by P. C. Cast
“Blonwen, would you grant me a boon?” He spoke against her skin as his lips traveled down her neck to the tops of her breasts, barely peeking over the bodice of her tunic and chemise.
“Anything you want,” she said breathily, arching back so that he could kiss more of her skin.
“Give me this day and night. Let it be us here, together, without the threat of war or Suetonius, or a future that says we cannot be together.”
Alex leaned back and met his gaze. “But we have to follow Suetonius. I have to get that medallion piece.”
“And you will, love. We will. But we cannot catch him today, even if we left at this moment and rode our horses to exhaustion. We cannot prevent him from reaching his legions. Our confrontation with him will come when Boudica engages him, and not before. That will not happen today, or even tomorrow. So the boon I ask is that you allow us this time together, a day and night we can fill with enough peace and love to last through a lifetime of war and separation.”
“I don’t want to be separated from you,” Alex said softly.
“If the goddess is merciful, you won’t be. But can we not gift ourselves with one day to hold dear through all the hard days we know will come?”
“Yes,” Alex said firmly. “Yes, we can.”
Caradoc’s smile was brilliant. He stood and held his hand out to her. “Then come with me and let me show you the magic of my world.”
Chapter 21
C aradoc’s world was magical—Alex had to give him that.
They’d gone back to his campsite and loaded everything they needed on their horses, and then, without a word to anyone, she had followed him deeper into the forest. He told her they would head in roughly the same direction as the army—northwest—but would detour through one of Briton’s densest forests.
“What if we get lost?” she’d asked him.
He’d laughed so hard that he’d had to hold his sides. “Blonwen, love, a druid cannot get lost in a forest.”
She frowned at him and tried to pretend she was annoyed that he’d laughed at her, but it was impossible. He was too happy to be angry with. The forest worked on Caradoc like a drug. The stiffness with which he had carried himself disappeared, as did the shadows under his eyes. He smiled. Actually, he smiled a lot.
This was how he must have been before his home was destroyed, she thought as he pointed out to her a different type of rowan, which had red berries instead of white flowers.
Alex adored this Caradoc. Sure, she loved the other parts of him, too: the powerful warrior, the protective lover, the talented druid. But this man—this relaxed, joyful, easygoing man—she adored.
She began to wonder if he would he be like this all the time if he were living in a different time, one where he didn’t have to worry about whether he was going to be hunted down and killed or enslaved. A time like the modern United States.
The thought jolted her.
Could he return to her time? As she watched him reach out and caress the leaves on a low hanging oak tree, she could almost see him at the Tallgrass Prairie. He’d love it there, on that land undeveloped by man. Herds of wild bison still ranged there, and by the end of summer the grasses grew so tall they towered overhead like fans of the gods.
What if she went back and had Carswell research Caradoc’s life? She’d have to find evidence of his death, and she’d have to retrieve him right before then—but couldn’t Alex take him with her if removing him from his time didn’t impact history? He would find peace on the Tallgrass Prairie. Alex was almost sure of it.
“What are you thinking, love?”
“I was just thinking that you would like my home. There’s no sea there, but the land is beautiful.”
“If you love the place, then it must be special,” he said.
“It is. The Tallgrass Prairie means freedom to me. I think you’d understand that if you could see it.”
“I would like to see it,” he said. Alex’s heart raced, and she was trying to formulate the words to ask him if he would give up his life, his world, and come to hers, when he continued, “I wish I could show you Mona. The way it used to be.”
“Tell me about it.” No, now was not the time. She’d ask him later, when she was closer to completing her mission.
“My isle, ’tis beautiful,” he said wistfully. “It was the greenest place on this good earth. The shoreline is rocky where the crystal sea kisses it, but inland is verdant. Streams bubble up from the earth, so pure and clear it sometimes hurt my teeth to drink of them. Sacred groves grew thick and perfumed the air with magic.”
He paused and Alex held her breath, waiting for him to continue, aware that he kept shifting tense when he spoke of the home that no longer waited peacefully for him. When he seemed unable to say more, she asked, “What does magic smell like?”
“Magic smells of grass and the sea and moonlit breeze.”
“When you say it like that, you make me believe it’s true,” she said.
He grinned at her. “Follow me, and I’ll prove to you it’s true.” Then he kneed his horse into a rolling canter, and Alex followed him, dodging trees and fallen logs as they went deeper and deeper into the woods.
“Where are we going?” she called to his back.
“To find a stream and a meadow and magic,” he yelled over his shoulder, and then with a laugh, urged his horse to a gallop, and there was no more opportunity for talking.
Caradoc found the stream quickly. It babbled through a rocky bed, lined with moss the color of spring grass. Willows wept along it, trailing their sad, delicate branches in the clear water. The spot Caradoc chose to dismount edged a little clearing that was filled with wildflowers so blue it looked as if the sky had sprinkled part of itself over the grasses.
Alex dismounted and waded into the middle of them. “Cornflowers!” she cried with delight. “They’re some of my favorite wildflowers, but you don’t see them in Oklahoma—it’s too hot there for them.” She grinned at Caradoc, who was unloading their horses and setting up camp beside the stream. “Is this the magic you were going to show me?”
