This was much more than an attempt at casting aside her loneliness. She couldn’t put a name to it, but the kissing was very, very right and good.
When Sian took his mouth from hers, she sighed and began to hitch her nightgown up. Again, he grabbed her wrist and put a stop to her efforts.
“Why are you in such a rush?” he asked.
She could barely catch her breath after that kiss, but she managed to say, “I’m trying to help.”
He lowered his head and kissed her throat. “Do not help,” he rumbled against her skin. “From this moment on, you do nothing unless I instruct you. Understood?”
“Understood.” She melted into the mattress and enjoyed the way his mouth felt on her throat, the way his tongue teased. Deep in her belly she felt a stirring that was new and full of promise.
Ariana wanted to realize the beauty her mother had promised, and deep inside she knew Sian was the man to show her what she had missed. She wasn’t sure why. Perhaps what had happened while Diella had been in control of her body had set something into motion that could not be easily ended. Perhaps she simply felt safe with Sian. They already shared more than one secret, after all. What was one more?
Soon she dismissed all her wondering about why, and lost herself in the physical sensations he elicited.
Sian spent a few wonderful moments kissing the skin beneath her ear. Ariana found herself winding her fingers through his hair and pulling him closer. Tighter. She did not feel the touch of his mouth only on her skin, but experienced a rush of longing and pleasure throughout her body.
Tonight her mind worked differently, it seemed, or else did not work at all. She hadn’t realized that he’d worked the buttons of her nightgown until his hand slipped inside to caress her breasts. She lurched at the unexpected sensation of his palm brushing against her nipple. That sensation shot through her, filling her. Enticing her.
It seemed that she was racing toward something unknown, but Sian was in no rush. He did not race. He was amazingly languid, as if they had all the time in the world for this. As if nothing else mattered. She enjoyed believing that to be true, even if the illusion didn’t last.
He was so incredibly warm. That heat radiated out and infused her with a shared warmth that was unlike anything she had ever known. Two long fingers tweaked her nipple, and before her gasp was complete, his mouth was there, sucking, drawing her in.
Everything else went away. Ariana closed her eyes and was lost in wonder and a growing hunger. She no longer questioned any movement Sian made. She was his, at least for this moment. Her body was his. Her body and her mind were his to mold.
Sian finally removed her nightgown. He did not lift the hem to her waist, which was all she had expected and all that was necessary, but gently drew the nightgown across her hips, up her torso, and over her head, disposing of it with a flick of his wrist. There was no wizard’s light to illuminate them, but she saw Sian well enough. He studied her as he touched and caressed. He liked what he saw.
She had felt a moment of shyness when she’d first broached the subject of making love, but there was no shyness within her now. He could look upon her naked to his heart’s desire, and she would not mind. She felt different. Alive, in an entirely new way.
She felt like a woman.
“Now can I touch you?” she whispered.
“If you wish.”
She unfastened the buttons of his shirt and drew the garment over his head. She’d already felt the muscles which were revealed, but the sight of them was still quite lovely. He did not have the body of a man who spent hours poring over old papers and moving objects magically. There was no fat here, no sign that he was on occasion sedentary. He was lean without being thin, muscled without being burly. Perfect. He was absolutely perfect.
Her hands traced those muscles, and then brushed against his small, hard nipples. She lowered her head and tasted him there, brushing her tongue across his flat nipples and tasting the salt and maleness of his skin.
Unfastening his trousers was more of an effort, but she managed, and he was patient with her. It was not necessary that she do more than free his erection, but she wanted him to be as naked as she was. She wanted nothing in this bed but their bodies when they came together.
When his clothing was shed, she took a moment to study him, as he had studied her. She cupped and teased him, she stroked while she kissed the curve where neck became shoulder. And as she did so, Sian slipped his hand between her legs and stroked her, his thumb finding the nub at her entrance and teasing it with small, circular strokes.
Her hips began to move, as if they danced. Her eyes drifted closed, and she felt nothing but Sian. Nothing else mattered, but this.
It was beautiful. It was primal and powerful and good.
She was on the edge of something powerful when he took his hand away. A small sound of frustration escaped from her throat, but Sian did not allow her to remain frustrated for very long. He shifted his body and hers, and then his head was between her legs, and... oh, my, his tongue took the place of his talented hands, and the wonder escalated.
She wanted to hold him, but had to clutch at the sheets instead. Her body swayed to meet his mouth, and when he slipped a finger into her trembling warmth she was swept into a firestorm of release. Her body jerked and trembled, and the climax she had only dreamed of whipped through her body. She cried out, and clutched the sheet even harder with her hands, as if she needed purchase to remain earthbound.
Slowly, languidly, she returned to herself. Her body seemed momentarily worthless. Drained and heavy and wonderfully warm.
Now would come the less pleasant part of the act. If memory served, it would not take long. She remembered the actual experience of having a man inside her as being uncomfortable and unnatural, but somehow, at this extraordinary moment, she thought it might not be so with Sian.
