She gave him a slow smile. “Yes, even farther if I wish. I may have the longest teleportation range of anyone.”
He inclined his head. “I believe it.” Then he scowled. “But why did you respond? I didn’t want you to.”
She rolled a shoulder. “Being proactive instead of reactive. I can teleport us to a pavilion on the rim of the Great Labyrinth, beyond the hotel, but not too far from it, and you can use your Flair to see who wishes to ambush us.”
“That’s a plan.” Vinni contacted Duon mentally, surprising the man at the Guard station, and related the unusual scry to Avellana, informing him of their plans.
Duon protested, and worry zoomed to Vinni through their link, but he cut the telepathic connection. He turned his attention to the summer day, the sunshine, the great feeling of being with his love. “It’s a pretty day.”
Her lips trembled, and then she nodded. “The weather is beautiful and the city not too hot.”
Holding out his hand, he said, “All right, we will go together; I’ll give you a little boost and we can easily go the distance to the rim pavilion near the hotel.”
She put her hand in his. “I love the Great Labyrinth. Every time I am in Druida, I take a quick trip to walk it.”
“I know.”
“The meditative path is an excellent journey. I like a walking meditation that can lead to trance and spirituality. I also like how huge the place is, and the crater . . .”
Vinni slanted her a look; she rarely babbled. Perhaps they shouldn’t—
But the world around him disappeared for an instant and they alit on the teleportation pad in the corner of an open gazebo.
“I especially like that so many Noble Families have claimed spaces to show the nature of the character of their Family . . . shrines, like yours with the wine and cheese and your wind chimes . . .” She turned, angled her chin. “There is the hotel. They have added a wing since I last came—”
Vinni turned, took the couple of paces to the large opening in the pavilion where he could see the teleportation pad outside the hotel . . . set in a garden. As he raised his Flair to cast a magnifying spell, a man stepped from behind a tree trunk . . . and a door to the hotel opened and three men shot out.
Air around the first guy wavered. He vanished.
Vinni wondered if Winterberry, Primross, and Duon actually saw him before the traitor teleported away.
“Oh, dear!” Avellana hopped from the pad and took Vinni’s hand.
“They screwed up,” Vinni bit off, sent the same mentally to Duon to pass on to his cohorts. Asked him if they’d identified the man.
All three turned toward the pavilion and bowed in Vinni’s and Avellana’s direction.
We are sorry. We thought to be here before you and GreatMistrys Hazel arrived. No, we did not see the culprit.
A lower rumble came to Vinni’s mind: Captain Winterberry. My fault. I was too eager to finally finish this business and get the fanatic behind those attacks on children earlier this year. A sigh. I’ve been behind a desk too long and still didn’t set a good strategy. For what it’s worth, your Chief of Guards would have let you handle the matter, but—
Another low tone: Garrett Primross. T’Vine, you’re not a guard. Not a professional fighter or investigator.
No. Avellana’s mental tone came cold and precise. Muin is a FirstFamily GreatLord who knows how to organize people and delegate tasks. She let all their minds hum in silence. I have never seen him burst through a door with two other people.
Screwed up, Primross acknowledged.
Avellana stepped up to Vinni and took his hand, then continued the telepathic conversation. Muin is angry . . . and I am . . . upset. We will go to the Ash World Tree at the bottom of the labyrinth now.
An instant later, they’d arrived, the hotel and guards far above them, out of sight from the bottom of the crater.
Vinni felt the other men teleport away.
After a long sigh, Avellana said, “What terrible events this morning.” A waft of spring flowers came from her clothes, and Vinni understood the spell on the garments whisked away her perspiration. She took a couple of steps to lean back against the great Ash tree in the center of the labyrinth, pressed her hands against her eyes, and said, “I will remember that death too long. And how he hated me.”
“He didn’t know you.”
“No,” she whispered. “He did not. We met no more than three times. He listened to calumnies about me.”
Removing her hands from her face, revealing a downturned mouth, she paced the grassy area to the beginning of the path up toward the rim of the Great Labyrinth bowl.
They’d have to walk out, since a natural phenomenon allowed people to teleport into the bowl, usually setting them in the middle at the bottom near the Ash World Tree, but people couldn’t teleport out. You had to walk the winding labyrinth to leave.
Spending a couple of septhours along a meditative path with Avellana would be no hardship.
Avellana’s emotions roiled too much for her to even breathe correctly before walking the spiraling trail out of the crater. She turned away from the start of the path, instead she paced around the Ash tree. The back of her neck warmed, spreading streamers of heat into her head, a sure sign her brain misfired. She put her hands on her head and tears flowed from her eyes and down her face, carrying away some of the wretched heat but embarrassing her, too.
Then Muin held her in his arms, making soothing noises.
She tore herself away. She had thought with all she had experienced, all the interactions with others, her meditations, her whole brain had mended.
“Only to be expected—” Muin began.
