Heartmate (15 page)

Though the planet Celta had been founded by those espousing Celtic traditions, the colonists had not shunned other mythologies, and every child learned about the many ancient cultures of their ancestors. To Danith, T'Ash was the living image of Hephaestus, the Greek God of the forge. At that thought her stare traveled down his solid, straight thighs, and she shook her head, coming out of her daze. He carried scars, but he wasn't crippled like the God. And Hephaestus had been the butt of jokes, not a perpetrator.

Still uncomfortably attracted to him, she tried to recapture her anger at his presumption, but failed. She sighed. The most she could summon was irritation at his harassment, and she wondered why. The man had been more than a nuisance.

His spell ended with a shouted Word that thundered past her ears and a last, ringing blow on the metal. He lifted the shining blade, and the redgold inlaid pattern nearly seared her eyes.

She said nothing, but he whirled around. Long, tangled black hair framed his face, which looked thinner, harsher than when she'd seen him at the shop two nights before. His blue eyes were bright and piercing in their intensity. He held a lethal weapon, his stance predatory.

Fear should have swamped her, but like anger, it found no place in her heart.

He smiled and her knees weakened. The smile didn't make him look a mite softer, or even more attractive. But she sensed it was genuine.

He was glad to see her. Twisting, he pushed the blade back onto the anvil. Then he faced her once more and gave a half-bow. His smile broadened.

That smile drew her into the forge. She bit her lip, the small pain allowing her to marshal her wits. If she couldn't retrieve her rage, she could at least feign it.

She scowled. “You!” She pointed an accusatory finger at him, trying to remember her angry thoughts and put them into words. “You wretched creature. You insulting, insensitive, obnoxious—”

“Downwind scruff?” he asked, too softly. The fire that roared in the forge also sparked blue in his eyes.

Danith took a step back. She glanced behind her.

Zanthoxyl sat squarely in the middle of the long open wall of the forge, and somehow she got the feeling that if she made a run for it, he'd be faster, and pounce. She didn't like the idea.

But oddly, neither T'Ash nor Zanthoxyl intimidated her; instead they prodded her temper once more. Who was T'Ash to be offended? It was she who had been the object of his less-than-humorous jokes.

Her fingers hurt. She looked down to the sack tightly clenched in her fist.

She dropped the bag.

A flash of something like pain showed on his face.

She didn't care for the surge of pity his small reaction pulled from her.

She lifted her chin. “I'll be blunt. Somehow, I think you can only understand bluntness. I don't like feeling pressured. I don't like being harassed. I have no intention of becoming a nodding acquaintance, let alone a sex-partner. I think a man who uses a seduction spell is—”

“Low. Lower than a Downwind scruff.”

He repeated the words almost exactly. She frowned. No, not almost—exactly. And used Downwind short speech to say so. She stared at him.

He activated a spellshield around the long knife, then stretched his massive body.

She gulped. Then got further annoyed that his body distracted her, that he aroused unwanted attraction in her.

He looked at her with an impassive expression that she sensed concealed a deep sadness. He rubbed his chest.

The hair on his chest was curlier than that on his head, and thinner. She would have expected a hairy pelt, but he was obviously more man than beast.

Silence draped the forge.

Danith reached for the vestiges of her anger, but it was gone again. How could a shade of hurt in sky-crystal blue eyes disarm her so?

“It wasn't a seduction spell,” he said softly.

“No? Then what was it?”

He didn't answer, and now she hurt, as if for some reason she had really expected a rational explanation. “That's what it felt like.” She waved a hand, groping for words. “An attraction. Something you'd try on me, like you kept trying to tempt me with that other jewelry.”

The faintest smile curved his lips, before his gaze dropped to the sack. When he raised his eyes, they were once more fathomless.

She plodded on. “A cheap little seduction spell on a common, Flairless woman to incite lust and draw her to you. A little amusement for the great T'Ash. A plaything. A sextoy—”

He moved more quickly than she could follow. His huge hand manacled her wrist, his fingers overlapping.

His jaw clenched. His eyes fired once more. “No. Not like that. You are not a toy.” His other hand touched her shoulder, slid up her neck and his fingers nudged her chin until she met his blazing stare. “Never. Not an amusement.”

Then his hand curved around the nape of her neck, and she trembled with sensation. With ease he pulled her against his large form. The very touch of his skin sent pulsing little shocks throughout her. She drew breath to speak, and his scent acted on her like drugged wine, dizzying her beyond reason.

She saw the flash of blue eyes for just an instant before he bent down and put his mouth on hers. Kissed her. A very gentle, almost tentative kiss. His very lack of demand disarmed her. She hadn't noticed how soft his lips were. Surely the softest thing about him.

His hands cradled her head as his mouth brushed against hers once again. More than sensuality spun between them, an extra energy, a heart-threatening tenderness. And he feathered their lips together again. Pleasing, tantalizing, a small courtship.

His was the sweetest kiss she had ever known. How could the fiercest man she'd ever met give her the sweetest kiss?

She pulled her mouth from his, put a hand to her lips. “This can't be.” She struggled to think, but his scent, his masculinity, scrambled her mind.

“Yes. Divination Dice foretold. Don't you practice prophecy?”

“The cards. I drew the Lord of Blasers,” she blurted.

“Yes!” His gaze burned blue, just like on the card. Bespelled, she lifted her fingers and trailed them down his square jaw.

He groaned. He lowered his head once more. His tongue outlined her lips, tasting her, and she couldn't resist. She opened her mouth to let him in and plunder.

