Then, there was nothing but whispered chants from a distant past.
* * * *
The scent that brought her back to herself was heady, provocative, and pure male. She inhaled deeply of fine wine, musk, and spiced herbs, and exhaled with a soft moan. One side of her face felt hotter than the other. Warm. Safe. She was floating, buoyed up by some hidden force.
Far in the distance she heard him calling to her, and she knew she was once again in a dream where her mystery lover would beckon her to the unknown island where she would be with him at last.
Images flashed behind her closed eyelids, and then she remembered. She’d already gone to the island, and had seen her fantasy in the flesh. Her love.
“Grayel,” she said, marveling at how sensuous his name sounded when rolling off her tongue.
“I’m right here, mijhanna.”
His voice was close to her ear, and she smiled. What had he said? He’d never called her that before.
Awareness seeped more fully into her mind, and she realized the warmth on her cheek was not a pillow. She forced her eyes open to find herself pressed firmly against a broad chest, with powerful arms encircling her. He was holding her upright, bearing her entire weight.
“Hi,” she breathed, swaying back slightly to steady herself on her own two legs.
His smile warmed her from toes to hair follicles. “You’re back.”
“Yeah. Guess I took a short nap.” She pulled away, blinking several times to clear cobwebs from her vision. His eyes were lit a bright, mesmerizing green. She reached up to touch his face. “Your eyes blaze like gemstones. So beautiful.”
“She’s all right?” Lexie heard Love’s anxious tone.
“I’m fine.”
More memories flooded in, and her face twisted. Fine wasn’t true. They’d done the ritual, but something had gone wrong. “I’m sorry.” She looked up at Grayel, feeling a fresh sting of tears. “I’m so sorry that it didn’t work. Maybe the Fates weren’t referring to me in your prophecy after all.”
His eyes glazed over as well, but he laughed.
“How can you laugh about it?” she said, frowning. “There’s nothing funny about me not becoming immortal. It was my only chance to be with you, and I’ll never want anyone else. I’ll be alone forever.”
“My lady,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and leaning down until his eyes threatened to lull her into a trance. “You’re still a little disoriented. Don’t you notice anything odd about me?”
“About you?”
He stroked her shoulders, lighting her skin with electric tingles everywhere he touched. Then suddenly it struck her. “You’re touching me.”
Grayel dropped his arms and walked to the wall behind her. He reached up to grasp the top of the white fabric drape, and twisted back to her. “Behold,” he said. “A portrait of a goddess.”
With a tug the silken material floated away, and Lexie gasped in shock. “I’m…”
“Magnificent,” her new husband said in a hushed tone.
“I was going to say glowing,” she said, gaping at her odd reflection.
Lex Ann’s hair shone like dark crimson flame, and her entire body was lit like Grayel’s when he’d first come through the portal. Now he looked normal to her, save his fiery green eyes. As she gazed at her reflection, she realized that he only looked normal to her because she shone even brighter than he did.
The symbols had vanished from her almost luminescent flesh, and she adjusted the bodice of her dress so it once again covered her full breasts. Her own light reflected against the crystalline gown so it sparkled almost like an animated Christmas display. And her eyes—she had eyes much like Love’s now, aqua and cerulean and teal churning together with rings around the pupil that gave off its own radiant light.
“It worked?” she asked in an awestruck whisper.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Most spectacularly.”
She heard a groan from somewhere on the floor behind her. “And painfully.”
Lexie spun around to see Love and Lust on the floor, the latter semi-supported by Love’s arm around his shoulders as he helped him sit up.
“What happened?” she said.
Lust looked up at her, then squinted and put up a hand. “You happened. Can you dial yourself down a bit? It’s kind of blinding in here.”
“I’m sorry.” She threw a look at Grayel. “Am I that bright?”
“Partly from residual energies from the transformation,” he said, coming up beside her. “That will burn off. And you’ll have to learn to pull some of your light inward, so you don’t resonate off so much of your power.” He sighed and ran a loving gaze over her. “But it just might be that your light will outshine even mine.”
