Gift of the Goddess (6 page)

Unshed tears shone in his eyes. “But that wasn’t the worst. My vran stood so hard on his thigh, it was a miracle the bone wasn’t broken. He limped for a year and I had to watch, knowing it was my fault. He still has the scar.”

Anje stroked the firm flesh of his arm, the light, golden hair silky-rough under her fingertips. “I’m sure he’s forgiven you.”

“Yes.” The word came out as a sigh. He squeezed his eyes shut and when they opened again, that purely male expression of speculation was back, spiced with mischief. “You have a price to pay, love.” A red-gold brow arched. “Lean back.”

Warily, Anje did as she was bid. “One kiss. We agreed.”

“I remember. Put your palms flat on the ground.” He waited patiently ‘til she complied.

“Now…” He unlaced her shirt, spreading it so her breasts were exposed. “One kiss. But where?” His gaze was considering.

Anje’s clitoris gave a convulsive ripple that spread sensation from her belly to her breasts in a single, swift wave. “Trey. That’s not what—” She swallowed as he drifted a fingertip over her areola.

“I love women’s tits, their nipples,” he said dreamily. “They’re so soft, so tender. I could play all day. Look how beautifully they stand up.” He pinched her pouting flesh between two knuckles and tugged.

Anje took her bottom lip between her teeth. “Get on with it.” Her clit burned.

“Mind you…” His gaze drifted down and he bunched the hem of the shirt with one hand and pushed it up her leg. “This would be a good place.” He nudged her thigh aside and ran a finger over the satin smoothness of her sex, gathering moisture, leaving fire in his wake. “Mmm.” He put the digit in his mouth and his tongue crept out, cleaning it as neatly as a cat.

“What do you think, Anje? Shall I kiss you here?” His fingers returned, petting without penetrating.

Her heart had migrated to a new home between her thighs. It beat and beat. He was so young, so sweet. Mother, what had the shaman taught him? She shook herself out of her daze. “I thought…”

Trey moved to kneel between her legs. His lips hovered a breath away from hers. “I never got to kiss you hullo properly.” He cradled her cheeks in the palms of his hands and his tongue traced her lower lip. “Hullo, Anje,” he whispered. “I’m so glad we found you.” He slanted that carnal mouth lightly over hers. “Don’t go away.”

The softness of his lips settled, molded to hers. The tip of his tongue dabbed at the corner of her mouth, licked over her lower lip, ventured within. It flicked and teased,

29 Denise Rossetti

sending tingles chasing up and down her spine. Anje growled in her throat and her fingers sank into his shoulders.

He drew back. “Easy, darling, easy.” Then he returned, the blessed heat of him filling her mouth, sinking into her by slow degrees. He didn’t rush, didn’t hurry or push, he kept it remorselessly tender. Her hands slid up over his neck and into his curls. His tongue was so firm, his lips so soft. He kissed like a master, exploring the interior of her mouth, tangling his tongue with hers in a spiral dance.

His body pressed into hers from chest to groin, and he set up a languid rocking motion with the ridge of his erection, rasping her clit with every stroke.

Sweet, it was so sweet. Anje hooked one leg around his hips, pressing him closer. With a moan, she arched her pelvis and Trey echoed her pleasure deep in his throat.

The sounds shook her out of her sensual trance. She tightened her grip in his hair and wrenched. They stared at each other, gasping.

“No more.” She put her fingers over his lips. When he licked them, she swallowed. Gods, she’d nearly—!

Trey watched her intently, eyes shining with unslaked desire. “Anje.” His voice was quiet, steady. “I only meant it as a welcome kiss. Truly.”

“All right.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.
What was it about these two
? “How did you know?”

“How close you were?” She nodded.

Trey smiled, his mouth deliciously swollen. “The flames of Lufra burn in your eyes, just as they do in Brin’s.”

There was something odd in his voice, something off-kilter, but she set aside it to puzzle over later. “The flames of Lufra?”

