by Tara Janzen
She knew the way of it. How to bind him to her with the enchantments of desire and words of love, how to take him to the green line and meld his consciousness with hers. She was half Ilmarryn, and if there was a price to pay in Claerwen for her disobedience, so be it.
She slipped her hand up his chest, reveling in the warm, hard feel of him, wondering if she dared to bind him in such a way, and wondering if she dared not, when to kiss him was to taste the heavens. ’Twas there, the aching vastness of the weir, the course he’d charted across space and time, a coolness in the hot wetness of his mouth. Elemental earth was there as well, a taste of the ancient past. He was rich, the Prince of Time, beguiling and complex. She was enthralled by the warrior fate had sent her.
“Cariad,” he whispered against her lips, bringing his hand up to cup her breast, and her thoughts fled, chased by the thrill of his touch.
A soft groan escaped her, and she leaned in closer, sliding her hands to his shoulders. Powerful muscles flexed beneath her palms, bringing her in closer yet. For long, endless moments he plundered her mouth and caressed her breasts, until she was weak with hot, sweet pleasure. Shadana. He was magic.
When his hand slid to the zipseam on her shift, she offered no protest, for there was naught she wanted more in the whole world than to fall deeper under his spell.
Morgan slipped his hand inside the opening of her dress and felt the gods smile. She was completely naked beneath her priestess robes. He smoothed his hand over soft, soft skin, warm skin, and prayed he could somehow make her first time last. His doubts were high. She was so open to his touch, and he was so very hard. He wanted to kiss her forever, everywhere, and when forever came to an end, sink himself inside her and start all over again.
With their clothes still between them, he pressed his hips against hers and ever so slowly slipped his tongue into her honeyed mouth. Heat flashed through him, drugging heat. He withdrew, opened his mouth wider, and took her again.
Like a benediction, her low groan echoed in his mouth and started a riot in his body. He rocked against her, holding her tighter, letting her feel the full length of his erection, and slid his hand down the front of her dress, opening the zipseam all the way to the juncture of her thighs, a heavenly place made even more so when he slipped his fingers between her legs. She was incredibly soft and wet—and gloriously real, no Carillion illusion. When he caressed her, her whole body responded, a tightness and trembling of her muscles, a sigh he captured with his mouth, and more of the gloriously slick moisture that told him she was pleasured by his touch, by his kiss. There was no greater lure. It brought him to his knees, literally, in a slow slide down the front of her body, desire pooling in his groin, his mouth open to taste every curve—soft breasts to fill his mouth, smooth skin to delight him, and her vulva... sweet mystery, a place to get lost in. He pressed his tongue to her, and her hips thrust forward on a startled gasp, her hands lacing through his hair, holding him to her.
Ah, yes, he remembered. He’d always been good at this, and never better than with his tongue guided by the earthly lust of his love for her, with the scent of her swirling around him, filling him up, more intoxicating than Carillion wine. ’Twas the fragrance of flowers, lilies and lavender, and the ever-present scent of crushed grass in a birkland glade, so green and lush.
He slipped his fingers inside her, loving the satin softness closing around him, and her knees weakened. He caught her to him with his other arm, holding her close while he continued his teasing assault on her senses and his own.
God’s truth, he’d missed the taste of a woman, missed the way a woman melted into a man’s mouth, missed the feverish excitement of taking a lover to the edge—where Avallyn was, so close to climax—and then he took her there, felt her body pulsing with release, heard her soft groans of pleasure, her hands holding him close where he finished her with long, caressing strokes of his tongue.
He kissed her once more and rose to his feet, swinging her up into his arms. She was in perfect dishabille, her clothes undone, her skin glowing, her eyes glazed with passion. Carrying her inside the bower, he kissed her again, deeply, sweeping his tongue through her mouth and letting her taste herself on him.
Outside the rain began. No herald of thunder announced its arrival, only a slow and steady susurrus of raindrops whispering down through the leaves, shrouding them in the half-light of the clouds.
