Night of Fire (6 page)

Right there in front of everyone, she unzipped his slacks,
found the opening to his briefs and pulled out his cock.

“Never-never mind,” was the sum and substance of what he could
think to say.

To his shock, The Lady stepped close and leaned over. She
was still taking her measure of his cock when the trio of old men shuffled up
and did the same thing. He heard mutters of what he took to be approval.
Several women giggled.

Shit. He might as well be a breeding bull.

“He is big,” the only old man not to have spoken yet said.
“Maia, he did not cause you pain?”

“A little the first time.” She ran her forefinger over the
tip of his cock. As he could have predicted, a little pre-cum oozed out. “But
that did not last long.”

“Was it enjoyable?” The Lady asked.

“Very. I did not know I would like it so much.”

“Ah look,” Taron interrupted. Although it was obviously way
too late for that, he regretted drawing attention to himself. “I know you
people think you’re giving me a compliment. But…” He pointed at his naked and
ready-to-service cock. “Where I come from, this is hardly the way a girl acts
when she takes a boy home to meet her family.”

No one laughed, poking a major hole in his attempt to turn
the most embarrassing experience of his life, bar none, into something
humorous. Shit, he’d endured several detailed physical exams in order to
qualify for a multi-million dollar life insurance policy and had managed to get
through them without getting a hard-on. However, this time Maia and not some
doctor had hold of him.

“Maia, what is this about?” he ground out.

“We are sorry,” The Lady responded. “You are not from our
time. We should have known you could not simply come here and understand our ways.
But you will.”

It’ll take a while.
“Would-would you like to start?”
I’m
just not sure I can concentrate because, strange as it may seem to you, this is
the first time I’ve had the family jewels on public display.

“Understanding will come,” The Lady said. “But not now,
later.”

“You want me to what?”

Maia had been lost in the comforting notes of the spring
song her clans people had been singing and thus was slow to realize that Taurus
didn’t feel the same way. After his seed-maker had met everyone’s approval,
she’d covered it with his clothing, and the two of them stood in the place of
honor as the Bel-fires were lit.

Because it had rained recently, it had taken awhile for the
fires on all the surroundings hills to catch fire, but now, in defiance of the
priests’ orders, flames leaped into the sky and turned the night from black to
deep red.

Taurus had been content to stay with her through Bel-fire’s
opening ceremony, and the longer they sat with their thighs touching, the more
eager she’d been to spread her legs for him. In truth, it had been hard to
think of anything else, and her breasts ached to feel his hands and mouth on
them.

Wondering if her flushed cheeks gave away her thoughts, she
looked up at Father Kaylen. As the oldest of the old men, he carried great
wisdom from the ancients, and she’d spent much of her childhood listening to
him talk about the beginning of their people.

“It is time,” Father Kaylen said. “For Taurus to prepare for
his journey by leaping backward through the fire three times followed by three
forward jumps.”

Excitement propelled her to her feet. When Taurus remained
where he was, she reached down for him. Reluctantly, it seemed, he stood. He
continued to hold her hand.

“Look,” he said. “I ran under that damn burning arch when
Maia told me to, and granted, I came through that unscathed, but if it’s all
the same to you, I’d just as soon not tempt fate.”

Hopefully the day would come when she understood her mate’s
words. Until then, however, she’d have to be content with the act of mating
itself—which she was.

“You must do as our father says,” she explained. “Otherwise,
you will not be prepared for your journey.”

“What journey? Look, the only one on my agenda is related to
my business. There’s so much at stake there that—”

“Your journey can be a dangerous one,” Father Kaylen
interjected. “You will need a great deal of luck.”

“Danger? I don’t need to be told that. Besides, I’m going to
need more than luck to keep from burning myself.”

Taurus’ continued reluctance bothered her, but she didn’t
know how to get him to explain why he felt that way. Hoping to remind him of
what they were to each other, she drew his hand closer to her woman-place.

“Now wait a minute,” he said, and pulled free. “Maia, you
know how to get to me, I’ll give you that. But this isn’t a game, all right.
Why in the hell should I jump backward over a pile of burning wood? It makes no
fucking sense.”

On the brink of trying to reassure him, she became aware of
heat at her side. At first she thought her body was responding to his, but then
she realized the warmth came from her dagger. Releasing his hand, she pulled
the dagger out of its sheath and held it close.

In the red jewel she saw a great, all-encompassing shadow.
There seemed to be a small point of light in the middle of it, but she didn’t
let that distract her from the truth she knew would emerge.