He grinned and stood. “There’s a mirror in my saddlebag. Want me to get you hot so you can check?”

When he reached down to pull her up, Anje hooked his feet out from under him. As he sprawled, she grabbed her pack and marched back to the camp, head high.

Trey’s laughter rang out behind her.

30 Gift of the Goddess

Chapter Four

Decorative Arts—Tattoo:

Among sailors of the Leaves of the Sea, a tattoo is a symbol of courage as much as a personal enhancement. Elaborate designs, taking years to complete, may cover the subject from waist to knee. The Feolin, in contrast, look on the pain of the procedure as a homage to their goddess. Only shamans or priestesses have their bodies decorated in this manner.

Excerpt from the Great Encyclopedia, compiled by Miriliel the Burnished.

She barreled into the camp to find Brin sitting cross-legged, placidly sewing a button on a shirt, dark brows drawn fiercely together in concentration. The needle was lost in his big fingers. The sight startled a bark of laughter out of her.

“Someone’s got to do it,” he pointed out. “And Trey hasn’t the patience.”

“You have?” She propped a hand on her hip.

“I can wait for what I want.” Brin set the shirt aside and rose slowly to his full height. He was still wearing the sarong, knotted loosely about his hips. Anje set her teeth and planted her feet. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of glancing at all that hair-dusted, olive-toned flesh. Not even once.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “I see you discovered the limits of the torque.”

She cast him a killing glare. “It makes me a slave.”

“No.”

“Then take it off.”

“I like to see it on you.” The thick lashes fell over his eyes and he reached out to touch it lightly with his fingertips. “Give me your trust and the range increases.”

The Mother only knew how she was going to get away from him. She’d never met a man so formidable, so hard to read. “Not likely!” she spat.

Then her stomach growled, rather spoiling the moment. Anje tossed her head. “Your slave needs feeding, oh great master.”

Brin slid a hand under her hair and turned her around. “I’ve lit the fire. There’s hot water for roberry brew and last night’s leftovers.” His light clasp on her nape was almost brotherly, comforting.

He bent his dark head to whisper in her ear. “I like hearing you call me master. Shall I hold you on my lap and feed you, beautiful slave?”

Anje snarled and pulled herself away, her brain working furiously. What if he was unconscious, would the magic of the torques still work? If she could knock him out…

31 Denise Rossetti

Feeling better with a bowl of porridge warm in her belly, she dug out her bag of powdered babybane. She wasn’t stupid. If she didn’t take her daily dose of the contraceptive herb, she might yet pay the consequences for yesterday’s weakness. Luckily, she preferred the sweetness of babybane to the bitter bite of roberry, so it was no hardship.

She took the steaming mug with her to the tent, kicked off her boots and settled down to take stock of the contents of her pack. Stroking her thumb over the hilt of her knife, she was considering its precise placement against Brin’s skull when his long fingers lifted the weapon out of her hands. He studied it. “Aetherian work?”

When she grunted assent, he hefted it. “Nice balance. And a handle of vran horn, no less. Very pretty.”

He handed it back politely, hilt first, and Anje saw amusement gleaming in his eyes, the patronizing bastard. “I won it at the Games of the Mother,” she said stiffly.

A dark brow winged up. “We should spar, you and I.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“There can never be enough tricks and I warrant you know some good ones,” he said tranquilly. “I like to learn, scout.”

Mother, Trey had been right! It hadn’t been her imagination, yesterday. There
was
fire in his eyes, tiny flames that flickered in the inky depths of his pupils. Heat stirred in her loins.

“This isn’t roberry.” He’d lifted her cup to his lips.

For the first time since Brin had carried her into the camp, Anje grinned. “It’s babybane.”

Brin choked and spluttered. She chuckled. “Don’t fret, mighty warrior. You could drink gallons of the stuff before your balls shrivel.”

