Obsessed (29 page)

Behind her the crashing came closer and closer as the warrior drew near.

He was surely furious at what she’d done.

She had to escape him!

He would not harm her, despite his dark and arrogant nature. Of that Tierra felt certain. Mostly. And she could still feel the fire of his touch upon her skin.

Gods, but he was an incredible lover. And an incredibly stupid brute.

A madman.

Low branches snagged her ankle, and she stumbled, barely catching herself before she fell. A surge of renewed energy rushed through her body, giving her the strength to go on.

If she could find a place to hide, she could escape the barbarian and whatever punishment he would exact.

She scrambled between a pair of granite boulders and found herself in an enormous clearing filled with an odd blue mist.

Damn. No place to hide!

Hair on the back of her neck prickled and she knew the warrior was near. She sprinted toward thick bushes to her left. The second she moved she was certain she had felt fingers scrape her bare back.

His fingers. Rigid and cold with anger.

Terror and excitement added strength to Tierra’s flight. She dove into the strange mist, toward a gap between the bushes, and began scrambling through on her hands and knees.

What if he caught her here? Took her now, like some wild pack dog, howling before moonchange.

The thought infuriated and thrilled her.

Hands grabbed her hips and yanked her back against a solid male form—as naked as she was.

“No!” Ranelle screamed and fought against her bonds. “Let me go,” she cried as she thrashed and tried to escape.

“Ranelle!” A familiar voice pierced her consciousness. “It was a dream, mi enchantrei. Only a dream.”

Jalen.

She stilled and focused on the face over hers. Jalen, her Elvin god, held her close, cradling her, his naked skin pressed to hers. She could sense him drawing away the fear of her dream, but her skin still prickled as though warning her.

Blinking away the light, she realized it was now early morning, the sun warming the small cove they were nestled in.

“You are safe,” Jalen murmured and brushed his lips across the enrli at her forehead.

The dream came back to Ranelle as vivid as one of her visions. “Tierra. I must find her. She is in unspeakable danger.”

“Your friend will be fine.” Jalen stroked Ranelle’s face with his fingertips, his touch designed to soothe.

But she did not want to be comforted. She wanted—needed—to help her heart-sister.

“No.” Ranelle pushed her way out of his arms and scrambled to her feet. “I will not stand by and wait for Tierra to be harmed.”

A perplexed frown crossed Jalen’s handsome face as she started pulling on her breeches. In an effortless movement he rose and captured her shoulders with his large hands, molding his powerful naked body to her smaller form. “Trust me in this. Tierra must meet her own destiny.”

Anger flared through Ranelle, as quick and furious as a summer thunderstorm. “I would not have such a vision if my help was not needed!” She yanked herself away from his grasp, scooped her tunic off the edge of the krstn, and pulled it over her head. “Tierra and Liana are the only family I have ever known, and I would give my life for them both.”

“Nay.” Jalen’s features became as hard as sculpted marble. “You will not go.”

“Ha!” Ranelle thrust one foot into a boot, and then her other. When she was finished she straightened and glared up at Jalen. “You are not my master. You do not own me and you do not dictate what I may or may not do.”

“You are my heartmate, Ranelle.” His voice was calm and filled with self-assurance. “We have been bound together by the laws of the Seraphine Elves and of the goddess herself.”

An odd chill crept over Ranelle and gooseflesh sprouted on her skin as she stared at Jalen. “What in Hades are you talking about?”

“The enrli that is now a permanent part of you, and the ceremony…you are bound to me.” He sighed as Ranelle’s jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide. “The ritual I performed makes you, as humans would say, my wife.”

“What?” Ranelle shrieked and scrubbed at the enrli on her forehead with her tunic sleeve. “Are you saying this is permanent? And that you think I’m married to you?”

He shrugged. “Aye.”

She marched up to him and thumped his chest with her forefinger. “How dare you perform this—this ceremony without my consent?”

“Because you are my heartmate,” he said as though that was the most logical answer on all of Dair. An almost amused expression crossed his face, infuriating her further. “You and I are joined for eternity.”

