Tomorrow, chaos might reign, but today, she could pretend they were the only two people on the planet and all was well.
Thirty-three
“My head spins,” Chantal whispered later that evening as Ian lifted her from the bliss of the grotto’s mineral-infused water into the cloud of herb-laden incense.
“Do you see the stars?” Ian asked, needing to know how deep the connection was between them. They’d made love with their hands and their mouths, but he’d resisted planting his seed in her womb until the stars were in their proper place and the gods were ready.
“I do,” she said in wonder. Closing her eyes, she rested her head on his shoulder, and he relished this moment of her vulnerability. She was strong, as she had to be, but he loved that she trusted him enough to lower her defenses with him. “They seem to be talking to me,” she murmured.
Ian hugged her tighter. “As they do to me. Our bond tightens. I must warn you that what we do tonight can be dangerous since neither of us can predict your gifts or know which ones we will share between us. But if you are already seeing the stars as I do, there is no turning back.”
“You see stars? Do you understand them?”
“I do. They led me to you. I cannot always understand clearly, but sometimes there is no denying their meaning.”
They’d fasted since breakfast, but together they’d consumed the traditional potion he’d mixed. It contained mildly hallucinatory herbs and aphrodisiacs and made Ian’s head spin. The mixture was useful for virgins and reluctant mates, and expected as part of the amacara ceremony. In this instance, he thought it could be useful for tempering the merging of their gifts so as not to frighten his intended. He’d foregone all other traditions so as to keep Chantal and her revealing mark to himself, but he saw no reason to neglect the incense and potion if they might lead to greater insight and safety.
“Do you understand what the stars are saying now?” she asked dreamily as he carried her down the shell-strewn path to the altar.
She was naked in his arms. Although the rising wind of a storm cooled their overheated flesh, he’d seen no necessity in dressing for a ceremony that only the two of them would attend. The same barriers he used to block the grotto could be used to block any who came this way and to provide barriers of privacy at the temple. Perhaps in ancient times, public beddings were common, but no longer.
Despite all they’d done together, he burned with the desire to touch and taste her all over. “I am not listening to anything except the rush of blood as it flees my head,” he admitted.
“I feel as if a river of fire flows through me,” she agreed. “And the river’s mouth is between my legs. Hurry.”
He did. If the task of the aphrodisiac was to draw his blood and all other sensation downward, it was succeeding. His erection strained to bursting and preceded him like a tree trunk. At last he knew the torment he’d put countless other couples through at the gods’ behest when he’d performed the rituals preparing them for their vows. He struggled to remember that this was an act of faith and procreation, but reason was rapidly diminishing to a feeble thread.
“Hurry,” she whispered again, or perhaps it was the wind rustling in the trees.
A night bird called, and another answered. Heavy clouds swirled around Aelynn’s peak, and the air was sharp with the welcome scent of rain. The woman in his arms was all ripe breasts, rounded hips, and graceful legs, and smelled of vanilla and honey. His sex throbbed and rose still higher when she wiggled in his arms to press her nipples into his chest.
He thought he might burst before they reached the altar. He didn’t remember the temple being so far away. He might have to stop right here on the path and —
As he finally stumbled into the clearing, he saw that torches had been discreetly lit in the shrubbery. Lissandra would have seen to that, if only out of her duty as temple priestess. The altar gleamed soft and welcoming in the dancing light. Created of some sponge-like matter by the gods, the bed on which Aelynn’s spirits waited looked firm yet gave easily. He laid Chantal upon it, and she immediately tightened her grip around his neck and tugged him down.
“Now, please,” she said urgently, spreading her legs so the flower of her sex beckoned. He climbed upon the bed and kneeled between her thighs, his organ of reproduction straining to penetrate the blossom in a ceremony as old as time.
“The vows first,” he retained sufficient willpower to say.
Although he had no approval from the Council, he did not hesitate over which vows to finalize, those of wife or amacara. He’d had a lifetime of isolation to recognize that he could never share a cold, rational marriage with a Council-chosen woman after the passion Chantal had showed him. And he’d had enough nights without her in his bed to understand that sending her away would destroy him.
He did not need the heavens to tell him that he would sacrifice his life to keep her.
“By Aelynn’s will,” he intoned before his gods and hers, “I take thee for amacara, keeper of my children, and as wife, keeper of my soul. Hear me, Aelynn, for I am yours to do with as you will.”
The cloud-hidden stars seemed to chime their approval as he leaned forward to caress Chantal’s breasts. It would make sense that the heavens would play music for his amacara. He waited with his heart in his throat for her to repeat the words he’d taught her.
“I take thee for husband, keeper of my body and soul,” she said carefully, staring up at him with eyes glazed in rapture and expectation. “And amacara, father of my children, from now until the gods decree.”
Overhead, thunder rolled, echoing the approval of the stars.
In relief and joy, Ian slipped his family’s ring over her heart finger, and kissed her thoroughly, claiming her as an Aelynner and his own. The delicate music of the stars filled his ears, underscored by the deep bass of heavy drums. Her father’s approval, apparently. All on the island would know that the Orateurs had returned.
