Last of the Temple Line

by Nicole Bedford

  Emersyn – Beloved Daughter of Sariah and Gabriel

  The crimson bled into the otter skin until it disappeared completely. A weird feeling came upon her. Disorientated, she dropped the quill.

  "It is alright, Emersyn. The feeling will pass. You have bound your book to you with your signature. It is yours, now, more than anything can ever belong to you. Everything inside will only reveal itself to you or to the ones you grant access with your truest of trust."

  Emersyn felt wetness on her face. She looked up into Dalaric's eyes and touched her cheek. Tears. She was crying. She whispered, "That night my papa did not come home. I woke up the next day to see my mother sitting in a chair. His broken staff was on the floor beside her. She never spoke another word. Never moved from that spot without help. I came to Gilvern because she was killed by thieves when I had been gathering herbs for a tea to try to cure her melancholy. She could have defended herself, Lord Dalaric. She chose to follow my father."

  "Grief of losing a mate is not unknown to our kind," Dalaric said in a low tone. He took a deep breath and helped her to her feet. "To you, Emersyn, I will not be a lord, but simply Dalaric," he stated.

  Emersyn's eyes grew wide. He took advantage of her silence and shifted to stand in front of her. With clawed fingers speared through the soft hair on either side of her head, he leaned down to bestow a kiss to her forehead. “I would have you see me as more than the father of a youngling.” Dalaric’s words ghosted over the delicate shell of her ear.

  She sucked in a breath. Words failed her.

  He took further advantage of her quiet to drop a kiss on her neck. Her pulse beat against his lips. The flames he had fought twice now flickered in the air around him but did not burn him with rejection. Instead, he felt his Ki rise to dance within the flames, snaking through the essence as if it belonged there.

  Her scent intensified, deepened. His pulled the neck of the blue tunic down further and nipped at her shoulder. Emersyn let loose a low moan into his ear and he resisted the urge to grind his hardened length against her stomach. He caught the hands that still gripped the grimoire in front of her and wrapped them around his neck, claiming the book and allowing it to drop on the blanket. Gauging her blown pupils to be a sign of desire returned, Dalaric lowered her onto the blanket next to where the grimoire had fallen. He wanted to explore her, and given their height difference, he would need to make use of the blanket to fully appreciate her as he wished.

  Emersyn did not know how she should respond to Dalaric’s admitted desire for her. She already knew her body wanted him. She respected him. And unlike what Paelia had declared, she knew Dalaric was not after her to help his son. She had already promised to perform the Rite. That did not mean she was not currently horribly confused. The new feelings of arousal that sent her pulse to pound and her flesh to heat did not help her clarity of mind, either.

  “What do you want from me?” she managed to get out once her back hit the blanket and he loomed over her. Her heart was in her eyes. She knew it but did not regret the bare emotion. She was who she was. What she barely dared to hope her need for him could mean. Her mother had once said she knew Gabriel had been the one for her within minutes of meeting him. Her mana had recognized his. Was it possible Dalaric was always meant to be hers, too?

  Vivid green eyes glowed with the unearthly power of his Ki while thickly muscled arms braced his strong body over hers. “A taste, Emersyn, is all I seek from you for now.”

  For now, Emersyn’s heart echoed. That meant he wanted more but would not claim it yet. She licked her lips and tossed caution to the wind. She would trust in her heart. It had not led her astray even in the worst of storms.

  “I don’t, I haven’t done this before,” she admitted shyly. A blush that was more from embarrassment than arousal threatened to spread from her cheeks to her chest. It was unseemly for a witch to admit to such at her age. Paelia had taken her first lover by her fifteenth year to commemorate the fall harvest of her birth village.

  He smiled down on her, his eyes following her lips as they made the words. He took a moment to brush his nose against her cheek before dipping down to claim her lips. Her lips parted on a gasp and he took advantage to deepen the kiss. Emersyn tasted smoke and a sharpness similar to mint. Her eyes dropped closed when his tongue twined with hers, claiming her mouth for his use.

