Aurora's Promise (28 page)

The scent of cinnamon wreathed through the spicy sandalwood
of Connyn’s skin and tugged her soul hard with the emotions that stubbornly
stuck to her heart. She quit fighting Connyn’s mental invasion. It didn’t
matter anymore. Her defenses were gone. Stripped raw and throbbing, leaving her
breathing in ragged, sobbing pants. His mind broke through the thin veil as he
sifted through her thoughts of the day, reading her memories, what she had done
and seen. What she had caused.

She was with him there in her mind as he saw how she had
watched Brooke fall asleep and then used her magic to reveal the door in the
wall. How she had used her magic to push the tray of food over from down the
hall and around the corner and even how she had flirted with one of The
Gateways guards to catch his voice in a spell that lured his companion out of
the way.

When he took her through the memories of the portals, she
felt his surge of rage underlined with fear as he watched the
meglay’s
attack, fading only as she remembered how she used her magic to push herself away
from the animal. He saw her fright at being lost and exhausted, the surge of
relief that flooded her when he’d found her and the love for him at the base of
every other emotion that had driven her through the day. All of it. Every
memory and emotion of the day lay bare before him, unprotected and wholly
vulnerable.

Connyn pulled out of Aurora’s mind and stared down at his
mate’s shuddering body in shock. He’d been so wrong. So incredibly wrong.

He’d accused her of betraying him.
Believed
she’d
betrayed him. What he’d seen he could hardly take in. The rage he’d felt at
what he’d thought to be her betrayal was now turned on himself. His soul felt
stained by his accusations and the thought of what he could have destroyed, had
been so intent on destroying, tore through him with an agonizing howl of regret
and shame.

The sound of Aurora’s uneven breath brought him back from
his mind’s rush toward oblivion and he looked down at his mate, bent over
before him and still struggling with the effects of her last climax and his
mental invasion. Tenderly he smoothed his hand down her back.

She loved him. That had been as clear to him in her mind as
one other very important piece of information.

“Magic?” he whispered. “You can manifest the magic the gods
trapped in your blood all those centuries ago?”

Aurora’s head was resting on the bank between her
outstretched arms. Her eyes were closed and her hair was plastered to the skin
of her flushed face and shoulders. Under his hands, he could feel the tiny
tremors still quaking through her muscles.

“Yes.” Her answer was so soft he could almost believe she’d
answered with her mind except he’d seen her lips move. Slowly, her eyes opened.
The dark orbs were bright with the effects of her recent climaxes, her body
still besieged by sensations that kept her tightly held next to the edge of
ecstasy.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why would you hold such a secret
from me?”

Before she could answer, another shudder rolled up her spine
and he watched the agony of pleasure tighten the muscles of her face as her
eyes closed and her mouth rounded on the faintest moan. So soft. So sexy.

He leaned over her and covered her body with his own,
holding her closely, closer than he’d hold his own life. Pushing his hand
between her legs, he covered her pussy, shielding it from the constant play of
the fish.

“Were you afraid of the Council’s reaction?”

She shook her head and labored to take in a breath.

He kissed her shoulder. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now.
They will accept you because you are my mate.” Carefully he drew her hair off
her face with the tips of his fingers. Combing it back and over to the side, he
left her bared to his sight from her neck down. Gently he leaned over her,
wrapped his arm around her and splayed his hand over her heart. “My
vystra
.”

“What?”

Laying another tender kiss on the back of her neck and then
her temple, he said, “You’re my mate and I should not have doubted you.”

“You didn’t know—”

“That doesn’t excuse my actions.”

“But I haven’t told you—”

“It’s all right. I know what’s true now.” His voice was
harsh with regret and self-loathing. He leaned down and swiped his tongue over
Aurora’s shoulder simply to taste his mate and to calm the storm still raging
within him.

He rested his forehead between her shoulder blades. “What we
don’t know of each other, we’ll learn.” Lifting his head, he kissed the curve
of her neck. “Destiny has bound us and our hearts have confirmed it.”

