Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (48 page)

She counted close to a hundred below, two
packs. Half would leave. There was little cover on the trail, and
mayhaps she and Mychael could take out a goodly number of the
remaining pack with his bow. They had the advantage of the higher
ground.

But what of the next skraelpack? And the
next? They could not fight all the way to the Rastaban trailhead,
the only certain path out of the caverns that she remembered from
her studies with Wei, and so help her, she would not be captured
again. If they did fight, ’twould be to the death. She would die by
the blade, not over the flames or between Slott’s jaws.

“Llynya?” She turned to face Mychael, and he
reached out to caress her cheek. “You’re crying.”

’Twas true. She tried to brush the evidence
away, but he stayed her hand by clasping it with his own. His grip
was warm, too warm, but strong, backed by an arm banded in the iron
stars that had saved her from Ratskin—proof enough of his next
words.

“I will fight to my last breath to keep you
safe.” His vow was intent, but no more so than his gaze when she
met his eyes. Dragonfire flickered in their depths, amber rings of
lambent flame ignited by the blood of his line.

He was the Dragon. The scar running up the
side of his neck burned with the stirring of Ddrei Goch’s fiery
breath. But his body, for all its sinewy strength and layers of
hard muscle over even harder bone, was no dragon’s body, and she
feared it could not survive the fierceness of the beast.

“If they come, you quickety-split.” His hand
tightened on hers, adding force to his words. “They’ll not catch
you, not skraelings. Make their heads spin with how fast you
are.”

“Nay, I’ll not leave you.”

“You did at Bala Bredd.” ’Twas no accusation,
but a statement to aid his cause. Foolish boy, she would be twice
damned if he died in her place.

“Aye, and for the same reason I left you that
morn, I’ll not leave you now.”

His brow furrowed in a silent question.

“Love,” she answered him, sliding her hand
around his neck and drawing him near. “For love I left you, and for
love I’ll stay.”

Confused, Mychael nonetheless welcomed her
kiss. Weary, he let her bear him down into the stone hollow, let
the soft weight of her be a blessed relief.
Love
. She spoke
of love and he was filled with it. His arms slipped around her, his
hands tracing the curves of her body. He’d never known such
delicacy, nor such strength as she had, so female, all softness and
giving but for the sharp edge of her need. Her hands were in his
hair, holding him for all the kisses she would bestow. She slung
her leg over his hips, pressing into him, and he was instantly
aroused.

Taking his pleasure, he opened his mouth over
hers and drew her tongue inside, a deep pull and release, reminding
him of their night at Bala Bredd. To his amazement, she gave him
the memory back double, finding him beneath his tunic and braies,
her hand closing around his phallus to stroke him in a rhythm that
matched his slow, sucking kiss.

Shadana
... He arched against the soft
curve of her palm and filled her hand.

“Mate with me,” she murmured, and the words
swept through him like tinder fire, fast and hot, and as seductive
as her touch.

’Twas insanity itself, what she wanted, but
the stroking of her hand was irresistible. Every caress teased him
to distraction and pleased him beyond reason. Soon, he promised
himself, soon he would set her aside. Until then, he only prayed
that nothing came upon them from out of the dark.

As if she’d read his mind, she glided her
hand over and around him once more, stopping at the head of his
shaft.

“Mate with me,” she said again, taking him
farther over the edge by smoothing her finger across the tip of his
glans.

Witch
. She’d not done that at Bala
Bredd.

She retraced her path, and reason fled. He
would have her as she had him. He would know her again as he’d
known her on the shores of the mist-bound lake.

He loosened her braies and slid his hand
inside, his fingers finding the sweet, soft flower of her desire.
She’d shown him how to pleasure her, whispered to him of what she
would have him do, how to move and where to touch. The thrill of it
was still wondrously new, that she was his to touch, to slide his
fingers into; that with a gentle rubbing he could fill his world
with the scent of her arousal and have her as needy as he.

She gasped his name, and skraelings were
forgotten along with danger and any semblance of common sense. Only
the uncommon senses remained acute: the hot, silky wetness that
welcomed his touch, the intensifying redolence of flowers that told
him of her readiness, the primal need to join his body to hers.

