“Gold?”
She disappeared into another room and came back with a small bottle and a narrow paintbrush. She held the bottle up and shook it for him, and he saw glittering flakes of gold suspended in the liquid.
“This paint has real gold in it,” she said. “I use it for detailing some of my crafts.”
“Intriguing,” he said. “I suppose you could apply a mortal equivalent of the harvest symbols. The ancient symbols in their original form are forbidden for humans.” He pulled today’s tight knit shirt over his head, suppressing a smile when her eyes again widened.
“Time erodes quickly,” he said. “We should begin now.”
They took the wheat outside, where Feillor stood with his back to the chosen bundle, his hands at his sides and palms facing the wheat. He guided Salina to select six long wheat stalks.
“Good,” he said. “Now wrap three around each wrist three times. The ends are then woven in and out around the tall wheat bundle, binding me to it.”
“And then the painting comes after that?”
“Indeed.”
She set to work, and while her weaving lacked the complex, intricate pattern of the acolytes he admired her focus and solemnity. He uttered the prayers of binding while she bound him. “Shah do ram a Lammas. Shai granuma nola andre.”
He felt the caress of warm air whenever Salina crossed in front of him, and he inhaled her scent with each pass. Feillor fell into a rhythm with his chant, sending him into another state of being as he felt the bond between god and grain forge. Perhaps Salina sensed it as well, for her movements hastened even as Feillor’s chanting grew louder, faster. When her motions ceased, he stopped chanting, his consciousness floating along in tune with nature, the circle of god, grain, earth, and sky fused as one entity.
He snapped out of his trance with a gasp, however, when the soft lick of Salina’s paintbrush crested his skin. She had begun the painting, sweeping the gold over his chest. He had not yet advised her on what to paint, and when he opened her eyes, he saw her lips moving with unspoken words while her attention was riveted to her work. She appeared to be in an altered state herself, her smoldering eyes slightly glazed. After a moment’s hesitation, he allowed her freedom to paint what she willed onto his body. Time and again she dipped the brush, loading it with paint, and swirled it up, down, and around his chest and abdomen. The sensations from that soft touch stirred him, each sweep sending jolts of pleasure down to his groin. He found himself digging his fingers into the bundle of grain Salina had bound him against, stifling a groan when her brush skimmed across his nipples, or lower along the waistband of the hip-hugging jeans that were again growing tighter. He closed his eyes in an attempt to shut out the seductive torture, though it was of little use.
“The god and his grain are one,” she announced after a pause. His eyes snapped open to find her standing back, admiring her work. Her gaze found his. “Blessed be the harvest,” she added.
He glanced down to see what she had painted. A large pentagram, with the points spreading over his entire torso, was ringed by a circle—the wheel of the year, perhaps, showcasing the endless cycle of harvest. Within each point of the star was a small object: a goblet, a blade, the sun, a seedling, and the earth. In the belly of the star was painted two connected symbols, male and female. She had captured each element of the harvest ritual without having been told how to do so.
It seemed that whenever Feillor thought Salina could no longer surprise him, she did something new and utterly intriguing.
“Is it okay?” she asked. “I just kind of went with my instincts.”
“They served you well,” he said. “Most acceptable.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Now that I have you painted and restrained, what do I do next?”
His throat dried. “You may release me,” he said, instantly banishing thoughts of her releasing something other than his hands. “Then the threshing may begin.”
As she helped him through an awkward, yet effective enough process of threshing and winnowing the sacred wheat, he was amazed at her quick thinking and ingenuity. A broom handle allowed him to beat loose the wheat grains, and she held a hair drying device at a distance to aid him in blowing off the chaff. More chanting and prayer accompanied each stage of the process, but in between, they engaged in conversation—and the only subject she was interested in was the Lammas ritual.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, tossing a braid over her shoulder while they each worked with palm-sized stones to grind down kernels of grain. “Every year, you marry the harvest, bless a sacred loaf to bring to earth, and offer it to some random woman along with your...body?”
“I told you my ritual was not like any you’ve done for Lammas.”
“And I stand corrected. I don’t generally walk up to strangers with a basket of muffins as a symbol of offering them my, well, muffin. Not even for the fertility rites of Beltane.”
A twitch in his cock accompanied the image of her doing just that, but he did his best to ignore the rising need in his body. Such male urges were a response to him performing the traditional rituals, and his need would grow more insistent with each stage of the process. A little fact of his godly calling that Salina didn’t need to hear about. All in all, however, he was pleased with the way things were going. The preparations, while not in ideal conditions, were taking place more or less on schedule. And Salina had taken his description of the Lammas ritual quite in stride. He was relieved that she knew the truth. Why had he been so reluctant to tell her in the first place?
“And when it’s over,” she said, “you use your powers to make them forget you were here.” She stopped grinding. “Will you do that to me when you leave? Make me forget about you?”
“Do you desire me to?”
She eyed him. “No. You can trust me, you know. As a pagan, I mean. I won’t freak out about having seen a horned god.”
“Then I shall leave your memory intact.”
