“Your little witch is safe,” Vivian said. “She’s slumbering the same way you put me to sleep. We simply changed places.”
Relief unclenched Merlin’s fists, but only for a moment. He wondered how the demon had managed the switch, but then, this was Vivian. She was every bit his equal in power, not to mention cunning. He gave a reluctant nod. “And then you slipped me the potion, knowing that I would trust Clary.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Vivian lay back on the thick pillows, slowly stretching. “She was the perfect Trojan filly.”
And he had been so besotted with her that he, the greatest enchanter in the human realms, hadn’t bothered to check his drink for potions. Lust had made a fool of him. “Why do it?”
“Revenge. I swore to kill you, remember?” She cast him a sidelong look, a glint of emerald from under her long lashes.
“And I won’t kill you?”
The threat would have carried more weight if they hadn’t just made love. Merlin tried to convince his body that the luscious, naked female mere feet away was a monster, but it wasn’t easy. Parts of him refused to be convinced. He jumped off the bed and snatched a pair of pants out of the laundry basket. Her amused chuckle brought unwelcome heat to his ears.
“Hide, o mighty wizard,” Vivian drawled. “You can’t kill this body without snuffing your pet witch.”
He pulled on a shirt, unsuccessfully ignoring the naked woman lolling on his bed. She’d turned on her stomach and was facing his way now, chin in her hands and feet kicking in the air. As good as she looked, the gleam in her eyes was more predatory than flirtatious.
Merlin shrugged, striving for casual. “Speaking of snuffing, why didn’t you murder me when you finally had the chance?”
“I like to play with my food.”
Her smile was slow, a good imitation of her usual feline grin, but it lacked conviction. There were few beings in any realm—mortal, fae or the demonic Abyss—who would see that crack in her armor, but Merlin knew Vivian too well. He made careful note of it. There would be precious few weaknesses he could use against her.
He tucked in his shirt, feeling slightly better now that he wasn’t on display. “Let Clary go, Vivian. Go home and leave us alone.”
Her chin jerked up. “Are you sure that’s what you want? If I leave, you’ll never see me again.”
“Since you’re here to kill me, it’s hard to see the downside to your absence.”
“Oh, really?” The heat in her stare nearly unraveled his self-possession. “I doubt you’ve enjoyed yourself so much since you ran away from my bed.”
“I didn’t run. I left.”
“Once you’ve gone hellspawn, the rest is like cold oatmeal.” Her grin spread wider this time. “Admit it, Merlin. You missed me.”
“Oatmeal is rarely homicidal.” He leaned against the dresser, crossing his bare feet at the ankles. He was outwardly calm, but inside his guts were in a knot. She was right about one thing—demons understood lust like no one else. Memories of their potion-induced gymnastics, however confused, made his pulse jump.
She chuckled low in her throat, no doubt sensing his discomfort. “You thought you had me, didn’t you? You thought a mere injection could put me in chains?”
Merlin said nothing, hating her so deeply that he tasted it like bile. How was he going to make her leave without harming Clary?
“Oh, my poor little half-druid monster, how long have you been watching your sweet student and wanting this?” Vivian rose to her knees and spread her arms wide, displaying her body. “A bit skinny, don’t you think? But then, not everyone can be me.”
Fury jerked him from his slouch. He grabbed a clean shirt and threw it at her. “Put some clothes on!”
Vivian snatched it from the air. “Have you turned prudish, grandfather?”
She chuckled as she pulled the shirt over her head. The sound seemed to crawl over his skin, reviving memories of a different bed and Vivian in a different body. Merlin shifted, his nerves on alert.
“Is that better?” Vivian asked in mocking tone. The shirt fell halfway down her thighs and bore a faded logo of pouting lips and a lolling tongue.
“Whatever.” Soft shadows had stolen over the room as daylight failed. What should have been intimate was suddenly claustrophobic. He made a move for the door, but her voice stopped him in his tracks.
“You can’t be so proper if you’re lusting after your students. Just like I seduced you, or have you forgotten?”
Not likely. “Don’t go there, Vivian.”
“Why not?” she purred. “Guilty conscience?”
Maybe. He’d wanted Clary since they’d first met, but he’d resisted an entanglement. At least he had right up until she’d been all but dying in his arms. He hadn’t kissed her until then, but that had opened a floodgate of emotion he hadn’t been able to close.
