Echoes in the Dark

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Echoes in the Dark Page 18

by Robin D. Owens


  She smiled with her lips but her eyes held sorrow. “No.”

  He stiffened at the hurt, then her hands covered his that were cupping her face. “No, I won’t deny this.”

  Raine felt his hand warm in hers, but the rest of his body quivered and she thought it was more from the chill of the breeze than desire. Concentrating, she thought of hot Mediterranean winds, and a low rasp of tuneful notes came to mind. She sent that heat through her hand to warm him. He stilled and she looked up into his eyes—serious eyes though she’d heard he’d been lighthearted once.

  She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the lips as lightly as the last droplets of sea spray. His mouth opened, his tongue swept out and her brain went fuzzy. She didn’t want that, wanted to keep this easy and gentle and tender as he had their kiss before. If she glanced down, she’d see his body wanted hers and just the thought of that had her body readying, too. But now was not the time for fierce and mindless sex.

  What was between them should never be simply fierce and mindless sex.

  So she led him the few yards to the door, hummed the small spell to unlock and open it. The scent of the place—seaside and fresh cleaning—took her back to the night she had saved herself and he and Blossom had come and flown her away from her old life on a moonlit ride.

  “No,” he said thickly. “No. You don’t need to remember.”

  But she did. The attack and fight the next morning.

  “No.” Faucon swung her up in his arms, held her close to his warm body. One of her arms went naturally around his neck, the other slid along his lightly furred chest to his heart that beat with a rhythm of passion she couldn’t deny.

  She let him carry her up the steep path, but as he went to the gardens, she wiggled and said, “I want to be an equal partner, Faucon.”

  So he slid her down his body and her own thrilled to the strength and muscularity of him, his need.

  Again she linked her fingers in his, glanced around to see they were near the ponds. One little boat showed white sails as it moved on the water.

  She kept her eyes slightly unfocused so she could pretend the pools were just pools, water and land, and not maps. Beyond the land was green and beautiful, the plants lush from all the cool rain of the spring and summer, the tangy wind off the ocean mixed with other fragrances that added piquancy to the soft night. Leaves rustled from trees, rising in verdant levels from small fruit-bearers to tall and thick-boled ancients. On the opposite side of the garden was Faucon’s castle, appearing like a fantasy of bold lines and turrets and warm yellow squares of windows, with the slight murmuring of distant voices.

  All her senses increased. Most of all, she was aware of the man walking beside her and her own throbbing pulse. “You have a lovely home.” Her words sounded breathless.

  Faucon stopped, looked down at her, smiling. “I do.” He bent and pressed a small kiss on her lips. “Thank you.”

  His arm tightened for an instant, then he relaxed it, though his heart had picked up a beat. His gaze lingered on her and she felt her breasts swell, her limbs go heavy.

  Again he leaned down, this time kissing her temple, then he shook his head. “I’ve tried to avoid my fate for too long.”

  Her spine stiffened. “I don’t care to be thought of as part of your fate.”

  He slid his arm from her waist to link fingers, just held her hand, and her throat tightened. The connection they’d established during their time on the water, that link of joy of wind and water and sail, the laughter, the learning—her of Lladrana, and both of them of each other—unfurled between them. It was a shining bond like she had with no other. Small sexual tugs came from him to her, or was she the one doing the tugging?

  He met her eyes, then his gaze dropped to her lips, his thumb caressed the back of her hand. “You would be the best of my fate.”

  She shook her head, but didn’t pull away from his calloused grasp, kept in pace with him. “I’m not.”

  His smile curved deeper. “You felt the connection between us, the attraction flowing one to the other and back immediately, as I did.”

  She didn’t want to think, analyze—couldn’t they just pleasure each other? Not a phrase she would have used on Earth, but somehow it fit the night. And the man.

  Breath unsteady, she said, “You feel that way for all Exotiques.”

