Lonen blinked at his brother. “That’s a remarkably practical approach.”
Arnon shrugged cheerfully. “I’ve always been the practical one.” He took the wreath from Lonen’s man with a nod and settled it on Lonen’s head himself. “Wear it with pride and no remorse, brother,” he said. “Arill knows I’m glad it’s not mine.”
Together they strode out, climbing the stairs to the upper levels of the palace, bypassing the Bridge of Seofe that led to Arill’s Temple. Arnon had performed miracles, recruiting an army of otherwise bored and idle Destyre warriors to construct a flat platform atop the pitched roof. They had to climb a ladder for the last level up, but Arnon had at least designed it to rest at a long angle with broad, flat steps, so hopefully Oria wouldn’t have trouble navigating it. Other ladies, arriving in their finery for the royal wedding, seeming to be having no trouble.
Atop the platform, hammered metal basins all along the edges held blazing fires which helped dispel the wintery chill as the sun declined to the horizon and the dusky purple evening descended. Arill’s tree showed raw cuts where nearby branches had been severed, and the smell of fresh sap filled the crisp air, along with the sweet smoke of the fires. A bower of evergreen bows had been constructed at one end, between sunset and moonrise, and Rhiten Robson waited there in his formal priest’s robes the color of new leaves in spring, lavishly embroidered in gold.
Lonen slipped his hand into his pocket, checking that the ring remained safely within, beyond glad that he’d commissioned the metalsmith to begin work on it before he and Oria fled the palace.
“Nervous?” Arnon asked as they bided their time, waiting for the bride and her retinue. The priest kept an eye on the sky, keenly observant of the timing, but Lonen knew his mother wouldn’t let Oria be late, even if she had to drag his Báran bride there naked.
“Eager,” Lonen replied with a wolfish smile, making his brother laugh. “Recall that Oria and I have been married some months now. This is a formality for me.”
“True.” Arnon regarded him speculatively. “Were you nervous then? Marrying a foreign sorceress in some arcane ritual of the bloodthirsty Báran people and all?”
“Terrified,” Lonen confessed in a wry tone. He met his brother’s amused gaze. “I would have given a great deal to have you with me then. I’m grateful to have you with me now.”
Amusement fled, gripped by emotion, Arnon clasped his shoulder. “Now and always,” he replied in a rough voice. The drums started up and Arnon glanced to the side, eyes widening. He whistled low and soft. “And look how well all of this has turned out for you.”
Lonen turned to see Oria rising with measured steps up the long ladder, Baeltya and his mother on either side of her. The last rays of the sun caressed her with loving fingers, stoking the fire in her hair, which fell in a blazing sheet like molten metal, over a gown the same color. Suspended by chains of copper inset with jewels, the fine fabric barely clung to her breasts before falling in a shimmering drape of sparkling light. The same sort of chain draped around her pale throat, holding on a cloak of emerald green lined with more of the copper silk. A gold band crossed her forehead, holding the veil of hair off her lovely, fine-boned face. She smiled at him, her lips painted the glossy shade of good wine, and her eyes shone brighter than any of the jewels she wore.
He held out a hand to her and she took it, looking him up and down. “Who knew my barbarian warrior would clean up so well?” she murmured. “You’d put even a peacock of a Báran nobleman to shame.”
“Oh, I’m still a barbarian brute under these pretty clothes,” he replied in the same tone. “As I plan to demonstrate with great vigor very soon.”
A high flush graced her cheekbones. “I look forward to that demonstration, my king.”
“Excellent news, my queen. Are you ready to marry me again?”
“Again and again,” she replied with a radiant smile, that only briefly dimmed. “I only wish Chuffta could be here, more than mentally.”
“He can and will. Call him.”
Oria frowned. “What do you mean?”
Lonen pointed to the cleared area beyond Arnon, who grinned at her in great excitement, practically hopping from foot to foot. “My wedding gift to you both,” Arnon said.
Oria’s welled with tears, though her joyful smile never dimmed. “Thank you,” she whispered, seeming too overcome to speak more loudly.
