A wave of pleased shouting roared around him. Two men hauled him to his feet, slapped him on the back, hauled him toward the table. Thealia brought him behind it, where his bride waited to be blood bound with him. Forever. A coeurdechain. What had he done?
Volaran trumpeting sounded through the room, from Power, not equine lungs. We did it! We did it! Dark Lance sent to his mind, then took off to fly in exuberance. Won the Volaran Exotique. Will be admired above all.
Oh, yeah. That’s why he did it. For glory, for zhiv, for an estate.
Calli looked into his eyes, her own so large, he thought he fell into them. Her face showed exquisite vulnerability. His heart caught.
For the woman.
He had to believe that this was right. That the Song had guided her. That her Power had led her to choose him because they were meant for each other.
Then her Song surrounded him, pulsed through him, connected from his knife to him, sifting through blood and muscle and bone and it was the most fascinating music he’d ever heard, full of brightness and shadows, unexpected twists and turns. It pulled him on a visceral level, instinctively pleasing, caressing him with the notes and chords.
“Drink,” said Swordmarshall Thealia.
Riding on a wave of triumphant lust, he gulped the full goblet down. He’d been expecting something nasty, but it was rare orange juice and mead, made effervescent by Power.
The potion’s effect was immediate. His vision blurred, then narrowed until all he saw was the woman. The fabulous woman. A fantasy woman.
She was frowning and wandering back down the tables. The room spun a little. His brain was slowing. What was he doing just standing here when his Pairling was getting away from him? She stopped at the last table and swayed, held on to the edge, staring at something. He tried to follow her gaze and noticed that all the objects on the tables shone with a repulsive glow.
Except one at the very last table. Some small item—a brown lock of volaran hair tied with a multicolored ribbon. The ribbon twisted and throbbed with a compelling mixture of colors—bright yellow, sickly green, orange-red, black-blue. The combination tantalized, mesmerized. Pulsed with wrongness.
Calli reached for it.
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That shocked him into motion. “Ttho!”
Her hand hovered as she turned her head to him, eyes wide and uncomprehending. Surely she must know the word no!
“Ttho!” he shouted louder. Heard a few snickers as if he was a jealous fool overreacting. You couldn’t overreact to evil. All his movements clumsy, he stumbled toward her.
She focused on him and a sweet smile lit her face. She said something and the other two Exotiques chuckled behind him.
One more long stride. Then he had her caught close against his heart, soft and warm against him. Oh, she deserved to be kissed. How had he resisted kissing her over the last interminable two days since he first saw her? He should have claimed her then, the minute she’d appeared in the Temple. He’d wanted her from then. Tipping up her chin, he lowered his mouth to hers and pressed his lips against her plump red ones and a thousand tiny explosions set him afire. No more waiting.
He traced his tongue over the junction of her lips and she opened her mouth for him and he explored it and tasted a flavor he’d never known before, a taste that became instantly addictive. Her back was bowed toward him under his hands, but he wanted her closer. Needed to be inside her, her wet heat clamping around him. Now.
Hard hands grabbed both his arms and tore her away from him. He struggled, let up a fierce cry of loss, of battle. He was slapped.
Think, man! said a cold, smooth voice from his left, his sword arm. “It is time to bond with her,” Luthan Vauxveau said.
“Bed as soon as you do,” said Bastien with a chuckle. The man holding him on his right.
Thought crept in. He wanted Calli more than anything else in his life and if he bloodbonded with a…a…whatever the word was, he’d have her forever.
“Mine. My woman,” he said, just to make it clear. Three other women—Alexa, Marian and Thealia—had surrounded her and were herding her to the little table with the knives and strips.
Coeurdechain. That was the word he wanted. That was the bond he wanted. The forever bond.
“Your woman,” Bastien agreed.
Marrec stopped fighting the hands that still gripped him. Caught sight of Calli’s arm being washed and anointed, held out for the cuts that would make them one. He surged toward her.
Thealia stepped in front of him. “Right or left handed?” asked Thealia.
She’d never bothered to notice before. A sting of bitterness nipped at him. Then he realized his emotions were being amplified. He’d have to be careful.
