A Bard's Prophecy: Song Of The Bear 4

by Shelby Morgen

  Do you know that she means to die?

  M’Lady plans to walk in the front gates of Élahandara!

  Élahandara? Tâkuri pressed her eyes tight shut. Praise the gods. There was only one who might attempt such a foolhardy plan. Does Tranorva not own those very gates? Are they not hers to walk in and out of as she pleases?

  A mere technicality. More of a ruse, actually. Because it worked once does not mean the lie will work again.

  Hope surged in Tâkuri’s heart. She had guessed right. Not such a difficult guess, actually. There was only one who commanded such power. She will do what she must, Shaymmadah, because she trusts you. I, too, place my trust, and my faith, in you. Already your power feeds me. The touch of your mind across mine heals me. There are more of us. Your call has reached others. Tranorva will not walk into Élahandara alone. Nor will you find those below unready. You have much to live for, Brother. Have faith in your lady, even as we have faith in you.

  A questioning thought brushed her mind, soft, tentative, like the touch of a child. Who are you, and what know you of my mission?

  I am called Tâkuri, and those I love travel with you. I speak to Balthain often in the dreaming. My daughter Dahlai is in his care.

  Tâkuri… The pain shifted in hue, to an older, deeper regret. It is true, then. You yet live. Forgive me. Had I known…

  Had you known you would have risked your life in some foolhardy attempt to rescue me, whether I wished to be rescued or not.

  Confusion. Disbelief. Do you not wish to be rescued?

  I do now. But had you come for me two decades ago, I would not have wished it so, for my people were not ready to leave.

  The night grew quiet. Too quiet. She feared for a moment the connection had been broken. Trust her, Shaymmadah. The lady did not get to be a general by sacrificing herself on Élandra blades.

  His voice came again, steadier, on a current of power so strong she felt herself floating, almost pulled from herself with his strength. Thank you, Tâkuri. Few would have dared to tell me what I needed to hear. It is you who give me strength.

  * * * * *

  Balthain? Can you hear me?

  He turned in his sleep, reaching out to her, but his arms encountered only the mist of the dreaming. He sat up carefully on the narrow bed, ducking lest he bash his head into the upper bunk. Again. “Tâkuri?”

  You are close. I can feel you.

  “Aye. I can hear you, almost feel you. I’m awake now. Truly awake. How is this possible?”

  There has been a surge in the magic’s current. One of great power draws nigh. He is feeding me. Channeling to me.

  Great power? Shammall? Well. Perhaps there was some use for the bloody Dragon then. “I have felt your spirit grow dim. You must not leave me, my love. I am coming for you. Do not give up on me. We will be there soon. Very soon.”

  I—I do not want you to come for me, Balthain. You must go with the others, with General Tranorva. You are a great Warrior now. Your place is with the main assault.

  How had she known his fear of the tunnels?

  I do not just hear you, Balthain. I feel you. You would face that for me which you fear most. Your devotion gives me strength. The young one’s anger gives me strength of another kind, the strength to do as I must.

  “What must you do?”

  What you have already found the courage to do, Balthain, my love. Fight. I must fight. I have played the victim too long. It does not become me. I would not have you see me thus, cowering at their feet. The young one has re-written the rules of our universe, Balthain. No longer will we hide beneath the veil. He has issued a challenge to us all.

  “How will you fight them, Tâkuri? You told me yourself you have no power beneath the halls of Élahandara. The stone shields you from the current of the magic’s flow. Without the magic, you are but a woman, with no more strength than any other mortal.”

  I will fight with ideas, Balthain. I have the power to reach them all now. I have touched them in the dreaming as I could not before.

  “No one knows the tunnels as I do, Tâkuri. This is something I must do, for myself as well as for those who await us. Your courage shames me. How can I ask you to face what I would not? Were you not waiting for me, still I would come. My brothers are waiting. Tell them to be ready. By this time tomorrow we will be back in the earth.”

  We will be ready, Balthain. Clan Bear will welcome your rescue.

