Her hips rocked against his, brushing his erection, telling him in no uncertain terms what she wanted. What they both wanted. He reached down, grabbed twin fistfuls of her gown and yanked it out from under her rear until he could reach beneath. His fingers sank into the soft warmth of her buttocks, drawing a low moan from her throat as he kissed her, before sliding down the firm, slender thighs spread across his lap. He longed to touch her everywhere, to touch her until she screamed for release. There wasn’t time for such luxury. Later, when they got home…
A stab of harsh regret buried itself in his chest and he kissed Tarrys harder, shoving back the future and turning the whole of his attention to the woman in his arms, the woman whose thighs were so sweetly parted for him. As her hips rocked against him, his fingers slid to her buttocks, then down to the moist center of her heat.
Her gasp pulled the breath from his mouth as she melted against him. So sweet. He slid his finger inside her and she turned frantic, her fingers digging into his scalp, her mouth crazy with need, her body rocking against him until he thought he’d explode.
He had to touch her. With shaking hands, he yanked her gown up and over her head until she was naked before him. As his hands covered her breasts, their hard tips tight against his palms, she met his gaze with eyes glazed with passion. She leaned forward to kiss his jaw, her lips moving down his neck, sending fire flaming through his blood.
“I want you inside me,” she said against his throat. “Love me, Charlie. Love me.”
His thoughts fled, his senses hijacked. Tarrys. She was all he could ever want. All he could ever need. He wasn’t even aware he’d undressed until he was moving over her, flesh against flesh, her breasts brushing against his chest.
Her hands slid over his shoulders as if the feel of him pleased her. “Love me, Charlie Rand. Make love to me.”
Looking down into her shadowed face, he pushed inside her with a single stroke, the intensity of his own pleasure mirrored in her face. Emotion swelled until it pressed against the walls of his chest. He pulled out of her and slid home a second time, and a third. Over and over, harder and harder, she rose to meet him, joining with him until he no longer knew where he ended and she began.
Deep in his consciousness, the storm began to rise, buffeting him, threatening to sweep him overboard and drown him if he didn’t hold firm, if he didn’t protect his heart.
The fury of their lovemaking grew as Tarrys’s moans rose and his own body climbed higher with every thrust.
Let go, Charlie. Come with me. Tarrys’s voice. In his head. In his heart. Fly with me.
The pressure in his chest wouldn’t be contained. His control was lost. His heart was hers.
Charlie covered her mouth, clinging to her as he thrust into her, as he let go. The storm of emotions rushed through him, sweeping him up, higher and higher.
Fly with me.
She cried out her release, her soft contractions lifting him to his own. As the release broke over him, he let go. And flew on wings born of the overpowering love for her he’d been fighting, denying. And could deny no more.
He loved her. Loved Tarrys.
The thought terrified even as it liberated. He loved her and would continue to love her with every breath he took until he breathed no more.
He kissed her, kept kissing her even as he pulled out of her and rolled onto his back, pulling her across him so he could kiss her some more.
“I love you.” He’d said the words out loud. Words he’d never told any woman. Words he’d never thought he could say.
He felt like a man reborn. The irony nearly made him laugh. Reborn. As he stared down death.
Tarrys pulled away from his kisses and looked at him, propping her arms on his chest. He expected to see happiness in her eyes. He loved her! But her eyes were drenched with sadness.
He lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “Tarrys…”
She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Charlie, I have to go.”
He stared at her, not understanding. “Go where?”
“I have to leave. I’m so sorry. But I’ve seen things in my visions. I have responsibilities to my people I didn’t know I had. My place is here. I’m not going back with you.”
He blinked and sat up as she scooted off him. “You think I’m going to die. You’re leaving now so you don’t have to watch.” He couldn’t believe it. Her lack of faith…
She touched his cheek. “You’re not going to die. If you wait for the gates to open, you’ll succeed.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
Her expression was at once powerfully sure and infinitely sad. “I know, Charlie. You’ll take Princess Ilaria back and save your world. But I can’t go with you. I’m needed here.” She rose, slipping on her slave’s gown with a single, graceful movement.
