Elphame's Choice (28 page)

“Yes!” He grasped her hands. “Yes, I will!”
And may the bloody Prophecy and the world be damned
, he thought fiercely. Before second thoughts or hesitation could claim her, he began the timeless words of binding that had been taught to him by his mother, who had been taught them by her mother and her mother before her.

“I, Lochlan, son of Morrigan MacCallan, do take you Elphame, daughter of Etain, in handfast this day. I agree to protect you from fire even if the sun should fall, from water even if the sea should rage and from earth even if it should shake in tumult. And I will honor your name as if it were my own.”

As she spoke the words, she knew she was choosing the right path—the path that she had glimpsed within Lochlan’s eye—the path her own brother had foretold.

“I, Elphame, Chieftain of Clan MacCallan, do take you, Lochlan, in handfast this day. I agree that no fire or flame shall part us, no lake or seas shall drown us and no earthly mountains shall separate us. And I will honor your name as if it were my own.”

“So has it been spoken,” Lochlan said.

“So shall it be done.” She completed the ritual.

They came together in a kiss that began as a tender consummation of their covenant. Elphame leaned into him and his arms went around her. His lips were soft—so much softer than the rest of his body. His scent enveloped her. Once again
he was the living forest, wild and male. She drank him in. He was her oasis in a life that she had thought would always be barren of the love of a lifemate.

And now he belonged to her and she to him.

The purr of his wings flexing and filling was seductive music to her already aroused senses. She leaned away from him just enough so that she had a clear view of them.

“Your wings,” Elphame breathed, “are like living velvet. I want to wrap myself in them and have you carry me away.”

She reached up and touched the downy, butter-colored underside. Lochlan’s breath exploded from him. He shuddered and closed his eyes. She pulled her hand back, and touched his face. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

“You have watched me for my entire life, so you must already know what I’m going to tell you. I am completely inexperienced in love. So, when you close yourself from me, I do not know why. You must tell me, guide me. When I touch your wings you act as if you are in pain, yet yesterday you begged me not to stop touching you. I don’t understand, but I’d like to—I need to. Help me to understand, husband.”

The endearment shook him to his soul. He was her husband. She was his wife. A sense of belonging settled over him. In gaining her, he had found his place in the world and no force would ever truly part them.

“My wings are an extension of my deepest emotions. They come to me from my father’s blood, so they react with an elemental fierceness that is not always easy to control. When you touch them you touch what is most base about me.”

“Do you think your desire for me is base?”

“No! Of course not. But sometimes the depth of it overwhelms me. When you awaken my need for you, the dark lust that pulses through the demon in my blood stirs, too. It can be raw and dangerous.”

She thought of the bloodlust of the Fomorians and that Lochlan had admitted to her that the desire to drink her blood lurked within him. Elphame looked steadily into his haunted eyes; she saw no demon there, only the man who had been fashioned as her lifemate. “I believe your love for me is stronger than the demon within you.”

He was wearing a simple, undyed cotton shirt. Her eyes stayed on his as she unlaced it and he pulled it roughly from his chest. The breath caught in her throat at his lithe beauty.

Slowly, she unpinned the chieftain’s brooch that held her plaid in place and unwrapped the soft fabric from around her body. She pulled her fine linen blouse over her head. The cool spring night touched her naked skin, sending a delicious chill through her.

Except for his wings, Lochlan remained very still.

Pressing the tips of her breasts against the heat of his chest, Elphame reached over his shoulder to stroke his wing, letting her fingers caress the softness that made her think of velvet and cream. He shuddered, and took her into his arms. She molded herself against him, accepting his ferocious kiss. Her arms reached around him and she found the place where his wings met his body and let her fingers play a teasing game there, stroking and kneading and even allowing her fingernails to rake along his back.

With a sudden motion, Lochlan lifted her and then lay her back against the soft bed of grass and MacCallan plaid. He crouched beside her, wings unfurled, while he tried to regain control of his seething emotions. She reached for him, wanting to feel his body against hers.

He intercepted her hand, laughing breathlessly.

“Slowly, my heart. Let me explore you. I want to learn your marvelous body.”

She moaned as his palm found her taut nipple.

“Yes—” his voice was thick with desire “—you are my Siren’s call, and I would follow you even if it led to my death.” As he spoke the word
death
his fingers traced the slash that puckered the soft skin of her waist. “But I will never allow anything to harm you. I make that pledge with my life and I will defend it with the last drop of my blood.”

It won’t come to that, Elphame thought fiercely. Not now. Both of them would be fine. Her clan had to accept him. Then all thoughts but the heat of his caresses scattered from her mind as his hand moved from the curve of her waist to meet the smooth coat that covered her lower body.

“You are an indescribable softness,” he whispered huskily as he caressed her thigh, “merged with sleek strength. I have wondered all these years what it would feel like to touch you, and to be touched by you in turn, never really believing that I would get a chance to know.” Lochlan stroked the inside of her auburn-coated thigh. “It was why I finally found my way to you. I could not bear the thought of being without you any longer.”

He slid his hand up until he found the core of her wet heat. Elphame moaned and moved her hips restlessly. His wings pulsed with life and the dark blood of his father surged hot and hard through his body. For an instant he saw himself violently taking her, pounding her against the ground while he fed from her neck in time to her screams, which echoed into the night.

No!
Lochlan’s rational mind rebelled against the image and he wrenched himself away from her body. Breathing in ragged gulps, he sat beside her, trembling, with his head buried in his hands as pain cascaded through his mind.

This time it was she who knelt beside him. Elphame stroked his hair and murmured wordless sounds of comfort. When his wings began to close, she pulled his hands gently from his face.