This was it, the moment Ian had been waiting for his entire life, the binding of heart and soul and body into one and the resulting creation of new life. He didn’t need the aphrodisiac racing through his blood to complete this joining. The song on Chantal’s lips sang in his heart. Cupping her buttocks, he angled her hips to meet his, and thrust high and deep until she cried out with her surprise and pleasure.
With none but the gods and the spirits watching them, they mated beneath the whirling clouds, to the beat of drums and the roll of distant thunder. Their cries mixed with those of the night birds as the potion worked through their blood and poured from their skin, forced out by the binding strength of their promises and the desire to be as one.
As the moment of completion rose within them, Ian lowered Chantal’s hips and covered her completely with his weight. With the power of the gods overtaking him, he held her arms pinned to the giving bed until she writhed and arched and clawed. He drove his teeth into her shoulder like the panther he’d been called, then licked the wound he’d made bleed.
She moaned and shuddered and arched higher, still possessing him so deeply he thought they could never come asunder. He held himself taut, letting her thrust and circle and plead until he could bear no more.
Giving himself to the elements, Ian threw back his head and let lightning enter his body.
* * *
Chantal screamed a long and haunting cry as Ian’s sex plunged a path to her heart, thunder boomed, and a bolt of lightning illuminated the clearing like daylight. Electricity raised the hair on her arms and traveled through Ian into her, burning through blocked passages into her womb, making her whole.
Ian howled his release, pounding into her repeatedly until she jerked and shuddered and saw stars where there were none. As every muscle in her body convulsed, his seed spilled deep inside her.
But the hot flood of moisture was as nothing compared to the melding of her mind and body with Ian’s. She felt him inside her in ways that she could never express, saw his stars, felt his heart beat inside her ches
t, recognized the strangeness of his male member jutting between her legs. She felt his wonder, and oddly, his disappointment.
Perhaps sex made one insane. She couldn’t explain what was happening in any other way. The distant drumming entwined with the thunder, surging through her veins like a heated elixir. And still, she held him.
Chiming notes of harmony and accord rang through the clearing, mating with the loud bongs of deeper instruments in an inexplicable chorus as she absorbed Ian’s life force joining with hers in a manner that made her whole again.
“Have I hurt you?” he asked worriedly as the first drops of rain pattered the stones.
“I think you have brought me to life,” she said with puzzlement. “I prickle all over, inside and out, as if whatever I’m made of has finally awakened and stirs.”
He propped his weight on one elbow and stroked a hair from her brow. His deep-set eyes were the changing colors of midnight. He’d not shaved before coming here, and his beard shadowed his jaw. Unbound, his hair curled freely down his shoulders and tickled her breasts. He looked more primitive male than she’d ever seen him, and arousal began to heat her sorely used loins.
He smiled wickedly with understanding, and lifted his hips slightly until his sex almost, but not quite, slid out. “It is about to pour. Would you prefer to return to the grotto?”
“No,” she said without hesitation, lifting her shoulders to reach between them and squeeze the masculine sac between his legs. “Nothing will cool me off. I plan to die here.”
“If you did not die after what just happened, then nothing will kill you.” He shuddered at her caresses, then nuzzled and nipped her ear. “I had not fully appreciated the power of the gods in this place. But I agree, I do not think we can join the world until we play this out.”
With a speed she could not grasp, he rolled over, carrying her on top of him. Startled, she sat up and looked around. The wind tossed her hair. A drizzle of rain sizzled against her skin. Dancing in the wind and threatening to go out, torchlight trailed shadows across her breasts.
She felt huge. She glanced down to be certain that her petite stature had not changed. Her breasts seemed larger, fuller, but Ian’s lust-filled gaze as he drank in the sight could be responsible for that. His sex hardened within her. Perhaps she felt as he did, large and potent and prepared to battle the world.
Was this how men felt all the time? She gazed at him in wonder, as he grasped her hips and held them to push higher inside her as his strength returned. She was half his weight, barely reached past his shoulder, but she felt as if she had the strength, if not to overpower him, then to be his equal. She raised up on her knees, resisting his hold.
He slid his fingers over her mark to the sensitive skin between her buttocks, and she instantly came down on him again. He played a finger along the base of her spine and continued stroking her into deeper arousal.
“You carry the power of revolution,” he told her, urging her to slide slowly back and forth until they both burned with renewed desire. “You will need my aid to learn to use it wisely.”
“I don’t have the slightest idea what you mean.” But she did, if only with a sliver of comprehension. The rush of the wind and the storm in the heavens matched the changes overturning all she knew and had been. The world was changing, and so was she.
“You do. You will. Perhaps we are not meant to have a child, but you are meant to be the instrument of change. It’s happening already. Even Waylan has not been able to open the clouds sufficiently over Aelynn these past years. It’s not the chalice they awaited, but you.” He smiled in male satisfaction. “My choice was the right one.”
She stared down at him. “What choice?” She wasn’t at all certain that she wanted to know, but she would love to create that expression on his face more often.
“I chose you, mi ama,” he said tenderly, brushing her cheek with his long fingers.
“You chose me — ” She laid her forehead against his and choked on the rest of her sentence. “You chose me over the chalice. And Murdoch. No wonder your family is furious.”
