Eternity's Mark

by Maeve Greyson

  Color flamed high on Hannah’s cheeks as her eyes widened with realization. “You know what I mean!”

  Taggart chuckled again, leaned forward, and hooked his finger into the front of her jeans, tugging her body toward him. His voice rasped deeper as he caressed the curve of her cheek. “Aye, Hannah. I know exactly what ye mean.” Yearning blazed hotter than the fire pits heating the water. He’d grown tired of waiting and the tenets could be damned. “Come to me, Hannah. Let us be done with these games. I’m weary. I’m lonely, and I need ye.”

  Hannah wet her lips again as his gaze entrapped her. She’d heard all she needed to hear. His words, paired with the eyeful of battle-hardened flesh, filled her with liquid fire. She retreated a step, peeled off her shirt, and shucked her jeans. Breathe, Hannah. Hannah hugged herself to stop the shaking. The drumming of her heart drowned out all other sound. The pounding in her chest choked her. She’d only been with one man before and there hadn’t been anyone since. But lord, she wanted Taggart. She ached to wrap her legs around him and ride. The depth of the water did nothing to hide the fulfillment his body promised. He was right. She’d already soaked her clothes.

  And then he stood, scooped her into his arms and cradled her against his slippery chest. Her chilled breasts hardened against his steaming-hot skin as she pressed against him. He settled with her into the hollowed-out corner of the tub. She straddled his body, rubbing against his deliciously, hardened shaft.

  Taggart cupped her breasts and thumbed her nipples into aching, demanding points. He swallowed Hannah’s moans with a claiming kiss while she writhed upon his lap. Hannah shuddered, clenching him tighter. A glorious ache possessed her body, threatening imminent, mind-reeling explosion. How could he make her come so quick? He wasn’t even inside her yet. She panted against him, ground her hips and locked her legs around him. Dammit. She needed more and she needed it now. “Taggart, take me now.”

  “Slow down, maemos. We have all night.” Taggart nibbled his way along the trail of her throat while cupping her breast with an excruciatingly slow caress.

  The heat of the water. His prodding erection against her aching nub. Dammit. He didn’t understand. She wanted him inside her now. She grabbed him and attempted to slide down the length of him. “Oh ... my ... G—” she hissed with an ecstatic groan. It had been so long. She held her breath while her body struggled to accommodate his size. “Oh yes,” she purred as she buried him to the hilt.

  Taggart grabbed her waist and held her still. “Maemos ma dao! Uthe dina cuma!”

  Hannah hadn’t had sex in forever, but apparently, this was so damn good she’d lost her ability to understand words. “What did you just say?” Hannah gasped as she flexed her thighs and gyrated her hips again.

  With a guttural groan, Taggart cupped her face between his hands and fixed her with a threatening glare. “I spoke Erastaedian! I said, Slow—down—love—before I come!”

  Hannah turned her head, suckled one of his fingers deep into her mouth, and pulled his other hand to her breast. Tickling her tongue into the palm of his hand, she smiled as she half-closed her eyes. “You talk too much. I’m not about to gear down this ride.” Raking her fingers down his side, Hannah moaned and rode him hard.

  The water overflowed the confines of the tub. The waves increased with the fervor of her thrusts. The wet friction of his skin sliding against hers increased her pleasure with every delightful lunge.

  Taggart reveled in Hannah’s cries; he growled in unison with her throaty purrs. She clenched him with every swivel of her hips. He pulled her hardened nipple deeper into his mouth. Hannah caught her breath as he suckled harder. Her moans reached a fevered pitch; the sound drove him over the edge. Taggart tensed as Hannah gyrated harder and faster. He couldn’t hold out any longer. He filled his hands with her buttocks and roared his own claiming as she pushed him to his release.

  A frantic scratching sounded somewhere in the distance. The faintest hint of a muffled tap as if sharp little claws scrabbled against a roughened surface. Hannah raised her head, dragged one eye open, and scanned the dimly lit kitchen. Where was that noise coming from? A herd of mice must be on the move. The digging noise finally stopped. Good. Her gaze shifted back to Taggart’s delicious warm body stretched out on the blanket beside her. They were alone on their pallet beside the spa.