“My right arm is my shield arm,” he said thickly. He turned his head away. Other faces swam in his vision, watching him—Lady Hallard, Yan, Seeva. He blinked and looked for his archrival, Faucon. The man wasn’t there. He’d lost the lady. Marrec grinned. He’d won!
Neither was the new Chevalier with the gold ring. Koz was there, though. Marrec could gloat over Koz—that Exotique-Lladranan was as rich as Faucon, had at least two estates. Marrec winked at him. Koz winked back.
Marrec laughed, paying little attention to the cool wetness on his arm, the tingling of the herbal oil. Even the slicing of his vein was no more than a sharp bite, quickly over.
“Look at your lady and say the words,” pressured Luthan.
His lady. She was that—and more, and less. The passion of their entwined Songs was strong enough to last a lifetime, and the rhythms of one of the harmonies of her Song hinted at the earthiness of a woman who lived close to the land. A strong woman who could turn wild in bed. Marrec gazed at his woman, his lady. Her face was lovely, the shape of her lips and eyes, her coloring, different and perfect.
A tiny tube was inserted in her left arm. He flinched. “Don’t hurt her!”
“All over now,” soothed Thealia.
He growled at her. She took his right arm and connected the other end. Calli’s blood pumped into him, bringing a flood of strange images—mountains, not quite as tall or as massive as Lladrana’s. A yellow sun, much like their own, a cloudless day with a blue, blue sky the shade not at all like his own.
Feelings swamped him. The love for the land. Deep, abiding hurt and betrayal from a tall, lean, older man with bitter lines chiseled on his face.
“I’ll kill him for you,” Marrec offered.
Father, she said in his mind and he could understand her. Because of the feelings, the images, the knowledge of Equine she’d already learned.
Father. Oops. But the man had hurt her, and that was not allowed. Not allowed that anyone should hurt this person who was becoming his. Someone to love. After all these years. Another person to love who would love him back.
And he knew that thought resonated and spiraled back and forth between them.
He yearned to hold her. Looking down, he saw their arms bound together. He touched her shoulder with his free hand, curling his fingers over it. Her muscles were strong and flexible, and quivered under his touch.
His vision dimmed as images came from her of sex in darkened rooms, arousing him again, even as his memories of his own infrequent sexual encounters with tavern women or another Chevalier siphoned into her.
Calli made a rough, wanting noise, tipped forward into him…and was pulled away, to his side instead of his aching front.
“Ttho!” they cried out simultaneously. She knew “no” now.
Her Song had already captured him—bright and fierce and free, the essence of a first volaran flight, with threads of harmonies and rhythms he only half heard, like wisps of cloud against his face, the slant of warm sun against his skin.
“Vows, now!” Thealia commanded.
Bastien’s hand turned Marrec’s face to his. “Hold on, Marrec. You need to say the vows to complete the ritual magic. They’re long, and we know you didn’t have the Lorebook to memorize them like Faucon, so just repeat eac
h phrase after me. This is important.”
“Important.” He nodded. Calli’s blood trickled into him, ebbing and flowing like a tide, as his mingled with hers. He liked the feel of it, slick and sensual, licking flames brighter and hotter within him. He straightened his shoulders.
“I, Marrec Simon Gardpont, offer my body and heart, soul and Song to you, Callista Mae Torcher,” Bastien said.
Marrec rattled off the sentence, settled deeper into the Power that whirled around him, so thick he could see it. Streams of Power, drifts of Songs from everyone in the room. The people near him glowed with Power, especially Alexa and Marian and Calli.
“I,” said Alexa.
“I,” repeated Calli.
“Callista Mae Torcher,” Alexa said.
“Callista Mae Torcher,” parroted Calli.
“Offer,” Alexa said.
“Offer.”
And so it went, the whole long vows, archaic and arcane words he barely understood even when he wasn’t drugged. He repeated phrases or sentences. Calli said them word by word.
The atmosphere in the room hummed with more than the Power of all who were in it. The air thickened, took on the scent of a coming thunderstorm. Night gathered and dimmed the room, adding to the mystery. Marrec thought he could hear the ultimate Song—the whispery, sliding revolution of the stars.
