Soul Fusion - Chapter 11 – Fury

"NO! STOP!"

Kahlan did as the voice commanded. It was almost instinct, there was no real thinking involved, she just reacted. Her chest tightened and she was surprised that she was feeling relief at hearing that voice interrupt them. She had been poised at the brink of making love with Richard while trapped in his body, as he was in hers. It was all very awkward and disorienting. Her heart was pounding with anxiety and fear. She knew she had been the one to push Richard into doing this, but now that she was at the threshold, so to speak, and she was having her doubts as to whether or not she could even do it.

She had barely begun entering Richard—her body—when the voice had called for them to stop. Moving back, she let out a soft sigh of relief, and looked up to see Zedd standing at the threshold of the doorway, a bemused looking Cara not far behind him. Richard moved under her, confused. He shifted as she moved off him and looked up.

"Zedd!" he hissed out, his brow lowering in anger.

"Please, you must stop!" Zedd nearly shouted, stepping out of the doorway, his shoulder length silvery hair blowing wildly in the wind. The sun was still continuing its descent and dusk was fast approaching.

Ignoring Richard, Kahlan hiked up her trousers and stood, retying the laces. Cara helped Richard up, who quickly shifted the skirts to cover himself as he started to tug the black shorts up.

"Spirits, tell me you have not—?" Zedd began in a rush, his eyes wide with terror.

"No," Kahlan quickly answered, sucking in a breath.

"Dammit, Zedd!" Richard growled, leaning on Cara's arm for support as he worked the black shorts all the way back up. "You told us we needed to make love before the sun sets, and that is what we were doing!"

"But you haven't, have you?" Zedd asked, his bushy eyebrows rising in panic. "Please, spirits, tell me you have not made love yet."

Kahlan shook her head, utterly confused. Zedd had been the one to tell them that the only way to reverse the spell was to make passionate love to one another; to basically repeat what they had done the previous night before the switch in their bodies had occurred. Yet now here he was practically scared to death that they had done what he had told them to do. Kahlan was completely baffled. Heaving her chest as she breathed in the cool air, trying to stifle the flush of arousal that still coarse through the male body she inhabited, Kahlan looked out at the city and gasped in horror.

"Richard!" she cried, clutching at him and pointing out at the horizon.

Richard turned and looked out, equally gaping in terror as the sun disappeared and night fell. The panic immediately seized hold of Kahlan's heart and she felt like she was going to faint. They had been so close, probably even minutes away from reversing the spell. But Zedd had stopped them for some reason. And now their only shot at returning to their rightful bodies was gone, forever lost.

"No! No! NO!" she wailed, feeling a hole rip open in her heart. Tears streamed down her face and she turned on Zedd. "What have you done? Why… why?"

Richard held her, but with her being in his body, he could not hold her back. Cara had to come in and help Richard to restrain her. Her body was shaking and she was trembling like mad. She was going to be trapped in Richard's body forever now! She was never going to be able to feel Richard's love—the love that only he could give her—ever again. And all because Zedd had to be meddlesome and interrupt them, just like he had during all that time ago when they had been on the quest to defeat Darken Rahl.

The rage was unleashed within. Kahlan let it go, soaring and basking in its glory. She flung her head back and screamed. The tremors throughout her body continued and she felt the power surge in her. It was addicting feeling that power… that control.

"Zedd! She's going into the Con Dar!" she was vaguely aware of Richard shouting.

"It's much more worse than that, my boy," Zedd responded, almost too calmly. "Kahlan is not just a confessor with the power of you're wizard's Han, but she's a confessor in a man's body." He paused. "She's a male confessor, Richard! You know what that means!"

Kahlan wrestled her arms free of Richard and Cara's grasp. The rage was pulling at her, telling her to let loose and embrace it. She liked the feeling of it as it raged inside her. It gave her power like she had never had before. It was intoxicating and oh so addictive. Plowing forward, feeling the wind rush around her as the magic within her intensified, she directed her fury at the one who had prevented her from returning to her body. He had no right to stop what they had been doing.

Lifting a hand, she reached for him, intent on making him her slave. But then, at the last moment, someone jumped in front of her, taking the brunt of her powers as they unleashed. A sizzling bolt of purple lightning burst forth as at same time that her power released into the would-be-hero who had jumped in front of her, foolishly protecting the wizard from what was his due.

The lightning flashed again and she saw the face of the fool. The power surging within her roared with terror at what she saw. It was her face… meaning it was Richard. His shoulders slumped and his neck jarred backwards as her power pushed into him. Her mouth dropped and she screamed in horror as she watched him collapsed before her feet. The Blood Rage left her immediately and she feel to her knees, the sap in her strength and energy that she usually felt when she came out of the Con Dar did not come. She was simply herself again, realizing that the storm inside of her, the rage and craze for power driven by her being a confessor in a man's body, might have just cost her the life of the one person she valued more than anything else.

"No, Richard… no," she cried softly, grabbing his head and pulling it into her lap. Cara dropped down besides her, placing a hand on Richard's neck.

"He has a pulse," she said in a low voice. "He's alive."

"Give him the Breath of Life!" Kahlan wailed.

"There is no obvious injuries," Cara objected, creasing her brow. "And if I don't know what is wrong with him, giving him the Breath of Life might do him more harm than good."

"Let me check him."

Kahlan glared up at the source of that voice.

Zedd looked at her with sympathetic eyes. "I can help him, dear one," the wizard assured her. "You can trust me not to do anything to harm him or your body. He is my grandson, remember."

Kahlan bit her lower lip and nodded. She watched, terror and fear clenching in her chest as the old wizard hovered his hands over Richard's chest and head, mumbling incoherent words she did not understand. Closing her eyes, she whispered some soft prayers to the good spirits to bring her Richard back to her.

There was a sudden gasp and her eyes flew open. Richard was coughing and franticly looking around. His eyes locked on her and she saw something in them that made her heart sink deep in her chest. His eyes held a complete devotion that she had never wanted to see in his eyes, granted they weren't his real eyes, but the soul that they reflected back out at her was his. It was true, Richard always looked at her with devotion, but not this kind of devotion. This was the kind of devotion that made her sick to her stomach. Kahlan had long ago accepted her powers and what they did, but that did not mean she enjoyed using them to enslave souls.

Richard's lips quivered and parted. "Command me, Confessor."