, my love. I need you.
    
    The plea shook her. She hadn’t heard his voice, not precisely. Rather it was as if she could feel his words in her head. Could feel his pain.
    
    Come back to me.
    
    She was hearing voices in her head? This couldn’t be real. Could it?
    
    Somehow Marylin felt she knew the man who had followed her back to her room. She recognized him now. He was the man she’d seen on the ferry, the tall, mysterious stranger who felt so familiar. He wasn’t really a stranger at all. She’d dreamt of him before. By day she was Dr. Marylin Henry, Professor of Ancient History. By night she was a wanton, living out that history in her dreams. She changed from dream to dream, once an Egyptian Priestess, surrounded by cats, once a slave in ancientRome .
    
    Whoever she was, wherever she was, he was there. He was the Warrior who stood at her side. They’d fought side by side against invaders who slew in the name of their gods. She’d been laid out on an altar in a Druid circle when the standing stones were still young. Their lives had never been easy, but somehow she knew he had always been there, and always she had loved him.
    
    Tonight she was no ancient goddess. She was only Marylin, and he was the stranger whose dark eyes had haunted her on the ferry, yet he seemed even more real, as if history had finally caught up with them. He towered over her, this giant in black, but she felt no fear, only need, as she looked in the mirror. Remembered desire swept over her, stronger than time. She loved this man. She had loved him before. She would love him again. He was the one. He held the missing pieces of her soul.
    
    She didn’t have to ask if he shared her feelings. She knew, without the words. Could feel it in his hands as they came to rest on her shoulders—large, strong hands resting lightly, blunt, square fingertips trembling against her skin. His face was shadowed in the dim lighting, but still she could read the pain in him. Brushing her cheek over the back of his hand, she turned to face him, amazed once again at how small she felt in his presence.
    
    His were a lover’s hands, holding, stroking, comforting, healing the ache in her heart. His kiss was a lover’s kiss, soft, then hungry, sucking her lip between his. Nipping, probing, demanding, he tasted her mouth.
    
    Yes. Yes!He was the lover she’d waited for! Her body blossomed under his touch, her breasts thrusting against his gentle fingers, demanding more. He brushed lightly over the curves of her breasts, her nipples stabbing at him, hard and wanting. She didn’t object when he turned her around, his hands slipped beneath her light cotton shift to skim it over her head. She would have helped him if her own hands weren’t so busy trying to puzzle out the fastenings of the strange black pants he wore.
    
    She stroked him through the fabric—somehow she knew it was linen—loving the way his cock responded to her, already hard and growing harder with her touch.
    
    Her body was on fire, so sensitive to his every move that she twanged with each touch like the ping of a guitar string. Liquid fire pooled low in her belly, moving down, ready to consume him. Through the thin, fine-woven linen of his odd shirt her lips found his nipple, hard and tight, responding instantly to her gently swirling tongue. She felt more than heard his groan as he pulled her against his chest.
    
    “By the gods I have missed you,” he murmured. “So long this time. It’s been so long.”
    
    Marylin trailed her fingers down until she cupped his balls, feeling them tighten even as his cock reached for her. “Too long.” She nipped at his shirt. “You’re wearing entirely too many clothes.”
    
    A chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Maybe you should do something about that.”
    
    She would, too, if only she could figure out the damn pants. The shirt was easier. Although it didn’t have any buttons up the front, the opening at the neck was loose enough. She pulled the tails out of his waistband and skimmed her hands up his torso, enjoying the trip. He bent to her, letting her push the fabric over his shoulders. She paused there, exploring his face with kisses. Even the taste of him was familiar. Warm and salty and sweet with the taste of man. Her man.
    
    It took him a moment to notice she hadn’t undone the cuffs, leaving his hands trapped. When he tried to rip the shirt to escape, she stilled his hands, pushing him back towards the bed. He lunged at her with his teeth, nipping at her neck in a show of possessiveness, a low growl sounded in his throat.
    
    The old-fashioned wrought iron headboard had a high arched center just made for what she had in mind. Her teeth hovering over his nipple, she urged him backwards till he landed exactly where she wanted him. He didn’t fight her when she ran her hands up his arms, slipping the shirt body over the headboard and pushing it down until it held him pinned.
    
    He might be able to tear the shirt if he tried, but then again he might not. Linen was exceptionally strong. Just how she knew this, she wasn’t sure, but she sensed the shirt would hold unless he fought her in earnest.
    
    Still, it wasn’t the shirt that held him. Some how she knew she could have held him with a word.
    
    Her weight over him didn’t seem to have much effect. His hips still bucked toward her willing cunt, but there was the matter of those pants. She leaned forward to rub her nipples over his, finding her targets easily enough in the pale moonlight, enjoying the sharp intake of his breath. He struggled briefly before he changed his mind, pushing the small puckered bud against her lips.
    
    Taking her time, now, she ran her hands over the pants, her fingertips reading the seams like Braille, until she found the hidden rows of fastenings over either hip. Growling, she bent to assault the offending closures with her teeth. As she tugged the fly out of the way, his cock sprang loose, freed at last of the imprisoning fabric. His hips surged up off the bed, his cock thrusting toward her.
    
    Hot. Hard. Demanding. Needing. He might be a dream, but he felt real enough. Even if it was a dream, she couldn’t force herself to wake up. No. She didn’twant to wake up. Waking up meant letting go. She didn’t want to let go. She wanted, sheneeded to hold him here. An extra day, an extra hour, an extra minute, it didn’t matter. She would defy the gods. She would keep him this time.
    
    Was he any less real because he came to her only in her sleep? He was real toher . She wanted this to be real. Wanted her Warrior, strong enough to take her no matter how she might resist, yet held at her command by the simple artifice of her will. She wanted his cock filling her mouth as she raked her nails over the curve of his ass, pulling his pants down out of the way.She wanted the hot, hard length of him thrusting at her, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.Yes. YES! Just like that.
    
    “I love you,Mel~amin . I love you.”
    
    She wanted his voice, whispering unintelligible prayers to long forgotten gods when she lifted to rub her tits over him, his waves of heat making her nipples sing with desire. She wanted his balls contracting with need while he thrust against her cleavage, his cock weeping as she licked the tip.
    
    Marylin slid down over the length of him. She needed this. Needed his rigid, burning shaft buried deep within her. If it wasn’t real, it was real enough. She could feel him, could feel his body, warm and alive, under her. She could feel his heartbeat under her palm. She rode him hard and fast, her hands splayed over the ridges of his chest. She stretched out over him, loving the feel of her smooth, bare skin against the thick fur of his legs. He reached for her, his toes finding her, offering purchase to push against. Fire lit her, pulling her with a longing stronger than time. She rocked back and forth, up and down, taking them both closer and closer to the edge with the slow, easy friction of flesh on flesh, bone against bone, need against need.
    
    He thrust up hard against her, holding her mouth with his kiss, stroking the ridges behind her teeth with the tip of his tongue even as his cock stroked the spot within her that made her wild for him. Sensations bombarded her, new and yet remembered. His cock buried deep within her, the hard, hot length of him filling her, stretching her, pushing her past her limits. He fought to recapture her when she broke the kiss, trailing kisses of her own down his chest. He fought her as she sucked at his sensitive nipples, first trying to get away, then pushing against her lips, groaning out his desire as he bucked helplessly up into her.
    
    She rose up over him to rub their nipples together, rocking up and down the length of his throbbing cock, pressing her thighs closed to increase the sensations. She could feel every ridge raking her sensitized flesh, every vein sliding past. She squeezed him tighter, feeling his balls drawing up, beginning to tease her with their coarse, rough hair against her sensitive skin.
    
    She knew a nagging fear, now. No matter how much she wanted this, he wasn’t real. Once they came the dream would end. She would lie here alone in her bed, so close to what she’d wanted, what she’d needed, what she’d never found in the daylight.
    
    Somehow, this time, she had to keep him here. Whatever it took, she had to hold him this time. “Stay with me,” she pleaded.
    
    “Come with me,” he demanded, nipping at her lip.
    
    She didn’t want to come, not now, not knowing the consequences, but she couldn’t help herself, not with his cock burning within her, not with need as old as the ages pulling at her. “I need you to be real! I don’t want to lose you again!” she cried, tears streaming down her face.
    
    “You cannot lose me,” he promised. “Do you not know that by now? I’m as real as you are. You’re mine. Wherever you are, I will find you.”
    
    “Then find me!” She drove against him, pushing herself harder, reaching for the release that would either destroy her or set her free. “Find me now! I can’t wait any longer!”
    
    She broke over him, her body shaking with the force of an electric shock running through her, her need enveloping them both till she was sure the air around them must shimmer with power.
    
    He roared out his release, a cry of both triumph and despair as he slipped away.
    
    “Take me with you, my love. I need you!” she cried.
    
    “Wherever, whenever you are I will find you. Forever and always, my love. I will find you again!”
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
    Chapter One
    
     
    
    Marylin was positive that if she so much as blinked her eyes her head would explode. God. What had she been thinking? She wasn’t nineteen anymore. Apparently Amaretto wasn’t what it used to be, either. Hadn’t ever given her a hangover before. That was the reason she drank Amaretto—to avoid mornings like this.
    
    For that matter, she didn’t remember ever having a morning after quite like this.
    
    She’d have called out, asked some kind soul to bring her a damp, cool cloth to unglue her eyes, but she was afraid the sound of her own voice might shatter her brittle eyelids. As if by magic a cool cloth appeared in her hand.Thank you, God. Whichever, whatever god. She’d pray to any deity who was handy right now if her head would quit pounding. Moving carefully, she laid the scrap of cloth over her eyes, concentrating on slow, deep, even breaths, willing the pain away. Mind over matter. That was all there was to it. Simple chemical process really. Re-oxygenate the blood.
    
    In with the good air. Out with the bad. Gray had taught her that.A dancer’s technique. She didn’t want to know where he’d learned it, or why.
    
    As the pain subsided, awareness of sensations outside her body returned. Where was she? She wasn’t in her own bed, that was for sure. The surface beneath her was hard, and the air was cool, but fresh. She couldn’t remember… Gray. She’d e-mailed Gray. They’d met at a place she’d found on the Internet.DesireIsland , in theGulf of Mexico .
    
    She smiled experimentally. Her lips didn’t crack. Gray must be watching her, trying not to laugh. Gray would know to have the cloth ready. Its coolness made the thought of opening her eyes at least tolerable. Cautiously she wiped the warming water over the rest of her face, wondering just how bad she looked. Well, Gray’d seen her at her worst before. He’d cope. Slowly, carefully, giving them time to adjust to the light in the room, she pried her eyes open.
    
    There was a man watching over her, all right, but he wasn’t Gray. Long, pale blond hair framed an oval face that was just a little too masculine to be pretty. It was a quiet face, the kind of face that soaked up all emotion, so that it was impossible to tell whether he was happy, or sad, or even interested.
    
    Since at the moment he was studying her, in fact staring at her rather intently, and she seemed to be lying quite naked on a strange bed in a strange room, she did the sensible thing. She screamed. The watcher stood up, unfolding long, long legs that had been tucked beneath him somewhere. Paying no heed to her screams as she lunged for the closest covering—some sort of thick, heavy hide—he walked to the doorway.
    
    “She is awake, Lord Lindall.”
    
    “Indeed. So I gathered.” The voice was deep and rumbling and tinged with humor, betraying traces of a Scots brogue. The man who went with the voice ducked his head to enter the small chamber, pausing there in the doorway, filling it so thoroughly that he blocked the light.
    
    Marylin ceased her screaming abruptly. Good Lord. The man must be close to seven foot tall. His shoulders filled the doorway. From there he narrowed to slimmer hips and long, muscular legs. For the first time since she’d been a child staring up at her father, she felt small and vulnerable.
    
    She glanced to his face as he paused to stare at her. She knew this man. Had seen him before. Had dreamed of him for years now. In her dreams he was her knight, her protector, her partner, her lover. Usually she knew him as a shadowy, indistinct figure. She always recognized him, sometimes even spoke to him, but she’d never heard his voice before, never seen his face.
    
    Until last night. He was the man from the ferry. She’d seen him. Known him. Loved him. Fucked him.
    
    He had promised to find her. Perhaps…
    
    No. He couldn’t be her dream lover. This man was real. Maybe he really was the man she’d seen on the ferry. Had he been stalking her? Had he kidnapped her? But that didn’t seem plausible. She wasn’t tied up. Nothing kept her here but her own frozen inability to move.
    
    She could see him clearly now, long, dark hair pulled back from his face, a close-cropped beard dusting his jaw, wide set green eyes studying her, questioning, probing, drinking her up. Their gazes locked. He moved toward her hesitantly, almost as if drawn against his will, his heavy woolen kilt barely swaying against his leggings. He paused again at the edge of the raised platform, towering over her as she lay clutching the hide over her breasts. Like a giant tree toppling, he dropped slowly to one knee beside the bed. Marylin’s head reeled as she read the emotions swirling in those eyes.
    
    Grief. Hunger. Pain. Need. Fear. Love.
    
    Hewas the man from the ferry. He was the man from her dreams. Her knight, her lover, her protector. He was the one who held the missing pieces of her soul.
    
    He picked up her hand, lifting it to his lips for a kiss that nearly broke her heart with its tenderness. “I have missed ye,Mel~amin . Do no’ leave me so again, for my heart nearly split asunder.”
    
    His heart? What about hers? One moment he’d been there, and everything had been right. The next he was gone, and she was alone—more alone than she’d ever been.
    
    It was a dream. Just a dream. He hadn’t been real last night. He wasn’t real now. She’d seen a man on the ferry and added his face to that of the man in her dreams. She’d dreamed about him last night. A rough, wanton dream of a middle-aged woman too long alone. Dreams. That was all it was. She was dreaming again now.
    
    Marylin broke eye contact as a gust of wind shook the pavilion, which she realized was actually a tent of great proportions, walled with huge, thick hides. She had to wake up, before this gentle giant of a man stole what was left of her heart. She could not fall in love with a dream. “No. Not again,” she whispered to herself. She would not make the same mistake again. Just a dream.
    
    The big man raised his eyes quizzically to the watcher, who merely shook his head once so that his long pale mane lifted slightly, then settled again against his shoulders. Marylin clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle another scream. The blond man—she’d thought him tall until the Warrior entered the room—had ears that rose to sharp points at the tips. There was no mistaking those ears. She was staring at an Elf!
    
    This man—this Elf—had certainly never been part of her dreams before. It was to the Elf-Man that Marylin turned for answers, hissing her questions out with as much righteous anger and injured dignity as her pounding head would allow. “Who and what are you and where the hell am I and how did I get here?”
    
    One eyebrow raised in a delicate point. “I am Shammall, M’Lady, your most humble and obedient servant.”
    
    Marylin suppressed a most unladylike snort, thinking she’d never met anyone less humble or obedient.
    
    “As for what, I am a Mage, and it was I who summoned you.”
    
    Summoned she understood, but Mage? As in—as in what? Magician? Maybe he could make things appear, sleight of hand, like the cloth?
    
    “We are in the Northlands, camped just below thePassofSt. Gregory , which separates the Northlands from the ancient cities of Talandar and Élahandara, and you are here because I summoned you.”
    
    All right. She wasn’t going to panic. No. Not now. Maybe later. Some of this at least made sense. Northlands. It was cold.Canada , maybe. But… “I thought I knew most of the Saints. I don’t remember Saint Gregory.”
    
    The Mage raised an eyebrow. “His story is well known, M’Lady. Saint Gregory slew a Dragon, thus separating the races of Man from the elders.”
    
    Dragon? Slew a… “George. Saint George slew the Dragon.”
    
    The Mage exchanged a worried glance with the one who knelt beside her. “She speaks strangely, M’Lord. Perhaps the Summoning has affected her in some way we did not foresee.”
    
    “I do not speak strangely! I know my history! It’s an ancient legend. SaintGeorge and the Dragon. George. Not Gregory. George!”
    
    Her knight kissed her palm again. “As ye wish, my love. We shall correct the name of the pass if it please ye.”
    
    Was he laughing at her? Marylin turned her gaze back to the Warrior. For he was a Warrior, of that there was no doubt. Even without the huge axe strapped across his back, and the dense layer of heavy black chain maille that covered his tunic, she’d have recognized him for what he was.
    
    He looked so much like the man from her dreams. Something in her wanted to reach out to him, touch him, draw him into her arms and comfort him.
    
    Right. As if he needed comforting. He was the one who’d kidnapped her, after all. Or ordered the other one, the Elf, to fetch her here.
    
    A hint of a smile touched his lips as their gazes locked again. “I am Roanen, M’Lady, of House Lindall, and I am thy Lord and thy husband.”
    
    Lord? As in Lord and Master? She’d have laughed at the audacity of it, especially since she sensed that one harsh word from her at just that moment would shatter the man, but the other word distracted her.
    
    Husband?
    
    Marylin looked around the pavilion again, taking in as much as she could, before she let her head fall back to the pillows in utter exhaustion. Weren’t dreams supposed to come with sleep? How could she possibly feel this tired? Or hungry? “I suppose a cheeseburger’s out of the question…and a milkshake?”
    
    The two men exchanged glances, and a worried frown creased Roanen’s handsome face. At this distance she could see the lines of strain around his eyes, and the set of his shoulders looked less regal and more just plain tired. “Cheese burger?”
    
    You didn’t eat in dreams. Not real food. You weren’t ever hungry in dreams. At least she never had been before. “Beef?”
    
    The men looked even more worried.
    
    “Meat. From a cow. Cooked. Made into a sandwich, with cheese, between two pieces of bread?”
    
    “Cow?” Both men looked perplexed.
    
    “Cow.” Crap. What other names for cows were there? “Cattle? Bull? Steer?Holstein ?”
    
    “Kine? The Kine are gone, M’Lady, as are all the old species. Those that had been changed by the hand of man did not survive the cataclysm. Only the old races survived.”
    
    Cataclysm. Old races. Like Elves. Marylin stared at those pointed ears. No. She would not, could not believe this was real. She needed to wake up. She needed to wake up now. Maybe now was the time to panic. Yeah. Panic was a real possibility.
    
    “We have other meat,” the one who claimed to be her husband offered, his voice attempting to soothe her. “Do no’ fear. Ye will no’ go hungry here, my love.” Roanen lifted his chin, and Shammall immediately disappeared beneath the hide that covered the doorway.
    
