The Dragon Prince (34 page)

Rhun stopped, then came back to help her off
the horse. “I can’t take Cadal any further.” He tethered the horse
and dragged down his bulging saddle pack. Turning to her, he said,
“It’s only a little way now.”

She followed as he pushed his way through
the dense underbrush. The gnarled branches of hazel curled around
them like beckoning hands and the ground sloped downward, slippery
with moisture. Eastra quickly grew tired of trying to maintain her
footing. Sweating and panting, she wondered if this arduous journey
would be worth it.

The sound of running water grew louder. They
climbed down into a small ravine. After catching her breath, Eastra
gave a cry of delight. They were in a kind of hollow in the heavily
wooded hills. On one side was a small waterfall, tumbling down the
rocky slope to form a foaming pool. On the other side, a pile of
rocks had dammed up the stream and there was a little sheltered
space nearby, a mossy nook edged with white dewdrops and tiny
purple orchids. Rhun went to the mossy patch and, opening the pack,
began to arrange things. Eastra watched him spread out his oiled
leather cape, then a blanket. He gestured for her to join him.

When she reached him, she expected him to
kiss her, but instead, he began to undress. She watched as each
fascinating detail of his body was revealed. His broad shoulders,
the sleek expanse of his chest with its soft swirls of dark gold
hair. His flat, narrow belly. He sat on a rock as he took off his
boots, then turned sideways as he drew down his trousers. Eastra
suppressed a gasp. His erection jutted out, massive from this
angle. As he bent over to pull his trousers the rest of the way
off, she admired the erotic, muscular shape of his buttocks. He
turned to face her, grinning. “Enjoy it now,” he said, nodding to
his upthrust shaft. “For even my passion for you cannot maintain it
through this.”

Tossing his trousers aside, he made his way
to the edge of the pool and began to gingerly lower himself in.
When the water reached waist high, he turned to look at her.
“Cold,” he said.

He splashed himself, then rapidly ducked his
head under water. In another second, he was out and shaking himself
like a wet dog. “Jesu, that’s freezing.” He stumbled over to the
blanket and, grabbing another blanket from the pack, rapidly dried
himself. Then he knelt beside her and pulled her into his arms. She
squealed at the coldness of his body. “Warm me up,” he whispered.
“Fill me with fire.”

She kissed him in answer, feeling his flesh
heat even as they embraced. Her fingers stroked the smooth skin of
his back, up to his neck and his still wet hair. The heat radiated
out from where their lips were joined, hot, wet mouth against hot,
wet mouth. She pressed herself against him, feeling his shaft grow
hard against her. The provocative sensation made her wriggle her
hips in longing. Her breasts were aching, her nipples hard. Fire
danced along her body.

She drew back, breathless, wanting to be
naked herself. He leaned back on the blanket, his proud, deep pink
erection gleaming between his thighs. She began to undress for him.
Slipping off her sandals, she untied the girdle around her waist,
then drew up her skirts and pulled her gunna over her head. With
her fingers grasping the hem of her shift, she hesitated. She’d
never been fully naked in front of him before, not in daylight. But
the heat building inside her body made her feel reckless and
wanton. It was such a wild, primitive place. She wanted everything
between them to be just as raw and primal and pure.

She dragged the shift over her head and
stood before him, intensely aware of her own body, soft and curved
and female, her breasts heavy and abundant, like flowers blooming.
The swollen pink of her areolas. The rounded shape of her hips. Her
maidenhair, like golden moss curling near the hidden, mysterious
pool of her womanhood.

She watched him looking at her with an
expression of almost worship. He made her feel like a goddess, as
powerful and richly beautiful as the earth mother herself. She felt
free and weightless and alive.

“Your braids.” He gestured, and she realized
she wasn’t as unencumbered and free as she could be. She undid her
plaits and raked her fingers through her hair, feeling it soft and
light against her body.

“Your hair is like sunlight,” he said. “Or
moonlight. I want to hold it in my hands and feel the cool
silkiness of it against my body. Come to me.” He motioned. “Come to
me, my queen of light.”