  Her thighs clenched and the heat she had felt in her stomach only once before was stoked to life by his mouth moving over hers.

  Dalaric kept his tongue mating with Emersyn’s, enjoying the delicious taste of her unfurling desire, while he shouldered off his robes. While Emersyn was not lost to her power, her scent was his to command alone and thickened the air around them. He wanted to surround her in his scent and feel the soft flesh so unlike the slick scales or toughened flesh of his people against his hardness.

  Emersyn panted for breath when he pulled away to nip at her collarbone. Hesitant at first, she gently speared her fingers through his hair, stopping to lightly touch the tips of his ears before running her hands over his chest when he levered himself over her once more. He tugged the bottom of her tunic upward, and she lifted her arms over her head to aid its removal.

  Having seen the perfection of Akkadian females in the guise of his mother, Emersyn felt a sudden rush of self-consciousness and would have dropped her arms back to cover her bared breasts. He chuffed at her skin and pulled her arms away to place her hands on his shoulders.

  “Do not,” he reprimanded with a wet nip to her neck that sent goosebumps rising all over her body and peaked her already turgid nipples into tight buds. “You please me as you are, Emersyn,” he breathed against her skin. “Your taste,” he continued, licking at her neck before moving down to gaze upon the rosy tips of her breasts. “Your scent,” he breathed into the valley between her breasts. He claimed a nipple between hard lips and sucked gently before pulling back to palm her other breast in his large hand. His fingers plucked at the tip and she squirmed beneath his weight when his lips returned to further worship the wet bud.

  He switched breasts between mouth and fingers until she was panting and moaning his name. Her thighs slid wetly against each other and the space between her legs clenched in sync with each pull of his mouth on her. He looked up and licked his lips with a smile at her flushed cheeks and hazy gaze.

  Dalaric licked the space between her breasts and moved down to her stomach. The flesh there was softer than even her breasts. His hand, from the tip of his finger to the end of his palm, spanned the distance between the underside of her breasts and the apex of her thighs. She was so small. So delicate. He would need to give all the gentleness he possessed to her when it was time for a claiming. And there would be a claiming. The scent of her. The taste of her desire had not whetted his need for more.

  He kissed her belly, flicking his tongue over the indentation his people did not have but he knew was from their birthing. Her fingers tightened in his hair and he grinned against her stomach. Pleased. Her responsiveness to him had him aching to bury his cock deep inside her, but it was not time for that. Not yet.

  She glanced down her chest at him and her brows bunched when he tugged at the leggings she had tied closed with a simple knot. “Dalaric?” she questioned in a breathy moan.

  His cock pulsed in response to the scent of arousal that drifted to him, barely contained by the thin fabric of her leggings. His robe was bunched around his waist and hid most of his desire, but he could feel the wetness staining the fabric where it coiled around his length.

  “Do you deny me?” he asked, clawed fingers finally undoing the laces that barred his way. A light kiss to her stomach caused the muscles there to dance beneath the skin in ways that fascinated him. His hands brushed down her legs to caress the shapely limbs through the fabric.

  She swallowed then shook her head. “No. Whatever pleases you pleases me,” she admitted in a hard, panting moan when the palm of his hand pushed against the apex of her thighs.

  H
is eyes glowed brighter yet. She was so hot there. It scorched him and a moistness to the fabric caused his cock to flex beneath the fabric of his robe. Akkadian females did not produce moisture. What would she taste like?

  He pulled the fabric down while she lifted her hips to aid him. A rumbling growl built in his chest and burst forth when the full force of her scent hit him. He tossed the trousers to the side and gripped her ankles to open her more fully to his gaze. Light colored curls similar in hue to the strands on her head guarded her entrance. He leaned over her legs to take a deep breath, inhaling the aroma of her arousal into his lungs. Smoke curled in his gut and streamed from his nose on the exhale. She squirmed against the hands holding her legs apart. He moved between her knees before gripping her thighs to bring them over his shoulders and, mindful of his claws, parted her folds and claimed his first taste of her heat with a hot, long lick.