  Who cared where the sound came from? She had everything she needed right here. She dropped back down with a purring sigh, nestled deeper into the haven of his arms, and inhaled deeply as though she sought the scent of her mate. He smelled heavenly, pure lusty male and the sex they’d enjoyed all night. Tickling the tips of her fingers down the ridges of his abdominals, Hannah released the delicious air of him she’d just breathed in. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this contented and it wasn’t just the sex. Taggart truly seemed to need her a lot more than anyone else ever had.

  With a mental shake of her head, she scolded herself. She shouldn’t do that. She shouldn’t compare Taggart with anyone. She shouldn’t taint the pleasure she’d just enjoyed with painful memories of the past. Hannah traced the pads of her fingertips across the taut planes of his chest. She loved the smoothness of his skin. She wondered if the Draecna blood kept him from sprouting any hair? Her husband had been like a sasquatch. Damn, she’d done it again. Hannah squinted her eyes shut and pressed her forehead against Taggart’s warm skin. No more comparisons! Well, maybe just one more. Her heart pulled as she snuggled closer. Last night with Taggart had made her feel like he cared for her more than anyone else ever had.

  A sharp crack echoed from the depths of the caverns beneath the kitchen, followed by louder scratching. No way that sound came from mice. But if not mice or even very large rats, then what kind of varmint roamed in the depths of Taroc Na Mor? Fully awake now, Hannah sat up and scowled at the door leading to the tunnels. The sound had definitely come from the nursery.

  Smoothing her hand across Taggart’s bare shoulder, Hannah gave it a squeeze and a gentle shake. “Taggart. Taggart! Something’s going on in the nursery. I think you might want to go see.”

  No response. Taggart just reached for her, mumbled something incoherent in his sleep, and pulled her body closer. Hannah swallowed a wicked giggle. Poor baby. He was exhausted. And well he should be. Hannah tried to ignore the flash of heat that flooded her belly at the mere thought of all they’d done the evening before.

  The thump and scratch from the caverns repeated. It did kind of sound like some sort of very small varmint. Surely, she could just handle this by herself and let him get some rest. Hannah grinned and planted a kiss in the center of his chest. She’d have a look and then pop back upstairs where they could test out the lovely pillowed nest of her Draecna-sized bed.

  Hannah eased over Taggart and gathered up her clothes. After she slipped them on, she tucked the blanket about him and kissed him on the forehead before slipping out the door leading downward to the tunnels.

  “There will be no eating on this table until it has been thoroughly disinfected.” Thaetus stood with his shirt sleeves rolled above his elbows, a bucket in one hand and a scrub brush held in the other.

  “Let me run a flame across it once or twice. That’ll kill anything that might be a crawlin’ about!” Gearlach rubbed his front claws together and filled his lungs with a great gust of air.

  Jumping up from the pallet on the floor, Taggart whipped the blanket around his waist as he blinked the sleep from his eyes. “Don’t ye dare! Ye’ll burn the entire keep to the ground. Ye know ye have no control over your blaze.” Scrubbing the bleariness from his eyes, he fixed Thaetus and Gearlach with a narrow-eyed stare. “What the hell are ye both doing? What is going on in here?” Ye’d think they’d have the decency to let a man sleep.

  Releasing his precious wind with a huff of disgust, Gearlach jerked his head toward Thaetus. “He won’t feed us breakfast in the fancy dining room ’cause he says we’re too messy, and he says we can’t eat off this table until he cleans it beca
use ye probably had Hannah spread all over it.”

  Taggart glanced at the table, then cocked a brow at Thaetus and gave him a slow, satisfied smile. Thaetus had a point. But that was none of their damn business. “By the way, there is no whipped cream for this morning’s strawberries.”

  “What happened to the whipped cream?” Thaetus plopped the bucket on the table with a splash and soused the brush inside as he turned a darkened scowl upon Taggart.

  Taggart broadened his smile as he scooped his clothes up from the floor. He hadn’t been this contented in centuries. “Never ye mind.” With a nod toward the door, he turned back to Thaetus and tossed the blanket over the bench. “Did ye see when Hannah went up to her room? Do ye know if she’s still in her bed?” He just might sneak up there and surprise her. The memories of the creativity of the erotic whipped cream had given him quite the rising.

  The swishing sound of the swirling motion of the scrub brush stopped. “I havena seen Hannah since last night. I thought perhaps she’d gone for a morning walk in the gardens and left ye to sleep off the effects of your evening.” Thaetus’s face paled with his words as he looked up from his spread-eagled stance at the table.

