Mystic Rider (39 page)

“I think you have brought me to life,” she said with
puzzlement. “I prickle all over, inside and out, as if whatever I’m made of has
finally awakened and stirs.”

He propped his weight on one elbow and stroked a hair from
her brow. His deep-set eyes were the changing colors of midnight. He’d not
shaved before coming here, and his beard shadowed his jaw. Unbound, his hair
curled freely down his shoulders and tickled her breasts. He looked more
primitive male than she’d ever seen him, and arousal began to heat her sorely
used loins.

He smiled wickedly with understanding, and lifted his hips
slightly until his sex almost, but not quite, slid out. “It is about to pour.
Would you prefer to return to the grotto?”

“No,” she said without hesitation, lifting her shoulders to
reach between them and squeeze the masculine sac between his legs. “Nothing
will cool me off. I plan to die here.”

“If you did not die after what just happened, then nothing
will kill you.” He shuddered at her caresses, then nuzzled and nipped her ear.
“I had not fully appreciated the power of the gods in this place. But I agree,
I do not think we can join the world until we play this out.”

With a speed she could not grasp, he rolled over, carrying
her on top of him. Startled, she sat up and looked around. The wind tossed her
hair. A drizzle of rain sizzled against her skin. Dancing in the wind and
threatening to go out, torchlight trailed shadows across her breasts.

She felt huge. She glanced down to be certain that her
petite stature had not changed. Her breasts seemed larger, fuller, but Ian’s
lust-filled gaze as he drank in the sight could be responsible for that. His
sex hardened within her. Perhaps she felt as he did, large and potent and
prepared to battle the world.

Was this how men felt all the time? She gazed at him in
wonder, as he grasped her hips and held them to push higher inside her as his
strength returned. She was half his weight, barely reached past his shoulder,
but she felt as if she had the strength, if not to overpower him, then to be
his equal. She raised up on her knees, resisting his hold.

He slid his fingers over her mark to the sensitive skin
between her buttocks, and she instantly came down on him again. He played a
finger along the base of her spine and continued stroking her into deeper
arousal.

“You carry the power of revolution,” he told her, urging her
to slide slowly back and forth until they both burned with renewed desire. “You
will need my aid to learn to use it wisely.”

“I don’t have the slightest idea what you mean.” But she
did, if only with a sliver of comprehension. The rush of the wind and the storm
in the heavens matched the changes overturning all she knew and had been. The
world was changing, and so was she.

“You do. You will. Perhaps we are not meant to have a child,
but you are meant to be the instrument of change. It’s happening already. Even
Waylan has not been able to open the clouds sufficiently over Aelynn these past
years. It’s not the chalice they awaited, but you.” He smiled in male
satisfaction. “My choice was the right one.”

She stared down at him. “What choice?” She wasn’t at all
certain that she wanted to know, but she would love to create that expression
on his face more often.

“I chose you,
mi ama
,”
he said tenderly, brushing her cheek with his long fingers.

“You chose me — ” She laid her forehead against his and choked
on the rest of her sentence. “You chose
me
over the chalice. And Murdoch. No wonder your family is furious.”

“It was the right choice,” he stated firmly. “The stars have
blessed us, and the heavens have sent us a storm after years of poor rainfall.”

“What if it had been the wrong choice?” she asked hoarsely.

“It was not. The gods did not bless us with this bond
without a reason.” He rotated his hips and thickened even more inside her.

His arrogance knew no bounds, her mind insisted, but her
heart agreed with Ian. She was drunk on love and lust and could not reason
clearly. That he had risked so much for her was enough for her to know, to
comprehend, and to love him even more deeply, if that was possible.

She raised her arms to beckon the lightning, let her breasts
bounce freely in the increasing rain, then dragged her fingers through her hair
to set it free from the confinement that once civilized it. She had no words to
offer, just gestures.

And Ian understood. Holding her still with one arm around
her waist, he rose to a sitting position, embedding himself deeper as he
nibbled at the peaks of her breasts.