    Marylin turned her attention back to Roanen. Her panic subsided. It was so hard to stay detached when a man looked at you like that. Would it hurt if she touched him? He wasn’t real, after all. None of this was real. “That’s hard on your knees. Sit beside me here and tell me everything.”
    
    He sat carefully, not quite touching her, hesitant, as if afraid she might break. “Ayailla, I—we—I am sorry, my love. We—we lost the baby. It could no’ be helped. For a time I thought we had lost thee as well. Nafésti, their High Priestess, is very powerful. We were lucky to escape with our lives, any of us. I—the Mage brought ye back for me. I—I should not have asked it of him, I know, nor of ye, but I had no desire to live without ye by my side. I know ‘tis forbidden, once the spirit has left the body, but there was no time sooner, no’ in the midst of battle, and I thought ye could no’ be too far away just yet. ‘Twas wrong of me, I know, and selfish, but I need ye here with me.”
    
    Baby?
    
    Tears formed along the lines of her lashes, threatening to spill over. Her dreams had turned dark and cruel. She blinked them away, trying to maintain some coherent thought. No dream went like this. But if it wasn’t a dream, if this Warrior was real, he must be insane. Or was she the crazy one for even thinking this might be real?
    
    The only thing that made any sense was the one thing she couldn’t tell him. She was Marylin. She needed to be Marylin. But she couldn’t be. Not now. He needed her to be Ayailla. Roanen was at the edge of his sanity, of that she was sure. She didn’t have to be a member of the Psych Department to figure that out. A wrong word from her would destroy him. Her heart would have to have been made of stone not to be moved by the man’s grief. They would deal with who she was and what had happened to Ayailla and the baby some other time. For now, there was healing to be done, and that, at least, was something Marylin understood. She opened her arms to the huge bear of a man, offering what comfort she could.
    
    The tears she’d sensed in him broke free to trail unobstructed down his cheeks as he collapsed against her, sobs shaking his frame. She wound her arms around him as best she could, though the battle accoutrements were a bit in the way. She wanted to tell him everything would be all right, there would be other babies, but that was a lie she could not manage. She was not Ayailla. If this wasn’t a dream, if Mage’s and Summoning and Elves really existed, then whatever the Mage had done had gone horribly wrong. She was not supposed to be here, wherever here was, she was not Ayailla, and she was much too old for babies. The thought of the babies she’d never borne lent her a grief of her own. Their tears mingled until she could not tell them apart.
    
    Was it wrong to let Roanen think, even for these few minutes, that his wife had come back to him? Was she hurting him even more by not telling him who she was and that there was, perhaps, a good reason why what he had done was forbidden?
    
    Right now she wanted to be Ayailla. She wanted this to be real. More than anything, she wanted to be the woman this man loved enough to have mourned her so desperately that he was willing to follow her past the limits of time and even death itself.
    
    Shewas going crazy. This was a dream, a nightmare brought on by overindulgence in Amaretto. She was going to wake up with one mother of a hangover, alone once again. Damn it. Even the man in her dreams was in love with someone she wasn’t, someone she could never be. She had to wake up, before she let herself become the woman Roanen needed. Before she lost her heart to a fantasy man who didn’t exist, and if he did exist, would not, could not see her for who she was.
    
    Damn it, if he’d only loved her like that, she would have embraced the fantasy with all her heart. What was it Gray had said?We’re too good for this reality! We would have to go to an alternate universe, back in time, another planet or something, to find people who are good enough for us…
    
    This wasn’t fair! Gray was right. She deserved a man who would love her the way Roanen had loved Ayailla. She was ready. Whatever alternative reality this was, she was ready to lose herself in this dream. What was there to a name? She couldbe Ayailla. Could play the part well enough to comfort him now when he needed her the most.
    
    Would it matter so much that he had loved another before? He might notice the differences, and if he asked, she might try to explain that she had once been someone else, in another time, another place. Surely a man who loved like this would forgive her such a simple deception. He had summoned her, after all. Would it be so wrong to let him think she was who he wanted her to be? Was it so wrong to take what she needed from a man who seemed more than willing to give?
    
    But she’d seen his face when he told her about the child they’d lost. He wanted babies. She couldn’t give him that. She wasn’t Ayailla, and it would do her no good to pretend she was. Just about the time she gave herself up to this fantasy, everyone would realize the truth, and she’d be alone again, heartbroken once more, trapped in a reality even worse than her own.
    
    No. She couldn’t do that to herself or this fantasy man. Whether he was real or just a figment of too much Amaretto, he deserved better. She deserved better. She wanted what he had to offer, but not like this. Not with a man who only loved her because he thought she was someone else.
    
    She had to tell him.
    
    Just not right this minute.
    
    The curtain-door opened as the Mage Shammall reentered the room. He would be able to see Roanen had been crying. Marylin wished she had a damp cloth to wipe the big man’s face. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than a scrap of toweling appeared on her fingertips. Fuck. Not cold water! That was for headaches, damn it. Warm! Soothing, not a frickin’ iceberg. As if in apology, the cloth quickly adjusted to body temperature.
    
    Whoa.The Mage wasn’t even close. He couldn’t have done that.
    
    Marylin’s hand shook as she raised it to wipe Roanen’s cheeks. “Can’t have you looking uncared for, can we? You look like you’re still wearing half the battlefield.”
    
    Roanen smiled, turning his cheek against the fingers that held the cloth, nuzzling her hand for a moment before he turned to the Mage. “Have ye heard anything?”
    
    “Nothing, M’Lord. The enemy seems to have melted into the ground. I fear they are but regrouping, readying a counterattack. As soon as I am able I will do reconnaissance.”
    
    “No, Shammall. I can no’ ask that of ye. I know what this has cost thee. Ye must rest. Tomorrow will have to be soon enough.”
    
    She hadn’t really looked at the Mage before. Not up close. Now that she was over the initial shock of—of whatever had happened to her—she wasn’t quite ready to believe in Mages and summoning yet—she realized he looked tired. His mask of indifference hid more than just his emotions from those around him. She had to look hard to see the fine lines of strain around his eyes, the stoic set of his shoulders that kept them from bowing with exhaustion.
    
    Well, perhaps there was more than one reason whatever the Mage had done was forbidden.
    
    Marylin sat up, bracing herself against the headboard, tugging at the edges of the hide. They could have at least fetched her a robe, or a nightgown, or something. At the thought, a long silken robe of deep burgundy enveloped her. All right. Marylin took a deep breath. It wasn’t the Mage. Somehow she had done that herself, with just her thoughts. Whatever dream this was, she was going to have to be careful what she wished for. Some thoughts could be downright dangerous if allowed to become reality.
    
    Marylin glanced at the tray the Mage carried and had to suppress her laughter. Two pieces of bread, looking like a small loaf carved in half, with a slab ofsome sort of meat between them, and a mug of milk with a froth to it, as if its original container had been shaken hard before its contents had been poured into the mug. One taste had her setting the mug aside. It was white. But there the similarity to milk ended. Goats’ milk maybe? She would also have to be careful what she asked of the Mage.
    
    She shook her head. She was falling into the habit of thinking of this world as reality all too easily. No. She could not allow that. Had to maintain some hold on her sanity. She leaned forward to place a light, affectionate kiss on Roanen’s cheek. “Would you give me a few minutes alone with the Mage, please, Roanen?”
    
    Roanen glanced at the Mage, whose already fair face paled at the suggestion. Did Roanen look just a little guilty, like one brother running away while the other faced punishment? “Aye, M’Lady. As ye wish.”
    
    Seated, she could almost forget how huge Roanen was, but as he moved to stand over her, bending down for a moment to press his lips to her cheek, she was once again amazed by the sheer massiveness of him. And yet one word from her, she was certain, would bring him to his knees.
    
    She would not say the word. Not in front of him. Would not destroy the hope he clung to. To have loved as he had, and to have lost the woman he loved, only to see her brought back…she could not destroy that. Not with one killing blow.
    
    For the Mage, however, she felt no such protective instinct. Marylin turned to glare at Shammall as the curtain fell shut. She gestured to the spot beside her which Roanen had just vacated. “Come here.”
    
    In one stride, the Mage was beside her, kneeling as if in supplication, his hands extended, palms up, his hair a shield around his face as he bowed low enough to let its ends brush the dirt floor. “I live but to serve you, M’Lady.”
    
    Holy fucking Christ. What was she? Some sort of a goddess? “Stop that, damn it!” she hissed. “Get up from there!”
    
    Oh, good grief! Evidentlythat was the wrong thing to say. The Mage rocked back on his heels, tossing his hair over his shoulders as he raised his eyes to meet hers. Had she thought his face impassive? Nothing could be further from the truth. He couldn’t have looked more remorseful. The strain of whatever he had done was catching up to him. Another moment and he, too, would be sobbing in her arms. “Forgive me, M’Lady. I have failed you twice over this day. Whatever your judgment, I shall accept your punishment.”
    
    Punishment? What sort of punishment might he be expecting to look so mortified? Would Ayailla have had him flogged? Marylin did her best to suppress the images that flew to her mind, remembering the robe and the washcloth. If what she thought became real, anger could be very, very dangerous in this reality. “I’m not angry with you, Shammall.” She said it out loud, in case the supplier of clothes was handy and listening. “I’m—do you know what you have done? Do you understand at all what’s happened?”
    
    “I have failed you, M’Lady.”
    
    He repeated it like a litany. Marylin sighed. “Fine. You have failed me. Only you haven’t. You have failed someone called Ayailla. I’m not Ayailla. I’m Marylin. I’m from the planet Earth in the twenty-first century. Wherever, whenever, this is, I don’t belong here. And that man out there thinks you’ve given him his wife back. But I’m not his wife, and when he figures that out it’s going to destroy him. He’s already lost his wife and his unborn child. You cannot allow him to face her loss twice. You have to fix this! Whatever you’ve done, you have to fix it now!”
    
    The Mage raised his head, his eyes growing wider as he absorbed her meaning. “I—M’Lady, I—if what you say is true, I know not—I cannot—by the gods! What have I done?”
    
    Humor pulled at her lips at the Mage’s obvious consternation. “You, Shammall, have fucked up big time.”
    
    “Fucked up big time?” the Mage repeated incredulously. “Mother Earth forgive me. I know not what these words mean, but I can clearly understand the sentiment. What would you have me do, M’Lady?”
    
    “Christ! Do? How should I know? I don’t know how you got me here, so how can I tell you how to put me back?”
    
    “Put you back?” He blinked, slowly, staring at her as if she’d gone daft. “You wish to return to the realm of the dead, then, M’Lady?”
    
    “Dead?”
    
    “Aye.”
    
    “I wasn’t dead, you idiot! I was a little tipsy, perhaps, but not dead! I was—”
    
    “Dead.”
    
    “No! I remember…” What did she remember? She’d been talking to Gray. He’d gone off. Left her there on the settee in front of the fire. Warm. Too warm. She’d downed the last of the Amaretto, looking for courage at the bottom of the bottle. Gone to find Gray, to tell him what she’d wanted to all those years ago. She remembered the ocean, the waves. Could she have—No. She’d been drunk, but not drunk enough to have accidentally killed herself. No. She’d gone back to her room. She’d dreamed of her lover. The one who looked suspiciously like Roanen.
    
    “I can’t be dead. A little drunk, maybe. But not dead. The last thing I remember was the waves washing over my feet. The storm had passed and the moonlight was shimmering over the waves. It was so beautiful… I must have passed out once I got back to my room.”
    
    “I left my body behind, Mistress, and went in search of Ayailla among the newly departed in the spirit world. I sent forth the summoning, a projection of Lord Lindall’s message, among the spirits there. Most could not see or hear my message. They were too lost in their own cares. One spirit, and one alone, answered. Your spirit answered my call. I did not question your right to come with me. You looked like Ayailla, or as much like her as a woman with no body could. I did not drag you here against your will. Your spirit came to me. You answered the summoning.”
    
    No. She wasn’t dead. He was lying. He was—he had tricked her somehow. Or Roanen had. Unless… “What—” Marylin swallowed hard and tried again. “What was the message? Roanen’s Summoning?”
    
    The Mage closed his eyes and lowered his head, his hand finding hers, brushing her with the tips of long, sensitive fingers. She felt, more than heard, the image the Mage shared.
    
    It was dark. The mists slowly parted to reveal a dark figure, a man, dressed in chain maille that had seen too much battle, kneeling beside a body that might have been hers. The man raising his head to look directly at her, eyes filled with despair.
    
    Come back to me, my love. I need you.
    
    The plea shook her. She hadn’t head his voice, not precisely. Rather it was as if she could feel his words in her head.
    
    Come back to me.
    
    Tears streamed down her cheeks as she reached into the mist. “Roanen,” Ayailla whispered. The vision faded, leaving her wanting, reaching for him. “Any time, anywhere, any way I could, I’d have answered his summoning.”
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
    Chapter Two
    
     
    
    “Where are we?When are we? What happened?”
    
    “Where would be Earth, M’Lady, though not the Earth you knew. When would be 2456, in the way you count the years. Earth as you knew her was changed by the Great Cataclysm. She grew hot for a time, very hot. The poles melted. The waters rose. After the Cataclysm the ice came. The ice saved us, else there would be no habitable lands left. Those races who survived once again populate the oldest lands, lands that were their homes long ago. Specifically the place where we are now is called the Northlands, part of what was once known as Europe, at the Pass of Saint Greg—George.”
    
    The Mage actually blushed as he stumbled over the name. Once again Marylin wondered who Ayailla had been, and why these men feared her so.
    
    “I am sorry, M’Lady, but I can no more undo what we have done than I could turn back the hands of time. The only release I could give you would be to free your spirit by ending this body’s life once more. Should you make that choice I would willingly accompany you rather than face the end I would suffer at Lord Lindall’s hands.”
    
    “We cannot lie to Roanen. Nor will I steal another woman’s love. He deserves more. She deserves more!”
    
    “Lord Lindalldeserved to die in battle at Ayailla’s side, M’Lady, as the fates decreed. Lady Ayailla gave her life to save his. Even if I could, I would not take that away from her. To do so would make her death meaningless.”
    
    “Can you not simply swap us back? Find Ayailla and exchange us so Roanen might never fully understand what has happened?”
    
    “M’Lady, do you not understand? There is nothing to exchange. You answered my summons. Only one spirit could have done so. Youare Ayailla.”
    
    “I am Marylin! Marylin!” she shrieked. Damn the man! No wonder Ayailla had thought to have him flogged! Marylin raised her hand as if to strike him, but as she moved lightning flew from her fingertips. The room filled with the smell of burning hair and singed cloth. The Mage moved, but not fast enough. The fire spread quickly from his hastily discarded robe to the carpets covering the floor, then to the tent itself.
    
    “Ayeeee!” Marylin shrieked as the room went up in flames around her. She raised her hands to the gods in fists of fury. “Why! Why have you done this to me?” Thunder cracked and angry gray clouds opened, sending a downpour to drench the flames where the tent had stood moments before. “I am Marylin! Marylin!”
    
     
    
    * * * * *
    
    Roanen stared at the smoldering ruins of his tent and the woman kneeling in its midst, rain running in rivulets down her face, her beautiful burgundy gown singed and smudged with mud and ashes. “That went well.”
    
    Shammall merely nodded, passing a hand over the burns in his smoldering robe to repair the damage. “About as well as could be expected. It may take her some time to adjust, M’Lord.”
    
    “Aye. Speaking of time, I’m thinking this might be a good time for ye to do that reconnaissance, Mage. The farther ye are away for now, the better.”
    
    “As you wish, M’Lord. But have a care for yourself, as well. M’Lady is not happy with either of us at the moment.”
    
    The Mage took up his new form as if to do so were an everyday occurrence. Roanen cringed slightly at the sound of popping flesh and grinding bones, gritting his teeth as Shammall shifted. The Mage grew shorter, more slender, almost effeminate, his skin so black it appeared as if he had been heavily singed in Ayailla’s fire, his hair the color of freshly mined coal. The Dark Elf male who stood in Shammall’s place waved his hands once, surrounding himself with an aura of sweet perfume. His robes turned to sheerest gauze, floating lightly around his body, so thin that the hair on his chest would have been visible through the filmy silk, had there been any. Roanen sniffed in distaste. “Ye go as a courtesan?”
    
    “There is no better way to gain information, M’Lord, than in a Lady’s bed. Women love to talk, and few men know enough to listen.”
    
    Roanen looked across the camp to the muddied ashes of his tent. “I shall keep that advice in mind, Mage. Though at the moment I have no’ a bed. But if I mean to win my wife back, I shall have to start someplace. What did ye tell her?”
    
    “The truth, M’Lord. Or as close as I might care to come. That Ayailla was killed in battle. That I journeyed to the Plane of Souls, seeking the return of her spirit. That she followed me willingly.”
    
    “Will she stay?”
    
    “I did not give her a choice, M’Lord. I told her Marylin was dead.”
    
    “Ye lied to her? Ye just said ye told her the truth!”
    
    “I told her as much as I could, M’Lord. And that is not so far from the truth. She cannot live in two times at once. She must choose. ‘Tis better she chooses our time. If prophecy is to be believed, the future of our world hangs on her choice.”
    
    Roanen paced beside the fire, a heavy scowl creasing his forehead. “I do not like this. I do not like deceiving her.”
    
    “Then do not, M’Lord. There is but one spirit. One spirit, two bodies. She must choose. One must die. Help her make the right choice.”
    
    “I can no’ ask this of her!”
    
    “You have already asked more! And what of you? What of your choices? If we live by the prophecy, you will die! What choice is that?”
    
    “I made my choice, long ago. An hour, a day, a year, it will be enough. She is my breath. My life. Without her I have no reason to live.”
    
    Shammall snorted softly. “Love. I thank the gods I am spared such Human emotions. May the gods be with you, M’Lord.”
    
    “And with ye, Shammall.”
    
    The Mage laughed as he faded into the growing dusk. “Élandine. Shammall is no more. Tonight I am Élandine, The Beautiful One. Courtesan to the Queens.”
    
    “Élandine,” Roanen whispered to the night. But there was none there to hear his voice.
    
    Forgive me, Mother, for I have violated thy code. I have taken what was no’ mine to take. Help me, Mother. Help me to heal her heart. Grant me thy endurance and faithfulness, Brother Wolf. I shall have need of ye most this night.
    
    Gathering his wits, and his courage, he crossed the small camp to his wife’s bedside.
    