But when she saw his face, the spurt of humor died. The goddess light in his eyes had faded, leaving them flat and bleak. He stepped to the tent flap. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the contents of the mug away. “You won’t need it.” Spotting her bag of the powdered herb, he flung that out too. “Nor this.” She heard a faint splash.

“What the hell—?
Brin!
” Outraged, Anje leaped forward, but his arm barred the way.

His jaw set. “No Feolin seed has quickened for four years now.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Lufra has turned Her face from us.” He moved away, but Anje followed.

“Brin, wait.” He stopped.

She pushed the hair out of her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly.

He shrugged his massive shoulders.

32 Gift of the Goddess

“You mean no children, none at all?” She couldn’t imagine it. She wasn’t maternal, had never been. It was one of the reasons she was so fit to be a scout. But her people adored their children and Anje had a real affection for her sister’s brood of three. Zulie’s little ones tumbled like puppies at clan gatherings, attracting dirt and disaster in equal measures.

Brin returned to stand before her. She hadn’t realized she’d stretched out a hand ‘til he took it in both of his and cradled it against his heart.

“Seventy years ago,” he said heavily, “the king of the Feolin committed a great sin in the eyes of Lufra. He raped her High Priestess. The woman killed herself and the Goddess abandoned us.” His fingers tightened bruisingly on Anje’s. “The birth-rate has been dropping for decades. I am an only child. Trey has but one sister. The Feolin are dying, Anje.”

Under her palm, she could feel the steady thump of his heart. How could such vitality, such energy, cease to be? “Do you have—?” She couldn’t go on.

He shook his head. “I am especially cursed.” His lips twisted and he let her hand drop. “I’m barren, Anje. So many women, so many years…”

“And Trey?” she whispered, putting her hand back.

“Trey also, though he’s still so young. There’s more time in hand for him.” He paused. “Thank you, scout.”

“What for?”

“For caring.”

She snorted. “I don’t!”

“Where are your hands?”

Anje stifled a curse. She’d been smoothing one palm across his chest, again and again. The other cupped the warmth of his hipbone. Right on that terrible bruise.

“Gods, sorry!” She leaped away.

He caught her by the elbow. “It’s all right. It’s not what you think.”

“Then…” She frowned in puzzlement.

“See for yourself.” He pulled the knot free and the sarong swished to the ground.

“
Holy Mother!
” All the air punched out of her lungs.

Dragon-anointed.

The tattoo girdled his loins, in a writhing pattern of black and red, every tendril, scale and claw rendered in exquisite detail. The beast rose high over his trim hips, swooping to undulate over a ridged abdomen. The long reptilian head with its gaping mouth was angled at the glossy black thatch of his pubic bush.

His penis was half hard and rising to meet her regard, the heavy testicles tightening below. Anje knew without meeting his gaze that the goddess flame would be blazing in his midnight eyes.

33 Denise Rossetti

“Want to see the rest?” He pivoted slowly, presenting her with a broad back tapering to a neat waist and high, rounded buttocks. The dragon’s tail dipped into the cleft between those firm cheeks, the tip of one canted wing caressing the crease where his ass met the back of his thigh.

Anje closed her teeth on a whimper as Brin turned to face her again.

How cleverly he’d concealed this glory from her yesterday! Now she came to think of it—and to be fair, she’d done little
but
think of it—they’d wrapped her so tight in their sensual web, she’d had no time for contemplation before she was swamped with pleasure.

She collapsed on the bedroll, sitting on her hands so they couldn’t get away from her, and gobbled him with her eyes. She’d never seen a man so big who was so perfectly proportioned, graceful as a temple dancer. And he had the most beautiful skin, smooth and olive-toned, radiant with health and virility. The curve of his biceps struck her like the strong, spare beauty of a plainchant, the melody echoed in the heavy planes of muscle on his shoulders and chest. A light mat of black curls stretched from one small dusky nipple to the other. They were tightly erect. Her tongue crept out to moisten suddenly dry lips and her own nipples ached for relief, tingling with need.