by P. C. Cast
I felt stunned. Sure, I had missed a period, but I hadn’t given it much thought. I’d chalked it up to stress. A new world in a different dimension where mythology lives. Becoming Goddess Incarnate. Battling demonic hordes. Stuff like that was bound to throw off anyone’s system a little, to say the least. I noticed that Carolan suddenly seemed in a big rush to leave.
“What’s your hurry?” I sounded on the verge of a crying jag, which, at least, now made sense. Hormones.
“Alanna will want to announce the wonderful news to the people. The celebration will continue all night!” I blanched and he laughed. “No, you will not be required to attend, but there will be many toasts to your health and the health of your child.” He turned to face me one last time before he opened the door. “Congratulation, Rhea. Let me be the first of many to wish your daughter health and happiness!”
I could hear him telling ClanFintan he could come in now as he rushed past my still worried-looking husband. The centaur approached me, folding his legs and settling fluidly to the floor by my side. His expression was grim as he studied what I realized must be my glazed, Barbie-exposed-to-math-word-problems expression.
“What is it, love? What has happened to you?”
“You!” A semi-hysterical giggle escaped from my lips.
His brow furrowed in concern. “I? I have injured you?”
I reached up and touched his cheek. “You haven’t injured me, you’ve impregnated me.”
He blinked twice, his expression blank. Then realization folded over his face.
“A child!” His deep voice resonated with joy. “We are to have a child?”
“Yes…” I knew I sounded reticent, but I had gone from tumor to baby in just a few heartbeats.
ClanFintan took my hands in his, kissing both my palms before leaning down and kissing me softly on my lips.
“Ugh.” I pulled away. “I taste like puke.”
“I do not care.”
“Well, I do.”
He pulled back and studied my face. “Rhea, are you not pleased?”
“I’m scared.” I blurted out before I took time to think.
His face softened and he pulled me into the warmth of his strong embrace. “Do not be afraid. Epona will always care for her own.”
I rested my cheek against the butter-soft leather of his vest and murmured my fear. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything, but, well, what am I going to have?”
He remained silent, and I bit my lip. I loved ClanFintan, and I didn’t want to cause him pain, but the facts were that he was part horse and he was the father of my child. I couldn’t help but be concerned about the meshing of our two gene pools—especially when I would be the one giving birth—in a world without C-sections or epidurals.
“She will have your form, Rhea.”
“And what will she have of yours?” I whispered into his chest.
He paused for just a moment, then quietly said, “My heart. She will have my heart.”
My arms tightened around him while my eyes filled. “Then she will have everything.”
His warm lips briefly pressed against the top of my head. Then he shifted his hold on me so that he had me scooped up in his arms. Rising to his feet in one fluid motion he started toward the door.
“Oh, please don’t make me go back there with all that food and all those people.” I futilely tried to wipe at speckles that clung to my soggy dress.
“No, I am taking you to your bathing chamber. Tonight I will care for you, and our daughter.” He beamed down at me as he shouldered our way through the door and turned down my private hall in the direction of my bathing room.
The temple guards leaped out of his way, saluting me and calling, “Blessings on you and your child, Lady Rhiannon!” as they opened the door to the steamy chamber for us.
For a world that didn’t have TV or the Internet, it never failed to surprise me how fast news could travel.
I grinned mischievously at them over ClanFintan’s shoulder and winked. “Thanks, guys!” I didn’t “know” my guards (yes, I do mean in the biblical sense) as the original Lady Rhiannon had, but I did appreciate them.
“Do not encourage them.” ClanFintan chided good-naturedly.
“Soon I’ll be too fat and pregnant to get a second look from them.”
“Humph,” he commented eloquently as he deposited me near the edge of the deep pool.