Every so often a different-smelling herbal strip was tied, binding their arms together, at elbow, mid-forearm, wrist. Marrec watched, noting the paleness of Calli’s skin, so translucent as to show blue veins. Utterly fascinating.
He promised one last vow, desperately hoping he’d remember his oaths in the morning, and felt as if the last syllable echoed through the hall, through the sky, to far-off galaxies. A single note so pure in tone, so Powerful he would have fallen to his knees had he not been supported, so touching it brought tears to his eyes, rang in his head.
His vision cleared and he saw the woman before him, looking at him. Promises in her eyes, too, vows whispering tremulously from her lips.
They connected. Beyond blood, beyond memories, beyond anything else, their souls touched and clung together.
The hall rang with cheers and shouts and Song. The Wedding Song everyone knew by heart rose to encompass them. He found himself singing. Celebrating the joy this bonding gave him. She smiled, but didn’t sing.
She didn’t know the words, he realized. She didn’t know him, didn’t know his culture, but she was entrusting herself to him. He’d never felt so humbled. He lifted their bound arms and pressed a kiss in the hollow of her palm.
Bastien slapped him on the shoulder, and with that touch the clarity that had come to his mind dimmed once more.
“Bedtime,” Bastien said, his voice still rich with humor.
“Bedtime.” Marrec’s own whisper was hoarse, but a grin stretched his lips. Bedtime. Sex time. He was ready.
“Luthan will witness.”
“Witness!” The word nearly shocked him out of his preoccupation with sex and his lady. “Ttho.”
“He’ll keep watch in the entryway of the tower suite. Only one door to the rooms.”
“Tower suite?” Marrec mumbled. Memories of every horse Calli had ever ridden were flashing from her to him. He got the notion that she was considering him a stallion of a man, and a brief surge of wariness dulled his passion.
Bastien pulled Marrec’s left arm over his shoulders. He wasn’t as tall as Marrec, but his shoulders were wide and he made a good prop. “Move your feet,” Bastien grunted. “You can shuffle, at least.”
Behind Calli, some man put his hands on her hips to steady her. Marrec felt her instant alarm. Not my man! Who? He glanced to his side, the side being warmed by Calli, the side receiving tingles of attraction from her aura, and looked at the hands, then up at the face.
“Jaquar,” he said, and the image of the man went from his mind to hers.
Oh. She relaxed a little. Interesting, he fumbled the thought. She trusted Jaquar.
A recollection of the man saving her from falling sped from her, and Marrec’s heart jumped. She’d nearly been broken again on hard flagstones!
Didn’t happen, she whispered mentally. For some reason he got an image of a big red circle with a bar slanting through it.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. I trust you.
And he saw himself in her memories.
Her impression of him had been of a man who was tall and broad shouldered, with a strong jaw and handsome. Handsome! A glimpse of him, brows lowered in concentration during the Summoning, serious when she woke up and noticed him in the Healing Room, strained after the battle.
Faucon was in more of her memories, smooth and easy and smiling…but again the red circle with the bar was laid across his image. Not for me. Too handsome. Too charming…just too.
Marrec’s heart tumbled. He shook his head to shove aside her memories to look at her…and her drugged gaze rose to his. Yum.
Alexa snorted, Bastien hooted. They’d heard! But Marrec was so involved with his woman he didn’t care.
“This way. A little turn, here,” Bastien said, and the group of them moved to the bottom of a staircase. Marrec looked up, squinted. “Lotsa stairs.”
Calli responded to this by showing a box that moved straight up and down, opening to let people in and out. Marrec jerked at the strange image. Something from her past life.
“Elevator!” she said, and he guessed she meant the box. Suddenly he had views of massive buildings spearing the sky, disgorging more people than he’d ever seen together at one time. He swayed.
“Easy.” The hands on his shoulders weren’t Bastien’s, though he’d sensed Bastien had seen such things, too. Jaquar was speaking in his ear. “Just let the strangeness flow through you. Don’t stop and look and try to question or understand the images. Let the coeurdechain bind you body and heart and soul and Song, but don’t dwell on her old life. That way lies madness. Believe me, I know.”
