Lady of Light and Shadows (18 page)

"Rain, dear gods, you're going to kill me." Tremor after tremor shook her, the pleasure intense and ceaseless. She could no longer tell what was real and what was illusion. Her hands gripped his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. "Come to me.”

"Not yet." His face was fierce, his eyes blazing like the sun, as he began driving her with relentless determination towards yet another orgasm.

She didn't want this again. She wanted him, not making her fly apart, but flying apart with her. Conscious thought shredded, and wild, insistent instinct rose in its place. She reached for the rigid bulge of his sex, cupping him through the heated leather. Using the technique he'd shown her, she shared the essence of herself with him. Energy leapt from her body to his in a streaming rush: hot, electric, exquisite. He gasped, nearly losing control of his weave as the dazzling force poured into him.

"Now," she insisted.

Flames scorched him. She wasn't begging any longer. She was commanding-and not only by sharing her essence. With the same instinctive, unintentional yet astonishingly powerful weave of Spirit he'd seen her use before, she was
pushing
him, urging him to fulfill her. Compelling him.

He could not deny her. In truth, he didn't want to even if he could.

In his weave, Rain's body sank deep into hers, and she cried out at the glorious fullness of it, the feeling of wholeness and completion. Their Spirit bodies began a fierce rhythm, limbs twining, hips rising and falling in unison.

Rain's throat strained as the need grew and skin stretched taut over bunching muscle. Every soft cry wrenched from her lips was a flame cast upon tinder. He poured himself into his weave, poured his magic across her senses.

Without warning, the wild force of her own untamed magic erupted around them both. Spirit threads dense with power exploded from her, writhing, twining, merging with his weave, driving him with the same relentless mastery as his Spirit drove her. Spirit Ellysetta locked her legs about his hips and rolled on top of him. His breath caught as he looked up at her: wild, glorious, fiercely female, her eyes blazing, her hair a nimbus of living flame around her. An ancient warrior goddess from the time before memory.

She rode him, her silken hips rising and falling, her inner muscles clasping him so tight each movement was an agony of delight. His weave surged around her and he gave himself up to hers. Nothing else in the world existed except him and her, and this breathless dance of Spirit that grew faster and wilder, until pleasure shattered them both and their cries merged with the rhythmic crash of the surf tumbling across the sands of Great Bay.

"I don't know what came over me," Ellysetta muttered yet again as she and Rain alit in the cobbled courtyard at the back of her family's home. The hot blush in her cheeks hadn't faded since they'd left Great Bay.

"I don't know either, but I hope it comes over you again. Soon." Rain grinned and dodged her slap with a warrior's rapid reflexes.

His grin faded quickly when he caught sight of Bel standing grim and silent in the back doorway of her parents’ small home. The look in Bel's eyes was one Rain recognized, and it never boded well.

"Ellysetta." Rain lifted her hand and pressed a quick kiss in her palm. "Give me a moment,
shei’tani.
I'll be in shortly.”

She frowned at them both, realizing something was up, but then nodded and stepped past him into the house.

When she was gone, Bel spun a quick privacy weave. "I've heard from the quintet we sent to Norban. They found Sian and Torel's steel, along with scores of barbed
sel'dor
arrows, scattered over what was obviously a battlefield.”

Rain's mouth tightened. The news wasn't unexpected-they'd already presumed the worst-but the
sel'dor
arrows .. . Barbed
sel'dor
arrows had been the Eld soldier's weapon of choice against Fey for millennia. "Has Dorian been informed?”

"Marissya brought him the news a bell ago. He says it's not enough proof to act. That anyone could have made the arrows-or even dug them up from an ancient battlefield.”

Anger and frustration curled in Rain's belly. Dorian was determined not to see the truth before him-as if by ignoring the signs of the growing Eld threat, he could make it simply go away.

"There's more," Bel said. His face was grim. Whatever more there was, it wasn't good.

"Tell me.”