     
    
    * * * * *
    
    “There is no’ so much in a name, my love.”
    
    The deep, voice, smooth as aged whiskey, startled her from her tears. Marylin stared up at the giant standing over her. Stripped of his armor, wearing only a charcoal gray tunic and a kilt of soft gray and blue hues over dark charcoal leggings, he looked even more like the man from the ferry. He no longer looked as if she might shatter him with a word. Strange, but her humiliation seemed to have lent him strength. For some reason his strength angered her all the more. “No? But what if the name is all I have left of who I was?”
    
    “We have had many names through the ages,Mel~amin . I do no’ love thee for thy name.”
    
    “Don’t you understand? The Mage was wrong. I cannot deceive you, Roanen. I will not. I would like nothing better than to be the woman you loved, but I’m not Ayailla. I’m—I was—Marylin. And if what the Mage says is true, I died over four hundred years ago, without ever knowing the kind of love you had with your Ayailla. I wish—I wanted to be Ayailla for you. But I’m not. I’m not!”
    
    Tears streaked down her face, mixing with the rain and the ash and the pain. To have come so far, only to have lost again. She pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly, rocking as she cried for the love she had never known.
    
    Roanen scooped her up, holding her tightly against the soft wool of his tunic. She wanted to scold him, to tell him she was much too large to treat as if she were but a young child. She wanted to snuggle there against Roanen’s massive chest, until she could will herself to be the woman he wanted her to be. She wanted the rain to stop and the tent to be as it had been before, whole and sound, so that she could be alone with this man, away from the prying eyes that must think her a fool, away from the sights and sounds of a world too fantastical to be believed.
    
    The tent, at least, cooperated. The ashes reformed until it stood whole and undamaged, the rain but a memory that made furtive noises against the sturdy hides. For some reason that power, that magic that must be Ayailla’s, not hers, caused her even more misery. She cried for herself as well as Ayailla, and for all they both had lost.
    
    Roanen sat on the edge of the raised platform that was the bed, holding her while she cried, his voice the low rumble of a waterfall, soothing as his hands stroked over her skin. “A dozen times, in a dozen lives I have found ye, and always ye have known me, always I have loved ye. I have wronged ye, calling ye back from the realm of forgetfulness. I should have waited, trusted, known that we would find each other again, in another place, another time. But I was no’ ready to let ye go. I thought only of myself. Forgive me my weakness.”
    
    A dozen times? A dozen lives? “I don’t understand,” Marylin admitted. “I don’t understand any of this.”
    
    “Yeare Ayailla, my love. Ye are my wife.”
    
    “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said? I’m Marylin! Marylin, from the twenty-first century. I’mnot your Ayailla! I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But I can’t be the woman you think I am!”
    
    “Ye are Marylin, and I would never take that away from ye. I shall call ye Marylin, if it pleases ye. But ye are Ayailla, too. As ye were Nylanéfer and Gwenevier and Catherine. The gods have blessed us with a love that is stronger than time and death. Always I have loved ye. Across more than four thousand years and dozens of lifetimes I have chased ye, and always ye have searched for me as well. I do no’ remember all, but I know I was made to love ye and only ye. A restless spirit inhabits us, and we are no’ happy until we find one another again. I remember Marylin, and the time ye speak of. I searched for ye everywhere. Once I thought I had found ye, but ye slipped away like a shadow in the midst of a storm. Chance. Fate. Perhaps the gods were against us that time. I came close, so close that time, but I was too late.”
    
    The man on the ferry. He had looked at her, stared at her, called her with his eyes. She’d wanted to go to him, felt so drawn to him. Then the storm had hit, the crowd had shifted, the boat had docked, and she’d been alone.
    
    She’d made love to him in her dreams, and he’d made her a promise.
    
    Marylin raised a shaking hand to touch his face now, torn between her reality and the one he built for her with his words. Star-crossed lovers, doomed to wander the Earth in search of each other? Doomed to find one another only to lose once again to old age and death? How could God, her God, his gods, how could any god be so cruel?
    
    How could she believe this, any of this, was real? If she embraced this dream, how would she live when she opened her eyes to find nothing but a timeworn inn and the aftermath of a surf-pounding storm? She’d searched for love all her life, thought once she’d found it with Gray, before she realized she could never hold him, never make him into what she wanted him to be. But this, what she sensed lay just beyond the wall she could not allow to crumble, this was a force stronger than any she’d ever known.
    
    “I’m afraid,” she whispered. “If I let myself love you and you’re not real, I’ll be so much more alone when I wake up again.” It had happened before.
    
    “I am real, my love,” he assured her as he pressed his lips to her hand. “I am as real as ye want me to be. If this is but a dream, then we are both dreaming, and I have found ye here. For us, even the dreaming is real.”
    
    “But if we both dream, then when you wake up, you will be alone, too, because Ayailla will be gone.”
    
    “No, my love. If Ayailla is gone from me, if I have lost her again, then I will come to the dreaming to search for ye here. Will it be so bad, to know ye have but to sleep to find me again? Will ye no’ wait for me here?”
    
    Wherever, whenever you are I will find you. Forever and always, my love. I will find you again!
    
    Marylin knew she was losing, losing her hold on herself and her sanity. His lips were so close to hers. So close. She felt her body responding to the nearness of him, to the heat that was his life’s force pounding beneath her fingertips where they pressed against his chest, to the pureness of the love that she saw in his eyes, to all that he was and all that he could give her if she would just believe. “I’ve found you before in my dreams. Whether you’re real or not, you’re real to me. Make love to me, Roanen. Give me sweet memories I can cling to in the daylight, so that I will search for you always in my sleep.”
    
    She felt his pulse jump under her touch, felt his body tense, his arms pulling her closer. Yet he hesitated. “Are ye—can we—Ayailla—she carried our child. The baby was but six weeks along. After the summoning, there was blood. So much blood. Ye may no remember, but perhaps the body needs time to heal?”
    
    Marylin caught his hand, holding it against her breastbone. “I’m sorry, Roanen. I don’t remember. I feel fine. There’s no reason you should not make love to me. But I—Marylin—I cannot have babies. I’m too old. And I had an illness as a young woman that scarred my fallopian tubes. The doctors have tried to repair the damage, but I cannot conceive.”
    
    “That was another time, another place,” he reminded her. “Here ye are no’ too old. Ye have lived but a third of thy life. ‘Tis foretold in the prophecy. Ye will have babies here, at least one more. She stands Guardian to the races, holding back the dark tide. Her name is to be Evalayna.”
    
    Prophecy. In a land of Magic and mysticism, where a woman might live a century and a half, there would be prophecy. Marylin leaned back against him, wanting to believe. “Teach me, Roanen. Teach me to love again. Teach me to believe.”
    
    Long dark hair touched lightly with silver cascaded over her as he bent his head, his lips caressing her temples, her eyebrows, her eyelids before they found their way to her mouth. Sweet, soft, the tease of a butterfly’s wing, the touch, then again. He was bolder now, sucking her lower lip between his as she parted to him, her breath a sigh of acquiescence. Real or dream, it no longer mattered. He knew her and still he loved her.
    
    She would have turned in his arms to face him fully, but he swept her hair aside—Ayailla wore it long—to settle his lips against her neck at the base of her robe. Shivers coursed over her skin like small trails of electricity. She turned her head away, arching her neck, granting him access to as much of her skin as he wanted.
    
    “So beautiful. So perfect.”
    
    She’d never felt perfect before. Not in this lifetime. Or was it the last one? Each touch of his lips, each stroke of his hands, so sure, so knowing as they skimmed over her body to rest in just the right spots, made her feel beautiful, and more alive than she ever had before.
    
    How did he know to touch her just there, where the curve of her hip met the small of her back? How did he know his kisses along the edge of her neck would coax her head back against his shoulder, baring her breasts for his touch as her robe fell open?
    
    Her body knew him, knew his touch and responded. Her mind knew him, knew him as more than a dream remembered. He was no stranger, this dream lover. Yet each kiss was new, as if he explored her for the first time.
    
    “Lord Lindall?”
    
    Marylin cursed the voice from beyond the tent that intruded like a knock at her heart. Her body cried out with the loss as Roanen ceased his attack on her senses. “Wait here for me, my love,” he murmured as he rose, sliding her deftly to the furs that covered the dais. “ Much as it pains me to leave you, I must see to the men, else we will have no privacy. I will be but a moment.”
    
    The cold where his body no longer protected her raised goose bumps along her arms and thighs. Marylin stood long enough to survey the bed, making a few careful mental adjustments to the place where she intended to gift this intimate stranger with her virgin soul. She thought of a mattress, something luxuriant as well as comfortable, but immediately dismissed the idea. She should not ask for things that were not of this world. The magic might become confused. A down comforter? Was that too much to ask? It appeared as easily as the mud and ruin of but a few minutes ago had vanished. The hides moved to cover the floor like a carpet, while a deep feather bed softened the hard lines of the dais.
    
    She scattered a dozen silk pillows across the dais for both atmosphere and comfort. She could hear Roanen’s voice, a deep rumble, almost a growl, from beyond the tent, instructing the guards that he was not to be disturbed. From off in the distance the mournful call of a lone wolf split the night air. Another voice answered, closer, and soon a chorus took up the calls, as if they were passing messages back and forth. Rather than fear, something in her strained to understand, as if she should have known their language. Something in her longed to join the pack, to answer the call.
    
    Shaking herself out of the strange reverie, she dismissed the wolves as she concentrated on the room. The setting must be perfect. She imagined the soft perfume of wildflowers as a crisp breeze blew all traces of smoke from the room. She searched the tent with her eyes, but found no washstand or mirror with which she might study her reflection. She was plain enough as it was. ‘Twould not do to have the residue of burnt tent streaked across her face.
    
    The thought gave her pause. What face would stare back at her from the mirror? Hers? Or Ayailla’s? Surely a body could not transcend time and space. The corporal entity must be left behind for the spirit to travel.
    
    Would she know the difference? Except for the dress, dark cobalt robes dusted with snow, the body Shammall had shown her could as easily have been her own. What if—what if what Shammall had said was true? Could she really be dead? She didn’t feel dead. Not now. She’d never felt more alive. Perhaps the Elf-Mage had given her a new chance to salvage a wasted life.
    
    No. She would not—could not—think of this time and place as reality. This was but a fantasy she was indulging. Still, she needed a mirror. If she was to bed the love of her fantasy life, she would at least indulge in some warm water and a moment in front of a mirror…
    
    Why could she not think a mirror into existence? Were there limits to what she could wish for and hope to have appear? Well, then, how about some light? A dozen short, fat, flickering candles that would add light as well as fragrance to the room?
    
    No sooner thought than they appeared. She thought of the mirror once more. Nothing. Damn. A stand with a washbasin and a pitcher and a mirror on the back? She got the washstand, exactly as she had pictured it, minus the mirror. All right. No glass. Anything shiny enough to offer her a reflection, then. She rethought the washstand. A highly polished silver oval appeared between its ox-bow frames.
    
    Hesitant, now, she dipped the cloth in the water—warm this time—slowly raising her gaze. Her own face looked back at her, streaked and smudged and slightly fuzzy, yet still her own. She ran the cloth over the streaks, frantically trying to restore order to her image and her emotions. Her hair was a tangle, a rat’s nest of unimaginable proportions. A brush. She needed a brush. A—
    
    The brush appeared, Roanen’s huge hand wrapped firmly around the handle. He stood behind her, his chin level with the top of her head. One arm slipped around her waist while the hand armed with the brush went to work, gently stroking through the tangled length of her curls.
    
    Next to Roanen she felt once again, as she had in her dreams, small, and protected. She shivered as she let herself relax against him, giving herself up to the heat and strength of his body. The fear and uncertainty faded under his touch. Real or not, she would have this memory of a man who had loved her.
    
    “Ye are so beautiful to me,” the man in the silver mirror whispered. He bent his head to nuzzle the skin where he’d brushed her hair back away from her neck. “So delicate, like a fragile flower.”
    
    Delicate? Fragile? Marylin closed her eyes, willing the tears away. Dear God how she’d wanted to hear those words. Wanted to be something other than what she was—too tall, too old, too unloved. An over-the-hill ex-wife. A stuffy old college professor with nothing but her job and her dreams left to cling to.
    
    Now a stranger stood behind her, merely brushing her hair, and she found herself transformed. For him, for this man, this here and now, shewas small and delicate and fragile. For this man she would be anything, everything.
    
    The feel of the brush caressing each strand of hair was almost too erotic to bear. She fairly hummed with tension as he continued his slow, measured strokes. “I remember the first time I saw ye. I thought ye a goddess, dropped to Earth, walking along the Nile. Ye wore a wrap of white linen, so fine-spun that in the sunlight your nipples seemed to beckon to me. I was but a youth, assigned to the temple as a guard. I swore ye were more beautiful than Nefertiti. Ye scolded me for my blasphemy, but ye did not send me away.”
    
    Yes. She remembered. She had had this dream. “There were cats…”
    
    “Indeed there were cats. Hundreds of them. The sacred cats had free reign in the temple of our goddess.”
    
    “Bast.” She’d always loved the statues of Bast, the goddess with the body of a woman and the head of a cat. Bast was the protectress of the Royal House and of the Two Lands—upper and lower Egypt.
    
    Bast was also the goddess of lovers.
    
    So many times Marylin had told the story of Bast to her students. No wonder she’d always been able to make the temple come alive for them. Memories came flooding back. Bast was more than a story to her. Her name had been Nylanéfer. She had served the goddess. She had been Bast’s High Priestess.
    
    The boy had worked his way up through the ranks, from kitchen servant to temple guard, and finally to her personal ‘hemu.’
    
    She remembered standing before a silvered mirror just like this while the young man brushed her hair. She shouldn’t have allowed such intimate contact. He was her guard, not her personal attendant. But she had been too long without a lover. She bit her lip as he laid down the brush, moving her hair aside to kiss her shoulders and the curve of her neck.
    
    She watched in fascination as his hands moved down her sides to circle her hips, stroking up now over the curve of her thighs to her belly, pausing there, framing her mons as if he could feel the coil of need his touch aroused. His bronzed skin made a dark contrast against the bleached linen of her wrap. He was so young. She was nearly twice his age. She’d meant to wait longer, give him time to grow into his full potential. But he was hers, a gift from the goddess herself, and she could do what she wanted with him, could she not? Surely the goddess would approve. The great Bast always blessed lovers.
    
    She stared at his hands in fascination. “ I could have you killed for your impudence.”
    
    “I live but to serve you.” His heat pressed into the curve of her ass, hard and hot and wanting, as his words whispered across her neck. “Do what you will with me, Lady. I would rather die than live without you. I have loved you since first I saw you.” He raised his head, practically shouting to the stone walls of the temple. “Hear me, oh great Bast, and accept my oath! Before thee, oh great goddess, I swear I shall love this woman till the end of time!”
    
    Oh, goddess. He was so young! Did he not know the consequences of such an oath? “A boy’s promise,” she chided. “Rash and reckless and dangerous. What does a child know of love?”
    
    “I am no child, Lady. If I am old enough to give my life to protect you, should such be my fate, I am old enough to love you.”
    
    She closed her eyes, leaning back against the broad chest and hard cock that promised more than she could allow. “You cannot understand the implications of your promise…there will be consequences. Your rivals will not be pleased that I have chosen but a mere boy.”
    
    He rubbed slowly against her, his hips pressing hard against hers, his cock jumping with every move. She hesitated, her hand on the knot that bound her wrap in place. What would he see in the mirror? He was but a child in a man’s body. He should be with someone his own age. One of the young priestesses. Not an old woman. Though she pampered herself, her body had seen too many years. Twenty and eight. If he turned away—if he turned away, she would have him killed for the insult.
    
    With a single tug, she loosed the linen that fell to puddle around their feet.
    
    “Goddess,” he whispered, his fingers moving to cup her breasts in the mirror. “You’re perfect.” His cock bucked against her naked ass with the firm strength of youth. One hand strayed back to her mons, sliding over the oiled skin of her plucked mound, his cock nuzzling her ass as his fingers slipped between her folds. He towered over her, a massive bear of a man-child, making her feel small and helpless as he ground her against his cock. What little he wore vanished quickly, falling to join her cherished linen, unheeded, on the stone floor. Her hands grasped the bowed bed frame for support as he prodded her ass with that hard, dripping cock. His fingers within her already had her panting, slick and wanting, but she froze as his cock pressed against her.
    
    No. He couldn’t mean to…
    
    “Shhh. Relax, my love. I will not hurt you. Would you risk conceiving my child?”
    
    “I—no. But—”
    
    “I will not hurt you. Trust me.”
    
    His fingers came first, teasing, stretching, lubricating her with her own juices while she clung to the bed for support. Each move, each caress, made her want him more. She thrust against him now, giving him access, panting for breath as she writhed against his fingers.
    
    One hand held her, gripping her tightly, still caressing her mons, while the fingers of the other slipped in and out of her ass. She screamed as the pleasure/pain became too much to bear, but she could not escape him. More. She wanted more. She wanted…
    
    “Patience, my greedy lover. Patience. Your body must learn to know me. Trust me.”
    
    To hell with patience. She wanted—oh great goddess. She screamed again as his fingers slipped out and he carefully guided his cock into the void he’d left behind. The world stopped turning as he held steady within her. One second. Two. She forced her tight muscles to relax.
    
    Slowly, gently, he slid in further, until she could feel the head of his cock, almost brushing his fingers as they pressed against her from the front. And then his fingers began to move again. And she screamed again as lightning flashed before her eyes and thunder roared in her ears. Falling. She was falling. Down a void of longing and lust that knew no end. Then he was thrusting, pushing, rubbing, pinching, taking her with the strength and lust of a boy just become a man.
    
    Too much. Too much! She fought him now, fought to escape the sensations that threatened to shatter her calm, ordered world. “They will hear us!” she fretted. “They will…”
    
    “Who would censure you, Mistress? The goddess will not condemn us. I will bear the jealousy of the Priests. I shall endure whatever punishment befalls me. I swear before the goddess, whatever happens, I shall always love you, Lady, in this lifetime or the next. Tell me only that you will wait for me.”
    
    “I have loved you since first I saw you,” she admitted, her heart pounding with the boldness of her words. “I feared only that you were too young. If I must, I will wait for you again, in this lifetime or the next, it matters not. I am yours. Forever and always. This I swear.”
    
