White Fells Page 22

“Aye, he told me the High King of the Faeries shall summon us when the moon is high this eve. You did not answer my question.”

  “Come into the water and I will.”

  “Scota,” he warned.

  “Come into the water, Boyden. It feels wonderful.”

  He moved closer, taking a step down the slight embankment.

  “Without your clothes,” she directed and leisurely soaped her breasts.

  The tunic came off first.

  She was not afraid of his temper and needed his passion right now.

  Next came the boots. One boot toppled down the embankment and landed near the water. The breeches came off next, followed by a splash.

  When large hands caught at her shoulders, she pulled him down into the cold waters with a fierce kiss of possession.

  Boyden went willingly. His mate was wild and hungry, battling an inner tempest she refused to discuss.

  He managed to get them both to shore before she pushed him onto his back. Every muscle in his body tensed as she climbed astride him.

  He stared up into the smoldering fire above him. “Teaching me your rein, Princess?”

  She tilted her head, water dripping from her hair down her breasts. Her perfect mouth curved into a mysterious and tantalizing smile.

  Without answering, she bent down, retaking his mouth, her lips soft and warm in their demand for his passion. Her teeth tugged gently on his lips, soft breasts crushed against his chest.

  “What did you say to me?” she whispered.

  His mind blanked. “When?”

  “To you am I bound … your claiming of me.”

  “To you am I bound,” he repeated his Claim of Binding to her with as much felt meaning as he did before. “To twilight. To honor. To land.”

  A cool hand slid down his stomach and wrapped at the base of his throbbing manhood.

  “To you am I bound,” she said, guiding him to the entrance of her woman’s place.

  “To twilight.” She squeezed tenderly, a fingertip grazing his sensitive tip. A guttural response rose in his throat.

  “To honor,” she murmured against his lips.

  A bead of perspiration formed on his temple.

  “To land.”

  She pushed down upon him, and he exhaled sharply. His hands fitted over her hips.

  Scota nearly wept at the exquisite stretching. Bracing her hands against his shoulders, she began her ride on her untamable and tawny stallion. Rocking, pumping, she needed to fill every part of her until she thought she might explode.

  The hands on her hips challenged her authority and dominance. She grabbed a wrist and pinned his hand above his head, forcing compliance by offering him her breast.

  His head lifted, his free hand reaching for her breast. An insatiable mouth settled on her. Heat pulled on her nipple, stealing her entire existence.

  Releasing his wrist, she cupped the back of his head, holding the fire close, her hips driving up and down his length, reaching for the agony of female completion.

  Thoughts of giving him up pierced her heart, and she rode him harder.

  He released her breast with a harsh oath, hips surging upward, reaching the cliffs of a male’s pleasure. She could feel him swelling within her. Nails digging into his shoulders, she ground down onto him.

  Boyden flipped her over, commandeering the rhythm. She went rigid for a moment then fought him, as he knew she would, his beautiful and tormented warrior. Pinning her hands above her head, he kissed her mouth, enticing her to comply with his dominance. “My turn, my warrior.”

  Her gaze flashed angry fire, and he gave her deeper, longer strokes in answer, covering her slender body with his.

  The shards of fey light gleamed in her eyes before black lashes fluttered closed.

  Her thighs slowly spread wider.

  His strokes deepened.

  Friction grew between their bodies.

  Wet.

  Consuming.

  Heightening.

  His teeth clenched, refusing to give in to his body.

  “Scota,” he rasped.

  Hips surging, she stiffened under him with a soft cry. Her cave tightened around his shaft, milking him in a female’s release.

  He surged forward, hardening, giving her all the pleasure he could before he lost the battle.

  Eyes closing, he jerked above her, spewing his seed into her womb in a roaring windstorm of claim.

  Boyden flung back his head, air leaving his lungs in a rush. His body went weak, and he lay down beside her, fulfilled.

  Soaked in sweat, and after a few recovering breaths, he spoke low, “Now, will you tell me what Derina said to you?” Her gaze moved over his shoulder. “You might want to speak with the spiky-haired faery first.”

