“You must understand. He is—”
“Silence.”
She clamped her lips together.
“I find I must wash the taste of you from my mouth.” With that, he whipped around and strode toward the entrance. “But I will return. Doubt it not.”
* * *
ROMULIS DID NOT APPROACH her again until the four suns had set on the golden horizon. By that time, Zirra had regained authority over her emotions. She would not allow him to startle her again with his kisses. Kissing him had been a pleasant diversion, exciting even, and had somehow given her a sense of her deepest power, but Romulis was an uncontrollable force, one who sought to dominate all he encountered, and she would not allow herself to be conquered.
She did the conquering.
Tristan was proof of that. If only she could clasp her powers on her own, but nay. Once Romulis left her, she’d lost her tenuous grip on them.
The wispy white fabric hanging over the entrance to her chamber swished.
Frowning, she spun…and found herself facing him. Romulis dropped the door scarves and they fell behind him, enclosing him inside. A gentle sea-dewed breeze floated from the windows, whisking the hem of her white gown about her ankles, making her shiver. Surely her reaction had nothing to do with the prince.
“Let us get this over with,” he said, his tone emotionless. Bored, mayhap.
She didn’t offer another apology for calling out Tristan’s name while Romulis kissed her. What did she care if his male pride was hurt? He had sworn to give his aid, and he would, no matter how she infuriated him.
“It certainly took you long enough to recall your vow,” she told him, straightening her shoulders and giving a regal flick of her hair.
The corner of his left eye ticked ominously, and he took one threatening step toward her. His eyes glowed with barely suppressed rage. Then he stopped, collected himself and made his expression once more impassive. “Sit at the edge of the bed.”
Ire pounded through her. The prince was just like his father, always issuing orders, always expecting total compliance. She deserved so much more. She deserved devotion and love, affection and respect—things Tristan gave her when she commanded him.
Watching Romulis, she moved with deliberate leisure, swaying her hips and exaggerating each motion. When she perched where he had commanded, she eased back on her elbows, pushing the roundness of her breasts against the sheer fabric of her gown.
“I am waiting,” she said.
“Clasp your power in your mind.”
Though she wanted to taunt him further, she closed her eyes, reached within herself and easily found the source of her mystic abilities, a source Percen could not bind. They swirled and churned, dark and dangerous, searching for an outlet.
Romulis came to her then and cupped her cheeks in his big, hard hands. “Repeat these words.” He uttered a spell she’d never heard before, a spell of time and galaxies and hope. “Repeat them until you believe them, until they are a part of you.”
She did, over and over chanting the spell, each time louder, more intense. Lances of her power sprang from her body and reverberated through the chamber. Bright rays of light bolted toward the arched ceiling like wings of an angel. She even added her own words to the spell. “Hang Tristan’s current guan ren from a tree.”
“Say only what I tell you,” Romulis commanded with a fury so intense she felt it all the way in her bones.
“Hang her and bring Tristan to this room,” she said, uncaring that she went against Romulis’s orders. To Zirra, the end justified the means.
* * *
I’M GOING TO make love for the first time.
Julia smiled dreamily as she and Tristan held hands in the back of the cab. The warmth of his palm coupled with the roughness of his calluses proved an amazing contrast. A contrast I will soon have all over my body. She’d just spent the evening with this gorgeous, sensual man who truly found her desirable, and now their date was going to have the perfect ending.
Just imagining the skim of his hands up her calves, thighs, stomach, of his mouth sucking her nipples, caused something powerful to bloom within her. When the cab jerked to a stop, she and Tristan emerged in a hurry. She tossed the driver a twenty, and seconds later, exhaust fumes and gravel were spitting behind the tires.
Waving one hand in front of her nose and trying to subdue a fit of coughing, she searched for Tristan through the haze. He did the same, and their gazes locked. Awareness sharpened her every cell into a blade of desire.
His lips lifted in a slow, deliberate smile, and he reached out and clasped her palm in his once again. A shiver tingled up her arm, leaving a trail of sensitive goose bumps.
“Are you ready to begin?” he rasped.
Her knees almost buckled in eagerness. She halfway expected her tongue to swell and her thoughts to fog but…no swelling and no fog. With Tristan, her fears melted away. “Oh, yes. Please and thank you.”
“Then come.”
He tugged her toward the house. They were just about to step up to the porch when the cement beneath her feet…just…shifted. In less time required to blink, her world careened out of control. A scream burst from her as she tumbled down an endless pit of darkness. Tristan tried to jerk her into his arms, but he was falling, too, and they were spinning farther and farther apart.
Fear clawed at her as she and Tristan fought their way back together. She clasped him tight, afraid to release him. His grip on her nearly cut off her air supply.
“What’s happening?” she cried.
If he answered, she didn’t hear him. Loud, piercing screeches erupted, masking any other sounds. She felt as if she were being sucked into a vacuum, a million twinkling stars whizzing past, so close she had only to reach out to grab one. Brilliant flashes of color nearly blinded