“You arrogant, Elvin bastard.” Ranelle’s thoughts spun as she stared up at him, unable to believe his audacity. “I cannot believe I actually trusted you.”

She placed her palms to his bare chest and shoved him away, walking backward out of the cove. Sand and shale crunched beneath her boots as she put a few steps distance between them. There was no doubt in her mind what she was going to do now.

Ranelle clenched her fists. “I’ll show you exactly how I feel about this marriage.”

At the same moment she turned away from him, she willed herself to nordai form. The air shimmered around her and she heard Jalen’s shout of surprise. She felt his fingers brush her tail feathers as she took to the sky and sped toward Wilding Wood.

“Not the wood!” Jalen shouted, running after Ranelle’s raven form. “’Tis dangerous. Stay away from Wilding Wood!” But even as he sprinted up the sandy hillside, still naked, he knew he would never get to her in time.

He reached the top of the rise and watched her fly into the blue mist of the wood—and vanish.

Goddess help the foolish woman.

The enrli burned at his forehead and above his cock, telling him his heartmate traveled farther yet. The fire in the symbols would only become worse…’til he and Ranelle were reunited.

Feeling an odd numbness in his mind, Jalen jogged back to the cove. He quickly dressed in his tunic, boots and breeches, and gathered his belongings. After he shook the Faerie dust from the krstn, he folded it and tucked it away within the pouch secured at his waist. His heart ached to be with Ranelle, and every second they were apart was far too long.

It seemed overlong, yet it was only a matter of minutes before he had slung his bow and quiver over his shoulder and sprinted back toward the wood. All the while he wondered what had gone wrong between him and his heartmate. He had done what was best for them both by binding her to him.

Was it possible he had erred in judgment?

Should he have consulted her first?

That was certainly not the Elvin way. But, then, Ranelle was not Elvin. She hadn’t even been raised with the nordain customs. Human relationships were her only reference point.

Damn.

Jalen, who had never experienced doubt of any kind before Ranelle, was now certain the maid had more than bewitched him. She was making him daft.

And he could only imagine what her reaction would be once she learned she was with child. The Faeries’ dust was potent indeed, and when used between heartmates, a child was always conceived.

I did not know—yet, for certain, Anistana will make sure to convince Ranelle I did.

Goddess bless!

He did not pause when he reached the mist, plunging into the thick shroud and the darkness of the forest. The mist’s cool tendrils glowed as it snaked around him, clinging to him as he ran through bluewood, oak, and hynling trees.

At home in any forest, Jalen was naught but a spirit in the wood, undetectable by all but the Queen of Faerie. The enchantress had the power to sense any being that entered her wood, whether they entered willing or not.

The smell of hynling sap was pungent, mixing with the dank forest smells of rotting wood and leaves, and rich loam. The sap glittered a brilliant gold as it snaked down the hynling trunks, offering some light to see by in the dark forest. His gut clenched as he prayed to the goddess that Ranelle would avoid the sap, and all other dangers within Wilding Wood.

It was unlikely Ranelle would escape Anistana—his only hope was that once his heartmate was captured, that the Faerie Queen would see it fit to allow Jalen entrance to Astral, her magical realm.

Considering the grudge she held against him, that was high hopes indeed.

Jalen pressed forward toward Astral, his boots not making a sound as he slipped through the forest. In the distance he heard the soft cry of the krakilee and the flutter of perna in the branches above.

He came upon a unicorn and her foal drinking from a crystal stream, their golden horns dipped into the cool water. The unicorns’ hides shimmered in the glow of the hynling sap, adding to their mystical appearance. Even the keen senses of the unicorn mare did not detect Jalen’s passage and he continued on through the wood.

His enrli burned, but he paid little attention to the pain, his thoughts focused on reaching Ranelle. He did not fear for her life—even Anistana would not stoop so low as to kill another being. As long as Ranelle was in Astral she would be safe…the trick would be in how he was going to retrieve her.

And in what condition she would be in, once the Faeries had their way with her.

