She ran her hands over the sleek, rounded muscles of his arms, adoring his faint trembling when she touched him, the crackles of magic that leapt to her touch as if every part of him yearned to become a part of her. Such a fine, beautiful Fey. Her Fey. Her love, her heart, her soul’s truemate. So strong, so brave. Everything she never had been.
Everythingshemust become to be worthy ofhim.
Not a frightened girl, clinging to him for reassurance and protection, but a brave woman, strong and self-assured in her own right. A Tairen Soul. His equal.
All around them, the dark of the forest began to glow with shimmering lights as fairy-flies by the dozens awoke and took wing from whatever small nest had sheltered them through the day. The small, glowing creatures danced like stars in the shadowed forest. The waterfall splashed softly into its pool, and in the distance the muffled roar of the surf filled the air with the tang of the sea. Ellysetta stepped back, her bare foot finding the soft expanse of the cloth he’d laid down for them. Her knee bent and she sank lightly to the bower he’d prepared, pulling him with her, but when he would have covered her body with his own, her hands pushed against his shoulders, urging him to his back.
“Nei, shei’tan.Let me.” She’d taken the lead in their love-making before, but only when her tairen had roused and its passions overrode the shy Celierian that remained so much a part of her. This time, she was neither wild nor shy, neither tairen nor mortal. This time, she was simply Ellysetta, mate of Rain, a woman taking the final step from girlhood.
“Do you know how much I love you?” It stunned her how much that love had grown in so short a while. And she had grown, too, from the breathlessly infatuated girl who’d loved Fey tales, to the grief-stricken realist who’d seen her mate leave and her mother die, to the raging tairen in the Mists who’d reached out in desperate fear and trust for her mate, to the young Feyreisa determined to master bothshei’dalinand warrior magic and find the answersto save her new kingdom. Each step of the journey, she’d taken because of him. For him. Nourishing her increasing strength with the deepening love she bore him.
Her hands slid down his body, marveling at the smooth warmth of his skin. Pale as silver mist, sleek as satin. She loved the feel of him beneath her hands, the strength and power coiled within such devastating beauty. She laughed softly as she discovered his ticklish feet and the way his thighs quivered when she smoothed her hands over the long ropes of muscle and bent her head to take tiny bites across his flesh.
“Fellana...” he growled, hands reaching for her.
“Nei, Rain,” she admonished, evading his grasp. “This time is mine.” His sex was already full and thick, pulsing with the heavy beat of his heart. She stroked him, filling her palm with the hard heat, brushing her lips across the velvety softness of his skin, then dancing away to lave kisses on the flat, ribbed muscles of his abdomen.
He groaned and shifted, his hips bucking up against her in instinctive demand. “You tease.”
She purred and touched her tongue to the round indent of his navel. “I but prolong the pleasure.” The sweet fragrance of his skin—anchored with the darker scents of tairen—made her muscles tighten. Arousal became a heavy ache, a ripple of clenching inner muscles, a slow burn of flesh.
His nostrils flared at the betraying scent of dark honey, and his eyes, which were already glowing, blazed with sudden fire.
“You want me,” he whispered.
“More than you know.” She bent to his chest, nipped at the taut buds of his nipples, followed with savoring licks, tasting him, drawing him into her mouth.
A low, vibrating growl purred in his throat and chest, the seductive hum of his tairen’s need. “Then come,kem’fellana,kem’tani, and take what you desire.”
The low purr sent heat flashing through her veins. Her breastsgrew tight, the nipples hardening to aching points. She sat back, straddling his thighs, and flexed her spine, hissing as his hands rose to cup her breasts and his thumbs flicked over their sensitive tips.Gods.All it took was one touch of his hand on her, and the harmonic pleasure intensified so rapidly it was all she could do to hold back her first shuddering orgasm. She didn’t want that yet. This was her time, her seduction, her night to tease and torment until his control hung in shreds and he begged her to take him. This was her time to claim him, as he had so often and exquisitely claimed her.
Gasping, she arched away from his dangerous hands. “Do you think weaves spun for loving would keep the fairy-flies from working their dream magic?” Her fingers trailed along his chest, and she shared her essence with him the way he’d taught her back in Celieria.
He shuddered and gave a laughing groan. “I’m willing to risk it.”
With a slow smile, she bent her head to his chest and wriggled her way down his body, trailing kisses and teasing sparks of magic in her wake. She caressed his flat belly, his lean hips. Her fingernails scraped lightly across his skin, and she reveled in every tiny shiver and catch of his breath and the brightening glow of his half-lidded eyes as he watched her near the length of straining flesh that throbbed in anticipation of her touch.
Smiling up into his eyes, bold with feminine power, she bent her head and took him into her mouth. His eyes closed on a groan and his jaw thrust up in the air as his head tilted back and he abandoned himself to her. The heat, the salty-sweet taste of his skin, the rich, heady scent of male Fey arousal bathed her senses.
His hands came up, lavender Spirit glowing brightly around them, but she waved them away.«Nei, shei’tan. This weave is mine to spin.»
Always before, he had been the one to weave the magic over her, his Spirit spun with such vivid perfection and devastating power, she’d not been able to separate reality from illusion.
Now, it was her turn.
She called upon her power, summoning it as Jaren and Venarra had spent the last weeks teaching her. The magic came to her call, a heady rush of pure power. She pictured the images and sensations she desired, spinning the intricate pattern of the weaves. Spirit was her strongest branch of magic—it always had been.
When the weaves were as full and rich as she could make them, she let the magic spill forth in great shining flows. It fell over him like a veil, wrapping him tight in the enchantment of illusion so finely spun, even he could not tell where reality became magic.
Rain gasped as his blood ignited, becoming liquid flame, searing him from the inside out. Heat filled him, gathering in his loins and swelling his flesh near to bursting as her sweet mouth devoured him with relentless ardor and her magic overwhelmed his senses. Every muscle in his body clenched and strained as he fought to hold himself in check.
The wild coils of her hair feathered across his burning skin, stroking him in a rhythm that matched the devastating ebb and flow of her mouth. His lungs filled with her warm scent, his hands with the hot satin of her flesh. She was everywhere, commanding his body, whispering in his mind, torturing him with teasing touches and long, slow licks of velvet heat, pouring out upon him such boundless, unfettered passionate love as he’d never known before, never dared dream of. All the while, her mouth drove him to madness until he shuddered and cried her name on a sob. “Ellysetta!”
He spun a Spirit weave of his own, merging it with hers, urging her to give him the union he wanted. She slowly—ah, blessed gods, so slowly—released him and sat up, straddling his thighs. His hands clutched her hips, fingers digging into the soft curves, dragging her closer.
Ellysetta shivered as Rain’s need beat at her. Her body was on fire. Every delicious, incendiary touch and stroke she’d bestowedupon him had come back to her tenfold through the press of his naked, burning flesh against hers.
A trilling melody filled the air. The fairy-flies, sensing the Fey in their midst, had come to investigate. They swooped and soared in dizzying aerial displays. Trailing sparkling showers of dust from their jeweled wings, they spun and danced in the air above Rain and Ellysetta. Strangely, their presence did not seem an intrusion, but just a natural part of the sweet, wild enchantment of the moment.