  Sweet and spicy honey coated his tongue and he growled against the heat of her. His Ki rose, demanding he sink his cock into that delicious sheath. Instead, he speared her with his tongue. Over and over again he lapped up the honey her body produced for him, lost in the flavor until she was screaming his name to the air and yanked on his hair. Then he pulled back and noticed a small bump just on the outside of her delightful core, shielded by the curls he had thoroughly wet with his mouth and her own honey. He nosed it gently, curious, and she shrieked and convulsed in his arms while more honey poured from her.

  He stared up her body, claws clutching her thighs to either side of his neck to keep her still for his explorations, and slowly licked the bump. She stared down on him with eyes almost black from desire blown pupils. She cried out, her fingers leaving his hair to dig into the blanket, and she sobbed uncontrollably while she struggled to escape his mouth.

  His eyes darkened and he began to alternate between licking the small bump and dipping his tongue into her core to steal more of the moisture there. She convulsed over and over in his arms until he finally pulled away, cheeks wet with her desire, and rose to crouch over her. Her legs fell to either side of him, muscles twitching in the slender limbs. His robe slid down to reveal his hard, wet cock that stood so turgid it almost touched his stomach.

  He wiped his face with his hand, bringing it to his mouth to lick it clean of her honey while she watched. She took deep, heaving breaths that shook her breasts and drew his eyes once more to the naked, feminine body sprawled in wanton abandon from his ministrations. Human she may be, but Emersyn was a delight to everything male within his warrior soul.

  Her eyes fell to his cock and widened. Her breath caught. He smirked. “That will be for another day,” he promised, wrapping his hand around the length her eyes had not strayed from. He gave his cock a hard, punishing stroke from base to tip then released it. It would be torturous to walk after leaving her, but he did not trust himself. He would not risk her accepting his seed. Not until he had seen her give Caelwin the Rite and knew what to expect of the potential of pain and Aegwin was there to mitigate it.

  “You didn’t, you weren’t pleased?” she asked him, struggling to sit up while she pushed mussed hair off her forehead and shook the rest of the mass behind her shoulders.

  “I was well pleased, Emersyn,” Dalaric corrected. He kissed her then, just because he could, and was deeply satisfied when she immediately softened against him. “Come,” he told her. “I must travel to the palace to give word to resume the preparations for the Rite. I will return you to Gilvern so that you may enjoy time with your sisters. Stay within Gilvern. Paelia’s protection will keep Nialle away. I will come for you late tonight. It will be for good, Emersyn. If not for the need you will fulfill to my people through the Rite, but for myself, I will not allow you to travel without my protection in future. Enjoy your good-byes and make the arrangements for your sisters to travel to the palace at their convenience.”

  Without the overriding desire clawing at her insides, Emersyn was suddenly shy before him. She nodded then managed to get dressed in record time while Dalaric watched her with heated interest. He made no move to claim from her the means of his own release. She knew, then, that she had fallen a little in love with him. More than respect or foggy, consuming desire was in her heart. Her feelings were not only a fascination with a noble or a species so different than her own people. Dalaric was not just strong. He was kind. Considerate. He had given to her freely knowing he had no intention of being relieved.

  Emersyn watched while he slipped on the robe. She folded the blanket. Her grimoire she replaced in its protective cloth and then she stood before Dalaric. He beckoned her into his arms by holding them wide. She went willingly, and eagerly wrapped her arms around his waist. His chin dropped down on top of her head and his arms tightened almost painfully around her ribs

  The Ki within him rose and then air was rushing past her face and whipping her hair into a wild mass of tangled curls. She kept her eyes squeezed shut. She was not used to viewing the world from such heights while her feet were not on the ground and her stomach was still not accustomed to it. Even so, she felt no fear while safe in his arms.

  Sisters

  “Sons are to be sold to the woman who wants a husband. It is to daughters that a mother should bond.”

