Watching Luminesa light up for him, watching as her skin glimmered with her snowy iridescence and her body moved in wavelike motion… she was stunning.
“Walk,” she pleaded brokenly. “Walk.”
For a moment, he frowned, confused by what she meant. “You want me to walk?”
She didn’t answer, merely wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders and rubbed harder, her grunts growing louder, more animalistic. Anyone could hear her.
Anyone—
Gods, the children!
Glancing up, Alador couldn’t believe he’d forgotten all about the children. The colts of his herd were used to the inherent sexual nature of their kind. They thought nothing of seeing a stallion and mare coming together. But humans raised their children differently.
Spotting the faint colors of the children’s jackets way up in the distance, he wanted to shout with joy. They were still playing and safe.
“My queen, create a shield of snow around us so that the children cannot see what we’re about.”
Gulping, she opened dazed, liquid-bright eyes back at him, nodded almost drunkenly, and immediately, a blast of arctic winds full of snow encapsulated them.
Alador couldn’t help but tremble, and not from need that time but the impossible cold that invaded his bones. Luminesa, however, was completely immune to it.
He’d not last long in that chill, but at least it helped to kill the fog of lust in his mind. For the moment, he could help her reach her climax.
He pushed off the ground and walked in a slow and steady canter. His movements felt stiff and frozen, but Luminesa hadn’t relented in her speed and thrusts.
Alador moved in such a way that each step caused a jolt of muscle to move between her legs. She gasped, trembling violently.
“Oh, Alador, oh gods,” she muttered incoherently, and he grinned, strangely proud that he’d caused her to lose control in that way.
That pride helped him pick up his speed just a little, ignore the biting cold, and give intermittent hops to help increase the pressure between her thighs.
After the fourth hop, she froze—her arms banding so tightly across his windpipe that he couldn’t breathe beneath her crushing power. Her entire body stiffened.
Twisting so that he could better look at her, he watched as the orgasm consumed her. Her entire body vibrated as she bit down on her molars. Her fingers dug painfully into his biceps, and her nails gouged deep grooves in his frozen flesh.
Her orgasm couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but it was as though time stood still for him. He drank her up with his eyes, fascinated by the play of colors rolling across her lambent skin, full of frosty blues and pristine, glittering white.
Gradually, her nails digging into his arms relaxed and her stiff body crumpled deeply into him. His lips twitched as he became aware of her own growing awareness.
The way her eyes relaxed first, then her mouth grew lax, her shoulders sagged, her breathing deepened, until finally…she blinked up at him with her soul-deep blue eyes.
“Oh my gods,” she whispered after a tense minute of watching him. “Did I really do what I think I just did?”
Her cheeks blazed scarlet with a slight tint of blue.
And he couldn’t help but chuckle, rubbing his finger along her petal-soft cheek as she buried her face against him.
“Stop laughing,” she squeezed out, even as he heard her own pent-up laughter. “I’m completely mortified. I have no idea what came over me.”
Alador had the most painful erection of his life. He was stiff, aching, but also deliriously happy. The Queen—his queen—wanted him as forcefully as he ached for her.
Trembling from the cold, very aware of it since she’d finished what she’d started, he said, “My love, turn off the cold.”
Immediately, the snow ceased. The air warmed by several degrees, comfortable enough for him to begin to thaw out somewhat. He glanced up to where he’d seen the children last, relieved to note that they were still there and appearing to play happily between themselves.
The little snow bees that’d crowned her head flew around his own, their furry white bodies rubbing like velvet against the sides of his face, as though they, too, were deliriously happy.
“Look at me, Luminesa,” he commanded.
She looked up, and her long, frost-tipped black lashes blinked slowly back at him. Alador brushed his thumb along her jawline.
“You need never be ashamed of what we’ve done.”
Her cheeks blazed a deeper scarlet. “You must think me a—”
Placing his finger against her lips, he shook his head and said, “I think you’re the most bewitching female I’ve ever met. Centauress or human alike. You fascinate me, woman, and that’s all there is to it.”
The curling of her smile was like the slow rise of the sun on a cool, winter morning.
She kissed the palm of his hand; the touch of it speared him straight through the heart. Goddess, what was he doing, allowing such madness to continue on with her? Once they left that forgotten realm of ice, she’d return to her world and he to his. Pairings such as theirs were frowned upon, dalliances only ever allowed in secrecy, and even then, they were highly discouraged.
Chester had been driven from the herd because of the path he’d chosen.
Alador was about to suggest they return for the children when a scream rent the air, startling birds from trees with squawking cries.
“The children,” Luminesa cried.
“Hang on,” he ordered.
She wrapped her arms around Alador’s shoulders tightly, and he ran, reaching the distant hill in just moments. His heart hammered in his chest at the first sight of crimson blood staining the pristine white of snow.
Baatha’s shrill scream rent the air. Immediately, Alador felt the pain of Luminesa’s transformation from flesh to ice.
“Baatha, to me,” she cried, holding out her ice-blue arm to him.
The bird landed in seconds, unruffled by Alador’s speed.