Instead of driving into her, he kissed her inner thigh, then rose up to kiss her still-trembling belly. She threaded her fingers through his hair. He had wonderful hair, long and silky and black as night.
“Satisfied?” he asked, his mouth against her skin.
“Yes,” Ariana sighed, unable to speak plainly. She could feel her heart pounding, and her breath had not returned to normal. “Very.”
And yet, she still felt alone, in a way she had not expected. Sian held her. He had brought her to unexpected heights of pleasure. She suspected that until he was inside her, a real and true part of her, she would continue to feel an aching emptiness.
Unexpectedly, he rolled away from her and left the bed. “Where are you going?” she asked, rising up onto her elbows.
“Back to my room.” Sian reached for his discarded clothes.
They weren’t finished. She knew Sian wanted her, at least physically. He was wonderfully erect, and even though she had just experienced a flood of release, she wanted him.
She wanted him.
“Why? Why are you returning to your room now?”
He stood by the side of the bed, apparently unconcerned that he was naked and aroused. There was visible tension throughout his entire body. She saw that tension in the set of his mouth, the tautness of his muscles, the trembling of his hands.
“Do you wish to conceive a child on this night?”
“No, but it’s unlikely that I would conceive.” After all, she’d not gotten pregnant in the two weeks when she’d imagined herself in love with Pryam. One night was surely not too much of a risk.
“Unlikely and impossible are very far apart, Ariana.”
“But—”
“It’s a chance I won’t take.”
Fine. He wasn’t going to stay. He’d done as she’d asked, in a way, and now he was done with her. No, he was too aroused to be truly done with her, but still, he was leaving.
Sian dressed quickly, bowed to her with a new and formal crispness, and then he left the room. He did not slam the door, but closed it almost gently. The lock fastened itself, bidden by a magical hand on the o
ther side of the doorway.
Ariana huddled naked beneath the coverlet. Somehow, she felt more alone than she had before she’d awakened to find Sian in her room. The warmth he had brought to her bed was gone. She felt his touch everywhere, on her skin and deep inside, and still the loneliness was acute.
She heard the scuff of a shoe outside her doorway, and then another. A mild curse, barely audible, followed, and then there was a gentle thunk at her door. In the dark, Ariana smiled. The enchanter had not returned to his room. He was standing guard at her doorway.
Maybe she was not completely alone after all.
Chapter Eight
“Magic is nothing more than the manipulation of energies,” Sian said crisply. One hand rested casually on Ariana’s shoulder. “As you already have the advantage of being able to see energy better than most, when aided by my touch, this should be simple.” His voice grew cold. “Apparently it is not.”
Ariana glared at him. She’d been trying all morning to move a small bowl they had placed upon the long table which sported the inlaid map of Columbyana. In the beginning he had hoped to see her move the bowl from one end of the table to the other. At the moment, he would be satisfied with a twitch.
“Perhaps that which comes easily to you is not as simple as you believe,” she said, her voice tired and terse.
“Am I asking too much of you?” he asked sharply. “Is the task of moving a small, lightweight object too difficult?” He should not take his frustration out on her. After all, it was not her fault that he hurt. It was not her fault that he’d passed three nights without sleep and had been hard most of that time. It was not her fault that the simple contact of his hand to her shoulder was maddening. Oh, wait. It was her fault. “I shudder to think that the fate of this world rests in the hands of a girl who cannot learn the simplest lesson...”
Ariana snapped her hand, and the bowl spun off the table and through the air. Toward his head. He deflected the crockery with his free hand, and it clattered to the floor. One piece chipped off the rim and rolled away, landing against the edge of the rug.
His pupil was surprised. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, raising one hand to her mouth in horror. “I didn’t mean...”
“Do not apologize. You are an empath, after all. It makes sense that your abilities are tied to your emotions. This is a valuable lesson, one we must take to heart.”
She turned to him and he withdrew his fingers from her shoulder. “Did the bowl hurt your hand when you deflected it? It did, didn’t it?”
“No,” Sian answered crisply. “My hand is fine.”
“Let me see,” she insisted.
“That’s not...” Before he could say “necessary,” Ariana had taken his hand in hers and was intently studying the small red mark there.
“It might bruise. I can make a poultice that will—”
“I do not need a poultice,” Sian said, taking his hand from hers with some force. “You must stop worrying yourself over every small injury in your path. What will you do when soldiers fall around you? What will you do when you are surrounded by the blood of your comrades, and the fighting continues? You cannot turn your back on an enemy to mourn the dead or see to the wounded. If you are distracted, if you let your need to care for others blind you, then you will die.”
He wanted to rile her, to make her understand what she was up against. Instead of taking the bait, she sighed. “You have been in a foul mood these past few days.”
Was it any wonder? “I have been my usual cheerful self,” he argued.
She smiled widely at that claim. “I am no fool, Sian. I know why you are uneasy. We did not finish what we started.”
He took her chin in his hand and stared into her eyes. Was Diella gone? Sleeping? Or here?