He let her slip to her feet next to the pallet and took her face in his hands. Her eyes were languid, darkened by desire and satiation to a smoky shade of gray. Her mouth was swollen, so pretty, and his for the taking. He lowered his lips to hers, loving the way she flowed toward him, the way she gave herself up, her melting acquiescence all he needed for her to be woman to his man.
Avallyn knew the spells of love, but she’d never known anything like what she felt with Morgan, the throbbing intensity of full-blown desire. She’d not known a man could burn with an inner heat she would want to wrap herself in. She’d not known there could be so much tenderness in strength—and despite all that they’d been through together, she’d not known just how much strength was in him. His body was hard and lean, the source of his grace, full of latent power, a landscape of muscle from the solid wall of his chest to the ridged plane of his abdomen. His arms were corded with muscle—yet his mouth was softness itself, so gentle in its devouring.
She smoothed her hands down over his hips to the hard curves of his thighs, and his pelvis came forward in a slow, rhythmic thrust. He slid his mouth to her neck.
“Touch me,” he whispered, rubbing against her with another move of his hips.
She knew what he meant. His erection was undeniable. There was little in her way, only the zipseam of his pants. She slipped her fingers beneath his waistband and hesitated.
“I’ve not...” Her voice trailed off on a sudden bout of shyness.
“Just take me in your hand,” he murmured, then licked a path to her ear and drove her a little bit crazy.
“Morgan.” His name came out on a soft-cry.
“Come on, Avallyn,” he urged. “Take my clothes off and touch me.”
She did, running her fingers down the zipseam and feeling the hard rise of him under her hand. Beneath his pants, he wore a pair of very brief underwear, a scrap of cloth covering no more than the minimum, and failing at that in his present state. When she reached the bottom of the zipseam, she pushed both articles of clothing lower on his hips... and he waited, tunneling his hands through her hair and kissing her brow.
A long swath of his hair brushed her face and fell across his shoulder in a silky ebony skein. The smell of him, intensely aroused and so very warm, made her mouth go dry. She could almost taste him. Putting her hands on his waist, she traced downward over the jut of his hipbones, following the indentation of muscle on either side of his stomach to his groin, then she came back up, encircling the shaft of his penis with her hand.
He thrust into her palm, groaning, and she was filled with a deep ache of longing. With a sigh, she opened her mouth on his neck, tasting him, grazing him with her teeth. He belonged inside her. She wanted to feel him there, to feel him filling her. There was power in sex, an ancient, primal power. She’d never felt the truth of it more than when she held him in her hand.
“Morgan,” she murmured, stroking her hand up and down his erection in a languorous rhythm. His body tightened in response, and she licked a hot path across his skin, wanting her mouth on him everywhere, wanting his mouth everywhere on her—back down between her legs, on her breasts, on her mouth, everywhere—so afraid she wouldn’t get enough of him.
His hands slid down to her shoulders, and he unclipped her cloak. The material pooled on the ground at her feet, followed by her dress. He smoothed one hand down her naked back and cupped her breast in the other, teasing her nipple with his thumb. Her breath caught on a wave of desire, and she grew still.
“Don’t stop,” he whispered, moving against her hand. “Don’t ever stop.”
&nbs
p; She stroked him again, varying her rhythm, and when she slid her hand all the way between his legs, a shudder ran through him.
“Lie down,” he said hoarsely, guiding her to the pallet and holding her hand as she sank into a pile of silky green blankets and pillows.
Morgan released her to finish stripping out of his clothes, and he watched her gaze drift down his body. She’d set him on fire with her boldness and her hot mouth, but he took his time removing his pants, letting her look her fill. He knew what he was, knew she’d seen most of him, but she’d not seen the scar running the length of his thigh, his legacy from the Holy Land and a Saracen’s butchering blade. He’d been cut deep before he’d been trampled by the soldier’s horse.
Yet it wasn’t pity he saw in her eyes, nor was it revulsion. Nay, ’twas desire, the same pure wanting he felt when he looked at her. She was all creamy skin and gentle curves against the foresty bedclothes, graceful curves that begged a man’s touch.