He glared at the impostor in his bed. “You’re right that I want her. That’s why your potion worked so well.”
Vivian’s face scrunched as if she smelled something bad. “Why her? She’s weak.”
That was where Vivian was wrong. Clary had nearly died at Laren’s hands, but she’d held the fae while he wept in shame and grief. “You’d never understand.”
The dying light blurred Vivian’s features, making her look impossibly young in that oversize shirt. “Explain it to me,” she asked softly, sliding off the bed and padding toward him.
“You’ll take whatever I say and make it a weapon.”
“But say I don’t.” There was a hint of uncertainty in her eyes that gave him pause. Vivian was never uncertain.
“If I tell you, will you leave?” he asked.
“No.” She stepped closer, putting both palms against his chest. “But I do want to know.”
The pressure of her hands felt completely ordinary, but his skin still crept at the touch. His first instinct was to back away, but rejecting her out of hand would not be wise. She was too proud to accept another rebuff, even from him, and wounded pride meant payback.
Her fingertips dug into his shirt, reminding him they should be claws. “We used to have lots of discussions. We would talk for hours,” she said softly. It nearly sounded like a plea. “Remember?”
Of course he remembered those conversations. For all their intelligence and prodigious powers, demons were almost childlike when it came to matters of the heart. Complex emotions baffled and repelled them, but unlike most demons, Vivian was curious. Merlin had found himself trying to explain why guilt and rage could be confused in the mortal mind, or how anger at another could become hatred of oneself, or a thousand other conundrums. In the end he’d become just as confused and fascinated by the vagaries of the human heart.
Vivian searched his face through Clary’s witch-green eyes. By her expression, she saw the truth. He didn’t want to speak that way with her ever again. Not after the way their affair had ended, and not now that Vivian held the woman he wanted hostage in her own body.
“Did you ever care for me?” she asked, a faint smile playing on her lips.
Trust Vivian to wonder. “In my own way,” he said, knowing it was a poor answer.
She pulled her hands from his chest and took a step back. “If I asked what that meant, would you tell me?”
Merlin hesitated, unsure what to say because there was no single answer. He’d begun his time with her as a student, then as a lover and then as a thief and traitor. During that time he’d learned what demons truly were, and they’d shown him the darkness inside his soul. How could he love that? And yet there had been a time...
* * *
It began in a town that clung to the towering cliffs above the white-capped Mediterranean Sea. He’d been far from his birthplace, wandering in search of knowledge, pleasure and easy money. The fledgling Roman Empire had seemed like the place for a strapping young man to find all three. Sadly, all he’d gotten for his trouble so far was sore feet and bruises from a dozen tavern brawls. But that, he’d told himself, was all part of the adventure.
One hot summer day he came upon a shady olive grove and stretched out in the long, cool grass. The blades tickled his cheek as the breeze ruffled through it, and he closed his eyes and wished for a jug of wine to ease his dry throat. Then he let his thoughts drift away like early morning mist. The sun was much lower in the sky when he woke again to find restless fingers combing through his hair. Merlin sat up with a start to find a hooded figure crouched beside him. He put a hand to his brow, still feeling the brush of what had been decidedly feminine fingertips.
“Who are you?” he asked, unsure if his visitor would answer. The soft gray robes looked like something a priestess would wear, and he’d heard of virgins sworn to shun the company of men. He’d just started to spin an interesting fantasy when she spoke.
“I am called Vivian.” Her low, throaty voice seemed to smoke with sensuality. Though her features were hidden, he was certain she was a carnal goddess, figuratively speaking. “You are sleeping in my grove.”
“Yours?” He looked around, but there were none of the fine stone villas he’d seen in these parts. There wasn’t even a shepherd’s hut. “Where is your dwelling?”
“It is both near and far, Merlin Ambrosius.”
He sucked in a breath, surprise banishing his pleasant daydreams. “How do you know my name?”
“I know your name and the name of Brida the Druidess, who gave you life.”
The odds of anyone knowing him this far from home were infinitesimal unless, of course, there was magic involved. Suspicion cramped his shoulders. He was new to the ways of enchantment, but he already recognized how little of it was innocent. This woman—whoever she was—could not be trusted. Merlin slowly rose to his feet, watching the hooded form as he might a wild animal. No sudden movements. No taking his eyes from her. Ready to run.
She rose with him, proving to be almost his height. “My knowledge troubles you.”