  Balthain reached for her, but there was naught but a kind of light mist, so insubstantial it might not have been there at all. “You feel so close. I would swear I could touch you. I need to see you, Tâkuri, with my eyes open.”

  The mist grew thicker, shimmering in the hint of pre-dawn light, then seemed to coalesce. For an instant he had an image of a small, dank cell, and a huddled figure in a torn, tattered dress. Then the image changed. No, the woman changed. She stood, her arms outstretched like the limbs of a tree lifted to a sun only she could see, her face upturned.

  “Say my name.”

  “What?”

  “You must speak my name. Tâchaernán Glèbrèagha Élanadhache.”

  There is great power in the true name of a Sidhe. Balthain swallowed hard. He’d heard parts of that name before. He wouldn’t think about that now, or what it might mean. “Tâchaernán Glèbrèagha Élanadhache.”

  Light seemed to pool on her fingers, gradually burning her clean as she gathered her power. Her palms began to glow, and gradually the glow spread up—well, down, actually—her arms until her whole being took on the ethereal light he’d seen just before Dahlia transformed herself.

  Once again the maiden of light stood before him, as pure and beautiful as she had been before, but stronger, radiating a power he’d barely conceived of. The glow became a shining light that emanated from her, engulfed her, burned so brightly he had to shield his eyes. The walls of the small stone cell burned clean, purified by sunlight, and then melted, until she stood alone, a glowing light against the night sky, shining bright as any star around her.

  She hovered there, beautiful and awe-inspiringly terrifying, a captive bird set free, for the length of time it took him to decide he should be thankful she was not his enemy. Then the creature of light shifted again. This time the shift created its own power, rather than taking power from the force that had fed her. Balthain wanted to close his eyes against the flare of light, but he could not. He had to see. Had to know what he’d let himself fall in love with.

  Wings. Huge wings with a span that appeared greater than that of a ship’s sail beat down, once, twice, and the glowing mass took shape and form.

  There could be no doubt to what form the wings belonged. Once before this night he’d seen that same shape, only where the Dragon that was Élandine’s pure self had absorbed all light—he had borne a deep and terrible black—this Dragon glowed a shimmering shade of purest blue. Her cry broke through the pre-dawn stillness, sounding shrill and close and very, very real.

  The Dragon sailed through the pale sky, gliding, twisting, turning, glorying in the power of her freedom. Balthain didn’t question how he could see her from where he stood in his small cabin. Didn’t need to know. But then the vision shifted, and he could see her through the porthole. Could it be? Could she really have…

  Shimmering blue against soft, pale gray hovered, then turned, gliding on the wind, swooping straight down on a collision course with the ship. She was headed straight for him. He should move, should go out on the deck to greet her, should…

  He could feel her. So much power, centered, focused, on him. She came to him like a hawk called from the sky by her handler. He closed his eyes, suddenly afraid. Who was he to call forth such power? He was Rat, a child from the sewers, a pretender in the world of men. He was not worthy. He was…

  He felt more than heard her land at his side in the tiny cabin. How could a Dragon land in his cabin? As if anything as unsubstantial as Earthly Laws could possibly stand between them. Certainly nothing as thin as the hull of a ship.r />
  Chapter Two

  “Balthain?”

  He turned to face the woman’s voice. For woman she was. The creature of light stood at his side in the small ship’s berth, an ethereal beauty too pure and pale to be real, too perfect for words. Only the tattered rag of a dress remained of the woman who’d reached out to him from her cell. She reached out again, tentatively now, to touch his arm, as if afraid he might disappear.

  “You’re real.” There was a slight hitch in her voice, like tears too close to the surface. “Look at you. By the gods. You’re beautiful.”

  He would have argued with her, told her he was just a boy from the sewers once known as Rat, but she knew that already, and still she had come to him. He pulled her into his arms, no longer afraid, needing to touch her, hold her, feel the magic as he brushed his lips against hers. Real. She was real. She was everything the dreams had promised and more.