Settling in on the pallet, he drew a blanket over them and pulled her beneath him. Aye, he thought. This was what he’d wanted since he’d first laid eyes on her, to lie naked with her with nothing between them except skin and heat.
Gazing down at her, his phallus nested between her thighs, heavy and pulsing with need, her expression inviting, he’d never felt such love, such lust. The rain grew heavier, drenching the oak and forming rivulets of water across the forest floor, but the bower stayed dry. The wind arose, blowing in sweeping gusts around the tree.
Carefully, he pushed partway inside her, and his thought processes started shutting down in rapid succession, until there was only her and him and the place where they joined.
“Is this going to hurt you?” he murmured. He could go slow, he told himself, painstakingly slow, if it would keep her with him.
“Only if you stop.” She took his face in her hands and brought his mouth down to hers. “I am elfin, Morgan. There is no barrier to be breached.” Her kiss, when she gave it, was an enticement, asking him to come deeper. In truth, he could have done nothing else. He thrust into her silky softness and was lost.
Sweet Gods, she was a witch, hot and tight and so wondrously fitted to him. Buried inside her, he felt the truth of the Red Book more surely than ever before. She had been made for him. He withdrew partway and slid in again, deeper, and in response she sucked on his tongue, a delicate tugging that was nearly his undoing. He thrust again, and a verdant scent washed through him, dark and rich and unbelievably erotic, unlike anything he’d ever felt.
“Morgan, Morgan,” she whispered against his lips, then blew into his right ear. A flick of her tongue followed. When she did the same to his left ear, and the verdant eroticism seeped into him through his pores, he knew Tamisk’s daughter was weaving a spell. His skin was coming alive with it, bound by the green tendrils of desire she was conjuring with her delicate touches. She licked him from the middle of his chin to his mouth and lingered to kiss him, a soft, slow, thoroughly bewitching kiss. All resistance flowed out of him, resistance he hadn’t even known he’d harbored, as if he’d unconsciously held a portion of himself apart. Her witchery allowed no holding back. He hungered for her, every thrust of his body making him want her more.
Aye, she would have all of him.
With devoted concentration, she marked him with her breath and her tongue, the sides of his nose, both temples, weaving her web of enchantment, her body moving with his. Lastly, she pressed her lips to the center of his brow—with amazing results.
He went utterly still above her, his awareness drifting out from her kiss to the furthest reaches of his body, an extension of the green eroticism already playing through his senses, an awareness that went far beyond their sexual joining.
She was made of stardust. So was he. The same star from whence all the magic of earth had come, and earth was magic. From the lost oceans to the deep forests of the ancient past, there was naught but magic, a thin green line of it running like a ribbon through time... through her... through him.
He’d been from one corner of the galaxy to the other in the last ten years, and he’d tried a lot of wild things before settling on Carillion wine as his intoxication of choice—but he’d never felt anything like the priestess-princess’s lovespell. ’Twas a green ribbon of fire she was kindling in his body, binding him to her, making him crazy with wanting. His thrusting quickened, his phallus hot and hard and heavy, every inch of him sensitized by the feel of her around him.
“Avallyn,” he groaned, a rough whisper of her name, an invocation.
She wound a trail of sweet kisses down his face to his mouth, each soft pressing of her lips against his skin telling him he was loved. ’Twas an intoxication all its own, bringing him to the cusp of climax. Sheathing himself deep with a final thrust, he felt her first contraction, and his world came apart with a fierce jolt of pleasure. He jerked against her and felt the hot rush of his seed spilling out. He came again, groaning from deep in his chest and saw the green ribbon of time unfurl across his inner horizon, beckoning. Again and her climax washed into his, taking him over the edge into ecstasy.
Avallyn saw it, too; was there with him as wave after wave of the purest sensation rolled through her body. He filled her completely, stealing her breath, taking everything she had with the magic that was Morgan alone, taking her away. Aye, beyond the reach of the stars and the passing of ages, she and the Prince of Time had been meant for each other.