  Shifting his weight, he lifted his head and met jeweled eyes. Astride a blue hare with white ears, a piskie with thorny white hair stared back at him, her tiny face unreadable.

  “You are early,” he muttered.

  “COME NOW,” she piped. Reining her mount around, they hopped away into green stalks of downy grasses.

  Boyden pushed to his feet and reached for Scota’s hand.

  CHAPTER 22

  SCOTA LIFTED HER FACE TO the warm breeze. She stood next to a massive tree fashioned with three intertwined trunks. Interlaced boughs reached ever outward, creating shade and grace, and cupping the blue sky in graceful lengths. A songbird peeped behind her and flew away on tiny blue wings. Touching the coarse, brown-black bark of the tree, she looked up into a sea of green leaves. They fluttered with silvery undercoats in respect of the afternoon air currents.

  “She be an olden tree goddess,” Derina remarked quietly beside her, her face turned upward. “The trunks be named Maid, Mother, Crone.”

  “Yes.” Scota patted the triple trunks of the goddess tree with fondness.

  Dressed in an ethereal gown of crimson rosebuds, she felt more like a false queen than a warrior, and turned her attention to the long ridge known as Teamhair na Rí, the Hill of the Kings. It was Tara, the faery’s enchanted home.

  “This is the seat of all enchantment, is it not?” she asked with awe.

  “Aye, in the below and in the above.”

  Light winds caressed the sun-kissed land, blowing floating veils about her bare calves.

  “Many died here in the before-time and in the present-time,” the druidess said softly. “It be a place of standing stones and ring forts, a land of moving waters, and of kingly dwellers with troubled hearts.”

  Scota nodded. Troubled hearts all, she thought. Three months had come and gone since the summons of the faeries’ High King Lugh. It was now the month of Lughnasa, August, the season of harvest, the season of the High King. Many of Boyden’s tribe believed the High King to be samhioldanach, equally-skilled-in-all-arts. She pulled at her lip, hoping he was at least skilled in fair judgments.

  Gathering the delicate folds of the gown in one hand, she stepped away from the goddess tree, her gaze resting on a small group of birds flying north. “Ravens fly in the sky this late afternoon. It is a bad omen, Derina.”

  “Doona mark the birds,” the druidess replied, adjusting the belt of brown horsehair over her white, woolen robe. “They fly always near Tara.”

  Scota curled her arm over her rounding stomach, a faint color of rose in her cheeks. “I mark all things of late, Derina,” she said gravely.

  The High King and Boyden continued to disagree, their battle over her future turning the fey realm dull and lifeless with dissent and weary tempers.

  “I heard the king threaten to spell cast Boyden into forgetting me. Is it true, Derina?”

  “Aye.”

  She nodded, distraught and angry. “Give me a sword and I will spell cast off the king’s head.”

  “That may be the way of it,” Derina cackled, and Scota frowned at the druidess.

  “I do not find it amusing, Derina.”

  “I do. The High Queen may thank you.” The ancient switched her crooked walking
stick to her left hand.

  Scota gave the fitted veil covering her stomach a strong study. “I hear the King and Queen do not get along.”

  “Nay, they doona get along. It be the way of it sometimes. But enough of them, how do you feel?”

  “Besides angry and frustrated, I am hungry all the time.”

  “Aye, even Boyden commented proudly upon your appetite. You should eat small portions many times a day to keep up your strength.”

  She shrugged, feeling faintly guilty, and tugged on the double-puff sleeves of the gown. “I feel famished all the time, Derina. It is worse in the eve when I lay down to rest.”

  “Eat a wee bit then, too. Doona worry about it overly much.”

  “Do other women who are breeding eat as much?”

  “Some,” the druidess replied. “Methinks your womb be crowded with more than one babe and you must eat accordingly.”

  “Maybe,” she whispered, a small tremor in her voice.

  “Princess, I attend all the magical births of the tribe. There be no need to fret.”

  “I do not fret,” Scota whirled away, stifling her trepidation of a multiple birth and wishing to vent her irritation on a stubborn king.

