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Knowing he could resist her no longer if he didn’t remove himself from the sight of her, he took back his hand. He was mentally making excuses to himself as to why it would be all right to give in. What could it hurt? Why was it so bad? Why did he think it would be so wrong?
It felt like there was a thick blanket over his thoughts, suffocating them before they could get to the surface.
Voices in his head tried to rationalize why he should stop this foolish resistance and simply enjoy the charms of this gorgeous creature who was making it more than stone cold obvious that she wanted him, who in fact was begging him. He felt a lump in his throat at his desire for her. He was near tears from struggling to find reasons to stop himself.
His thinking churned in a mental stupor. Part of him, the largest part, desperately struggled to make him abandon his resistance, but a small, dim part of his mind fought fiercely, trying to hold him back, trying to warn him that something was wrong. It made no sense. What could be wrong? Why was it wrong? What was it in him that was trying to stop him?
Dear spirits, help me.
An image of Kahlan came to him, and he saw her smile that smile she gave no other but him. He saw her lips moving. She said she loved him.
“I need to be alone with you, Richard,” Cathryn said. “I can’t wait any longer.”
“Good night, Cathryn. Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.” He pulled the door closed.
Panting with exhaustion at the effort, he closed the door to his room after he entered. His shirt was soaked with sweat. With a weak arm, he reached up and shoved the bolt to the door into place. It broke as he drove it home. He stared at the bracket as it swung, hanging by one screw. In the dim light coming from the fire in the hearth, he couldn’t see the other screws on the ornate carpets.
He was so hot he could hardly breathe. Richard pulled the baldric over his head and dropped his sword to the floor on his way to the window. With the effort of a drowning man, he twisted the latch and threw the window open, gasping as if he couldn’t get his breath. Cold air filled his lungs, but did little to cool him.
His room was on the ground floor, and he briefly contemplated stepping over the sill and rolling in the snow. He decided against it, and settled on letting the cold air waft over him as he stared out into the night, at the moonlit, secluded garden.
Something was wrong, but he couldn’t make himself grasp it. He wanted to be with Cathryn, but something inside was fighting it. Why? He couldn’t understand why he would want to fight his desire for her.
He thought again about Kahlan. That was why.
But if he loved Kahlan, why would he be having such an intense desire for Cathryn? He could think of little but her. He was having trouble keeping the memory of Kahlan in his head.
Richard shuffled to the bed. He instinctively knew that he had reached the end of his ability to resist his lust for Cathryn. He sat on the edge of the bed, in a daze as his head spun.
The door opened. Richard looked up. It was her. She was wearing something so sheer that the dim light in the hall silhouetted her body underneath. She crossed the room toward him.
“Richard, please,” she said in that soft voice that paralyzed him, “don’t send me away this time. Please. I will die if I can’t be with you right now.”
Die? Dear spirits, he didn’t want her to die. Richard nearly burst into tears at the very thought.
She glided closer, into the firelight. The softly pleated nightdress reached the floor, but did nothing to hide what was beneath it, merely softening her body into a vision of beauty beyond anything he could have imagined. The sight ignited him. He could think of nothing but what he was seeing, and how much he wanted her. If he didn’t have her, he would die of unrealized desire.
As she stood over him, with one hand behind her back, she smiled as she stroked his face with the other. He could feel the heat of her flesh. She bent and brushed her lips against his. He thought he would die of pleasure. Her hand went to his chest.
“Lie down, my love,” Cathryn whispered as she pushed him back.
He flopped back on the bed, staring up at her through the numb agony of desire.
Richard thought of Kahlan. He was powerless. Richard dimly remembered some of the things Nathan had told him about using his gift: it was within him, and anger could bring it out. But he felt no anger. Instinct was how a war wizard used his gift, Nathan had told him. He remembered abandoning himself to that instinct when he was about to die at the hands of Liliana, a Sister of the Dark. He had given sanction to the inner power. He had let his instinctive use of need bring the power to life.
Cathryn put a knee on the bed. “At long last, my love.”
In helpless abandon, Richard gave himself over to that calm center, the instinct beyond the veil within his mind. He let himself fall into that dark void. He relinquished control of his actions to what would be. He was lost either way.
Clarity ignited, scorching the fog away in seething ripples.
He looked up to see a woman for whom he had no feelings. With cold lucidity, he understood. Richard had been touched by magic before; he knew its feel. The shroud had been shattered. There was magic about this woman. With the fog gone, he could feel its cold fingers in his mind. But why?
Then he saw the knife.
The blade glinted in the firelight as she lifted it over her head. With a wild rush of strength, he flung himself to the floor as the Cathryn buried the knife in the bedding. She drew it back again as she dove toward him.
It was too late for her now. He cocked his legs to kick her back, but in a confusion of sensations and realizations, Richard felt the presence of a mriswith, and at nearly the same time, he saw it materialize as it dove through the air above him.
And then the world went red. He felt warm blood splatter his face as he saw the filmy nightdress slashed open; severed edges of diaphanous material fluttered as if in a blast of wind. The three blades ripped Cathryn nearly in two. The mriswith crashed to the floor beyond.
Richard spun out from underneath her and sprang to his feet as she toppled back, the shocking gore of her insides sloshing across the carpet. Her terrible gasps died out in heaving pants.
Richard crouched, his feet and his hands spread, facing the mriswith on the other side of her. The mriswith had a three-bladed knife in each claw. Between them, Cathryn writhed in the agony of death.
The mriswith took a step back toward the window, its beady eyes staying on Richard. It took another step, drawing its black cape over one scaled arm as its gaze swept the room.
Richard dove for his sword. He slid to a stop as the mriswith planted a clawed foot atop the scabbard, holding it to the floor.
“No,” it hissed. “She was going to killssss you.”
“The same as you!”
“No. I protectssss you, skin brother.”
Dumbfounded, Richard stared up at the da
rk shape. The mriswith flung the cape around itself and dove through the window into the night, vanishing as it leapt. Richard lunged toward the window to grab it. His arms caught only air as he landed across the windowsill, hanging halfway out into the night. The mriswith was gone. He could no longer feel its presence in his mind.
In the emptiness left by the departure of the mriswith, Richard’s mind filled with the mental image of Cathryn squirming in a mass of her guts. He vomited out the window.
When his racking heaves finished, and his head stopped spinning, he staggered back to where she lay to kneel beside her. He thanked the spirits that she was dead, and no longer suffered. Even if she had tried to kill him, he couldn’t stand to watch her suffering in the throes of death.
He stared at her face. He couldn’t imagine the feelings he had had for her that he now only dimly remembered. She was just an ordinary woman. But she had been shrouded in magic. It was some sort of spell that had overpowered his reason. He had come to his senses with no time to spare. His gift had broken the spell.
The top half of her slashed nightdress was thrown up around her neck. A cold feeling that gave him goose bumps turned his attention to her breasts. Richard’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned closer, staring. He reached out and touched her right nipple. He touched the left. It wasn’t the same.
He carried a lamp to the fire and lit it with a long splinter of kindling. He returned to the body and held the lamp near her left breast. Richard wet his thumb on his tongue and rubbed the smooth nipple. It came off. With her nightdress, he cleaned the paint from her breast, to leave a smooth, unbroken mound of skin. Cathryn had no left nipple.
The calm center within radiated an aura of comprehension. This was connected to the spell she had over him. He didn’t know how, but it was.
Richard suddenly sat back on his heels. He sat a moment, wide-eyed, and then sprang up, running to the door. He stopped. Why should he be thinking this? He had to be wrong.
