Without his knee trapping me, I rolled away from him and giggled as I kicked him over. I ran mostly nude back to the middle of the garden and that dais of white stone. He caught up to me and shoved me over the bare altar. He brought his hand down hard on the curve of my bottom with a loud smack as I presented to him. I yelped, as the skin warmed, tingled, and reddened.
“I want you like he takes you,” Yorwrath panted as he sat on the altar and held his hands out to me. I stared at him and blinked. It was the first time Yorwrath hadn’t called me Dy’ne. He might not have used my name, but no reference was still an improvement. I took his hands, and he pulled me onto the white stone of the altar. The shimmering pale granite scraped my knees as I straddled his lap. With a swallow, he reached between us and untied his trousers, once again freeing himself from the tight leathery confines. Our gazes locked as I lowered myself over him. Neither of us closed our eyes, though I could watch the muscles of his face twitch as he fought himself. I rode him as he held me in his arms. There was a level of comfort to it that almost made me think he actually cared for me.
My elbows rested on his shoulders as I ground my hips against his and he dug his fingers into my bottom, spreading me as far apart as he could. The angle was amazing. My breath caught as he occasionally forced me to take every last inch of him. He’d hold me there with a dark, happy purr rumbling in his throat as he wagged his hips back and forth. And every time he did it my insides tensed and fluttered around him.
“Do you like that, Dy’ne?” he gnarred in my ear before nipping my earlobe, making me gasp. “You love this big elven cock, don’t you?” I laced my fingers back through his hair and yanked his head back hard. I was going to say something, but he thrust into me again and slipped one hand across my hips to toy with that ever-sensitive kernel of flesh. My hips snapped wildly, as I used his hair for leverage. He had me trembling in moments. “That’s it, Dy’ne. That’s it. Come like the animal you are.” He nipped along my throat as I was frozen in place with pleasure, teetering on the edge as my whole body quivered like it was going to shake to pieces. He continued to thrust into me faster and faster as I tugged at his hair.
Sweat broke out on our bodies. Our skin glistened in the firelight from the braziers as he flipped me around and lowered me to the altar. My legs wrapped around his waist as he thrust into me so hard and fast that I couldn’t catch my breath. I clawed at him, my fingers catching on his jerkin. He sought my mouth with his and kissed me deep and bruisingly hard. The kiss betrayed him. He didn’t hate me at all. It was much worse than that… He loved me. It was after that amazing realization, as I struggled to breathe through his relentless assault on my body, that he finally pushed me over the edge. I tried to arch up against him but was trapped by his body. We shuddered against one another in a mutual climax as I felt him twitch inside me, filling me with his seed as he continued, his kisses swallowing both of our moans.
When we both stopped riding our pleasure, Yorwrath rolled onto his side, taking me with him. He moved one arm to rest under my head, and the other he placed on my waist. He was still trembling. Shaky little breaths passed between his lips. We lay beside one another for a while in silence, our bodies joined under the stars. We fell asleep like that, joined and in silence.
* * * *
In the morning, I woke up alone, sore and half naked, with Aneurin standing over me. He sat on the altar beside me, those odd-colored eyes devouring my exposed flesh. I raised my knee, and he nudged it over with a playful smirk. His eyes darkened with lust as my sex was laid bare to him.
“You are certainly something.” The words escaped his lovely throat in a husky purr.
“Am I?”
“Mhm, Yorwrath ran down the stairs looking scared when I was coming up here. Maybe he thinks I’ll be upset.” He raised his gaze to me.
“Are you?”
“The truth?” he asked softly, and I nodded. “I’m not upset that you lay with him… I’m upset I wasn’t there. He’s earned the right to have you. However, I certainly know I feel…something now.” He sighed and stroked a bit of my hair behind an ear. “Do you think it’s possible to love someone who you don’t remember?”
“Maybe,” I breathed, almost inaudibly, as he continued trailing his fingers through my long dark tendrils, making my skin break out with gooseflesh. “Caoilfionn says you can get your memory back with a ritual.”