“What do you want?”
“I can give you much,” she said with a casual wave of her hand.
A long staff appeared in her hand. At the top was an intricate cap of metalwork that held a frosted white stone in filigreed claws. Merlin eyed it, knowing it was a true wizard’s staff worth more than his entire village back home. Such objects held immense power, enough to launch him from obscurity to the right hand of kings. He itched to grip the polished rosewood and fold it to his chest the way a young girl clutched her doll. But even an obscure bumpkin of a hedge wizard knew nothing so precious came without a price.
“Why?” he asked, so shocked that his voice was nearly lifeless.
“We’ve been watching you from the cradle. We’ve been watching for signs of greatness.”
A surprised laugh burst from his lips. “Any luck?”
She went very still. It was impossible to see her face beneath the hood, but he got the impression she wasn’t pleased by his laugh. Fear prickled along his skin, responding to an instinct he only half understood.
“You are a disappointment to your people,” she said. “Your mother trained you well to follow in her tradition, but your magic is weak. You have not led your tribe to greatness, or even safety. Invaders will come from this faraway land and crush your people into the dust of history.”
Her words burned, as had his mother’s, but he knew the simple truth. “I’m not a war leader. I’m not even as good a magician as my mother.”
“No, you’re not. You are barely wizard enough to amuse children at the midsummer festival. You ran away to find your fortune because of the disappointment you saw in every eye, from the chieftain down to the lowest goatherd.”
Shame itched along every nerve, begging to be soothed by some spark of promise—but that would never come. He simply wasn’t that talented. She rested the butt of the staff in the thick grass, clearly tired of holding it out to a fool who wouldn’t take it. Merlin clenched his fists, straining not to grab it and rewrite his future.
The robes shifted as if their occupant was casually leaning on one hip. “I know what’s holding you back, young Merlin. You have more power than all the Druids in the western islands, but your magic works a different way. They cannot teach you the way I can.”
His mouth went dry. He worked his throat a moment before words would form. “What are you saying?”
“Let me teach you. I understand you. I can make you fulfill the promise of your birth.”
He’d been born to the greatest Druidess in all the kingdoms of Britain and yet his power produced as much bang as a soggy drum skin. Her promise wasn’t so much temptation as an offer of survival—or so his pride told him. A thousand clamoring needs brushed aside all his caution.
She understood him. No one at home had ever done so much.
And then she pushed back the hood. Her hair was a lustrous blue-black and her eyes a violet he’d never seen before. It was the shade of dusk just before the night. Merlin swallowed hard. He’d been a favorite of the ladies all the way across Gaul and Germania, and now here in these sun-baked lands. He’d seen his share of feminine beauty, and yet he could not stop staring at her face. Vivian wasn’t pretty or even beautiful—she was a true goddess.
She held out a hand. “Come with me.”
Some shred of sanity reared up. “I still don’t understand why.”
“Let’s just say I took an interest because of your father.”
Merlin stilled. “No one knows who my father was.”
She wiggled her fingers, urging him to follow. “I’ll tell you someday.”
It was more than anyone else could offer. He finally took her hand, finding comfort in the soft, warm press of her palm. He should have known it would go horribly wrong in the end. Nothing came without a price.
* * *
Merlin stared down at her now, recognizing the same glint in her eyes. It didn’t matter that they were green, or a different shape, or that she was fair instead of dark. Vivian was what she was. A change of form wouldn’t alter her essential nature. Better to ask a crow to sing like a canary.
But she had changed his life. Nothing had been the same since that day in the south of Italy. Vivian had taken a foolish youth and made him wise. Along the way she’d set the stage for Camelot’s destruction and pointed him toward the precipice. He’d done the rest himself because, all else aside, she was an excellent teacher. After all, she’d made him understand his true nature—as little as he’d wanted those answers. But now? She was inhabiting the body of the woman he loved and threatening his life.
So why ask if he cared for her? She had never asked such a thing before.
Merlin narrowed his eyes. “Get out of her, Vivian.”
Her grin was carnivorous. “What if I said I wanted to stay with you?”
“You, of anyone, should know that nothing good comes of being with me.”
“Ah, you blame yourself for that spell in ways no one but me can guess. Before you take me back, you will have to forgive yourself.”
“That day will never come.”
With that, he turned and left the bedroom, desperate for air and even more desperate for a plan.