Embrace the Wind (9 page)

Obediently he rolled over with his hands folded under his head as she straddled his

bare ass and began to work her magic on his taut shoulders. Her touch was heavenly

and he felt the kinks dissolving from his muscles.

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“And this problem you have with thinking we are going to mutiny and then you’ll

be caught in the middle between us has to cease, Reaper,” she said. “Think of yourself

as a tool we trade back and forth to get the job done.”

That analogy didn’t set well with him. He wasn’t pleased to be thought of as

something they could drop in to borrow as the mood struck and he told her so.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she said with exasperation rife in her voice. “You are thinking

in a man’s terms, Reaper. Try to see it from our viewpoint.”

“I don’t see the difference,
lheelh
.
You are comparing me to an implement to be

used. I’m more than the sum of my shaft, wench.”

“
Perhaps my comparison was a bit simplistic and insulting,” she said.

For a while she continued to knead his back and waist then shifted her body so she

could work on the muscles of his ass.

“All right, then look at it like this,” she finally said. “You are a fine sable brush and

we are the canvases upon which you will create your masterpieces. With Corallin, it

will be a dark work done in grays and blacks and perhaps with just a hint of crimson

for flavor. With Aureolin, it will be a tasty little work filled with frolic and laughter.”

She leaned over him and kissed the nape of his neck. “How’s that?”

“Better,” he acknowledged, “but what of you, milady? What work of art will I

create upon your canvas?”

“What would you like to paint upon my canvas, Reaper?” she countered.

He lifted his head and craned his neck so he could look up at her. “Love,” he said.

“Rich, vibrant, enduring love painted in the colors of the heart.”

Tears misted Argent’s eyes. “Do you mean that?”

“With my entire being, aye, I mean it,” he said. “It’s all I’ve thought about as I fell

into tired sleep these last two nights.” He lowered his head. “I don’t know what you did

to me, Argent, but I can’t get you out of my mind and it is you I think about every

waking moment.” His voice turned sad. “Even when I’m with your sisters.”

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“And that concerns you.”

“I don’t want them to get hurt.”

“They won’t,” she said. “We knew when the Chosen Lover came to us he would

choose one of us as his first wife, that he would love her more than the other two. We

expected it. That it was me is an honor I greatly cherish.” She lay down so her breasts

were flattened against his back. “Stop borrowing trouble by trying to overanalyze this,

Eanan. It is what it is and is the way the megaverse conceived it to be.”

He thought about that for a moment as she straightened and began squeezing his

left cheek muscle firmly. Her ministrations felt so good he became limp and useless on

the mattress and could barely draw breath he was so relaxed.

“I really am developing deep feelings for you,” he told her at last.

“I know.”

She worked her way down his legs and onto each separate toe. By the time she

finished with the little digit on his left foot, he was sound asleep again.

Eanan woke with the sun brightly shining through the open weaves of Argent’s

white lace curtains. He blinked against the intrusion and moved his face from a stray

beam of sunlight.

The bed beside him was empty but when he put a hand to the silk sheet, there was

body warmth there and his lady’s scent clinging to the fabric. Reaching for the plump

pillow that still bore the impression of her head, he brought it to his face and inhaled

deeply, drawing her deep into his lungs.

“Are you hungry, my Reaper?”

Tossing the pillow aside, he turned over and held out his arms. “For you,” he said

in a husky voice.

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She came to him and went into his arms gently and with all the confidence of a

woman who has found her own destiny in life. She stretched out beside him and

snuggled into his embrace.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Quarter of the hour of six,” she said.

“And the Joining is to be when exactly?”

“Ten of the clock.”

“By rights it should have been at the stroke of midnight,” he said.

Her hand was splayed against his chest, her fingers threaded through the crisp

curls there. She kissed his shoulder and craned her head back to look up at him.

“I love you, Eanan Tohre,” she said.

“I love you, Lady Tohre,” he whispered, and placed a kiss on her forehead.

“Make love to me all morning,” she said. “Allow me to have your scent within my

body when Kheelan walks me down the aisle to you.”

“Oh, that should go over well with the High Lord,” Eanan mumbled.

“Trust us to protect you, you wimpy Reaper,” she teased.

“I’ve a feeling you’re going to have to,” he told her. “If the High Lord doesn’t sic

the ghoret on me, the other Shadowlords may take daggers to my manhood.”

“They’ll do no such thing and you know it,” she said, twisting a spiky curl around

her index finger.

“Well, they’ll want to,” he insisted. “Among other even more devilishly painful

things only a Shadowlord can devise.”

“Stop talking and make love to me, Eanan! Time is of the essence!” she insisted.

“Get your mind off our brothers and put it where it should be.”

“And where’s that, Lady Tohre?” he asked.

“On me,” she stated firmly.

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He rolled her over and covered her with his body. “I
am
on you, wench.”

With such a beautiful woman naked beneath him, her silver hair draped over his

bare arms and down his side, her gray eyes looking up at him with trust and growing

love, Eanan thought he had surely died and gone on to his reward. Never could he have

imagined ever having hearth and home and be husband to a woman such as this.

“Or consort to two more,” she said.

Eanan laughed. He would have to be very careful of his thoughts around this one.

She could read him like a book.

She hooked a leg over his hip. “Reaper?” she snapped at him. “Can you come up

with anything else to think about instead of seeing to your woman’s needs?”

“You want me to come up with something?”

“Aye, I do!”

He ground his groin against her, letting her feel the growing erection her words had

caused. “How’s that?”

“Not a big issue yet but if handled properly, it might become one,” she said,

tucking the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth and grinning at him.

