by Mima
There was also a knife. It was curved, with a vicious pronged barb. The handle fit her hand perfectly, and she liked the weight of it—not too heavy and not too light. She flourished it, appreciating the simple golden cap set in the handle's end. It had a leather holder with a belt loop, embossed with a lizzeed. It was not a warclub, but she could grow used to it. She knew Vyur had left it.
On one chair was a flow of deep, dark red silk. There was a torn scrap of paper that read, “Freezha's dress. Pack it!!! (Your ideas helped LOTS!!!)” KarRa sighed with relief to think her friend had found a way to go forward, and then sighed with dread when she held the dress up. There were two loops of twisted gold and red cords that she took to be the shoulders. The rest just hung like a soft fall of blood all the way down to the floor. There seemed to be too much fabric between the straps, so that it did not hang flat. Even when she pulled them to their widest point, the neckline hung in rounded folds. She caught a glimmer and gathered the dress up to discover there were embroidered flames in thick golden thread. She couldn't make out where they'd fall on the dress—perhaps on the waist, or thigh. There was a cut in the dress up from the hem to the flames. Hmm. It was on purpose, because it had that even finish.
Rylan looked at the dress with awe. “Put it on,” he urged.
When she refused he continued to whine and cajole until she snapped, “Later!”
He sulked.
KarRa was touched that the first things into her trunk were Cro’s vase wrapped in Freezha’s dress. It seemed appropriate. In the treasure room KarRa thought of as Freezha’s, she took the bare minimum of clothes, still feeling insanely rich. Practical housing touches that were also beautiful thrilled her. When they came upon baby things, Rylan stroked her rigid nape gently.
“We’ll leave those. Let the future lie. We have time.” Eventually he distracted her with items in another room. She loved the beautiful colors they chose from among the blankets and pillows and rugs—silver grey, grass green, whispery blue, shimmery lavender. Her trunk full, they went on to Rylan's treasure room.
KarRa watched, confused as he studied and felt various wooden contraptions with wide bases, poles of varying heights, and a thick cross bar at the top. When he finally chose one he saw her puzzled look and said simply, “It's a perch. For me.” She blinked, opened her mouth, closed it, and nodded. The one he chose was knee high, the base an open weave of knotwork.
Finally they went to the serving hall. It looked odd empty of bodies. He let her choose the food, and they picnicked in the park. They sat facing each other with their legs entwined, and laughed as they fed each other, and played with their food.
Rylan often adjusted himself, and she would taunt “ooooo” every time. He paid her back by giving himself a firm stroke that caused her mouth to water. They talked of how they would use the things they'd chosen, how their room could be arranged, how rich and clean and safe this world was. KarRa was dizzy. She would live in safety, in beauty, with Rylan. She felt like she laughed for hours, feeling as if she could float away.
That night, they dozed in each other’s arms on his bed in the Owl caves. She awoke to his hips pressing, stroking against hers, heat and moisture throbbing between her women’s lips. He blinked slowly at her, his eyes focusing. His voice was hoarse. “I'll wait until tomorrow. One more night and we'll be together. All. Night. Long.”
KarRa took a quick breath. Her heart suddenly feeling too big for her body. “I love you.”
He nodded. “I'm lucky like that.” He rose, handed her a white silk object she hadn’t noticed in his clothes box and walked out.
She slowly unwrapped it after feeling it all about. It was a soft glove of black leather, with a long curl of extra thick stiff leather out the wrist with hooks down one side. It was plain down the middle, with embossed designs of feathers in a sweeping band on the end and on the back of the glove. Puzzled for a moment, KarRa held it up horizontally. Her breath caught when she realized what it was. An arm guard. For a person to use when providing a perch for a bird of prey. To keep Rylan's talons from puncturing and slicing her arm.
She tried it on. The glove fit snugly, the length going to just short of her elbow. The hooks had been designed to be easily done up with her free hand, and were hidden under the leather when it was closed. Leaving it on, she buried her face in Rylan's smell, and slept. She awoke in the early morning hours to see a blue flower on her pillow. KarRa swallowed on a suddenly dry throat. Her blood swirled urgently through her body. It wouldn’t be long now.