When his tongue rubbed against hers and she tasted him, fast, liquid desire enveloped her.

The kiss passed beyond sweetness, beyond passion. A layered fog closed about her. She sensed the complexity of the man, and the intensity. Both she wanted to deny, both drew her to the flame.

He explored her mouth thoroughly and she strained upward, arching her body against his. More than desire was revealed in his kiss, an echoing loneliness, a craving that would overwhelm her, claim her forever. And even more. In the depths of him was the bedrock of his powerful Flair.

His arms locked around her, lifting her from the ground. The movement collected her wits. She could never match him in strength, physical or psychic. She could never match him in status or wealth.

She pushed against him, scrabbling for words that would put an end to this once and for all. His energy, the potent electricity between them, was frightening in its power.

“Stop!”

With evident reluctance, he dropped his hands and stepped back. Danith didn't dare look down his body. She knew he was aroused. She'd felt him.

“I don't want this,” she said.

“No?” It was a challenge.

Her smile felt more like a grimace. “I want an easy life, and you are not an easy man.”

His eyes darkened to midnight. “True. Life is never easy. Foolish to think so.”

She retreated out of the hot-iron-masculine smelling forge and into the sweet sunlit, flower-scented grassyard. “Why don't you leave me with a few illusions, GreatLord? Like, life is easy. Love is undemanding. Noble GreatLords are not predatory debauchers of common, Flairless women. Please don't scry or send any more gifts or flowers.” She turned.

Before she took a step, he'd caught her hands again.

“Let me go.”

“No. What do you mean, common and Flairless? Nothing common or Flairless about you, woman!”

Six

He slid his palms up and down her arms. Her laugh strangled on the flowing energy.

T'Ash raised a black brow. “You hum with Flair. Fine and complex and very, very strong.” He squeezed her fingers.

She gasped at the small jolt. “That's just you.”

“No.”

“Just us, then.”

A smile quirked his mouth, reflected in his eyes, now a dazzling blue. “Maybe. Nice, isn't it?”

She made an exasperated sound. “Let me go.”

“No. You don't believe me about your Flair.”

She shook her head.

His mouth hardened. “You don't believe my words about the seduction spell or about life. You don't believe in my honor or your own uniqueness and Flair.”

A mew and a buzz sounded in her head.

T'Ash glanced at his Fam. “Zanth agrees. Your aura is pink. There's only one pink person, he says.”

“He talks to you?”

“Another thing you don't believe? That I am not telepathic with my Fam?”

“No. I mean, yes. I believe that. I've heard of that before.” She tried futilely to break his hold. She believed in his strength, too. He hadn't noticed her brief struggle. Inwardly she scoffed at herself. She could never begin to match a man who worked at an anvil and forge.

“Not many people would question my honor to my face.” He scowled at her. She stood mutinously. Banding one hand around both her wrists, he touched her cheek. “But, then, you are not just anyone. You're my He—You're special. A special pink person—the color of your aura, and special to me.”

His thick brows had lowered. She felt him searching, considering, doing something with his great Flair. His Flair as great, or greater, than his physical strength. She shivered.

“Come with me. I will prove it.”

“Let me go!”

“No.” He glanced at her impatiently, let one of her wrists go, but kept the other. He hauled her rapidly across the grassyard separating his forge from his Residence. Zanthoxyl loped ahead of them.

She dug in her heels, to no avail. “Let me go!”

He stopped. Looked down at her. His jaw set. “Do you want to walk or be carried?”

Her eyes widened. “You wouldn't.”

Just that suddenly his mood changed. He grinned. Large, white teeth flashed. “Yes, I would. I was once a Downwind scruff. Now, as Zanth informs me, I'm a Noble scruff.”

“I never meant to call you that,” she said, finally admitting the shame it caused her. “I didn't mean to insult you.”

“No? Now I don't believe
you.
” He snorted, then started off again.

“At least slow down so I can keep up!”

He shortened his steps and curbed his pace. She was surprised at his action, pleased, and it allayed her anxiety. She moistened her lips. “Prove what? Where are we going?”

He stopped. When he looked at her, his saturnine face was the epitome of honorable nobility. It shook her.

“We're going to my ResidenceDen to use my Testing Stones. I created them, and I'm the very best with stones. There are no stronger, more sensitive testing tools on Celta.” His voice rang with pride.

Blood drained from her head to her feet. She felt cold. Not again. Not to fail one more time. “No.”

He released her, bent down to level his eyes with hers. “I pray you trust me in this, Miz Mallow. If you cannot trust the man, or the GreatLord, please trust the craftsman's Flair. I swear by my lost Family that I would not lie to you in this.”

“No. I cannot do this.”

His eyes remained steady on hers, blue gaze intent. “Yes, you can.” He held out a hand. “Please.”

She didn't have the courage for this, but she couldn't refuse the look he gave her. She placed her hand in his. And when his fingers enveloped hers with strength, they gave her not only a shock of pleasant sensation, but a bit of courage.

He stopped before arched and glowing reddwood doors, ornamented with redgold straps and nails.

Lifting her hand, he placed it in a depression. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. A frisson of tingling waves washed through her. She was caught close. Cherished. Released.

Her breath caught in her throat.

“The Residence Identify has memorized your essence.” T'Ash bowed. “Miz Mallow, you are welcome to my home, at any time, whether Bel shines or twinmoons glow. You have only to ask and you can enter.”