To him.
But soon balance would be restored. They would once again take their place in the world. And the cromlech would, once more, become his personal refuge.
He closed his eyes, attempted to recapture the shimmering threads hovering just beyond the reach of his conscious mind. A darkness loomed, but it wasn’t a familiar darkness. Revulsion skittered along his nerves, caused the hair to rise on the back of his neck.
The scent of feminine malevolence drenched the encroaching fog, tainting him with the stench of millennia of matriarchy.
The Morrigan.
Instinctively he ensured his true nature was concealed, the way he’d concealed his beliefs and convictions for the last twenty-five years. No Druid, no god, and most certainly not this goddess could discover his purpose until it was too late for them to do anything but bow to his will.
Her skeletal touch grazed his soul, but didn’t linger, as if she either was unaware of his presence or attached so little significance to him as to render him unworthy of further scrutiny.
Since the latter was inconceivable, Aeron knew it was his own formidable shields that protected him from the goddess’s all-seeing eye.
Sweat beaded his forehead. The Morrigan wasn’t searching for him. But she was searching for something.
For someone.
On the spiritual plane the black fog swirled, and for one heart-shuddering moment Aeron saw into the center of the Morrigan’s focus.
Chills raced along his spine, cooling the sweat on his skin, freezing the blood in his veins.
She searched for Carys.
Hidden in the shadows of the trees, Aeron watched Gawain and Morwyn enter the sacred spiral. The other Druids thought him unaware of their excursions into the enemy lair. But why else did they imagine he’d allowed this passageway if not for the purpose of access when it came to replenishing their supplies?
He ignored the fact that the fracture had created itself in the instant he had released the great power from the bowels of the earth. His original intent had been to isolate them absolutely, but in the same way the spiral had failed to enclose Cerridwen’s Cauldron, it had also left this slice of the forest unprotected.
As if the spiral had its own agenda. But since Aeron was the master in this extended manipulation of the elemental forces, that also was inconceivable.
Carys wasn’t with her friends, but instinct told him she had been with them earlier. While he knew no Druid would allow her to go as far as the Roman settlement, he also knew he was alone in his condemnation of her escaping to the Cauldron as often as she did.
Therefore, Morwyn and Gawain had left her at the Cauldron on their way to the settlement. And she had to be there still.
Wrapping his cloak around his shoulders, he silently left the sacred spiral. The Morrigan, in a dark cloud of fury, searched for Carys. And could not find her.
He intended to discover why. On both counts.
Maximus reined in his horse and stared over the valley toward the forest. From his vantage point on the crest of the same hill where he’d stood only yesterday, the extent of the forest was beyond doubt. Looking down upon it, even from this distance, the tree canopy spread for miles.
He consulted the map. When he discovered who had charted this region, demotion would follow punishment. Such a blatant discrepancy between their intelligence and reality could cost lives. Roman lives.
Quelling his anger, he urged his horse forward. How many other areas did he need to double-check? Where the fuck had this particular cartographer learned his so-called craft?
Pulling up on a lower ridge, he once again scanned the surrounding area. An invisible fist punched through his heart as disbelief slammed through him, but still the message his eyes transferred to his brain made no rational sense at all.
The forest had physically shrunk.
He sucked in a deep breath, shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun. But still the heat haze hovered over the forest—what remained of it—no forest at all, merely a wooded area as depicted by the map grasped in his fist.
His heart hammered against his ribs, sweat slicked his skin, and his mouth dried of all moisture, as if he’d just completed a marathon training session. But a training session was something tangible, something he understood.
This—could not be understood.
He retraced his path, eyes narrowed, watching the forest. And as he once again reached the summit of the original hill, the forest inexplicably expanded.
Eerie shivers raised the hairs on his arms and back of his neck. What dark magic had he uncovered?
Chapter Eighteen
Carys stared at the minuscule portion of mashed root in her small wooden bowl and a slither of apprehension chilled her. Such powerful aids to bridge the chasm between mortals and gods were used sparingly, during sacred ceremonies. The results could never be anticipated, and as such no untrained Druid was permitted to use them unsupervised.
As a Druid only halfway through her training, Carys knew only too well that without a powerful link back to the earth, she could end up forever lost in the spiritual abyss revealed by the magical properties of the root.
But she would be careful. For a start, she wasn’t making the required preparations for a ritual with all the bodily and spiritual cleansing such undertakings required. She intended to swallow only the minutest amount, just enough to open the doorway and allow her access to the upper realms.
Smothering the lingering thoughts that persisted telling her she was merely twisting words to suit herself—because of course she wasn’t—she trickled fresh water into the bowl and stirred the contents with her finger. Meditation was all very well but couldn’t guarantee a connection, and she desperately needed a connection with Cerridwen.
She inhaled slowly, then licked her finger clean. She needed only the merest taste, just enough to let her—
The breath jerked from her lungs as she catapulted through the misty veils, without warning, without even swallowing the forbidden mixture. Faster she sped, landscape merging into an emerald blur, and she could feel the wind on her face, whipping through her hair, and yet she could also feel the grass against her legs where she sat, frozen within her mortal body, at Cerridwen’s Cauldron.