He grinned back at her. “Aye, ’tis some of it.”
“It’s plenty!” Among the aquamarine-blue cornflowers, tucked in tufts of dark, emerald green, were bunches of clover complete with puffy reddish flowers. “There’s even clover here. In my world finding a clover with four instead of three leaves is thought to be good luck.” Alex dropped to her knees and started searching through the patches, breathing deeply and loving the sweet scent of the flowers.
Caradoc’s shadow fell over her, and then he was sprawled on the ground beside her, lying back so that he could comfortably watch her sift through the plants. He plucked a clover blossom and, holding her gaze with his own, tucked it behind her ear. “In my world red clover flowers can summon a lover,” he said, and handed her the wineskin he’d carried with him.
“Do you feel the need to summon a lover?” She took the skin and drank from it while she watched him watch her.
His smile was long and lazy. “I thought I already had.” He pointed at the flower he’d tucked in her hair. “Clover summoning takes time. A tea must be made of the blossoms. For nine days the supplicant must bathe in this tea before dawn, saving the bathwater and pouring it over her head, always rubbing downward and never upward, paying particular attention to her breasts…” He paused, his gaze moving down and lingering on Alex’s breasts “…her woman’s core and the softness of her inner thighs.” As he spoke, his gaze followed his words. Alex’s breathing quickened and her cheeks flushed. She could almost feel his gaze as a caress. “On the ninth morning the maiden must carry the washbasin to a crossroads, call the name of the one she desires, throw the clover water toward the rising sun—and very soon, her lover will come.”
“Does it always work?” Alex asked, not surprised that her voice sounded a little breathless.
He looked up into her eyes. “As with all magic in my world, if the intention is pure and the priestess is
strong enough, it will work.”
“What if it’s a man and not a woman doing the summoning?”
“It is a woman’s spell. Men have other ways of summoning a lover.”
“What ways?”
He reached across the space that separated them and traced his thumb over her lip while he stared hungrily at her mouth. “Will you come to me, lover?”
“I can’t think of anything I want more,” she said.
Alex did go to him. Pressing Caradoc down against the carpet of cornflowers and clover, she straddled him. She took his mouth, kissing him greedily. She tried not to think that this might be the last time they would be truly alone—that the next day they had to catch up with Boudica and the army, and then figure out a way to get the medallion piece from Suetonius so she could return it, and herself, to the modern world, never to see Caradoc again. Alex tried not to think of all that. Instead she concentrated on feelings—on touch and taste and the pleasure she could give Caradoc in the time they had been allotted.
Alex was the aggressor. She couldn’t get enough of him. She wanted him with a need that bordered on despair, and that despair coupled with desire and love, lighting a fire within her blood for him. She pulled his tunic off, loving the Celtic tradition of wearing no underclothing. Alex kept straddling him, and when he grabbed her wrists and moved to change positions with her, she pulled back and shook her head, smiling seductively.
“Not this time. This time it’s my turn to make love to you.”
He pulled her wrist to his lips and nipped her skin playfully, then said, eyes crinkling with humor, “I am indeed a strong druid to have summoned such a demanding lover. I am yours to do with as you will, Priestess.” He loosed her wrists and lay back, stretching under her.
In a slow, sensuous movement, Alex began to pull off her tunic. She noticed that almost instantly the teasing went out of his eyes and they began to darken with desire. Sitting astride him in only her sheer chemise, she let her hands play down her body. She shook back her hair, cupped her breasts and arched her back as she tweaked and teased her nipples. His shaft pulsed against her core, hard and hot. Watching his eyes, Alex began to move against him, not taking him within her, but letting her wetness stroke the length of him.
“Ah, gods! You will drive my mind from me!” he growled.
She laughed huskily and leaned forward, trapping his wrists together over his head. “I’ll do the touching this time. Will you let me ravish you?” she teased.
“Aye, do as you will with me, you sorceress,” he said between clenched teeth.
“It’s only right. You called me, remember?” When he opened his mouth to answer her, she brought her breasts to his mouth so that through her chemise he could nip the veiled buds and draw them, and the sheer fabric, between his lips.
Alex moaned. The sensation of his lips and teeth caressing her aroused flesh through the damp material was unbelievably erotic.
“Let me bury myself within you, love,” he said roughly against her. “Let me slide my hardness within your soft depths.”
“Soon,” she whispered. Then she moved down his body until she took him in her hand and stroked him slowly and thoroughly. “You’re such a beautiful man,” she murmured. “I don’t think I told you that yesterday, but I was thinking it. I love your body, Druid. It’s strong and tall and perfectly made. And I agree with your mother—you are golden.”
His hands were gripping the clover-covered earth in an effort to keep them off her, but there was laughter in his eyes again. “Please assure me my mother is not here, or that shaft you hold will lose its strength.”
Alex grinned at him. “We’re alone. I promise.” Then she took him in her mouth and he gasped, hips straining up. Alex swallowed him, loving the smooth hardness that pulsed in response to her lips and teeth and tongue. She brought him to the edge, and then moved up his body, pulling off her chemise and pressing against him—hot, naked flesh to hot, naked flesh.