She raised her arms in front of her, turning them over while trying to see whether she felt any different. “You took the chains off me.”
Grayel shook his head. “No.”
“The chains were obliterated when the change happened,” Love said. “I had no idea it would be that explosive.”
“Nor I,” Grayel agreed.
Lust snorted. “Good thing we’re immortal.”
Lex Ann checked the floor and ceiling. Sure enough, only bits of her restraints remained.
She watched as the other men rose, stepping back a few feet with their heads turned away. “How did Lust wind up on the floor?”
“It was my fault,” Grayel said. “You started to lose consciousness, and when your legs gave out I didn’t want to see you hurt by hanging your full weight on the overhead chains. I told Lust to catch you.”
“Just as the blast wave hit,” Lust added. “Next thing I knew, I was on my back and the room was lit up like a nuclear test site.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You know about this ritual, though. Why didn’t you run for cover sooner?”
Lust grunted. “It shouldn’t have been necessary.” He kept his head averted from her brilliance. “I’ve seen the Fere-Theo performed before, Lexie. But what happened to you was far more powerful than I’ve ever witnessed. Perhaps more than anyone has ever witnessed.”
Grayel nodded. “It may well be.” He took her left hand, toying with the crystal ring that glimmered with reddish-pink light. “It certainly fulfilled the Fates’ proclamation that you would be a fierce and powerful goddess.”
“She needs her goddess name,” Love said, his head bowed and hands clasped before him.
“Yes,” Grayel said, and turned his emerald eyes on her. “A human bride traditionally takes the last name of her husband. A new immortal bride is granted a goddess name by her mate.” He paused, regarding her carefully. “You will be called Lexanna. It means ‘protector of men’.”
She smiled. “I like that.”
“Protector of men?” Lust said. “How’d you figure that one? She half-killed me.”
Grayel smiled at her. “Lexanna has demonstrated a desire to see us protected from ourselves as well as each other. She wanted to see Love spared from his feelings as well as my jealousy. She stepped in front of my misplaced distrust of Lust in order to see this ritual through. And…” he sighed and brought her ringed hand to his lips for a nuzzling kiss that sent sparks up her arm, “she was willing to turn down the offer of immortality to protect my family and the people of the twelfth realm from dissent.”
He lowered his gaze to the floor and shook his head. When he looked back up, strands of long chestnut hair hung over the tears wavering in his eyes. “Had you not won my heart the first time I saw you and a hundred times since, that act alone would have sealed the deed.”
Her heart melted as it always did when their gazes met, but now her love was even more consuming. Grayel was real now, and her mate. He could speak his mind and heart to its fullest without the limitations of her dream world. After months of puzzled conjecture, she would happily listen to him talk forever.
Her lips were on his at the thought, lighting a flame within her brighter than their wildest dreams together. Only t
heir dream was alive now, a fantasy beyond anything she’d ever conjured during sleep. A god had found a sleeping woman across realms and awakened his goddess with a kiss. Quite literally as it turned out, because the numb, disjointed feeling she’d had since coming to dissolved while his mouth branded her as his. She became aware, drenched in power and potential. The groan she uttered was part in response to the sexual magic he unleashed, and in part at the sensation of strength and knowledge flooding her body.
When Grayel pulled away, he wore a knowing smile. “Welcome to eternity, my love.”
Her heart pounded at his words with a pulse much more than human. Something caught her eye beyond his muscled shoulder. She brushed past him, fascinated by the anomaly that drew her toward the far wall. When she drew level to where Lust now stood, he sucked in a breath and shuddered. He sidestepped away from her new power. She kept going, engrossed in the wall painting ahead. Just as she’d awakened to a new life, so had the mural come alive. The beings portrayed in it were now animated in their acts of passion, thrusting and twisting and tossing their heads back in ecstasy. She stopped in front of the wall, and reached a hand out to where Love’s portrait rocked back and forth against the ass of the woman on all fours. Her breasts swung frantically with each thrust. When Lexanna’s hand brushed the wall, she heard the mural characters moaning and sighing and crying out. A thrill of sensual excitement shot through her hand as she shared the memory of the sexual power that night. She felt her clit throb and pulled her hand away.
