Page 65 of Captivated
As she turned away, the fire guttered out. The wind died. Quietly Nash breathed a sigh of relief. The storm, it appeared, was over.
He was very wrong.
“So you don’t want to be in love with me.”
Something in her voice had his brows drawing together. He wanted her to turn around so that he could seeher face, but she stood with her back to him, looking out the window.
“I don’t want to be in love with anyone,” he said carefully, willing himself to believe it. “Nothing personal.”
“Nothing personal,” she repeated.
“Look, Morgana, I’m a bad bet. I like my life the way it was.”
“The way it was before you met me.”
When she said it like that, he felt like something slimy that slithered through the grass. He checked his hands to make certain he wasn’t. “It’s not you, it’s me. And I... Damn it, I’m not going to sit here and apologize because I don’t like being spellbound.” He got to his feet gingerly. “You’re a beautiful woman, and—”
“Oh, please. Don’t strain yourself with a clever brush-off.” The words choked out of her as she turned.
Nash felt as though she’d stuck a lance in his heart. She was crying. Tears were streaming out of her brimming eyes and flowing down her pale cheeks. There was nothing, nothing, he wanted more at that moment than to take her in his arms and kiss them away.
“Morgana, don’t. I never meant to—” His words were cut off as he rapped into a wall. He couldn’t see it, but she’d thrown it up between them, and it was as solid as bricks and mortar. “Stop it.” His voice rose on a combination of panic and self-disgust as he rammed a hand against the shield that separated them. “This isn’t the answer.”
Her heart was bleeding. She could feel it. “It’ll do until I find the right one.” She wanted to hate him,desperately wanted to hate him for making her humiliate herself. As the tears continued to fall, she laid both hands on her stomach. She had more than herself to protect.
He spread his own impotent hands against the wall. Odd, he thought, he felt as though it was he who had been closed off, not her. “I can’t stand to see you cry.”
“You’ll have to for a moment. Don’t worry, a witch’s tears are like any woman’s. Weak and useless.” She steadied herself, blinking them away until she could see clearly. “You want your freedom, Nash?”
If he could have, he’d have clawed and kicked his way through to her. “Damn it, can’t you see I don’t knowwhat I want?”
“Whatever it is, it isn’t me. Or what we’ve made together. I promised I wouldn’t take more than you wanted to give me. And I never go back on my word.”
He felt a new kind of fear, a rippling panic at the thought that what he did want was about to slip through his fingers. “Let me touch you.”
“If you thought of me as a woman first, I would.” For herself, she laid a hand on the wall opposite his. “Do you think, because of what I am, that I don’t need to be loved as any man loves any woman?”
He shoved and strained against the wall. “Take this damn thing down.”
It was all she had—a poor defense. “We crossed purposes somewhere along the line, Nash. No one’s fault, I suppose, that I came to love you so much.”
“Morgana, please.”
She shook her head, studying him, drawing his image inside her head, her heart, where she could keep it. “Maybe, because I did, I somehow drew you in. I’ve never been in love before, so I can’t be sure. But I swear to you, it wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t done to harm.”
Furious that the tears were threatening again, she backed away. For a moment she stood—straight, proud, powerful.
“I’ll give you this, and you can trust what I say. Whatever hold I have on you is broken, as of this instant. Whatever feelings I’ve caused in you through my art, I cast away. You’re free of me, and of all we made.”
She closed her eyes, lifted her hands. “Love conjured is love false. I will not take, nor will I make. Such cast away is nothing lost. Your heart and mind be free of me. As I will, so mote it be.”
Her eyes opened, glittered with fresh tears. “You are more than you think,” she said quietly. “Less than you could be.”
His heart was thudding in his throat. “Morgana, don’t go like this.”
She smiled. “Oh, I think I’m entitled to at least a dramatic exit, don’t you?” Though she was several feet away, he would have sworn he felt her lips touch him. “Blessed be, Nash,” she said. And then she was gone.
Chapter 12
