I turned back to Frost and realized Usna was right. He’d been ripped in great bloody furrows from midchest to thighs; even his arms were marked up, though the worst was his chest, shoulders, and one leg. It took me a moment to realize he’d thrown a knee and thigh up over his groin to keep the great claws from tearing up such tender bits.

“I’ve sent for a healer,” Usna said.

Doyle knelt on the other side of him. “I am so sorry, Frost.”

“What happened to trap you in your dreams?” Frost asked, in a voice that held a hint of pain, which meant it hurt even more than I thought, otherwise he’d have hidden it better.

“Nightmares, and it was the Lord of Dreams … I guess, King of Dreams now.”

“Taranis,” I whispered.

“Yes,” Doyle said.

“Two nights ago he attacked Merry, tonight you; we must find a way to keep him out of our dreams,” Frost said.

“Agreed,” Doyle said.

“But how?” I asked.

No one answered me, but my cell phone went off. I jumped and scrambled to get it from the bedside table, because it was Rhys’s ring, and he was in charge of security while we slept tonight.

“Tell Mistral to control his anxiety,” Rhys said with no hello.

“What?” I asked.

“There’s a funnel cloud forming in the air about half a block away. It came out of a clear California night, so tell the storm god to calm down or our neighbors are really going to hate us.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Yes, now tell him to control himself, now!”

I told Mistral what Rhys had said, but even as I spoke the sickly storm green of his anxious eyes began to fill with movement, and I heard the first crack of thunder above us.

“Control yourself, Mistral,” Doyle ordered.

“I am trying, but it’s been centuries since I had the weather react to me. I’m out of practice.”

Rhys yelled on the phone, “Tell him to practice fast—the tail of the funnel is reaching for the first house.”

“Mistral!” I said.

“I’m trying!” His eyes were full of wind and storm.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE MEN WERE yelling at him, Doyle was ordering him. Mistral stood there, big hands clenched into fists; the effort of controlling his magic showed in the muscles in his arms as if stopping the storm had weight that he needed to lift with his body and not just his mind.

I went to him and touched his arm. It made him startle and look down at me with wide eyes. I could see the storm in his irises like tiny movie screens so that I saw the funnel cloud begin to reach for the earth below.

Someone said, “Let him concentrate, Merry.”

“We need fair weather,” I said, and went up on tiptoe, touching the side of Mistral’s neck, and he bent toward me, hands still in tight fists; as he bent lower I was able to slide my hands around his neck, touch his face, and stare into the wonder of Mistral’s eyes.

The terrible tension in his shoulders loosened, and then he raised his arms to hold me. We kissed and his lips were as gentle as any man in my bed for an instant, and then his arms enfolded me, lifted me off my feet, the kiss growing into an eagerness that was almost like feeding, as if his mouth had been hungry for mine. His arms tightened into a near-crushing weight, and he kissed me as if he meant to climb inside me through my mouth, forcing me to open wide for him. One arm held me in that so-tight grip and the other found the back of my hair and tightened until it was nearly painful. He let me know with his hands, his arms, his mouth, how much he wanted me, how much he’d missed me these long weeks, and how great his need was for the way we made love.

I gave myself over to the thrill and strength of that kiss, those arms, this man. He drew back enough to look into my face, his eyes almost wild with need. His eyes were a rich dark blue like the sky at dusk after a storm has blown everything clean.

He pressed his mouth against mine again in that passionate, almost painful kissing, turning with me in his arms to kneel on the bed, and begin to crawl us farther onto it. I managed to turn my lower body to the side, so that when he pinned me to the bed it was only part of me pressed under the solid weight of his upper body.

I fought free of his kisses and managed to say, “I cannot have intercourse yet, Mistral. The Gods know I want to, but the doctor says no, not yet.” My voice was breathless, my heart loud in my ears, my body thick with the rush and beat of my own pulse.

He laid his head on the bed and made an inarticulate sound, half groan and half yell. He spoke with his face still pressed to the covers, hair pooling over him so I could see nothing but the gray fall of hair. “I shall go mad soon.”

I touched his hair, smoothing it back until I could see the side of his face. “It’s only five to six more weeks, and then I can make love again.”

He rolled an eye up and the color was his more typical gray now. “Perhaps you should start with someone gentler than I, our Merry.”

I smiled and smoothed more of his hair back so I could see that handsome profile. “Perhaps, but believe this, my Storm King, I want you as badly as you want me.”

He studied my face and then smiled. “That is good to know.”

“Rhys said the sky is clear, and it’s a beautiful California night,” Usna said.

I leaned and laid a much more gentle kiss on Mistral’s lips. “We just needed his mood to lighten; fair mood, fair weather,” I said.

“That was good and quick thinking, Merry,” Doyle said. “I would not have thought of it in time.”