It took Marrec a moment to sort out those ideas, and by the time he did, he was marching up the stairs. He caught Jaquar’s eye and nodded, then stared at the Circlet. He had blue eyes, too, a darker blue than Calli’s. And didn’t Marian have another shade of blue? Incredible. Many colors of blue eyes.
Bastien poked him. “You’re tilting my way. Watch where you’re going. Up, now.”
Squinting, Marrec glanced upward. “Don’t know this place.”
“Knight Marshall’s tower,” Bastien said.
Marrec stopped. “Ttho.”
“Ayes!” commanded Thealia. She was the Knight Marshall.
“Not yours.” He sort of remembered that she had her own tower and hadn’t moved when she’d become Knight Marshall. “Whose?”
“It used to be Reynard Vauxveau’s,” Thealia reminded him.
“Bastard.”
Bastien gave a short laugh. “That my father was.”
“Beg pardon.” Marrec hazily thought Luthan must be around, too, craned his neck, found the man and repeated, “Beg pardon.”
“Nice guy,” Calli said happily. “Isn’t he a nice guy?” She wasn’t speaking Lladranan, but Marrec could understand her.
“We’ve redecorated the top suite for the Singer,” Thealia soothed. “You can have the fourth level.”
Marrec grunted. “Getting tired now.” Calli’s many-layered Song was in his skin, running with his blood, but her life before Lladrana also spilled from her to him, flashing images and smells and sounds and even tactile impressions that he couldn’t begin to understand. The horses and ranch had been the easy part. He slowed.
Bastien poked him in the back. “Almost there.”
Huh! There must be at least ten more stairs.
But his steps slowed. “Feet feel funny. A little numb.”
“You’ll be fine once you get horizontal,” Jaquar said. “Trust me.” His voice lilted. “Better than fine.”
“You don’t think he’ll pass out before they physically mate?” Bastien asked, prodding
Marrec’s ego.
“Sex,” said Marrec. The thought energized him. He slanted a glance at the lady by his side. The pretty Exotique lady with lighter skin than his own and golden hair and blue eyes. Whose soft arm was bound to his. Whose luscious breasts showed under the slick-looking dress that made him long to tongue and taste. He hurried up and reached the semicircular anteroom. Made straight for the large wooden and leather-trapped pointed door with an impressive doorharp on it. “Bed.”
“That’s the way,” Bastien encouraged.
Marrec reached his right hand for the doorknob and stared at Calli’s pretty fingers that found the fancily patterned brass knob and caressed it. He swallowed.
“Let me cut you out of your shirt and tunic,” Luthan said matter-of-factly.
“Cut me out! They’re my best,” Marrec said, leaning hard on Bastien, trying to move away from the knife gleaming in Luthan’s hand.
“Hold still,” Bastien said. “They’re your best clothes today. Tomorrow you’ll get better.”
That didn’t make sense. “What?”
“Tonight you bond in a coeurdechain with an Exotique. Tomorrow she will be gifted with an estate—” Bastien’s hand spread wide “—volarans, zhiv. You just married an heiress, boy. You’re rich.”
Rich. The very thought made his heart thump. Land and a home in the rolling hills, a beautiful stone house. Volarans.
Bastien pulled the shirt from him.
Cool air gave him gooseflesh, but not as much as when Calli slid her hands against his bare chest.
“Oooh,” she said. “Yum!”
Everyone laughed and Marrec understood there were a lot more people in the room than he’d thought. He blinked around, saw faces, mostly couples. Jaquar and Marian, Thealia and Partis, Mace and Clua, Bastien and Alexa. Luthan. Koz.
“Luthan will now take you to the bedroom. Be glad we live in enlightened and trusting times, otherwise he would have had to stay to make sure you two truly bonded.” Bastien wiggled his eyebrows. “Worshipping each other with your bodies.”
Bastien squeezed Marrec’s arm. “Sink into your balance. I’m going to let go.”
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