  -Matron Firni, High Matron of Liindre-

  Surreptitiously, Emersyn glanced up at Jaela. The woman had entered Paelia's cottage moments after Dalaric had brought her back to Gilvern. Jaela had left that morning on a two-day hunt. She was back early. Maybe she had known Emersyn would need her support.

  The woman was currently glaring fiercely at her. "You had better be glad I promised you I would not kill that male for daring to come near you again given he had helped us through Will’s passing," she seethed.

  Emersyn sighed. "Jaela-"

  "You will not do this! I do not approve. You know what it means to be a sister of my heart. It is my place to protect you. My honor for your life in return for you saving my worthless hide. You would risk killing yourself? What of me? What of Sarah? Do we not matter to you at all?" Jaela let out a short scream. "Damn it, when will you stop trying to help everyone at your expense?!"

  Before Emersyn could answer, Jaela continued, "Did you even listen to Paelia? You heard what it meant for the other witch to help them. Because it was what was decided for you? For the sake of Akkadians that can survive simply fine without you on peace and wine? Think clearly! I will not watch another I love die for the sake of a damned tradition!"

  Emersyn stood up from the table, keeping her eyes trained on Jaela. She took a deep breath. "I am not your father," she released to the room.

  Jaela's chest rose on a gasp. "How . . ." she whispered, trailing off in shock.

  "I saw it," Emersyn admitted, dropping back into the chair. "I did not understand everything, but I saw you. I saw him. He stabbed himself with your knife so that you did not have to."

  Emersyn's fingers curled on the wooded surface of the table. "I have thought about you. And Sarah." She looked up as Jaela pulled out the chair opposite of hers and sat with a thump. She continued, "It will hurt. It will hurt, but what in life cannot cause pain?" she asked.

  Jaela bitterly muttered, "Have you considered the other side of this? You do not know them. Even the Matrons did not know anything of them beyond what Wulfram knew. Akkadians do not just appear different. The way they think. How they live. It will all be alien to you. And you, Emersyn, they will own you, all of you. Where you go. Where you sleep. Who you speak with. You will not just endure pain for a moment. Your freedoms as a witch will be surrendered. Life will never be the same. Just this once, trust me to know what is best for you."

  Emersyn looked down at the table. "I am not like you. Or Sarah. I am not like other witches, either. I have never been. I never will be. Not without killing the heart that beats within my chest. Is that what you want? For me to change into someone more like you?"

  "That's not what I meant," Jaela objected.

  Emersyn continued, "I knew the world to be broke
n. I was not sure how I could help heal what I was not aware of. But now I do know. Dalaric is good,” she stated, wisely deciding to keep her more intimate relationship with him a secret for now. “In the process of helping the children, I will be able to help the world too. We need Akkadians. They bring balance to the world."

  "The world isn't your problem," Jaela said heatedly. "You're only one person! Stop trying to save the world for people who won't even remember your name!"

  The tears Emersyn had fought so valiantly to control now flowed freely down her cheeks. Emersyn took in a shuddering breath. "I don't care if no one ever remembers me, or if I cannot be free. What good is living free if I can't bear to live with myself?"

  Jaela's golden eyes closed in pain. She pulled Wraith from the sheath and laid it across the table between them. Her eyes stayed on the weapon. "He begged me to take him with me on my last contract for Liindre. It was forbidden, but I had done it before. I had taken him to protect him from my mother. She wanted to break him, as all her men are broken, for her honor. He was her third husband. Her others died before I was born. They had given her sons. She strangled the infants and starved the men in turn for punishment."

  Her hard eyes glinted. "When I was young, I did not understand why any woman would come to our village and beg to be allowed inside. Beg to be given the secrets of Liindre so they could be free. They had so much. My mother had laughed at them. Said they were still too soft with love to ever be a true woman of Liindre. My father had given me secret hugs. He told me I was kind and beautiful while my mother told me I was worthless but for her lies. He said I did not have to be like her. Like my mother. That true strength lay in following my heart no matter what another said. He said my mother was a slave to the laws that kept her heart cold."