“Ian—”
“Please,” Ian said in a gentle voice as he pulled away from Taren’s embrace. “Allow me to say this before you judge me too harshly.” Taren nodded, and Ian continued, “I do trust in your cunning. You’re stronger than you know. But if Odhrán is so powerful—if our own people knew this and cast him out, perhaps there was a reason for it. I’d be naïve not to reassure myself of his intentions. It isn’t only your safety for which I feel responsible. I must also protect my men. Our ship.”
Taren nodded. He knew in his heart that Odhrán meant them no harm, but he understood why Ian would need more proof of Odhrán’s good intentions. He put his hand to Ian’s chest, then met Ian’s troubled gaze. “I know. You’re right to be cautious. I ask only that you give him a chance to prove himself worthy of your trust.”
“I will try.”
Taren sensed Ian’s hesitation but knew he’d pressed Ian as much as he could for now. Later he would try to reassure Ian once again. “Allow me to show you how much I have missed you. How much I have wanted you. How much I prayed for your well-being.”
Ian cocked his head to one side and chuckled.
“What do you find so amusing?” Taren asked as he struggled not to respond to Ian’s lopsided grin.
“Only that you’ve changed so much since we first met. Back then you fought my advances. Now….”
“Do you wish me to fight you, then?” Taren bit his lower lip, knowing full well what Ian’s answer would be.
“Hardly.”
This time it was Taren who pushed Ian against the door and gave him a bruising kiss. Ian moaned as Taren plundered his mouth, seeking his tongue with his own, running it over Ian’s teeth, then nipping his lips. When he finally released Ian’s mouth, Ian’s eyes were wide. “Didn’t expect that?” he asked as Ian stared at him.
“I… well… no.”
Taren had never seen Ian so surprised, but he decided he liked Ian that way. Vulnerable, off-kilter. The seed of a memory sprouted in the back of Taren’s mind—an ancient memory of Owyn and Treande. Of Treande’s boldness and Owyn’s happy submission. A dance.
For a moment neither of them moved. Taren wondered if Ian, too, recalled something of their past. For his part, Taren hesitated. The familiar sense of comfort warred with his need to look to Ian as his guide, his better.
Perhaps sensing this, Ian whispered, “You have no master, Taren.”
Taren reached for Ian’s cheek and brushed his fingers over the hollow. Ian’s gaze was full of love. Hunger too. Ian needed him as he needed Ian. Like the air they now breathed or the water that sustained them. In spite of this, Ian stood still. Waiting for Taren. That Ian understood his need made Taren long for his touch even more.
The fading light of sunset painted the cabin in orange as Taren inhaled Ian’s scent. Since he’d come to live with Ian and his people, he’d realized there was far more to courtship than touch. Even in his human form, Taren’s senses had grown more heightened, and he’d learned that the Ea’s animal nature was present even in this form. When he closed his eyes and inhaled Ian’s presence, he felt the powerful call of the ocean and the salty spray on his skin. The Ea was there, beneath the man. Ever present. Powerfully enthralling. Urging him to abandon his human limits and experience the joys of mating.
With this realization, Taren surrendered to his Ea nature. All thought of man or beast fled as he found the smooth skin of Ian’s neck, then sucked and bit the tender flesh until Ian groaned in satisfaction. But if he thought Ian would accede to his demands so easily, he was mistaken. Ian grabbed his wrists and forced them behind his back, then turned them both so that he pinned Taren against the wall. The force of this caused several of the books on the nearby bookshelf to shudder and fall.
Ian. No one but you!
Taren struggled against Ian’s hold. Ian held fast for a minute before Taren was able to parry and regain his dominance. Taren understood that Ian had allowed him this—Ian was still far stronger than he—but Taren eagerly asserted control and pulled off Ian’s jacket. Slowly, Taren untied the ruffled collar of Ian’s shirt, then pulled it up and claimed one of Ian’s nipples. The folds of the linen fabric felt smooth against his face. He took the cloth between his fingers and rubbed it over Ian’s skin as he licked the sensitive bud. Ian shivered and keened, bucking to meet Taren’s mouth, pressing his chest to Taren’s lips in a silent plea for more.