One of the many benefits of being Goddess Incarnate was that a veritable plethora of overenthusiastic maidens considered it an honor, as well as a duty, to keep me in the lap of ancient luxury. Which meant I had all the best wine, food, clothes, jewels, horses, warriors…on and on, but no television, telephones, computers or cars. In return I had to care for the spiritual health of Epona’s people: conduct ceremonies (albeit bare-breasted, which took some getting used to, especially as the weather had begun turning cold), serve as figurehead, you know, do whatever it was my Goddess asked of me to the best of my ex-high school English teacher abilities.
I was pretty sure I’d gotten the best part of the deal, which included having an opulent bathing chamber that was perpetually kept in a state of ready-for-me-to-use.
“Let me help you with that.” ClanFintan’s deft fingers took over for my pukey ones, which were struggling upside down to unclasp my diamond-encrusted brooch.
“New brooch?” he asked as he studied the mini replica of himself.
“Yes, today is the first time I’ve worn it. Do you like it?”
“I like that it rests near your breast.”
“Talk like that, if I recall correctly, is how I got into this condition.” I swatted at him playfully.
“I have suspected your old world wasn’t as, shall we say, knowledgeable as our world, and if you think talking impregnated you, then we should—”
“Oaf!” I swatted at him again, causing the once-lovely, now-crusty fabric of my bodice to slide down, exposing the very bosom to which he had been referring. I watched his expression change as he reached one hand out to gently cup my breast.
“You already appear changed. Your breasts are more full, more welcoming.” His voice was hypnotic as he framed my rib cage with both of his hands, softly caressing the sides of my weighty breasts with his palms.
Even after being married to him for half of a year, the heat of his body still had the ability to surprise me. A centaur’s natural body temperature is several degrees higher than a human’s body. ClanFintan’s touch was always erotically warm, and, although I knew it was simply the state of his physiology, his heat worked on me like an aphrodisiac.
I shivered in anticipation, pleased the queasy feeling in my stomach had subsided.
“You are chilled…” His sensuous touch was replaced by a matter-of-fact unwinding of the rest of my soiled dress. “Start soaking,” he ordered.
“Not very romantic,” I muttered, trying to bend seductively and slip out of my teeny thong, but he had already turned toward the shelf near my vanity and was searching, opening bottles and sniffing.
“The vanilla-almond one is in the gold-colored bottle.” I called to him over my shoulder as I lowered myself slowly into the clear, bubbling mineral water, and made my way to my favorite rock ledge.
ClanFintan turned back with a triumphant smile, golden bottle in his hands. “I like the scent of this one.”
“I know you do—that’s why I use it.” We grinned at each other.
His hooves clicked on the marble floor as he approached the edge directly across from where I was submerged. In one swift movement, he divested himself of his leather vest, and placed it and the bottle of perfumed soap on the floor.
“Do I need to remind you that you must not speak?”
“Oh!” I blinked in surprise. “No, but, I, uh, didn’t—”
“Shh…” He put a finger to his lips.
I closed my mouth, preparing myself for what I knew would come next—the Change. As a High Shaman, ClanFintan had the extraordinary ability to shapesh
ift from his centaur form. I didn’t think it would ever stop amazing me. I watched in awe as his concentration turned within, and I felt a shiver of bittersweet desire. We could only mate as husband and wife if he Changed, thus the fluttering of passion I felt as his chant began. But the Change did not come without cost. He could only maintain a different shape for a temporary amount of time, approximately eight hours, and he was never truly comfortable in any form but his centaur shape. The shapeshifting itself caused him terrible pain, and after he shifted back into his centaur form it left him in a weakened state for hours.
Every time he called the Change so that he could shift into human form, he proclaimed the depth of his love and commitment to me.
His chanting was becoming louder, and I could distinctly hear the magic in the Gaelic-sounding words ClanFintan’s velvet voice spoke over and over again. He began lifting both arms, until they were directly over his head, which was flung back. His long hair fell free down his human back, which did nothing to obscure his tensed, quivering muscles. Then it seemed that his skin had begun to sparkle and shimmer, as if he was being beamed through a Star Trek transporter. His glowing skin rippled, like it was about to liquefy. I knew I should close my eyes and protect them from the blast of light that would come next, but I couldn’t pull my gaze from my husband’s face. It was set in a grimace of agony. Light burst from him, making my eyes blink and tear even though I closed them in response to the explosion of silver-white brilliance.
