A Kiss of Fire

by Jacquelyn Frank

  She didn’t want him to go. But she understood there was no choice to be had in the matter. Ariana’s safety was paramount. The good of the country rested on what Dendri was able to do.

  Another pain took her breath away and Dendri saw her grimace. He swept her over to the bed and laid her down in it.

  “Stay with me,” she begged him, pulling him down beside her.

  “I’ll go get you some water. Is there anything else you would like?”

  “No. Not right now.” Another pain came, this one quickly on the heels of the last. “Oh my,” she said, rubbing her belly.

  “Turn off the pain centers of your brain,” Dendri encouraged her as Bess left the room all in a haste. After all, Dendri and Yasra were a Gestalt couple. This meant that they had access to all of the houses of majic. Dendri had been training her in the nuances of Aspano majic, for, when he was not connected to Yasra by touch, this was the only house of majic he had access to. In this house he was a master at a level far beyond others. It was because of this that the triumvirate wanted him on this mission so badly. It also meant that he could sink into Yasra’s mind and help her to divert her pain. The pain itself quickly became too much to allow for her to concentrate on doing it herself, so she left it to him to aid her.

  By the time the doctor came she was relaxed in bed, feeling the contraction almost as if it were happening at a distance.

  “You’re going to need a little of that pain back come the end,” the doctor said when she explained she was feeling no pain. “It will tell you when it’s time for you to push.” He examined her with Dendri sitting in bed next to her.

  “Well, she’s progressing rather quickly,” he remarked just as the midwife arrived. The household butler, Tudman, hovered in the doorway anxiously.

  “My lord,” the doctor said, “you may not want to remain—“

  “I’m going nowhere. I am in control of her pain. I cannot do that from a great distance. No. I will be by her side for the entire duration of her labor.”

  “That is highly irregular,” the doctor fretted a moment. But one look in Dendri’s coldly determined eyes silenced him on the matter for the rest of her labor.

  Her labor progressed rapidly, all things considered. The doctor sent everyone, including Bess, out of the room, leaving only Yasra, Dendri, the doctor and the midwife. Dendri only left the bed when Yasra did. She got up frequently to walk through her contractions, the doctor having told her it would help move things along.

  When she began to feel the urgency of the need to push, Dendri withdrew from her mind and let the pain come naturally. It came as a shock to her at first, having been relatively pain free up until then, but she pushed through it quickly. She was drenched in sweat, her nightgown having come off at some point in the proceedings, and now lay in bed pushing her heart out. Or that was what it felt like. It felt like she was trying to push her pounding heart out of her body.

  Dendri kept hold of her hand as the doctor suddenly cried, “Stop pushing!”

  “What? I can’t!” She panted hard as the urge to push swamped her once again.

  “The baby is breech,” the doctor said. “Your baby has not turned properly, Yasra. I must push the baby back, reach inside of you and turn her into proper position.”

  “Well hurry!”

  Dendri soothed her, leapt into her mind and eased her pain and dulled her perception of her contractions. The doctor reached into her body and turned the baby in a process that would have been excruciating for her, had it not been for Dendri in her mind.

  “There! Now we begin,” the doctor said.

  “Begin! What room have you been in these past few hours?” Yasra snapped at him. Dendri chuckled as he eased away from the pain centers of her mind and allowed her to feel her full labor once more. The urge to push was tremendous.

  “What’s so funneeee!” she demanded of Dendri as she pushed through her words. “You wouldn’t be laughing if it was you here instead of meeee!”

  “Save your breath,” the doctor scolded her. “Keep it for pushing. You can yell at everyone later.”

  She angrily told to doctor to do something that was anatomically impossible.

  “It’s a good thing Tudman isn’t in the room. He would have had a stroke to hear such foul language from you,” Dendri said, his eyes not as bright as his humor. He was worried about her. Worried that something else might go wrong. He could help with her pain, but otherwise he felt completely useless. He had maneuvered himself behind her, so that her back was pressed to his chest and she lay between his thighs. Each time she pushed, he leaned her forward into it, as if he were pushing right along with her.