She shook her head. There was one more thing
she wanted to do. She went to the edge of the rocks and lowered
herself into the pool. The deep, dark chill of the water seemed to
suck the life from her. She stayed in only a few gasping seconds,
then climbed out shivering. Rhun opened his arms to her. “Why did
you do that?” he asked, laughing. “Didn’t you believe me when I
told you how cold it was?”

She snuggled against him. “I wanted to be
clean for you,” she said.

He stopped rubbing her arms as he had been
doing. “Why?” His voice was a husky murmur. “Do you want me to
taste you everywhere like I did last time?”

She nodded suddenly too aroused to
speak.

“Ah, that is my dream as well.” He released
her so she could lie back on the blanket. She closed her eyes,
embarrassed at her own boldness. Once before she had urged him to
do this, but then she had been bewitched, caught up in Morguese’s
spell. Now nothing but her own pure desire made her stretch out her
body, offering it to her lover like a banquet.

She felt his warmth as he leaned over her,
then the soft pressure of his lips against her neck. He nuzzled
her, then licked his way up her neck and made her moan with the
soft, wet warmth of his tongue inside the whorl of her ear. She
shivered at the deliciousness of the sensation, melting as he
kissed his way down to one of her nipples. He sucked it deep into
his mouth and she moaned again. Her breasts were more sensitive
than ever, primed to be suckled by a babe. But this was a man,
teasing, mouthing, using his teeth to graze the exquisitely tender
skin of her nipple. She arched her hips, wondering if she could
bear any more. An urgent need filled her insides, making her want
their joining with a fierceness that took her breath away.

She cried out as he mouthed her other
breast. Then he kissed a pathway down her belly. She spread her
thighs for him, no longer caring if she appeared too eager, no
longer thinking of anything but the hunger building inside her, the
need that blotted out everything else.

His mouth caressed her most intimate parts.
Sublime pressure. The tantalizing roughness of his whiskers rasping
exquisitely against wet, sensitive flesh. The world twisted and
bucked. Her body shimmered and writhed with pleasure.

* * *

He was drowning, surrounded by a fabulous
mist of femininity. Intoxicated. Bewitched. Overwhelmed. She tasted
so good, scented with the rarest essence. Her body was silky,
liquid perfection, lush and bountiful. He wanted to merge himself
with her. To fill her softness with his hardness.

He felt her peak. Tasted the hot moisture of
her release. Felt the shuddering rapture grip her body. But there
was more. So much more he could give her.

He raised himself, still stroking her
tenderly with his fingers, then fitted himself against her
throbbing wet opening and thrust in deep. He heard a low, harsh
moan that he vaguely realized had come from his own throat. How
perfectly he fit inside her, as if they had been made for each
other. Open and welcoming, her body embraced his. As he began to
move, he felt her own answering rhythm. A kind of dance, their
bodies moving as one. Together they were divine, magical, a thing
of fire. The flames rose higher, raging, consuming both of them. He
gasped and lunged, stroking deep, feeling her womb, feeling her
body convulse around him, tight and desperate as she peaked again.
She forced him to the edge. Another deep stroke and they plunged
over the precipice together.

Intense and rapid, his senses overwhelmed.
And the aftermath was heaven. The woman in his arms, as soft and
yielding as a dream. He lay upon her, hoping he wasn’t crushing
her. But he didn’t want to lose this delicious closeness, this
sense of peace. He wanted to carry this moment with him forever, a
talisman against any darkness, any suffering.

He opened his eyes, marveling again how
beautiful she was, his queen of light. Her mere existence gave his
life meaning, filled him with hope, made him dream dreams. For so
long now, there had been a shadow over his heart, a sense things
were not as they should be. But with her, all felt right and good
and true.

He brushed a strand of hair away from her
face, marveling that flesh could be fashioned into a form so
exquisite. He adored her mouth, her nose, the curve of her cheek,
the way the lashes of her closed eyes made perfect dark crescents.
He ran his fingers through her hair, so fine and soft and as pale
as the sun glowing through the mist. She opened her eyes—a fine,
light blue like the fairest of summer skies—and smiled at him.

