“Defiant,” she said under her breath. “The faeries will have trouble with you.” She dropped her hand away. “Willful too.”
“Aye, I am. They will not steal my memory of her. Now that you touched me, what do you see?”
The ancient’s lips thinned. “You have learned to control the faery geas. You shall not control it,” she spat in anger. “This eve of the crescent moon thine seed must flow in fertile ground, or you risk all.”
“I will not take her tonight. I will not be told what to do.”
“If you doona take her, you damn your tribe to poverty and wretchedness.”
Tynan’s eyes narrowed to slits of twilight.
“And you damn her.” Empty eye-sockets crinkled. “No longer your chosen goddess, what do you think they will do to her? Banish her, they will. Do you hear me, Dark Chieftain?”
“I heard you,” Tynan answered low and strode angrily away.
“Bryna, child?”
“Teacher!” Bryna bounded from the wooden chair nestled beside the hearth. She hugged the druidess in a tearful embrace. “I have missed you,” she whispered.
“Ah, child, me too. Let me look at you with my fey sight.” Derina pulled back, her head tilting.
Bryna stood still under her teacher’s appraisal. She wore an empire line gown made of faery webs and moonbeams.
Her teacher smiled. “You are the goddess now.”
“As if you dinna know. Come in and warm yourself. The coming night brings a chill to the air and I know how your bones ache.” She guided her teacher around the large wooden tub warming in front of the hearth.
“Water for the chieftain’s bath - a good faerymate you are.” Turning toward the table, the ancient sniffed the air. “Food and flowers I smell.”
“Aye, curious one. On the table, white candles light a food tray bearing boar meat, goat cheese, and bread. Two silver goblets stand beside a flask of ale.” She walked over to the bed. “On the bed there lie many fragrant rose petals.”
“Ah, a thoughtful gesture from the chieftain’s people.” The ancient nodded and smiled. “Child, I canna stay long. I came only to see that you are well.”
“I am well.” Bryna walked back to the druidess. “Methinks you have other words to say.”
“The chieftain is restless.”
Bryna ran a finger along the tub’s edge. “Restless is an odd word to use. What do you truly mean?”
“Uncertainty and fear.”
She looked up. “You speak like a bard now?”
Her teacher sighed in exasperation. “It is all clear to me.”
“But not to me.”
“Your uncertainty breeds his reluctance. He will not touch you this night, or any night thereafter.”
Bryna walked over to the hearth and stared into the flames. “What do you see?”
“Child, he fears his seed will take your life.”
“It will not,” she said softly.
“It almost did.”
“That unsure time is gone now.”
“Child, if you are the territorial goddess, confident and true, the chieftain’s seed will root in fertile ground and the land shall prosper. The faeries will be satisfied. If not . . .” she shrugged.
Bryna glanced over her shoulder at her teacher. The face that regarded her seemed more heavily lined with age and worry. “The faeries are satisfied and have given their approval. We have time.”
“Do you?” the ancient prompted. “The faeries are intolerant, child. They can withdraw their approval at any time. Fulfill the prophecy and take his seed. Ensure the future.”
Bryna turned back to the flames. Her heart agreed. She had sensed the Faery King’s edginess at the falls, a need to quicken her joining with the chieftain.
“Child, the Tuatha Dé Danann face many futures. They may become as faery and live with the land, or dwindle to mist and disappear for all eternity.”
“They will not disappear,” Bryna said, her faith strong, an echo of the knowing inside her.
“You know this for certain?”
Nothing is for certain, she thought.
“My goddess knows many things,” Tynan said from the doorway, his tone showing his irritation.
Bryna turned to her mate. He stood tall and regal in the faery webs, a darkening scowl on his face.
“Tynan, please.” She wished these two would learn to have more tolerance for each other.
Her teacher turned toward the doorway. “The chieftain is right, child. We shall talk another time. I ask that you consider what I have said.”