  The ancient tapped her walking stick on the ground. “You delay, Princess.”

  “I am no longer a princess, Derina.”

  The druidess’s eyebrows lifted in supreme skepticism. “Princess,” she said forcefully. “Blood and heritage doona change because you move to a different land. I feel the approach of twilight in my bones. ‘Tis time to go. You canna delay any longer.”

  Scota looked over her shoulder and met those empty eye sockets directly. “Derina, it does not feel right to handfast to Boyden before an angry king.”

  “Ah.” The ancient folded her hands on the top of her walking stick, a peculiar frown tugging at her mouth. “Be this why you came here? To get away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you run away?” Derina gave her a disappointed look, and something inside Scota roared to life. “Never do I run,” she nearly shouted.

  “I wondered for a moment where the warrior princess had gone.”

  Scota judged it prudent not to curse on the day of her handfasting and drew a deep breath. “I am here,” she said.

  “The King willna attend, Princess, and Boyden willna wait any longer. He wishes to claim you for the entire fey realm to see. Come. ‘Tis time. Walk with an old crone.”

  With careful attention, Scota lifted the hem of her delicately woven gown and walked with Derina through the blades of grass, her feet bare against the warm land.

  “My thanks for the gown, Derina. It is unlike anything I have ever seen or worn.” Scota felt the sheer fey gown revealed more than it should, but it felt enchanting against her skin. Red rose petals hugged her body, offering glimpses of white skin. The round neck bodice, showing the swells of her breasts, was accented with ribbons of tiny white roses. Double-puff sleeves fell off her shoulders in scalloped veils draping over her hands. Crimson layers of light sprinkled with glittering crystals attached to her high hips and floated down to her bare ankles, trailing outward behind her. The hem, embroidered with tiny sprigs and webs, gave the gown a hint of weight. Her feet were bare except for the anklets of ivy.

  “The Wind Guardians gift it to you, not I.” The druidess leaned behind her and adjusted the long translucent drape, which attached to the center of her back. It drifted behind her, caught in the warm breezes of the day.

  “The Wind Guardians? I thought they did not approve of me.” She adjusted the crown of roses resting atop her head. Her straight black hair fell down her back in a soft waterfall of movement.

  “Make no mistake, Princess. They doona approve of you, but neither are they foolish. They can no longer deny the female carrying the seed of the Wind Herald. They walk a fine path between displeasing the High King and alienating the Wind Herald.”

  “What does Boyden think? They have not allowed me to see him for near a sennight.”

  “Ask him yourself. He stands there.” The druidess pointed off to the left and dipped her head. “I will wait for you beside the stone circle. Doona delay, twilight comes and you must handfast to Boyden during the time of the between.”

  “My thanks, Derina.”

  The druidess touched her arm in an offering of comfort before she disappeared amid the shadows of two trees.

  Scota lifted her gaze to Boyden, and the land felt as if it moved beneath her bare feet.

  In the shafts of fading sunlight filtering through the branches of trees, he waited. An unmoving god of power and silence rising from the below realm of the faeries, he was unfathomable. His hair shone gold even in the shadows, the bronze torc a glimmer about his corded neck. He wore a sleeveless, purple tunic with laces up the front and the sides. Fitted black breeches and boots showed the muscular length of his legs. He looked the mysterious Wind Servant King, charming, dangerous, returning from the long-ago past to steal away her heart.

  Boyden gazed intently at her face, his center swelling with pride and awe. She was beauty and strength to him and all that remained good in the land. He extended his hand, and she came forward, an ethereal creature of crimson veils and glittering crystals.

  “You look beautiful, Scota.” He caught her smaller hand, her palm nearly as calloused as his.

  She smiled, and the day brightened for him. “As you,” she replied calmly.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Hungry.”

  A smile curved his lips. “There will be food and celebration after the ceremony. Can you wait?”

  “Yes, Boyden,” she squeezed his hand. “I only tease.”

  “I missed you and ask forgiveness for my absence these past days.” He kept his eyes on her face, silently cursing the king. “The High King and I doona agree.”