Utterly restless, she spent a satisfying hour completing her knifedances in her room. She took time with her bath, letting her fingers linger on her skin and hair, feeling as if her body was an incredible object of sensation. Memories of Rylan in the same pool, his arms outstretched and neck arched as he quickened made her breath hitch.
She tried to rest, but her legs twisted impatiently as she lay on the pallet. She called up Rylan's face in her mind’s eye, the high cheekbones, strong nose and chin, the flair of his tawny brows above his warm eyes, the bow of his wide lips.
She changed her focus to the image of the dawn coming up over the mountains, how the layers of hills were gradually pulled toward her from their initial dark silhouette, the clean air, the wide space of freedom rolling out as far as the eye could see, Rylan's warmth at her back and his strength holding her tight.
She recalled her legs wrapped around his waist as he held her in the warm water, the feeling of his mouth slanting hard across hers for the first time in this room, the feel of his knee rocking a rise out of her as she swallowed his rich bitter taste around the thick heat of him in her mouth.
KarRa let her hands drift over her body as she replayed her new, astonishing memories of Rylan in lust—for her. She restlessly opened her robe to feel the heat of her nipples with her rough fingertips.
An unbidden image came up of Rylan lying next to her on a threadbare pile of blankets on a dusty uneven floor, crooked wallboards gaping to reveal light from outside, arguing voices she hadn't even remembered coming from somewhere above. She was on her back, her knees raised and splayed, both hands working through her soft hairs at her wetness, and he was propped on one arm beside her.
She watched the play of his tan hand run over the taught skin of his darker cock. KarRa moaned softly as she copied the position of her memory.
His hand trailed up to his chest, where he pinched and pulled and twisted a small nipple on a sculpted chest. KarRa knew he wanted her to mirror him but she didn't, instead thrusting her folded fingers noisily through her folds.
Her other fingers danced lightly, pinching and tapping at her clit, and Rylan's gaze dropped from her face to her hands, the skin around his eyes tightening, his lips pulling back from his teeth.
Their tempo increased together until his fist was beating down against his taut stomach with thrumming rhythm, and her hips were off the ground with the force of her tightening core. Her eyes tracked a seep of thick white seed from his dark cock and that was all it took to drive her into rising.
KarRa let her legs sprawl down, her damp hands limp on her stomach as she recovered from the memory of shared passion with Rylan. She drew her robe tighter as her breath calmed. She knew what that cream tasted like now. She knew what the thickness felt like in her fist. His hands had held her open, and his mouth had known her clit. KarRylan. She listened for the hateful voice, the taunting. There was only peaceful silence.
Suddenly, a wild whispery growl echoed through her magebond. Come to me. She was startled to hear actual words. The need was so strong she couldn’t keep from pacing. She had to get to him, soon.
It wasn’t long before someone called out for her at the curtain. “Hello KarRa.”
“Xu!” She offered her wrist to him.
Mine-myskin-mine, howled a rough voice in her head.
“I needed your services the other day but managed without you!”
He grimaced. “I really must see you are trained in basic healing
soon.”
As they went off down the main hall together, KarRa’s body flushed with heat, moisture dripping down her thighs, her heart pounding. Where Is My Mate?! the cry was frustrated, growing unsteady. Xu stopped in front of the last door in this small hall. He turned to her and scanned her with his hands from crown to foot. She took off her boots.
“I'll see you soon, KarRa. Be at peace.”
He rolled the doorway open, announced, “KarRa” and she walked through.
She stopped. The room was full of smoke, seemingly denser than any in a tavern, yet fragrant and stirring instead of stifling. The magelight was low, set high toward the ceiling, leaving a sunken pit in the middle of the room in shadows. Grif was against the wall off to the left, in a brown robe. In a direct line across from him, at the edge of the pit, was Merk, his back slightly to her. Two other men formed a perfect triangle around the pit.
