Everlasting Enchantment (8 page)

Gareth gazed at her solemnly. “I would never lie to you, lady. In word, or deed.”

She shook her head in frustration, jet-black locks flying around her face. “That’s the worst part,” she said. “I think I believe you.” And then she shifted to panther and disappeared into the trees before Gareth could form another thought.

But as he stared at the emerald glow that shimmered in the mist from her hasty flight, a slow smile spread across his face. Gareth rose and sought the pool not far from the cave. It had never taken him this long to seduce a woman before, and it had frustrated him. And yet today he found himself enjoying the chase.

He realized he liked Millicent. Liked her independence and strength and stubbornness.

Gareth stripped off his hose, braies, and boots when he reached the pool and lowered himself into the water. It took away some of the aches of his bruises, but not the pounding in his loins. He’d never taught a woman to fight before, and it had been a surprisingly arousing experience. Images of her flashed through his mind. The blaze of those golden eyes when she launched an attack at him. The twist of her body while muscles rippled beneath that smooth form.

His desire had already been complete before he’d kissed her. Holding back while she explored his mouth had nearly driven him mad. But the contrast from the warrior-woman he’d fought to the innocent who kissed him so passionately aroused him as no other woman had ever done before.

And the glimpse into her soul she’d allowed him when she’d spoken of her life, engaged his heart like none other.

When he rose out of the water, the fullness of his member didn’t surprise him. But it seemed to shock Millicent as she emerged from the tubular bushes, taking the path back to the cave, a load of netted clawed-creatures slung over her back.

Of course. Despite his insistence that he would provide their dinner, she continued to hunt for her own meals.

Several pools lay hidden within the forest. Gareth could have chosen any one of them. But he’d purposely chosen the one closest to the cave, on the path she would have to take when she returned.

She stopped dead in her tracks and stared her fill of him. He froze likewise, unembarrassed by his nude state. He had no shyness whatsoever when it came to his body. He’d lost that centuries ago.

He felt her eyes like a tangible thing as they swept over his face and chest, as if she left a burning trail on his skin. When her eyes lowered, his member rose even higher, as if it had a mind of its own.

She licked her lips and shivered in the wet heat.

Gareth knew he could’ve taken her right then. She wouldn’t run away this time, for her body wanted him too badly. He’d driven her to this need with his kiss and his words. It would take but little more to push past her final defenses to make her his. And he yearned for her to be the one who would break his curse.

He took one step toward her when a sudden thought occurred to him. What if… what if she wasn’t the one? Then the relic would loosen from her wrist and she’d give it to the duke and he’d never see her again. And he realized he didn’t want that to happen. Not yet. For the first time in his memory, he cared more about a woman than gaining his own freedom. A confusing, frightening realization… but one he wanted to explore further.

So instead of reaching out to her, instead of striding forward and wrapping her in his arms and kissing her senseless, he raised a mocking brow.

Millicent bristled, then shot him a look that should have dropped him dead where he stood. And he let her walk away.

Gareth pulled on braies, hose, and boots, and wondered if he should curse himself for a fool as he strapped on his sword belt. What if she
could
have broken the enchantment? He was not used to these conflicting emotions. The pattern of his life had been quite simple. He slept until the relic tightened around a woman’s wrist. Then he seduced her. Then he slept again until the relic chose another.

He made no decisions. He followed the pattern Merlin had laid out for him. Why had it not bothered him until now?

When he returned to the cave, the melancholy that often cloaked him became overwhelming and he couldn’t overcome it. Neither could he take his eyes off Millicent. He sat down on one of the low stools next to Nell and watched the girl crack open a shell of boiled food with a rock, then give it to the old woman. His gaze followed her as she replaced the flowers on the table with fresh ones, their glow brightening the gloom of their small cave. Every blink of her lash, each flutter of her hand, now seemed a small torture to him.

He could not control his lust for the shape-shifter. Yet now he hesitated to act on it, for he did not want this time with her to end so quickly. It made his desire multiply tenfold, and he couldn’t help but devour her with his gaze.