But the blood that’d burned like a beacon suddenly vanished, disappeared, along with any other traces of the children. No footprints to follow, no trail to track. Where there had been blood and prints, suddenly, there were none.
Alador stopped running, turning in a circle as he frantically searched for the children.
“Baatha, you’re bleeding!” Luminesa cried, causing Alador to glance back at them.
She was right. The snow-white falcon’s feathers were matted and stained dark red with blood upon his chest. His breathing was heavy and his tawny eyes bright and wide as he nudged his head into her shoulder.
“What has happened to you? Where are the children? Show me.” She said it swiftly.
Alador watched in wonder as Baatha’s normally golden eyes turned mercurial with silver and then began to swirl with colors. Waves of those colors seeped into the air in front of them and began forming pictures then.
Showing the children and him playing. Kai had been kicking at a pile of snow and Gerda holding up her hands with a look of pure joy upon her face.
Then giant gusts of snow sparkling with flecks of strange silver suddenly poured down upon their heads, sweeping the children up into a funneling cloud. The scene shifted yet again, showing that same funnel dipping down into a fissure.
“The gorge!” Luminesa cried. Without saying another word, she dropped from off Alador’s back and, in one fluid motion, shifted yet again into a swirling tower of raging ice crystals.
The tower moved with astonishing speed, quicker than a centaur at a full gallop.
Alador had to pump his fists to keep up with her, turning and twisting around and in between trees, not looking at anything but the tower of ice she’d become.
By the time they arrived at the mile-long gorge, he was heaving and panting and covered in sweat.
In the distance, he could hear the cry of children.
Still a tower of ice, Luminesa raced toward them and slipped over the cliff’s e
dge.
Alador came to a screeching halt, digging in his hooves to stop his own fall off the ledge. Looking over the edge, he prayed to the gods that she’d not fallen to her death a mile below.
Instead, he was met by the sight of the children huddled together, with Luminesa back in human form, hugging them tightly to her. They were several hundred feet below him.
“Alador,” she cried out.
His heart trapped in his throat, he nodded. “I see you.”
The winds there were driving and brutal, so cold that just the kiss of them against his flesh felt like a scalding burn. In minutes, he’d not be able to feel his fingers.
Luminesa’s eyes were huge as she cried up to him, “You’ll need rope to heft them out.”
Cupping his hands around his mouth so that the wind could not snatch his words away, he yelled, “I’ll have to return to the castle. Are you safe?”
The ledge they stood on was only big enough to comfortably fit two, not three. And there was no protection from the driving storm headed their way. The whistling and howling winds picked up in intensity, making it hard for him to hear her words.
She was yelling at him, saying something, but he couldn’t hear her.
Shaking his head, he pointed to his ear, letting her know he couldn’t hear her, then proceeded to pantomime that he’d go back to the castle and be back as soon as he could.
She waved her hands at him in a gesture of “Please hurry,” and he nodded, twirled on his hooves, and raced for the castle.
Chapter 11
Luminesa
It’d been at least an hour since she’d seen Alador last. The gorge was several miles back from where they’d taken their excursion.
The children were shivering, clutching tightly to each other’s backs with fingers that’d turned blue.
Luminesa wanted to cry, furious that all she could create was cold. While she felt none of the chill of the day, she saw the force of the storm leeching through the children’s energy reserves.
Neither of them had spoken a word since she’d found them. But every so often, she’d catch Gerda wincing. The girl’s forehead was covered in frozen drops of sweat. Whatever had happened to her, she was in pain.
“Gerda, please, girl, I wish you’d tell me what’s the matter,” she murmured again.
But the child buried her head in Kai’s shoulder and refused to speak.
Luminesa was in a desperate position. If she clutched them tightly to her, she doubted she’d be able to impart much warmth, but at the same time, if she didn’t cling to them, they’d surely freeze to death if they were forced to stand out there much longer.
The Goblin had struck again. And she’d been a fool for not bringing at least one of the Yetis out with them. She hadn’t thought. Of course not, because she’d been too distracted by the thought of some fun with her centaur.
If she’d stayed more focused instead of imagining that they might actually have one day of rest to themselves, she’d have been prepared, and the children wouldn’t have suffered for it.
That cloud of silver had done that, and there was no one to blame for it but herself, herself and her maddening obsession with Alador. Luminesa was heartily ashamed.
“I’m sorry, children. I’m so sorry,” she murmured, her voice cracking with pain, wishing she could take theirs away from them.
Kai swayed by her feet.
“Child,” she whispered urgently, pressing him tightly to her side, wishing she’d worn a gown made of warm furs and not one built of crystal.
His teeth chattered violently. “Sorry. So…rry,” he murmured over and over again.
Gerda groaned, swaying also.
Luminesa had just enough time to latch onto the girl’s collar before she fell.
“Oh gods,” she whispered as her shoulders tightened and her breath burst in and out of her lungs. They didn’t have much time left to them, and as much as she wished it were otherwise, Luminesa could not lift them from the gorge.
“Please hurry, horse, please.” She whispered the ardent prayers to the breeze, imbuing them with a bit of magic in the hopes that they’d reach his ears.
