But he knew beyond a doubt that he was meant to take hold of the Dark Key. When the time came, he would do so. Ridge realized he was shivering as he carefully closed the case. He didn’t know if it was because of the bitter cold thing inside or purely the result of his own inner tension.
He left the case on the stone floor in front of him and sat waiting. Griss was wrong. He didn’t need sleep. Ridge knew. Never had he felt so strong, so powerful or so alive. The driving force within him was a relentless source of unending energy. There was a fire in him. He burned like the steel of Countervail.
Before this night was over he would find a way to make the Dark Key burn, too. It was his destiny.
Kalena lost all track of time on her trip down the mountain trail. She moved swiftly, clutching the silvery metal box tightly to her as she made her way. There was a burning urgency in her, a sizzling energy that needed to be released, but which had to be controlled until the time was right to take up the Key.
Thoughts of Ridge alternated with thoughts of his seed that had taken root within her. She couldn’t pin down her emotions on either subject, but she was vibrantly aware of the fact that they were connected. Every time she tried to sort out the ramifications of the situation, the sense of urgency took over. She must reach the caves before dark. Sunset was the proper time. Kalena wasn’t sure how she knew this or exactly what she must do at sunset, but she was aware of its importance.
Something else had happened to her at sunset, she recalled at one point. That was the time of day she had married Ridge. The traditional time for a wedding ceremony. Her brow furrowed slightly at the memory and she tried to put it out of her mind. How could she have let a man put his lock and key around her throat?
Ridge was only a man, an incomplete creature seeking to control that which he needed in order to re-create himself. His usefulness to her was very limited. The fact that she was pregnant by him meant that she no longer needed him. But she did need him. How could that be? Her head spun with the disorienting whirl of thoughts.
He would take away her chance of freedom.
She did not want her freedom without him.
He would seek to control her.
She welcomed the conflict because it reinforced their bond of intimacy. There was a sensual excitement in a battle that could not be completely won or lost.
He had a temper that came from the Dark end of the Spectrum.
She had a talent for soothing the fury that burned in him.
He would use his sensual power over her to master her.
She wielded a similar power over him.
No matter how the argument went in her head it made very little practical difference. The Keys had both been freed. They sought each other now with increasing energy. She knew somehow that the one she held was already vibrating faintly in response to the one Ridge must have found. Kalena could feel the energy flowing from the case into her body. Soon she would be facing the Dark Key and the man who held it.
The black mist caught her by surprise when it swirled angrily around her as she turned a bend in the trail. Kalena halted, aware of the roiling cold that had lain in wait to trap her. Her awareness turned to scorn.
“Foolish men,” she called, listening to the echo of her voice. “I have brought the Key with me, just as you ordered. I have no intention of trying to flee. I will be happy to show you the results of your stupid meddling. Call back the mist. It can’t touch me now.”
There was no response. The black fog continued to swirl around her, but it was clear it could not touch her. It could and did, however, blank out her view of mountains, sky and trail. In a few seconds she was encircled by the mist, although she was safe from its icy tendrils.
Slowly she moved forward. The mist ebbed and flowed around her, seeking to snarl her arms and legs in cold bonds. But Kalena was safe from it and she knew it. She kept walking straight ahead, although she could not see more than a couple paces in front of her.
She knew when she entered the caves. The darkness around her took on a different texture. The mist began to fade and Kalena saw figures moving toward her with lamps. They halted a discreet distance away and she realized that as long as she held the case, they could approach no closer. Kalena smiled the cool, aloof smile of a woman who knew she was safe from the touch of men.
“Idiots,” she murmured, “you have no idea of what you have set free. You played with the tools of a power you don’t begin to understand, and soon those tools will destroy you.”
“Not so, woman.” Griss held up his lamp so that she could see his austere face and glittering eyes. “You are the one who lacks intelligence and comprehension. But that is only to be expected. You are merely female. Come. Meet your opposite on the Spectrum. It is almost sunset and your groom awaits. The consummation of this marriage of fire and ice crystal will change the future of the world. Too bad you will not live to see it.”
“Your threats are meaningless.” Kalena walked forward obediently, amused when the hooded men fell back. But I will come with you because there is something here that must be done.”
There was a shuffling of booted feet along the corridor, and Kalena followed the cloaked figures. She was led through a bewildering array of cavern passages and she realized almost at once there was no need to blindfold her. She was lost by the tenth turning, but somehow, with the Key in her hand, she did not feel lost.
Just when she had begun to wonder if the trip would ever end, Kalena realized that the stone beneath her feet had changed to glass. Black glass.
The Key in her hand vibrated with energy.
She paused, watching as the men ahead of her fanned out into a vast chamber that was completely lined with dark glass. In the center of the room a fire burned, although no one was feeding the flames. Slowly, she moved into the chamber, aware that the case in her hand was pulsing with power.
“Here is where you will meet your fate, woman. Your husband, who is also destined to be your executioner, awaits.” Griss waved her farther into the chamber with a mockingly dramatic sweep of his caped arm and then stepped back. “And you, foolish woman that you are, cannot even try to run from him.”