I could hear his harsh breathing in the quiet darkness that always seemed so complete after the light of his transformation.
“ClanFintan?” I couldn’t help the edge of fear in my voice. It wasn’t that I was afraid of his magic, or of his Change. I was afraid of what it cost him, scared that someday he would not recover from the pain.
“I have—” his voice was raspy as he struggled to regain his breath “—told you not to worry so.”
I rubbed my eyes, trying to blink away the sunspots that kept me from seeing him.
“I know, but I hate how much it hurts you.”
“It is a price I will never regret paying.”
My vision cleared and I could see that he was still on his knees, where the Change had caused him to collapse. With one hand he raked his hair out of his sweat-streaked face, with the other he pushed himself slowly up into a standing position. He stood still for a moment, and I knew he was gathering his energy and accustoming himself to this much smaller, less powerful human shape.
Not that he was a small man (in any sense of the word). Actually, he was a beautifully proportioned human male. He was tall and well muscled, and he retained the breadth of shoulder and chest that was so impressive in his true body. His human hips were sleek; his ass and legs were tight and well shaped. As was everything else that protruded from his very naked body. And he did appear quite happy to see me, if you know what I mean.
He raised an eyebrow at me, reminding me of a randy, naked Spock (imagine that!). “Is everything—” he glanced down at his body “—where it should be?”
I felt my breath catch in shock. “You mean things can get moved around when you Change?”
“Of course not.” His laughter reassured me, as did the strong, confident way he began striding toward the edge of the pool. “I was simply—how do you put it—messing at you.” He attempted to mimic my Oklahoma drawl with his deep, lyrical voice.
“It’s messing with, not at, you silly thing.” I flicked some water at him while he bent to pick up the bottle of soap. Then, using the stone steps that led down into the water, he joined me. “And you know I’ve been trying to get rid of my Okie accent.” Thankfully, one of the many things being Epona’s Beloved entitled me to was the ability to be eccentric without having the populace question me. Partholon had simply gotten used to the weird way I talked. I’d even heard some servants whispering, “It is more of Epona’s touch,” after I’d y’all-ed and yep-ed them one too many times.
“Do not lose your accent. I like the long, lazy way you can make words sound.”
“Anythin’ for you, darlin’,” I twanged. And I was serious. A month was a long time, and I was really glad he was home. (And doubly pleased that my stomach had quieted enough for me to contemplate doing more than puking.)
“Good.” He reached past me and plucked a thick sponge that was resting close to the edge of the pool. He poured a generous amount of thick soap onto it before setting the bottle back on the floor. “Then what I would like you to do for me is to relax and let me care for you.” He paused and his eyes slid down to where the water obscured, but did not conceal, my reclining body. “Both of you.”
His words brought back the reality of my “condition,” which effectively silenced me. I numbly let him begin soaping up my shoulders with a slow, circular motion, while I contemplated the fact that I was carrying another life within my body.
ClanFintan stayed silent, letting me think as he brought the soapy sponge down one of my arms, being careful to wash all of the crusty, leftover rice from my hands. Then he followed the same path down my other arm. His touch was soothing, and I felt my numbness dissolve with the last vestiges of the rice. Gently, he slid the slick sponge around my neck and lower, until its softness brushed my sensitized nipples.
“Tell me if I do anything that you find uncomfortable.”
“Everything you’re doing is just fine.” I sounded out of breath.
“Good. Then I will continue.” The sponge followed a path down to my thigh, calf and foot, where he set it aside briefly so that he could massage the bottom of my foot. The heat and strength of his touch made me groan with pleasure. “I have not forgotten how much you love having your feet rubbed.” He exchanged one foot for the other, and continued his soothing ministrations.
