“You don’t know what you’re doing to me.” Tegan’s voice was rough, but he cradled her bleeding arm gently in his hands.
“I do. I can feel it, too.”
With a moan of ecstasy, Tegan leaned forward to touch his tongue to the narrow slash in her skin. At the first taste of her, his wings shivered.
“So beautiful…” Aine breathed the words. She ran her fingers along the soft down that covered the underside of them.
He gasped her name. Pressing his mouth against her arm he sucked and licked, causing pleasure to ripple through her body. She lost herself in sensation, thrilled by the power in the wings that were unfurling over her. Tegan continued to drink from her as he pulled at her clothing. Dizzy with need-both his and hers-Aine helped him, until she was naked.
Tegan took his lips from her arm. Reverently, his hands glided over her body, pausing to cup the fullness of her breasts.
“I’ve never known such sweet softness.” He touched his tongue to the pink tips of her nipples. As Aine moaned with pleasure he sucked the delicate buds into his mouth, gently grazing them with his teeth.
“Tegan, please.” Aine’s hips lifted to rub herself against the hardness sheathed in his pants.
Tegan pulled away from her so that he could look into her eyes. “I can stop now. I will if you wish it. You must know that if we do this-if we join-then we will be fully mated, and I will not, can not leave you.”
Aine tried to think, but all she could do was feel. She felt his passion and need, along with the heat of her own desire. Then she realized that she could feel something more than raw lust. Aine could feel Tegan’s kindness, and along with it she sensed a soul deep sadness born of loneliness and isolation.
“How long have youbeen alone?”
“Longer than you’ve been alive.”
“No more,” she whispered.
She felt his despair before she saw it reflected in his eyes. He pulled out of her arms and turned away from her.
“You don’t see me as a demon, but that does not mean it is your wish to be mated with me.”
“You misunderstand.” Aine sat up, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and drawing him back to her while the tips of her fingers splayed across the inside of his wings. “I meant that you will be alone no more.”
Tegan kissed her with such fierce joy that it made her cry out. He released her instantly.
“Did I harm you?” He smoothed her hair back, peering anxiously into her eyes.
“No, love. Always remember, I’m stronger than I look.”
She smiled as she worked the ties of his breeches, finally pulling the throbbing heat of him free. Aine stroked him with her hands, marveling at the thick stiffness and length of him.
He moaned her name and she straddled him, slowing impaling herself. Aine closed her eyes and arched back, taking him fully within her. With a snarl, Tegan wrapped his arms around her and shifted their bodies so that he was on top of her. Aine bared her throat to him, pulling his mouth down so that he could drink from her as her hips thrust up to meet his again and again.
With wings spread erect and pulsing over them, Tegan claimed Aine as his mate and spilled his seed deep within her.
Chapter Fifteen
“Don’t go,” Tegan said sleepily.
Aine looked up from lacing her dress. “If I don’t return the warriors will come looking for me. They may be able to track me to you.”
“Then we’ll find a new place-deeper in the mountains. Just don’t go.”
Aine stroked the downy underside of his wing. It quivered, causing Tegan to close his eyes and moan softly.
“I will come back to you.” She kissed him.
“Tomorrow?”
“I’ll try. Rest and finish healing. I have a plan.”
He raised a brow. “A plan?”
“I’m going to tell the Lord of Guardian Castle that I’m not happy there. They’ll have to find a new Healer. It won’t surprise any of them. Maev was my only friend, and now that she’s gone there’s really nothing for me there.”
“Then you will come to live with me?” Tegan rolled a dark lock of her hair around his finger.
“Yes.” She was unable to keep the sadness from her voice.
“Why does the thought of being with me sadden you?”
“My family is going to have to believe I’m dead. That’s what makes me sad.”
Tegan didn’t speak. There was no other way. With what was coming no one would accept their love-Aine wouldn’t even accept it if she knew. That was why he had to get her away from here-before what they had was destroyed by an evil he couldn’t stop.
“Perhaps you and I will begin a new family.”
She looked startled. “Can we?”
He smiled and shrugged. “After the miracle of you, I believe anything is possible.”
Tegan thought she looked a little dazed as Aine wrapped her cloak around her shoulders. He stood up, flexing his leg, pleased at how good it felt.
“It’s much better,” she said.
“Because of you.”
Even when they couldn’t walk beside one another, Aine and Tegan made sure their bodies touched. She brushed his wing with her fingertips. He stopped often to pull her into his arms. By the time they came to the edge of the mountains, dusk was near.
“I have to hurry.”
Tegan kissed her once more, long and possessively. “Come to me tomorrow.”
“I’ll try,” she assured him.
He watched until he could see her no longer.
“Healer! Where have you been?”
The Monro’s gruff voice accosted Aine as she slipped quietly inside the front gates, thinking she was well hidden in the deepening shadows of dusk.
“I went to-” Aine paused. She’d left the funeral urn in Tegan’s cave! Thinking quickly, Aine glanced around them. They were alone with no Edan nearby to contradict her. If she was lucky, he’d been hunting all day and hadn’t even spoken to the Chieftain. “I went to Maev’s pyre and offered more prayers for her.”
“You should have been here. You’ve been needed.”
“What is it?” Aine frowned. The Monro’s words weren’t slurring, but he smelled like a pub. How could the Chieftain of a Clan, and Lord of Guardian Castle be a drunk?
“The warrior Edan was wounded while he was hunting. It was that same Goddess-be-damned boar.”
“Edan! Is he in the infirmary?” Monro’s drunkenness forgotten, Aine began hurrying through the castle grounds.
“No. We thought it best not to move him. His spine may be broken. You’ll have to go to him. He’s not far outside the rear gate.”
“Oh, Goddess! I’ll need my surgical box and a board to brace his back.”
“Those things already await you.”
Aine jogged beside the Chieftain down the path that emptied into the Wastelands side of the pass, feeling a terrible sinking in her stomach. The air was thick, oppressive. This was too much like what had happened to Maev. Then she noticed that Monro was wheezing and dropping behind her. He stumbled and almost fell. Aine paused, but he brushed off her aid.
“Go on.” He motioned feebly down the path. “Take the first right hand fork. Edan and the rest of them are waiting. I’ll catch up.”
Aine nodded and jogged away from him. Pathetic. Before I join Tegan I’ll get a message to the Muse. Guardian Castle needs a change in leadership.
When she came to the fork in the road, she sprinted to the right, finding her second wind. In the thickening darkness she almost fell over Edan. He was lying in the middle of the path-alone. He had been disemboweled and his throat had been ripped out.
Chapter Sixteen
Aine sank to her knees beside Edan. She didn’t have to touch him to know he was dead. Her surgeon’s box was sitting neatly beside the body, just as the Monro had said it would be. There was no back brace, though.
“He doesn’t need it,” she whispered numbly.
“Ahhhhh, there you are, Healer.”