    His seed spurted into her, hot and searing, as she broke again under his demanding fingers. “Forever and always my love. This I swear.”
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
    Chapter Three
    
     
    
    “I have loved thee since first I saw thee,” Roanen whispered as his fingers caressed her. “In this lifetime or the next, it matters not. I shall love ye till the end of time. Forever and always, my love. This I swear.”
    
    Marylin opened her eyes to watch as his hands moved to skim the fine burgundy silk up over her shoulders. He left a trail of desire wherever he touched. She turned now to wind her arms around his neck, raking her nails against his scalp as she feathered his long, dark hair away from his face. “Sennedjem?”
    
    “Nylanéfer.” He breathed the name like a benediction. “So long. It’s been so long. By the goddess I have missed ye, Nyla.”
    
    “And I you. I looked for you everywhere, but only in my dreams did I find you.” She stretched up to kiss him, this stranger she had known since the world was young, tasting this new flavor that was somehow familiar. “Are we in the dreaming yet? If I wake up and you’re not with me, I will not be able to bear it. I cannot lose you again!”
    
    “Ye will never lose me, my love. Anywhere, any time, I will find thee.” His hands gripped her ass, pulling her tightly against his hungry cock. “I will find thee, and I will love thee.”
    
    “Then let us not waste the time we’re given.” She giggled as her fingers found the hard bulge that strained against his dense wool leggings. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” she chastised as she tasted the pulse at the base of his throat.
    
    A chuckle rumbled across his chest. “Perhaps ye should do something about that.”
    
    “Perhaps I shall.”
    
    Awake or asleep, real or the dreaming, it did not matter. He’d used the dreaming before to find her. She’d use the dreaming to find him again if she had to. She didn’t have to search for him now. He was here in her arms. Marylin or Nylanéfer, or Ayailla, what did the names matter? He was no boy this time, this stranger she knew as well as she knew herself.
    
    Still he was bound by the boy’s oath.I shall love you till the end of time… She wished she could remember more. Surely four thousand years with one lover was more than any man was meant to endure. Surely he would have tired of her by now. Had there been times when they’d fought? Lover’s quarrels that lasted for lifetimes? Had he ever regretted his promise? Sennedjem had been so young…
    
    She would not let Roanen regret the boy’s oath. At least not tonight. She paused to suck his nipples through the fine-woven fabric, enjoying the way he shivered at her touch, before she pulled the tunic up over his head. He must have remembered the night at the inn, for the wrists were not fastened this time. The tunic dropped to the floor to lay beside the bed.
    
    There were differences. Where the youth had been long and lean and untried, the man before her was broad and powerful enough to frighten her, had she been less sure of him. A shiver ran through her as she found the fastenings that held his leggings in place. She knew where to look this time.
    
    It had always been like this with him. The warm glow of anticipation. The need, the hunger that coiled within her, making her want more, so much more. His long, blunt fingers explored the fine hair that adorned the dimple at the base of her spine, sending sparks like electricity through her as she shuddered in his arms. She let her fingers fumble over the pants, slipping inside to ride down the length of him until she could cup his balls in her palm.
    
    So warm. So alive. His cock thrust at her, soft velvet skin over hard, hot steel. She ached to take him within her, to ride him until he broke, but she wanted more. After four thousand years she knew how to get what she wanted from him, how to give him all he’d never think to ask for. She pushed him back towards the silk covered bed as she ordered her right hand back to its original work. The left one had a mind of its own, tangling itself in his hair while it pulled his head down to her level.
    
    Ummm. He tasted like sweet, spiced wine. She sucked at his lip, savoring the taste. The buttons undone at last, the leggings slid down to puddle around his ankles. She had a solution for that, as well. With a gentle push, her hand still guiding his head, she laid him back among the pillows.
    
    Would he remember?
    
    He’d been so young, yet his control surprised her. She’d trusted him once, so long ago. She knew other ways to prevent conception. After that first time he’d trusted her enough to let her do as she would with him. She’d led him to her bed, not unlike this one, a raised platform covered with fine woven linen and soft cushioned pillows.
    
    Had she really thought him too young? She had been wrong. It was a man’s body that lay beneath her, fresh with youth, rippling everywhere with strength and power than had not yet learned the bitterness of defeat.
    
    The Warrior’s body was not so different.
    
    In fact, he was quite gorgeous. A superb specimen of manhood. Time had added a few lines around those emerald green eyes, had dusted his black hair with streaks of silver, like a shooting star blazing across the night sky. He had the physique of a Warrior who had fought his way to where he was. If she was still here in the morning, she would ask him to teach her more of this world. She would make him tell her the story of the long scar that crossed his chest, and the fine line along the edge of his jawbone.
    
    For now, she touched, memorizing the shape of him once again, the texture of his skin just where his breastbone hollowed above his heart, learning once again how he loved to taste her ears, her breasts, her eyelids, her lips.
    
    He watched as she pulled back, lowered her mouth to take his length between her lips, moving slowly, loving the feel of his body, so strong, so powerful, so finely attuned to hers. He shifted beneath her until they lay side by side, his mouth hovering inches from the apex of her thighs. Yes. Yes! She wanted—she needed—
    
    For a moment her mouth went still on his cock as his breath warmed her already burning fires. His hands took their time, curling down from her knees to stroke the inside of her thighs. She opened to him instantly, already wet with desire. His clever fingers found their way to her thick patch of hair, stroking as they parted her flesh for the invasion of his tongue.
    
    “So beautiful.”
    
    Once again she felt beautiful. She ran her tongue over the tip of his cock, just below the head, feathering over the sensitive edge. “So are you.”
    
    He jumped at as she blew her breath over his wet skin, his hips thrusting toward the promise of her kiss. Slow gave way to impassioned as his tongue lapped at her with sudden wantonness, teasing her clit, rimming her opening, his tongue sliding deep into her hot, needy cunt.
    
    She swallowed him fully, taking his length deep into her throat, her lips teasing his balls as she sucked him like a sweet prize from the pastry chef. Her hands busied themselves with rhythmically squeezing his ass, kneading him like a large cat. Then she forgot altogether what she was doing as he took her clit between his lips, sucking as he ran his tongue over her, his fingers now sliding deep inside her, until she could feel them stretching her as no man ever had.
    
    At least in this lifetime.
    
    Damn. She didn’t even know for sure whose lifetime this was.
    
    She hadn’t time to puzzle over that as the first orgasm tore through her, leaving her weak and helpless but far from sated in its wake. Reminded by his sudden thrusts in her mouth as she came, her muscles clenching around his probing fingers, she set to work on his cock again.
    
    Damn he was big. There was no way she could suck his cock and his balls at the same time. She freed her hand from under his hip and used it to stroke his balls as she sucked his cock, stopping only when she needed to let a groan escape as he sank his tongue back deep into her shuddering muscles.
    
    As if observing herself from a distance, Marylin watched the two of them there on the bed, a circle of entwined limbs laid out like a sacrifice on Bast’s altar. If this was sex, she had come to Roanen’s bed a virgin. A forty-five-year-old virgin. Certainly—damn, she found she couldn’t remember her almost ex-husband’s name! Marylin’s husband. She could picture his penis, though. She suppressed a giggle as she fit the pieces together. Don. Dinghy Dong she’d named him. Though she’d never had the guts to call him that to his face. Well, Don had never made her feel like this.
    
    As if he sensed her momentary absence, Roanen nipping at her clit, sucked her back to the present. She exploded instantly, screaming as the orgasm shook her. Lights flashed before the eyes. Lights? They were not merely lights. Stars painted the night sky as she fought for breath. Whole constellations formed before her eyes. She fought for consciousness as the spasms shook her to her very soul.
    
    He took control then, while she melted beneath him, too limp to protest. With a flash of insight, she knew he’d always been in control. From the grief he’d allowed her to see when she first awoke to the power he’d given her and the time he’d allowed her to remember, he’d always been in control.
    
    He rolled her now face down in her pillows. Stroking her body with long, slow sweeps of his hands, he caressed places she’d never thought to find erogenous, like the backs of her elbows and the base of her skull. “Tell me what ye want from me, my love.”
    
    He’d manipulated her, reawakened her, and done it all slowly and gently until she didn’t know what was real anymore. What was more important was that she knew what he was doing, and she didn’t care. She just wanted him to love her. Her and only her. “I want you. I would live the oath I swore before Bast once again. Whoever, wherever we are, I want you, Roanen.”
    
    “The goddess goes by another name now, my love,” he warned her, though she knew not why. “Seven gods and goddesses there are, in the shape of a star. Earth takes the center, her children around her. We follow the Way of The Wolf, and are known by her name. We are Clan Wolf.”
    
    “Her name matters not. My name matters not. I love you. I have always loved you. For now and until the end of time.”
    
    “There is much in this name,” he assured her. “I would teach ye the ways of my people. Our gods mean much to us. We honor the Wolf in all that we do.”
    
    What was he trying to tell her? She searched her mind for some knowledge of wolves. For some resource of her mind she garnered the knowledge that wolves fought as a pack, an efficient killing machine, and they mated for life.
    
    Any other thought she might have had got lost under his touch. He knelt between her thighs, raising her hips toward that scalding rod she’d sucked down her throat. Dear God. She might love him, but she wasn’t insane. If he tried to put that…
    
    Her panic subsided as he stroked his fingers into her cunt again, relaxing her, teasing her, stroking her until a new sheen of liquid lubricated his fingers. Lifting her hips up even farther, he carefully fit himself inside her, guiding his progress with his hand, cupping her mons for support, his fingers splayed through her fur.
    
    She was almost surprised that he fit. But then the surprise faded to longing and greedy need as she wiggled her ass against him, loving the feel of him stretching her, demanding release as she clenched hard around him.
    
    Whatever slow, careful plan Roanen thought he had laid out she destroyed with the first thrust of her hips. He drew back for a quick, hard thrust into her slick, wet heat, then another, and another. Hard and hot and ruthless, he buried himself so deeply within her that his balls tickled the inside of her thighs, their rhythmic brush against her flesh exciting her even more. He thought he was in control, but he’d ended up right where she wanted him, thrusting into her mindlessly, his body shaking with the strain as he gave her everything he had.
    
    She propped herself up on her elbows so that she could turn her head to watch them in the silver mirror. Her ass raised in suppliant need, his head thrown back, teeth bared in a ferocious growl. Still he fought to hold back, to maintain a control he’d never really had.
    
    Yes. Yes!This was what she had wanted! Raw and naked and animalistic it might be, but there was truth here. She met him as hard as she could, slamming their bodies together as she took all he could offer her and asked for more.
    
    “Yes!” she shrieked aloud. “Roanen!”
    
    His breathing came hard, as if he warred with himself. “No! I can no’ ! Ye are not ready! I have na told ye all ye must know!”
    
    “Roanen! Now!”
    
    He growled, the strain showing in his face, then again. No. Not a growl. A call. A wolf’s call to mate.We honor the Wolf in all that we do. With his call he changed, the image in the mirror becoming fuzzy, until a huge arctic wolf fastened its teeth over her neck, his thick, hard cock pumping into her.
    
    Fear and rage and need warred for dominance. A wolf? She was being fucked by a wolf? She fought him then, but she was no match for his strength. His teeth on her neck held her clamped as he thrust into her. His paws on her shoulders demanded her obedience. His cock pumping into her drove her wild. She opened her mouth to scream, but instead she found herself answering his call. No! NO! This could not be happening! She would not—could not be changing!
    
    She could not turn into a wolf!
    
    She screamed again in terror as she faced herself in the silver mirror, growling to show all her vicious white teeth. What she saw gave her pause.We honor the Wolf in all that we do.
    
    She was beautiful. Black and silver with a coat that shone with the pale light of her candles. He was—he was perfection. Eyes full of intelligence stared back at her. Predator on every level, he claimed his prize. She’d never seen anything as erotic as the sight they made together.
    
    They fit together perfectly. She stared in fascination as his cock plunged in and out of her tight, wet sheath. So different, and yet so much the same. She dug her claws into the bed, meeting his brutal pace thrust for thrust. She cried out again, but this time in triumph as he shuddered within her.Yes! Now! More! Her release was devastating, starting at the ridge of her hard pubic bone where his weight slammed into her and spreading all through her body like a fire that burned from within. She screamed her release to the world, not caring who heard or who knew.
    
    He came like a geyser, buried deep within her, her contractions around him so strong that he could no longer move, but only shudder within her while she milked him dry. At last she collapsed beneath him, her hind legs stretched back under his. Still the waves of sensation passed through her. Still she held him clamped tightly within her sheath. Her body would not release him, but he didn’t seem panicked. His teeth still fastened in her fur, he fell to his side, pulling her into the embrace of his arms. Paws. Whatever. She’d figure it out later. Much later.
    
    For now, his muzzle lay next to hers, and the heavy sound of his breathing told her she’d left him as spent as he’d left her. She closed her eyes to listen to the sound of his heart beating against her shoulder.
    
    “Stay with me,” he whispered against her cheek. “I need ye so.”
    
    “As I need ye.” She drifted off to dream of mating wolves and a world full of possibilities.
    
     
    
    * * * * *
    
    Roanen…
    
    She reached out, but the bed beside her was empty.
    
    Bed. Springs creaked as she turned. Her bed at the inn.
    
    Roanen!
    
    Sobs shook her as she rolled to bury her face in a pillow. She’d known. All along she’d known he was no more than a dream, a product of years of fascination with a world long gone. She couldn’t find a man who would love her for one lifetime, let alone four thousand years. She was a fool to have believed in the dreams.
    
    A knock on the door called her back to this world. “Ms. Henry? Are you all right? Ms. Henry?”
    
    No, I’m not all right!she wanted to shout, but she couldn’t muster up the energy.I am so fucking not all right!
    
    “I have your breakfast, Ma’am. I’ll just leave your tray here on the hall table.”
    
    Christ on a crutch. She didn’t want to be a fuckingMa’am , either. Son-of-a-bitch. She’d always hated mornings. Hung over mornings were worse. Hung over after a night of being fucked by a seven foot tall Warrior who could turn into a wolf was entirely too much.
    
    Stay with me. I need ye so.
    
    How could it have been a dream? It had felt so real…Roanen had felt so real. She wanted to be there, not here. She needed to be there. Roanen needed her. What would happen to him without her? She hadn’t even had time to learn about the world outside the tent. Life there had been harsh, she was sure of that. Obviously things had gone wrong somewhere in the future. No electricity. No running water. No modern conveniences of any kind that she could see. Pavilion tents and goats’ milk?
    
    Perhaps it was as well it had all been a dream. How the hell could a man she’d only dreamed of need her so badly, any way? He couldn’t. He was simply a product of an overactive imagination and an even more overactive sex drive.
    
    Get a grip, Doc. She could almost hear Tina, her research assistant’s, voice. When did you start believing in fairy tales?
    
    Get a grip, Baby-Girl. When did you stop believing?
    
    That would be Gray.
    
    Stay with me. I need ye so.
    
    Roanen…
    
    What if…
    
    What if this were all true?
    
    Stay with me.
    
    What if he’d been offering her a choice?
    
    What if she’d had only so much time to decide, and she’d blown it? Maybe Shammall had been wrong. Maybe she wasn’t really dead, but sort of in a coma or something and now she’d woken up. What if…
    
    Marylin sighed. She could what-if herself to death and not get anywhere.
    
    If she could just prove any part of the dream was real, then it all was. And if she could prove any part false, the same was true. All or nothing, right?
    
    And how could she prove any of it? Ever? Prove magic existed? Prove a disembodied spirit could travel through time and end up in another body? Prove…
    
    Bast. Surely there must be some record of the High Priestess of Bast. If Nylanéfer and Sennedjem had existed, then perhaps someday Roanen and Ayailla would exist as well. She needed to get online. But her body resisted her efforts to move. Something was weighing her down, holding her pinned to the bed. Panic nearly overwhelmed her before she fought free, leaving the weight behind. Feeling suddenly lighter than she had in years, Marylin practically flew across the ten feet of floor that separated her from her laptop. She hadn’t unpacked her clothes, but she had set up her computer. A quick Internet search should tell her… Nothing. Nylanéfer didn’t exist. Not on the Internet. Not surprising, really. It was the goddess herself who would have survived, not her high priestesses.
    
    All right. A different search, then. High Priestess of Bast. Better. Thousands of references. That was odd. She didn’t recognize any of these references. She clicked on the second one. A line drawing of a cat appeared. A human cat with female breasts. Not Bast. No. A beautiful cat-woman so very different from Bast. Someone’s role-playing game character sheet. The cat-woman was downright sexy.
    
    Scanning the other listings she realized they either led to Wiccan Covens of Bast or more online character sheets. She couldn’t suppress the smile that pulled at her lips. The goddess would have approved. All right. Past lives. Maybe she could learn something about Nylanéfer from her own memories. If only she could believe when she was awake…
    
    Ghosts? How had she ended up at a site about ghosts? …usually occurs when there is some unresolved issue holding the spirit to the site where the body passed on. Usually resolving the issue will free the spirit…
    
    The words seemed to jump off the page at her.
    
    Stay with me.
    
    What if shewas dead? What if everything Shammall had told her was true? Could she be a ghost? Could she still be clinging to this life, this world, because she has some unresolved issue? What unresolved issues? She’d given up on Don long ago. Don and his women and his need to prove how virile he was with a string of younger women. There was no one else. The college could live without her. There was no—
    
    Gray. Her death would hurt Gray the most. She needed to let him know that everything would be all right. But she might not have much time. Not if she was going to die soon. How… Simple. E-mail. The way she’d kept in touch with Gray for years now.
    
    Dear Gray, I want you to know…
    
    No. She didn’t want it to sound like a suicide note. She needed him to understand, without giving the details. If she turned up dead, there would be an investigation. She needed something only Gray would understand. Just a line or two. Then she remembered. Perfect.She smiled as she moved to hit send.
    
    Behind her a soft knock sounded. The door swung open. “Housekeeping, Ma’am. I’ll just bring your—”
    
    A tray hit the floor with the sound of breaking glass as the woman screamed. Marylin spun instantly, following the shrieking maid’s pointing finger to the bed. What… Who… Marylin moved closer to get a better look at the figure lying there in her bed. Then she screamed, too.
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
    Chapter Four
    
     
    
    “She is still asleep?”
    
    “Aye.” Roanen rinsed the sleep from his eyes. “Ye look like a man well bedded.”
    