Ariana sighed. “I know what you’re thinking when you look at me that way. Can Diella talk of beauty and love and pleasure in the same breath, or does she only speak of her physical desires? Can Diella speak of her family with warmth of heart and unending love, or is her every thought centered on her own self?”
“I know what you’re attempting to do, Ariana,” he said. “It won’t work.”
She cocked her head, appearing to be truly confused. “What am I trying to do?”
“You wouldn’t be the first woman to attempt to bind a man to her through sex. And the very possibility of creating a child... you know no man would send the woman bearing his son or daughter into battle, and if he had no choice, he would not allow her to go alone. It is still my intention to return home when your training is done. You will not change my mind in this way or any other.”
Not that he hadn’t already realized that leaving her to her calling would be extremely difficult.
“I’m not trying to trick you, Sian, and like you, I do not relish the idea of creating a child and then running off to war not knowing what the future will bring.”
“Then why do you torture me?”
Though she might not intend it, having her stand this close was torture.
“I feel time slipping away from me,” Ariana said gently. “I have so much to learn, and I know that even if I spent years as your student, I would not be proficient enough to face what I have been chosen to face. We don’t have years. I’m afraid I won’t ever see my family again. Duran, yes, but I suspect I will be gone before my sister Sibyl arrives, and my parents and other siblings are so far away, and... and you are all I have. No one else understands what awaits me. No one else, Sian. So if I wish for a particularly close togetherness in the time we have remaining, does that make me a scheming woman intent on tricking you?”
“Of course not, but...”
Ariana reached into her pocket and withdrew a small vial. “I am a healer and an herbalist. Do you think I do not know how to make sure I won’t conceive a child?”
The erection that had grown the moment she’d touched his hand responded by growing harder and throbbing slightly. “You have taken this formula?”
Ariana smiled. “It is not for me, enchanter. It is for you.”
***
Duran was a fine soldier, and when he learned that she would be leaving here with an army, he would insist on being beside her. No, he would insist on being in front of her, protecting her from all she was meant to fight.
And he would die.
Ariana didn’t know what was intended for her beyond the coming battle, but she could and would protect those she loved most from the war that was meant to be hers.
It was late in the afternoon when she found the opportunity to call on the emperor. She had turned some of his care over to other, less talented healers, and they followed her instructions. They would continue to offer care until Sibyl arrived. On this day the emperor’s health was no worse, and no better. He always seemed to be slipping away, fading into nothingness. It was for that reason that she and Sian had chosen not to tell him that the monster she was going to fight was his son. The news would destroy him.
When she was finished with her examination and the administering of some potent herbs, Ariana stood before the emperor and adopted a subservient pose. Hands clasped, head bowed, she curtseyed gently.
“My lord, I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Anything.”
No one but the emperor, Sian, and she knew of the prophesy and what was to come. There was no other way. No one beyond those necessary could know until the time of battle was upon them.
“I suspect I will likely be leaving the palace in a matter of days. A week or two, perhaps. No more. The enchanter has not suggested to me the date of departure, but I feel it is impending.”
Arik nodded his head once.
“I do not want my brother Duran with me.”
The emperor’s eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise. “Duran Varden is a fine soldier, one of the best. Why do you wish to leave him behind?”
“If he goes with me, he will be determined to protect me. I know Duran, my lord. He will throw himself between me and whatever comes my way,
and he will die. This is not his calling, it is mine.”
“How do you propose leaving him behind when the time comes?”
Ariana drew a folded sheet of paper from her pocket. “I have penned this letter to my cousin Lyr, explaining what I know of the prophesy and our part in it. It’s my intention to head toward the Anwyn mountains and speak to Keelia personally, which leaves no time for traveling to Tryfyn. In my letter I ask Lyr to meet us there.
“The letter must be closed with your seal, one Duran would not dare to break. By the time he delivers the letter, I will be well on my way to the Mountains of the North.”
“Sian approves this plan?”
“The enchanter does not know of this letter, or of my plans to travel directly to the mountains.”
“But...”
“He is my teacher, and a fine one,” Ariana interrupted. “But the war to come is mine, is it not?”
“Yes, it is,” Arik answered calmly as he took the letter from her hands.
“Then some of the decisions must be mine as well.”
Arik agreed with her, and she left him resting, still clutching her letter in his aging hands. She was not surprised to find Sian waiting for her in the hallway. He was still concerned that Diella might rise to the surface again. Ariana believed that the dark spirit of the evil empress was gone, had been gone since the moment she had told the demon to get out of her ocean, but Sian was not convinced.
“How is he?” Sian asked, distant and cool for the sentinels who stood nearby and listened closely.
“The same.” They walked away from the emperor’s quarters, side by side, Sian’s pace shortened to match Ariana’s.
“His care must be left in the hands of others. You must learn to delegate.”
“Delegate, not abandon,” she argued. She could tell Sian of the letter, she supposed, but as he did not intend to leave the palace with her when the time came, the knowledge was not necessary. He said she was to be a leader. A general, of sorts. It was best that she start to act like one, rather than asking her teacher for constant advice and approval.
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