And he longed to kiss her again. To see if he had not just imagined the feelings it had evoked in him.

Eventually she turned to him with a glare. “Stop it.”

He shrugged helplessly. She watched the muscles of his bare chest rise and fall, and swallowed.

“I’m going to bathe,” she told Nell over her shoulder, and then shifted to panther and practically flew into the forest.

Nell tsked at him from across the makeshift table. “Crikey, lad, what ’ave ye done to me Millie?”

Gareth dropped his head in his hands. “I did what I always do, my lady. I tried to seduce the relic-holder.”

She snorted. “That bracelet still looks tight to me.”

“It’s complicated,” he mumbled.

“How so?”

Gareth rose and walked to the opening of the cave, his back to the ladybird. He owed such a one an answer, and yet he’d already delved into so many confusing thoughts today that he could not make sense of them. Ah, well. Perhaps it might help if he voiced them aloud while he searched for some truths in those knowing violet eyes.

So he combed his hair back with his fingers, and stared at the glowing forest. “It has occurred to me that I have been dancing to Merlin’s tune for centuries. The relic chooses a woman while I sleep in the stone, I seduce her… and she is never the one to break the spell. I suffer disappointment again and again, and I am tired, my lady. So very tired of it.” His voice now sounded almost as low as the swaying fans above the cavern. “I do not even truly know how the enchantment will be broken. And now there’s Millicent…”

Nell allowed his silence for a time. It seemed to Gareth that the fans overhead swished more quickly than they had but a moment ago. As if they echoed the confusion in his soul. Even the trees swayed their long branches a bit more briskly.

“So,” she finally prompted, “wot’s this about me Millicent?”

He turned, and Nell blanched at whatever look he wore on his face. “Don’t you see? For the first time I am questioning my role. For the first time, I am afraid to take a woman to my bed, for then I may never see her again.” He curled his fingers into fists. “By all that is holy. I think I don’t care whether she can break the curse or not. And what madness is that?”

Nell studied him a long time, those violet eyes intent, as if she tried to see into his very soul. Then she grunted. “Eh, boy. Per’aps it ain’t madness. Per’aps it’s time ye took yer destiny into yer own hands.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Try following yer own heart fer a change—” Nell’s red eyebrows rose as she glanced behind Gareth.

He spun. Millicent stood in human form just below the cave entrance, her mouth open in shock. Gareth cursed her were-cat nature, which allowed her to move just as stealthily on two feet.

She stared at his face for a timeless moment, as if judging the truth of what she’d just overheard. Then her gaze snapped to Nell. “They’re here,” she blurted.

Gareth looked out upon the forest. The movement of the trees hadn’t been his imagination. Their branches whipped back and forth now. The fanlike growth above waved so violently that it broke apart some of the delicate-looking foliage and tumbled it down to the ground.

“Where?” he demanded.

Millicent pointed in the direction she’d come. “I heard them shouting. And then the forest started to do this”—she waved at the frothing color—“and I couldn’t hear them anymore. But they didn’t sound too far behind me.” She shifted to panther, and Nell did not hesitate to swing onto the beast’s back, clutching black shiny fur in her bony fists.

Gareth tried to follow, but the beast quickly disappeared into the foliage, her pelt blending with the shadows beneath the glowing trees. He should have known she would leave him behind. The only person she cared for was her precious Nell, and without the speed of a shape-shifter, he would only slow them down. He should admire Millicent’s intelligence. He would stay behind and engage her enemies, thereby giving the women more time to escape, and perhaps—

The burgundy leaves in front of him rustled, and a set of amber eyes peered out between them, a black paw reaching out and scratching impatiently at the sand. Nell’s voice crackled from behind the bushes. “Wot the hell are ye waitin’ fer?”

Gareth smiled, and followed the panther and ladybird into the multicolored forest.

Millicent slowed once again, waiting for the knight to catch up. At least he moved quietly, barely rustling the leaves and vines. Her nostrils flared as she scented the air once again. The duke’s men had found their cave, and had quickly turned tail in pursuit, making enough noise to tell her she would reach the bridge long before they did, even if her nose hadn’t been able to track them by their stench. But her beast scented something else, a familiar smell she couldn’t quite remember…

He said he didn’t care whether she broke his curse or not.