  “There’s the head now!” the doctor said. “Good work. A little bit more…that’s it. A few more pushes should do the trick.”

  Yasra dropped back against Dendri’s chest, her head lolling on his shoulder. “I can’t. I’m too tired!”

  “Yes you can,” Dendri urged her softly. “You’re the strongest woman I know. Certainly strong enough to birth our little troublemaker into the world.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” she panted. Then she whipped up tight into another contraction and screamed out as she pushed.

  “Good girl,” Dendri praised her.

  “Go away!” she cried. But he knew she didn’t really mean it. He knew because she grabbed up his hand in hers and nearly crushed the bones in it as she pushed yet again.

  Finally, as she screamed again the doctor cried out triumphantly, “The head is out!”

  It was a short business after that. The child slipped from Yasra’s body on just a few more pushes and then the doctor and the midwife were hovering between her legs, cleaning off the baby, cutting the cord and tying it tightly with a string. Yasra was weeping and gasping for breath as the doctor wrapped up her child and handed it to her.

  “It’s a girl,” he said, acting as proudly as if he were the father.

  However he could never have equaled the pride radiating from Dendri even had he tried with all his heart. Dendri was proud of how well Yasra had done. He was proud of how beautiful his daughter was. His hand was shaking as he reached out and touched the damp black down on the top of her head. She had been born with nearly a full head of hair.

  She was surprisingly quiet. She had not screamed out upon entering the world. She had merely fussed enough for the doctor to know she was breathing properly. Now she lay with her squished up face wrinkled in sleep, the mottled pink and white coloring of her newborn skin glowing in the gaslights.

  “She’s beautiful,” Dendri whispered against his wife’s ear.

  Yasra nodded. She was choking back tears. Eventually she just let them loose. Dendri hushed her and soothed her. The midwife then reached to take the baby and Yasra tried to hold her tightly.

  “You have to deliver the afterbirth,” the doctor explained to her. “And the midwife can continue to clean the baby up.”

  Yasra nodded and finished her delivery without her baby in her arms. But no sooner was she finished then Yasra was demanding she be returned to them.

  When Yasra was settled in a clean nightgown and a bed with clean sheets, she sat curled up with Dendri, their baby in her arms. Dendri couldn’t stop kissing his wife all over her face, forehead, ear and lips. Every time he turned his head he pressed a kiss on her.

  “Thank the One God it’s over and you are both all right,” he said. He exhaled a shaking breath and Yasra looked at him.

  “You were scared,” she said. It wasn't a question. It was clear she knew his mind…just as she always could.

  “Terrified,” he admitted breathlessly. “But that doesn’t matter now.”

  “No. What matters now is that you will be leaving us soon,” Yasra said quietly.

  Dendri looked at her.

  “I can refuse to go,” he said softly. “Just say the word and I will refuse to go.”

  “No. No, they need you. You heard what Mason said. Only you can pull this off. You go…but you hurry
back. Your daughter and I need you. And please, stay safe.”

  “I don’t want to leave you,” he said, his voice tight with emotion. “I don’t want to miss out on a second of her life.”

  “I’ll write everything down. I’ll write letters. I know you can’t receive them, but I’ll keep them here for you.”

  “Yasra…I love you,” he said softly.

  “I love you just as much…if not more,” she said. She smiled. “And to think…there was a time when we were both afraid to say that to each other.”

  “That was so long ago it seems. And it feels like it was two very different, very foolish people.”

  “I know what you mean.” She smiled sleepily at him and rested her head back against his shoulder. “Perhaps you should hold the baby now. I am very tired.”

  Dendri took his daughter from his wife’s arms and let Yasra snuggle down onto her pillow.

  “What will we name her?” he asked abruptly. “We never decided on a name.”