He removed her braies and, guided by her
hand, pushed into her. A groan escaped him, released in a flood of
exquisite sensation. Truly, only God could have created an act of
such intense gratification that to move inside a woman’s body was
to take a man into divine madness.

He thrust upward, and a verdant scent flowed
over him, a scent beyond the smell of even the deepest forests.
Dark and rich and green, it wound around him in intoxicating
tendrils of pleasure, like an extension of her touch. A warning
sounded somewhere in the back of his mind, but went unheeded, for
the urge to continue to move with her was far more powerful than
the caution to resist. ’Twas a need, like breath.

He pushed up again, holding her to him with
his hands on her hips, arching against her, and for an achingly
sweet moment he wondered if in truth some new madness had found him
in the act of love. The verdant scent spilled into his mouth in a
rush of greenness, washing through him. It pumped into his veins,
cooling his blood, but not the heat of wanting her. He tried to
resist, but she wouldn’t accept resistance.

“Shh, shh,” she crooned, lowering her mouth
to the side of his head. She blew softly into his right ear and
nipped his lobe, then did the same to his left ear, marking him
each time with her breath and a quick flick of her tongue. She
licked him from the middle of his chin to his mouth and then
lingered to kiss him deep. He thrust upward with his hips, rooting
himself to her as her tongue explored his mouth and sucked on his.
The taste of lavender suffused his senses.

Christe
. ’Twas not madness, but some
bewitchment she spun to consume him.

“Come, Mychael. Come with me,” she
whispered.

He gave in with a groan of pure delight. She
was binding him not with ivy, but with her enchantments. The
resistance flowed out of him as he fell willingly into her spell.
Whatever she would have of him, he would give, the green
sorceress.

She continued her journey with her tongue,
marking him on either side of his nose, on each temple, mapping his
face with honeyed moisture and her breath. Lastly, she kissed him
in the center of his brow.

His awareness heightened and spread outward
from where her breath blew against his skin, outward to every part
of his body, to the tips of his fingers and toes, as if his climax
would start there and implode. ’Twould be the death of him, sweet
demise.

“
Jesu,
” he murmured, praying to
another God even as he was saved by the god of
Her
.

He came into her again and found life,
coursing, growing—her life, female to the core, taking him in and
transforming him, making him into
Her
image. This was the
magic she worked in the womb of the earth, that he would be reborn
in an act of lust and love. His body was rigid with the need to
climax, to release his seed in a rush of fierce pleasure, to be the
dragon taking the mate that was his.

But if he was the dragon, she was the
dragonmaster. She held him suspended, though he felt the quivering
readiness of her body. She held him suspended over the abyss of
final release, until he feared madness would truly come.

Then, moving down to his mouth and taking him
with a soft, slow, wet, deep kiss, she let him fall.

He jerked against her, his breath stolen.
Again, and the rush surged through him anew. Again, and he saw the
edge of his consciousness meld into hers along a thin green line.
Her pleasure washed into his all along the line, a great wave that
picked him up and dragged him under, taking everything he had.

Llynya broke the kiss and watched his face as
he climaxed, absorbing every beautiful, stark line. He was hers,
bound by ecstasy, a willing thrall to her enchantment. A smile
curved her lips. Aye, the Druid boy was hers, and with the surety
of the knowledge, she gave herself over to his enchantment.

Mychael awoke to a soft rain of kisses. He
felt as if he’d slept for days, a long and dreamless sleep.

“ ’Tis time to leave,” her voice said next to
him.
Her
.

A smile broke across his face, and he took
her in his arms, rolling her over and bearing her down as he’d been
borne. She glowed beneath him, her dreamy smile echoing his own
blessed state.

“Don’t ever,” he said between soft kisses
pressed to her lips, “do that to me again without warning me
first.”

Her answer was another smile, then she
reached up and drew her finger down the middle of his face to the
tip of his nose, traced the curve of his eyebrow, temple, and cheek
to his chin, and lastly, smoothed her thumb across his lips from
one side to the other, telling him what he already knew—
you...
are... mine
.