“I will consider it,” Bryna replied.
“I bid you good eve, then.”
“Good eve, my teacher.” Bryna bowed her head. “Do you need assistance?”
“Nay, I can find my way.” Her teacher paused before Tynan. “Be careful, Dark Chieftain, that your silent step does not startle a druidess and cause havoc upon the land.”
“Leave,” he said, pointing to the outside corridor.
“I am. You doona have to be so ill-tempered.”
Tynan snarled an oath and shut the door behind the druidess. He leaned back against it. “By faith, that woman can tax a man’s patience.”
“Derina has her ways, but she means well.”
“I will have to take your word on that, faery.”
“Come, Tynan.” Bryna gestured to the wooden tub by the fire and walked over to it. “I have kept the water warm for your bath.” She looked back at him. “Or, would you prefer food to sate your hunger?”
He straightened away from the door, a slight hesitancy in his stance. “You are wearing more fey webs? I doona recognize this gown.”
She touched the ivory bodice lovingly. “I found three web gowns in the bedchamber. They are gifts from the faeries. I bathed and put this one on. Do you not like it?”
“It is lovely,” he grumbled, his gaze sliding away. Moving into the room, he shrugged out of the straps that anchored the sword and scabbard to his back.
Bryna went to assist him. “Here, let me.” She took the leather scabbard from his hands and positioned it beside the bed within easy reach.
When she straightened, he had placed his dagger on the table and was gazing thoughtfully at the petal-covered bed.
“Bryna, where did all these rose petals come from?” He picked up a petal and fingered it.
“Derina says they are from your people, a welcoming home gift.”
“And, what do you say?” he inquired.
Bryna looked to the bed and smiled. “They are a faery gift. Fragrant flowers such as these, white brimming with pink, do not grow this time of year.”
“Ah, another fey gift. I wonder what the faeries want this time.” He tossed the petal back on the bed and glanced at the tub. Bryna could see that something other than the druidess had upset him.
“I wish to wash the stink of the feypaths from my skin. Is the water warm?”
“Aye, Tynan.” She walked around the tub to the other end where she had kept five buckets warming close to the fire. She lifted one of them to empty into the tub.
“Wait, faery.” He came up behind her, his hand sliding over hers where she held the bucket’s handle. “Let me lift them.”
She stepped aside while he emptied four of the five buckets into the tub, bringing the water level near half-full.
Straightening, his gaze slid back to her and Bryna felt the fey connection that bound him to her. She also felt his discipline, the inner battle that waged between his dread of the past and his need for her.
“Do you need assistance?” she asked.
“For what?”
“Removing the fey webs?” she replied innocently. The time for hesitancy between them was over. Standing here in the privacy of their bedchamber with the warmth of the fire at their backs, Bryna’s heart grew bold.
She was ready to embrace the prophecy, to embrace the destiny that had once been stolen from her. She was ready to embrace her chieftain mate and all that would come
thereafter.
“Come, Tynan, you canna wash with the fey webs clinging to your noble skin.” Stepping closer, she reached out, her hand catching at his lean hip, webs and magic clinging to her flesh. A small flash of blue light and the black webs came away in her hand, leaving him gloriously naked.
He looked down upon himself, a slight tightness around his lips. When he glanced at her sideways, his eyes had darkened to slits of fire, setting a preordained heat to her fey blood.
“Let me wash the stench of the feypaths from you,” she said.
The air seemed to heat all around them, setting the room to shadows and waverings of gold. His gaze slid away, releasing her, and he stepped into the tub. Bryna released a pent-up breath. He was going to be willful. Kneeling beside the tub, she removed his arm bands and torc and placed them on the floor behind her.
“It is a large tub,” she murmured.
“Aye, I asked the carpenters to build one for me. I dislike folding my body to fit.”
“You are bigger than most men.”
He grunted noncommittally and Bryna could not help but smile.