She twisted around to arch a questioning brow at Lust.
He smiled and offered a shrug. “So, I enjoy reliving good times. Sue me.”
Lexanna quirked a smile in return. “I take it this must have been your best time ever.”
He glanced at the mural, then back at her. “Second best.”
Her reply was interrupted when the three men froze. They shot glances at one another, and then leapt into action. Lust grabbed his white slacks off the floor. Love yanked open a dresser near the bed and tossed a pair of black trousers over to Grayel, who still stood bare except for his open robe.
She frowned as the men dressed in a hurry. “What is it?”
“Reach beyond yourself,” Grayel said. “Be aware.”
It sounded like some kind of weird Star Wars thing, but she tried opening her mind to the world around her. Then she found it, and her breath caught. “Someone else is in the suite.” She turned to Love. “Room service? The maid?”
He shook his head, running a hand through his hair to smooth his locks.
“It’s my mother,” Grayel said, tying his waistband. “And father.”
Her stomach flipped. “What are they doing here?” she said in a whisper.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Guess we’d better go find out. First…” He kneeled in front of her and fastened some kind of crystal hooks on the front of her gown, closing the slit down to her knees.
“You mean there are clasps on this thing?” She shot an accusing look at the demigods. “Someone might have mentioned that earlier.”
Lust laughed. “Ah, but it was so much more attractive the way you had it.”
“Would you like us to greet them first?” Love asked.
“Thank you,” Grayel said, “but we’ll go.” He turned to Lexanna and reached for her hand. “Looks like you’re meeting the family sooner than I anticipated.”
She quivered with nerves despite the reassurance his warm, strong grip provided.
“Don’t worry, my love,” he said, seeming to read right through her. “It’ll be all right.”
“But they were against this,” she whispered as he half-pulled her through the hall behind him. “They didn’t want me to be your mate. What if they won’t accept me?”
“Well?” she heard a voice boom before Grayel had barely emerged from the hall entrance. “Where is the bride that has caused all this commotion?”
The voice broke off as she was pulled out into the main room beside him. If only she’d had another moment—or ten thousand—to put herself together before meeting his parents.
The man and woman standing near the veranda were stunning, to say the absolute least. Grayel’s father was huge, both taller and wider than his son, with dark hair and a beard and emerald eyes that were gaping at Lexanna in shock. Grayel’s mother was a slim beauty and regal as a queen. Which she was a queen of sorts, Lexanna supposed, considering the family’s position as rulers of their realm. Her neck was long and graceful, as were her porcelain limbs. A tumble of hair much like Grayel’s spilled to the waist of a lavender silk gown, and eyes of violet-blue were wide and trained on Lexanna.
“Mother,” Grayel said with a slight bow. “Father. I would like to present to the house of Tolel my bride. Lexanna.”
Completely clueless about proper protocol in such a situation, all she could think to do was to bow her head graciously at her new in-laws.
“Lexanna,” Grayel said to her in a reassuring tone, “may I present the house of Tolel. My father and my mother, Tolel and Asantra.”
She watched his mother’s eyes slide over her, stopping on the ring glowing around her finger. Then her eyes shifted to Grayel’s ring. When her eyes rose to Lexanna, their indigo shade was bright and shimmering with tears.
“No need to be so formal, boy,” Tolel said with a rumble, raising his arms. “Stop clutching the girl to your side and share her with your mother and father. This is our new daughter, after all.”
Lexanna was in a bear hug before she knew it, and could barely breathe while trapped in her father-in-law’s monster grip. He smelled of warm, heavenly spice, muskier than his son.
“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” she said, the words largely muffled by his enthusiastic embrace.