  “I know.”

  He nodded, trying to form the right words. Trying to think of how to tell her about his heart, about how he felt. Swordplay and battle came easier for him. He was not one to bring a maiden into a garden and spout poetic phrases like a bard.

  “I would have it differently between us, Scota.”

  Her silence was not making it any easier, and he shifted on his feet, a slight movement.

  “Tell me, Boyden.”

  “I wish to handfast with you,” he said.

  She nodded. “Derina came to me last morn and told me your wishes.”

  He fought from fiddling with her fingers. “Will you handfast with me?”

  “I am here, Boyden, am I not? Do you think I wear sheer clothes such as these every day?”

  “I need to hear your words, Scota.”

  She stared at their hands. “I agree to handfast with you for a year and a day, a trial-marriage.”

  “Forever, Scota,” he corrected, placing his thumb under her chin and forcing her to look up at him. He was unaccustomed to her shyness. “ ‘Tis not a trial-marriage. Our handfasting ceremonies are to ensure couples be well matched and able to conceive a babe during a year and a day. I deem us well matched.” He looked pointedly at her stomach and tried not to grin smugly. “And able to conceive a babe or two.”

  She smiled.

  “Do you accept me, Scota?”

  She considered, her hesitation unnerving him. “Yes,” she said and his heart eased. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I willna give you up, Scota.”

  “Even if I wish it?” she said quietly, thinking back upon Derina’s words. If you are banned from the fey realm, you must leave him.

  He pulled back, searching her face, staring deep into her eyes. “Do you?”

  “No, Boyden.” She laughed tensely. “Do not mark my nervousness.”

  “All will be well,” he reassured, taking her hand and putting it in the crook of his arm. “Come.” He guided her forward. “Join me in the handfasting circle. Twilight descends, and I doona wish to keep an ornery druidess waiting.”

  They walked quietly t
ogether to the east side of Tara. Near a giant pillar stone and tranquil oak, Derina, and what remained of the tribe of the Tuatha Dé Danann, waited around the large circle of stones. They came out in support, showing their disagreement with the High King.

  The children, Nora and Cavan, stood with their family, looking taller than when last they saw them. Nora waved, and Cavan gave a simple nod.

  Young maidens, dressed in white robes of wool, tossed red flower petals along the perimeter of the stone circle.

  Candles flickered, marking the four cardinal directions of the land and winds.

  Boyden led his mate once around the gray circle of stones. With her on his arm, he entered from the east.

  Derina insisted on performing the ceremony in place of one of the elders to show her strong disagreement with the king.

  “You need to guide me, Boyden,” Scota murmured. “Your ways are different from mine.”

  “Stand by my side, Scota and answer all truthfully.” He led her to the center of the circle.

  Upon the ground in front of them, in tufts of grass, waited a tiny, dark, wooden altar. Resting on its surface was a jeweled dagger, red cord, a small silver box, and a trowel.

  Scota looked at the dagger and murmured, “This is very different.”

  Outside the circle, a chime rang three times to mark the beginning of the ceremony.

  Derina entered the circle and faced them.

  The druidess wore a red cloak formed of veils over her white robe. Dried rosemary, woven into her white plaits, made her look almost youthful.

  “We begin the handfasting blessing. Are you ready, Boyden?” the ancient asked.

  “Aye,” he replied.

  “Princess Scota? Are you ready?” the druidess prompted.

  Scota nodded. “Yes,” she answered, her heart pounding.

  “Let us begin in the east. Here we ask for the blessings of the element of Air, which brings truth, wisdom, and vision. May East and Air bless Boyden and Scota throughout their lives.”

  “Now we turn to the south. Here we ask for the blessings of the element of Fire, home of passion, pleasure, joy, and happiness. May South and Fire bless Boyden and Scota throughout their lives.”

  “Now let us turn to the west. Here we ask for the blessings of the element of Water, bringing tranquility, peace, emotion, and serenity. May West and Water bless Boyden and Scota throughout their lives.”