“Taren… Goddess… I’ve wanted…. It’s been too long.” Ian’s stuttered words were like fluttered kisses over Taren’s skin, arousing him, pushing him further from his human mind to a place where all he knew was Ian’s body, Ian’s need, and his own lust.
“Venrusa,” Taren murmured in a voice foreign to his own ears. Beloved. Soulbound. “Venrusa Ian. Sa venrusa.” Beloved Ian. My beloved.
“Venrusa Taren.” Ian’s gasped response held wonder and surprise. Then, as if the words had also stirred something in his memory, he added, “Sa venrusa vienta.” My beloved forever.
Taren pulled Ian’s shirt over his head, guided him to their bed, and pushed him down on it. He straddled Ian’s thighs and ghosted his lips over Ian’s smooth chest, pausing to lick the spaces between Ian’s taut muscles and trace the peaks and valleys. Ian met his mouth and grasped him by the hips to bring him closer still.
I remember this. Had the encounter with Treande awakened more of his memories? Ever since he’d left the Sea Witch to live with Ian on the mainland, he’d felt more and more of a connection to his prior life. The memory of his time with Owyn was more than just something his mind knew; his body knew it as well. Treande’s words echoed once again in his thoughts: “… he never left me. Throughout my life, he was with me.”
He leaned over and found a hard nipple, laving and nipping at it to Ian’s soft moans. Ian’s scent enticed Taren. Months before, it had reminded Taren of the ocean and of the power of the human man Ian was. Now, with his deepening awakening and the memories he’d regained, Taren could smell the Ea as well as the man. The primal call grew stronger each time he and Ian lay together.
Taren surprised himself by taking Ian’s hands and pinning them against the mattress, using his weight to force them to remain there, even when Ian struggled, his gaze full of lust. Ian growled, his words drowned in his physical response.
Taren sucked on Ian’s nipples and rubbed his fully-clothed body against Ian’s. He released Ian’s wrists and undid the fastenings of Ian’s trousers, then backed off the bed and pulled them down so that Ian was gloriously naked. He didn’t expect Ian to take the opportunity to rise from the bed and force him against the bulkhead.
“Not so quickly.”
Had he heard Ian’s thoughts? There was no time to consider the question as Ian plundered his mouth. Taren surrendered to the pressure of Ian’s body pinning him against the wood, felt Ian card his fingers through his hair and scrape his nails against his scalp. Ian slid one hand from Taren’s shoulder to grasp his cock through the fabric of his britches. He squeezed tight, and Taren’s breath stuttered.
Taren sensed the challenge in Ian’s dominant move and answered in kind, shoving back so that they turned as one and Ian took his place in submission between Taren’s body and the wall. Taren laughed and pressed his cock against Ian’s. They tussled, much as they did in their Ea forms beneath the waves, causing a few more books to fall. By the time they’d finished their playful skirmish, Taren was as happily naked as Ian, and they fell backward, both of them laughing, onto the bed.
“What’ll it be?” Taren asked as he managed to best Ian by sitting atop him.
“I yield.” Ian’s hair was a tangled mess, his lips swollen from their kisses, and he appeared perfectly pleased with his state of disarray. “Have your way with me.”
Taren took the small bottle of fragrant oil from where they’d knocked it onto the sheets, then poured a generous amount in his hands. He warmed the oil in his palms, all the while holding Ian’s gaze, letting him wait for his answer until Ian could stand i
t no longer and said, “Damn you. Be done with it. Take me!”
Taren grinned, knowing he had Ian where he wanted him. So he did exactly what Ian did not expect: he rubbed the oil over Ian’s cock as he stretched and oiled his opening. Watching Ian watch him. Enjoying Ian’s surprise. Moaning wantonly as he pulled himself and stroked Ian, then settled onto Ian’s cock, allowing the painful pleasure to overtake him. Dominance and submission, the familiar cadence of their long ago relationship.
“Taren.” Ian spoke in a low, sweet voice. “Goddess, what you do to me!” He dug his fingers into Taren’s hips, increasing the force of their union so that Taren panted and gasped for breath. Ian clasped Taren’s cock, rubbing his large fingers over the tip to Taren’s keening cries.
As he climaxed, Taren couldn’t help but think that neither had won their battle for supremacy. No, Taren thought as Ian, too, succumbed to the pleasure of their union. The pleasure in this battle was the draw….