Even holding completely still, she felt arousal rise to the
heights in an improbable instant. Chantal wrapped her legs around his back,
moaning her readiness, and Ian caressed the bud of her sex. Thunder crashed,
and lightning struck again, shattering a lintel of the temple.

The storm spiraled through them faster than the aphrodisiac.
Riding Ian as she did a horse, Chantal gasped and grabbed his shoulders when
Ian crushed her to him. They climaxed as one, with his hot seed shooting
upward. Ian’s arms tightened around her waist, and they shuddered in release.
On fire from the inside out, Chantal collapsed against Ian’s broad strength.

And then a miracle happened. Or a hallucinatory vision.

She saw a minuscule particle tear loose from the tunnel to
her womb and tumble free into the golden light where Ian’s seed swam. The
particle instantly disappeared in a swarm of eager maleness. The explosion of
contact, when it came, was so fierce, all the air left Chantal’s lungs, blood
drained from her head, and she passed out in Ian’s arms.

Chantal woke in the dawn light to find Ian resting on his
elbow, leaning over her, in a room she didn’t recognize, with rain beating on
the roof overhead. Upon discovering her wakefulness, he caressed her hair and
kissed her.

Pleasure and stormy memories rose in her breast, summoned by
the magic of his kisses. But finally, they had reached some satiation, and she
could resist his call enough to slide her fingers over his stubbled jaw and
appreciate the length of raw male beside her.

“I feel very strange,” she murmured, not certain where the
strangeness began or ended. Perhaps just feeling replete was odd. The ring on
her left hand weighed heavy.

“I feel what you feel,” Ian marveled. “All those years I was
told I’m heartless, I was missing the part of me that is you. I can feel you
making my heart beat. Don’t be scared. You have only to remember our loving to
know this is right.”

Briefly, she’d been a bit frightened by the newness of her
surroundings and the realization that she’d bound herself forever to a man she
didn’t fully understand. But his acceptance banished all doubt, all argument. A
man of his authority and ability had bound himself to her willingly, without
remorse. Never had she been held so dearly by another, regarded above duty and
family, first in his thoughts and in his heart. She was overwhelmed.

She grabbed his long hair and tugged. “You are real, aren’t
you? Will you explain now how a man who has never been on a horse can ride
Rapscallion?” Of her many questions, she asked this first, because she did not
know how to ask the deeper ones. And in truth, she didn’t need to ask. Ian
acted as he did because he was Ian, and his heart was larger than any she had
ever known.

He wrapped his arm around her and fell back against the
pillows, carrying her with him so she sprawled across his hard chest. “I read
minds,” he announced, as if he’d just said he’d eaten dinner. “Apparently, I
can also see into the minds of certain beasts and make them understand what I
want. There are not enough animals on Aelynn for me to have recognized this
ability until I came to your country. It is something I must explore further,
when we have time.”

“You read minds?” she said in disbelief. “Then tell me what
I’m thinking.”

He chuckled. “You’re thinking I am crazy, but I don’t need
to read your mind to know that. I can’t read your thoughts unless you open them
to me. Like most Aelynners, you have the ability to block me out. But the
thoughts of people in your world spin crazily through my head like winter
leaves in a storm. It’s very distracting.”

“So you can’t live elsewhere,” she murmured in
disappointment.

“I can’t live elsewhere because my people need me here. I am
their Sky Rider, the only one who can read the heavens and help them see the
future outside Aelynn. My sister can prophesy for individuals, but she cannot
see what will happen beyond our shores. I saw you and the chalice in the stars
and knew I was meant to go after you. By bringing you here, I’ve returned rain
to our thirsty land.”

“It could be a coincidence,” she argued, not yet ready to
believe he could have such mystical powers.

“I suppose it could be a coincidence that the sun rises
every day, but usually, a pattern of behavior predicts cause and effect. I have
a pattern of behavior that you will soon understand.” He raised his head to
kiss her jaw. “And predict,” he said with a grin in his voice.