    “As do you,” the small Dark Elf agreed with a trace of a smile in his voice. With a shrug and a popping of bones the Dark Elf shifted, and Shammall emerged from the shadows.
    
    The Mage looked more than bedded. His pale skin looked nearly transparent. Surely even aSidhe must sleep from time to time. Roanen sighed. They all needed rest. Without a healer, they could not go on. His own men faired no better than Shammall. The Mage had done only what was necessary. “What have ye learned?”
    
    “Nafésti has taken what remains of her house back into the mountains to hide, to lick their wounds and to grow strong again, M’Lord. If we attack them now, without their contingent of Ogres, we may be able to gain an advantage.”
    
    Roanen’s fingers strayed to the hilt of his great axe, but he stayed his hand, remembering his last encounter with the great Sorceress. “Nafésti is too powerful, and we are too few, and too battle weary ourselves. If she has withdrawn, ‘tis enough. The valleys are safe for a time. We can no’ face a Sorceress of Nafésti’s caliber without the help of an equally powerful Shaman. The risk is too great. We shall return to House Lindall, that we, too, may heal.”
    
    Shammall looked toward the tent beyond the reach of the firelight. “How is she, M’Lord?”
    
    “She hovers here, on the edge of one world, still anchored in the other.” Roanen looked to the West, towards their homeland. “Promise me this, Mage. When my time comes, ye must see to her. Keep her here. Without Ayailla’s strength, House Lindall will fall. The prophecy must be fulfilled. House Lindall must stand guardian to the seven races of Man. Ayailla must bear the one who will unite the Houses.Promise me, Mage.”
    
    Shammall stared at Roanen, swallowing hard, his meaning all too well understood. “M’Lord, I could not—”
    
    “Ye shall protect her, and my house, Shammall, with thy life. The fate of the free races depends on her, and on thee. Swear it to me.”
    
    “Ye have my oath of fealty, M’Lord.”
    
    Roanen pressed his eyes tight shut. “I am no’ important. No’ in the grand design of the world. ‘Tis the daughter Ayailla has yet to bear who matters. ‘Tis Evalayna, and her daughters, who matter. Upon them rests the fate of our world. Ye know the prophecy. I will not live to see my granddaughters grow to power, Shammall, but ye will. Somehow I know thy fate is as intertwined with Evalayna’s as mine is with Ayailla’s. Into no other hands would I trust their care.”
    
    Shammall sank slowly to one knee. “I live but to serve you and your house, M’Lord. If by my life or my death I can protect the Lady and her children, it shall be done.”
    
    Roanen gripped Shammall’s shoulder tightly for a moment. “Thank you. I must go to her now. Once she accepts this reality as her own, ye must teach her to harness her power. Arise, and find thy way to thy bed before the sun catches up with thy night’s work.”
    
    The Mage swayed unsteadily as he stood. Roanen grasped him firmly by the arm. “I can no’ give ye the time ye need to rest, Mage. I am sorry.”
    
    “I need but a little time, M’Lord. Go to your lady.”
    
    A shrill scream split the night air. As one they turned toward the sound, all thought of sleep gone from them.
    
     
    
    “Ayailla?” Arms wrapped around her, strong arms, crushing her against a chest of broad, naked power. “Marylin? I am here, my love. Shhh. Whatever it is, I will protect thee.”
    
    Her heart was beating as hard as if she’d run across the years that separated them. “Roanen? You’re here? You’re real?”
    
    “Aye, M’Lady. Ye need not fear me.”
    
    Marylin ran her hands over his back, absorbing the warmth, admiring the sheer massive musculature of the man. “I must have been dreaming. It felt like a dream. I was so frightened. I went back. I had to. I needed to get a message to my friend…but then I saw myself, lying there, dead…the other me, a long time ago.” Had any of it been real? Had she actually hit send? “I need to go back. At least long enough to say good-bye. Gray won’t understand. He’ll think he failed me. My death will destroy him.”
    
    Roanen pulled back a little, looking down at her with eyes full of misery. “I had hoped ye would stay. Did ye love him so very much, then?”
    
    “I—no. Yes. Gray was my friend. He was always there for me. Gray—in my time, not all men preferred the company of women for sex. Gray was like a—a sister to me. Does that make any sense?”
    
    She tried not to laugh at the look of relief that passed across Roanen’s face. “I understand. Always there have been those who prefer the intimate company of their own sex.”
    
    Had she really been back in her own time? Had she really sent the email? Even if she hadn’t hit send, the note would be there on the laptop screen, wouldn’t it? Somehow, it would reach Gray. “Gray is—was, I guess—he must have died four hundred years ago—Gray was an artist. The sensitive type. He’s fragile. If he thinks he failed me, I’m not sure he can live with that. I can only hope he got my message.”
    
    “I am sorry, M’Lady. I, too, have failed ye.”
    
    “No! No, Roanen. Never.”
    
    “I—” Roanen leaned back a little farther, the distance between them growing more than physical. “I understand. The Mage was wrong to deceive ye. Ye have the right to choose, Marylin. Return if ye must. We had no’ the right to bring ye here.”
    
    To choose. She had to choose. Somehow she’d known. “It’s all right, Roanen. Gray will find his own way. The Mage did not deceive me. I made my own choice, and I chose you. Marylin is dead, Roanen. I saw her. I felt her passing. Her body was like a lifeless weight, holding me down, but I fought free of it to come back to you. I’m here because I choose to be here, with you.”
    
    His fingertips brushed lightly over the curve of her cheekbone, tracing down the line of her jaw to cup her chin with the gentle touch of a lover. “Sometimes when ye speak of her, Marylin is so real to me that I feel her. Ye can no’ know, for ye have no’ the memories of us I hold, but Ayailla was so like ye. Forgive me. I thought only of myself, and what I had lost. ‘Twas no’ Ayailla’s time to go, any more than ‘twas Marylin’s. Still, ‘twas no’ my right to call her back.”
    
    Marylin kissed the base of his thumb, where it rested near her lips. “Who is there that would challenge you, Roanen? Who is there to enforce this Law of Magic? Will the Magic Police come knocking on our door, demanding my return to the land of the spirits?”
    
    His lips quirked at that. “I think not. Ye can no’ be punished for our misdeeds. Only those who cast the spell. ‘Tis no’ the Magic Police who might censure us. Or perhaps ‘tis. There is an order to things. A hierarchy of races, ye might call it. After the great shift, when the magic reawakened, the oldest of the races made themselves known to Man again. They taught us how to use and control the Magic, and they gave us rules. To each major house a guardian is assigned. ‘Tis Shammall’s job to see that we use the magic wisely.”
    
    Great Shift? Races? Magic? To be fair, she already knew about the Magic. Hadn’t she burnt down the tent, then put it back? And Shammall himself was no ordinary man. Not with those ears. Great Shift rather explained itself, though she’d need to trace back over that part of history. Later. The politics of the situation came slamming into her as she puzzled through Roanen’s easily spun tale, separating the known from the unknown, the truth from the things he did not wish to burden her with. “And what of Shammall? Who might censure Shammall?”
    
    As if in response to her summons, though she was not aware of having given one, Shammall appeared in the doorway, bowing low as he entered. The tall, pale—Elf?—looked weary, even more worn about the edges than he had yesterday, as if he’d spent the night in hard work. “My father,” he answered. “‘Tis my father who assigned me this house to protect and to guide, M’Lady. ‘Tis to him I shall answer.”
    
    “And if we do not tell him you have broken the Law of Magic, how will he know?”
    
    “He will know, M’Lady. He already knows. A spell such as I used creates a ripple in the Magic, pulling power through the energy field. Any other user of Magic will feel a draw so large.”
    
    “How will he punish you, Shammall?”
    
    “I will be censured, M’Lady.”
    
    “And?”
    
    He shrugged, an elaborate gesture that went too far out of its way to appear unconcerned. “My father will punish me as he sees fit, M’Lady. ‘Tis his right, and his duty. I would expect nothing less of him.”
    
    There was more, something he was trying to keep from her. “You will tell me the truth, Mage. Spare me nothing. I sense this is not a world I can survive in with half-truths and lies.”
    
    “I do not know precisely how Father will punish me, M’Lady. I do know he will be very, very angry with me. But it will not be the first time, M’Lady, nor likely the last.”
    
    The two men looked, she decided, rather like two of her students might had she caught them cheating on a test. Whatever else the Mage’s father might do, it couldn’t be good. “Roanen said there wasn’t time in the midst of battle. What exactly about what you two did was wrong? Could I—could Ayailla have been brought back had you done whatever you did sooner?”
    
    “Aye, M’Lady,” they answered in tandem.
    
    “Had we another Shaman, Ayailla could have been put into stasis until she was healed,” Roanen explained. “But the war has depleted our numbers. We had but Ayailla and Shammall on our side. Shammall could no’ get to her in time.”
    
    The Mage looked dead on his feet, ready to pass out from exhaustion. She should let him go, but she had to know. Had to understand the rest. “The Misuse of Magic?”
    
    Shammall blushed, bringing a slight color to his pale cheeks. “I could have called her back, M’Lady, even though her spirit had slipped away from her body, had I but reached her sooner. I tried. I—the enemy was too strong. They knew what I was about. Nafésti herself made it her mission to keep me from Ayailla’s body. I was not strong enough to defeat her. Only after our Warriors had pushed the enemy back through the gap could I go to Ayailla. And when I called her, she was already too far away. She could not come back.”
    
    “Perhaps,” Marylin thought aloud as she chewed her lip, “She did not want to come back.”
    
    A look like fear crossed the pale one’s face, but whatever he had thought to say got lost as he crumpled slowly to the ground.
    
     
    
    * * * * *
    
    Marylin could feel the Mage’s exhaustion, like a palpable thing, a cloak laid over the slight shadow that was his body. As if from a great ways away she watched herself gather the tall, pale body into her arms. Was this real? Or was she once again part of the dreaming?
    
    Whatever he had done, there was no true evil in the Mage. She sensed he would give his life for her if the need arose. Whatever, wherever this reality, it was the Mage’s reality too. Ayailla would have known how to help him, heal him. If only she could remember, could find more of Ayailla within herself.
    
    Perhaps she was all there was left of Ayailla. In any case, she was here, she was now, and she would have to figure this out on her own. She sensed the Mage was not injured, but only drained. A thought occurred to her—a silly thought. Marylin had to suppress a giggle as she bent over the crumpled form. Kiss it and make it better? So childish. But it was worth a try. She laid her lips against the Mage’s temple, thoughts of comfort and ease flowing through her mind.
    
    The laughter died on her lips. She could feel the energy flow to him. Easy, easy now. Remember the tent. She needed to heal him, not cook him. Cool, healing thoughts, like a gentle breeze in the spring.
    
    The Mage stirred under her touch, dragging in a deep breath. Color began to return to his face. Marylin pulled back enough to watch the Mage wake up, though she let her fingers frame his temples. She could still feel the energy flowing through her fingertips, a low, steady stream. His eyes fluttered open. Funny. She’d not noticed the color before. Deep lavender.
    
    “M’Lady! You must not! I cannot allow you to drain yourself so.”
    
    Marylin laughed at that. “What have you to say about it, Mage? When you’re strong enough to fight me, you will not need what I give you any more.”
    
    As if to prove her words, Shammall raised his hand, wrapping his fingers around her wrist, but he could not break her touch. He had the strength of a small kitten. Marylin let the smile turn to laughter on her lips. “Teach me, Mage. There is power in me. Teach me how to harness this power. Teach me how to heal, without burning down the tent again. Give me something more than instinct to guide my hands.”
    
    Shammall’s gaze flicked to Roanen, who stood slightly back, his face a mask of concern. Roanen nodded slightly. “‘Tis time. We need thy skills,Mel~amin. Shammall is no’ a healer. In truth we need ye greatly.”
    
    “Let me guide you,” Shammall whispered. “Close your eyes, and come with me to the dreaming.” His hold on her wrist loosened, his fingers sliding down to cover hers. She linked her fingers with his, closing her eyes, concentrating on the feel of the magic within her. “Can you see the lamp?”
    
    Pure, raw energy. She saw flames, like the tent, but Shammall pulled back instantly. She tried again. Smaller, flickering flames this time. A lantern appeared, an old glass globe lantern filled with scented blue oil, its light dimming, then growing brighter. Yes. That was what the Mage was trying to teach her. The lamp was symbolic. Her energy touching the Mage’s. She was the fuel, he was the flame. She reached into the dreaming, her fingertips ever so gently adjusting the small knurled brass knob that raised and lowered the wick. Higher, higher, until the flames gave off a pure, radiant light.
    
    Marylin felt the Mage tremble beneath her touch where her other hand still rested on his temple. Fear? He feared her? But why?
    
    But she knew. The tent. If she turned the wick up too far, and the flames began to smoke, would she do him harm, rather than healing? No. That wasn’t what he feared. He was concentrating on the scented blue oil, watching the level go down. Ahhh. Leave the lamp burning too long, and it would burn itself out. Run out of fuel. What would happen to her then?
    
    “You worry too much, Mage,” she chided, turning the lamp down low. She leaned in to kiss his forehead again as she opened her eyes. “Sleep now. You must sleep for your spirit to heal.”
    
    The lines of worry and strain eased from his face as his eyes slid closed. Roanen picked the Mage up as if he were no more than a child and laid him out on their bed. Marylin pulled one of the hides up to cover him, tucking him in as if he’d been their child. In truth, he looked very young just at that moment. He could be no more than twenty.
    
    A child. Their child. There were things she must tell Roanen. She took his arm to lead him from the tent, but instead he gathered her close, dwarfing her once again with the sheer bulk of his body. Dear God he was huge. A tremor ran through her as she surrendered to his kiss, the warm mating of lips and twining of arms and melding of heart and soul.
    
    A thought nagged at her, one that would not go away. He had stopped her for a reason. Roanen sought to protect her. From what? What would she see beyond the tent? Was this world incomplete? Would they cease to exist outside the doors? She laid her hand along his cheek, the gesture a caress as much as a distancing. “What are you keeping from me, Roanen?”
    
    “I love ye,” he whispered as he turned to kiss her fingers.
    
    What was he not telling her? What would he want to hide from her? She ran through what she knew of this world in her mind. There had been a great battle, and Ayailla had been killed. Images flooded back to her, so hard she staggered. Wounded and dying everywhere. Men writhing in agony as the Sorceress’ bolts cut them down. Pieces fell into place. The Mage was not a healer. Ayailla was.In truth we need ye greatly.
    
    Without Ayailla, there was no one to care for the wounded. How long had the Warriors suffered, while she lay abed? Roanen needed her, yet he feared for her. Did he think she was not ready? “Take me to them. Now.”
    
    When he didn’t move, Marylin pulled away, knowing he followed as she placed a shaking hand on the hide that curtained the doorway. More images flashed through her head. Blood. So much blood, on a snow covered field. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the curtain aside.
    
    The cold struck her with a force like a fist. Almost without thought she draped herself in a cloak of fine woven wool, stout leather boots protecting her feet. She would study their fashions later. For now, she needed to stay warm. Shielding her eyes from the glare of the rising sun, she raised her eyes to the world beyond the doorway.
    
    White. They lived in a sea of white. Their world was carpeted by snow. A desert in winter. Beyond the perimeter of the camp, nothing moved. Fires dotted the snow. Men huddled next to the fires, their bodies broken and bleeding and begging for sleep. Hundreds of men. Maybe a thousand or more. Here and there a woman moved among them, bathing wounds and offering a canteen. “My God,” she whispered.
    
    “Ayailla, I—” Roanen stopped, abruptly, mid-sentence. “I am sorry, M’Lady. Marylin. I will learn.”
    
    Marylin closed her eyes, remembering the image she’d seen on the bed. “Marylin is dead. These men have no need for Marylin. They need Ayailla here. In truth they need more than one Ayailla, but as we have but one of me, I shall have to do.”
    
    “Ye give so of thyself, without thought or concern for thy own well being. I would no’ have ye let the lamp burn too low, my love.”
    
    “Then lend me your strength if I need it. But I will not have men suffer and die if I can save them. These men know not Marylin. They know Ayailla. They trust her. They depend on her. Guide me, Roanen. But do not try to stop me.”
    
    His touch turned from soft to firm, an arm under hers, guiding her through the trodden snow. She moved slowly among the men, touching, feeling, learning their pain, healing the worst with a touch.
    
    “Thank ye, M’Lady,” and “We missed ye, M’Lady,” and “‘Tis good to have ye back, M’Lady,” blended together until the morning had no start, no ending, only a sea of faces, hurting, hoping, healing. Too slow. Too slow. At this rate it would take her hours, even days, to reach them all. She reached out, laying her hands on the shoulders of the man to either side of her. Yes. She could manage two at once. And if two, why not more? “Join hands,” she instructed. About the fire, the men reached out to link their energies together.
    
    “Seven gods we learned to name. Earth our Mother guides us all. Wind and Rain are ever her spokesmen. Wolf and Bear and Cat and Falcon are our totem spirits.”
    
    Roanen’s voice led the choir, his chant low and deep, like a monk’s liturgy. The chant shifted, the rhythm as familiar as life itself, and Marylin found herself repeating the words.
    
    Eight diamonds form the star.
    
    One for The Wind, the breath of life.
    
    Two for Water, that lends us sustenance.
    
    Three for The Wolf, Endurance and Faithfulness.
    
    Four for The Bear, Courage and Strength.
    
    Five for The Cat, Swift and Cunning.
    
    Six for The Falcon, Freedom and Vision.
    
    They come together in the centre,
    
    Earth, Our Mother.
    
    Energy spread out from her in a circle, amplified by the ring of hands. The women ceased their wandering, converging on her, lending their strength. From fire to fire she moved, as if in a trance, taking hands, letting the healing flow. So much pain. So many suffered. A dozen at a time was not enough. She called them to her, all who could reach, the circle growing ever broader. Pain. So much pain. So many wounded in spirit.Help me, Mother. Give me strength. She dropped to her knees, to be closer to the Earth. Still they came, some needing, others to add their strength to hers.Show me who I am, Mother, she begged.Heal me as I heal them.
    
    Eight diamonds…two moons. How strange. She could see them both, still pale as the sun pushed back the night. An orbiting piece of space junk, her rational mind supplied.Its sitting at a LaGrange Point. L5 I think. Had she said the words aloud?How odd. Rather large piece of junk.
    
    Enough!
    
    Shammall’s voice, from a long way off. She must ask him about L5. Later. The circle was breaking. The lamp was growing dim. She needed to sleep.
    