“One that would require you to take Yorwrath, Islwyn and myself to bed at the same time.”
“Do you want your memory back?” I furrowed my brows.
“I’m not sure. Looking at you right now I know that if I get my memories back…being the king everyone wants me to be will be impossible.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you are just…everything. When I first saw you throw that rock at Islwyn, I could hardly believe you were real. I thought you had to be practically bathed in glamour to look that good. And seeing the way you act, so fierce and determined…” He smiled. “Maybe that’s why I forgot you?”
“Do you care about being king that much? The Aneurin I knew didn’t. He brought it up occasionally and gathered supporters to keep himself safe. But you want to be king—”
“If I didn’t want to be king, why did I come here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did I willingly go to the cave to unlock the last of the power if I didn’t want to rule?” He lay beside me on the altar, his face parallel to mine.
“You would have said good-bye. My Aneurin would have said good-bye.”
“Maybe I was stupid and blinded by love?”
“It’s possible. But if you want to be king… Be king.”
“If the old words are to be believed I can’t be king without you at my side.”
“But you fear that your love for me is so deep that with your memories you’d never ascend.”
“No, I’m certain I’d be a terrible king. Everyone would want a pure elf born of my blood, and I couldn’t see myself wanting to take another to bed if I had you.”
“How could you say that, knowing I had your brother last night?”
“A claimed human, even one prized by their master—”
“You’re not my fucking master.”
“I know… But one prized by their lover can be shared for one night—more if it’s family.”
“You shared me with Yorwrath by letting him watch us, but you didn’t let him touch me.”
“Custom dictates otherwise.”
“You broke custom for me.” My words made him sigh and smile.
“Tell me about us?”
“Why?”
“Because I…want to pull you close and kiss your lips and hold you. That’s not lust for a stranger. The lust is there, though. I would do much to lick every last trace of Yorwrath’s seed from your secret flower and then make you forget all about him as I made you scream my name and made your eyes roll back into your head.” I almost said he could, and then I remembered he was a stranger. I knew Yorwrath and Islwyn more than I knew this Aneurin. Sighing heavily, I covered my face. I couldn’t even laugh at him calling my sex a secret flower. I was too caught up in what he said. “It’s strange, I feel drawn to you, and it’s more than being attracted to you. You are beautiful, gods are you beautiful, but it’s more than that. So much more. I’ve never had a desire to hold a whore or common woman. It’s not some…errant desire. So it’s strange.”
“We met almost two years ago. Islwyn brought you to me after you were attacked in Nathton. I was the Cunning Woman for Laeth at the time, so I was used to bandaging up the aftermath of the guards’ brutality. I set your leg, but you had to be kept still because of the severity of the break and where it was located. You spent the better part of a month living with me and it just kind of happened. You fell in love with me, just from watching me with the villagers and the conversations we had at night. It seems…odd to say it. Most claim love at first sight, or some nonsense like that, but ours was slower. You saved me
from the market day pogrom that year and got me and all of the elves safely out of the city. There was an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town you had intended to take for yourself. You said you were going to live there as a hunter and trapper while you courted me…but after the pogrom you decided to leave instead. But you helped me move into the place outside of the city walls where you thought I’d be safe and then you left.”
“So an entire month and we didn’t lay together once?”
“Nope. After you left you wrote to me. I had…hundreds of letters from you. And then one day you just showed up with Islwyn and a few others on my doorstep. We got drunk and played dice, and then we went out to the garden, and you had me for the first time in the middle of a rainstorm. Apparently, when you spent yourself you lost control of your power, and you made my garden, which was at the time more or less dead, flourish. Since then we’ve been inseparable, minus the two days I spent in the dungeons of Heves and when you were dead. And these last two weeks…”
“I wish I had those letters.”
“Me too. I miss him.” I closed my lids for a moment and sighed.
“But I’m right here.”