Moments later, a white shadow passed overhead, the wind of Chuffta’s wings making the bonfires flare. Lonen kept half an eye on them, but the drafts quickly waned.
“I’m telling him to be his very most careful,” Oria murmured. Sure enough, Chuffta soon settled on the nearby platform in a roped-off space kept clear for him. The wooden platform groaned ominously—and Arnon frowned, scanning the area, clearly taking mental notes—but it held. Chuffta folded his wings and curved his neck, lowering his triangular head to rest his pointed chin on the platform, for all the world like a cat settling in to rest.
Rhiten Robson cleared his throat and they turned to him. Holding out his arms, he pointed one finger to the setting sun, and the other toward the opposite horizon, where Sgatha’s curve emerged, round and the color of a rose from Oria’s garden. Like a blue-green jewel, Grienon rose beside her. They’d cleared branches to make the sight visible, Lonen realized, and a breath of awe sighed through the gathering.
A sacred moment, indeed, full of the peace he and Oria would bring to the world.
~ 5 ~
Months and forever ago, Lonen had promised he’d show Oria how the Destrye did a wedding. He’d grumbled at the lack of celebration at their Báran one—though having the bride collapse unconscious hadn’t helped what was admittedly an intense and solemn ritual.
This was the party Lonen had promised back then, when she’d been so uncertain of what the future held. That uncertainty lingered—they had a war still to fight—but for this one night, they could revel in the best sense of the word. Music played, the hides stretched across the hammered metal drums sending a booming beat through the forest, while pipes carved of wood and fashioned of metal wove higher and mellower melodies around the throbbing rhythm. The fires blazed, sending sparks up into the sky, and Lonen guided her through the unfamiliar dance steps, grinning in delight as she held onto him and followed along.
The dances weren’t difficult, but they often involved him bodily lifting her to swing her in a circle, making her shriek with surprise and laughter. The Destrye woman did likewise as their partners swung them in wild patterns, making her less self-conscious, the female voices rising high as the men shouted in counterpoint, stomping their feet—a human version of the song made by the pipes and drums.
Arnon’s platform shuddered beneath their feet—and once she spotted him lying on his belly, head hanging over the edge as he checked a support—but it held. To be on the safe side, she sent Chuffta off again, and he went easily, wishing her a happy night with her mate, and anticipating a nice bloody cow from the Destrye herds a short distance away.
She was just as happy not to be in on that hunt.
Lonen lifted her higher and she clutched his shoulders, sending up a whoop with the other women as she nearly flew, the copper and gold ring on her finger glinting against the black-emerald silk of his fine shirt. Lonen’s teeth flashed white in his black beard, trimmed close and neat for the occasion, the hammered gold leaves in the wreath nestled in his black curls glinting. Her barbarian king.
The music finished in a triumphant crash, but Lonen didn’t set her down. Instead he slipped an arm under her knees, cradling her against his muscular chest. “Have you danced enough?” he asked, a wicked sparkle in his eyes.
She wound her hands behind his neck, under the hair so tidily tied back, ready to see it falling around his face. “Why—do you have a better offer?”
“I’m thinking a more private celebration is in order. If you’ve enjoyed the party enough. I don’t want you to miss the fun.”
“I think there wil
l be other celebrations, yes?” she breathed, desire and anticipation flaring as hot and bright in her body as the bonfires. “Other times to dance.”
“We’ll dance every night, if you like,” he said, and she knew he’d follow through on that promise, as he had on every other.
“Then let’s go,” she said with a smile, caressing the back of his neck. “If it’s polite to—”
“I am taking my wife to bed!” Lonen roared, and the gathering of Destrye shouted their approval.
Oria dissolved into embarrassed giggles, covering her hot face as Lonen carried her through the gathering, people calling out astonishingly ribald suggestions. “That answers that,” she said, laughing.
“We are barbarians,” Lonen noted with a toothy smile, agilely descending the half-ladder/half-staircase she’d so painstakingly climbed. “What did you expect when you wedded one?”