     
    
    * * * * *
    
    “She is asleep?”
    
    “I should not have allowed her to try such a thing. She was not ready. I had taught her only the basic rudiments of the magic. If she dies…”
    
    Roanen pushed his ale aside to place a hand on the Mage’s shoulder. “She will no’ die, Shammall. She is strong. She gave of herself out of love. The gods will no’ let her die. Trust in the gods. Trust in thyself. Ye have done all ye can. Ye must rest now. Ye look as pale as the night mists that roll off of the tundra. Sleep while ye can. We move out in the morning.”
    
    “Aye, M’Lord.” With a curt nod of his head, the fairSidhe was off, headed for his own tent. Roanen offered up a prayer for him, for forgetfulness.
    
    “‘Twas I who should have stopped her,” he told the goddess. “Let not the Mage suffer for my negligence, Mother. Guide my hand, I beg ye. Show me how to heal her, else I shall shatter, like pieces of a broken heart.”
    
    “Go to her, Roanen. She needs you. Follow your heart.”
    
    Roanen glanced at the tent. There were worse things than death. This might just be one of them. He downed the rest of his ale, then nodded his head at his page. The boy ran to his side, his small, sure fingers quick on the leather straps that secured shin guards and bracers and greaves. Roanen divested himself of his weapons as well, even the small boot knife he wore always ready at hand.
    
    The boy looked up, a question in his eyes.
    
    “No’ tonight, Garreth. I go to a different sort of battle this night.”
    
    The boy’s eyes widened in fear. “Has the Lady turned Berserker, M’Lord?”
    
    “I know not. But should she, I will no have weapons about where she might reach them.”
    
    “Take the knife at least, M’Lord, for thy own defense.”
    
    “No, boy. Listen, and listen well. No matter what happens to me, the Lady must live. Understand me? Ye will live to serve under the one she will bear, the Lady Evalayna. Evalayna is the child of prophecy, favored of the gods. Without Evalayna, the lands will fall to darkness. Understand me?”
    
    The boy trembled, then threw back his shoulders bravely. “Aye, M’Lord. If by my life or my death I can protect the lady, it shall be done.”
    
    “Spoken like a true Warrior,” Roanen praised. He patted the boy on the shoulder before he stole off to his bed.
    
     
    
    * * * * *
    
    A soft whoosh of air across his face awakened Roanen instantly, had him reaching for his knife.
    
    It was not there. He’d left his weapons with Garreth.
    
    Then he remembered why.
    
    He reached out cautiously in the darkness, but found the place beside him empty. “Marylin?” he whispered.
    
    Nothing. Nothing but the sound of his own frightened breathing. “Ayailla?”
    
    Mayhap she had needed to relieve herself. Mayhap—
    
    Whoosh.
    
    He rolled in time to miss the impact of the teeth as they grabbed for his throat, warned by the movement of air as she lunged at him.
    
    For he knew it was Ayailla. Gods forgive him. She had turned. There was no fate worse for Clan Wolf. She’d so exhausted herself as to let her humanity slip away. With a thought, he shifted, his sharp wolf senses hunting for her in the darkness.
    
    There. He’d know her scent anywhere. Her low throaty growl was all the warning he had as she charged again, her fangs glistening in the pale light. He feigned, his teeth reaching for her shoulder, only to turn at the last moment and roll out of the way.
    
    He could not kill her. Not now. Not after all he’d sacrificed to bring her back. There had to be a way to reach her. To make her remember. He called to her softly, the mournful call of a Wolf who’d lost his mate. She stiffened, listening, hesitating a moment before she lunged again. Then she was on him, teeth snapping, claws raking, her intent deadly and vicious.
    
    They rolled together, her hind legs clawing, trying to rip at his guts. He fought her in earnest now. If he lost, if she escaped, the others would kill her. The pack could not afford a Berserker on the loose. They tumbled and rolled, teeth tearing loose patches of hide, blood making them slippery. At last he feigned injury as she raked her fangs over his forearm, yelping in terror as he rolled to his side. She lunged for his exposed throat. With a twist he had her, his teeth firmly anchored in her ruff, his paws hooked over her shoulders, pinning her flat.
    
    She whimpered under him, her body suddenly going soft, her posture acquiescent.
    
    He was not such a fool. There was nothing in Ayailla or Marylin that would ever give up so easily. If he released her she would battle him to the death. But how could he reach her? He had to find the woman in this maddened creature.
    
    As he shifted his weight over her, his cock brushed her opening, growing instantly hard. By the gods his body had bad timing. He shifted again, trying to think of anything but sex.
    
    Beneath him he felt the crazed she-wolf tremble. She sniffed at him, turning her head as far as she could with her neck caught in his hold. “Mate,” he told her. “Remember me, Love. Remember us. I am thy mate.”
    
    She stretched under him, tentatively, until his cock rubbed her again. His body’s reaction was inevitable. He tensed, his cock shooting towards her, ready to mount her in earnest. With a small mewling noise she pushed up with her hips, shifting her tail out of the way.
    
    It was all the invitation his willing cock needed. With all the savagery of the Wolf he named himself, he thrust into her, her tight, wet sheath bidding him welcome. Powerful muscles captured him, pulling him in farther with wave after wave of undulating spasms. He jerked his hips over her, pounding into her in a rhythm no man could match. Hard and hot and angry and frightened for both of them, he buried himself within her time and again. Nothing could match this. Tight, tight, so tight he fought her for escape with each stroke.
    
    “Mate?” she whimpered, calling him back.
    
    “Mate,” he assured her, slowing his attack, remembering why he was there. He buried himself deep within her, forcing himself to hold steady. “My mate. My love.”
    
    She twisted beneath him, as far as she could, her eyes, wet with wolf tears, turning toward his. Her voice came as a whimper, both frightened and hopeful. “My mate?”
    
    “Thine. Forever and always,” he agreed, loving the sound of his name in Wolf tongue. The wolf tried to push him, to tease him to resume their mating, but the man who owned the wolf’s body ruled now.
    
    Beneath him she shifted, ever so slowly, as if she fought to remember the body of the woman. Sliding out of her, Roanen shifted, his hands taking tight hold where his paws had been. He was not such a besotted fool as to trust her. Not yet.
    
    Carefully, cautiously, he shifted his grip, letting her face up from where it smashed against the silk pillows, rolling her until he could look into her eyes. He held her with his body weight, his hands locked over hers, pinning her to the bed, lest she attack once again, while he used his voice to calm her. “Ye are safe, my love. No one will harm ye. I am here.”
    
    Wild, dilated eyes shifted their focus in rhythm to her heavy, labored breathing.
    
    “I am here, my love. Trust me. I am Roanen, and I love ye.”
    
    She squirmed under him, her hands fisting and releasing as her hips thrust up against him, whether in ardor or attempting escape he was not sure. One leg slipped loose, her foot sliding up his leg to shove his hips down hard against her, grinding his cock against her mons.
    
    That he was sure of. He lifted just slightly, sliding slowly into her wet, willing channel. He was tempted to close his eyes, to lose himself in the moment, but he had to stay in control. This time he had to be the one in control. There was nothing so dangerous as a Wolf Woman who had turned Berserker. If she forgot who she was, what she was, she could kill him in an instant. His life was a small price to pay, but if she was not yet pregnant, the prophecy might die here this night as well, and the evil they fought would win.
    
    He thrust into her slowly, savoring every stroke, every nuance of each movement, ever quiver, every moan that tore from her throat. So little time. They had had so little time together. He stored up the memories for the long years he would spend searching for her again. Always he remembered. Remembered the wanting, remembered the needing, remembered the glory that was the promise he read in her eyes.
    
    She fought him now, fought him as a woman, nipped at him with teeth that could still rip his flesh if she tried, but instead captured his lip, pulling him down for a kiss that threatened his own sanity. Sweet. She tasted sweet as fine aged Merlot. His tongue raked her mouth, savoring every ridge, every swirl as she battled with him. He loosed her arms now to hold her as a man, his fingers raking her scalp as his hips pistoned against her, testing the depths of her hot, wet cunt.
    
    Both of her legs locked around him now, her feet drumming his ass while her nails raked over his back. She tightened around him, her whole body going rigid and flushed. He waited, savoring the sensations as her cunt gripped his cock in waves of pleasure, let her ride out the storm, then took up the battle once more. So little time. He buried himself in her fully, searching for the bliss that would make him forget.
    
    If they had only this moment, this hour, this day, it would be enough. He had found her again. He had memories that would last him a lifetime should he fail the next time. But he would not fail. Unless the world shifted again, he would come back as a Wolf, and he had her scent. ‘Twould not be so hard to find her again.
    
    Her hands clenched on his waist as she tightened again, her voice a muffled scream as she bit at his shoulder. The long, tight spasms of her delicious cunt pulled at him, warred with him, begged him to follow this time. Just when he thought he might manage a while longer, her teeth moved to his nipple, biting and licking until he lost all control, trusting wildly into her, a man driven by desperation.
    
    “Say my name,” he ordered. “Tell me ye know who I am, Wolf Woman!”
    
    She growled and bit him again, the pain so intense he howled as he shot his load into her, twisting and bucking as the pain and the pleasure collided.
    
    “Roanen,” she cried as he exploded into her. “You’re Roanen. My lover, my husband, my mate.”
    
    Roanen laughed and kissed her again, her lips sweet and soft against his as he thrust slowly through the last lingering shivers of their desire. “Forever and always, my love. This I swear.”
    
    “Forever and always,” she whispered back to him as he gathered her into his arms. “I think I must sleep for a time.”
    
    “Sleep, my love. I shall watch over ye.”
    
    “I love you, Roanen,” she whispered as she lost her battle, her eyes slipping closed.
    
    His heart filled with her till his eyes pooled with tears he would not shed. So little time. But it was always enough. “Wherever we go I will find ye, my love. Ye may lose me for a time, but always I will find ye again. Wait for me next time. I promise ‘twill no’ take me so long. I love ye more than life itself.”
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
    Chapter Five
    
     
    
    “Ye shall be the death of me, my love. Ye must never, never do that again.”
    
    Her head hurt, worse than any hangover she’d ever had.
    
    Water. A cool cloth. It appeared in her hand, as if by magic.
    
    Oh. This was where she’d come in on this dream the first time. With the damned headache. Marylin sighed. Made sense, now. Overindulgence of magic led to a headache, worse than any hangover she’d ever had. Well, she didn’t have to be a fucking genius to figure that one out.
    
    Shit. Her head wasn’t all that hurt.
    
    A buzz like a thousand bees assaulted her ear. Roanen’s voice droned on, in a long, low monologue designed, she was sure, to annoy her beyond all hope of redemption. What was the man whining about?
    
    “Come back to me, my love. Can ye not see I need ye here? I know ye can hear my voice. ‘Tis the voice of a man who needs his woman, his wife, his daughter’s mother, his Shaman. Wake up, my love. Come back to me.”
    
    Marylin forced her voice to remain calm, low, so that her head might not shatter. “Roanen, if you don’t shut the fuck up right this instant I shall crawl out of this bed and kill you.”
    
    The sound started as a soft chuckle, then built, a snort, a chortle, then full-fledged, roaring laughter.
    
    Marylin opened one eye and aimed a tiny bolt of anger at him. “Die, you bastard.”
    
    He dodged, letting the small fireball whiz by to singe the curtains. “Welcome back, my love!”
    
    The laughter sat well on his tired face. Despite herself, she began to smile. “Where are we, and how did we get here?”
    
    “We are returned to House Lindall, my love. Thanks to ye, the men were fit enough to shift. We crossed the tundra in but four days. They are very grateful to ye.”
    
    She’d slept for four days? He’d marched for four days, transporting an army and tents and injured men. And her. Now he stood guardian over her as she slept. No wonder he looked tired. “How long have you been sitting beside me, you big oaf? An hour? A day? A week? Can I not trust you to take any care of yourself?”
    
    He came to sprawl beside her on the bed, propping himself up on one elbow to smile down into her face. “A day, a week, what does it matter, so long as ye are by my side?”
    
    Her fingers traced the lines of strain in his face, soothing, relaxing, with the gentlest touch of her mind. “It matters, my love. You matter to me. I love you, Roanen. If I remembered nothing, still I would love you. Perhaps I’m here to protect you from yourself. I know you meant only to take care of me, Roanen, but you cannot take care of me if you do not take care of yourself.”
    
    His hand over hers stayed her fingers, and he turned his lips against them. She felt the warmth spread through her at first contact. “Perhaps,” he murmured, “We were meant to take care of each other.”
    
    Marylin brushed her lips over his beard-roughened cheek. “Perhaps. Are you feeling more rested, then?”
    
    “Ye have the healer’s touch,” Roanen laughed. “And if ye had no’, just the sight of ye would restore my spirit.”
    
    Marylin giggled as she slid her hand down his belly to tease his already hard cock. “‘Twould seem more than your spirit has been restored.”
    
    His smile grew even wider. “Do ye know,Mel~amin , how beautiful ye are to me?”
    
    “Have you not grown tired of me, then? Four thousand years is a long time to love the same woman.”
    
    “Or the same man. In truth, I have worried that ye might remember how oft I have angered ye, rather than how much ye have loved me.”
    
    She tasted his mouth lightly, her blood warming at the touch of those soft, gentle lips. “Perhaps that is why the memories become indistinct, that we might remember only how necessary we are to one another.” The heavy leggings apparently were not necessary in the house. She slipped her hand under his kilt to caress his naked cock, wrapping her fingers around the hot, jutting length of him. How she loved the feel of him. Satin-smooth skin, soft and sensitive to her touch, over shaft of pure, solid heat. “This much I remember for certain, my love. Always I have loved you. And always I have loved making love to you.”
    
    “Are ye trying to seduce me, woman?”
    
    “Aye.”
    
    He laughed, rolling to take her into his arms. “Ye did that many lifetimes ago. For me, nothing has changed. The sun still rises and sets at thy will. Would ye have me as thy Lord and Master, or thy slave? It matters not. Always I am thine.”
    
    The possibilities. Marylin grinned. Like the flavors at an ice cream shop. She always had such a hard time choosing. “It could be my mind has grown fuzzy, to where I can no longer tell the difference between truth and dreams, but I seem to remember a very large wolf standing over me. How did you do that?”
    
    Something flickered in his eyes, some doubt, some question. “We are Clan of the Wolf, M’Lady. ‘Tis our way.”
    
    Her mind sifted back through hundreds of Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels. Werewolves? “Can you do this at any time, or only when you mate? Or only when the moon is full?”
    
    One heavy black eyebrow arched as if she’d gone quite mad. “The moons have naught to do with it. Those of Clan Wolf can shift at any time. The first time is the hardest. The first shift comes after the change, when the cubs’ bodies ripen with maturity. Usually a cub shifts when he or she mates for the first time, but it may happen in the rage and lust of battle, as well. Once a cub has joined the pack, they can shift at will.” As if to prove his point, Roanen shifted, blending so easily from man to wolf that she almost didn’t realize what he was doing until green eyes laughed at her over a long black muzzle highlighted with silver.
    
    So they could control the shift. Like another set of clothes they put on at will. Not werewolves, then. Shape-shifters. “Is that what you were afraid of, Roanen? That I would not wish to mate with you? That I would not change with you when we first mated here? That Marylin would not love you as Ayailla had?”
    
    Roanen closed his eyes for a moment, the strain of the last weeks showing once again on his face. “Aye, my love. When couples mate for the first time, they shift together as a bonded pair, as a symbol of their commitment. I wanted ye aware before we took that step. I should have taken the time to explain.”
    
    “You will always be my chosen mate. I remember reading somewhere that wolves mate for life. But I have mated with you for dozens of lifetimes. Mate with me, Roanen. Claim me once again as your own.”
    
    His eyes, human again, widened, then narrowed with pleasure. Like a hungry predator he growled his response, his breath drawing in sharply. “Do not tease me, my love.”
    
    He might feel soft and gentle under her touch, but he was the Warrior she’d longed for. The hint of danger in his intense gaze made her shiver in anticipation. She nipped at his jaw, all thought of teasing gone. “I want you, Roanen. I do not need more time to remember. I want you as you are to me. My mate.”
    
    With a feral snarl he was over her, all thought of tenderness gone from his eyes. Sharp teeth snapped at her shoulder, nipping hard before he paused to lick the spot where his teeth marks showed. An answering lust, equally primitive, sent waves of fire through her core. Her sheath flooded with hot, liquid desire. She tore at him, her nails raking his chest as she fought his clothing to free more skin to her touch.
    
    He reared back, loosing the kilt so that it puddled around them, skimming the tunic over his head.
    
    She’d never seen him naked in full light before. Never taken the time to fully appreciate his body. He was perfect. A Greek god. The statue of a Warrior. Broad shouldered and lean at the hips, rippling with muscles that bunched and shifted as he stalked her across the bed.
    
    “Wait! Give me a minute.”
    
    His eyes narrowed even farther, his snarl like a hungry wolf approaching his kill, but he paused, held frozen in time by her will. “‘Tis a poor time to change thy mind, my love.”
    
    “Never,” she promised. “I just wanted—needed—you’re so perfect. I wanted to capture that picture of you in my heart. You make me feel small, for the first time in my life. I—you’re everything to me, Roanen. I’ve never wanted anything as I want you.”
    
    “Then ye shall have me,” he promised. He didn’t shift then, as she had thought he might. Instead he pinned her helpless beneath him, her hands under his, as he hovered over her, kissing first her mouth, then down to her chin, his teeth closing and holding for a moment over the soft skin of her throat. She knew the tiniest trace of fear. He could end her life with but a thought. Instead he licked at the pulse that bubbled under his lips.
    
    Coils of molten desire tore through her, demanding release.Now. Now! Make it now, Roanen!
    
    Still he toyed with her, licking, kissing, nipping with teeth sharp enough to draw blood. Teeth and tongue branded her, washing her skin with desire. His cock burned against her as he moved, trapped between them like a glowing rod from the fire as he ground his hips against hers in long, slow, lazy circles. “Do ye know,” he growled, “How I missed ye?”
    
    Her breast strained to reach him, aching for his touch. “As I have missed you,” she breathed, searching for any part of him she could reach, pinned as he held her. Finding only his ear, she sucked at its edge, her tongue darting in small patterns over its surface.
    
    She felt his cock quiver as he stiffened, his whole body going rigid. “By the gods, woman, ye shall be the death of me.”
    