"One of the men they were seen talking to in Norban-a pubkeeper-is missing, too, and is now presumed dead. Sebourne's already calling for an investigation of the Fey.”

Rain closed his eyes. That was all they needed. More weapons in Lord Sebourne's anti-Fey arsenal.

"That's not the worst of it, Rain. Our warriors found another Fey'cha where Sian and Torel were slain. A red blade, bearing the mark of Gaelen vel Serranis.”

"Does Sebourne know
that?”

"Nei,
thank the gods. None know but our warriors. I told them to destroy it.”

Vel Serranis. Again. Had the
dahl'reisen
slipped so far down the Dark Path that he'd thrown in with the greatest enemy of the Fey? Had he slain all those Celierian in the north, murdered Sian and Torel, and sent that boy to stab Ellysetta after all? Rain's heart clutched at the thought.

Gods help Celieria
and
the Fading Lands if the
dahl'reisen
and the Mages had joined forces. And gods curse Rain for an unworthy fool if he didn't get Ellysetta and Marissya both out of Celieria and to the safety of the Fading Lands without further delay.

"Thank you, Bel." Rain dispersed Bel's weave and went inside, heading immediately to Ellysetta's side.

Sensing his turmoil, she brushed her fingers across the back of his hand. Tendrils of peace and concern wafted over him. "What is it, Rain?”

He stroked her fingers with his own and lifted them to his lips for a kiss. "Do you trust me, Ellysetta? To do what is best for you and your family?”

She searched his gaze, then nodded. "Yes, of course I do, Rain.”

"Then there is a thing I would ask of your father, but I want your approval first."

"I wish to be released from my pledge to wed Ellysetta next week, so we may instead wed tomorrow, after the completion of the Bride's Blessing." Rain announced the request baldly as he, Ellysetta, and her parents sat at the small Baristani kitchen table. Bel and the rest of the quintet had taken the twins into the parlor to occupy them with unwrapping the last few dozen wedding presents and give Rain a measure of privacy for his discussion.

"Tomorrow?" Lauriana protested. "You can't possibly be serious!”

Sol frowned in sharp concern. "Why the hurry?”

Rain glanced down at his hands. His fingers flexed, wanting to wrap around the comforting grip of sharp Fey steel and confront the faceless danger he'd sensed for so long. "At twelfth bell tomorrow, Celieria's Council of Lords will convene for the final debate and vote to open the northern border to Eld. You know I've been working all week to prevent that from happening, but unless half a dozen lords change their minds or the king invokes primus-neither of which is likely-we know the vote will pass.

I want Ellysetta out of the city and on her way to
safety
before the sun sets on a Celieria that welcomes Mages within its borders.”

"Safety?" Lauriana challenged. "You think we're foolish enough to believe that's what waits for her in the Fading Lands?”

"More safety there than here," Rain said.

"That's a matter of opinion.”

"Madame Baristani, have you forgotten that someone tried to kill your daughter last week-or that something attacked her through her dreams just four nights past?”

"You Fey are magical creatures. Who's to say you didn't stage both attacks just to convince us Ellie's in danger?"

"Mama!" Ellysetta protested.

"Laurie!" Sol scolded at the same time.

Rain's eyes flashed dangerously. "Do not dare suggest the Fey would ever harm Ellysetta. Every warrior in this city-every warrior in the Fading Lands-would die to spare her the slightest wound. Two already have.”

Sol stared at Rain in shock. "What?”

"I sent two Fey north to find out what they could about Ellysetta's origins. They were murdered." He covered Ellysetta's hand with his own. She'd been upset when he told her the news, but it had helped to convince her of the seriousness of the threat. He hoped her parents would be equally understanding. "I received confirmation of it today when we returned from our courtship bells.”

"Murdered ... by whom?”

"We believe it was the Eld, which means if the trade vote passes-as it appears it will-the same folk who murdered my men will have much easier access to Ellysetta and your family.”

Unblinking brown eyes regarded him solemnly. A long moment passed in silence.

"Sol!" Lauriana protested. "You can't seriously be considering his request.”

