Heart of the Forest (Arwn's Gift Book 1) (28 page)

“But you are here, wife.” He beamed at me. I stopped again and stared up at him with a sigh. He towered over me, and I remember the first time my Aneurin called me wife. Pursing my lips, I swallowed and glanced over him.

“Can you really call me that?”

“I would think so; you are my wife after all.”

“Am I? Where did we speak our vows?” I crossed my arms and glared up at him.

“Just because I don’t remember these things doesn’t make it less true.”

“Does it?”

“I meant what I said the other day.”

“But you didn’t look at me.”

“You’re jumping at shadows. I was looking for you and deep in thought.”

“Battle plans?”

“No, the ritual.” His gaze danced over me for a moment as we reached the large arching doorway that led to the temple. We could look down to the city from where we stood. Yorwrath was still below, and he stared up at us from his perch on what was probably once a fountain.

“What about the ritual?” I turned back to Aneurin for a moment as we walked under the arch and into the temple.

“It’s asking a lot of you.”

“I thought that was the whole point of claiming a Dy’ne—to share them with your lieutenants.”

“And yet I can almost say with certainty that is not why I claimed you.” He flashed me that quick boyish smile as I climbed the stairs up the tower.

“Stop it,” I grumbled as we continued up the spiraling staircase.

“Stop what?”

“Making me think you give two shits. I’m just some Dy’ne to you. A pretty one but…that’s all. I’m some human stranger you want to fuck. Not your queen, not your wife, just a nice place to put your cock.”

“Yet you’re on your way to get anointed to be shared between three elves for me.”

“I told you why. Stop poking at me like some butterfly held with pins.”

“And if it fails?”

Ignoring him, I turned into the little room before the door to the garden. I could smell the scent of that thick smoke from the claiming heavy on the air. The memory of Aneurin taking me on my back in front of everyone and breaking tradition eviscerated me. I turned and found him in the doorway. There was no recognition in his eyes, but still I ran to him and wrapped my arms around him like I wanted to do when I saw him alive and riding on Caoilfionn’s back.

“Wh—”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up,” I breathed against his chest. “Don’t ruin this. Just shut up and hold me,” I growled. He smelled the same, that thick scent of oak trees, apples, and something dark and spicy. Those powerful arms slowly wrapped around me and I practically melted against him. Shaky breaths left my lips as I nuzzled against that familiar jerkin. “Anything for you,” I murmured so softly that I could barely hear myself.

“Va—”

“Shh…” I hissed as I pressed my ear against that leather and listened to that achingly familiar muffled heartbeat. It should have been my Aneurin, but it wasn’t. After a few minutes, I stepped away from him. He looked exquisite with that sorrowful expression gracing his lovely features.

“I wish I could be—”

“No, you don’t.” I turned from him and slipped through the doorway, not letting him retort.

Caoilfionn was waiting for me on the other side of the door. The room was illuminated dimly by a single window. There was a stool and a table that had a silver carafe on it and next to it a glass wrapped with silver wire in ornate patterns. Next to the carafe and glass was a small bowl etched with a forest scene. It was filled with some clear liquid that reflected the light oddly. The smoke that filled the room made everything seem surreal. Every breath seemed to strip away my tension and reservations over what the ritual would entail.

The room was dominated by an enormous silver basin. I knew what it was. Above it was an immense jewel that caught the light of whatever celestial body happened to be out at the time. This was where those famed druid seers had their visions of the future.

“Fuck that, I’m not getting in there.” I pointed at that recessed gleaming silver pool.

“I’ll get in with you.” Caoilfionn’s voice was soft and even as he walked over. On the way, he grabbed the glass from the table and presented it to me.

“It’ll kill me.”

“You’re Arwn’s blood; you’ll be fine. This Is part of the ritual. Please, drink from the goblet and disrobe.”

“If I die, I’ll come back and feast on your bones.” I giggled as I sipped the sweet, cool liquor.

“Fair enough, Mistress.” Caoilfionn bowed his pale head to me, and I drained the glass as fast as I could and passed it back to his hands.