He stared at her, as stunned by her words that he was going to succeed as he was by the fact she was leaving anyway. Leaving him. After he’d told her he loved her.
As she stood before him, her eyes bright with unshed tears, he wanted to rise, but couldn’t move for the weight crushing his chest.
“Wait until the gates open before you free her, Charlie.”
“How in the hell am I supposed to know when the gates open?”
“Look to the sky.” A single tear slid down her cheek. “I love you, Charlie Rand.” Another tear followed, and another. “Don’t forget me.” She turned and ran, lithe as a deer, leaving him stunned and reeling, struggling for air.
An awful sense of déjà vu washed over him. Ten years old, his dad standing before him. “I have to leave, son. I can’t be with you boys and your mother anymore. I love you, Charlie. But I can’t stay.” Charlie had never seen him again. He’d never even heard from him.
Dammit. He leaped to his feet and slammed the heel of his hand against the nearest tree as fury sliced through him. “Damn her to hell.”
Why had he told her he loved her? Why had he let himself love her? He wasn’t meant for love. He’d never been meant for love.
If she’d loved him, really loved him, why had she left?
He pulled on his clothes with angry yanks. He didn’t need her. Love never lasted anyway. Within a couple of days, he’d forget about her.
Damn her for following him here in the first place. If she’d just stayed back in D.C. like he told her to…
He took a big breath and let it out slowly.
He’d be dead.
If she’d stayed in D.C. like he’d told her to, he’d never have discovered her strength or her courage. He’d never have tasted the sweetness of her kiss or the shattering ecstasy of making love with the woman who’d been made for him. His match. His mate.
Pain clenched its fist around his heart. He sank to the ground, leaning back against a tree. How was he supposed to live without her? She was his life, his breath.
His heart.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d sat there waiting for God knew what. A half hour? Longer?
Something glittered in his vision and he blinked, but it didn’t go away. He looked up…and stilled.
Stars. The russet Esrian sky glittered with a million of them.
The gate was open.
Chills raced over his skin. The worlds were one, and yet…not. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it, but he didn’t have to. Not now.
What he had to do now was free Princess Ilaria without getting himself killed, and convince her to show him to the nearest gate. And do it within the hour or that gate was going to close and he’d be stuck here for another month.
Harrison and Jack would try to follow him in and almost certainly die. But the thought of going through that gate alone, of leaving Tarrys behind, tore a fresh wound in his heart.
Focus. Compartmentalize. Because if he kept thinking about Tarrys, he’d never succeed.
Charlie rose and pressed his hands against the tree, head bent, taking deep breaths. He was a soldier. A SEAL. Focus. Right now he had to concentrate on beating these bastards and f
reeing the potentially duplicitous Ilaria. Right now he had to keep himself alive and save the world.
He took a mental inventory of his gear, then shook his head. There was no possible way he was going to succeed without a miracle. Then again, this land was magic. And this forest hated the Esri.
He pulled out one of his small flamethrowers and his knife. One in each hand, he ran silently through the woods, toward the clearing. If he were stalking humans, they’d never know he was coming.
As he drew near, an arrow whizzed by his shoulder.
Unfortunately, this enemy was not human.
He rolled behind a tree as two more arrows broke the air he’d been occupying a second before. Any thought that the Esri might want to capture him was gone. They clearly wanted him dead.
Adrenaline poured through his system, raising his spirits. God, he loved a challenge.
Two more arrows passed on either side of the tree, pinning him in place. He was still nearly twenty yards from the temple. Could the Esri come this far into the forest? Would they risk it in order to capture him?
He was all too afraid the answer was yes. His gaze landed on one of the arrows sticking out of a tree in front of him. If only Tarrys were here with her bow to give him a moment’s cover. But he was on his own now.