  Lips as soft and sweet as dark cherries pressed against his. Soft, delicate skin shivered under his touch. Real. She felt so real. She was real. Warm and willing and alive.

  Her teeth closed over his bottom lip, biting down hard.

  “Hey!” he protested.

  “That wouldn’t have hurt in a dream, would it?”

  Why had that small pain made him so hard he wanted to spill his seed all over her before he even tasted her? Years. It had been years he’d dreamed of her, wanted her, needed her.

  The fine, tight lines around her eyes betrayed her. She was unsure of herself, still. She, who was perfection incarnate, doubted.

  Her doubt gave him confidence. No matter how perfect her body, her heart was the heart of a woman. Not just any woman. The woman he had been in love with for two decades. He reached out to tilt her chin up with one finger. “Tâkuri, look at me.”

  Her gaze flicked up toward his, then tried to roam away again.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You—I never expected—you’ve grown up, Balthain.” She swallowed hard. “Look at you. You—you’re perfect. You’re at your peak. You look like a god. I know you to be as intelligent as you are pleasing to the eye. You should be with a mortal woman. One of your own. Not some old dried up husk who has squandered her life chasing one dream after another.”

  “I have loved you since first you came to me, Tâkuri. I have had mortal lovers. Women who have come to me, and gone again. They could not compare with the ideal of you. You were in my mind as you are, my perfect mate.”

  Perfect…she mouthed the word, almost a question, as if trying it on for size. As if trying to remember a time when she’d felt perfect.

  A surge of primal lust shot through him. She was his and his alone. He would possess her as no man ever had before. They had, perhaps, two hours before the ship would dock at City of Port. No reason to rush things. He would take the doubt from her. He could heal the wounds that had put it there. If… “Do you trust me?”

  She looked startled at the question, but she didn’t hesitate to answer. “With my life. With my daughter’s life.”

  “I want to see the rest of you.”

  She blushed—a stain of bright red across ethereally pale skin—hesitating before she waved her hand. The tattered tunic gave up its hold on reality.

  She stood before him naked, letting him look his fill. Smooth, glowing alabaster skin hugged a body that had seen too few meals of late, but still held enough curves to make his mouth water. Short silver hair that looked as if she might have hacked it off with a small dagger framed her face. Somehow the haphazard look of it suited her well enough. The face itself might have belonged to some mythical creature—so small and delicate and nearly transparent she looked almost childlike.

  He would have expected her to be dirty after the filth he’d seen in his vision, but the magic had burned her clean and pure as the driven snow. He wanted to touch, to take, to consume, but she needed more. She needed to be worshipped.

  He let his fingertips brush slowly over high, arched cheeks, along the edges of her hairline and down to frame a delicately pointed chin, then down again, outlining the long, slim neck, then out to the edges of two fine-boned shoulders. He could see her pulse shivering against her throat. He’d made love to her so many times in the dreaming. But this was real. At least he thought it was real. She felt real enough. His cock believed she was real.

  For a brief moment he thought to ask her, but ‘twas better not to know. If she was going to fade away again he’d rather not know.

  Balthain touched his lips to the pulse at her throat, feeling the steady flutter that matched the rhythm of his throbbing cock. He leaned in just enough to let her feel his pulse throbbing back again, pressing the thin fabric of the loincloth he slept in against her, letting her feel the need that burned for her.

  He held her for several long moments, until her hands rose to sweep through his hair, sending shivers down his spine as she raked her nails lightly against his scalp.

  “Balthain.”

  Her breath against his ear shot hot tendrils of desire curling through his cock. He kissed his way down, across the slight V where her chest began to swell into the gentle rise of her breast. A soft moan escaped her throat as his lips grew closer to his target. “Is there something you want?” he teased.

  “Anything. Everything. It’s been so long. The dreaming was good. But this—to actually feel you, touch you—it’s too much. It’s not enough. I want everything at once. I’m afraid I’ll wake up and you’ll disappear again!”