  His smile faded. “Perhaps so, but the intensity between us has always been…more.” His grip tightened a little. “Believe that, Raine. I deluded myself with Elizabeth.” Now his expression turned grim, worse and worse. “I won’t lie and say that I didn’t love her—I did. And if she’d stayed, we’d have made a good marriage.” He let his breath out on a soft sigh. “But what we had at our best was weak compared to what you and I had from our very first meeting.”

  Then, he opened himself and his Song flooded her, strong and male and fabulous, making her tremble. Her mind swam and she instinctively leaned toward him, her Song reached for his, found his, meshed.

  When his soft lips touched hers, all her senses focused on their mouths, their mingling breath. Her body heated, needy, wanting more of him touching her than just his mouth, his linked fingers. She opened her lips and took him in, felt the slight roughness of his tongue, like the slight roughness of his hands still holding hers. There was only sensation. She surrendered to the desire for this man that she’d fought, that she’d thought she was alone in feeling, and finally knew he’d wanted her all along. Had fought her…resisted fate…until this moment.

  Her senses throbbed with stimulus. His taste was of man and crème brûlée and some sort of liqueur, a taste she didn’t know that she’d craved but was exactly right. He dropped her hands and she could press herself against his hard body, slide her arms around his neck, let herself arch so she could feel more of him, the solid breadth of his chest, his strong thighs, his thick sex.

  She moaned and his hands went to her butt and lifted her to fit her against him and it felt so good she strained against him, rubbed. He made a rough sound, moved his tongue against hers, then broke the kiss and set her aside. Her knees wobbled and he supported her with a hand to her elbow. She was panting, her vision blurred, her body pulsing with need. “Faucon.” It was a gasp.

  “Not here, there’s a place…over there,” he said between ragged breaths. He lifted her into his arms and she was against his chest and she could slip her hand around his nape and feel the tickle of his hair against her hand. That set off sparks again. “Hurry,” she said.

  He groaned, ran lightly across the ground to an odd-looking domed structure that appeared to be made entirely of vines. The bower was covered with pretty white five-petaled flowers, as if indicating a special place only for lovers.

  “Flowers,” she breathed, and he understood her.

  “No, they were not there before, they’re night blooming.”

  Then the scent of them came to her, sweet temptation, a light, sensual fragrance.

  When she spoke the words, she wanted to cry, but they had to be said. “I’m going back.”

  19

  “I know,” Faucon whispered. “My fate, but we’ll have a wonderful time until you do.”

  Her mind swam away again and she felt his hands on her, untying the gathered ribbon of her nightgown above her breasts, sliding it down until she was naked. The soft summer air against her legs, now the scent of the ocean. Perfect.

  She fumbled with his pants. Damn dreethskin, why did he wear it?

  He laughed shortly, answered her question. “It kept you from noticing I was aroused when I was with you.”

  “Fighting fate,” she breathed. For one clear instant she wondered what this act would do to her fate, her resolve to return home. But then his hands were over her breasts and nothing was as important as his touch. She arched and moaned.

  He muttered something and pulled away.

  No! She jumped toward him before she saw him unbuckling the waistband of his pants, stripping trousers and loincloth down until he stood nude
before her.

  Definitely the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

  Her hands curved over his shoulders to bring him down. She felt scars, round raised bumps, a slice, and something she’d been guarding inside herself burst through a locked box and swept through her like a fresh rain of her name.

  He grasped her hands, set her on her back on the thick, soft grass. His intense gaze met hers, he was biting his lip.

  “Can’t,” he gasped. “Can’t control myself.”

  She set her hands on his face, felt beard, a little rough like all of him except his manner. “Please don’t,” she said.

  A wild noise came from him, sent their Songs into a drumming beat, and he surged inside her.

  She screamed at the pleasure and let the tide of passion take her to break like wild surf against the shores of ecstasy.

  Sometime later Faucon rolled until she was atop him and she lay, satisfied, listening to the rapid beat of his heart slowly diminishing to an even thud. She fit on him.