She knew in her heart that Alador was doing all he could. That he’d have returned by then if he could have.
But her brain filled with horrible images of the Under Goblin mounting an attack against the castle. That somehow he’d captured her male, that he was torturing him, jeering and taunting Alador with whispered promises of vengeance against them all.
That even then the loathsome creature watched with delight as the children slowly froze to death as she stood by, helpless to stop it.
She tried to command the storm to move away, but if anything, it only seemed to rage harder.
Suddenly, Baatha’s cry pierced the air. She glanced up and almost sobbed with joy to see Alador’s precious face looking down on them.
He wore a look of utter concentration as he dropped a looped cord of rope down to her.
“Children, you’re saved,” she cried.
Her words caused them to finally glance up, their movements far more sluggish than she would have liked. Once the looped end of the rope finally reached them, Alador gave it a little joggle, silently urging her to hurry.
Knowing he meant to power the children up using nothing but arm strength, she decided to go with Kai first since he was lightest.
“Kai, come here, child. Raise your arms.”
The little boy didn’t struggle, just moaned a little as he lifted his arms so that Luminesa could loop the rope safely around him, tightening it into several more loops so it created a harness. There was nothing to clip the loops in place, so she pulsed a jet of ice upon the rope, sealing the loops tightly.
“Alador, take him,” she cried, tugging on the rope to let her centaur know it was time to lift.
Kai cried a little, burying his face against the rope as he was raised into the sky. The winds beat at him from every direction, and Luminesa prayed to the gods that Alador had the strength to hang on.
His jaw was set, but his movements were precise and smooth, and in moments, the boy was up and scampering across the ledge to safety.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Luminesa hugged Gerda tighter to her side, and the child screamed. Shocked, she jerked the girl away, staring her in the face. “What’s the matter, Gerda?”
But Gerda could hardly speak around the tears. The rope was descending once more.
“My arm,” she sobbed hysterically.
Luminesa peeked, but the girl was covered in a thick layer of skins, and whatever damage there was, she was unable to make it out.
The looped rope was in her hand just a second later.
“Gerda, whatever the problem is, we’ll have to address it once we get you out of here. Do you understand, child? You must be brave.”
Stuttering, Gerda rubbed her eyes with the knuckles of her left hand. “O…k-kay.”
Devastated that the child was injured and Luminesa hadn’t realized it, she tried to be as gentle as possible as she looped the rope around the girl same as she had with Kai, but anytime she brushed up against her right arm, Gerda would scream, clench up tightly, and then sway as though ready to faint from the pain.
Pushing aside the agony of hurting the child, Luminesa did what she had to do, but by the time she’d finished, she was trembling, and not from exhaustion.
“Okay, child. Hang tight. I’m going to get Alador to lift you out now.”
Gerda’s eyes were closed, and her already pale skin had gone a shade similar to Luminesa’s own.
Knowing the child needed medical help immediately, she tugged on the cord, giving Alador the signal to raise her. But the first upward tug had the girl screaming, and then her body went limp.
Even over the din of the wind, Luminesa heard Alador’s cry as he stumbled forward from Gerda’s dead weight.
Thinking fast, and desperate that Alador not be hurt in the process, too, she did the only thing she could. Luminesa froze
the child, encasing her completely in ice and maneuvering her body so that she was in a more upright position.
It caused her to weigh twice as much as normal. And when Luminesa looked up at Alador, she saw him clamping down on his bottom lip, wearing a look of dogged determination as he slowly and oh so painstakingly lifted the girl.
Luminesa could only recall one other time in her life when she’d felt such an overwhelming horror of mind-numbing terror. Transforming to a pillar of ice, she tried as best she could to bear some of Gerda’s weight on herself so that Alador wouldn’t be forced to carry all of it.
Gerda was taken up three times as slowly as Kai, not only because she was incredibly heavy but also because the storm had by then come in full force and was blasting the rope from side to side.
By the time they finally scaled the side of the gorge, even Luminesa was panting, and she’d not borne half the burden he had.
Alador was coated in a thick sheen of sweat.
Luminesa knew that sweat and cold of that magnitude could be a death warrant for him. Desperate to get them back to the castle, she unthawed Gerda the moment she could. The child had gone completely blue, almost gray, and wasn’t moving.
Kai was already situated on Alador’s back.
“What’s happened to Gerda?” he cried, reaching out his hand to his sister.
Luminesa had no breath left to answer, nor did Alador. All she could do was grab the girl beneath her arms and help her male lift the child onto his back.
But though Gerda was no longer encased in ice, her form had frozen completely, and anytime he moved, she’d almost fall to the ground. A thick lather of sweat had built up on Alador’s hindquarters.
Luminesa was terrified not only for the children but also for him as well.
“Horse,” she whispered urgently after the third time of trying to secure Gerda to his back, “I’ll take her. You get back to the castle with Kai. Do you hear me?”
The whites of his eyes had grown wide. He shook his head. “You can’t. You’ll tire. The trek is long, Luminesa, and—”
Alphas for the Holidays Page 151