“You are certain you desire our bonding?” he asked, proving his thoughts didn’t match his body’s needs. “There is still every possibility that I will fail and have to leave Aelynn.”
“That you have to ask sorrows me,” she murmured in despair. “That we belong together is the only thing in this world of which I’m certain.”
His relief produced a gust of warm air through the chamber. “The vows are permanent and eternal. I had to be sure. You must be sure.” He drew her so close she almost went up in flames right then.
“Couldn’t we change some of the ritual now that you are Oracle?” she asked, wishing she could lower herself onto his lap and have done with this delay. “I am as cleansed and purified as I’ll ever be, and I’m tired of waiting.”
He chuckled and leaned over to kiss her lips. “As purified as any newlywed would be while contemplating a wedding night.”
She sank into his kiss with bliss, wrapping her arms around his strong neck, mingling her breath with his. One short move . . .
He set her back to his side again. “I don’t know how much of the ritual is important for us, but I don’t think we should risk straying too far from your mother’s lessons. Some tradition has a purpose. Ian believes the dried mushrooms aid the vision of conception, and the other herbs reduce the dangers created when our gifts merge. Since you’ve already conceived and have many of my abilities, I don’t know if this is entirely necessary, but I’d rather take no risks.”
“We only have one wedding night,” she agreed. “Shall I anoint you first?”
“I think we’d better do it together,” he said wryly. “I would not wish one of us to take advantage of the other before we’re fully prepared.”
She laughed. The oils and unguents were as highly erotic as the aphrodisiac elixir consumed directly before the ceremony. Normally, the Oracle and his or her priest or priestess would apply them, but normally, one of the newlyweds wasn’t the Oracle.
Standing ankle deep in the shallow edge of the pool, they held the pots of ointment Murdoch had prepared. The scent of sandalwood and eucalyptus swirled around them as they began massaging the musky balm into each other’s shoulders.
With their backs done, they turned to face each other and start on the front. Murdoch’s powerful biceps took twice as long to cover as hers. Lissandra struggled bravely to concentrate on the marriage prayers she recited aloud as she rubbed in the ointment, but her entire body quivered with each stroke. His muscles tensed when she rubbed them, and if she dared look down . . .
Murdoch began to massage her breasts, and her knees came undone. She grabbed his arms to steady herself.
“I take thee, Lissandra, as wife, keeper of my soul,” he murmured, covering her breasts with his hands, warming the balm until it tingled her skin and stirred her womb.
Murdoch’s pledge seemed to sink into her with the oil, to become a part of her that she could never deny. “By Aelynn’s will, I take thee for husband, keeper of my body and soul,” she repeated as naturally as the desire rising through her.
Lissandra spread the balm across Murdoch’s broad chest, absorbing his heartbeat beneath her hand. He was a god among men. She might be the only woman in the world who saw the vulnerable man beneath the strength. “I take thee as amacara, father of my children, from now until the gods decree.”
His body strained to join with hers, but by sheer determination, he held her at arm’s length. “By Aelynn’s might, I will not take another. You are my amacara, keeper of my children. Free me, Aelynn, for I am yours to do with as you will.”
At this final vow, an explosion of white-hot radiance illuminated the cave, and a rush of scorching wind nearly bowled them over.
Lissandra gasped and clung to Murdoch. Head tilted to the heavens, eyes closed in prayer, he gripped her waist, and the wind died to a warm breeze. The blast of fiery light diffused into the misty silver of a full moon outside the cave. The binding had been done.
Unafraid, she continued the ceremony as she had been taught. Kneeling, she began to rub the balm into thighs the thickness of tree trunks. Normally, without the aphrodisiac, the recipient would not be already aroused. Normally, of course, it wouldn’t be the bride anointing the groom.
As she massaged his abdomen and lower, the moon’s silver light glowed brighter, until she felt it on her skin, and her woman’s place swelled and ached with need. But she resisted the temptation. For now.