"How would you feel, Laurie, if she were hurt-maybe even killed-because we were too selfish to let her go?”

"Will it feel any worse than when we send her to the Fading Lands and she loses her soul to these godless sorcerers because there's no one there to be her beacon?”

"Mama!”

"Laurie!" Sol stared at her as if she'd grown two heads. "What's gotten into you? The wedding's already been agreed to. She's going to the Fading Lands. The only question is whether she goes tomorrow or a few days after that.”

Lauriana bolted up from her seat at the table and rushed out of the kitchen. Sol gave Rain an apologetic look and followed his wife.

"Mama didn't mean it," Ellysetta said. "She's just been .. . upset recently.”

Rain sighed. "She never wanted this marriage to happen. She made that clear from the start. I'd just hoped that she would have begun to accept the idea by now.”

"I thought she had, to begin with," Ellysetta said softly, coming to wrap her arms around him. "But I guess she needs a little more time. After we're wed, when things calm down enough that we can come back for regular visits, she'll see for herself that living with the Fey isn't destroying my soul. She'll come around then." When Rain didn't respond, she drew back to look up at him. "We will come back, won't we, Rain?”

He hesitated, then said, "I've already told you your family will always be welcome in the Fading Lands.”

Her spine went stiff. Her arms dropped away and she stepped back, putting distance between them. "Are you telling me once we leave, I can never return?”

"If the borders are opened to the Eld, it would be too dangerous”

Her face went stony and inscrutable even as irritation sizzled across his senses. "Well," she said after several long seconds of silence, "I guess you'd best do everything you can tomorrow to make sure the borders remain closed, then." Her jaw grew firm. "Because if my family is here, I will be coming back. Whether you like it or not.”

She stepped past him and marched into the other room, heading for the stairs. Unwilling to let her storm off, he followed and grabbed her wrist. Tumultuous emotions-hurt, anger, distrust, even an underlying current of fear-rushed into him as his flesh touched hers.

"I don't do this to hurt you, Ellysetta." His whisper had a sharp edge. "Would you rather I take the free will of every noble in Celieria and bend it to my own? I've tried everything else to convince them, but they won't believe the Eld are as great a threat as I know them to be”

"Then make them believe it," she snapped back. She yanked her hand away from his with such force that she knocked over a stack of wedding presents on the hall table, sending gifts skittering across the floor. Muttering a mild curse, she knelt to pick them up. "You're a Master of Spirit. I know for a fact your weaves feel entirely and vividly real.”

"All Fey have sworn never to manipulate Celierian minds with magic." Rain knelt to retrieve a small silver-ribbonbedecked blue box that had fallen beneath the table.

"I'm not suggesting you manipulate them," she snapped. "I'm saying
show
them what the Mage Wars were like, just as you've shown me the Fading Lands. Convince King Dorian to let you address the Council directly, before the vote. Make them see the results of Mage evil for themselves, firsthand. Here, give me that." She held out her hand for the small package.

As he passed it to her, their fingers touched, and she flinched at the contact. Grimly he stepped back to put a little distance between them.

Inside the parlor, Rain heard Lorelle ask, "Lillis, what's wrong with Love?”

There was a loud hiss, then a screech, followed by a short cry of pain. Love came tearing out of the parlor, skittering across the hardwood floor, little paws pedaling as she made a sliding turn, scrambled up the stairs, and disappeared.

Rain peered into the parlor. Lillis sat in Kieran's arms, her hand bleeding from deep furrows while the young Fey examined the wound. "What happened, Kieran?”

"I don't know." There was shame on his face for allowing one of the females under his care to come to harm. "The cat just went crazy." He glared at the other warriors. "Which one of you was calling magic?”

Rain glanced at each of his men, all of whom were shaking their heads and denying that they had done anything to set off the kitten. He turned back to Ellysetta, who wasn't paying the slightest attention to her sister but was instead focused entirely on opening the package in her hands. A chill stole over him. "Ellysetta?" He started towards her.