Her heart dropped with a nearly physical thud when she realized that Rylan was pacing the far wall in the shadows across from Grif, to her right, beyond Merk. From magelight to magelight took him two paces, then he'd turn and prowl back. Turn, prowl, turn. He didn't seem to know she'd entered. No one was looking at her. They were all staring at Rylan.
Uh oh, KarRa thought.
Finally, after several minutes, Rylan went to Grif, although he'd issued no order, and knelt on one knee at his side, both men breathing hard. After a long minute he opened his eyes and swung his head toward KarRa. He crawled on his hands and knees across the stone floor to stop at her feet, sitting back on his haunches. His eyes were reflecting green, his fingers unnaturally long.
Merk's voice called out “KarRa, promised of Rylan. Come forward to accept your soulmate.”
KarRa really couldn't move forward very much, as Rylan was perhaps an arm length away, so she dropped her robe from her shoulders and knelt before him. His hands were compulsively clawing at the stone in a way that made KarRa want to flinch in sympathy for his still human nails. He was already nude. She kept her eyes on his hands as the moment spun out and out.
He seemed to gather some control, closing his hands into fists. He moved forward and crawled behind her, and his hot breath washed from the back of her neck to where the globes of her ass were cradled against her heels. His tongue lashed out across that crease and she jumped.
Then he nudged the base of her spine with his nose. He did it again harder. He began to growl and head butted her shoulder so hard she had to put a hand out to stop her fall. Finally she understood when he nudged her ass again. He wanted her to go forward.
She crawled forward, feeling ridiculous and faintly unnerved at having him behind her until she came to the pit. She hesitated at the edge, looking up at the man across from her, but his eyes were staring straight ahead, unfocused. Rylan nipped her ass and she sat, swung her legs over the edge and hopped in, standing.
The mages called out, “KarRa accepts Rylan.”
The furs were deep and soft, shifting silkily under her feet. He crawled right down over the edge after her, rose up on his knees and buried his nose in her woman's nest, his hands gripping her thighs. She gasped at the sudden onslaught of extreme sensation.
All the mages spoke together, “The triangle protects.”
They raised their arms and green energy roared from palm to palm. KarRa jumped from the popping pressure in her ears, her hands going to Rylan's head as he continued to root in her scent.
Instantly, it was as if they were enclosed in a smaller, hotter room. His tongue was everywhere, firm, noisy in his joy at tasting her. She thought she caught a hum of pure contentment from him. She was surprised she wasn’t more self-conscious at the intimate position. Instead, a wave of inevitability washed over her. Rylan would soon be inside her. She throbbed at the quick, shallow probe of his tongue. She couldn’t wait for something thicker, deeper.
KarRa was now facing the door and looked up at Merk. She could see him staring straight ahead, but she could feel him in her mind, a warm, soothing, calming presence. He was like a shadow, always just out of reach when she tried to focus on him.
Suddenly, Rylan's hands fell to the back of KarRa's knees and he pulled hard. Her legs flew out from under her and she landed hard on her back, her head bouncing, her breath caught. He then reared back and scissored her legs with a forcible twist so that she was flipped face down. She smacked her arms under her to raise herself up, struggling for breath, when he grabbed the back of her neck, and lifted and pushed her forward until her upper body was lying on the main floor of the room. The stone was cold on her forearms doubled beneath her.
Gasping for breath, her neck smarting, she thought, I’m going to kick his ass! But as she looked over her shoulder to glare at Rylan, she heard Merk's voice hiss in her mind, Do not!
She whipped her head back around before her eyes connected with his to discover she was lying directly facing Grif. Rylan was again rooting between her legs, his hands clumsy as he pulled at her thighs, widening her stance. She was not tall enough for her knees to reach the furs with her hips and torso laid on the stone edge, so she had no choice but to hang there as his shoulders pushed her legs wide.