“You’re not my Aneurin. You look like him and sound like him, but you look at me with a stranger’s eyes. There’s no love there. There’s lust of course, but I am lying half naked with my legs spread.” We shared a chuckle, and I crossed my ankles and folded my hands low over my stomach, with my wrists resting on my hips.
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“Because I’m an idiot.”
“You’re nowhere near an idiot.”
“I guess I’m hoping that…you’ll remember me.” I shook my head. “Hoping against hope and all of that garbage.”
“Is it really garbage?”
“Yes. Because you want to be a good king, and I agree, as much as it hurts me. You can’t be a good king and love me as fiercely as you did.” I tried to keep the pain out of my voice, but some seeped through. He scooted around on the dais so that he was lying beside me.
“Maybe I don’t need to be that good of a king if I have a good queen by my side?” He offered me a conciliatory smile, and I sighed. He rested his hand on mine. It was the first time we had touched flesh to flesh since he came back. His warmth was still familiar and comforting, and it made my body ache for him, in spite of the soreness.
“Yes, because the Redcaps will accept me, a human, as their queen. Right?” I raised a brow, barely containing my laughter.
“They’ll do what I say, or they’ll wish they hadn’t been born with tongues to speak against me.” The simple tone of his voice as he spoke stunned me, and it takes a lot to stun me. I was pretty certain I was getting a glimpse of his Aeon impression, the same one Yorwrath did most of the time. “But you’ll do the ritual?”
“Yes.”
“After, we’ll return to camp, and I’ll declare myself.”
“And then you’ll be king?”
“Then we’ll march on Dryslwyn Tanllyd, and I’ll be king…and then I’ll finish what Gerralt started.”
My lips pursed, and I slipped from the altar. The moment I stood I felt Yorwrath’s seed shift inside me and drip from my sex down my inner thigh. We stared at each other for a few moments and then I started gathering up my discarded pants and boots.
“I’ll go tell Caoilfionn,” I called to Aneurin as I slipped back into the temple, letting everything he told me, and everything that happened the night before, really sink in.
Chapter Fifteen
I dressed in the hall before walking down into the temple. The conversation between myself and Aneurin lingered with me. But I pushed it as far as I could from my mind. That wasn’t my Aneurin anymore, it was someone else in his skin. Still, I walked down those stairs and slipped into the room the elves shared. Islwyn was standing by the hearth talking with Caoilfionn. Their soft murmurs drifted to me in that foreign tongue. My lips pursed as I stared at Caoilfionn and Islwyn. Someone had stitched up the gash on Islwyn’s forehead nicely. The wound had healed, and not even a scar remained.
Caoilfionn smiled at me as I neared them. It took every bit of willpower I had not to push him into the flames at the hearth. As I glanced around the room I observed there were only the three of us in it. Yorwrath and Grwn were nowhere to be found. Grwn probably had dragged him off hunting finally.
“Why?” It was the only thing I could think to say as I crossed my arms.
“Why what?” Islwyn asked mirroring my gesture.
“Did you know he’d lose his memories of me?” I tilted my head to the side. Islwyn smirked and shook his head.
“No. I knew there would be a price, but I didn’t know what that price would be.” The pretty blond elf sighed and looked at his hands. “This wasn’t some grand plan of mine or whatever you think. I saw you here standing by the silver pool in a vision. I knew he needed to come here. I knew the legends about a Swynwr needing to wake their powers, and every awakening has a price. That was all I knew at the time…” His voice faded to nothingness for a time, and he glanced at Caoilfionn. “But he survived.”
“Has he?” I narrowed my eyes at him, and my upper lip twitched. “His body, certainly… But he called me ‘Dy’ne,’ Islwyn. Does that sound like Aneurin to you?”
“Does it matter? You’re still his queen.” Islwyn shrugged. Caoilfionn remained quiet. He was back in those robes. Wrapped in that soft white fabric, he looked more than a little feminine. In fact, I would have easily taken him for a pretty woman if I hadn’t known better. His bone structure was so delicate. He looked like a work of art, like a painting done by one of the great masters that nobles liked to hang in their homes.