“Connyn, please let me explain—” She broke off with a
shudder and her thighs clamped around his hand.

“Shhh
.
There is nothing more to say. Not tonight.”

He reached out again with his mind to touch hers. Found it
was open to him, though the gold mist was starting to creep back in around the
edges. It didn’t worry him. Soon the mental paths they shared would become
stronger and easier to travel and she would be able to touch his mind as he did
hers. The blessing from the Council should complete any missing pieces that
complicated the matter at present.

Aurora moaned and pushed back against him, her ass pressing
into his cock. His very hard cock. The heat of her body ignited a need to have
his mate that was so primal, so absolutely elemental it destroyed all other
thought.

Before, when he’d believed she’d chosen another,
invited
another
into her body after lying to his face about her vows, he’d not even considered
mating with her. Taking her was his right as long as she’d given him that right
with truth in her vows. As was her right to take him the moment he’d given her
his vows. But not with a lie between them. Bringing her to a hard and sustained
pleasure to understand and gain the truth, yes, he’d do that. To use her body
for his own release out of anger and emptiness was a sacrilege to the vows he
lived by and a thing he would not do, regardless of the amoral demands of his
flesh.

But now, now that he knew she was his, that her heart
belonged to him and her mind could be opened to him there wasn’t a barrier in
existence that could keep him from having his mate.

His hand had remained cupped over her pussy and he pressed
his fingers up, testing. She was still hot and swollen but not so sensitive
that she jerked when he touched her clit. Carefully he slid a single finger
into her cunt, probing to make sure all the globules had dissolved. He didn’t
think she could handle another round of the fish on top of what he had planned
for her.

Aurora had stepped forward so that her chest was resting on
the bank as well as her head. Her eyes were closed and her arms relaxed. Other
than a short throaty moan when his knuckle grazed the exquisitely sensitive
spot at the front of her vagina, she didn’t respond as he examined her.

“I’ll be right back,” he said as he withdrew his hand. “Don’t
move.”

Her eyelids didn’t even slightly flutter as she raised one
arm slightly off the ground as far as the binding plant would allow. “You’re
kidding, right?” she asked sarcastically.

He waded to the far side of the pool where he gathered the
pertinent parts of two other plants. When the ripples in the water telegraphed
his nearness, Aurora looked up.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Preparing to take what is mine.”

Aurora groaned and dropped her head back down. “For the love
of god, Connyn. If you don’t quit, I won’t be walking for a week.”

After shifting the plants to his left hand, he ran the right
one down the center of her back and over her hip in one long proprietary sweep
before pressing his thumb into the firmness of her ass as his fingers claimed
the crease at the top of her thigh. “Don’t worry. I’m well able to carry you
any place you need to go.”

His mate’s softly muttered curse made him smile, but the way
she arched her back and tilted her ass up at his touch made him burn. He didn’t
try to stop the low growl that rumbled up out of his chest. Spreading his hand
over her ass cheek, he pressed his fingers down until they dented her flesh and
his palm was hot against her skin.

Ready to have both his hands on her, he placed one of the
woody stems across her back while he dunked the long, knobbed pod he’d peeled
out of another plant into the water to moisten it before slowly pushing it into
her cunt. The unusually heavy seeds trapped inside would roll around once he
started thrusting and his mate would be doubly stimulated and filled. It was a
tight fit and he had to twist it in to secure it. Aurora didn’t resist,
instead, she widened her stance to give him easier access. As a reward, he
stroked her clit as he finished inserting the pod. She was rocking backward
into his fingers when he stopped his caresses.

Rolling her head on her arm she protested with a throaty
groan. “Damn it, Connyn. You don’t play fair.”

“And you played fair with me last night?” he asked,
remembering the cutting edge of lust she had tethered him to for so long. He
slipped his fingers down inside the crease of her buttocks and pressed one
against her anus.

Aurora’s head came up and she snapped it around to look at
him, her eyes wide and wild. “Oh no,” she whispered as he circled her there and
started to press inside. “Not now. Not after everything else.”