    “Mate with me, Roanen. Now!”
    
    “Patience, my love. The getting there is half the fun.” His kisses moved from her shoulder to the spot between her breasts, so close to the nipples that strained toward his touch. “Marry me, Marylin. Say ye will be my bride.”
    
    She stilled beneath him, confusion warring with desire. “I thought we were married?”
    
    “Do ye remember the ceremony? Do ye remember the vows we took together? I would not have ye bound by words we said long ago.”
    
    “How could we hide a thing like that? Your people will already consider us as husband and wife. If we tell them I’m not Ayailla, will they trust me?”
    
    Finally, now that she was thoroughly distracted, he decided to pay attention to her straining nipples. “A couple may choose to repeat their vows before their gods and their houses, as an act of faith and a renewal of their commitment to one another. Only we will know what the words mean to us. Say ye marry me, Marylin. Once again.”
    
    How many times had she said the words? “Yes!” she fairly screamed as his teeth closed over the elongated tip of her nipple. “Now, and again, and a dozen times more if the fates allow. Mate with me Roanen! God, you’re driving me crazy!”
    
    She spread herself open as far as she could as he rose up enough to brush the tip of his cock over her clit. He was lying. He didn’t really want to marry her. He wanted to kill her. Marylin lunged at him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he alternately licked and sucked her tits.
    
    “Now!” she ordered.
    
    He only chuckled.“Patience,Mel~amin . We have all the time in the world.”
    
    “I don’t care! I want you now!”
    
    “And you shall have me,” he promised. But instead of his cock, he gave her his tongue. He slipped low enough to breathe in hot waves over her aching clit before he lowered his stubbled cheeks to rub them over her wet, needy flesh. Marylin nearly screamed in frustration before he sucked her tiny member into his mouth, teasing the tip with his tongue.
    
    “Oh, God! You are trying to kill me!” she shrieked. “Roanen!”
    
    He let go of her hands to put his own to better use, one busy set of fingers fastening to her left nipple, tweaking and tugging, while the others slid into her cunt. “Ye are so wet for me,” he teased. “Do ye desire me so much, then?”
    
    “Yes!” was all she could manage.
    
    First two, then three fingers slipped in and out of her, becoming slick and slippery in her juices. She writhed and bucked against him, forced past the point of all endurance. “Roanen!” she screamed.
    
    “Sing for me, woman of the Wolf Clan. I would hear ye sing.”
    
    What? What did he want? What did that mean? “I don’t—”
    
    His tongue began a fresh assault on her clit, and she screamed as she broke under him, thousands of tiny pieces of her soul shattering like so many panes of stained glass. She screamed, and screamed again as his fingers pounded into her, harder, harder, her nails raking his shoulders as she fought to escape the sensations that asked for too much of her. “Roanen!”
    
    “Sing for me!”
    
    She was sure she could take no more, but he pushed, and pushed, and pushed her farther. She must escape him before he destroyed her! She fought him in earnest now, afraid, as he replaced his tongue with his cock, pounding into her with hot, burning thrusts, his grip bruising her hips as he took all she knew how to give him. “Roanen! I cannot—”
    
    “Sing for me!”
    
    He sucked her breast into his mouth as he bent over her, his cock thrusting deeply, demanding more, more. She broke again, her sheath tightening around him like fists of steel, her heels locked around his ass, her hips pistoning against him in a short, staccato rhythm. There was no more! What did he want? What was he trying to wring from her? She would give him anything. He owned her soul. But she could not give what she did not understand.
    
    Her body screamed with the loss as he pulled free, turning her face down against the bedding. She grabbed a small silk throw pillow to hug against her chest, biting its edges to keep from screaming as he pumped back into her, deeper, impossibly deeper now, so hard and so strong she could not understand how he had the strength to continue. Could this be the same man she had thought near exhaustion but a few minutes ago? What did he want? What was he waiting for? What more could there possibly be?
    
    A new ache built in her, one she’d not felt before. She wanted. She needed. Something. Something just out of reach. He slipped a hand under her to stroke over her clit, torturing her as the need grew stronger, more demanding.How many times could a woman come? How many ways could a woman come? She twisted, writhing against him, snapping and snarling, trying to reach him with her teeth.Now, damn it! Now! Take me with you now!
    
    She opened her mouth to scream out his name, but instead a high, shrill cry tore through the cool winter air. She screamed again, knowing the sound for what it was, knowing at last what he asked of her. It was the mating call of the wolf! She looked down to find the hands that raked at the bedclothes were paws, tipped with sharp claws. Roanen’s voice laughed behind her, but only another wolf would recognize the laughter in his bark. She understood now. He had been waiting for her to shift first this time.
    
    As she fisted around his wolf’s cock, tying them together, he shattered, pumping her wolf’s body full of his sperm in wave after wave of long, hot release. His voice broke over her, answering her mating cry, and they sang together, both voices tinged with laughter.
    
    For a long time after they lay together, while she held him trapped within her, tied as wolves. The fact that her body would not release its hold on his cock, that he could not escape without possibly injuring himself, did not seem to concern Roanen at all. Perhaps he was used to mating this way, but she found it strange. Did the women of the Wolf Clan increase their chances of conception like this? Or was the mating done strictly to honor their gods?
    
    If she had been younger, if she had been more fertile, she knew the timing was right. Surly she would have conceived this time. Had she met this man, this perfect dream lover, when she was younger, surely he would have given her the children she’d longed for.
    
    “What are you thinking, my love?”
    
    Were the words human? Or was she learning to speak wolf? Did it matter? She snuggled against the warmth of his body. “I was thinking that such exercise must take its toll on a body, even one so strong as your own. You must sleep, Roanen. Magic alone cannot sustain you.”
    
    He curled around her, one hand cupping her breast. “If ‘twill please ye, I will sleep for a time.”
    
    “‘Twill please me,” she assured him as she turned her head to kiss his shoulder. “Everything about you pleases me.”
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
    Chapter Six
    
     
    
    A soft whisper of footfalls reached her from the empty hallway at her back. Someone was following her. Marylin made her way a bit farther before she turned into a large, sun filled room. The dark presence looming behind her should have had her screaming for help.
    
    Instead she stopped, waiting for him to come to her. Why should she be afraid? No one would think to harm her here. She was Ayailla. All loved her and feared her. She was a powerful Mage. No. A powerful Shaman. A Mage could not heal.
    
    Of course she wasn’t nearly as powerful as most people thought she was, but Ayailla had been very powerful, and Marylin knew she would need to be as well.
    
    The figure moved out of the shadows, appearing almost wraithlike as he moved to her side. “Ayailla loved the Solarium.”
    
    Yes. She would have. ‘Twas a perfect place to study, or simply bask in the sunlight. “What was she like?”
    
    “Warm, and generous, giving always of herself, M’Lady. She was much like you.”
    
    “Pieces of her come back to me from time to time. Yet I fear to remember too much. I don’t want to lose myself to regain Ayailla’s memories.”
    
    “You are who you are, M’Lady. You are pieces of all your lives. You are young, but you have a very old soul.”
    
    “Young?” Marylin snorted. “I’m forty-five. I do not feel young any more. Far from it. What I wouldn’t give for your youth, Shammall.”
    
    He laughed at that, a magical, quicksilver sound. “I have seen the moons cycle more than sixteen hundred times, M’Lady.”
    
    Math? She hated math. “My ex-husband was a math professor. How old is that in years?”
    
    “One hundred and twenty three, M’Lady.”
    
    “One hundred and…” Marylin sat down abruptly on the bench by the window. “Are Elves immortal, then?”
    
    “Elves? No, M’Lady, I believe not. Neither are my people. Though we are very long lived.”
    
    “And who are your people?”
    
    Shammall raise one long, thin eyebrow in a high arch. “TheTuatha Dé DanannofTir na nÓg, M’Lady. We are called among men by the name ofSidhe , or Faerie.”
    
    Faerie. A six-foot-four faerie. Marylin blinked, then blinked again, trying to assimilate that information. “My own Oberon.”
    
    “I do not understand, M’Lady.”
    
    “Shakespeare, fromA Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare was awell-known playwright of almost a thousand years ago. He wrote of the King of the Faeries, Oberon, and his Queen,Titania. They had had a falling out over a pretty human boy she wanted to keep for herself. Or perhaps it was one of his lovers.”
    
    A smile pulled at Shammall’s straight line of a mouth. “My father has many names, M’Lady, but I have never know him to be called Oberon. Yet the rest of the story fits. The King’s and Queen’s courts agreed to disagree more than three centuries ago. And where Pajja is concerned, there are always women involved.”
    
    Marylin stared at him incredulously. “Your father is the King of the Faeries and his name is Pajja?”
    
    “Yes, M’Lady. Well, hisSidhe name is not really Pajja. That is the name Humans call him, as I am called Shammall. Our language is much older than the common tongue, so we take names the Humans will find more palatable to their tongues.”
    
    “Shammall, the point is that you’re the son of the King—theKing mind you—of Faerie! Who am I to have such as you as my—my whatever you are? Advisor?”
    
    Shammall laughed. “I am notthe son of the King of theSidhe , M’Lady. I ama son. One of hundreds.Sidhe breed true. A Human mother or a Wolf or a Bear, it matters not. My mother was an Elf, one of the elite from the fair city of Talismar. But she could have been a Dark Elf from Élahandara. Twould not have mattered.Sidhe breedSidhe . My father alone has sought to repopulate the world withSidhe , siring children with any woman who would have him.”
    
    “You have every right to be bitter, or even jealous, Shammall. But know that you’re loved. Roanen, too, holds you in his heart as he would a son.”
    
    “Jealousy is a Human emotion, M’Lady. I know it not. I know duty and honor and good and evil.”
    
    “And love?”
    
    For that, a wash of regret passed subtly across his features, gone before most would have seen it. “I know duty and honor. These things I love. These things I live for.”
    
    Marylin smiled, tucking that information away for future reference. “You will know love, Shammall. Somewhere, someday, when you least expect it. Love will come to you. The moons may cycle many times more before love finds you, but when it does, do not be afraid to give your heart.”
    
    He looked so uncomfortable that Marylin laughed, changing the subject. “I would know your father’s name, that I might address him properly should I meet him.”
    
    Shammall frowned. “I think you would find his full name a bit hard to pronounce, M’Lady, but I will tell it you, as there is great power in aSidhe’s name. You might have need to call upon him some day. He is known among theTuatha Dé Danann asPawiaeadja Adhamhán Élanadhache.”
    
    She’d always been good with ancient languages, but this sounded like a mixture of Ancient Egyptian and Old Gaelic with a mouthful of river sand thrown in for good measure. “Try that again.”
    
    “Pawiaeadja Adhamhán Élanadhache.”
    
    “Paw-edge-ja…”
    
    “Pawiaeadja.”
    
    “Paw-ead-ja?”
    
    Laughing, he tried again, slowly. “Pawiaeadja Adhamhán Élanadhache.”
    
    “Write it down for me.”
    
    Laughter lit Shammall’s deep lavender eyes as he printed the words in large, bold script.
    
    It looked like a mixture of Egyptian and some old Gaelic dialect. Spelled like Gaelic. Mentally she reduced the Gaelic vowel redundancies and worked her way through what was left. “Pawijja Adhaman Elanadash,” she pronounced carefully.
    
    “Close enough. Should you ever need him, you have but to speak his name.”
    
    Just saying his name would invoke the King of the Faeries?There is great power in a Sidhe’s name … “And what of you, Shammall? Have you a name I can call?”
    
    A heartbeat passed, and another. She sensed him weighing her, his trust hanging in the balance. When he spoke, his voice was so low she had to strain to hear. “Shaymmadah Lochlairnen Élanadhache.” Once there was a ‘son of’ in there—son of the house ofÉlanadhache —but I choose the simpler form.”
    
    Simpler. Oh, yes. Leaving the articles out made it sooo much easier. Ayailla snorted as Shammall printed his own name below the King’s. Well, at least it was True Gaelic. She could read it. At least the first name. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,Shaymmadah.” She paused to smile up at him. “I was once known as Nylanéfer, High Priestess to the goddess Bast, Protector of Upper and Lower Egypt, and the House of Ra. Now I’m only Marylin Henry, Professor of Ancient History. But I want to be more. Clan Wolf needs me to be more. I sense that Ayailla loved you very much, Shammall. She trusted you. I would do the same. I need your help, Shammall. There is much I must learn if I’m to survive in this time. Teach me. Help me to become Ayailla.”
    
    The tall, fairSidhe knelt once again before her. “There is much in a name, M’Lady. Our name holds the key to our soul. Nylanéfer Marylin Ayailla, it would be my great honor to accept you as my pupil. I live but to serve you, M’Lady.”
    
    “I have not a sword to knight you with, Shammall, but had I one I would name you Sir Shammall, and I would make you my Knight Protector.”
    
    “‘Tis as well, M’Lady,” Shammall agreed. “I care not for edged weapons.”
    
    “Mama?” a voice called from the doorway. “Mama? Thee are well again?”
    
    Marylin looked up, pure terror in her heart.Mother of my children…
    
    She was, perhaps, four or five years old. Too tall, too thin, with a face that told of too much worry for one so young. Marylin held out her arms, feeling suddenly too shaken to move.
    
    One hesitant step. Two. Then the little girl was running across the room, her small body flung into Marylin’s arms.
    
    No. Ayailla’s arms. Whatever it took, however hard she had to work, she would be Ayailla. If not for herself, then for this innocent one.
    
    “I was afraid. When Papa said ye had taken the full force of Nafésti’s firebolt, I was afraid ye might not know me.”
    
    She formed the words in her head, her attention to the accent making her critical of every detail. “If Nafésti had blasted every thought from my head, if ye were a total stranger to me, still I would love ye, child. Truly, I have forgotten much, but know this. Never, never have I forgotten how to love thee.”
    
    Shammall rose, bowing deeply. “I will meet you here in the morning, M’Lady, that we might begin your training.” He turned to the child. “Travanya, perhaps you can help me.”
    
    Marylin could have loved him for that alone.Travanya . The child had a name.
    
    The little girl looked uncertain. “How can I help, Mage?”
    
    “I will be in charge of spells and all matter of combat. I shall leave history to you.”
    
    Travanya brightened at that. “I’m good at history.”
    
    “Bring your books, and recite your lessons to your mother, then. I shall quiz you both at the end of the week.”
    
    Marylin—no, Ayailla—hugged the child tightly. “We shall study together. I like that. ‘Twill be fun.”
    
    “Shall I get my books now, Mother, or are ye too tired?”
    
    “Ye can get them in a few. But first, fetch me a brush. We must do something about thy hair.”
    
    Travanya giggled as she ran from the room, her waist-length tangles winging out behind her like the wings of a large black bird.
    
    “I thank thee, great goddess,” Ayailla whispered. “Ye have given me every prayer I have ever asked of thee.”
    
     
    
    * * * * *
    
    “Again.”
    
    Panting hard, Ayailla swung to face her attacker. Damn the Mage. He could shape shift into almost anything. This time ‘twas a ten foot tall Ogre. She knew them all, now, the enemies of this land. Orc. Troll. Ogre. Élandra—the Dark Elves, whose High Priestess was Nafésti.
    
    Ogre was, she decided, definitely the worst. Though she’d thought that of the troll. She swung her staff to block.
    
    “Cataclysm,” Travanya instructed, giggling as Ayailla missed and the “Ogre” landed a training size fireball that singed her robe.
    
    She knew the history. Some of it she’d seen coming. The change of the seasons. The shifting of the poles. Scientists of her time had passed it off as Global Warming. It had been so much more. Mother Earth, herself, had suffered from their neglect, and had nearly died. Wars and disease and the rising oceans and changing tides had left Earth’s populace on the waning edge. A dying populace on a dying planet.
    
    The moon she’d named L5 was, as she suspected, an orbiting piece of space junk. Debris from a passing comet’s tail. A new ice age, caused by the ash, brought an end to the global warming, saving what little was left of the landmasses still above water from being lost for hundreds of thousands of years.
    
    She told the story their way now, both to entertain the daughter she’d come to adore, and to test her concentration.
    
    “In the long ago before, the magic that had been in the world since the beginning of time fled, hiding from the great unbelief. People no longer acknowledged the gods. Humans ruled, and the races became as one. The gods lost touch with the world.”
    
    Lightning strike to singe the Ogre’s toes.
    
    “In this way the centuries passed, and the people began to build machines to take the place of the gods. They worshipped the machines and ignored Earth. The people warred among themselves. Earth suffered, and at last she began to die. Disease and pestilence ruled. Kine and other domestic animals died by the thousands. Famine ruled the lands. The air was no longer pure. The plants and the young trees suffered and died. The great waters rose to swallow the land.”
    
    Block another fireball and parry with shards of ice. Small. Keep the blasts small. Training size. Behind the Ogre was still Shammall.
    
    “The machines the Humans had built to protect themselves failed as the knowledge of their maintenance passed away. Eventually mankind was reduced to a shadowy existence, living in caves and under the earth. Earth was no longer strong enough to defend herself, and at last the cosmos itself conspired against her. Asteroids bombarded her, pieces set adrift from another dying universe far from here. Among the debris was the moon of a long ago world, drifting homeless and bereft. That moon sought to join the dying Earth, that they might end their grief together.”
    
    She would end this Ogre’s grief. She changed tactics, planting her feet and standing her ground. Two shots of pure energy, one from each hand as she dropped the stupid, cumbersome piece of useless wood.
    
    “Of the gods, only Wind and Rain still maintained hope. Those two roused the others to assist Earth, to revive her from her deadly lethargy. Despair was rampant, but their end was eminent. They had to act to survive. Together they bent their wills to revive Earth’s spirit. The six pleaded with Earth to resist the new moon’s pull. At last she roused herself, shaking off some of the layers of her despair. Still, she was not strong enough to fight the influence of the new moon completely.”
    
    “M’Lady, you must use the staff.” Shammall’s voice, coming from an Ogre. Ayailla and Travanya both laughed as Ayailla summoned the staff back into her hands.
    
    “Instead, as is her way, Earth compromised. She made a pact with the new moon to provide him a home, an end to his ceaseless journeying. In exchange, the moon would awaken the old magic. The moon’s compromise was not without price. The tides changed, and the cold returned to the planet. Some of the waters receded as the ice caps froze again, and Earth revealed herself once more to mankind. The tundra spread down from the north, and mankind fought to survive against the elements.”
    