Shoving his knife in his boot, he pulled out his binoculars and tried to get a bead on his attackers. Two archers stood in plain sight, aiming for him. A short distance behind them, he could make out the form of a woman tied to a pillar of stone. Ilaria. She was every bit as beautiful as the painting he’d seen of her, and yet her beauty didn’t hold a candle to Tarrys’s.
The archers released their arrows and he ducked back as the projectiles flew by him. The Esri had apparently abandoned their plan to trap him. Then again, they knew Tarrys had seen the setup. They knew it wouldn’t work.
Yet Ilaria remained tied. Why? To confuse him? Or because they feared she’d try to escape? Even well-treated prisoners longed for freedom.
Another arrow sailed past him.
“I could use your help, forest,” he muttered. “Can you extend your influence into the clearing? Scare the crap out of them for me, maybe?”
He didn’t expect an answer, but the sudden gust of wind that whipped at his cloak, sent chills racing over his flesh. The wind rose, tossing leaves and swirling his cloak around his body.
There was no weather in Esria.
Yeah, things were definitely getting interesting, though how a storm was going to help him, he couldn’t begin to guess. Maybe it would confuse the Esri? He couldn’t afford to be picky. He needed any help he could get.
Charlie dove out from behind the tree and rolled behind another, but no arrows followed him. He dove and rolled again and still no arrows.
Cautiously, he eased out, close enough to see the Esri now that he knew where to look. They were still aiming where he’d been two trees ago. As if they hadn’t seen him move.
He frowned.
With extreme caution, he ran forward, from tree to tree, keeping watch on the two archers as he scanned for others. As he neared the clearing, more Esri came into view, all clustered around Ilaria and the other archers. To a man, unmoving.
Frozen.
His eyes widened as his gaze snagged on one Esri caught in midstride, his cloak whipping around him in the punishing wind, one foot lifted, extended, paralyzed several inches off the ground.
No. Way.
This was it, then. His chance. He’d needed a miracle and the forest had delivered it on a platter.
“Thanks, woods,” he said.
Still scanning for sign of danger, he ran for Ilaria, fully aware he might not have much time. His senses cataloged a large, ruined village surrounding an Aztec-style pyramid. But Ilaria was thankfully close to the edge of the forest, if a tad too close to the Esri. If that wind died too soon, he was dead.
Princess Ilaria—and he knew it was her, for she was the spitting image of the woman in the painting—stood as frozen as her guards, her emerald gown twisting around her legs. Her hair, pale ivory streaked with gold, flew around her porcelain-like face. Eyes as green as her gown followed him, sharp and cunning. He might be performing a rescue, but he’d be smart to treat her with the care and caution he would any dangerous animal.
“I’ve come to rescue you, Princess,” he shouted against the wind. Maybe that would keep her from attacking him if she got the chance, though with an Esri, he couldn’t be too careful. Just because she’d sealed the gates fifteen centuries ago didn’t mean she considered herself a friend to humans. She might not have done it to help the humans. And she might not be willing to do it again. But she was their only chance of getting those gates sealed. They’d do what they must to force her to help them. But first he had to get her out of this forest, out of Esria.
He cut through the ropes binding her, then retied her hands behind her back, slung her over his shoulder and ran for the woods away from the archers. When they came back to life, they wouldn’t have him in their sights.
The problem was, he still didn’t know where the gate was. He needed the princess to tell him. If she wasn’t able to talk before the gate closed again, this rescue was going to be for nothing.
The wind blew fiercely as he ran across the golden grasses of the clearing, the princess slung over his back. He was nearly to the woods on the other side when lightning flashed across the sky, half-blinding him as it arced toward the center of the village. The pyramid must be acting like some kind of lightning rod. Another flash tore across the sky. His gaze followed it to the structure…and froze.