“Aye, sprite.” He kissed her again. “I am
thine.”

Delectable female, he was hers aright. The
taste of her was still in his mouth, the greenness still soothing
him. Whether to bind or heal had been her intent, she’d done both.
His vow to her was no less binding. To his last breath, he would
fight that she might live. How many skraelings had already fallen
under his knife? Yet with her beside him, he’d not become the
ravening beast he’d feared. Not yet, but neither were they
safe.

She had everything packed and ready to go,
making him wonder if she’d gotten any sleep. If not, she was no
worse for the wear. Indeed, she set a stronger pace than they had
taken before.

Working their way back from the ledge, into
the corridors and tunnels behind them, they searched the labyrinth
for hours, switching off the lead. No skraelings came to light in
the passages, but neither did a way up into Riverwood.

So what was it to be? he asked himself. Back
to the Wall to fight the skraelings or the salamander?

Llynya had cooled the dragonfire in him with
her tea and her verdant loving, but the power of it was still
skittering beneath his skin. Would it come forth if they needed it?
he wondered. And a fine twist-about that was—for him to be looking
for his nightmare.

He had let it overtake him in Dripshank Well.
For the first time, he’d willingly given himself over to the
licking-flames that ran along his scars. The heat had not been less
because of it. He’d felt the wild blood all but roaring in his
veins, but with acceptance there had been no delirium. He had used
the dragonfire, instead of letting it use him, and aye, he’d left a
river of blood in his wake. But he’d freed Llynya, and he would
kill a thousand times more to do the same.

So what was it to be? They couldn’t wander
forever. There was no fresh water anywhere along the Magia Wall,
and their stores would not last long.

They came to another fork in the trail and
looked to each other at the same time.

“Do you feel that?” he asked, holding his
hand out toward the western tunnel.

“Aye.” Her brow was furrowed.

Heat was coming out of the passage, and in
the few seconds that they stood there, it increased in intensity.
When a stream of tua raced out, darting along the walls and
scattering in two directions, they both swore.

“She’s coming this way,” Mychael said.

“And she’s on fire.” Llynya pointed down the
tunnel. It wasn’t just the mother lizard approaching, but an
inferno. At the farthest point that they could see, the rock was
taking on a red glow and growing brighter. The tip of the
salamander’s carnelian tongue flickered into view, and Llynya and
Mychael both backed away.

“The Wall,” he said. With luck, the giant tua
would follow them, and in the terror mayhaps the skraelings would
not be so quick to cut them down.

“Nay.” Llynya shook her head, a determined
expression on her face. “There is another way out of here, and
neither skraelings nor the fire lizard will follow us.”

Mychael didn’t miss the implication. If the
skraelings wouldn’t go there, ’twas beholden of some danger. That
the fire lizard wouldn’t follow them either, bespoke a danger that
bore considering.

“It sounds an ominous salvation, Llynya.”

“Aye, ’tis, but it’s better than dying on the
Wall.”

She ran from one of the tunnels open to them
to the other, sniffing each.

“Come,” she said, beckoning him to the
southernmost trail. “We’re to the Dangoes.”

~ ~ ~

Rhuddlan returned to Merioneth and a litany
of disasters and doom: Madron and Naas hied off with a weir
traveler; Inishwrath torn asunder; two dead in Tryfan and Shay
captured; eight dead at the Dangoes; skraelings and Dockalfar
attacking in Riverwood, leaving Lien near death and taking Llynya;
Nia left at the gates of time, suffering from her descent; and
Tabor returned from Lanbarrdein alone, without Mychael.

Damn the boy, and damn Madron. He would clip
both their wings. Aye, he could bring Druids to heel quick enough.
He was paying the price for not having done it before.

To the good, Merioneth was filling up with
tylwyth teg
.

The Kings Wood elves had arrived the day
after the Riverwood battle, the Ebiurrane the next. The Red-leaf
had come up from the south. The highlander Wydden had caught up
with Wei on his solemn return from Tryfan, the last tribe to arrive
overland.