The room swam as my skin grew warm, and I felt something within me stir. It was like I had something inside me lurking under my skin that was responding to the intoxicating brew. I ran my tongue over my teeth as I tried to recall the taste of the liquor that had passed my lips mere seconds before. There was a floral note that lingered as I dropped my sword, pulled off my boots, and stripped out of my clothes. Caoilfionn’s breath caught as he took in my nude body, and my stare snapped to him. In those delicate pallid hands was another glass of that liquor that he offered to me. I took it and downed it as fast as I had the first. He retrieved a silver censer from by the hearth and walked to my side murmuring words as I walked toward that reflective pool.

My body knew what to do as I stepped into the icy waters while Caoilfionn chanted from the edge, spreading that thick smoke around me. I blinked, and suddenly Caoilfionn was beside me in the water… I had lost time. He was naked, and with the way his long white hair rested on his chest he almost looked like a flat-chested woman. His torso wasn’t particularly soft, but the definition of his muscles was certainly androgynous. There was a simple line down the center of his stomach, as opposed to the ridges and dips of those four pairs of muscles most elves had. His waist even narrowed like a woman’s. He was chanting in a language I didn’t know as he gathered the waters in his hands and poured them over my head.

The heat of my skin intensified as that glittering clear liquid dripped down my forehead and over my body. It was like I was being wrapped in a cocoon of warm pleasure that made me want to touch and to be touched. And still…

“I hate you,” I breathed to him as I gazed up into his ever-changing eyes. His brows furrowed but still he kept muttering those words that illuminated the jewel above us. The light from that white glowing gem hit the water and made the pool seem like some odd sparkling mirror. I felt myself slipping away in that warmth, and I blinked again.

Opening my eyes, I found myself standing on the stones in the middle of the room as my dark hair dripped that sacred water down my back. Caoilfionn was in front of me holding the small silver bowl, and I held the goblet once again. My lilac gaze danced over that beautiful body of silver and light. He was certainly male. In spite of that narrowed waist, pretty face, delicate bones, and long hair, he had between his legs a rather large and flaccid phallus that was as colorless as the rest of him. As I stared at him, he drew a pattern on the center of my forehead with oil. Then he set the bowl on the small table beside us before dipping both of his thumbs in. First, he spread the oil over my lips. It tasted almost like the nectar of some rare flower…and not unlike the liquor I drank. Then he dipped his fingers back into the bowl.

With a small trembling breath, he took his thumbs and brushed them over my nipples. That sacred oil tingled on contact with the dusky, sensitive skin. That flesh puckered into hard aching points almost instantly. A breathy moan broke my lips, but he didn’t even look up at me as he continued to play his thumbs over those achy throbbing tips, making certain they were completely coated. I swallowed as I shifted my stance, moving my legs a little wider apart. I knew what was going to come next as he dipped his thumbs in that oil once again.

This time, he sought out the lips of my sex with his fingers. He traced them carefully, coating them in the oil that seemed to awaken some primal lust within me. He glazed all parts of me with that tingling salve. There wasn’t a single speck of my secret parts that remained unanointed. He was thorough. With those long pale fingers, he worked that oil inside that hungry nether mouth as well as my back passage. He seemed to relish stroking his finger into my ass as I moaned and pressed my bottom against his hand. I was so far gone from the incense that I forgot I hated him and seized his mouth with mine as he fingered me. The kiss was nervous on his part and deep on mine as I lanced my tongue between his soft lips. My mouth fell open in a wordless gasp as he worked a second finger in beside the first. I trembled against him, feeling that flesh of his harden against my belly.

Once my body started to glisten from internal heat, he withdrew his fingers from me and, with a swallow, stepped away. My skin felt like it was on fire, one that only the touch of elven flesh could quench. I forgot all about the ritual as Caoilfionn ushered me to the garden, even as he followed me with that censer spewing its intoxicating incense. Its smoke made my eyes glaze over as I walked out among the fragrant flowers. That gloss of half-tears made the whole world glimmer and shine.

Gathered on the altar, Aneurin, Islwyn, and Yorwrath sat totally in the nude. Aneurin and Islwyn were talking quietly with one another, but Yorwrath sat off to the side with his arms crossed. His body language read nothing short of hostile. I could tell they had been drinking as there was an open cask of something on one of the steps that led to the altar, and it dripped on the stone that seemed impossibly white.