Millicent snorted and ducked beneath a low-hanging branch, weaving through the fall of moss draped over it. Nell muttered something, and blew out her breath as if she’d received a face full of the stuff despite Millicent’s maneuvering.

Millicent stole a glance behind her. Nell carried bits and pieces of the jungle with her, moss and twigs and leaves. But the knight moved like a dancer, barely touching the forest, as if he had become one with it. Or as if it cleared a path for him. His golden-blond hair curled in the humidity, across his forehead, down his smooth shoulders. His naked chest gleamed with perspiration; his hose stuck to his legs, outlining the muscles in his thighs with every step he took. It hurt to look at him.

Those brilliant blue eyes caught her gaze for a moment, and Millicent quickly turned back around. Back by the pool he had made her want him, his face tender and his body aching for her. How had she allowed this to happen? Didn’t her mother teach her that men used soft words and gentle touches at first, but soon grew bored and either left, or lusted for the fury of the beast?

No. She had to be stronger than her mother. For what would happen if she allowed herself to succumb to this man? Even if he seemed different than the men her mother had known, he would still disappear back into the relic, and would stay within until the relic chose another. She could not even consider that she would be the one to break his curse, for she did not have enough love in her heart to manage something so significant. She was a dark beast of the Underground, and he, a golden man of light from above. She would not allow what she had overheard to sway—

Millicent came to an abrupt halt, Nell sliding a bit forward on her back. The tree line ended, nothing but a smooth expanse of crystal rock stretching out in front of her, a jagged chasm separating the forest from the next tunnel. Millicent tensed, and Nell plastered herself even closer to her back, burying her face in the thick ruff on her neck. Her were-beast could cross the distance in a blink, long before the duke’s men caught up with them, but the knight would be too slow. By the time he reached the chasm, he would be dodging bullets, and the only way across was a bridge of crystal, an odd tubular growth that had fallen across the gap and would be slick as ice.

The trees rustled, and Millicent turned and pinned Gareth with her gaze, hoping he could read the warning in the eyes of her beast. He understood, but did not appear concerned with the threat of peril. She kept forgetting his long years, and imagined he must have faced worse odds than this. He nodded, glanced up at the open ground before them, then quickly back into the forest, where the loud progress of the duke’s men could now easily be heard.

“Don’t wait for me,” he commanded.

Millicent’s beast gave him a short, low moan, then she turned and leaped out of the forest, her paws sliding across the smooth surface until she gained the trick of maneuvering across it, using her claws for some sort of purchase. She used all of the speed and strength of her were-self to reach the bridge, but stopped and turned before crossing it, for the sound of Gareth’s strides had faded too quickly behind her.

He had managed to make it only a few yards past the tree line. The duke’s men stood beneath a scarlet-leafed tree, the reflection of the glowing color making them look like so many devils. The men who held pistols leveled them at Gareth. The motley assortment of twisted creatures and scavenger shape-shifters accompanying them hesitated, waiting with eager anticipation for the volley of gunfire.

Millicent growled.

The sound of the discharge shook the walls of the cavern. The flare of light made her blink. The smoke from the weapons exploded in a cloud and drifted upward, and even from this distance, the sharp odor made her snort. Gareth stumbled, regained his footing, and continued to run toward her, until she could clearly see the grim determination on his face. And the blood running down his chest.

Their eyes met for a timeless moment—his so round and as blue as the sky—and then his steps slowed, and he looked down, clutching at the gaping hole in his chest. He looked back up at her, his handsome face twisted with some emotion… perhaps resignation, or sadness.

He fell face forward, his hair a tumble of gold around his head and shoulders.

Millicent screamed, a caterwaul of sound that rivaled the puny noise the pistols had made. She leaped toward Gareth, but Nell yanked on her fur, hard enough to bring tears to the beast’s eyes.