“Yes.” He pushed his finger fully in and watched as her
eyelids squeezed shut and her teeth sank into her lower lip on a sexy moan. He
pulled it back out, pushed it in. She moved with his hand and the water slapped
gently around her cunt and splashed up to his finger.

“Shit,” she hissed and dropped her forehead down to rest on
her arm.

As he removed his finger, he watched the small puckered hole
pull against it, felt the added friction of the tight little muscle that
guarded this entry. Lust rose in a rush of need to feel that taut circle
stretched around his cock.

Breaking the top of the stem of the second plant he’d
picked, he tipped it up and poured the syrupy liquid into his cupped hand.
After coating his jutting erection in it, he parted her ass cheeks with the
thumb and index finger of one hand and gently inserted the opened end of the
stem into her anus just a fraction to squirt the remainder of the liquid into
her channel. This gel wouldn’t attract the fish again, but it stayed slick and
thick for some time in water.

Aurora’s body shivered as he finished and tossed the stem
away. The liquid was cold until heated by friction. Contradictory sensations he
was willing to bet would heighten his mate’s ultimate climax.

“Put your legs together and tilt your ass up as high as you
can,” he ordered.

Slowly, Aurora readjusted her position, abruptly stopping
once when her movements shifted the pod inside her. “Holy crap,” she gasped. “What
did you put inside me? It’s moving!”

“Only when you do.”

She breathed out hard. “Shit, what the hell is this place?”

“The last world you hopped into trying to get away from me,”
he said, pressing on her back until she was angled to his satisfaction with the
waterline hitting her clit and her ass high enough to be fucked.

“I wasn’t running away, I was running
to,
” she
panted. “A clear-cut differ—
Oh!”

The sound of his mate being sensually staggered into little
more than breathy gasps and moans was becoming quickly addictive. It was also a
very satisfying way of cutting short her argumentative nature.

Connyn had separated her ass cheeks during her explanation
and wasted no time pressing the head of his cock against her back hole. It was
tight but gave enough with the lubricant from the plant to allow the head
access into the narrow channel when he rocked forward firmly. The puckered hole
stretched to accommodate the wide head and tightened immediately under its
ridge, sending streaks of lightning up his shaft and blazing over his spine.

Aurora’s sudden intake of breath rippled the water around
them. The unsteady breaths that came afterward as he pushed in further jiggled
her ass under his hands and forced out her tiny, whispery moans. Squeezing her
ass cheeks with each hand, he pulled them slightly further apart. One of the
best things about this type of fucking was the unhindered ability to see his
mate’s body swallow his cock, watch her take it in inch by inch until his
entire shaft was in as deep as possible.

As he pushed forward again, seeing his cock disappear into
Aurora’s ass nearly sent him over the edge of his control. He glanced up to
check on her and found her looking at him with her mouth rounded around a
breathy moan. The fire in her eyes licked at him with dark flames of desire as
the tip of her tongue swiped over her teeth.

She held his gaze as he thrust slowly but completely into
her. He held himself there, buried inside her and pressed flush against her,
taking in his mate’s arousal and the submission of her body to his lusts. When
he didn’t move she turned away from him and let her head fall backward onto her
shoulders. The action arched her back even more severely and pushed her ass
more firmly against him. He felt the weight of the pod shift inside his mate’s
pussy and Aurora’s body tensed under him.

“God damn it, Connyn,” she ground out, her voice harsh and
bewitchingly demanding, “if you don’t fuck me now and fuck me hard, I’m going
to fucking scream!”

A command, ancient and eternal, rose from the promise he
carried in his blood. The ultimate oath between mates where taking guaranteed
giving all. A yielding so complete it forged the eternal strength that could
ultimately bind two souls as one. It defied the words that would define it,
simply existing far beyond the primordial memories that fused his being to his
soul. It was beyond dogma and dictates. Forever before and forever after,
Aurora was his as he was wholly hers.