“Promise? The idea of having my mind manipulated that way makes me uncomfortable.”
“I will not alter your memory.” He tapped the rock against his hand, letting newly ground bits of flour fall off. “I think we have enough. The other ingredients are ready?”
“On the table. And I preheated the oven.”
More prayers followed while he mixed the dough in a large, ceramic bowl that Salina had made herself, which pleased him. A sacred starter, blessed and ancient, was normally used to raise the dough, but in lieu of this, Salina provided him with a yeast cake. After the dough had risen, he turned it out on the dining room table.
“Isn’t it embarrassing to roam around the planet asking women to sleep with you?” Salina asked, plucking bits of wheat chaff from her braid.
“It is a sacred calling,” he said, punching the dough down. “Why would that embarrass me?”
“What if they say no?” She cocked her head and eyed him up and down. “Do any of them say no?”
“Their participation is by their own free will, of course. If they do not accept, they are made to forget the offer and I will find another.”
“Does that happen often?”
He shrugged. “One year, I approached five separate women who were unwilling to partake of the ritual. The sixth finally acquiesced.”
“Five? Five?” She tipped her head back and let out a hearty laugh.
Feillor pursed his lips. “What is so funny about that?”
“You must have the absolute worst luck of any god alive if you, looking the way you do, managed to find five women in a row who didn’t jump at the chance to, uh, eat your loaf.”
“I am inclined to agree with you about my luck, considering I am stuck here before my sabbat.” He gave her a mock scowl. “Although you find far too much humor in what is meant to be a solemn, sacred ritual.”
“What’s the good in having sex if you can’t smile and enjoy it?”
“I do not generally laugh during sex.”
“T
hat’s a shame. I like to have fun in bed.”
He stopped working the dough. “Is that a challenge?”
He shouldn’t have said it, really. It just slipped out. A dull throbbing had been growing in his loins all afternoon. Yes, there was the fact that the sabbat was almost upon him. But he knew his desire was even hotter than normal because he’d been foolish enough to kiss Salina and fondle parts of her that his body refused to forget.
Her gaze jumped up from the braid she’d been playing with. “I thought you have to stay celibate?”
He searched her startled expression. “And I fully intend to.”
“Ah. I get it. You’re just being a big tease.” She nodded toward the dough. “Mind if I help a little with this part? I like kneading dough. It’s cathartic to the soul.”
He stood aside while she dusted her hands with flour, then folded the dough and pressed it down. Her hands were deft, but they lacked the strength of a large god who worked sacred dough as a matter of duty. After watching her make it through a few folds and turns, he spoke up. “Lift the dough higher from the table between folds. Slap it down to work more air in.”
“I have baked bread before, you know,” she said, blowing hair out of her face.
“And I am god of the harvest, handfasted to the grain itself.”
“Fair enough. My apologies.”
He moved in to stand behind her, putting his arms around her to guide her hands. “Like this. Good. Now pull the dough out farther before folding it over.”
Their hands moved together, stretching the elastic dough, the sticky, still gooey substance squeezing between their fingers. The smell of the yeast, the nearness of her warm body, and the act of creating the dough together stirred him, and his already restless dick grew hard enough to ache. He heard her breathing change, growing deeper, harder, and they no longer spoke, both of them focusing on the sensual process of transforming hard, unyielding grain into a supple, life-giving force.
Salina relaxed against him, her back pressing to his chest while they worked, and his erection throbbed in torment when her round ass brushed it. Soon, he had to admit that their motions had gone far beyond the act of kneading dough. They were enforcing a seductive will on it, shaping it together into a phallic length, then pulling it back, pressing inward until it resembled a woman’s cleft, and then plunging into that orifice with their palms before starting over again.
He couldn’t shake the image of laying Salina down on that table and driving himself deep inside her. Every kneading motion tortured him until he wanted to cry out, and then she nearly unhinged him by grinding her bottom against his dick. With a groan, he pushed his hips forward, dying for release, wishing time would speed forward to the ritual, and that she could be the one to accept the first harvest from the god of the sabbat.
There was no reason she could not be the one, other than she had laughed at the idea of him asking to break bread and share his body. That reaction was hardly encouraging. But oh, there were things he could do that would wipe that teasing smile off her face. He imagined eating the bread with her, silencing her with his lips as they joined together, their naked bodies rejoicing in another season of bounty that would see them through the coming winter. They would give thanks for the bread as well as the communion of male and female, thrusting together until his seed erupted. The first spurts of his fluid would be spilled on the earth, as an offering and a symbol of the wish for another season of fertile soil. Then he would plunge back inside and release the rest against her womb—his god seed bearing the promise of a new and different sort of harvest. Unlike his father, his act of release had never caused conception. The sabbat gods were a special breed, not procreating during their sacred rituals because they were under powerful enchantments of exclusion. This magic, a sort of immortal prophylactic, kept the god seed spilled during sabbat rituals from taking root. Only a powerful enough counterforce could overcome such an enchantment, and neither the gods’ casual acceptance of their partner nor the human woman’s momentary surrender provided the necessary energy to achieve it.