  “What do you think of Elizabeth? After Bess.”

  “I think I like that very much. But we cannot call her Bess.”

  “We can call her Beth. Elizabeth Adiron. Beth Adiron.”

  “Elizabeth Yasra Adiron,” he corrected her. “She deserves your name.”

  Yasra sighed. It was her only agreement. She soon fell asleep.

  Left alone with his daughter, and feeling exhausted himself, Dendri settled the baby on the bed between its mother and father and laid his head on his pillow.

  Together, they all slept.

  The next two days he spent every waking moment discovering his daughter. He drank in everything about her. From her tiny fingers to her tiny toes. The fact that she wasn't a screamer to the fact that she was a noisy suckler at Yasra’s breast. It was common for women of station to hire a wet nurse for their children, but Yasra was having none of it. She would feed her own child and that was the end of it. Dendri worried it would needlessly exhaust her, but she wouldn’t hear another word about it. Of course he let her do whatever she wanted.

  Two days after Beth’s birth, Dendri presented himself to the triumvirate.

  Within hours he was on horseback, riding quickly for the country of Kilt.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sin awoke with a sudden intake of breath. He knew he was in a strange bed instantly, but he remembered where he was just as quickly. He remembered because he could feel the weight of a light arm across his chest and a heavier body against his side. She was flush against him, half on and half off his body. In the three days they had been lovers he had barely left her room. They had made love endlessly, slept and eaten when the mood struck them, then repeated the process. He found his hunger for her was insatiable. Nothing, he realized, would rub the bloom off his regard for her. His passion for her. Oh, he was aware she was holding a large part of herself in reserve, a part he very desperately wanted to win over, but he kept reassuring himself that would come with time. She was a strong and independent woman who was not used to giving in to her emotions. It meant enough that she had come this far, that she had admitted some feelings for him. Her feelings of fear that he would simply grow tired of her only proved to him that she wanted more than just a sexual relationship from him. Now all he had to do was get her to see that life here could be just as fulfilling as life in Saren.

  To that end he had plans to get them out of her room today. He had been neglecting his kingdom in order to be with her, and while in winter there wasn't as much to do and oversee and tabulate, it was still a busy time. His brother helped very little, although he enjoyed the days of complaint because he could sit and pass judgment on those beneath him, making himself feel his own power and making others feel it as well. It was one of the reasons why he allowed his brother to substitute for him very rarely. His brother’s ideas of justice also left something to be desired. They were not of one mind on many things.

  Sin stirred. He reached to brush her hair back from her face, exposing one pale cheek flushed with sleep. Her thick auburn lashes glinted in the morning sunlight. Her face was beautiful and peaceful in sleep. But as she had every morning, as soon as he awoke, she was not far behind. She must sense his awakening, he realized, and it gave him pleasure. He knew it was possible he was just disturbing her and she was a light sleeper, but he preferred to think she was attuned to him.

  Her lashes fluttered open and she looked up into his eyes. She smiled and stretched.

  “Have you been awake long?” she asked predictably.

  “No. Only just.”

  “Good. I’d hate to think you were sitting there staring at me as I slept.”

  He would have if given the opportunity.

  “No. Not at all. Did you sleep well?”

  She tilted her head and took stock. “Yes. Yes, I did. I seem to be exhausted of late and am sleeping accordingly.”

  He grinned as she cocked an impudent brow at him.

  “Am I wearing you out?”

  “Ha! I am not the one who falls asleep first.”

  He had to work at keeping from blushing in chagrin. She was right. She took everything out of him and being with her gave him more comfort than he had known in years. The combination had made it easy for him to fall asleep with her after making love. Between that and the fact that their lovemaking was like a hard-running sport, there wasn't much to induce him to keep his eyes open…save more lovemaking.

  “Come on, get up. We have a busy day today.”

  He sat up to get up, but she threw her weight against his torso until he lay back down.

  “Not even a good morning kiss?” she asked petulantly.