“He’s a stranger to me. He doesn’t remember me… But he certainly remembers you.”
“I didn’t plan this, Valentina. It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not.”
“He had a hard time with the ritual.” Caoilfionn finally spoke. “These things are best done with the young. He had too much of himself… The change…” He took a breath. “I told him to say good-bye. He…said he believed his love for you was strong enough that it wouldn’t be an issue. There is power in true love and his love for you was immense, but I told him it wouldn’t be enough. Blood curses—and the power of the Swynwr is a blood curse… Blood curses are beyond my gift, even yours at its fullest, I believe. The curse once it fully manifested took away Aneurin’s only form of power and resistance…his love for you.”
“And you let him…” My voice was whisper-quiet as I scowled at him. I couldn’t help but wonder what unicorn meat tasted like as I glared, attempting to cook him with my gaze. Islwyn stepped between me and Caoilfionn.
“You want to do the ritual, though. Correct?” he asked, drawing my attention away from the unicorn.
“Yes,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“He’ll get his memory back, and all will be well,” Islwyn reassured me, and I shook my head.
“The preparations will take a few days. I’ll start them now.” Caoilfionn then turned and left in a flutter of white silk and the jingling of silver.
We stood there alone, staring at one another. Islwyn lingered close, so close I could feel the heat coming off his body. That pale, pure blue gaze danced over my face for a moment before returning to the hearth.
“You smell like Yorwrath’s sweat,” he commented, crossing his arms and tilting his chin up.
“We spent the night together.”
“Of course you did. One brother as good as the next, Dy’ne?”
“Jealous?” I quirked a brow and pulled my hair over my shoulder. Islwyn’s pale lids fluttered as his speech failed him and my smile sweetened.
“Me? What do I have to be jealous of?” He laughed nervously, and I took a slow breath, looking him over. There was no denying Islwyn was pretty. He was too beautiful to be handsome, and those loose blond curls did nothing to harden his face. But his heart was an ugly thing—a bitter, jealous, monstrous thing.
; “So you don’t want me? I suppose that’s going to make the ritual hard on you. Since you’ll have to lay with a Dy’ne.”
“That’s not it. I’m fine with fucking Dy’ne. My problem with you is that you don’t know your place.”
“And what is my place exactly?”
“On your knees at an elf’s whim, not by his side.” Before I could register what my hand was doing, I slapped him across that lovely generous mouth as hard as I could. The sound of it rang out through the room as my fingers and palm tingled. He held his jaw and glowered at me.
“I have Arwn’s blood in my veins,” I roared in defiance.
“Which is why I will call you queen, but you’re still a Dy’ne. You were raised amongst them, you think like them, you act like them. You probably rut like Dy’ne as well. Even with Arwn’s Gift…you are still Dy’ne, but unlike the others, you can elevate yourself.”
“Yorwrath says you don’t hate me, but rather you have a deep desire for me.”
“I saw you first.”
“What?”
“I saw you first. I wanted you as my own but I acquiesced to Aneurin because he is Swynwr. I was fine with all of it until you two took vows.”
“And you realized you’d never have me.”
“Precisely.”
“That’s why you were gentle with me at the claiming.”
“Mhm, I wanted desperately to break protocol… But I am Aneurin’s. I’d never dishonor him like that.”
“Do you know much about the ritual?” I changed the subject, not caring to hear about how he wanted me.
“Quickenings are fascinating things. I know the basics, but I’ve only seen one. I was an adolescent at the time. I spied on the Dragons’ matriarch performing one on someone who had a bad head injury.”
“Did it work?”
“Yes. Will it with Aneurin? I can’t say. Right now…inside of that body is a sea of personalities, and they have most of his memories. I knew the moment he gasped out of the deep trance that he wasn’t all there. The look he gave me…pure disgust. Someone in there doesn’t like that Aneurin’s lain with males.”
Heart of the Forest (Arwn's Gift Book 1) Page 21