  He brushed the loincloth aside, pressing his tortured cock against her smooth, naked skin, letting her feel his desire pulsing against her belly. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll not let you go. Never again. I’ve waited for you for years. You’re mine. I’ll never let you go.”

  She cried out as he circled her areola with the tip of his tongue, just flicking at the nipple, teasing her with his nearness. She had other things in mind. Her hands in his hair tried to hold him captive as she lifted slightly, pressing the nipple itself toward his lips. With a chuckle he sucked the elongated point into his mouth. Her hips curled against him convulsively, pressing her mons upward against the heat of his cock.

  He’d learned the rewards of patience early in life. He’d had a great teacher. Nothing like life in a whorehouse to teach a boy to conserve his energy. He leaned into her embrace, swaying his hips slightly left and right, enjoying the friction of their colliding textures. Burning need against sensitive skin. Soft curls against the hard length of his cock. Warm, willing woman shivering in his arms, but not from cold.

  The nipple between his lips grew under his touch, lengthening and thickening, growing harder, yet opening at the tip like a flower blooming when he probed it with his questing tongue.

  Some part of his mind urged him to forgo patience and plunge his cock into her now, give them both what they wanted, before the casters’ meeting broke up, and Tyrell returned to claim the upper bunk, but he quieted the voice. ‘Twould not be the first time he’d put on a show for an audience. Tyrell could watch if he felt so inclined.

  “Balthain…”

  He chuckled against her nipple, still sucking and stroking in long, easy sweeps. Her hands slipped down to his shoulders, her grip changing to one of strength and purpose. Her weight shifted to one foot as the other snaked its way up, curling around his thigh as she tried to push herself onto him. He would have laughed in earnest, but the nipple in his mouth required constant attention. Instead he slid his hands down her backside until he could support her slight weight with both hands under her ass, lifting her free of the floor, settling both legs around his waist, his cock still trapped between them.

  Balthain shivered as Tâkuri set about exacting her revenge, kissing him everywhere she could reach. He’d never known the feel of a woman’s lips wrapped over his eyebrow could make his cock dance. But this was not just any woman. This was the Succubus, his Succubus, the woman he’d dreamed about and lusted after since he’d first known the meaning of the word. As her sharp littl
e teeth nipped at the corner of his brow ridge, he almost forgot his slow torture in favor of sinking his hot, needy cock into warm, willing woman flesh.

  No. He could not let her distract him. This was too important. She had to know she belonged with him, to him, had to know her body would want only him. This was not the time to rush things.

  Balthain loosed the nipple he’d been feeding on. Tâkuri wailed, thrusting it back at him, but he had another quarry. The bunk had been built for humans. Or rather a human. He barely fit into its too short length.

  There was nothing else in the small passenger’s berth. Nothing but the wall. A wall lined with hooks used to suspend gear and clothing. A few of the hooks sported leather straps to secure bulkier items. There were rings in the ceiling, too, to support a spare hammock. He plastered her against the wall, holding her there with his body pressed against hers, while he considered the possibilities.

  She’d been a prisoner for years. He didn’t want her to feel subjugated. Not by him. But there were other ways… “Greedy little wench, aren’t you?” he teased.

  “Yes!”

  She took that opportunity to wrap her arms around his head, pulling close enough to kiss him properly. He almost forgot his mission as her hands tangled in his hair, her tongue teasing his in a game he enjoyed losing. Still… He pulled back, smiling down at her.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked again.

  Her eyes darkened, questioning. “You know I do.”

  “Enough to know I would never hurt you? Ever?”

  “I—yes. Of course.”

  “Tâkuri, if you’re frightened, or you don’t like what I’m doing, all you have to do is tell me to stop. I promise if you say stop, I will.”

  Fear and excitement warred in her eyes. “Stop. I can remember that.”

  As if she knew what he was about to do, a small shiver raced over her skin. His fingers made a leisurely journey from her ass up over the curve of her waist and on, to capture her hands in his. He lifted them above her head, holding both of her hands in one of his, while he wrapped one of the leather straps around her wrists, leaving the ends long enough to tie together through one of the hammock rings.