Hot water lapped over his stomach and thighs, turning his skin red. He leaned his head back on the rim of the tub and closed his eyes.
“The water is warm?” Bryna asked.
“Aye.”
His face and shoulders shone in the candlelight with a fine sheen of sweat, a very strong temptation for a goddess bent on seduction and fulfillment of a prophecy. Muscular arms rested on the rim of the tub. His eyes were closed, black lace splayed against flushed cheeks.
“I would assist you in your bath.”
“So it would seem.”
She took one of his hands and opened his fist. “Let me ease your strain.”
Without waiting for his reply, she dipped her hands in the hot water and soaped his arm. With slow strokes, she worked her way across his broad shoulders, collarbone, neck, and upper chest, then down his other arm.
“Lean forward.”
He did as she requested.
Gathering up his hair, she soaped his back, feeling the tense muscles beneath her hand. He was fashioned of firm flesh and powerful muscle, an enticing combination of mortal and fey bloodlines.
With the clay bowl, she scooped up the water and rinsed the soap away, her fingers gliding up and down in a slow caress.
“Wet your hair, Tynan.”
Leaning back, he slid under the water to wet his hair. When he came back up, she was waiting.
“Keep your eyes closed.” She lathered up his mass of hair. Raw black silk streamed through her fingers. She would have liked to feel it upon her bare breasts.
“Rinse.” She pushed his shoulders down.
He complied, sliding back under the water again, immersing his head. Water lapped over the tub’s edge, wetting the front of her and making the fey gown nearly transparent.
When he came up again, Bryna scooped water from the one remaining pail and rinsed all remaining soap from his hair. She quickly plaited the length into a single braid and rested it over the rim of the tub so the heat of the fire would dry it quickly.
Candlelight caressed his features in a tantalizing display of shadow. She slid forward a little on her knees, drawn by her own desires for him. His eyes remained closed in a false repose, his jaw firmly clenched.
With soapy fingers, she traced his face, stroking the tension and roughness of his bristled cheek.
Cupping handfuls of water, she gently cleansed his skin, the tips of her fingers brushing his lashes. A faery god could not have made her a more handsome mate.
“Tynan, please sit and lock your hands behind your head.”
He complied with her request, but slowly, as if his desires were pulsing near out of control. Soon, she thought, soon he would leave his doubts behind. Soon, they would be one again and all that should have been would come to pass.
Washing the silky hair under his arms, she retrieved the clay bowl and with repeated dips in the water, flushed the soap away. Her movements were purposeful, the bowl brushing against his lower stomach once, twice . . .
He opened his eyes.
Black amber stared at her from a beneath wet, shiny lashes.
“Finish it,” he said roughly. He lowered his arms and gripped the rim of the tub.
Obediently, she leaned forward and soaped his thighs.
He held himself rigid under her touch and Bryna knew his restraint neared breaking.
“My brethren have healed you well,” she whispered. “No scar mars the thigh.”
“Bryna,” he said tightly.
With a single finger, she traced the rippling stomach muscles and down. His arousal pierced the veil of soapy water.
“You play with fire, faery,” he said with a savage intensity that set her heart alight.
Her hand slid beneath the gentle ripple of water to measure the silken length of him.
“Goddess’s Blood.” He manacled her wrist and shot out of the water. It splashed over the rim, splaying her and the fire in the hearth.
He dragged her to him. Wet heated skin met cool damp faery webs.
“Bryna, what do you want of me?”
She looked up at him and spoke with her heart. “I want you, Tynan. Put your hands on me. I want your fire and seed in my womb.”
“All you had to do was ask me, faery.”
“Did I not just ask?”
“You shall have me then, my water goddess.” Scooping her up in his arms, he stepped out of the tub and carried her to the bed.
He followed her down upon the soft pelts, his mouth fastening on hers with a hunger born of desire.
Bryna eagerly matched his need with her own.
Her hands locked in his wet hair, holding him to her.
Her chieftain mate.