“All you have to do is let go,” Caoilfionn’s voice seemed to whisper in my ear. I turned around expecting to find him there, but he wasn’t. No, his half-naked form walked a circle around us with salt sprinkling on the ground from the bottom of the censer. He was murmuring something in some strange language as he continued and I could feel my skin come alive with heat again.

It was Aneurin who left the altar to come to stand before me, Aneurin whose hands cupped my face lovingly, and Aneurin’s lips that claimed my mouth, causing the whole world to shudder as my skin seemed to ignite with the promise of what was to come.

Everything seemed to move slowly; every sensation seemed to linger longer than it should have as Aneurin kissed me. His tongue in my mouth, his lips against my lips, and those thumbs that lovingly traced along my jaw made me shiver with the intensity of the sensuous touch. I forgot completely that it wasn’t my Aneurin I was touching as I pawed at him eagerly.

His hands fell from my jaw to trace over my sides and down to my hips. Then, unexpectedly, he lifted me, forcing me to wrap my legs around his waist. I pressed my moist, needy sex against his. The angle wasn’t right for penetration, but his throbbing erection situated itself tantalizingly between the dewy folds of my hot and eager cleft. My hips undulated instinctively, and I moaned with the delightful sensation of that veiny, pulsing rod of flesh slipping against my wanton, throbbing clitoris.

Islwyn was suddenly behind me, covering my neck in the most delicate of kisses, as though he were worshipping my flesh. He caressed down my back with his soft lips, drawing a shiver and a gasp from me as I impatiently pulled Aneurin’s hair.

Yorwrath was forgotten about as the two teased my greedy flesh. He sat off to the side lounging with eyes narrowed. I only glimpsed him, but even through the haze of lust and the magic I could tell he wasn’t pleased. But I was unable to focus on him for long as Aneurin lay back on the altar while still holding me. The position forced me almost face-to-face with Yorwrath as Islwyn rubbed the curve of my bottom, his fingers digging into the flesh teasingly. He whispered something softly in my ear in that foreign tongue as he slipped an oiled finger into my darkest passage. Aneurin watched me with a soft smile as Islwyn slowly eased into me, as my mouth hung open in a soundless gasp. There wasn’t any pain; there was only pressure and pleasure as the pale blond elf gently worked himself inside me.

Islwyn treated me like a lover as he took me slowly with languid thrusts. He fluttered a soft flurry of kisses from my cheek down my neck and across my shoulder between his faint, pretty sighs and moans. Everything about Islwyn was pretty and delicate, except the way he took whores. That, however, wasn’t how he took me. Every motion was slow and deliberate, as though he were savoring the feel of me. I wanted to see that lovely face of his in ecstasy, but Aneurin prevented me. Those scarred hands cupped my breasts, teasing my aching nipples with his thumbs. He never actually touched them. Instead, he traced slow circles around them, barely grazing the skin, causing the flesh to harden almost to the point of being painful.

Aneurin unexpectedly tilted his hips back and reached between our bodies to position his erection at the mouth of my sex before he began pushing into me. My head lolled forward, haloing Aneurin in my hair. We stared deep into each other’s eyes, and I lost myself in that lovely bicolored gaze. The instant he was sheathed within me I felt like my skin was on fire. As they stretched and caressed the deepest parts of me, I finally admitted to myself that I wanted this. I was greedy. I wanted the three of them. I needed the three of them. And I was acutely aware of the lack of Yorwrath. I rode Islwyn and Aneurin, their moans increasing the high of the incense from the censer.

Raising my head, I watched as Yorwrath drained a skin of wine as he watched me writhe on top of Aneurin while Islwyn continued his slow thrusts. That molten stare no longer held that anger but instead, a certain longing that seemed odd coming from him. His impatience won out, and he approached us. The moment he was at my side he pushed Islwyn off me and pulled me from atop Aneurin. The second I was free of the others he claimed my mouth The kiss was hard and fierce. There was no breathing aside from the gasp that accompanied him lancing that hot rod of flesh into me. Moments later Aneurin was behind me, forcing his way into my tight back passage as he left the softest kisses across my shoulders.

“
Nid yw'n haeddu ei
,” Yorwrath growled to his brother as they stroked at my insides, rendering me mute with pleasure. For the first time ever I knew what they had said:
He does not deserve her.
My brows furrowed at my magical grasp of their language, which had seemed so foreign to me before Yorwrath and Aneurin shared me.