She grew warm all over at the idea of waking in Ian’s bed
every morning, listening to his plans in the evenings, walking beside him
through his days — bearing his children. She reached between them to stroke her
lower belly and wonder if her vision had the meaning she thought.

He covered her hand with his. “I saw it, too. The gods have
promised children to all who mate in their temple. There is no promise that the
child will live or that it will bear our traits, but that is the usual
outcome.”

“We will have a child who sings and reads minds?” she asked
dubiously, attempting to absorb these oddities.

He toyed with her breast, and arousal tugged instantly at
her.

“I’d rather not search the stars for an answer to that,” he
said with a seriousness that did not suit what he was doing to her body. “The
island has always had an Olympus as a leader. Lissandra and I are the last of
our line. I can hope our child will carry the traits he or she needs to take
our place one day.”

“But you doubt my traits are good for leadership.” She fell
back against her pillows, remembering why she’d been reluctant to come here,
remembering his mother’s threats.

“Even you do not know that,” he argued. “You have spent your
life suppressing your gifts with music and believing you don’t have the power
to change lives, but you do. Very few of us are born with the symbol of one of
our gods. Those who do have been chosen for a purpose. That purpose may be
unknown or discarded or lost, but that does not negate the intent.”

He traced the broken spiral on her spine. “Here, you bear
the mark of the Lord of Chaos — or Change. He does not give such lightly.”

“I can change lives?” The possibility seemed far-fetched.
She’d done no more than nurse Jean, teach music to students, and manage her
father’s household. Ian and Pauline had been the ones who’d set her feet on the
path outside of home.

“Perhaps not entirely on your own,” Ian conceded, “but with
practice, possibly. Your father’s oratory helped bring about a revolution. If
he’d possessed your ability to understand character and more of your ability to
manipulate with his voice, he might be ruler of all France.”

That was too terrifying a thought to consider. She did not
have the wisdom to effect such changes. Or the need for such power. “You are
seeking an heir to keep your family’s position,” she replied accusingly,
“instead of seeking the very best leader the island has to offer. Our child
could be like me — with no desire at all to be king.”

“We don’t have kings,” he said, although she heard doubt in
his reply. “The Olympus family is the only one with the ability to predict the
future. That’s necessary in a leader.”

She made an inelegant noise. “Intelligence, wisdom,
experience, understanding, and a broad mind would serve as well. Lack of greed
would be useful. Seeing the future serves no one unless they’re prepared to act
upon it.”

“I hear the notes of certainty in your voice,” he said with
the delight of discovery. “Is this how you hear character when people speak?
It’s a vastly useful trait.”

She punched his arm. The sun was rising through the open
windows, and she would like nothing more than a lazy breakfast and a leisurely
exploration of his home, but even she knew that wouldn’t happen. His people
were waiting for him.

“I never knew that what I heard was real. I thought it was
my imagination. Don’t start using my gifts against me already!”

She was gifted. It was a startling notion, but not so
startling with Ian as her guide. He made her oddities seem real and potentially
useful, if she had the courage to test and make use of them.

He chuckled and rolled on top of her, trapping her with his
big body. “Read my mind.”

And amazingly, she could. She was beautiful in his eyes, a
complex creature of immense fascination to him, a gentle, courageous partner
who would share his life, not exploit his position or abilities. His joy filled
her, and she nearly burst with it.

He
trusted
her…and…

“You love me?” she whispered. “How can that be?” But she
knew. He’d told her without the words, through his actions, his sacrifice.

“Is that what this feeling is?” he asked, pleased. “If so,
you have brought it to me.”

In wonder, she opened her own mind, let the feelings flow
freely from her heart and soul as she had not done since she was a child, and
acknowledged that the connection between them was far more than physical.

“I see me in your eyes,” he whispered, kissing her tenderly.
“Thank you for that.”

“I lose those I love,” she warned, gripping his arms. “I
don’t
want
to love you.”

“But you do,” he said with certainty. “I will do my best to
cherish your love. And I am not so easily lost, as you must know by now.”