Fury spewed from her in choppy words. “I hate it! I hate not being normal. I hate that I tried to fly and fell. I hate—”
Then Muin wrapped her in his arms, but his warmth felt different, human and loving. Not medical and impersonal like the Healers two septhours ago.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice rougher than she had ever heard it. He touched her chin to urge her to look at him, puffy red teary face and all. “Don’t ever say that. Your accident saved me. Saved my sanity.”
“What!”
“I cannot see actions regarding myself, my future. And many, many times the future of every single individual is in flux, a river I swim in—a storm—” He cut himself off. “But you, when you took that fall of yours, it was—” In an oddly helpless gesture he lifted his hands and let them fall. “It was—is—was—a single huge beacon, a set point in all the chaos of time. At times you might have thought you were my puppet, but you’re my anchor. Without you, I am adrift.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I never thought.”
“I never said.” He smiled at her until she could smile back, until she took a softleaf from her sleeve and mopped up her face, doing a tiny cleansing and enhancement spell while the cloth hid her from Muin.
He took her softleaf, said a couplet to clean it, and dropped it back into her sleeve pocket. Then his fingers went to her head, massaged her scalp, and sent altogether different tingles circulating through her cells. His long, strong fingers trailed down to her neck and kneaded, releasing knotted muscle strands, and she whimpered in pure relief.
She wrapped her arms around him and wept, releasing more stress of the day. Threats, danger, violent death, stupid mistakes . . . and nothing totally settled.
She closed her eyes and rested against him, listening to the rapid thud of his heart, feeling the solidity of him, the controlled emotions through their bond.
After a few moments she stepped away from him. She let out one last, great sigh trapped within her, glanced around the bowl of the labyrinth. “It is quiet here, special with you. I do not see anyone near us right now.”
Muin scanned the place. “Link with me and extend your senses.”
She did, an
d they spent minutes sifting through the flourishing plant life and the various shrine offerings to pilgrims.
He said, “It’s a weekday morning, people are at work, no one is updating their shrine, and no one traversing the labyrinth mindfully will reach us for at least a septhour.”
So she embraced him again, felt his body against hers.
His hardening shaft.
That pleased and thrilled her. Her mouth against his wide and muscular chest, she said, “Do you wish to make love, Muin?”
Thirty-eight
Vinni stilled . . . and went stiff, including his sex. They’d only made love physically three times. Too damn few.
His heart sped up and he concentrated on evening out his ragged breathing. Then he took a pace away from her, and she let him.
They had spoken of this, their next time coming together, physically. He heard the rush of his own blood. He couldn’t think—much. Scrabbled for his last few rational thoughts.
He raised his hands, palm out, and she placed hers against his. Flesh to flesh, nerve endings quivering, emotions cycling between them, soon to be overcome by the sheer physicality of sex. Palm to palm and gaze locked with hers, he whispered, “We are betrothed. If we make love and HeartBond, we will be wed.”
Her steady blue stare did not waver. “I know. What do you think, Muin?”
“I think that I could never walk away from you, especially not here and now. You will be D’Vine.”
“I have known that all my life. I am ready.”
“Despite the dangers.”
“I want you, Muin.”
He could not fight her desire as well as his own.
“I love you, Muin. I will love no one else. We can take turns being strong,” she said softly.
He yanked viciously at his control. Set bonds . . . not to dampen sex, just to . . . blunt his desire a little, so he would do this, this HeartBonding right.
“Clothes off,” he murmured. Still holding her hands, he took a step back, widening their arms so he could see her. “You are more beautiful every day. I love you more every day.” He saw the pulse throb in her throat, felt his own blood surge.
He wanted to pounce, closed his eyes, experienced this day, this moment. Her sweet fragrance rose around him, mixed with that of flowers, grasses, herbs. His mind spun.
He could feel sunlight as it dappled his body, heat here, cooler there.
And Lord and Lady, he thought he would break apart.
At the edge of his inner vision, he saw a golden coil of the HeartBond.
His sex thickened.
“Muin,” she whispered, and he shuddered at the sound of his name on her lips, the syllable ladened with sultry anticipation—giving voice to the lusty desire throbbing between them, spiraling high.
He opened his eyes, saw her dilated blue eyes, the flush pinkening her cheeks, her tight deep-pink nipples.
And sensed her body was ready for him, wet and hot.
Control, control, control.
He freed his hands and trailed one up the smoothness of her arm, his palm tingling, until his fingers curved around her upper arm. He placed the other around her waist, began to lower them to the thick grass with muscle and Flair.
She put her arms around his neck, her glance meeting his, her plush lips slightly parted, ready for his kiss. Completely pliant in his arms.
Completely open and vulnerable.
Completely his.
And she confirmed that, saying, “I have never wanted anyone else. Never. Only you.”
I have never wanted anyone else. Only you, he replied mentally. And plunged into her.
Her caught breath, the bliss that poured from her had him stilling to try to appreciate being with her, finally.
• • •
Avellana cherished the feel of Muin solidly within her, completing her. Muin pushed hair away from her face, and the tenderness of the gesture moved her, as did the softness of his blue-gray eyes that also held a dazed joy that stopped her breath.
His body had appeared so much more muscular and sexy than he had when they had met in dreams, and now he covered her, she felt the difference and reveled in it.