    The staff had its uses. As the Ogre changed tactics to charge her, its arms flailing wildly, Ayailla lifted the staff, bringing it down hard on the Ogre’s head.
    
    “The changes the magic wrought were subtle at first. Earth found that there were those among us who could hear her voice once again. The old races, absent since before the magic fled, returned. The gods spoke, and we learned once again how to listen.”
    
    The Ogre sat rubbing his head, looking as stunned and stupid as a hundred-year-old Fey creature pretending to be an Ogre could.
    
    “Seven gods we learned to name. Earth our Mother guides us all. Wind and Rain are ever her spokesmen. Wolf and Bear and Cat and Falcon are our totem spirits. We of the Northlands are the first among the peoples of the Earth. We are the chosen ones. Our Shamen are gifted with strong magic. We have the task of guiding our people. Our daughters are prized, and welcome in every household on Earth. We follow the Way of the Wolf. To the East live our sisters, who sing the Song of The Bear. Their daughters and their sons, like ours, are great Warriors and Clerics. Where the Earth is warmer the Cat people bask in the sun, in a place called Talismar, where the Elves walk in the trees.”
    
    “And you will not find a snottier bunch ofprima donnas than the Elves,” the Shammall-Ogre added, lumbering back to his feet.
    
    Ayailla thumped him again on his head, urging him to stay seated.
    
    “The oldest magic belongs to those who have returned from before. The spirits of the Fey often lead them to serve as Mages. As the Falcons they watch over us, their mission to serve and protect, their ways mysterious.”
    
    She looked down at Shammall. “Over us, up at us, what is the difference?”
    
    Shammall growled as he rolled, coming up in a crouch out of her reach.
    
    “The Dwarves are the keepers of Earth, her core, and her center, and they burrow within her, being privy to her secrets. They are the smiths of fine weapons and sturdy armor for those with the strength to bear such encumbrance. The Humans have scattered, like the Wind and the Rain, living at all points of the compass. Dark races there are, as well, lurking ever in the shadows, but theirs are tales for another day.”
    
    “Mother, will ye have to face Nafésti again?”
    
    “I know not,” Ayailla admitted. “But if I do, I shall be ready.” She turned toward the charging Ogre, leveling the tip of her staff this time, blasting him full front with a wave of sleep.
    
    The Ogre paused in mid-stride, a look of shock on his face, before he tumbled slowly, almost acrobatically to the floor, landing with a thud like a falling tree.
    
    “I believe,” Ayailla smirked, “That we’re done for this day. Shall we go see what Cook has for us in the kitchen?”
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
    Epilogue
    
     
    
    An image flashed through her mind, of blood. So much blood. Of electricity charging the air, of creatures much like Shammall, but dark, their skin so black it shone blue in the sunlight. The Dark Ones did not fight her themselves. She couldn’t get to them. Instead they’d sent down an army of Orcs. She knew them as soon as she saw them. The gray-skinned horrors appeared half man, half some ancient primate. Their long arms reached nearly to the ground when they ran, and their shorter, more compact bodies held the strength of two men. The gods had not gifted them with excessive brainpower, but thinking was not what Orcs were needed for. They were here to fight. They felt no fear, not even of their own deaths.
    
    The screams of the dying filled her ears, and an ocean of blood washed over her. Anger. So much anger within her that these beings threatened her people. She hit them with wave after wave of fire and ice. The stench of burning flesh fouled the air. She slaughtered them in waves, and still they came. Her people were dying. All that she knew and loved would die with them. There would be nothing left. Travanya would grow up with neither a mother nor a father to teach her their ways. And if she lived, she would be alone again. No matter what happened, she would lose Roanen.
    
    She couldn’t let him go. Not again.
    
    A Dark Elf Priestess appeared in the midst of the Orcs, her force urging them on when the sheer numbers of their dead might have turned them. Nafésti. Ayailla raised her staff and struck its tip hard into the ground, screaming out her rage and defiance as Nafésti prepared to let loose her own Magic.
    
    “Die, ye foul Daemoness! Die!”
    
    From across the horde of the dead and dying Nafésti raised her eyes to stare at Ayailla, a sneer on her face as she held up her hands, blocking Ayailla’s wave of rage. Hundreds of the Orcs went down, but still Nafésti stood. Again Ayailla pounded her staff into the ground, her focus narrower this time, with a clear path to her target. Nafésti staggered, nearly knocked to her knees, her attempt at blocking so much weaker this time. She was grinning as she stood back up, a look so malicious that something inside Ayailla went cold with fear. Nafésti raise her staff and pointed.
    
    She aimed not at Ayailla, but instead picked the weakest point in Ayailla’s defense. “Roanen!” she screamed. He turned toward her, but he would not see the threat in time. Ayailla dove toward him, knocking him out of the Dark One’s path. Her own defenses failed. She felt them shatter like a wall of ice collapsing upon itself. The force of Nafésti’s bolt broke through, hitting Ayailla so hard she went flying, slammed to the earth atop Roanen’s body. “Forever and always, my love,” she whispered as he reached for her. “Forever and always.”
    
     
    
    * * * * *
    
    “Ayailla!”
    
    She sucked in her breath hard, fighting to remember that it was Ayailla who had died, not her. No. It was her. Marylin and Ayailla were both dead. She was little more than a reanimated corpse.
    
    “‘Twas a dream, my love. But a dream.”
    
    She understood fully, now, what the Mage had been trying to tell her. She was Marylin. But she was Ayailla as well. She had lived out their lives, as she had Gwenevier’s and Catherine’s. Nylanéfer lived on in each of them in turn, questing always for her lost love. Lifetime after lifetime she found Sennedjem again, but the ending was always the same.
    
    Anger such as she had never known bubbled in her veins. “The dead should stay dead, Roanen. ‘Tis wrong for the spirit to meet itself. The lives we have lived before are meant to be no more than soft memories we revisit in our dreams. There is a reason the Summoning is forbidden. What ye have done is wrong. Did ye think I would not remember? I remember too much!”
    
    He reached for her with arms that begged for forgiveness, but she would not be placated. Not this time. She pulled away from him to stalk the length of the hall, trying not to feel his pain as he watched her. “How many times, Sennedjem? How many times are we doomed to relive this lie? Did ye think ye could change our fate by bringing me back? Ye could not last time, nor the time before that. How many times am I destined to watch you die? Can ye not see what ye have done to me? Once, just this once, ye felt what I have felt. Over and over ye find me. Over and over I lose ye. How many lifetimes? We’re doomed, Sennedjem! The gods will no’ let us have what others have! I chose to end it, once and for all. But ye, ye could no’! Can ye no’ see what this does to me? I do no’ want this life any more! I cannot love ye just to lose ye again and again!”
    
    “Forgive me,Mel~amin . ‘Tis so much easier to be the one who lets go than the one who is left behind. I did no’ understand.”
    
    “Once, just once ye have known the grief of losing me. How many times have I lost ye? Ten? Fifty? I thank the gods I cannot remember them all. Alone I live, an old woman, unable to love until I find ye again, only to lose ye once more! Shall I spend what time we have left together trying to pretend it will no’ happen again? We’re cursed! I am destined to know no happiness, no’ in this lifetime nor the next. In my nightmares I see nothing but thy dying body stretched before me a dozen times. How long will it be this time? Do I have a year with ye? Ten? Then decades to mourn ye? I am old and bitter inside already! I wanted to die! I wanted to end this wretched curse!”
    
    “No!” Roanen roared. “Better to have these few years than nothing at all! I love ye, Ayailla! I have loved ye, since first I saw ye. Ye ask me to unmake my heart. To give back my soul. I can no’. I can no’ cease to love ye more than I can cease to breathe at my own command. But tell me you love me no’, and I will give thee thy freedom, for this and a thousand lifetimes. I will walk away, Nyla, from ye, from everything we have built together, from everything we have been together, from everything we shall ever be. But tell me ye love me no.’“
    
    “Love ye? Love ye? I have loved ye across a dozen lifetimes! I can no more stop loving ye than I can stop the breath from my lungs. But that does no’ make thy parting any less painful, my love. Can ye no’ see? We must end this!Pawiaeadja Adhamhán Élanadhache I call on thy name! Release us from this foul curse, I beg of ye!”
    
    The air in the room shimmered with power. A breeze blew through, so frigid it must have come straight off the glaciers. The power coalesced into a tower, like a small tornado, tilted, then righted itself. For a moment Ayailla thought she saw an apartment-sized Dragon forming there in the center of the vortex. But when the power faded, there was just a man.
    
    Well, notjust a man.Pawiaeadja , Divine Speaker of Runes, Consort to the goddess Bast, the reason for Nylanéfer’s lifetimes of suffering.
    
    “Break the curse? And how would you have me do that, Nyla? You could not give him up the first time I asked it of you. Would you give him up now?”
    
    Ayailla screamed in rage. She knew this man who stepped out of the shadows. Had known him long ago as the consort to Bast, her goddess. “Pawiaeadja?Ye arePawiaeadja ? What are ye that ye have plagued me across the centuries? Whoever, whatever, it matters not! ‘Twas ye who cursed us. ‘Tis ye who can release us!”
    
    “Think what you ask of me, Nyla. Never to know Sennedjem again. Never to see him again. To face your future alone, then to die, never to love him again, without even the memories of what you have had together to comfort you? Is this what you would have of me?”
    
    “Never to know…never to love…” Blindly she reached for Roanen, clinging to him as the tears streamed down her face. “No. No. Ye can no’ take him from me again. Ye can no’ take everything from me.”
    
    “What you call a curse I gave you as a gift, Nyla.” His voice was low, soft, the tone of a father scolding a child who had disappointed him badly. “You knew when you asked me to spare his life that I could not. I am not a god. I cannot change the fates. You asked me for more time. I gave you the only gift I could, that of remembrance, that you might find each other again. ‘Twas all I could do. If you ask it of me now I will give you the gift of forgetfulness.”
    
    Ayailla turned back to stare up into Roanen’s face, nuzzling his hand as he wiped the tears from her eyes. “I have tasted but a small bit of the pain ye suffer, my love, and I would no’ go through that again. I would do anything to spare ye that. Take the giftPawiaeadja offers. ‘Tis little enough after all the centuries of pain I have given thee.”
    
    Ayailla drew in her breath, a long, slow, dancer’s breath, the way Gray had taught her.Breathing cleanses the soul. “Forgive me, my love. Even knowing what fate awaits us, I would not give back one day we have had together. All I am, I am because of my love for thee. All I shall be, I shall be with thee at my side. If I must lose thee again, then I will accept our fate, and when that day comes, I will cling to the knowledge that I will remember, and ye will find me again. In this lifetime or the next, it matters no’. I am yours. Forever and always.”
    
    Pawiaeadjasighed deeply. “Mortals. You can never make up your minds.”
    
    “Fairies,” Roanen returned with a smile, his arms wrapped tightly around Ayailla. “Forever leading us to believe we had a choice, when in fact we never had one at all.”
    
    Ayailla fought to absorb Roanen’s calm. Had he know all along how she would choose? Had he not feared she might take the other path, just this once? Was it always like this when she remembered? “What in the name of the gods are ye doing here,Pawiaeadja ? Have ye no other mission in life than to plague me every few thousand years? Why are ye no’ dead?”
    
    TheSidhe lifted one eyebrow in a modest show of surprise. “I am here because you spoke my true name. You summoned me.”
    
    There is power in the name of a Sidhe.
    
    “I meant only to call to the King of theSidhe for help. I did no’ expect—well, ye.”
    
    Pawiaeadjadrew himself up to his full height, taking on an air of injured dignity. “I amPawiaeadja Si Adhamhán Si Élanadhache, King of theTuatha Dé Danann.TheSidhe , my dear, or Faeries, as your Roanen so casually calls us, are not bound to Human years. We are a long-lived race. We can live many hundreds of your lifetimes.” The tall, pale creature she had known as a god moved his head to stare into the great hallway’s shadows. “Or but a few, if we are not careful of our duties.Shaymmadah Lochlairnen Élanadhache , as long as I am here, there is the matter of your transgressions to be dealt with. You will return with me toTir na nÓg to stand trial before a jury of theTuatha Dé Danann.”
    
    Shammall. She had forgotten Shammall, and the crime he had committed. “He is but a boy,Pawiaeadja . He meant no harm. What he did he did out of love for the house he was assigned to protect.”
    
    “I will thank you to call me Pajja, as most mortals do these days. MySidhe name is not a thing to be tossed about carelessly. And this ‘boy’ you speak of so glibly was old enough to leave my house. He is quite old enough to be responsible for his own actions.”
    
    “Yes, I am responsible, Father. I and I alone. You were not there. Judge me not. You would have done no different.”
    
    Ayailla stepped between them, placing a hand on each chest. “What’s done cannot be undone. We cannot go back, only forward. Punishing the boy will no’ help him to be a better man. Was what Shammall did so different from what ye did, Pajja? Ye were young, once, and prone to acts that were more whim than thought. Can ye put him on trial without standing trial thyself?”
    
    The image before her faded slightly, losing its aura of strength and power. The god-like figure she had known became more human, leaning heavily against an aged walking stick. “Always you were my Lady’s favorite. I could refuse you nothing, then or now, Nyla. His fate is in your hands.” He held up his hand when she would have spoken. The power was still there, different from the aura that had cloaked him, stronger, deeper. “If she will have you, you have your reprieve, Shammall. But I warn you. Another such violation of our code, and son or no, you will be brought before the high council.”
    
    Shammall dropped slowly to one knee, his face so pale it might have matched the sun-bleached linen Nylanéfer had once clothed herself in. “It is to you I owe my apology, M’Lady. I beg your forgiveness. If you will have me, I will serve you well, M’Lady, and your daughters after you. I give you my word as a son of the First House of theTuatha Dé Danann. ”
    
    “It is enough,” Ayailla proclaimed. “Ye are my teacher, my friend, my protector. Ye have given all of thyself. All ye have is all ye can give. Thy fate is bound to this house, as is that of the Northlands.”
    
    Shammall took her hand, touching his lips to the palm, traces of tears glazing his lavender eyes. She was wrong. He had already begun to learn the power of love. “I live but to serve you and your house, M’Lady.”
    
     
    
    * * * * *
    
    “Explain to me again how it works.”
    
    “You focus on the one you wish to reach, M’Lady, even as you fall asleep. Once you enter the dreaming, you direct your thoughts to the point where you believe that person to be. It helps if have a knowledge of world geography.”
    
    Or world history?She didn’t say the words aloud. By now Ayailla knew Shammall would object to her trying to reach Gray back in her own past. Too bad. He could object all he wanted to. Gray needed to hear from her. She swallowed the strong tea Shammall had made for her, trying not to gag at the taste. Old grass clippings would have tasted better, she was sure. Still, as she slipped beneath the covers, the warm haze of sleep reached out to her. She pictured the inn as she’d first seen it, nestled in fog, outlined against the white sand beaches.
    
    It was working. She could feel him. Almost. Gray was here, she was sure of it. Though she wasn’t sure just where here was…”Gray? Are you all right? Gray? Where are you? Gray!”
    
    It was as if he were drugged. Finding him was like chasing a kitten through a yarn store. “Gray, damn it, listen to me. Pay attention! I don’t have much time!”
    
    He snapped at that, growling in such a surly note that she almost laughed. “Listen to you? Who the fuck are you?”
    
    “Gray, I love you. Remember that, no matter what happens. You’re—you’re like a brother to me. You’re my best friend. I love you. Whatever happens, don’t forget that. I’m not dead, Gray. Not the way they’ll tell you I am. Remember what you told me?”
    
    “Mary?”
    
    “Tell me you found what you wanted, Gray. Tell me you’re happy. I need to know you found someone who’s right for you.”
    
    “Mary-Baby, I think I found someone I could love. She’s great! She’s wonderful! Her hair is pink!”
    
    “Pink? Well, that should suit you!” Marylin laughed, then her voice grew serious again. “I found everything I ever wanted, Gray. I found my Warrior. I’m going to have a baby, Gray. The only thing I’ll miss from our world is you. But sometimes perhaps we’ll meet, here in the dreaming. I’m just learning how to reach out in the dreaming. Just starting to believe. It can be as real as we want it to be. I have to go, but I’ll find you here again.”
    
    “Mary! Don’t go! Mary, she is in danger. What do I do?”
    
    “Go to her, Gray. I know you thought you could never be my Warrior, but you were wrong. You’re a fighter. Don’t be afraid. You won’t let her down. Finish what you started. Don’t be afraid to love her, Gray.”
    
    “Ayailla? Are you all right?”
    
    Had she been talking in her sleep? Would Roanen understand? “I love ye, Roanen,” she whispered as she let him pull her more tightly against that broad Warrior’s chest. “Whatever happens, I want ye to know that. I will never be afraid to love ye again.”
    
    She felt his lips smile as he kissed her cheek. His hands stroked over her shoulders in slow, lazy circles. “In this lifetime or the next, it matters no’. I am yours. Forever and always, my love.”
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
    The Sidhe ofPawiaeadja Adhamhán Élanadhache
    
     
    
    Tuatha Dé Danann: an ancient race we call theSidhe , or the Faeries. Long before the introduction of Christianity to Ireland,Pawiaeadja Adhamhán Élanadhacheled theTuatha Dé Danann to the land that later would be called Ireland. It is thought thatPawiaeadjafled Egypt after the fall of the Pharaohs left his people alone in a land that no longer welcomed them. Thus the decision of theTuatha Dé Danann to live alone, apart from the races of man.
    
     
    
    Tir na nÓg: The island of theSidhe , or Faerie Folk. Once Ireland became populated by humans, many of theSidhe felt that another home was needed. The King’s Court of theTuatha Dé Danann left Ireland to separate themselves from Humankind, isolating themselves onTir na nÓg, a magical island unknown to mortals.
    
     
    
    The King’s and Queen’s Courts: About 3000 years ago two factions arose within theFaerie Nobility. The King and Queen disagreed over their role among Humans and their choice of a homeland. Those of the Queen’s Court felt that Humans, while flawed, showed promise, and should be given assistance through direct intervention and guidance. Those of the King’s Court feared the destructive nature of the Humans would destroy the Earth. They refused the Humans further aid. After the Cataclysm restructured the Earth, the King sent emissaries to the remaining Houses to try to guide the Humans away from their self-destructive ways. Although the two Courts now work toward the same goals, the King’s and Queen’s Courts have not yet reunited – but that is a story for another day…