“What is it you fear? Why do you pull yourself away from me?”

He looked into her clear, guileless eyes. What would she do if she knew that he had followed not just his heart to her, but that he had also followed a dark prophecy that demanded her blood? Would it matter to her that he had decided to betray his people and to refuse the Prophecy?

“Talk to me, Lochlan. Is it that you regret the handfast?”

“No!” he cried. “Never! It is you who should feel regret. I am a demon, barely able to control my impulses. I cannot make love to you without seeing violence and blood. And it fuels my lust, Elphame. Do you understand? Even as I love you and desire you above all things, my dark heritage yearns to tear and taste and ravage you.”

Elphame carefully controlled the finger of fear his words caused. How she reacted now would set their future. She could not love him without trusting him. Lochlan was her choice. If he was not worthy of her, not worthy of her trust, would he be in such agony now? Elphame didn’t think so. If he truly was a demon, there would be no struggle to retain his humanity—he would relinquish his soul to darkness. She believed in him; she had to.

“When you make love to me, you think dark, violent thoughts?” Elphame asked.

“Yes.” His voice broke. “I cannot stop it.”

Elphame rose to her feet and Lochlan knew with a drowning sense of grief that she was going to leave him.

“Then I will simply have to make love to
you
.”

Instead of turning from him, she straddled his legs and with a fluid, sensuous grace sank down onto his lap. Elphame pulled him to her with infinite gentleness, and kissed his lips and caressed the underside of his wings while they pulsed, instantly beginning to fill once again with his desire.

“Elphame, you don’t know—”

“Shhh,” she pressed a finger against his lips, stilling his words as she worked the tie on his pants and pulled his erection free.

He stopped breathing as she explored his hardness, and when she lifted herself to place his throbbing tip against her wetness, he could only brace his hands against the grassy earth and fight the urge to sink his fingers into her soft waist and impale her.

“Open your eyes, husband. Look at me.”

He opened his eyes to meet her luminous gaze as she sheathed his hardness within her. And all he saw was her, his wife, his heart—the visions of bloodlust abated as her soft heat enveloped him and she began to move up and down with excruciating slowness.

She did have to stretch to accept him, but after the initial shock of feeling him enter her body, the desire that had been simmering in her dreams and fantasies ignited. She rocked against him, feeling the tension build. When Lochlan thrust up to meet her, Elphame threw back her head and increased her body’s tempo. Over them, she saw that Lochlan’s wings stretched fully erect. They blotted out the sky and the forest, making him her entire world. When he cried her name as his hot seed shot into her, Elphame rocked forward and held him close while her own body exploded in a spasm of release.

They were very quiet as they made their way back to the entrance of the tunnel. The sky was already beginning to lighten. Elphame could hardly believe that so much of the night had passed. It had seemed that she had only spent a brief moment in his arms. She tightened her grip on his hand. He smiled and lifted her palm to his lips.

“You’re sure that I did not hurt you?” he asked again.

“Quite sure. Now stop asking me. I am not a delicate fainting maiden.” Her lips twitched. “Actually, I’m not a maiden at all anymore.”

“It is such a miracle to me. I did not think I could ever control…” He paused, clenching his jaw as he remembered the hunks of grass and dirt he had ripped from the earth during his orgasm. What if his hands had not been resting against the ground? What if they had been on the curve of her waist, or the swell of her breast, or the delicate indention of her neck?

“Lochlan.” She spoke his name sharply, deliberately breaking through the self-loathing that was written on his face. “Nothing bad happened.” She touched his cheek. “Can you not just enjoy the pleasure we shared?”

He pulled her into his arms, resting his forehead against hers. “Forgive me, my heart. It is just that the demons are within me, so it is difficult not to do constant battle with them. The truth is that you have brought me great happiness tonight, and I should not allow anything to taint that.”

“You haven’t tainted it. Nothing could taint tonight.”

Lochlan bent to kiss her, hoping desperately that her words were true. They walked on into the forest until they came to the upturned lip of ground that disguised the entrance to the tunnel. The two lovers halted before it.

“Let me go with you,” Lochlan said suddenly, cupping her face in his hand. “We are mated, and I have sworn my oath to you. Surely we can make them see that my love for you is stronger than the blood of my father.”

Elphame covered his hands with hers. “And so I just thrust this marriage on my family as if they are so unimportant to me that I do not respect their right to know before strangers? Lochlan, it would wound me terribly if Cuchulainn suddenly announced that he had chosen a mate without first taking me into his confidence. Do you understand that I cannot do that?”

“You love your family very much. I understand that.”

“It’s not just about love. It’s about trust and respect and loyalty. And it is nothing less than I have pledged to give you.”

“I know that, my heart. It is just that I do not know how I will bear being parted from you.”

“I’ll send for my parents. When they arrive I will tell them and Cuchulainn together. Then we will all figure out how to explain us to the rest of Partholon.” Elphame’s voice sounded much more confident than she felt.

“How long?”

“I’ll loose the carrier pigeon today. Once she gets the message, Mama will make certain that they waste no time in coming. She’ll be thrilled that I asked them to come to MacCallan Castle—she’s probably been brooding about not being involved in the decorating and she’ll come bearing wagonloads of beautiful, shimmery things.” Elphame’s smile reflected the love she felt for her mother. “It will only be seven days, perhaps a little longer.” She searched his eyes for understanding.

“I have waited years for you—a few days more is really a little thing to ask.”

Elphame hugged him. “I’ll try to come every night. You will be here, won’t you?”

“Always, my heart,” he said into her hair, “always.”