When she reached his feet, Murdoch lifted her and performed the same service for her, smearing the cream into her thighs and calves and even her toes with unbearable tenderness. She was no more than molten jelly by the time he finished.
Standing to his full height, he reached for the wedding potion on a rock ledge above her head.
The chalice! He was using the Chalice of Plenty for their ceremony. She nearly laughed aloud at Murdoch’s audacity. He would not be a fainthearted Oracle.
“By Aelynn’s will, I give thee my love, my honor, and my respect for always, into eternity,” he said solemnly, lifting the sacred vessel to her lips.
Lissandra stared into his eyes and saw the heavens reflected there. Love. Murdoch had said he loved her. Her man of few words seldom expressed his feelings. That he proclaimed them now on this solemn occasion when it was not required brought tears to her eyes.
Accepting his offer as the sacred promise of commitment he meant it to be, she sipped the heady mixture until her wits spun. Then she took the chalice from him and repeated this new vow with the strength he had invested in her. “By Aelynn’s will, I give thee my love, my honor, and my respect for always, into eternity.”
Murdoch shivered and closed his eyes as if to let her pledge sink in and mend his wounded heart and soul, before he lifted the chalice and drained the honeyed elixir dry.
A steady breeze rustled chimes around the island. The silver moonlight pulsed with a magic of its own. While the heated water clouded the air with foggy tendrils of steam, Murdoch set aside the cup and reached for her with the force of the gods gleaming in his eyes.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, with the volcano’s heat enveloping them, Lissandra experienced the first thread of fear at his dangerous experiment. Would he cast out the volcano’s fire through her? Would he split the heavens asunder?
But her head wasn’t steady, and her desire was too strong to worry about earthly matters. Trusting in him, she floated off the ground in Murdoch’s arms, her hair trailing into the water as he carried her out of the pool, into the bed of moonlight.
“Take my fire,” he murmured, laying her down on the velvet cloth in which he’d carried the chalice earlier. “Take it and dispel it into the heavens, back to the stars where it belongs.”
His voice vibrated through her as he knelt between her legs and she opened wide to accept him. When he leaned over to place his tongue there, Lissandra cried out her rapture. Flames licked her skin, exploded along her nerves, poured through her blood. She shook and quaked uncontrollably like the earth, reaching for the one steady rock within her grasp, Murdoch’s arms.
With an athlete’s grace, Murdoch moved over her, the dark strands of his hair mixing with her pale tresses. She clutched his biceps while the mountain trembled. He applied his heat to her nipples, and desire built again, rushing like wildfire to her womb until she arched and thrust her hips and urged him on.
He pressed his lips to hers, sent the fire rushing down her tongue. Her tears of joy dried into paths of salt from the raging inferno that would fuse them into one. She dug her fingers into bulging muscle and fiercely pushed her hips upward into his straining sex.
He spread her knees wider and drove into her.
Murdoch didn’t waste energy howling his ecstasy at having finally reached the enveloping core that was his wife, his amacara, his Lis. The blending of their bodies and souls and minds was too intense, too shattering for him to do more than silently absorb the thrill.
The essence of her flowed through his veins, feeding his flame
s without scorching, expelling his heat into the atmosphere. While his sex thrust and claimed hers, his hands instinctively angled her hips. The contractions of her muscles aroused and coaxed, and his mind sought the spiritual mending of becoming one with the Healer who made him whole.
He didn’t want release if it meant leaving the haven Lis offered. Angers, frustrations, and tensions he’d hauled around with him forever now mysteriously evaporated, leaving him buoyant with joy and pleasure, truly free for the first time in his life.
Lis’s healing hands stroked his tough skin. She sank her fingers knowingly into his buttocks to adjust his rhythm to a more erotic one. Murdoch nearly lost his restraint completely when she massaged deeper.