“Thank you, Goddess,” I whispered, meaning every syllable of it. There are few things a teacher loves more than a great foot rub (a pay raise, perhaps, but a foot rub is easier to come by—at least it is in Oklahoma).
Too soon he picked up the sponge and lathered his way back up my other leg. By the time he reached my shoulders again I was feeling excessively clean for a woman who was having such dirty thoughts.
Pulling myself up from a reclining to a sitting position, I watched as his eyes caressed my wet, soapy breasts.
“You are a beautiful woman.”
“And squeaky clean.” I let my body slide forward until my legs were straddling his lap. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I rubbed my breasts against the seductive heat of his chest, loving how my nipples puckered against his skin. “Alanna better watch out. You make one heck of a bathing assistant.”
He replied by devouring my mouth with his, pulling me hard against him. My hands explored the curve of his back and hips, and I felt pleasure thrill through my body at the wonderful textures of his muscles. His familiar taste flooded my senses, and my body felt so hot and wet I couldn’t tell where I ended and where he began.
“I’ve missed you so much, my love.” His voice was rough with lust, and the sound of it had desire tugging hot and heavy low in my stomach.
“How could I have forgotten about your heat?” I moaned, and nipped his shoulder.
“Ah, Goddess! I should be gentle with you, but I—”
“Don’t be gentle. I promise I won’t break.”
With a growl of raw desire his hands cupped my butt. He lifted me and in one smooth motion, plunged himself inside me. I met his thrust with my own. I clung to him, sucking and nipping at his tongue. We came together like we were starved for each other, like the month apart had been a lifetime. Our tempo escalated quickly, and before either of us could think about math problems or taxes my orgasm built and exploded as I felt his release pumping heat into me.
Still breathing hard, ClanFintan traded places with me, pulling me onto his lap as he reclined upon my ledge. We clung to each other, allowing our bodies to remember how well we fit together.
“I meant for that to happen after I had bathed, dried and
returned you to our marshmallow.” I felt his chest vibrate as he spoke.
“I love the way you say marshmallow. You make it sound like it’s a magic carpet, something special and mysterious.”
“It is special and mysterious to me.” He reached down and tapped the end of my nose with his finger. “I have never seen a real marshmallow.”
“I should try and figure out a recipe so that I could explain how to make one to the pastry cook. It would be fun to roast them over an open fire.”
His eyes widened in shock. “It would certainly take an enormous fire.”
“An eatable marshmallow is smaller than my fist. It’s just our mattress that’s huge.” I started to giggle, but I interrupted myself with a rather large and embarrassing belch right into his face. “Oops!” I covered my mouth with my hand. “Sorry, I didn’t—”
And I belched again.
“Your stomach?” His concern made me feel somewhat less humiliated.
“I think maybe I should dry off and drink some more of that tea Alanna’s been pouring into me.” I was feeling a little queasy again.
He easily pulled himself out of the pool, then reached down and lifted me out beside him. We padded wetly over to a pile of thick towels and he began vigorously drying me.
“Hey! You’re rubbing off skin!” I squeaked, and grabbed the towel from him.
“I thought you might be chilled out of the water.”
“I’m fine, really. You just dry yourself.” I was suddenly feeling kind of touchy, like my skin was too sensitive to allow any handling. Hormones were certainly strange things.
“The Change will dry me.” His smile said he understood my shift in mood, and that he wasn’t offended. I just hoped his patience would last the rest of the nine months. Who knew what else my body was going to do to me?
“Thanks, I—”
“Shh,” I hadn’t noticed that he had taken several steps from me, and had begun muttering the words that called the Change to him.
I closed my mouth before the “I’m sorry” could escape. Shading my eyes with the end of my towel, I watched as he retransformed. The Change back to his centaur form always seemed to happen more quickly than when he shifted into the alien shape of a human male. His skin glittered and rippled. This time I pressed my eyes closed before the starburst of color. When the light against my closed lids disappeared, I knew it was safe to look (and to talk).