“Then let’s handle it, wench,” he ordered gruffly.

Her body quivered as his fingers roamed at will over her flesh and dipped into the

hollows. She released a low groan of pleasure as he slid his hand between her legs and

cupped her sex. The heat of his palm was intoxicating.

“This,” he said, stroking her firmly. “This is what you want.”

Writhing beneath his touch, Argent buried her hands in the goose-down pillow and

arched her hips up to him, straining so every inch of her slick folds could press against

the palm of his hand.

“And what I want is you so wet the sheets beneath you will weep with your fluids.”

His words made her tremble, caused her heartbeat to speed up, her breathing to

catch in her throat.

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He slipped a strong, hard finger into her slit and probed deep. “You want this?”

She nodded and swept a tongue over her dry lips.

“Or would you rather have this?”

Another finger joined the first.

“Or maybe this would be better.”

A third finger slid inside her damp heat and he twisted them gently back and forth,

wetting her even more.

Argent pulled at the pillow, released it and grabbed a handful of sheet to curl in her

hand. Her body was on fire with need for this man and the ache between her thighs was

intensifying.

“Let’s see what else you might want,
lheelh
.”

He put his hands to her thighs and pushed her legs apart, shoving his hands under

her ass. He lifted her and brought her sex to his mouth.

“Reaper!” she cried out, and her hands went to the thick black curls covering his

head. She tugged ruthlessly at the midnight hair and heard him growl.

“I’m not into pain, baby,” he told her. “Leave off with rendering your man bald.”

Argent groaned and slammed her hands once more to the covers, twisting them as

brutally as she had his hair. She arched her hips—wanting his mouth on her again and

not chastising her for something she couldn’t help.

“I need you, Eanan!” she cried.

“You need to behave,” he said, and thrust his tongue deep inside her for just a

moment before bringing it out and sweeping it unmercifully across her clit.

Stars burst behind Argent’s silver eyes and she screamed as wave after wave of

orgasm shook her. Her ass ground into the mattress then arched toward her lover—

wanting more, needing more.

Eanan pushed her legs up, hooked them over his shoulder and rammed into her

hard and quick, ensuring another series of earth-shattering climaxes for his lady. She

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was panting as the spasms went on and on. Her eyes were squeezed closed and she put

a long rent in the sheet as she clawed at it.

Harder and faster he slammed into her soft, wet heat. Driving into her with enough

force to rock the bed against the wall and make the bedsprings squeal. The tip of his

cock was right up against her womb. She came for him over and over again until she

began to plead with him to finish, to come.

His cock was stone-cold hard and burning, but the release remained just out of his

reach. Sweat dripped down his brow and upper lip, trickled down his chest and pooled

across the mat of hair on his chest. His flesh slapping against hers, his cock jamming in

and out of her silken sheath, his thighs were beginning to quiver. The pain was

pleasure. The pleasure was pain. Yet still he thrust faster and faster, feeling the might of

one hell of an orgasm galloping toward him.

At the moment he came, Eanan Tohre thought he would die from the sheer

intensity of the release. The world turned black around the edges then flamed brilliant

red and orange and yellow. Heat flowed from his cock with every spurt until he was

drained of every drop and fell upon his lady spent.

“Mother of the goddess, Eanan,” she said. “That’s a good way to have a heart

attack.”

Gasping for breath, feeling even limper than overcooked noodles, the Reaper lay

perfectly still save for the occasional shudder that racked his body. His heart was

thundering so loudly he could hear it reverberating in his ears. There wasn’t an ounce

of stamina or energy left in his body. He simply couldn’t move.

“Well, if you had not already gotten me with child, you would have that time,” she

teased him. “I’m so full with your seed I may drown in it.”

He shivered then closed his eyes. Sleep was what he needed. Sleep and rest.

Argent enfolded him in her arms and began to hum an old folk song. She had no

way of knowing it was one of his favorites from a land and time so far away. As he fell

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into a deep, deep slumber, the last thing he heard was her soothing voice showering

him with love.

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On a lovely Saturday morning as the clock struck ten, the High Lord escorted his

sister Argent Ben-Alkazar down the aisle to be Joined with the Reaper Eanan Tohre.

Behind them, Lord Dunham Tarnes escorted his sister Corallin, and a few steps back

were Lord Naois Belvoir and his sister Aureolin. The priest awaited them at the front of

the chapel with Owen standing as his twin’s best man.

Among the attendees were all the Reapers and their ladies if they were mated, the

healers, the guides, a lone Amazeen warrioress whose eyes were shockingly misty, and

a stunning being in a copper gown who sat off to one side in midair, one shapely leg

crossed over the other, Her fiery red hair floating around Her as though in a light

breeze.

As befitting her place as
ben heshee kied
, Argent came to stand at Eanan’s left side

and he took her hand in his. Second wife Corallin through virtue of her age came to his

right to take his other hand. The youngest knelt before him with her hands wrapped

around his left leg so all four were connected by touch as the ceremony began.

It was a traditional Joining—save for the hour at which it was being held—and

when the priest reached that part of the ceremony in which he asked for Eanan’s pledge

to his wife, the Reaper looked first to Argent to repeat the vows he had been given by

the priest, praying he would not stumble during the saying.

“I take you, Argent, as my
ben heshee kied,
my first wife. I promise to love and

protect you, comfort and cherish you, provide for you in sickness and in health until

time is no more for us.”

He turned to Corallin. “I take you, Corallin, as my lady-wife. I promise to love and

protect you, comfort and cherish you, provide for you in sickness and in health until