  “Gearlach?” Taggart yanked on his shirt as a sense of dread unfurled in his gut and clenched the very air from his lungs.

  With a shrug of one wing and a shake of his head, Gearlach confirmed Taggart’s worst fears. “She’s nay in the gardens. I’ve already been there and called out to her. I never received an answer. When I came in here and saw ye curled up like a wee hatchling, I figured she was still somewhere in the kitchens with you.”

  “By all that is holy.” Taggart gaped at the empty pallet in the corner of the room, willing it to spill Hannah’s whereabouts. “I break my vow and the verra next morning I have already lost her!” Taggart tore across the kitchen, yanked his sword out of the corner, and belted it to his waist. He didn’t even know where to begin looking. They had passed out in each other’s arms on the stubbornly silent pallet. He vaguely remembered her shaking him at some point this morning, but he thought she just wanted him to hold her.

  “Taggart! Man, dinna be a fool. The woman knows ye to be a hybrid. Why do ye go for your sword?” Thaetus lobbed the scrub brush across the table and yanked his apron away from his chest. “Change, man! Use your Draecna senses to find her. Have ye gone daft with exhaustion?”

  His chest pounding, Taggart heaved the sword across the room and stared at the blade where it shuddered in the whitewashed stones of the wall. “This is why I should’ve kept the vow and never touched her. I broke my word and now my judgment has disappeared with my priorities. I am a complete disgrace.”

  Septamus clouted him across the shoulders and knocked him toward the door. “Enough, Taggart. Ye can berate yourself later. Change now and find her! Use your powers, hybrid. We will worry about your useless vows later.”

  With a ripping sound echoing through the kitchen, Taggart shredded his clothing as he assumed his Draecna form. He cocked his head and strained with all his senses for a hint of where Hannah might be. Finally, he heard a sound that lessened the weight on his heart: a tinkling melody of happiness like water trickling down the streambed of a mountainside after a gentle rain. Hannah’s distant laughter floated through the air.

  His clawed hands curled into trembling fists as he turned in a slow circle and scanned the area. Where was the laughter coming from? Where did the little minx hide?

  “Do ye hear it?” he asked Septamus, nodding toward the tunnels.

  “She canna get into the nursery. The gateway would never open for her.” Septamus shook his horned head at the door, a puff of smoke escaping from both flared nostrils.

  They both turned and glared at Gearlach where he sat at the table dipping his claws in the bucket of soapy water. “Did ye leave the gateway to the nursery open again?” Taggart flexed and refolded his wings, trying to keep his anger in check. Thieves had already stolen one Draecna egg from the nursery. They couldn’t afford to be careless, especially not with Hannah in their midst.

  Gearlach shook his head and rose from the table with a sullen look on his face. “The gateway is sealed! I swear to ye. Thaetus doesn’t let me anywhere near it. Ye should know that by now. Do ye think I would be foolish enough to cross any of his magical wards?”

  Thaetus held up his hand toward Taggart and patted Gearlach on the wing with a sympathetic shake of his head. “Have ye forgotten your texts, Taggart? The guardian has entry to the nursery anytime she wishes. She merely has to stand in front of the door and wish to go inside.”

  With a smirk plastered all over his scaly face, Gearlach bobbed his head and pointed his claw at all their chests. “Ye see? Ye canna always blame me when something goes wrong around this place. I’m no’ as stupid as ye like to give me credit.”

  Yanking his sword out of the wall, Taggart ignored Gearlach’s defense. He battered open the door leading down to the tunnels. The sound of Hannah’s giggles bubbled up clearer from the depths now that the heavy metal door no longer blocked the music of her laughter. The louder Hannah’s laughter grew, the harder his stomach churned. She’d slipped away and he’d panicked like a fool. He’d completely lost his sense of reason.

  When he reached the end of the tunnel, he was relieved to find the gateway to the nursery tightly sealed. He rolled the haft of his sword in his palm, toying with the glyphs cut into it as he stared at the locked patterned door in front of him. What was Hannah giggling about? What was the woman up to this time? And why had she gone to the nursery alone? Blast, the woman! She knew she shouldn’t go anywhere unprotected. What did it take to get through that stubborn head of hers?