Her heart.
Her soul.
Her love.
Raw, elemental strength and beauty burned in her arms.
His lips left a trail of moisture down her throat. His hands were everywhere, freeing her from the white webs. Cupping the creamy fullness of her breasts, Tynan’s mouth latched on to her right nipple. He suckled first one breast and then the other, sending a liquid fire to her woman’s core.
She tossed restlessly under him, struggling to get closer.
He released her glistening nipple, working his way down her satiny stomach to the auburn fleece guarding her womanly center. Gently, he parted her thighs and eased her open with his tongue, tasting the hot, sweet nectar of her response. She pushed down into his mouth.
“Tynan, please,” she begged. “I canna wait.”
“Soon, faery.” He flicked his tongue over her, wanting her ready for him.
He eased up her trembling body, kissing every delicious curve of her.
Balancing his weight on his arms on either side of her head, Tynan stared into the passion-glazed eyes of his faerymate. She humbled him, this waif goddess of strength and purity. He would suffer any anguish if this joining left him an heir that would not hurt her in the birthing.
Bryna lifted her hips to the blunt tip nudging her aching cave.
“Take me then,” he rasped and slid into her dewy sheath.
Faery to Mortal.
Goddess to Chieftain.
Soul to Soul.
Bryna cried out in the ecstasy of the joining. He stretched her passage with exquisite pressure, stealing away her ability to breathe.
“By the faith,” he rasped, a sheen of sweat glistening on his brow, holding still inside her.
Bryna rolled her hips, wrapping her legs around his hips to pull him deeper.
“I dinna want to hurt you,” he warned, battling his own wants, for it was no longer his geas that drove him. That fey compulsion was slowly receding, being replaced by something far more intricate to the heart.
“Never would you hurt me.” Bryna pulled him down. “Be with me, Tynan.”
His head dropped to her shoulder. Slowly, he began to move his hips, sliding within her
tight passage.
Throbbing.
Pulsing.
Building to an ancient rhythm.
Stirring her blood with yearnings, as only he could.
Taking her deeper and deeper into the ancient magic that flowed in his veins from the first Faery Queen.
Bryna strained against his pulsating penetration. Pleasure deepened within her womb.
“Come with me.” Tynan kissed her shoulders, grinding his hips to meet her needs. His lips sought her jaw, where he had marked her long ago with his honor-mark.
She arched under him, her fingers digging into his flesh.
Air exploded out of her lungs.
A searing rain of molten, silver flames consumed and carried her to the edge of her being.
Bryna cried out, her body straining against his.
Tynan flung back his head in an agony of passion. With a guttural roar, he spilled his seed deep in her fertile womb, fulfilling the prophecy.
Fulfilling the ancient promise.
Conceiving his heir.
He collapsed on top of her, heat and sweat clinging to their skin. His face buried in the hair at her nape.
His heart steadied against her breast, a slowing down of time and energy, until an exhausted sleep pressed in and claimed him.
Bryna pressed her cheek to his, his body sliding to the side of her in slumber.
“I love you, my heart,” she whispered. For a long while, she listened to his breathing and the crackle of the fire before closing her eyes to seek her own rest.
CHAPTER 22
BONFIRES AND TAR BARRELS BLAZED in the warm night air, bringing a sense of anticipation to all those present. Masses of ropes, dipped in tar, were hung from an iron chain along the perimeter of the inner courtyard, but at a safe distance from the stables, mews, and animal pens.
Tynan watched all with a critical eye from his wooden chair on the newly erected dais in front of Kindred. When satisfied with the precautions taken, he nodded to his people.
“Begin,” he called out. He could wait no longer for Bryna to join him.
With a single torch, the ropes lighted in a fire celebration of Midsummer’s End and of the safe return of the chieftain’s territorial goddess. A gentle roar rose among the onlookers as the fire, signifying both light and rejoicing, raced across the ropes with the speed of lightning.
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