His arms came around her, holding her closer as the enchantment ran its course from high passion into a deep pool of contentment, leaving her limp with satisfaction and wondrously weary. Sighing, she stretched beneath him, and a soft laugh escaped her.
“What?” he asked, his voice low and husky in her ear, his hand coming up to caress her breast.
“You were worth waiting for, my most dread lord, the whole ten thousand years.”
Morgan grinned, her breathless confession making him grow hard all over again.
“Wench,” he called her, pressing into her again and bringing his mouth down to bite her neck.
’Twas a sweeter loving the second time, and in the long, quiet moments that followed, Morgan was suffused with peace. Avallyn’s breath was soft on his chest, her hair in silken disarray beneath his cheek. She sighed, and he pulled her closer, angling his head down to kiss her brow. She was not the death of him, but the life of him, even should he die in Kryscaven Crater. The truth was undeniable. He reached for her hand, and her fingers wrapped around his, warm and secure—and in that strange place, ten thousand years from the land of his birth, with enchantment all around, Morgan knew he’d finally come home.
Chapter 19
“Aye, and there ye be.” A familiar voice brought Morgan’s head around. He and Avallyn were sitting on the pallet inside the bower, sharing food and a cup of tea. She’d used rasca to soothe his dragonfire wounds and had found him a shirt and tunic out of Tamisk’s trunk. The shirt was russet brown, embroidered with thick swirls of silver thread, with the overtunic a rich shade of forest green. They were the same cut and colors of the Magia Lord’s own clothes, though larger, and Morgan couldn’t help but think that having him dressed in magician’s weeds had been part of Tamisk’s plan.
He smiled at Aja and rose to his feet.
“You look well rested,” he said. “Though damp.”
Aja quirked a brow at him. “And you look well lai—”
Morgan quelled him with a glance.
“Well... yes... very well yourself,” Aja finished, his grin belying every hastily substituted word. “I don’t suppose you know how I ended up thirty feet off the ground, asleep in the tree?”
“Tamisk,” Morgan told him.
Aja nodded, his grin giving nothing away, though his eyes darkened. “I warned you, milord, and pray you haven’t suffered in my absence, for ’tis well known that a man’s captain is his best protection.” The boy’s gaze moved over him, looking for signs of injury. When he saw the bandages wrapped around Morgan’s wrist
s, the white ends showing from beneath his sleeves, the boy’s grin faded. “You’ve been hurt.” He cast a suspicious glance in Avallyn’s direction.
“No more than necessary,” Morgan said, “as seems my lot. But you are well, so I’ll not complain.”
His lack of complaint did little to mollify the boy, whose expression grew grim, his green eyes meeting Morgan’s.
“I saw as much when I cast my bones on the Medain. This place is ripe with enchantment,” Aja warned, casting another quick glance at Avallyn, “None of it benign. There is power here, Morgan, awesome power. I felt it in my dreams, a fiery wave of it rushing over me, and then something unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, an energy so pure, it seemed to cut right through me. I fear the harm this power has done to you is as naught to what it can and will do, if we do not leave... even if... even if we have to take the princess with us.” He finished the last in a rush, the concession hard won by the look on his face—half resignation, half grimace.
“There was fire here,” Morgan admitted, hiding his own grin, not overly surprised by Aja’s prescience or his suspicion of Avallyn. The boy had lived in Pan-shei for ten years, long enough to know the dangers of women.
Aja nodded in agreement, though he didn’t look too pleased at being right.
“And there was fierceness,” Morgan continued, “but truly I am none the worse for being here, despite the wounds, and in your dream-filled sleep you have shed the burdens of the last months. You look nigh your age for the first time since Sonnpur-Dzon.”
“That was the beginning of it, wasn’t it, milord? The damn dragon,” the boy stated flatly.
“For you, aye,” Morgan said. “My path here started long ago.”
“But this isn’t the end of it. Riders approach even as we delay. I saw them from my perch through the west window.”
Morgan turned toward Avallyn.
“Sept Seill again,” she confirmed. “Tamisk said they would come at dusk.”