  “I’m taking you back to my rooms,” he said. “I want to spend as much time together as possible….”

  “Not just now. The night is so beautiful, this place is so lovely.” The fragrance of the flowers was all around them, the breeze brought a hint of the ocean. She could see the huge scarves of galaxies in the sky, and the white moon. “So many stars. Lladranan night is brighter than home.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “No?” She realized she’d said the word in English, but was speaking Lladranan better. The other women had told her this would happen if she took a Lladranan lover, but she hadn’t realized she’d get other images and feelings and experiences from his mind. Some of his lost father-figure, Broullard, many of sailing. None, thankfully, of Elizabeth.

  She didn’t think he’d gotten any hint of her few past lovers, either.

  He pillowed his arm under her head, but lay on his side, looking at her. She gazed back at him.

  Tracing her lips with his forefinger, he said, “Preparation for the trials begin tomorrow, and the trials themselves the day after. I need to go back with the others in the morning.”

  She didn’t want to talk about this. Didn’t want to think about that or any ramifications of the trials. She put her fingers over his lips, and he kissed them, but continued on. “I think you should stay here, near the ocean, where you belong, Seamistress. Practice building your Ship.”

  A slightly better topic. She stroked his brow, his cheeks. “Ayes, I’d rather be here.” Didn’t want to be in a Castle where people were excited about preparing for war.

  He licked her fingers, and his eyes were serious. “You will always be welcome here. Always.”

  “Merci.”

  There was the whir of wings, a little squeak cut short. Raine stood, reached both hands down to him. He took her fingers, rose on his own, then flashed a wicked grin and scooped her up in his arms once more. “Now I can carry you, my prize, my lover.” He kissed her hard. “My wonderful fate.”

  “Our…fate.”

  They loved several times in the night and in the morning had breakfast in his suite.

  She helped Faucon dress in his battle leathers—in case an alarm was sounded on the way to the Marshalls’ Castle. Then she accompanied him arm-in-arm out of his castle and toward the landing field, where the others waited.

  Passing the ponds, Faucon stopped. Raine didn’t want to, but she halted, too. A series of pools that some long-ago ancestor of his had ordered built—for just this time? She didn’t know and it was too scary to think of.

  Despite herself, she looked at the large pool of the northern continent and her model. She studied the course it—they, not she—would take. There was the sweep northwest around the last big peninsula of the continent, then back east to the narrow S-curving channel between two continents, then nearly straight east to the volcanic island that was the Dark’s Nest.

  There they’d find monsters, the horrors she’d seen mounted as trophies. The worst for the invasion force and her ship were dreeths—looking like the flying dinosaurs of old Earth, but with spines and claws and sharp rows of teeth. The large ones were big as a house, the smaller ones breathed fire.

  Staring at her ship, she wondered if there was any way to protect it from dreeth fire. They would need it to get back, wouldn’t they? The survivors.

  “It’s a beautiful Ship,” Faucon said.

  She gave him a resigned smile. “It could be better with more Lladranan input.”

  He inclined his head. “Ayes. Corbeau will be here for the days I’m at the trials, then I’ll return and we’ll consult more on ship design and model building.” His smile widened. “Corbeau has five children, I’m sure all of them would like a ship from the hands of the Exotique Seamistress.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He held her for a moment, then they walked to the landing field. None of the Exotiques said a word about Raine’s new intimacy with Faucon, and she thought she heard cautionary humming between the women and their spouses and the men kept quiet, too. The acceptance was a blessing, since she was feeling tender this morning, like she’d stepped onto a dangerous path.

  Or maybe it was because she looked like she might cut and run.

  She endured the grins of the women, said farewell to the others with an embrace. She hugged Luthan, who’d seemed preoccupied and hadn’t said a word throughout the evening before. He held her, too, and felt solid and good, completely brotherly.

  Koz winked at her and she winked back. He’d fallen into a sudden sleep after working with the mirrors and the last she’d seen him, he was snoring on the rugs. “Good hunting,” she said, giving him the standard Chevalier goodbye.

