Her startled question faded into a laugh. "Magic? Will I ever get used to this?"

"I hope not. I hope it will always be a wonder to you," Navarre said roughly.

But it was not a magic of his working that bound them. It was an older magic, cast up by desire worked in the truth of love.

Their love had been lost, blown through their fingers like sand. Now a new chance was given to them when least expected.

Though she didn't understand the forces at work, Sara wouldn't risk losing him again. She tugged at his clothes, unfamiliar with the ties and bindings of his age.

He spared them both, shrugging free of wool and linen with a muttered phrase of power.

Her breath caught when she looked upon him, hard chest and lean muscle. He was all planes and shadows in the glow of phantom firelight. Stirred by the sight, she leaned down to explore with mouth and fingers.

He whispered her name. His fingers opened, twisting in her hair. He pulled her mouth to his for a kiss that held an edge of violence. "You steal my breath."

She closed her eyes when his tongue found her tight, aching nipples. His hand moved over her stomach, tracing dark curls slick from desire. He pressed slowly inside and Sara felt the world blur.

Moving deeper, he lifted her, met her with his fingers. Her breath caught at a wave of sharp pleasure and a hot sense of remembering.

Coming home, she thought.

Finding his arms after so many years.

He bit the curve of her shoulder and Sara felt her body bow, nerves stretched to breaking beneath the certain fingers that slipped and teased. He watched her as his fingers slid deep. He whispered her name as he slid inside her again. Dizzy, she felt the hammer of his heart in response. And then he stroked her, fully sheathed inside her.

She felt his heartbeat as she came apart, locked in a breathless climax. He drove her up again, blood racing, skin hot. She gasped his name and drove her nails into his shoulders as he shifted to one knee before her, then leaned to taste her, slowly and well.

No more, she thought.

Far more, he answered, showing her a new heat beneath his lips and hot tongue, the world gone white and blind. He pulled her against his mouth, gripping her hips with his hands while she shuddered at the tracing of his tongue, sensing he would not be denied.

Trust me, Sara.

Strangely she did.

Feel this joining.

With every grain of her being, she did.

Come apart for me now.

That she did, too, shaken even as she was protected, caught against his body when she might have fallen. Her arms wrapped around his neck as she felt him lift her.

Soft carpet at her back. Skin to hot skin, naked on the thick wool.

And then Gabriel's body above her, tight with control.

The low whisper of her name. His heat at her thighs as he spread her. The first giddy shock of his slow, powerful entry.

His body rose above her. His rigid length pressed to fill her. Sara shot to another effortless climax, matched by every stroke he made inside her. She called his name.

Falling, falling.

There was no hurry in his taking, only certain familiarity, pulling the thread of thought between them so tight that it quivered. Over the hammer of her desire, she felt logic slowly return.

"Gabriel?"

His eyes were dark, his body rigid in the force of his control.

She slid her hand between them, feeling the outline of their bodies, and he shuddered at her intimate touch. Some part of her drew on memories, given in the wake of their binding on the roof. She had seen enough to remember how she had touched him long before. He had protected her, defended her and finally lost her through an act of betrayal. This much Sara had seen clearly.

She bit his shoulder, pulling him with her as energy coiled and snapped.

His hands tightened. His lips nuzzled her breast, and suddenly she tensed, caught in the sure rush of another climax. This time Sara slid her legs around his waist, drawing him down to her, welcoming his body and his need.

So much pain in him still.

She took him just as he was, with all his shadows and regrets. With her love she gave him back the man he'd been before his losses, whole again, perfect in her memory.

His breath came harshly. She drove against him, gripped him tightly, matched in spirit and flesh.

Her legs locked at his waist, and her body opened to him completely as he threw his head back.

Engulfed in dark pleasure, bodies taut, they felt the shattering heat of their joining, denied them for long centuries. His name was on Sara's lips as she fell.

SOMEONE MOVED.

Someone sighed.

Dim sounds followed. Not English. She struggled to hear and understand.

"Dearest love."

She tried to move and found it beyond her. With great effort Sara forced open one eye. Their clothes lay scattered across the library's thick rug while the fire danced. Gabriel had the mark of her nails on his neck and the smile of a man well pleasured. Gorgeous, she thought, with his long hair tangled and his eyes glinting with secrets.

She caught a sharp breath to feel him harden inside her again. Her eyebrow rose. "That qualifies as impressive."