Salina raised one of her arms, stroking his face with bits of flour and dough stuck to her fingers. She turned and raised her face to him, and her beauty was too much to stand. He kissed her, feeling his heart pound in the hollow of his throat. She shivered and slipped her tongue between his lips, sweet and hot and enough to send him to insanity. Wetness seeped from the tip of his aching erection, a warning that he was taking things too far, that he might fail in his goal of a pure release on the sabbat.
“Salina,” he said against her mouth. “We have to stop this.”
“And yet we’re not,” she said, rubbing harder against him. “Why aren’t we?”
He swore under his breath and let go of the dough, instead working her zipper down and pushing his fingers inside her panties. She shuddered and sagged against him, and he circled her with his other arm, holding her steady and squeezing her breast while he found her cleft and slipped his fingers along her wet pussy. She was hot and ready, and he groaned while he traced her slit, plunging inside the depths he wanted explore with his cock. She offered him her tongue again, and he took it greedily, sucking its pink length, making her squirm and moan and quiver in his arms.
He plunged his fingers deeper, coating them with her juices, pulling back to rub her wetness over her hard clit, then starting over again. Her nipple was long and straining against his other hand, and he pulled and twisted it between his thumb and forefinger.
“Oh god,” she said, stiffening up. “Don’t stop, Feillor. Harder. I’m coming.”
She pressed one hand against his, holding him tighter against her crotch while she ground on it and made hot, feral sounds that almost undid him. She whipped around, pushing him back against the refrigerator, and thrust her tongue deep while she dry humped his hard shaft, finishing herself off with a wild fury.
“I wish I hadn’t made you wear these jeans,” she said, holding onto his hips as the last few shudders of orgasm took her. “The loin cloth would have been a lot more convenient.”
It would have indeed, and he thanked the gods that she had made him change his attire. If she hadn’t, if his bare cock had touched any part of her, there would have been no hope of him controlling himself. Never in a thousand years had he been so desperate to break his celibacy early, forget the ritual and bury himself in a woman ahead of schedule. And a human woman at that. But then, Salina was no mere human. She was a witch, an enchantress who had laid claim to something dangerous inside of him. Something he would have to be careful not to let consume his very will.
“My answer is yes, by the way,” she said, finally relaxing and pulling away from him.
He tried to move, but the pressure on his cock from his jeans was too intense. One wrong twist or turn and his balls might erupt. “The answer to what?” he asked in a hoarse tone.
“I’ll break bread with you. You’ve got yourself a sabbat partner.”
May all the gods grant him strength. His cock pulsed in long, rhythmic jerking motions, and it took everything he had not to bend her over the sacred dough right then. He clenched his fists to stop them from reaching out and grabbing her.
Suddenly, Salina’s expression changed, and she cleared her throat and wiped her hands on a nearby towel. “I think I’ll just leave you to finish the sacred bread and go get cleaned up,” she said.
“That would probably be wise.”
As she retreated to the bathroom, Feillor took deep breaths and chanted calming words. He tried closing his eyes, but all he could see was Salina, naked and ripe while she laid herself down in the fields of Avinar. There, he would mount her until he spilled his seed and made her scream.
“Gods, Salina,” he murmured, splashing cool water on his face from the sink. “What have you done to me?”
He opened his eyes and forced himself to focus on finishing the loaf while he chanted, praying his overzealous libido and lack of concentration would not affect the sacred bread.
***
What had she done?
Salina scrubbed bits of dough from her hands as well as from between her legs. Why did she lose all self-control, not to mention self-respect, whenever she was around Feillor? It was as if he could reach down inside her and grab hold of something primal, a mating imperative that turned her into a writhing, begging animal. And he hadn’t even been trying! Feillor had told her of his sworn duty to remain celibate, and yet she hadn’t stopped when he’d tried to extricate himself. She’d ground on him shamelessly, unable to show the slightest bit of decency. She’d done lust spells for women before, heard their stories when they’d thanked her afterward. She’d never put one on herself, though, but even if she had, she knew that what she had just experienced with Feillor was a force beyond reason or magic.
“It’s because he’s supernatural,” she said, using a sea sponge and some of her homemade orange blossom body wash in an attempt to scrub away his effect. “He’s a god. He engages in sex rituals as part of his job description. No wonder you feel an attraction to him. It doesn’t help that he’s hung like a breeding stallion.”
Normally, Salina was frugal and conscientious when it came to water use. Today, however, she stayed in way too long, probably letting half the mountain’s supply swirl down the drain while she tried to find balance. Grounding and meditation didn’t help. Prayer didn’t help. Especially not prayer. Who was she supposed to ask for aid in resisting the urge to knock Feillor down and straddle his long dick? His father?
When she finally shut off the shower, emerging into a cloud of trapped steam, she felt no steadier than when she’d run away to avoid what she’d done. Gods, the look he’d given her when she was finished attacking him. She couldn’t tell whether he’d been genuinely frightened or repulsed by her brazen dry fuck. She cringed while she toweled herself off.
Feillor: God of Lammas (Sons of Herne, #6) Page 7