Kalena looked across the expanse of the glass room and saw Ridge. He stood with his feet slightly spread apart, as though he were braced for combat. In his hands he held a black metal case.
“So you decided to return,” he called softly across the fire.
“I had no choice.”
“That much is true.” He took a few paces forward so that the firelight glowed on his harshly carved features. The gold in his eyes was the color of the flames and just as dangerous.
Around them the members of the Cult of the Eclipse edged to the farthest walls of the chamber. Kalena sensed them retreat to what they thought was safety and wanted to laugh. There was no safety to be found in this chamber. Not now. A fierce, exultant energy washed through her.
“The Keys have been brought too close together,” she told Ridge. “The power has been loosed and is moving already. Can you feel it?”
“I feel it. Soon you will know just how weak and soft you really are, woman. You will learn the true meaning of surrender. How do you dare to challenge me with the Light Key? I will enfold you in darkness, take you and bind you completely to my will. And when it is done, the Light Key will be destroyed.”
“No, Fire Whip, you cannot destroy either me or the Key I hold. You are only a man and that which you wield is darkness. It is the source of your lust and your fury and your pitiful masculine power. It cannot survive a direct confrontation with anything from the Light end of the Spectrum. It can only rage and swagger and try to dominate with no hope of doing so.”
“Your female arrogance and pride are as false and foolish as your reasoning. You and all other women exist only to serve men. But you in particular exist to serve me. All that is feminine is meant to bow before all that is male. Just as the Light must ultimately surrender to the Dark, you must finally surrender to me.”
“Stupid male. Don’t you understand that the Dark exists only because of the Light? The Dark end of the Spectrum is cold and lifeless. Only the Light end can bring forth life out of the Dark.”
But the Light is meaningless without the Dark. Each end of the Spectrum is defined in terms of the other end. One cannot exist without the other. To destroy one would be to destroy the other.
The words filtered through the haze of excitement Kalena was feeling. It was a lousy time to remember Olara’s teachings in philosophy Kalena struggled to forget them. She needed to focus the whole of her concentration on winning this confrontation.
“The power of the Dark end of the Spectrum is limitless,” Ridge told her in a rough, challenging voice. He faced her from the other side of the fire, his lean, strong body taut with the masculine power that shimmered in the flames in front of him. “All that is female is weak in the face of it, just as you are weak. Don’t you recall your own weakness, Kalena? Think about it. Remember the times you have surrendered completely in my arms. When I touch you, you belong to me. You are mine to do with exactly as I wish. Your Light Key will crumble just as easily when it confronts the Dark. Why don’t you try to flee, woman, while you can? I would enjoy the chase. I will come after you, run you down and crush you beneath me. I will take you completely even as I destroy the Key that makes you so foolishly arrogant.”
Ridge heard the words he had just spoken and scowled. A part of him really did want her to turn and run to safety. But that made no sense. He was here to conquer her as man had always conquered woman; as the night conquered the day. He didn’t want her to escape. He wanted—no needed—to subjugate her completely. It was his right, his heritage as a man. She belonged to him and he was free to do what he wanted. But first he must crush her foolish bid for power.
“I would never run from you, Houseless bastard,” Kalena taunted. “You are less than dust beneath my feet, an illegitimate bastard who thought he could claim a heritage through me. Why should I run from such as you?”
Ridge felt the fury begin to burn deep in his gut. He took another pace forward, the black case vibrating almost painfully in his hand. “Then stay, Kalena, and learn the full extent of your weakness. Learn the meaning of surrender. You are nothing more than a servant I have chosen to indulge. Before this is over you will call me master.”
“And you are nothing more than a tool whose usefulness is over! Before tonight is finished you will kneel at my feet and beg for mercy.”
They faced each other in the firelight, neither aware of the heat of the flames or the cowled men who occupied the room with them. No one moved along the glass walls of the cavern. And then, without any warning, both the black case and the silver one sprang open.
Kalena flinched at the shock wave that went through her, but she remained on her feet, staring down at the writhing flames that formed the Light Key.
Ridge, too, felt the jolt of raw energy that coursed through him when his case flew open. Fathomless cold wafted upward from the black object that was exposed in the box. The time had come. He reached eagerly into the case and his fingers closed around ice that was so bitterly cold he thought it would freeze him to his bones. But he held fast. He could do nothing else.
On the other side of the fire Kalena was unable to resist putting her fingers into the white flames of the Light Key even though the heat was so intense she was certain her whole body would ignite. Her hand tightened around a white fire that flowed through her.
The black case and the silvery white case fell to the glass floor unheeded as Kalena and Ridge faced each other with the Keys to the Stones of Contrast.
Kalena knew the Key she held was no longer a tool or an object; it was a part of her. It consumed her, drove her, guided her. With it she was infinitely more powerful than the insolent male with the golden eyes, infinitely more powerful than all he represented. With the Key she could conquer him, make him plead for mercy. She could destroy him if she wished.