“What is it?” Taurus asked. “What are you looking at?”

“My future.”

“Your…”

“When I looked in it before, I saw you but nothing more. Now
something else is coming.”

Maybe Taurus understood her need to concentrate and maybe
she’d gone past the point of being able to think about anything except the
jewel’s message. The Lady had said she didn’t know where the dagger had come
from, she’d prayed for guidance in protecting her people’s future, and it had
been there when she opened her eyes. The thought that it might have always
existed and would continue to long after she was dead, caused Maia to regard it
with awe. Most unsettling was the conviction that her tomorrows would soon be
revealed.

“Maia, you’re shaking,” Taurus whispered.

“I cannot help it.”

He slid his arm around her, and she took comfort from his
strength, but even that didn’t distract her from what she had to do. He too
peered into the burnished depths. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t see anything.”

She did. Slowly, like a plant when it first breaks through
the earth, she made out a female figure draped in white. Because she couldn’t
see the woman’s face, she couldn’t be sure it was her. Then even more of the
shadow lifted, and the gown was no longer the purest of white. There, at the
side, was that blood?

“What is it?” Taurus pressed. “Honey, something’s scaring
you?”

“Hold me,” she whispered.

He did, his fingers on the side of her breast, reminding her
of the heat and small volcanic eruptions she’d felt in her woman-place when he
massaged her breasts before. With less of her mind on what was in the jewel,
now that he’d captured part of her attention, she studied the image with a
measure of detachment. The woman in the white, blood-stained dress was young.
She was having difficulty standing and appeared to be alone.

Maia touched the jewel. She’d no sooner made contact when
she felt on the brink of tears—the ones the white-woman was shedding.

Why are you crying?
she asked.
Is it from sorrow
or pain? Maybe, maybe you have been wounded by what you know of my people’s
future.

No! She couldn’t allow herself to think like that! Her
people
couldn’t
become like those from Taurus’ time, children playing
silly games instead of performing enduring and vital ceremonies.

“I cannot do this!” Not giving herself time to think, she
slid the dagger back into its sheath and locked her arms around Taurus’ waist.
His seed-maker, swollen with fluid and blood, tried to push itself between her
legs. It took all her strength not to lift her gown. “Taurus, please. I will
jump with you.”

“Maia, what are you saying?” Father Kaylen demanded. “What
did you see in the sacred jewel?”

“Taurus, please.”

“All right, all right,” he said, sounding the way her father
had when something with long teeth and fangs crept into her dreams and he’d
comforted her. “We’ll do it together.”

“Maia,” Father Kaylen warned. “The act of leaping is for
those who face a dangerous journey. Your time will come when—”

“My time is now, Father. Do not deny me this.”

* * * * *

No matter how much she tried to will it to be otherwise,
Maia’s legs lacked their usual strength as she and Taurus walked up to the
mother-fire from which all the others had been lit. By now the stars and moon
were out, and the young children had been put to bed. Already some of the girls
who’d been her fellow virgins had linked their arms with young men and wandered
off into the night. Just thinking about their taking off their clothes and
spreading their legs so seed-makers could enter their women-places made her
hungry to feel the same thing. But first she and Taurus had to—

“I’m still not sure of this,” he muttered. “Sane people
don’t do this, at least none of the sane ones I’ve ever known.”

“We will go together. It will be all right.”
And, please,
my journey will be made safe.

He pressed his fist into the small of her back, she felt the
contact deep inside the place that began between her legs. “I wouldn’t do it
for anyone else,” he said. “I want you to know that. I just I wish to hell I
understood what this was about.”

She couldn’t tell him that yet, not until the elders had
assured her that he would remain beside her, her companion and mate, but soon,
soon he would understand his place among her clan.

Buoyed by what was surely the truth, she reluctantly pulled
his hand off her. Then, aware of the many eyes on them and what they had to
accomplish, she laced her fingers through his. Together they turned their backs
on the burning pile that was now no taller than his waist.

“This is insane,” he grumbled. “You know it is.”

Now, before the fire burned down to coals and she finished
her role by jumping over it alone, she’d do this with the man the spirits had
chosen for her.

Like her, Taurus glanced behind him before readying his
muscles. “Insane!”

Propelled by his shout, she sprang backward. He left the
ground at the same instant so they leaped as one. She felt heat on the soles of
her feet and legs then the sharp sting of the rocks she landed on. She might
have lost her balance if his strong arm hadn’t been there.

“That was fun, not!” He gasped. He stared at the fire then
over at her. “We really have to do this again?”

“Quickly. All of one movement.”