He opened his eyes and stared down into her entranced expression. The cave was ablaze, but not from moonlight. Awareness wrapped around them even as his body pounded harder, more frantically.
At the final climactic moment, when he buried his sex deep inside her and his seed shot from his loins, his shuddering release sent his spirit soaring. In triumph, her spirit joined with his, and while fire and flame spewed into the night sky from the volcano’s peak, they slipped from their replete bodies to meet in the clouds.
“You think of yourself as a giddy butterfly?” Murdoch asked in amusement, watching the play of light on Lissandra’s translucent spirit wings.
“I should have known you would prefer to be a naked gladiator.” She perched on his broad chest.
They had no bodies, no real form, and no sensations up here, but the pleasure of their minds couldn’t be contained as their bodies below slipped into the languor of satiation. Murdoch luxuriated in the unplanned moment. “I’ve always thought it best to face the world prepared,” he admitted.
“Naked isn’t prepared. It proclaims your virtue and fearlessness.” She hesitated. “I can see and hear through you as I never have before. It is as if you’ve opened my eyes to a larger world and my ears to the voices of many.”
“Touching minds is a curse and a blessing.” He lifted his hand so her spirit form could alight on it. “It made me wild until I learned to close people out, but now I See that I must learn to concentrate by connecting with other minds as I once used my sword to direct my power.”
At this admission that he still needed aid to focus, she glanced worriedly below. “Can you tell if we have succeeded in dispelling the mountain’s heat?”
He glanced down from the clouds. The night sky blazed a fiery red and orange. Aelynn’s peak glowed with burning embers and billows of steam. “Either that or we blew up the island.”
Her butterfly image moved threateningly to his nose. Their words and actions were mere thoughts, but he understood her warning and mentally grinned. “If you want any more of what we just did, I don’t think you’ll unman me.”
“If we’ve blown up the island, there won’t be any more of what we just did.”
He turned serious, Seeing as much through Lis’s mind and eyes as his own. “Between the two of us, we’ve let off a little of the pressure, but not enough.”
Losing her laughter, Lis zapped back to her body, dragging Murdoch down with her. They faced each other on the blanket, the night sky outside the cave glowing in reds and oranges.
“What now?” she asked. “Years more of intemperate weather?”
Murdoch took a deep breath and exposed his worst fear. “I think we need everyone’s help.”
“Everyone? How?” Lis asked in dismay.
He closed his eyes and pondered impossibilities. Could he believe the gods trusted him enough to do this? If they hadn’t killed him yet . . . “I think I can touch all their minds from here, if they would open their shields to me.”
“We need the aid of the masses, the hearth witches and hedge wizards,” she said with understanding. “The Council might be more powerful, but most won’t willingly let you in. You need to reach the lesser enabled, the ones who do not guard themselves so heavily.”
He opened his eyes and stared into hers. “The landless are the ones I’m most connected to,” he said softly. “Between us . . . with both of our connections . . .”
To his relief, she didn’t hesitate. “We are all one people. We are all Aelynners. The time for division is over.”
He still watched her with concern. “You understand I’ve never connected with anyone but you and Ian. I have no idea what will happen.”
She shrugged. “We will save the island or die trying. Let us blow your fire into the heavens. Use me—use all of us—as you must.”
She understood his fears and matched his courage. Together, they could do anything.
Murdoch covered her with his body, propping his weight off her with his forearms. “We will join with just our minds this time. I’d rather not let the entire island see or hear our private moments.”
She laughed. “And what do you think they thought when they saw our fireworks?”
“That I didn’t kill anyone. Yet.” He rested his brow against hers. “Open your mind to me, mi ama. I need your help.”
“We all need each other,” she murmured in return, doing as he requested. “Let’s start with Ian. Once he understands, he can help with the others.”