  When she pouted at him, that full bottom lip protruding so fetchingly, he was putty in her hands.

  “But good morning kisses tend to become good morning touches,” he noted. “And then it expounds from there.”

  “And is that so bad?” she asked as his mouth settled on hers. He kissed her gently, tenderly.

  “It is when I have much to do today. I have been neglect—“

  He was cut off when she sealed her mouth over his and kissed him with no little amount of fever. He took over the kiss, rolling her beneath himself, settling his bigger body over the full length of hers. It was like coming home, the feeling he got when he settled over her like this. There was no place he’d rather be. No place in the world.

  His hand drifted down the length of her flank, her skin warm and naked. Her bare flesh pressed against his was like heaven. He shaped her and caressed her, all the while kissing her hotly. He felt her hands skim around his ribs under his arms and then her nails clung to his back and shoulders. She kept her nails long and used them to grip him in the throes of passion, so his back bore the marks of them already. He couldn’t care less.

  Her thighs parted to either side of his hips and he found himself pressed to the hot center of her body. His hand trailed back up her supple body and up to embrace the soft globe of her breast. He continued to kiss her soul deep, the taste of her like a wild fever in his blood. He couldn’t get enough of her. He couldn’t bear the idea of leaving her.

  He broke from her mouth and took in a gasp of air.

  “Ariana please,” he said breathlessly. “We have to—“

  She cut him off with another kiss, this one even hotter than the ones before it. For good measure she canted her hips, making sure his erection was sliding through the warm wet flesh of the body.

  He needed no further convincing. He slid against her with a groan, then with just a shift of his hips he was entering her body. He thrust into her once, hard, seating himself firmly inside of her. She gasped at his intrusion, and then kissed him all the more passionately. She wrapped her legs around his hips and thighs, holding him to her. They remained like that, joined and not moving save to kiss and caress each other. She felt incredible wrapped around him as she was. Being gloved in the wet heat of her body was heavenly and erotic. The urge to thrust rode him hard, but he resisted it. He wanted to stay with her lik
e this for a while. He wanted to love her a little first.

  He broke from her mouth after a long minute and dropped his lips and tongue to the graceful length of her throat. He started by kissing the underside of her chin and working in a straight line down to the hollow at the base of her throat. Then he rained kisses along her collarbone and down her chest. He then lifted her breast to his lips and with a lick drew her nipple into his mouth. She sighed in contentment and he sucked at her, her sweet flavor on his tongue. It made him think of the other flavors of her body and his temperature rose accordingly. She took his head between her hands and pulled him from her breast to kiss his mouth.

  “Move,” she whispered against his lips.

  He couldn’t deny her. He made a shallow thrust and groaned at the friction of her wet body surrounding him. He thrust deeper this time and then continued, withdrawing and surging forward until she moaned a sensual sound of pleasure. Her legs tightened around his buttocks with every forward lunge and it wasn’t long before he was groaning and coming close to a crest. But he delayed his own pleasure, stroking his hand down her body and into the place where they were connected. He pushed his thumb to the spot just above that point of connection and began to caress her in short, tight circles that matched the cadence of his surging body.

  She began to cry out, sounds that went straight to his spine and the pleasure centers of his brain. She was his. She was his. He would never let her go. He could never survive without her. He kissed her savagely as she crested, her body tightening around him with spasms of pleasure. He felt throttled and hot, and he gasped in a violent breath as orgasm blindsided him. He had wanted to make it last longer…he always wanted to make it last longer. But she was too much for him to bear. He came hard and fast, his breath and body seizing for a long minute before he gusted out a loud groan of pleasure.

  Her hands were running up and down the damp perspiration on his back. That was the first thing he became aware of once the waves of release had subsided. Then he was aware of the way he twitched inside of her, as if he would continue to empty himself into her, had he been able to. He was panting hard against her ear, and she was kissing him along the crest of his shoulder.