When she knew she couldn’t bear not to have him for another second, she sat up and guided his hands to her waist. Then, bracing herself with her hands on his shoulders, she took him within her in one long, hard stroke. Both of them cried out at the pleasure of their joining, and then Alex began to move, sliding up and down. Pumping, she drove him into her over and over until she crested a peak of pleasure so intense it was almost painful. And as wave after wave of sensation pulsated through her body, radiating from her core outward, Caradoc cried her name and released his seed into her.
And in that moment, Alex didn’t need the druid to tell her she’d made the earth move for him.
Chapter 22
“W hat are you doing?” Alex asked sleepily as Caradoc stood up and, in one powerful movement, picked her up and started to carry her back toward the camp he’d made by the stream.
“I’m going to show you how a druid worships his lover,” he said.
“Okay. I may sleep through it, though.” Alex snuggled against his chest and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
“That I doubt, love.”
She yawned. “Is this more of that strong druid stuff?”
“Would you like there to be more of it?” He kissed the top of her head.
“Definitely. I’d especially like it if I could take a nap first.”
“No napping yet. There is something I would have you do first,” he said.
She gave him a sleepy smile. “Didn’t I already do it?”
“Vixen!” he said appreciatively.
“Indeed I am.” She snuggled against him again. Truth be told, she didn’t feel very vixenlike. At the moment she was too happy to feel anything but a wash of contentment.
She was so amazingly glad she’d found him! And to think she almost hadn’t gone to Flagstaff and accepted the stupid mission. She’d almost missed him completely—
Her happy thoughts broke off as reality rushed back in, drowning her contentment.
“Love? What is it?”
“Reality,” she said gloomily.
“No reality today. It will keep until the morrow.”
She sighed, but didn’t say anything else. Hell, she didn’t want to consider reality!
He carried her over to the bank of the stream and sat her gently on a moss-covered rock at its edge. Then, naked, he stepped into the crystal water. Alex’s toes brushed the surface and she pulled them up quickly.
“Brrr! This is colder than the stream by your old campsite.” She raised her brows as he splashed water over himself. “You’re going to freeze.” Alex hugged herself and considered putting at least some of her clothes back on, and when he started wading toward her she scrambled back. “Oh, no! I’ll do the sponge bath version of what you’ve just done.”
He grinned. “I said I would show you some of the magic of my world, did I not?”
“You did,” she said guardedly. “Magic does not mean dunking me in cold water, though. There’s really nothing magical about that. Right?”
“No, love, there isn’t.” Caradoc knelt in the stream at her feet and began stirring his hands through the clear, cold water. “As a Soul Speaker and a priestess of Andraste, you are tied to the earth. You understand that, do you not?”
“Yes, well, I understand it enough to know that even in my old world the land made me feel safe and relaxed—that’s why I became a biologist and worked at the tallgrass prairie. It’s easier here, though. It’s like the land expects me and is already listening.”
“That is an excellent way to describe it. The land is listening for you. Well, the way the land listens to you is the same way the waters listen to me.”
She blinked at him. “You’re going to have to explain that. I thought druids were all earth people.”
“It is true that we are all tied to the elements—air, fire, water and earth. Some of us are more closely attached to one element than the others, though we feel the ensouled value of each.”
“Selkie…that’s a seal.”
“Aye.” He smiled
wryly. “Apparently I reminded my mother of a seal. She used to say I could swim before I could walk properly.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It means I can, to some extent, borrow power from the spirit of water, much like you channeled energy from the rowan to open the veil to the Otherworld.”
“This I want to see.”
“Your wish, love, is as a command to me.” Caradoc bowed his head and spread his arms wide, palms down on the water. “Condatis, great god of the waters—father and familiar friend, in your name I ask to share a fraction of this stream’s inevitable strength. Not even rock can stand forever against its might. In the name of Condatis, I call upon you!”
The water under Caradoc’s hands began to roil. Unbelievably, Alex could see the stream lifting to lap around the druid’s forearms, and Caradoc’s sun-golden skin literally began to glow. He swirled his arms in the stream, cupped the agitated water and poured it on her toes.
“It’s warm!” she gasped.
“It is the magic of my world,” he said, holding out one hand in invitation to her.
Alex took his hand and slid off the rock to stand before him in the stream, which was now warm and bubbling around her knees.
“This, my priestess from a distant world, is how a druid worships his lover.”
Caradoc bathed her—gently, intimately, erotically. The magic-warmed water was warm oil against her skin. His knowing hands were first gentle, then demanding, and then gentle again. He cleansed her, made sweet, slow love to her there in the water, and as they climaxed together again Alex felt the thrill of power and magic and love all pulse together and join where their bodies joined.
Afterward, they washed each other, and then, wrapped in the cloaks Caradoc carried with them, but still gloriously naked beneath, they sat beside each other, thighs brushing intimately, while they ate a meal of slices of smoked pork, cheese, hard bread and Roman wine.
They talked ceaselessly. Alex loved to hear his stories of the forest, and how each tree and rock, bird and brook, was filled with a unique spirit.