As expected, Ian was awake and watching the volcano’s fiery explosion with trepidation, as was more than half the island. When Murdoch touched his mind, Ian responded in relief and curiosity. They’d never had this power before unless they were close enough for their weapons to touch. Lis was the missing piece Murdoch had needed all these years, the conduit between him and others, the channel of communication he’d never known.
She suggested visiting Chantal next. Ian reached out to Trystan and Kiernan. As each of them opened his or her mind, they expanded to a whole new network of friends, family, and acquaintances, spanning the entire island from all sides of the volcano, all ages, genders, and classes—until they had the awareness of almost the entire population, except those of narrow and closed mind.
Humbled by the enormity of the trust and power they placed in his hands, Murdoch spread their energy over the volcano, let the fire flow through him and into the universe.
The night sky glowed as if the sun had come to earth.
Thirty-three
When they came down from the mountain three days later, the sky shimmered with brilliant blue, raindrops glistened on tree leaves, and the air was clear enough to breathe again.
The Council waited grimly for them in the meeting-house.
Murdoch squeezed Lis’s hand. In his mind, she appeared more queenly than all the royalty of Europe. She wore her silver-gold tresses loose and flowing down her supple back, crowned only with a circle of jasmine. They’d bathed and dressed themselves in the rich garments she’d created for their earlier homecoming. The only difference now was that she wore a pendant bearing the onyx and black pearl he’d chosen for his family stone, and he wore an armband of the white pearl and ruby of her family.
Standing tall and stern, Ian blocked their path where the jungle’s edge met the village clearing. His gaze took in the symbols of their joining, but his comments reflected his more worldly concerns. “The last nights have been inspiring,” he said drily. “The entire island steams, in more ways than one. I believe the midwives will be very busy nine months from now.”
“Too bad we missed the spectacle,” Lis said with an airy wave. “I’m sure the night sky illumined with fire must have been a miracle to behold.”
“Had you not given us warning, Waylan and Trystan would have loaded their ships and sailed us away, thinking the volcano was about to erupt.”
In his earlier days, Murdoch would have taken offense at Ian’s tone, but now he could see through Lis’s heart and understood the awe and respect in her brother’s irony. “You will note that we carefully avoided scorching populated areas,” he said in the same cool manner as Ian, although knowing he had finally earned Ian’s respect warmed him clear to the marrow.
“May I extend our gratitude for your thoughtfulness
?” The sarcasm was automatic, covering Ian’s examination of them for signs of damage, internal or external. “The wells are gushing water. The wheat in the field must have grown a foot these last few days. The Council may argue for the sake of arguing, but after you miraculously rebalanced Aelynn by drawing on our mutual energies, you can demand anything you want. Have you chosen your course?”
Politics and war had not been on his mind in the days he’d had Lissandra to himself, but Murdoch nodded. “If you approve of our marriage, I will tell them the course I See.”
Lis hesitated, looking questioningly from one to the other. “I know it is tradition for the spouse of the Oracle to become Council Leader, but I hope you do not See me in that role.”
Murdoch lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss there. “You are the other half of me, the wise half, the priestess who speaks my thoughts more clearly than I. You are my channel to understanding others. I can’t work without you, but I recognize that you are a Healer and a student of science by nature. This Oracle prefers that we each do what we are best at. Aelynn needs people like you to study who and what we are and what we can become. Your heart isn’t in Council leadership.”
She beamed in delight at his understanding—and at the freedom he offered. “In other words, I’d bore them to death before I’d persuade them to my reasoning,” she teased.
Murdoch smiled. “I think the time has come to choose our leaders for better reasons than marriage or wealth.”
Ian laughed, and the cool gloom with which he’d greeted them dissipated. “That argument could engage the Council into eternity, leaving you free to do whatever you will from henceforth.”
“I did not say I wouldn’t aid the decision.” Murdoch tucked his wife’s hand into the crook of his elbow and led the way down the hill toward the Council that had never accepted him. With all doubt dispelled, he looked forward to a battle of wills.
Mystic Warrior Page 30