“Don’t be a fool, gel. Look to yer left.”

Within a cluster of spindly fanlike trees stood a circle of predators, their sharp eyes taking in the duke’s men, Millicent and Nell standing near the bridge, the fallen knight. That familiar smell she had scented earlier… now she could place it. The baronets from the ball still followed her. The Master of the Hall of Mages had not given up his own search for the relic.

Lions, tigers, wolves, jaguars—some as black as Millicent herself, leaped in her direction on stealthy paws, their silence more foreboding than if they had growled and screamed their bloodlust. But they had to cross the line of sight of the Duke of Ghoulston’s men, and although the hyenas and jackals headed toward the knight’s fallen body, the monsters eagerly pursued the baronet shape-shifters.

“Ach, let them fight it out, gel, while we make our escape.”

Millicent could not leave Gareth to the scavengers. She must save him. Her muscles tensed to spring, and Nell yanked on her fur again.

“Don’t be foolish. Do ye think in all his centuries, this is the first time the knight has died? He is immortal, gel, but we are not.”

Nell. She must protect the old grandmother. But a few days ago, she had been willing to give up Gareth to the duke’s twisted evil. Bloody hell, when had he become so important to her that she would risk Nell’s life over his?

Nell was right. Gareth was immortal. He would end up back in the relic, in the same clothing, the same healthy body. She had witnessed his power of healing.

And yet, Millicent still hesitated.

The lion in the lead of the pack of baronets snarled, his black lips twisted in a smile as his prey stood there and waited for him to reach her.

Millicent closed her eyes as a shudder wracked through her from head to tail, then turned and carefully put a paw to the makeshift bridge. The crystal looked like nothing more than a felled tree lying across the chasm, round and smoother than bark. One slip, and they would fall to their deaths, with plenty of time to consider her clumsiness, given the unknown distance to the bottom.

Millicent snuck a glance behind her. The lion had lost his smile; his lips now curved in a grimace of fury as one of the duke’s monsters caught up to him and reached out to snag his golden tail. She turned back around and concentrated on her footing. She had come this way only once before, when exploring the tunnels leading out of the city. The black wizards had excavated beyond the city, using their magic to dig deeper into the earth, to create odd caverns of mystery, like the glowing forest. Millicent had taken to exploring the Underground at a young age, an escape from her life of misery and poverty.

Her knowledge had proven useful over the years, but never more so than now.

Millicent blessed her cat’s balance and agility, for they reached the other side of the chasm with nary a slip to frighten Nell. She studied the crystal bridge, gave it an exploratory shove with her furry shoulder. No, it had lain too long in its place, becoming a part of the crystal floor. She did not have a chance of moving it, of plunging it into the chasm, despite her formidable were-strength.

“They’ll probably kill each other off, anyway,” said Nell, guessing her intent. “Nobody will be left to follow us—and good riddance to ’em.”

Millicent huffed and entered the third tunnel on her right. For her part, she did not think the duke’s men stood a chance against the baronets, monsters or no. She knew the Master’s spies would follow her, and she could think of only one place where they would not be welcome. Where she might stand a chance of evading them.

The underground city.

The denizens of the deep did not like intruders. Most of the wizards who controlled the city lived above, and used their underground homes only to practice the dark arts—and their even darker inclinations—in secret. They cloaked the entrances and shrouded the existence of the Underground in myth and mystery. They would not care about the purpose of a group of intruders. They would kill them before words could be spoken.

Millicent twitched her whiskers in a grim smile and entered the tunnel, her sight quickly adjusting to the darkness. This tunnel was the shortest path to the city, but she would have to be careful when they reached the larger cavern. The heat and treacherous footing would make it difficult, but she knew the way, and any shape-shifters who followed her did not. Nell rocked on her back, a small snap accompanying the movement, and suddenly a gentle light lit their way. The old woman had taken some branches from the glowing forest.