  “Not hunting,” he said cheerily. “Testing.” He flexed. “I’m gonna win.”

  There were several snorts.

  Raine turned to Faucon and gave him a passionate kiss. As she watched them fly away, she knew she’d made the right decision to stay. This was where her own work should be done, by the sea.

  And she knew that this leaving showed faith in her. That she’d be fine on her own, was a mature adult who could handle her own problems, be it a stalker to raising the ship. And she understood that if she sent a mental call to any of them, woman or man, they’d hurry to her side. Even now their link was open.

  Friendship.

  Independence.

  The mixture was heady.

  She walked back to the ponds.

  The Song between her and Faucon was strengthening, from attraction to affection to tenderness. More than desire and passion. That, too, made her smile. She didn’t think she’d ever had such an impact on a man. It made her feel all woman.

  She was alone. Corbeau was out with the fishing boats. She knew his Song now and sensed it coming from the sea.

  She sensed a lot about the sea since yesterday.

  There was a small mew and she looked down to see an orange tabby kitten staring up at her with big blue eyes and cream on her whiskers. Enerin.

  “Hi, Enerin.”

  Enerin’s eyes widened more. “Hello, Raine.”

  Raine sighed. “What do you want?”

  A wide kitten smile. “Last night we made many ships like your design.”

  So that was the feycoocu business! “So?”

  Enerin waved a paw and a little flotilla came sailing from behind a grassy knoll. There must have been ten ships. Enerin said, “Sinafinal and Tuckerinal also modified the ponds to look like the best maps.” She lifted her chin and beamed. “Especially this big one that shows all of Lladrana and the way to the Dark’s Nest.” The kitten bounded over to it. “It is perfect. So you can see how the course must be.”

  Raine sent a hard stare at Enerin. “Do you want to make me afraid and sad?”

  Enerin looked surprised. “Ttho.”

  “Then why do you say things that you know will make me afraid and sad? You’re my companion.”

  Enerin crouched down, lowered her head. Sina
final would say such to Alexa.

  “You’re not Sinafinal and I’m not Alexa. I don’t need to be reminded of my task, or what awaits the invasion force in the north. I don’t need to be motivated by fear and depression. I’ve had enough of that here on Lladrana.” She turned her back on that pond, looked toward the east where the volarans had already flown out of sight. “I don’t think Alexa or anyone else needs to be motivated that way.”

  Since the kitten looked miserable, Raine picked her up, held her so their eyes met. “Maybe in the beginning, when we all didn’t know what needed to be done, Sinafinal or Tuckerinal might have been good at spurring the Exotiques on. But now we need all the moral support we can get. You can tell Sinafinal and Tuckerinal that, too.”

  Enerin squeezed her eyes shut. They hear. All Exotiques hear.

  “Good. Now I know that feycoocus are special.” Raine cradled Enerin in one arm and petted her. “We all know that you hear the Song of Amee, of the universe itself, better than any human, that you might have other agendas that we don’t know about and you don’t want to tell us. But if there’s a direction you want us to go, I think we’d all appreciate it if you simply asked us to do something, not manipulated us.”

  Go, Raine! came Alexa’s mental voice.

  You’re absolutely right! Marian said.

  Thank you, echoed Calli and Bri.

  Raine sighed and Enerin looked up at her, whiskers rising from their droop. “I want you to stay here, with me and with Faucon and with the others when the Snap comes.”

  “I know that, but I’m not ready to make that decision.”

  Enerin continued, “And I know it will be better for everybody if you Captained the Ship. It is like that man on Exotique Terre said, the Ship is a stealth ship and will be a stealth ship if you pilot it.”

  That jolted Raine. She hadn’t thought of that. “Ayes?” she whispered, but she knew all the others—the Exotiques and the feycoocus—were listening in.

  There had been less shock from the others, as if they’d anticipated this. Raine wasn’t sure whether she was glad or not that they’d kept the idea from her.

 

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