She levered herself up, threading her fingers through his thick curls, now coming loose around his face from the vigorous movements of the wild dancing, and kissed him with all the hunger in her. He growled deep in his throat, returning and deepening the kiss. Tugging loose the tie that bound his hair, Oria recognized the feel of it. Bemused, she studied it when Lonen broke the kiss to hasten his stride. The tie was a simple leather one, nothing as fancy as the rest of his garb. It was the one he’d accidentally left behind in Bára when he returned home with his Destrye armies, when she thought she’d never see him again.
She’d kept it, a girlish memento of the exuberantly masculine barbarian warrior who’d so stunned her senses and awakened in her such darkly sexual feelings. When he’d returned—to angrily accuse her of breaking their tentative peace, an argument that ended in her proposing a marriage of state—she’d given the leather tie back to him. And he’d worn the stained old thing to their wedding.
He saw her studying it. “It seemed right to wear it today. When I saw you kept that tie, that’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?” She arched a cool brow, but her heart swelled tight in her breast.
“That you wanted me,” he murmured, a sensual rumble that crawled down her spine to her groin.
“I did not,” she replied with indignation.
“You thought about me, fantasized about me.”
“I didn’t even realize I had it.” She added a lofty sniff for good measure, which became a gasp when he took her earlobe in his teeth and nipped, then laved his hot tongue over the sting.
“You had it on the table beside your favorite seat in the garden. I imagine you sat there in your tower and looked out over the deserts toward Dru, imagining what I might be doing.”
“I never—”
“You know how I know this?” He moved through the doors the guards opened. Vaguely Oria recognized the rooms as Vycayla’s suite, rather than Lonen’s old, smaller one. “I know because I was doing the same thing,” Lonen continued before she could say anything about the rooms. He set her on her feet and unhooked the chain holding on her cloak, letting it fall to the floor. “I dreamed of you every night, and I’d wake longing for you. I’d look toward Bára, at Sgatha’s rosy face and Grienon’s fleeting passage, and envy the moons because they could look on you when I couldn’t.”
“Lonen…” she breathed, uncertain what words could follow that.
He framed her face in his big, rough hands and kissed her with infinite tenderness. “I love you, Oria. I think I loved you the moment I saw you in that window, as if lit from within by magic. You made me believe in the possibility of beauty, of peace and happiness, just by existing.”
“I think it was slower for me,” she answered with painful honesty, winding the tie between her fingers. “You frightened me so.”
Quick concern creased his face. “Do I frighten you still?”
She laughed, letting her magic swell between them, caressing him with it so his eyes flared from granite to silvery gray. “Not in the least. That was more about me, and my own fears and insecurities. I was such a timid mouse.”
“No.” He brushed his thumbs over her cheekbones. “Never that. I thought you were the bravest person I’d ever beheld, riding out to surrender the city—and make demands of your conqueror.”
She made a dismissive sound. “Nonsense, barbarian. You will never conquer me.”
“Good.” He took her hand and led her into the next room. All the wedding preparation detritus had disappeared, replaced with white candles and bows of evergreen. Bowls of hammered metal caught the candlelight and overflowed with autumn leaves, carefully dried to preserve their vibrant, fiery colors. “A Destrye tradition,” he said, gazing around the room with her. “Evergreen for winter, autumn leaves, candles for the summer sun. Unfortunately we have no flowers for spring, but soon enough I’ll be able to offer you real ones.”
Oria summoned a bit of magic, remembering the pool at the edge of the forest where she and Lonen had rested and he’d told her they were in Dru. Touching one of the boughs of evergreen, she transformed it into a garland of yellow flowers, sweetly scented and with buttery petals.
“Buttercups,” Lonen said, a hint of awe in his voice. “Fitting.”
“Yes.” She returned his smile. “Now we have everything.”
“Almost.” He pulled her into his arms, lips brushing hers, rapidly becoming a fire that consumed her. “I wanted this first time to be slow, romantic,” he muttered against her mouth. “but I don’t know if I can be that restrained. Oria…” He groaned her name, his mouth slanting over her throat, kissing, licking, lightly biting here and there, and she went boneless.