Millicent padded into the crystal cavern, taking shallow breaths of the hot air. The reflected glow of Nell’s meager light bounced off the thousands of crystals and dazzled Millicent’s sight for a moment. She slowly wound her way around blocks of crystal, crystal shaped into round spheres, crystal dripping from the walls like a frozen waterfall. Enormous beams of the stuff crisscrossed her path, stood like soaring columns in a palace, formed shapes of stars and pointy flowers.

Nell muttered something, but Millicent ignored her, concentrating on the path, for shards of the crystal layered the smooth walkway, waiting to cut the pads of her paws with one unwary step. She did not look up until they reached the second chamber, and this time she shared Nell’s huff of wonder.

Some wizard must have been as enchanted with the crystal formations as Millicent, and had used his magic to shape it into soaring statues that defied the size of the chamber. The white crystal formed the layers of a lady’s gown, the wings of a dragon, the curly beard of a gnome… even the crystal armor of a valiant knight. Millicent’s beast gave a low mew of anguish, and she fought the urge to turn back around. Nell was right. Gareth was immortal, and would surely appear from the relic once again whole and unharmed. But she found it difficult to banish the doubt and worry, and the thought that he might actually be dead made her feel as if a heavy weight pressed on her chest, making it even more difficult to breathe.

As they walked farther, the fanciful shapes began to change to something darker, as if matching her mood. Color had been added to the stone. Red demons loomed over the path, their forked tongues dripping stalactites overhead. A green ogre battled a black Cyclops with claws of silver and fangs of livid yellow.

“Do ye think one wizard made all of these, Millie?”

Millicent grunted. If that was the case, it was a sad reflection on the wizard’s growth to manhood, as the statues slowly became ugly and depicted ever more violent scenes.

They passed a deformed unicorn impaling a fang-toothed harpy.

Nell swayed. “It’s hot, gel. It’s hard to catch me breath.”

Millicent turned and glanced at her friend, nodding her head to show she understood, trying to show encouragement in her eyes. Her beast lacked the vocal chords of human speech, which oddly enough, frustrated her only occasionally.

Far down the cavern, a stalactite fell, a ringing note accompanying the shattering of crystal. Millicent glanced upward at the thousands of sharp cones dangling right above their heads, and picked up her pace. Were some of the crystals so delicate that the vibrations of Nell’s voice made them shatter?

A growl of fury echoed through the cavern from behind them.

Perhaps not only just Nell’s voice had caused the crystals to shatter.

“They’ve found us, Millie.”

Another ringing note sounded in the distance.

“I think… I think the ruckus they’s making are causing the cones to fall…”

They reached the exit of the cave just as the growls grew into howls of triumph. The predators had found Millicent’s scent. More crystals fell from the ceiling, this time closer to the trail.

“Idiots,” snapped Nell.

Millicent curled her lips, opened her great maw, and screamed in defiance as loudly as she could. The answering howls made the very walls of the cave shiver, and started an avalanche of falling crystal. She spun and left the cave entrance, taking the smallest tunnel to her left, Nell chortling softly above her. Millicent soon smelled the rank odor of the city, and used her nose to guide her the rest of the way home.

The radiance of the fairylights illuminating the cavern did not soften the makeshift buildings, or hide the muddy streets and filthy rivulets of water that swept away the worst of the refuse. Millicent took the back alleys, which somehow managed to number more than the actual streets would account for. Most of the buildings were made of stone mined from the tunnels, a mossy slime growing rampant on the lower portion. Roofs were often added only to discourage theft, since they were not subject to the weather.

Millicent had spent several months aboveground learning to be a lady. It’d rained once while she had been walking the avenue, and she’d stood stock still in amazement and wonder, her tutor scolding her for standing like a dolt and getting her borrowed clothing soaking wet. But she had ignored the tirade, for, oh, it had been such a glorious sensation. Almost as marvelous as the feel of full sunshine on her cheeks.

When they reached the tavern, Nell slid off her back, and Millicent shifted to human. She saw two of the duke’s men lurking in the shadows, and knew they would bring reinforcements soon. She would have to manage a fast explanation to Bran. Millicent shoved open the door to the pub, the smell of ale and unwashed bodies hitting her like a wet blanket.