Temptress Unbound by Lisa Cach

to Arthur?”
    â€œI think he might have wanted to be with you too much to care about the hurt it caused.”
    â€œMaerlin?” I laughed. “No, you misunderstand. There’s attraction, yes, but it’s all physical, all part of being Phanne.”
    â€œMaybe you wanted to be with him, too.”
    â€œYes, but only for this . . . this . . .” I waved my hand in the air, searching for words to make him understand. “The power—it’s something that must be explored.”
    â€œI won’t deny that the winds grew stronger while you were . . . in the tree.” Plainly he’d rather not say exactly what we were doing in the tree.
    â€œYou know there’s more to the power than that.”
    â€œDo I? I’ve never felt it. How, then, can it be real to me? I’m a man of the solid earth; I know nothing of ‘powers.’ And neither does Arthur.”
    I knew he was trying to make me feel better, in a strange, backward way; that he meant to have me understand how impossible it was for Arthur to make the necessary mental leap to accept what had happened. For all that Maerlin and I could do, there was very little of it that could be seen and proved to be real. Most of Maerlin’s gifts were products of his own ferocious intelligence. Even the prophecies we made were so vague that some might argue they were more imagination than real.
    I thrashed about in my mind, searching for something that could make him understand, some words that would speak of my experience of being Phanne, and Maerlin’s. And Una’s, too, though she was just coming into her powers.
    But what were words? Hollowness that could speak lies or truth, and the speaker might not even know which left her mouth. She could be as ignorant of what was real as the listener.
    That only left one course: showing.
    â€œWe share blood,” I said.
    Brenn lowered his chin in an accepting half nod. His copper eye squinted in suspicion. “So we do.”
    I reached across the space between us, palm up. “Give me your hand.”
    He shied. “What are you up to?”
    I chuckled at the sight of fearsome Brenn, who made even seasoned warriors doubt their skill, cowering at the thought of taking my hand. “Not afraid of me, are you?”
    â€œI’m scared enough of Maerlin and Una to know better than to think my own daughter might not have danger up her sleeve.”
    I wiggled my fingers and raised my brow.
    He puckered his mouth and laid his rough paw over mine, my hand disappearing inside his broad grip. It was like being held by a chunk of sun-warmed bark.
    â€œI’m not very good at this yet,” I said by way of warning, and felt his arm jerk as if to draw away.
    â€œThere’s not going to be blood spewing out my one good eye, is there? I won’t fall off my horse? Soil myself?”
    â€œStop it,” I scolded. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
    â€œLike it will make me feel better, knowing that? Now you can’t concentrate. I’m going to come out all over in boils, aren’t I?”
    â€œ Brenn, ” I growled.
    He made muttering noises, then squeezed my fingers and went quiet, our held hands pulling and relaxing as our mounts moved down the road in their rocking gait.
    When I hadn’t been too busy hating myself to be able to think over the past couple of months, I’d been trying to learn how to contact those with whom I shared blood, or the men I had been with. Terix had offered to let me practice with him, but I could sense how it unnerved him, to know I might be peering into his mind without his knowledge. It was far more comfortable to work on my skill with Maerlin, who knew when I was mentally reaching for him and knew how to protect any part of himself he did not wish me to see.
    I’d tried as well to reach Clovis. Arthur. My son, Theo. Even Alaric, in far-off Tolosa, and Jax the pirate, who