“This is a beautiful place,” she said.
“Since I’ve come to your land, I haven’t been easy here. Everything
seems so sad and wild, all dark stones, somber hills and gloomy
skies. But in this place, I feel a kind of peacefulness. If the
land is a goddess, then the goddess of your people is very fierce
and demanding. But here I can sense her warm, tender heart.”

Rhun laughed. “Aye, I can see that. Perhaps
that’s why I used to come here when I was young, to puzzle things
out and fashion my dreams of the future.”

“And what did you dream about when you were
a boy?”

He turned away, feeling the outside world
pressing against their circle of happiness. “I wanted to be a great
warrior, like my father. I wanted to do great things.”

“And you have,” she whispered.

He shook his head. She wanted to comfort him
as a mother comforts her small son, speaking soothing words and
stroking his forehead to make him sleep, to forget the trials and
disappointments of the day. But he was a man, and he knew her words
for what they were. Tenderness. Love. But not the truth.

“I accomplished so little. Held back the
tide for only so many years. And at what a cost? Not merely the men
I’ve killed, but the Companions who’ve fallen beside me. It’s
because of them I keep fighting. I don’t want their deaths to be in
vain.”

He sighed and Eastra’s heart twisted in her
chest. If only there were something she could do to help him, to
make him feel better about his life. She thought about the babe. If
he knew he had sired a child to live after him, would that comfort
him? Or make him more despairing?

But again, she hesitated to tell him. She
wanted him to love her again, to arouse that mindless heated
passion, conjure the heaving, untrammeled ecstasy that would cling
to them and leave them both with shining, pure memories of what
they had known together. She reached up and pulled his face down to
hers, kissing him with slow tenderness that soon turned to gasping,
urgent need. And then they were lost again. tumbling wildly in a
fierce current of passion, frantic and helpless, as the flood
carried them out to the wide endless sea.

“I suppose we must go back,” Rhun said
later. “Rhiannon and the children will have returned from berrying
by now. They’ll worry if they don’t find you at the fortress.”

Eastra said, “I think Rhiannon knows I’m
with you.”

Rhun looked at her and nodded. “She probably
does. When I was younger, she often unnerved me by knowing exactly
what I was thinking, or where I had been. Which is why I probably
should ride back with you.”

“What? You were thinking of running off like
Bridei did, without even stopping to see your family?”

“Aye. And for the same reason. That they
might mourn me less if I am but a distant memory to them. But if
Rhiannon knows I’m here, it’s only right that I go to the fortress
and let them fuss over me.” He grimaced.

“Don’t you want to see them?”

“Of course I do. But it will not make it any
easier to leave when I have to.”

“How long?” She whispered the words,
dreading to hear his answer. “How long can you stay?”

“A day or two at most. It took longer to get
here than I had hoped. I was delayed a whole night in the mountains
when a mist came up and trapped us there.”

They reclined on the blanket for a while
longer, not speaking. Both of them dreaded leaving the glen. It was
a refuge, a timeless, magical place where neither the future nor
the past mattered. But finally, with another sigh, he rose and
began to dress. She did the same, taking time to wash herself in
the freezing water, then donning her shift and gunna and
sandals.

They walked back to Rhun’s horse. Cadal was
trying to graze on the hawthorn bush he was tied to. “Don’t worry,”
Rhun reassured the beast. “When we get to Deganwy, you shall have a
mound of fresh sweet hay to eat.”

They walked back to the fortress, Rhun
leading the horse. On the way there, they talked about
inconsequential things. Eastra told him about the children, how
they had grown, what pretty young women his sisters were, and that
so far Maelgwn had refused to entertain any offers for them.

“He’s going to have to let them go
sometime,” Rhun said as they neared the gate. “He can’t keep them
locked away at Deganwy forever.”

“He says he wants them to marry for love, to
be able to choose the man they will marry. But whenever any young
warriors come to visit, he has his bards make up songs ridiculing
them. Humiliated, the young men flee Deganwy and your sisters
remain unwed.”

“Poor Papa,” Rhun laughed. “Most men can
scarcely wait until their daughters reach marriageable age and they
can bargain them off to seal alliances. He’s just the opposite. I
don’t think he will ever think any man is good enough for either
Elen or Anwyl.”