"No more than you, my heart." Gabriel withdrew and then traced the tight line of her pink nipple.

His tongue followed the same slow path, then moved across her stomach and down to her thighs.

She shuddered. "You'll kill me," she whispered breathlessly.

Sighing when he came inside her again.

"Then we'll die together," he said roughly. The heat spun up, bright like silver, new like dawn, gripping them again.

MUCH LATER GABRIEL watched her sleep, thinking on the odd ripples of time and the strange, unpredictable network of life. He had thought his ward infatuated, betrayed into an act of wantonness by his oldest friend. Now Gabriel knew that was a lie. His ward had not betrayed him.

Nor had his friend.

Instead a cunning man had taken her against her will. Gabriel suspected that Philip had worked evidence to suggest that Draycott had been involved, though he could not be certain of how it was done.

He closed his eyes. He had been so quick to hate, to believe the worst of those he should have trusted. Such a fool.

And yet...

She was here beside him. Possibilities were given, it seemed.

Miracles were granted.

She had been the daughter of a trader long centuries in the past. Before her father's death she had studied beside him, poring over maps of all the old caravan routes. Even as a girl she had heard legends of the wealthy empire that lay far to the east. Gabriel wondered how much of that knowledge had remained, aiding her search at Draycott.

Possibilities.

Miracles.

He slid a worn metal cross around her neck. "Keep this," he whispered, hearing her sleepy sigh. He kissed her hand. Wear it and remember me, Sara.

He felt her sleepy agreement, a warm sigh in his mind as she tumbled back into dreams.

Happy dreams this time.

He was content. Far more than content, the warrior of Outremer realized as her thigh slid across his and her fingers eased through his hair.

Love is here, he thought in wonder.

And love was a force to rock kingdoms and shift castles. More powerful than any skill of siege or sword.

After so many centuries, to feel her again, her breath against his chest, her hand curved over his.

When all else ended, love remained.

He knew the nightingale, or thought that he had. A small, plain bird of little wingspan and power.

Yet now the mighty warrior knew how perfectly its song could break a man's heart in two.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

SARA WOKE TO FIND HIM dressed, looking out the window, his shoulders tense.

The wind still shrieked and she shivered beneath the warm blanket that covered her. Her body was sated, her skin flushed from all the ways she had taken-and been taken.

But she forced away the remnants of sleep. There were questions to ask and a future to explore. And something remained for him to do, something he might resist, even now.

She walked to his side and slid her arms around his waist, feeling his sigh. "You should have woken me."

"There was no need. You must have your rest."

"I will. First I have something to ask."

She felt him stiffen, picking up the determined thread of her thoughts. "Let him go, Gabriel. I can feel that some part of you resists, but let it be done once and for all. If you won't do it for him, do it for me. Remember the honor of the friendship you once had."

She felt him try to block her out. "Mistakes were made. How can either of us go back now?"

"Can't-or won't?"

"Is there a difference?"

"Of course there is. You are a man of strength, a man who can choose. Use your strength to choose the right thing. Set things fully as they were with your friend."

He looked at Sara and smiled a little grimly. "Do you control everyone around you so easily?"

"It's a request. Nothing more than that."

"Which gives it more weight than any order." He pointed to the leather chair beside the door. "Your clothes are dry."

She saw her folded sweater and on top of that her cell phone. "I will need some things from my room in the gatehouse."

He touched her cheek. "You will stay there and rest? No more work?"

She winced as she pulled on her sweater. "Agreed."

He muttered a little. "I will go with you."

Silent, he watched her dress, and then he opened the door. "After that I will go to find Draycott's lord." His coldness melted a little. "I do this because you ask me. And because it is, just possibly, the right thing to do. For what time I am given, I am yours to command."

His shoulders stiff, he walked her out to the gatehouse.

AFTER HE WAS CERTAIN that Sara was safe in the gatehouse, resting in bed, Gabriel strode grimly into the rain. Looking up into the sky, he summoned the man he had hated so long.

No one came.

Once again Gabriel issued the silent words of calling.

The storm answered, wind gusting fiercely.

"By all the saints, Draycott. Reveal yourself now. I have...amends to make. Questions remain to be answered."

Adrian Draycott walked out of the mist near a great fountain at the edge of the gatehouse. He was immaculate in white lace cuffs and a black velvet jacket, every inch the abbey's lordly guardian.