“Muin, my HeartMate.”
He groaned and began to move, and though she had wanted to say more, she could not; words escaped as sensations blew through her.
At the edges of her vision she saw the glowing rope of the HeartBond, but Muin thrust again and again into her, caressing her sheath until all she knew was throbbing need, spiraling passion, sweaty desire to reach the ultimate climax with him. Physicality drowned other needs. The scent of him, musky with sex perspiration, overwhelmed her until she needed to taste him, and she tucked up against him, her lower body rocking, put her mouth near his shoulder, and tasted the essence of him.
Honey lemon. Lemony honey. The contradiction that was Muin. Her love. Her HeartMate.
And as she reached her peak, she opened her eyes, stared into his. Another shock seized her as she saw the blue, blue of his eyes, a shade she had never seen before.
So open to her, his feelings, and she felt his basic, crucial need for her, and her alone.
All that was him, his fundamental self-soul-mind-spirit, washed into her, then receded like the tide as she clutched him closer.
He kept nothing from her and even as she hit her next climax and he shuddered and their eyes met, she let her own soul-self-mind-spirit ocean stream into him, felt him cherish that feeling, let it return to her with his own.
Tears ran down her face as she threw back her head and shrieked her pleasure, experienced his as he shouted his release.
• • •
Vinni rolled off Avellana a long while later, feeling hulled out from sheer passion. Too long. Too damn long since they’d made love in person.
Should have wed years ago, forget about his fears, the plague, his dread.
He stared at the Ash leaves flickering overhead from a breeze that cooled his heated skin.
She giggled. Avellana giggled. Vinni lifted himself to one elbow and looked down at her.
“What?”
“We are not HeartBonded,” she said, amusement lilting her voice.
A frisson of shock skittered along his nerves. “What?”
She stretched her arms and her breasts moved fluidly and his mind hazed.
Caressing his face, she said, “Pay attention, Muin.”
He swallowed. Now her nipples had tightened because of the cool air or something. His shaft, which had never quite gone limp, because, you know, first time in years he’d made love with Avellana in person, hardened again.
With her nails curved, she drew her fingers lightly down his cheek. He jerked at the fabulous sensation.
“Becoming HeartBonded is a conscious decision and action. I saw the golden bond but did not send it to you because I wanted you inside me so much.”
“Uhn.”
“So though we intended to HeartBond, we didn’t.”
He blinked, then dragged his mind back to the meaning of her words. Stare locked on her, he fumbled for the bond between them, huge and what he would have called golden before he’d seen the HeartBond so clearly. This link didn’t appear sparkling metallic.
With effort, he averted his eyes from her nude body, focused on the labyrinth around them, still didn’t sense anyone so close as to be an interruption any time soon.
Breathe better. In. Out. In, hold a little, out, hold some more.
“You’re right, we didn’t HeartBond.”
She nodded, and the movement sent a burst of fragrance of crushed grass and ground cover with tiny flowers to his nostrils. He’d never forget this moment, would only need to recall the scent to bring it back during his entire life.
Grinning, he said, “We can proceed more slowly.”
Her head tilted as if, she,
too, checked on those walking the labyrinth, then she smiled and her other hand trailed down his chest and closed around him. “Yes.”
And they did; he kissed her from her hairline, down her face, taking little nips along the way, on her neck, the curve of her shoulder. Using his tongue and kissing more, her nipple and breast so wondrous in his mouth, the slight curve of her belly, the rich taste between her thighs.
She returned the favor, pushing him aside, straddling him, using hands and lips on him until passion ruled all.
Then she took him inside her and rose and fell on his body, matching glance with glance, thrust with thrust.
The HeartBond. Her telepathic whisper caressed him, every cell, every droplet of blood. She closed her eyes and he did, too.
And there the HeartBond glittered. Not stationary, but rippling, swirling, dancing.
Take my HeartBond.
They’d said it together.
And the glittering gold twined them close, close, and they rose to climax together, inescapably merged forever. And shattered in exultant release.
Vinni’s vision took some time to come back, all his senses. He’d exploded throughout space and time with Avellana, then they’d re-formed. Individual, but bonded.
The first thing he saw was her serious face . . . yet with a difference, a knowledge, a . . . wholeness? Like he felt whole?
“HeartMate,” he said. Then acknowledged her new title and status to the world and himself. “D’Vine.”
“HeartMate,” she returned, leaned down and kissed him. “My HeartMate. My beloved Muin.” She rolled off him. “I will let you recover. I am glad you opened yourself so to me. I treasure you.” Her breasts rose and fell with a deep breath. “Now I will dress and let my mind rest.”
So he subsided into the thick grass, his body loose, his HeartBond with Avellana still vibrating, his thoughts circled back to how to protect her—them—and another past memory coalesced from vagueness. He recalled the Loyalty Oath ceremony when he was thirteen.
This time sitting in the formal carved chair reserved for the Lord or Lady and used in the most solemn of ceremonies. Still too big for him, but not so huge that he refused to sit in it. He could perch on the edge and have his feet on the floor.
Heart Sight Page 37