“Where’s a pillar when you need one?” she returned and he laughed, hoarse and desperate.
“Take off this gorgeous gown or I’ll ruin it.”
“I don’t care.” She arched in his grip, happy to have him tear the fragile cloth from her if it got him inside her faster.
“Oh no.” He set her away from him and backed up to sit on the high bed, one hand gripping the other, a determined set to his jaw. “You’ll wear that dress every year on the anniversary of our wedding, so I can remember this night.”
“You might forget otherwise?” she teased, holding up her hair to reach behind her shoulders to unfasten the braided chain straps.
“Never,” he averred, gaze intent on her. She swayed a little in place, enjoying his eyes on her.
“What if I get fat? Maybe I won’t be able to fit into the dress after I’ve birthed ten children.” She had the chains unhooked but held the copper silk coyly to her breasts.
“Is that how many you plan to have?” He quirked the scarred brow.
“At least. Maybe twice that many.”
“Then I’ll find more of that cloth and we’ll keep adding to it, even if you’re as big as Chuffta.”
She laughed, delighted with him. Then let the silk fall, pooling at her feet. She wore nothing beneath—any undergarments would have showed through the delicate fabric—so she stood naked but for the simple slippers and the cloak of her hair. The ladies had wanted to put her hair up, but she’d insisted on having it down, knowing how Lonen loved it that way—and only finally agreed to the circlet as a sign of her station. Now she tugged it from her hair, tossed it aside, kicked off the slippers and moved to her husband, fully naked.
His eyes roved over her with a hunger she hoped he’d never lose. In his eyes, she wasn’t too thin, and she believed she’d never be too fat. In his eyes she saw the same love she felt, the deep connection throbbing along the bond created long before the Báran priestesses solidified it with magic. A bond they created between them, despite their warring nations and the storied hatreds they’d been taught.
Lonen’s eyes rose to her face with wry humor, as if he sensed her thoughts, and she opened her mind more fully to him, seeing herself as he did. “I think one of us is wearing too many clothes,” she murmured.
He let out a shaking laugh and stood. “You blind me, Oria. I lose all sense around you.”
“Then let me help,” she answe
red in that smooth murmur, her nimble fingers moving to undo the clasp holding on his cloak, then the belt. She smoothed her hands over his chest as she parted his shirt, leaning in to press her soft lips to his skin—which might as well have been a brand, the way the touched seared through him. He fisted his hands by his sides, trying to control the nearly violent need to seize her and thrust himself inside her sweet body.
“Oria.” He marveled at how calm he sounded. “If I promise you can play with me all you like later, would you get on the bed already and spread your pretty thighs for me?”
Her startled gaze flew up to his, the copper hot as melted ore. She pursed her lips thoughtfully and he seriously considered kissing her senseless. “If you promise…” Turning, she climbed onto the bed, pausing on hands and knees to look over her shoulder, the gleaming fall of her hair sliding over her white skin, her gorgeous ass in the air and shapely legs parted to reveal her copper nether curls and the sweet pink flesh between. “But you’re still wearing too many clothes,” she purred.
He was, as the near-painful press of his engorged cock against the trousers attested. And he’d thought they were loose. Kicking off his boots, he stripped off the pants and crawled onto the bed after her, feeling much like an adolescent boy again, drooling after his first woman. With a mischievous smile, Oria—now leaning back on her elbows, giving him an excellent view of her delectable, pink-tipped breasts—scooted back across the big bed, daring him to come after her.
With an impatient snarl, he snagged one slim ankle, dragging her toward him, and she shrieked with surprise and laughter. Grabbing the other ankle before she could kick at him, he spread her wide and crawled up between her spread thighs, positioning himself at her entrance. Abruptly and completely serious, she gazed up at him, winding her arms behind his neck, lips parted and eyes full of emotion. He lowered himself, sliding his body against hers, savoring the connection of skin against skin, hers softer than the finest cloth. “Hold onto me,” he murmured.
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