She tried to call for her goddess, reach her with her mind. But Cerridwen remained beyond her grasp.
Panic flared. If Cerridwen wasn’t here, how had she crossed the chasm so swiftly? She could feel her finger still in her mouth, could taste the magic as it seeped into her tongue, but couldn’t move a muscle, on either the spiritual or physical dimension.
All movement ceased. Heart pounding with sudden realization of where she was, Carys stared at the forked path before her.
A beautiful maiden materialized, and Carys trembled, in her mind and her soul and the core of her being. Despite all she had experienced during her years of training, despite the numerous occasions Cerridwen had graced her with her presence, the Great Goddess, the Morrigan herself, had never appeared to her. And Carys had never before entered her most divine of domains. Was this further proof that the goddess had decided to welcome her into her sacred embrace?
The maiden turned, showed Carys the face of the Mother. And then she turned again, to present the Crone.
Carys tried to prostrate herself on the ground, but she had no body, no will over her mind, no substance. And although, incomprehensibly, the eyes of the Crone bored into her with malice, Carys had the eeriest conviction the Morrigan couldn’t see her at all.
The Morrigan looked down the path that led into the far distance. As Carys followed her gaze, she felt the warm, familiar comfort of the ages envelope her, caress her with their combined love and knowledge of all that was and all that could be.
Her ancestors, the spirits she called upon whenever she required their assistance.
Her kin. The powerful women of her line who had gone before her.
And relief rushed through her. The Morrigan, who had never once honored Carys with
her presence, had come to her at last. Whatever Carys had done to offend the goddess was clearly forgiven; otherwise why would the Morrigan show her how intrinsically and intimately they were linked?
Carys attempted to show the Great Goddess her gratitude, but as if she was still utterly unaware of her presence, the goddess turned to the fork in the path.
For one terrifying moment Carys saw the fork through the eyes of the goddess. Both paths led into the future. Her people’s future. But the choice of that future hovered in the balance, shimmered on the edge of the precipice, and could as easily shatter into oblivion as bloom into everlasting life.
Ice clawed through her heart, both physical and spiritual, cleaving the realms together, spinning impossible scenarios through her pounding brain.
She didn’t want to see the future.
But it made no difference, as her soul, her mind, her spiritual entity coalesced into an image of her physical self and shoved her bodily along the left-hand path.
Flames engulfed her, searing her skin, singeing her hair, and instinctively she raised her arms to protect her face. Black smoke billowed, war cries ripped through the foul air, and water boiled with blood and fury.
Druid and Roman fought, and an immense and terrible knowing slithered through her, coiling around the essence of her being, leaving no room for doubt or disbelief. The battle she foresaw was not merely for land or pride or some faceless barbaric emperor.
The battle was for survival of everything her world had ever known.
And it was a battle her people could never win.
Mesmerized, Aeron watched Carys from the far side of the stream. There was no doubt in his mind as to what she had sucked from her finger, as her instant ascent into trance was impossible otherwise for a mere acolyte. The fact she shouldn’t even be in possession of such magic barely concerned him—at least now he knew why the Morrigan searched for her. To punish her for her disobedience.
Without taking his fascinated gaze from her, he slowly advanced. Even by taking the magical root, such instant ascent was unusual. But then, Carys was no ordinary woman, no ordinary Druid. If the gods allowed her such rare honor, it reinforced his conviction—as if he had ever doubted—that she was meant for him.
He crouched before her, stared into her glazed, blinded eyes. “Carys?” But he didn’t expect an answer. She was too far beyond the mortal realm to be aware of his presence.
But perhaps he could still glean information from her.
“Where are you?”
Her body jerked, as if she heard. He grasped her wrist and pulled her bloodied finger from her mouth. Her lips remained parted, full and pink and bloodstained. No longer denying him access.
Lust burned his arteries, blazed through his groin, as he imagined capturing those lips with his mouth. Her breasts rose and fell with each erratic breath, and it would take only one sharp tug of her ties to once again feast upon her beautiful, tantalizing flesh.
Heart thudding in tandem with the blood pounding through his loins, Aeron opened her bodice and sucked in a shuddering breath as he revealed her full, rounded globes.
Still as perfect as he recalled in every one of his heated, lust-fueled dreams.
He laid aside his hazel rod and roughly pulled her gown from her shoulders, exposing her more fully to his gaze. She made a small sound of distress but nothing more, as if she knew, deep in her soul, that he had the right to touch her as he saw fit.
And of course he had the right. Since the moment he had first noticed her as a child of five, he’d been entranced by her strange eyes, her golden hair and infectious laugh. Then eighteen years old, he had already been well on his way to accruing power and prestige and any woman or boy he so much as glanced at.
But from that day he’d set his sights on the young princess. The girl whose noble birth was so far removed from his own humble origins that such a joining was beyond contemplation.