Merk’s voice ghosted, Feel. Rylan’s desperate need fired into her as quickly as if she were straw. She swung her hips, grinding into his face as he sought to grab her clit in his teeth. His breath was like an inferno that raged up into her core. He made rough sounds of want as his tongue seemed to unfurl inside her.
KarRa's eyes lifted and locked on Grif's. She was stunned at the intimacy of seeing only him in the smoky dim light, just a few paces away, while Rylan rolled his face in the wet heat between her legs. He looked as if he were facing an enemy, his face pulled tight in a snarl. His hands visibly trembled at his sides, shimmering. She had the sense he was handling a lot of power. His robe was tented with an erection. She unconsciously licked her lips as her gaze rested on it and she caught his groan.
Rylan rose up behind her abruptly. He slid one hand right up her spine to clamp around her neck, lifting her head more fully toward Grif, bowing her torso up as he pressed with his other hand down hard on her tailbone, pinning her hips in place. A huge, hot, blunt pressure shifted against her, then with a cry he rammed himself in.
She echoed his cry as she lost focus on Grif’s burning eyes. Her flesh parted as if cleaved. His abrupt presence inside her body felt alien. Suddenly KarRa flashed to a memory of a bowl of bruised and rotting fruit falling from a wooden table she was held to.
Then Merk's presence ghosted through and KarRa was feeling Rylan behind her on the mountain, bright light flaring in front of her with the rising sun. KarRa understood at once. Rylan was doing this on purpose. It was the exact position she'd been raped in. She would never remember that again. She'd remember this. Merk was directing her to their dawn. The image of a searing sun before her eyes ignited through her body to connect with Rylan’s heat, sending her into a sudden sweat.
Grif's red-gold eyes were glowing, the faint green striking in his tanned face as she refocused on his gaze. His lips were peeled back from his clenched teeth and his hips were rolling at the same pace as Rylan’s. Rylan was laid out along her length, his hand stroking the front of her throat now, his other hand pressing and curling into her ass as he pressed in, dragged himself slowly out, and burrowed in again. He'd growl every time he withdrew. “Kar … Ra…” he'd moan every time he pressed deep.
KarRa began to burn from the slick friction. Her woman’s cream coated her thighs, making her impossibly sensitive to the wet press of his hips against her ass. This was Rylan fucking her, marrying her, claiming her. Rylan, inside her at last. She began to use the fainter strength of her trapped forearms to push back against him, grunting with the impact of his hips. His hand on her back began to swirl up and down, over the faint curves of her hip and down the backs of her thighs.
His hand burrowed down between them suddenly, his legs shifting restlessly. Then there was soft, slightly furred pressure against her clit. Small roun
d globes shifted and rolled in her hood.
“Rylan!” She could only moan at the spiraling heat focused between them. He was pressing his balls up tight to her, grinding them against her with every forward drive.
He stroked deeper and harder, spiking her core. One instant she was rocking under the force of his strength, the next she was flame. She reached for Rylan on their magepath, but while she felt the shadow of the Owl, he was not yet ready to end the claiming and slid out of reach. Fire roared inside, and she flowed.
She came to awareness an eternity later, her head lying on its side, ear pressed into the rock. His fingers petted the curve of neck and shoulder with a faint rasp of sharp nails, his other fingers faintly scraping the curve of her ass. His cock was throbbing like a living club inside her, his mouth leaving soothing licks along her spine. She shivered. Her toes curled where they hung loose against fur.
Sensing her awareness, he reared up behind her and eased his length out. He gently pulled on her hips, and she fell limply back into the pit. He turned her around until she was upright on her knees facing Merk. Then he snuggled up behind her, his knees to the outside of her, and gathered her back into his arms, his hands plumping and pulling on her small sloping breasts, his fingers deliciously harsh on her firm nipples. His cock was a smooth wet spike, rocking faintly in the groove of her spine.
His breath was roaring in her ears, and his voice came out garbled in his throat, but she made out the word “taste” and he was suddenly sinking razors into the flesh above her collarbone, near the same spot he'd ripped open in their fight in the Dark.
