The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

depths pulled at her heart.
    Her resolve weakened.
    He had recovered from his magic ordeal. He’d want more of her now, she reminded herself.
    “Your body is full of meat. Your strength has been restored. You will sleep outside. And work for your keep.” She finally broke eye contact. “Or perhaps it’s time for you to leave. The way you came.”
    And how was that? No one but herself could enter or leave the clearing unless she opened the path. “I have no more hospitality for an uninvited guest.”
    “Uninvited?” His eyebrows rose in honest question. “If you didn’t want me here, why did you open the path with your song? Why did you keep it closed when I sought to explore?”
    “I didn’t!” she gasped. “I was singing to keep the clearing inviolate.”
    “You sang, I harmonized, the path opened.”
    Aghast at the implication, she turned away from his probing eyes. “Gather your things and be gone.”
    “When the time is right.”
    “The time is always right for honesty. You seek the dragon. Then why do you stay here? I suspect you have no quest but me. Did someone in the village dare you, or bribe you, to seduce me?”
    “Has any man from the village menaced you?” He sounded angry. At her or the villagers?
    He was close now. Too close. She could feel the warmth of his body reach out to surround her.
    With the warmth came the smell of meat. She backed away. “I refuse to be owned by any man.” Her husband had tried. He died on their wedding night.
    “You have no need to fear me, Brevelan,” he whispered warmly. His eyes turned cold and blank. She couldn’t read any of his emotions.
    “All men are alike,” she accused. Her husband had needed to inflict pain in order to feel lust. The men who had crowded outside their door on the wedding night seemed to think the two went together as well.
    “I’m different. I’m a journeyman magician. Women are forbidden to me.” He looked hurt.
    “That means nothing. You are still a man.”
    “My powers mean everything to me. I’ll not risk them by taking a woman before I have my master’s cloak.” He raked a hand through his hair, a gesture she was coming to know. “I’m just beginning to understand the nature of my power, Brevelan. It’s stronger than I ever imagined. But I’ll never have enough magic to heal the hurt that is deep inside you. Only a man can do that. I can’t be fully a man until I finish my quest.”
    He stooped through the doorway and gathered his blanket and pack. He held them to his chest almost as a talisman. “Until your hurt is banished or I can cure it, I’ll make my bed outside.”
    “Good,” she replied. When he was gone, she grabbed the broom made of stiff straw. Furiously, she swept his bedding of soft grasses off the packed dirt near the hearth. Soon, no trace of his presence remained.
    Brevelan looked about her snug home in relief. Once more it was fully hers. Once more it was empty.
    “Puppy,” she called. Her pet was across the clearing, watching Jaylor set up his camp. The single room seemed to grow bigger, emptier, lonelier. She needed the comfort of her familiar companion.
    The wolf looked toward her, then back toward the man, in indecision.
    “Come, Puppy,” she coaxed. She had to make the man realize he could not steal the affection of her pet.
    Slowly the wolf rose to his four feet. He looked at Jaylor with interest, then made his way back to Brevelan. He seemed to be telling her the man was his friend, but his loyalty would always lie with her.
     
    Women! Jaylor was mighty grateful there were none to contend with at the University. It was bad enough the king’s court and capital abounded with women. Women with their beautiful bodies and seductive laughs. Because those women were forbidden, he was always tempted. Brevelan was more than a mere temptation. Could her University red hair be a sign of some subtle magic that made her irresistible?
    How was he to fulfill his quest when all he could think about was Brevelan? He’d watched her for over a week as she went about her daily routine. The gentle songs she sang, the sight of her tightly controlled braid of unusual hair, even the way she spoke to each of her animal friends as if they could understand her, captured his imagination.
    Good thing she’d kicked him out of the hut. Another night of sleeping so close to her might have been the end of his control. And her cot was not a small bed meant for solitary slumber. It was wide, more than