But she did not wish to destroy him.
The thought came to her like a cold shock in the midst of hot anger. Ridge was the father of her child. He was the man to whom she had given her heart. He was the other half of herself.
Ridge was aware of the power that was flooding him, urging him to go forward and release the devastating potential of himself and the weapon he held. They were one and the same, he realized. The Key was connected to him in some manner that defied comprehension. With this Key he could master Kalena and all the lightness that surrounded her. If she defied him, he could destroy her.
But he did not want to destroy Kalena.
The realization dazed him. He wanted to subdue her, master her, force her to acknowledge him as her lord, but he did not want to destroy her. He wanted to take her, bury himself in her soft warmth. He wanted to feel that combination of exultation and satisfaction that was his every time he held her in an intimate embrace. She was his and he was sworn to protect her. He was honor bound to protect her. He must protect her. She was his other half. His opposite. She was the Light that balanced the Dark within him.
The Key trembled in his grasp and the icy cold spread deeper into his body. In some distant corner of his mind he understood suddenly that if he didn’t control the ice, it would control him. And if the Key held complete power over him he would be unable to stop it from shattering Kalena. Dammit, he would not let himself be used as the instrument of her destruction. He wanted her with a raging desire that was stronger than the Dark Key’s drive to destroy the Light.
A deep, hot fury seethed in him, the kind of anger that made the steel of Countervail glow with fire. He would not be used in this way.
He would control the Key.
To do that, Ridge knew, he would need to halt the flow of ice that threatened to ensnare him. He must warm the Key with the force of his own inner fire.
It was the same inner fire he experienced when he enflamed the steel of Countervail and when he sheathed himself in Kalena’s soft, sweet, welcoming body. It throbbed in him, pulsed in his veins, ignited his passion and blazed with the promise of the future.
The fire was life.
Sixteen
He was her natural opposite. Her mate. The man with whom she had created new life.
The Key trembled in Kalena’s grasp as she looked at Ridge across the leaping flames. The promise of fulfillment, ecstasy, power and triumph vibrated within her.
But above all there was the promise of life, the life they had created together.
His eyes blazed at her, hotter than the flames in the pit of fire. “You are mine.” His face was stark with the lines of his inner battle. He held the Dark Key as if it were both talisman and weapon.
Kalena felt the desire to surrender battling with her equally powerful desire to resist. She felt as if the conflict would rip her apart. “I belong to no man, Fire Whip. I have no need of a man.”
“When I take you again I will teach you that you will never be done with me. I have made you mine. I will do so again. If you wandered to the ends of the world you would not be able to rid yourself of me. I am a part of you now.”
The babe. Did he know about the babe? Did he sense the life within her? The Light Key burned more brilliantly than ever. Kalena’s mind whirled with the memory of the woman struggling through childbirth alone, her husband downstairs in the tavern. It would never be like that for her, Kalena knew. This man would never abandon his wife and child. He would walk through the fires of the Dark end of the Spectrum for them. He would confront the Light end itself if necessary. She was his, just as he was hers.
On the other side of the fire Ridge stared at her as he stood in the grip of raw wonder.
“I am a part of you,” he repeated. The dawning realization was there in his eyes, and Kalena was certain he knew about the life they had created together. Somehow he had sensed it.
“Ridge.” His name was torn from her, but she could say nothing more. Her mind spun with startling images.
It wa
s as if he had touched her. She could almost feel his hands on her body, stroking her intimately, claiming her passion for his own. Kalena closed her eyes as the exquisite sensations poured over her. Calloused palms grazed her sensitive nipples, urging them into full flower. Strong white teeth nipped the inside of her thigh with a gentle savagery that made her tremble. Golden eyes flared with an exciting hunger that stoked her own desire. The weight of him was a throbbing force that at once subdued and set free the energy of passion that sailed through her blood.
Dizzy with the effects of the sensuality that reached across the fire to embrace her, Kalena struggled to maintain her balance. She couldn’t open her eyes. A soft moan escaped her. She could feel him holding her still, capturing her wrists in his large hands, anchoring her writhing legs with his own muscled thighs. His mouth covered hers, his tongue thrusting into her in a way that emulated another kind of possessive thrust. Her blood sang even as she surrendered to the silent embrace.
He was fire and she was ice. The dangerous flames that burned in him could only be quenched by her soft, welcoming femininity, cool and clear as crystal. He would bring her passion and she would bring him peace. Together they could create a future.
Her legs were being parted. The heavy, pulsing weight of him was between her soft thighs, seeking entrance to the hot, damp core of her. She could feel the powerful, blunt force of him pressing into her, demanding admission as if it were his right. She had no choice but to yield. But she longed for no other choice. She was his. She wanted to yield; to take him within her, trap him, chain him, and make him hers. Only in surrender could she win this unique battle. In surrender she would find victory.
In victory; Ridge would learn the meaning of surrender.
It was the way of the Spectrum. The way of male and female.