Natural Instincts (8 page)

“All right,” he said. His eyes half closed as he marked me with a single line in the center of my chest. I writhed with the ecstasy of it. Watching him turn the blade on his own chest almost made me faint. I’d read that slipping into a strange, altered reality was sometimes gifted to people in the depths of submission. I’d only dreamed I would ever find myself there. He put me into that place and held me there as he pressed his chest to mine.

The blood of a god transfixed me.

For a long moment, I stopped breathing, stopped thinking. Then, his weight over me, I felt my heart pick up the rhythm of his as my breathing took on the tempo of his. I felt tears streaming down my face as he freed my legs with a single, quick tug on the rope. Then he was slipping inside me again, deeper and deeper, over and over. My arms were still bound, so I couldn’t clench myself to him, but his weight pressed against me, and his mouth found mine. His arms slipped around to hold me, trussed, against him. I was crying when he came inside me, and then, light as a feather falling to the water, I spiraled into ecstasy.

H
AL
’
S
STEW
had long gone cold before we got back to it, but we didn’t mind. We took more food and the champagne to the rock at the water’s edge and ate there. Actually, I sat nestled between Jon’s legs, leaning against him inside his arms. He fed me from his own bowl since my wrists were still tied, though more loosely now for circulation’s sake. He’d said that maybe he’d untie me in the morning so I could shower—or maybe not, and he’d shower with me. That sounded fine to me. He was talking about building us a cabin on the far side of the pond so we’d have more privacy, which was also fine with me. I’d already sent my boss a text telling him that I was resigning. He hadn’t been happy about it, but since I’d made him many millions, he’d wished me well. I’d sent another text to my landlord, asking him to box up my few belongings and put them in storage for me. That was it, as far as my practically nonexistent life until now required.

I belonged to Jon. I understood what the phrase “beloved of the gods” meant. I wasn’t the first to succumb to a force of nature. But I didn’t think anyone had ever been happier to.

“No,” Jon said after a while in the stillness. It was so late that the only sound was the gentle gurgle of water against the rocks. “It wasn’t a mistake that brought you in the wrong entrance. You’ve taught me a lot about life in the last few hours.”

I stared at him.

“I was as afraid of love as you were,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know that it would make me more, not less.”

I smiled.

He brought our shared glass to my lips. I sipped the sweetness. The fingertips of his other hand lightly touched my neck as I swallowed, as though he was giving his permission for my body to do so. When he lowered the glass, I leaned my head against him and gazed at the faint white band the rope made across my wrists, which rested gently on his left knee. I would never get tired of seeing his bonds on me. To me, they meant safe at last.

Jon set the glass down and straightened, drawing in a deep breath. I felt myself do the same. Then he raised his arms to the sky, to the bright stars, and went motionless. I felt power moving inside him, wild and natural, rising up from the stone below us and from the water before us and from the trees behind us and from the air around us. He offered it up freely.

Then I felt my awareness open even wider as the power began to flow into him, offer accepted and returned a thousandfold. We left the rock and slipped into the water’s coolness, bathed and free, our body supple and weightless. Then we were on the surface, strong wings beating faster and faster. In a magnificent rush that was like sex but different, we were in the air. I was inside him, bound by him, part of him, and I could feel every sensation of the rushing air and see the jeweled reflections of the stars in the dark lake below. Somewhere, in between the earth and the sky, the last shreds of fear fell away.

And when he gave voice to the loud, mysterious call to the night, my voice joined his, and then alone, it answered him.

M. R
AIYA
knew she was a writer since second grade when her teacher kept her in for recess because “Somebody had better teach you about semicolons!” She started her first fantasy trilogy in fifth grade. She majored in writing in college, got her master’s degree in English, published some literary fiction, and fortunately emerged from all that with her imagination unscathed.

She is a native Vermonter and often needs four-wheel drive to reach her home on a dirt road in the mountains. Her other passions are bird-watching, nature photography, and swimming. When she’s not writing, she takes long walks with a big lens and a pair of binoculars, often standing motionless for hours waiting for the right lighting for the perfect shot, or climbing into places not meant to be climbed into for the right angle. Or she might be found in the nearby lake in the summer or a handy swimming pool in the winter, since she will turn into a mermaid if she doesn’t submerge at least once a day.

She is married and has two almost grown daughters, two cats who demand that they lie between her and her computer whenever she dares to sit down, and a day job working with high school kids with special needs who frequently tell her that she is completely crazy, which she’s always known and definitely would not want to change.

Blog: http://mraiya.blogspot.com/

E-mail: [email protected]

Another Healing

By M. Raiya

When James first discovers he can heal, he thinks he has a rare and miraculous gift. But when he learns the price, it feels more like a curse. He falls passionately and completely in love with every person, male or female, he heals. But only until he heals again, when he becomes hotly infatuated with the next person. He doesn’t dare express feelings he knows are only transitory or hold out hope anyone will love him back under those conditions.

One night, he meets Ambient, the victim of a car accident, dying, his neck broken. James heals him despite knowing what is in store. He can’t resist Ambient, and to his amazement, Ambient returns his feelings. Thinking Ambient has broken the curse, James heals the next injured person he comes across. To his joy, and confusion, he does not fall in love anew. If anything, his feelings toward Ambient intensify. Awash with the certainty that somehow he and Ambient are meant for each other, they set out to learn the truth about James’s strange power.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

Published by

D
REAMSPINNER
P
RESS

5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886  USA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Natural Instincts

© 2015 M. Raiya.

Cover Art

© 2015 Brooke Albrecht.

http://brookealbrechtstudio.com

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

Digital ISBN: 978-1-63216-374-5

First Edition January 2015

Printed in the United States of America