Anger added speed to Ranelle’s flight as she left Jalen. She heard his shouts behind her, but damned if she was going to listen to another word he said. With an angry pump of her wings, she headed straight for Wilding Wood. There she could hide ’til she determined what course of action to take next.

How dare the bastard bind her to him? She was not a possession. A piece of chattel that he could do with as he pleased. She barely knew the man and he had wedded her without her knowledge or consent!

Blue mist swirled and beckoned to Ranelle as she neared the forest—not unlike the mist she had seen in her dream of Tierra. And blue trees…bluewood Tierra had called them.

Ranelle’s blood raced as fury continued to churn within her belly. She flew into the mist, dodging branches, flying high and then low, deeper into the wood. It was dark, yet a glow penetrated the forest, allowing her to see.

She alighted on the branch of an ancient bluewood tree, and tried to get her bearings—and realized at once she had made a grave error in entering the forest. Her senses screamed at her to turn around and leave the wood, but she was disoriented. No matter which direction she looked, she could not determine which way she had come.

Below her a stream trickled through a small clearing, blue mist swirling through the shrubbery, writhing as though the mist was alive. Tendrils of it snaked up the bluewood and around her raven’s body, like cold bands of silk.

A sharp aroma mixed with rich forest smells of leaves, earth, and juniper. She tried to catch her breath as she took in more of her surroundings—and then she saw where the golden glow was coming from.

Tingling sensations erupted within Ranelle and her feathers puffed up. Hynling sap.

A distant memory nudged at her consciousness…

“Pretty, Zjemma.” The toddler pointed her chubby finger toward the picture of the tree and the river of gold flowing down its trunk, then looked up at her zjemma, her mother. “Pretty.”

“Yes, Carilee.” The woman’s sweet face grew sober as she stroked the toddler’s brown curls. “But often beauty is not what it seems. You must always beware.”

Carilee scrunched up her small face and looked up at her mother. “Bee-ware?”

Zjemma placed her hand over the toddler’s, touching the picture that immediately emitted a pungent scent. “This is a hynling tree. Remember its smell and what it looks like. Hynling sap is dangerous to the Nordain. If your feathers or skin come in contact with the sap, it will trap you…and you will be forever frozen within it.”

Ranelle shivered and ruffled her feathers as the vision faded from her mind. Zjemma and Carilee. Those names…

An eerie cry echoed through the wood, scratching through her soul, and Ranelle began to wish that she was back safe with Jalen. That she could feel his kisses on her breasts, his tongue laving her nipples, and his cock plunging into her as he fucked her senseless.

No. How could she even think such a thing after what the bastard had done?

Yet she missed him so badly her heart ached and her body burned. Even in her raven form she could feel the enrli, as though they were seared into the flesh of her mound and her forehead, the wounds yet unhealed.

Well, no matter that she desired Jalen. No matter that she missed him as though a piece of herself was gone. She had to teach the man a lesson—he could not make decisions for her, and he must consult her on anything that would involve her.

But what if she never saw him again? What if she became lost forever in the wood, or got caught in the hynling sap?

The thoughts chilled her, further drawing away the heat of her ire. By fleeing him in anger, without discussing her feelings with him, had she wronged him as much as she had felt that he had wronged her?

A slight motion caught her eye, and the quietest of sounds met her sharpened raven hearing. Ranelle went rigid with wonder, all other thoughts vanishing for the moment.

Two beautiful creatures strolled from out of the mist—they looked like miniature horses, only far more delicate. Their coats shimmered like Mairi pearls, and they each had a single golden horn upon their foreheads that sparkled with every movement they made.

They must be the legendary unicorns of Wilding Wood.

Breathless, she watched them enter the glade.

And then her senses screamed that danger approached.

Before she had time to take flight, small hands grabbed Ranelle’s raven’s body from behind. Fingers pinched her beak shut.

Terror seared her, but she was bound so tight within the incredibly strong hands that she could not move or make a sound.

The heady perfume of roses and lilies enveloped Ranelle and her senses began to spin. She heard the light tinkling of laughter…and then her world went dark.