TAREN DOZED in the crook of Ian’s arm. Ian, however, couldn’t sleep. The thought of Odhrán’s ship nearby and the Phantom so vulnerable only compounded his deep-seated distrust of Odhrán. True, Odhrán had returned Taren safely to him, and for that he was grateful to the goddess. But Ian was sure Odhrán knew far more about the stone than he’d revealed to Taren, and the fact that Taren now wore the stone around his neck frightened him.
Ian had sensed enough of Taren’s dreams to understand what he’d seen when Taren had first arrived at Callaecia. Owyn’s death. His death. Taren said little about how Owyn had died except that Owyn had died by Treande’s hand.
“That’s impossible,” he’d told Taren. Treande had loved Owyn, of this he was sure.
“I do not wish to speak of it,” Taren said when Ian pressed him. Taren’s hands trembled as he said this. Taren believed Treande had harmed Owyn.
When Ian asked Vurin about Taren’s response, Vurin said only, “I can only tell you what I sensed when he saw the vision of Owyn’s death. There was no anger or hatred in his heart, only pain and grief.”
Ian gently extricated himself from Taren’s grasp, making sure not to wake him as he got out of bed and dressed. He glanced back at Taren before he left the cabin and thanked the goddess again for bringing him safely back.
“CAPTAIN DUNAIDH. This is a surprise.” Odhrán waved away the two men who flanked Ian and gestured Ian inside his cabin. He wore a simple white tunic with silver threads woven into the fabric, his long blond hair cascading over his shoulders.
“Is it?” Ian found it difficult not to stare. Odhrán looked almost ethereal, with his delicate features and eyes the color of the ocean. The hollows of his cheeks were graceful, his skin pale like the moon. He had full, feminine lips that begged to be ravished, and a lithe body only partially hidden beneath his linen garments. Ian’s more primal nature warred within, his jealousy burning nearly as hot as his attraction. It was easy to fight his attraction, however. His connection to Taren was stronger than his baser instincts. The jealousy he fought less successfully, even though he knew he must not let it govern his thoughts. He needed to assess the situation as a man if he was going to protect Taren from harm.
Odhrán smiled. “I hadn’t expected you to come see me quite so quickly.”
Ian walked past Odhrán into the cabin. Instead of the traditional wood furniture he’d grown accustomed to seeing in most of the sailing vessels he’d been aboard, the cabin was strewn with pillows covered in bright silks, some embroidered in gold, others painted with depictions of birds, trees, and strange animals. Several strangely shaped lamps hung from the rafters, wrought from pink metal that shimmered as the flames danced inside. There was no bed Ian could see. No bedroll either. Ian wondered where Odhrán slept.
When Ian turned to face Odhrán, he found Odhrán smiling at him with amusement. “I’ve surprised you, have I?”
Ian shrugged and schooled his expression.
“I lived for some time in the Eastern Lands after I was expelled from Callaecia.” Odhrán sat on a round pouf by a brightly painted table with carved latticework, then picked up a glass carafe filled with a gold liquid. “These trappings are more to my liking.
“Please,” he added as he poured two small glasses of the spirits, “join me.”
Ian considered refusing the offer but instead sat across from Odhrán. Odhrán could easily have harmed him or his crew had he wished to—the Phantom’s enchantments clearly had no effect on Odhrán, since he and Taren had been able to board her with ease.
Odhrán set the filled glasses in the middle of the table, and Ian picked one up. That Odhrán hadn’t handed Ian his glass made it clear Odhrán knew of Ian’s distrust. And although Ian knew he’d have been long dead if Odhrán wanted him gone, he waited until Odhrán had taken the other glass and drank from it before drinking his own.
“Fireblood wine,” Odhrán confirmed as Ian reveled in the delicious heat from the alcohol as it danced on his tongue. “Quite rare. And, as it happens, quite old. I took some of the king’s own when I left Xiat years ago.”
“Taren tells me you are a thousand years old.” Ian didn’t need to confirm this fact. His questions—those that mattered—he would ask in due time. For now he would take his measure of Odhrán.
“Aye. Best I can tell.”
“Is it true what they say about the capital city? That it’s depraved? Decadent?” Ian asked.
“I haven’t been back in hundreds of years,” Odhrán replied with a casual wave of his hand, “although it was much that way when I lived there. But how is it a man like you—captain of his own ship—has never been?”