“Nothing to it. Nothing!”

Going forward was easier, and she took pride in how high and
far she went. They’d just completed one circuit when the old men stomped the
ground.

“I take it that’s their way of telling us we’ve just gotten
started,” Taurus muttered. “Maybe you should hold up your dress. It might catch
fire.”

“No, that will not happen.”

“Because some half-demented old farts have convinced you
that you’re invulnerable? Not bloody likely.”

This wasn’t the time for convincing Taurus that the ways of
her people should never be questioned. She ran her fingers up his forearm to
get his attention.

“Now,” she ordered. “While we are strong.”

“Shit.
Shit!
”

She didn’t lose her balance when she sprang backward the
second time and somehow her feet found only smooth earth. Beside her, Taurus’
footwear made a muffled thunk. He squeezed her hand.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Ready.”

As she sprang forward, she looked down. Taurus was right.
Her hem dragged through the flames, but it didn’t catch fire. He no sooner
landed when he grabbed her skirt. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “What’s this
thing made out of, some kind of fire-retardant material?”

Before she could think how to answer the question she only
half comprehended, the old men started clapping. Taurus grumbled but took her
hand again and propelled them backward over the fire once more. When they
jumped forward the last time, he kept his gaze on her flowing dress.

“I’ll be damned,” he repeated once they were done. “So is
that all we have to do?”

Suddenly, joyously, she wanted to laugh. “Now it is our
time,” she told him.

“For what I’m thinking of?”

“Yes. Yes!”

* * * * *

“Wood is taken from many trees so that the fires celebrate
apple, alder, elm, oak, rowan, gorse, even thorn. But most important is
hawthorn.”

“Why is that?”

She and Taurus were sitting across from each other, naked
and alone. She doubted that he cared about what she was telling him, but he
needed to know this and many other things. Also, talking about sacred trees was
easier than asking him what he wanted her to do to please him.

“On the morning after Bel-fire,” she continued, “when men
and women return from the Greenwood, they bring with them great budding boughs
of hawthorn, the spring tree, and other spring flowers. Some of those flowers
they use to dress themselves. The rest is left at every doorstep they pass
along the way.”

Taurus cocked his head. Although they were so close that
their bent knees touched, he kept his arms by his side. “They dress themselves
in flowers and hawthorn boughs?” he asked. “That’s all they wear?”

“Most. They have spent the night mating and nourishing the
ground. They want their families and neighbors to know what they have been
doing.”

He whistled. “No getting around it, your people are
uninhibited. No hang-ups?”

“Hang-ups?”

“Never mind. I’m not interested in an English lesson, and unless
I miss my guess, neither are you. So now that we’re down and naked, what next?”

“We mate.”

“Just like that.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes then
looked down at his limp seed-maker. “Hm. We have a problem here. Nothing that
can’t be remedied, but I’d like to make it more than fitting tab A into slot A
if you don’t mind.”

She frowned.

“All right.” He sighed, and she wondered if he was
embarrassed. “Look, I just said I didn’t want to get sidetracked by the
differences in how we express ourselves, but that might be just as good a way
to start as any.”

This time she nodded. If she put her hands on his
seed-maker, it should spring to life, but she didn’t think that was what he was
talking about.

He pointed at himself. “What do you call it, a seed-maker?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because that is what it is, what it does.”

“Hmm. No argument there.” He indicated the space between her
legs. “And your sex organ, what label does it go by?”

Label?
“That is my woman-place.”

“That it is, all right. However, where I come from, the
woman-place is called other things. Would you like to learn them?”

“Yes.” Strange how having him point at the dark hairs and
what they partly hid made her feel as if her woman-place was being walked on by
tiny, soft-footed creatures.

“Good enough. All right, I guess I can be just as
uninhibited as you’ve been. Lean back and spread your legs. It’s Sex 101 time.”

After a momentary hesitancy, she placed her arms behind her
and braced her weight on them. Then she unfolded her legs. He crawled close and
squatted between her legs.

“Hmmm.” He leaned so near that she felt his breath on the
sheltering hairs. The sensation of warm moisture on warm skin made her squirm.
“All right,” he continued. “We’ll start conservatively. These—” He took the
protective pieces of skin over her opening between his thumb and forefinger.
“These go by a number of names, some pretty crude, but a gynecologist is going
to call them labial lips.”

“Labia…” Why was it hard to talk?

He chuckled and ran a nail over the inside of the loose skin.
“Close enough. And while we’re at it, that’s your pubic hair. Can you say pubic
hair?”