At the top of the pyramid, on what appeared to be a small platform, stood a jewel of a woman in a sheer-as-mist lavender gown. Her long brown hair flew in the wind, her arms raised as if she called the lightning, called down the very storm.
Tarrys. His heart seized as her tear-filled gaze found him, clinging to him for one wrenching moment before turning skyward again, piercing his heart.
Chapter 25
The ancient power ripped through Tarrys, crushing her beneath its weight, but she held fast even as every bone in her body felt like it was about to crumble.
“Run, Charlie! Run.” Her words weren’t enough to reach her own ears, let alone his, but he’d stopped just inside the tree line when he’d seen her. He had to move. He had to go or all this was for nothing. “Run!”
Tarrys gasped at the pain wrought by the power. She hadn’t expected the pain, hadn’t realized her ancestress was in pain when she’d watched her in that final vision, the one that had come upon her soon after she’d lost her bow and quiver. But seeing that last vision, she’d finally understood. After leaving Charlie, she’d gone to the yellow tree, called for it to open and found the chamber just as the three priestesses had left it. Even their discarded shifts lay on the floor exactly where she’d watched them drop them all those centuries ago. She’d chosen a fine gown as they had, put a pouch around her neck as they had theirs. As she’d felt the fine silk of the ceremonial gown slide around her body, soft and damning, she’d known her fate was destined to be the same as theirs. The memory of that vision wouldn’t leave her.
The three sisters ran for the temple. They weren’t sisters in blood or parentage, but in the power passed to them from the ancient priestesses, power marked by the color of their eyes. Only the violet-eyes could call the power of the ancients. Only the priestesses could save their race now. The eldest of the three led the way, tears on her cheeks as she cried for the lover torn from her, for the mating ceremony that would never come.
The temple village was in chaos. Marceils, their scalps hacked and bleeding, attacked their brothers, wives, even children, cutting off their hair and pinning them down until one of the Esri came to lay a hand on them, claiming their will. The sisters ran through the hair and blood, dodging the reaching hands even as they met the pleading gazes with the promise of deliverance.
The first of the sisters never made it to the temple stairs before she was
caught and dragged beneath the enslaver’s knife. The auburn-haired priestess made it nearly to the top, but was felled by an Esri’s arrow only to tumble down the long stairs and fall beneath a different blade.
The eldest and last of the priestesses reached the sacred altar at the very top and raised her hands to the sky, calling on the ancient powers. Wind tore at her hair and lightning rode her fingers as she stole the Esri’s control, immobilizing them where they stood.
She cried for the Marceils to take them down and bind them. But none answered. There were no Marceils left free to act. All but her had already been enslaved.
“All is lost,” she cried. And then she saw him, her love, his thick hair reduced to random clumps, his scalp covered in dried blood. He began to climb the temple stairs.
His eyes glistened with sorrow and grief and spilled bitter tears as he reached her and drew his knife.
“No,” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”
“If I could turn this blade on myself, I would. But he controls my every move. Forgive me, my love.”
Tarrys’s gaze turned outward again and she met Charlie’s across the storm-tossed village. The power was becoming too much for her to hold, but it didn’t matter. He was nearly to the forest, nearly safe. Run, Charlie! The power escaped her grasp and she collapsed to her knees, too weak to run. But she’d known there would be no escape. She’d done what she’d needed to do. She’d given Charlie a chance to free the princess and escape the village. Now he needed the princess free to act again, free to lead him to the gate, and safety.
The rest was up to Charlie, now. She’d done all she could.
As one, the Esri sprang to life, running for the temple in a race to reach her first, to claim her as a slave. The pounding of their climbing steps came at her from every direction.
“Run, Charlie,” she whispered. Tarrys held his gaze as rough hands grabbed her from behind, as the searing pain of a sharp knife tore at the flesh of her skull over and over and over. She held his gaze until blood ran into her eyes, mixing with her tears, and all she could see was a future as bleak and cold as her past.
A Warrior's Desire (Harlequin Nocturne) Page 18