When Tolel finally released his grip, he moved aside to clap his son hard on the shoulder. Then he turned to a teenage boy Lexanna hadn’t noticed before, standing behind her in-laws with his head bowed and hands clasped before him. The stance reminded her of Love’s pose earlier. “Chorel,” Tolel said. “What are you standing around there for? Make haste to take our message back through the portal.”
The boy nodded. “Yes, my lord and god.”
Asantra glided up with royal grace as Chorel raced onto the veranda and vanished. “Welcome to our family, Lexanna.”
The hand she offered was warm and silken, and Lexanna felt instantly at ease. The woman stroked back a strand of Lex’s bright red curls in a tender, maternal gesture. “I see why Grayel is wholly enchanted by you, my dear. So truly lovely in face, as well as in spirit.” Her other hand brought Lex’s newly ringed hand up between them. “And I see you feel powerful devotion for my son as well. Nothing could make a mother happier.”
Now tears brimmed in Lexanna’s eyes, marring her vision of the beautiful woman. After not having any family left for so many years, Tolel and Asantra’s easy acceptance filled her heart with emotion. “Thank you.”
This certainly wasn’t what she’d been expecting, and no doubt her shocked expression and posture must have shown it. The way Love and Grayel had painted the picture, part of her had wondered whether there would be a lynch mob waiting on the other side of the portal.
“She’s quite a beauty, son,” Tolel was saying when she pulled herself from Asantra’s welcome. “A more fiery goddess I’ve never laid eyes on. Except for my wife, of course,” he added quickly, slipping Asantra a quick look.
Asantra folded her arms and glowed a bit brighter. “Pray you don’t forget just how fiery, my husband.”
Lexanna hid a laugh when her mother-in-law tossed her a knowing woman’s glance.
Tolel cleared his throat. “Well, Lexanna, I was just about to tell your husband what a brilliant move this was, turning a mortal into a mate.”
Her husband. She felt a wide smile slide up her face. How strangely wonderful it was to hear that term, and to realize her god-prince had stepped out of the fairy tale and made her his.
Grayel mimicked his mother
’s pose by crossing his arms. “Brilliant? But you said…”
“Forget all that,” Tolel said. “I now see what it was the Fates had in mind. Tricky, those three. Tricky and superb. Glorious times, these are.”
Grayel turned to his mother. “Care to interpret father’s latest madness?”
She smiled at him. “Word has gone out about your marriage.”
He sounded wary. “Already?”
“The Fates themselves appeared to our people in the central square, bringing news of the prophecy.” She turned to Lexanna. “And to show the entire realm the creation of your goddess.”
Lexanna’s mouth fell open in horror. “They all watched?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “They saw the ritual?”
Humiliation flamed inside her, soaking into every pore as she thought of an entire realm full of immortals watching what she, Lust, and Grayel had just done.
“Not the ritual,” his mother said. “You afterward.”
“The realm is in a complete uproar after seeing the transformation,” Tolel said, beaming like a child on Christmas.
Lexanna and Grayel exchanged confused glances. Grayel said, “You certainly sound happy about it.”
“Happy?” The man laughed from his belly and slapped a thigh. “Son, the entire realm is celebrating.”
“They are?” Lexanna asked.
“They’re saying that any god who can take a human and transform her as profoundly as Grayel did must have vast, untouchable powers. Everyone is rallying behind the house of Tolel to keep peace and prosperity in the realm. I’ve not seen such unity in our people for centuries.” He stepped forward to gently take her hand in his giant bear paw. “All thanks to you, my dear.” He laid a gentle kiss on the back of her hand.
Grayel cleared his throat. “Don’t forget I had a little something to do with it, too.”
“Of course, boy.” He slapped his son on the back again. “This is a glowing day for our kingdom. In fact,” he said, glancing back at his wife, “this is as good a time as any to let the heir take his place as ruler.”
Allister, J. Rose - Immortal Menage [Immortal Paradise 4] (Siren Publishing PolyAmour) Page 18