  “Gavrana!” Taggart snarled; his guttural Draecna growl echoed through the tunnels like thunder. When he got her in front of him, he had half a mind to turn her across his knee.

  The thick metallic disk covered by whirls and crescents groaned as it slowly rolled to the side. A different scent, one stronger than the usual fragrance of the moon lilies, buffeted his face as soon as the door shifted to the side. New life. God’s beard. Hannah had released a hatchling. The smell of moist, loamy earth mixed with the tang often scented in the wind from the sea. An ancient primeval scent known only to a chosen few allowed at the ceremonial births.

  Hannah sat cross-legged beside the warming pedestal with an iridescent green bundle cradled in the crook of her arms. Tiny, damp wings stuck to the scaly back and fluttered a transparent pink as the baby Draecna wriggled in Hannah’s arms. Lifting the little beast beneath its forearms, Hannah laughed as the creature belched a tiny ring of smoke, then nuzzled her face with an affectionate chirrup. Its dripping green tail curled up between its chubby hind legs as it squirmed and wriggled between her hands.

  “I think William is a lovely name.”

  “William?” Taggart snorted as he stormed into the room. “What kind of name is William for a Draecna?”

  Cuddling the hatchling closer into her embrace, Hannah kissed William on the end of his glistening green snout. “William is an honorable name.” Giving Taggart an up-and-down glance, she added, “And why are you in lizard mode?”

  “Lizard mode?” Taggart ground his teeth so hard he swore he heard them crack. He’d show her lizard mode. Shifting back to his human form, he stretched before her in all his naked glory. “None of us could find ye this fine, wonderful morning. How many times have I warned ye about your safety? What does it take to convince ye that ye must not go anywhere unprotected?”

  Rising up from the floor, Hannah balanced William on one hip and nodded toward the remaining eggs. “I figured we’re here in Taroc Na Mor. How could I be in any danger, especially down here in the nursery? William was ready to hatch. I heard him scratching at his shell. If I hadn’t helped him, I’m afraid he might’ve died. He was having a lot of trouble breaking through and he called out to me, Taggart.” Moving closer, she traced a finger down Taggart’s chest and stretched to steal a kiss.

  Grabbing her by
the wrist, Taggart spun her away and turned her toward the warming pedestal. She wasn’t going to distract him again. He had to make her understand. “Look, Hannah! Do ye no’ remember the stolen egg? What if the scratching ye heard had been a trap? What if a minion had lain in wait for ye? I couldna have gotten down here in time.”

  Hannah stared at the empty indentation, then yanked her wrist out of Taggart’s grasp. “Then I would’ve handled it. I’m not stupid, Taggart. There’s plenty of places down here I could’ve hidden until you came to the rescue. I haven’t been down here very long.”

  William glared at Taggart over Hannah’s shoulder, curled back his tiny green lips, and hissed.

  Taggart snorted and shook his head as he yanked a plaid off one of the drying racks in the corner and slapped it around his waist. “Well, it appears ye have another protector now. ’Tis just as well, since it’s obvious I’m no’ the man for the job.” Why the hell did she refuse to see reason? Had she forgotten the destruction in Jasper Mills so quickly?

  “What are you talking about? You’ve been protecting me.” Hannah settled William down on the floor, grinning as he wobbled across the smooth paved stones.

  How could he tell her how he’d panicked this morning? Taggart stared at her, standing there with her arms crossed, her stubborn little chin stuck up in the air. As soon as he’d discovered she was gone, he should’ve shifted to his Draecna form, scanned the area, and been at her side within seconds. Instead, her disappearance from the kitchen had thrown him into a misguided frenzy; he’d lost direction, lost his way, forgotten all the strength and magics coursing through his veins. It had taken Septamus and Thaetus to snap him out of it, to tell him what he needed to do. What sort of protector waited for orders like a common foot soldier at the front line of the battle?

  “Last night,” Taggart began and then he stopped. Turning away, he sucked in a deep breath and paced around the stifling room. By the fires of Eras, the nursery seemed smaller than ever before. The scented air blew hot against his skin, stirred by the gently undulating branches of Rowanian saplings fanning over the eggs. His heart wrenched with the pain of the words he was about to say, but he had no choice. Hannah’s safety was all that mattered. “Last night should’ve never happened, Hannah. I broke a sacred vow.”