“You really haven’t been beyond the Gateway Islands recently, have you?” This surprised Ian, even though Taren had told him so.
“No.” Odhrán pursed his lips and appeared to study Ian with interest. “Why should I?”
“The safe haven Treande established on Ea’nu years ago has changed with time. Ea are not free to come and go of their own accord. My ship patrolled the waters around the island. We were never permitted past the neighboring Luathan Islands.”
“How unfortunate for you.”
Odhrán’s apparent lack of concern irritated Ian. If what Taren had told him was true and Odhrán had known Treande, surely he’d care that the society Treande had established had disintegrated. “Unfortunate for all our kind,” he said, hoping to elicit a reaction.
“I am not your kind, Captain.” Odhrán appeared entirely disinterested. “But by all means, feel free to enlighten me to your people’s plight.”
Ian fought the urge to clench his jaw; he wouldn’t reveal to Odhrán how infuriating he found him. In spite of Odhrán’s protestations to the contrary, Ian doubted Odhrán cared nothing for the Ea. He’d cared about Treande, and he clearly cared about Taren.
First things first.
“Twenty years ago, our—my—people nearly destroyed each other in a civil war fought between those who wished the island to remain apart from humanity and those who believed the Ea belonged elsewhere,” Ian explained.
“Hence the need for the stone.” Odhrán chuckled and rested his delicate bare feet on a pillow. Ian noticed the tiny gold ring on the narrowest of Odhrán’s toes and guessed that it held some significance, since Odhrán wore no other jewelry.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Ian picked up his wine and sipped it slowly. He should have realized Odhrán would understand the importance of the stone. Looking at Odhrán, he found it too easy to forget how old he really was. He would need to tread carefully.
“Oh, Captain, I believe you do know what I mean. Your leader, Vurin, wishes to use the stone to force the Council’s hand.”
Ian set the glass back on the table. “No one knows what powers the stone possesses.”
“But they know full well it’s a weapon of extraordinary power,” Odhrán said as he refilled their glasses and met Ian’s gaze unflinchingly.
Ian took another sip of the wine and waited a moment for it to warm his throat before he sw
allowed. He wouldn’t engage Odhrán on something as important to his people’s safety. He wouldn’t risk revealing anything that might endanger them should Odhrán choose to take sides in the conflict.
“Taren tells me the Ea cast you out when you were young,” he said after a pause. Best to change the topic. “Why?”
Odhrán inhaled softly and looked away for a moment. If Ian hadn’t known better, he might have believed Odhrán was still pained by the memory a millennium later. “I was a half-breed. Or so they called me. I was unworthy to be called Ea. Or so they said.” Odhrán lifted his legs from the pillows, stretched them much like a cat might, then crossed them underneath his body. In another situation, Ian might have believed the movements to be childlike, even submissive. But Ian sensed this was just the opposite: Odhrán was infinitely confident in his position, and he wanted Ian to understand this.
“The truth is that the Ea feared me, Captain. Feared my uniqueness. My power.” He spoke the words matter-of-factly, but Ian sensed an undercurrent of fierce pride in them.
“What power?”
“Beyond that of an Ea?” The corners of Odhrán’s mouth turned upward. Was he amused that Ian had asked? Odhrán probably knew the question was a calculated one. “But then, the Ea have lost much of their power, haven’t they? From what Taren tells me, few mages remain, and those who do are relatively weak.”
“Aye. That’s true.” He had no reason to lie about this. Odhrán was clearly more powerful than any of their mages. “But you haven’t answered my question.”
Odhrán pursed his lips. “Why ask what you already know?”
Ian laughed softly. “I’m quite sure I don’t know all of it,” he said. “Besides, I want to hear it from you.” Taren had told him what he knew of Odhrán’s abilities, though Ian sensed Taren had downplayed some of the more problematic of them. He didn’t blame Taren for his trusting nature; he loved him more for it. But he would learn as much as he could about Odhrán.
Odhrán offered Ian a coy smile. “Of course.” He leaned back on the pillows once more and rearranged his limbs in a manner that Ian could only describe as seductive. Ian’s first instinct was that Odhrán’s overtly sexual stance was a conscious tool to put him off his guard, and yet there was something instinctive about Odhrán’s movements as well.
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