Except Aeron had overcome his poverty-stricken beginnings, thrown off the shackles of serfdom by virtue of his astounding abilities, and been accepted into the hallowed ranks of the Druids while still a child himself.
He rolled one rosy nipple between finger and thumb, and cupped her other breast with his hand, squeezing and delighting in the way her flesh filled his palm, perhaps more so than she ever had before.
“You should never have left me, Carys.” His voice was hoarse as he stared into her vacant eyes. “I waited years for you to grow up. Years of frustration before I finally made you mine.”
He sucked her reddened nipple into his mouth, grazing her with his teeth. Desire arrowed through his throbbing cock, more pain than pleasure, for it had been so long since he’d been inside her and he couldn’t wait any longer.
Dragging his mouth from her, he gripped her jaw. “You don’t deserve me.”
She began to tremble and her eyes dilated, as if even deep in trance she couldn’t deny her desire for him.
The knowledge seared him. So she could see him after all; she did know he was there, knew what he intended to do to her.
And she wanted him to.
His fingers bit into her soft skin. “I’m going to fuck you, Carys. Now. While you’re communing with the gods. And you’ll take my seed into your womb and our son will be blessed above all others.”
Erratic pants issued from between her lips and her eyes began to water, as if in gratitude that he was prepared to forgive her the last three years of denial.
He eased her down onto her back, pulled her gown up, exposing her thighs and her glorious pussy. He wanted to fuck her every which way in every hole she possessed, take her as he had never taken her before, because she had never allowed him to.
But time was short. He needed to fill her now, while she walked in the realm of the gods, and if he waited too long, he’d spill his precious seed before he even entered her.
Grunting with need, he freed himself, kneed her thighs farther apart. After today she would never again deny him. And he could indulge in every fantasy that had haunted him for the last fifteen years.
“Welcome your master home,” he said, and positioned himself above her open, willing body.
Chapter Nineteen
Maximus didn’t know what compelled him toward the glade where he’d encountered Carys. There were other, more direct, routes to the inexplicable forest, but still he urged his horse through the narrow wooded path where he had previously followed Branwen.
Dismounting, he walked the last few feet to the edge of the wood. Through the gaps in the trees he caught glimpses of the stream, but no Carys.
Why had he expected to see her here?
Only because he had wanted to.
And then he did.
His entire body stilled, blood, breath, his very heartbeat. His gaze locked on the scene, seeing yet not quite believing, understanding but unable to comprehend the evidence filtering through his numb brain.
She lay on the grass, her hair cascading around her head like a golden halo, while a man spread her legs as if he had every right to do so.
Nausea rode him. He balled his fists, ignored the sweat drenching his body.
Carys with another man.
Unthinking, he dropped the reins and took another step forward, relinquishing the shelter offered by the trees’ shadows.
How could she take another man?
Acid churned his gut, unlike anything he had ever experienced, seeming to eat into the region of his heart, leaving great, gaping holes of fire.
It was deeper than rage. Sharper than damaged pride. It was as if he suffered from acute indigestion and severe food poisoning, and the reason for his physical indignities lay spread-eagled on the ground, just feet from where she had lain open to him so recently.
Giving herself to another.
It was hard to breathe. He sucked in a lungful of oxygen but the air seared him, as if tainted with the foulest smoke.
But still he moved forward, although gods knew why he didn’t simply yell his anger an
d impale the Celtic bastard on his gladius.
And then turn his weapon on her, the lying bitch.
Each step took a century, yet he was upon them before her blond lover had the chance to take her. And in that one blazing moment, Maximus saw through his tortured disbelief.
Carys lay unmoving on the ground, her arms tethered to her sides by her ripped gown. Her eyes were vacant, dilated, and stared unseeing into the sky. Blood smeared her lips and cheek.
Fury scorched his veins, obliterating the inexplicable aches within his body into a solid, recognizable core.
His woman was being violated.
He gripped the stranger’s long hair, ripped him upward and smashed his fist into the shocked face. The Celt reeled backward, stumbled into the shallows of the stream. Maximus took a step in his direction, his mind filled only with the image of vengeance, of slicing this creature’s balls from his groin and forcing them down his misbegotten throat.
He had promised Carys, and he kept his promises. It mattered not whether the perpetrator was Roman or Celt.
Gladius in hand, he advanced. Strange silver eyes glared back at him, the malevolence so potent he could feel it singe his skin.
“Prepare to die, barbarian.”
The Celtic barbarian bared his teeth and, for one spine-shivering moment, Maximus was reminded of something, something that shimmered just beyond the veil of memory.
Rasping breaths from behind him stilled his pace. Carys sounded as if she could scarcely breathe. She needed his help.
But her attacker stood mere feet away, as if daring him to advance. It wouldn’t take long to mutilate this bastard, to avenge Carys.
The rattling gasp she gave sent chills along his flesh, and with one last glower at his quarry, he retraced his steps, never taking his eye from the Celt until he reached Carys’s side.
He risked tearing his glare from the Celt to look down at her. Another bolt of anger seared through his heart, but additionally a sliver of fear gripped his gut. What had the Celt done to her?
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