“It was the right choice,” he stated firmly. “The stars have blessed us, and the heavens have sent us a storm after years of poor rainfall.”
“What if it had been the wrong choice?” she asked hoarsely.
“It was not. The gods did not bless us with this bond without a reason.” He rotated his hips and thickened even more inside her.
His arrogance knew no bounds, her mind insisted, but her heart agreed with Ian. She was drunk on love and lust and could not reason clearly. That he had risked so much for her was enough for her to know, to comprehend, and to love him even more deeply, if that was possible.
She raised her arms to beckon the lightning, let her breasts bounce freely in the increasing rain, then dragged her fingers through her hair to set it free from the confinement that once civilized it. She had no words to offer, just gestures.
And Ian understood. Holding her still with one arm around her waist, he rose to a sitting position, embedding himself deeper as he nibbled at the peaks of her breasts.
Even holding completely still, she felt arousal rise to the heights in an improbable instant. Chantal wrapped her legs around his back, moaning her readiness, and Ian caressed the bud of her sex. Thunder crashed, and lightning struck again, shattering a lintel of the temple.
The storm spiraled through them faster than the aphrodisiac. Riding Ian as she did a horse, Chantal gasped and grabbed his shoulders when Ian crushed her to him. They climaxed as one, with his hot seed shooting upward. Ian’s arms tightened around her waist, and they shuddered in release. On fire from the inside out, Chantal collapsed against Ian’s broad strength.
And then a miracle happened. Or a hallucinatory vision.
She saw a minuscule particle tear loose from the tunnel to her womb and tumble free into the golden light where Ian’s seed swam. The particle instantly disappeared in a swarm of eager maleness. The explosion of contact, when it came, was so fierce, all the air left Chantal’s lungs, blood drained from her head, and she passed out in Ian’s arms.
Thirty-four
Chantal woke in the dawn light to find Ian resting on his elbow, leaning over her, in a room she didn’t recognize, with rain beating on the roof overhead. Upon discovering her wakefulness, he caressed her hair and kissed her.
Pleasure and stormy memories rose in her breast, summoned by the magic of his kisses. But finally, they had reached some satiation, and she could resist his call enough to slide her fingers over his stubbled jaw and appreciate the length of raw male beside her.
“I feel very strange,” she murmured, not certain where the strangeness began or ended. Perhaps just feeling replete was odd. The ring on her left hand weighed heavy.
“I feel what you feel,” Ian marveled. “All those years I was told I’m heartless, I was missing the part of me that is you. I can feel you making my heart beat. Don’t be scared. You have only to remember our loving to know this is right.”
Briefly, she’d been a bit frightened by the newness of her surroundings and the realization that she’d bound herself forever to a man she didn’t fully understand. But his acceptance banished all doubt, all argument. A man of his authority and ability had bound himself to her willingly, without remorse. Never had she been held so dearly by another, regarded above duty and family, first in his thoughts and in his heart. She was overwhelmed.
She grabbed his long hair and tugged. “You are real, aren’t you? Will you explain now how a man who has never been on a horse can ride Rapscallion?” Of her many questions, she asked this first, because she did not know how to ask the deeper ones. And in truth, she didn’t need to ask. Ian acted as he did because he was Ian, and his heart was larger than any she had ever known.
He wrapped his arm around her and fell back against the pillows, carrying her with him so she sprawled across his hard chest. “I read minds,” he announced, as if he’d just said he’d eaten dinner. “Apparently,
I can also see into the minds of certain beasts and make them understand what I want. There are not enough animals on Aelynn for me to have recognized this ability until I came to your country. It is something I must explore further, when we have time.”
“You read minds?” she said in disbelief. “Then tell me what I’m thinking.”
He chuckled. “You’re thinking I am crazy, but I don’t need to read your mind to know that. I can’t read your thoughts unless you open them to me. Like most Aelynners, you have the ability to block me out. But the thoughts of people in your world spin crazily through my head like winter leaves in a storm. It’s very distracting.”
“So you can’t live elsewhere,” she murmured in disappointment.
“I can’t live elsewhere because my people need me here. I am their Sky Rider, the only one who can read the heavens and help them see the future outside Aelynn. My sister can prophesy for individuals, but she cannot see what will happen beyond our shores. I saw you and the chalice in the stars and knew I was meant to go after you. By bringing you here, I’ve returned rain to our thirsty land.”
“It could be a coincidence,” she argued, not yet ready to believe he could have such mystical powers.
“I suppose it could be a coincidence that the sun rises every day, but usually, a pattern of behavior predicts cause and effect. I have a pattern of behavior that you will soon understand.” He raised his head to kiss her jaw. “And predict,” he said with a grin in his voice.
She grew warm all over at the idea of waking in Ian’s bed every morning, listening to his plans in the evenings, walking beside him through his days — bearing his children. She reached between them to stroke her lower belly and wonder if her vision had the meaning she thought.
He covered her hand with his. “I saw it, too. The gods have promised children to all who mate in their temple. There is no promise that the child will live or that it will bear our traits, but that is the usual outcome.”
Mystic Rider Page 29