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You are a gift to all of us . . . We need to know you're there, protecting us.
He did remember Ronin's laughter. His heart had been struck from him when that was lost . . . But had he lost it, or let it go in the numbness of his grief?
Her body was trembling, pressing insistently to him. "Do you want me, Anna?"
She nodded, her cheeks flushed. "I don't know if I can . . . but I need you inside of me, my lo--"
"Jonah." Cupping her face, he passed a finger over her moist lips. "Call me by my name, little one. I need to hear you say it, know you understand that it's just the two of us here in this moment. And know you understand that I'm the one on my knees, worshipping you. Needing you."
She swallowed, her emotions naked as the early emotions of the Earth, all lines etched out in perfect detail on her face, everything there for him to read.
"Jonah. My lord."
He closed his eyes and she said it again, her hand reaching up and passing over his hair. At that gentle touch on his head he remembered a haunting line from an Irish song David had struck out on a drum one night. After the battle where Ronin was killed.
And his sword will strike ne'er more.
Now he wondered if David had played it as a comfort rather than a dirge. To lay one's head down in the lap of a woman, and your sword need strike ne'er more. She was safe, and he was home.
"This one time, my lord. Please. Raise the magic with me, make it a part of what we do together, for both of us. Don't make me feel as if I'm alone in it, forcing it upon you, that it's a separate thing from the pleasure we can feel from each other."
It was a long moment, but then Anna felt it, a warm wave like the comfort of the water itself. More than the water. All of it. The sun, the sea, the earth and the wind . . . She closed her eyes, feeling it wash over her. Angel magic, even though he was in human form. Goddess, if this was a halfhearted attempt, his full strength might make her delirious with bliss, never to recover her wits again.
At last she understood, in a way she hadn't before, why doing the Joining Magic by herself had left her with such an empty ache in her heart. Bringing together their bodies brought together the elemental wish of every being, to be fully inside the heart and soul of someone else. It was divinity and mortality at once, the searing regret and joy that could hold a soul suspended in time.
She knew all beings feared change. Change meant nothing was guaranteed. But for some reason, this felt so still, so permanent. It would be hers, never changing, never altering, long after he was gone. After she was gone.
Finding the strength then, she could tell she surprised him by transforming to human and lifting her legs to close them over his hips. While she felt most like herself as a mermaid, she wanted to see his face, be breast to chest like this. Physical form no longer mattered when the soul was so close to the surface.
Jonah held her, knowing she wanted his body inside of hers. Needed to see his face while he took her. But for a moment he needed, too. To hold her like this, her hand against his chest, her soft cleft pressed against his groin. He discarded the battle skirt and clutched her bare buttocks beneath his hands as he took her to the bank where he could lay her down on the wet earth, paint her with soft traces of silken clay, dark and gray and some red, over the lines of her breasts. She arched up into his touch, gasping, and desire surged, hot and pure. He bent, kissed an earthy nipple, and then pulled it, slow, into his mouth, tasting her and the earth, rolling the soft peak which became small and tight.
When her hands fell to either side, the unconscious surrender inflamed him, her instinctive submission to him. He had an unexpected, overwhelming need for it now, the surge of feeling that the evidence of her trust and acceptance of his possession brought.
Water and earth, air. She was all of those things, and since she raised a fire in his blood, it made them complete.
He hadn't realized how much he needed something to call his own. A sanctuary, a place that seemed created solely for his heart and soul to find rest there. For his eyes to find endless pleasure, his mind eternal stimulation. In Anna, he'd found all of those things, and while she met all those needs, he found an equal desire to know all of her, be that place for her. To be a home for each other.
He couldn't pursue such insane thoughts, and not just because the ability for rational thought was slipping away. He worked his way down her body, spreading the clay, molding her curves in his large hands, wondering at the fragile but resilient perfection of her. At length, goaded by the impatience of her arousal, she reached for him.
Not myth, but real, female, wanting him, the musk of her in his nostrils as he tortured her further, bending between her legs to nuzzle there with his mouth. He tasted her slick petals as she cried out and tugged at his hair, dug her fingers into his shoulders as an anchor as he tasted, penetrated her with his tongue, that narrow opening waiting for his cock to stretch her, to pull him in.
She was bowed toward his mouth like water held on the curve of a powerful waterfall, wanting to crash like creamy foam on the slick rocks below. He cupped her bottom and straightened, holding her where he could see her face as he slowly, slowly impaled her on him. Her legs clamped around his back, her body open to him as he put his hand between them and stroked the stretched lips, the swollen clit as she rippled, so close. But he wasn't letting her go just yet, because he was mesmerized by her response, even as his own body surged dangerously close to that precipice.
"Jonah . . . my lord . . . please . . ." She surprised him again by heaving herself upward. As he caught her to him by reflex, her hands dug into his arms, clawing up to his shoulders until she'd brought herself full against him. That angle took her down deep on him, such that she sucked in a breath and he saw the moment of pain at the adjustment turn to wild pleasure in her eyes.
Putting his palms flat on her back, beneath her heavy fall of hair, he curved his thumbs around her sides, feeling the hint of breast in their rhythmic movement against his chest, the hardened nipples dragging, teasing his own skin. He couldn't hold out anymore. As he pushed her down, brought her back up, she held on to him as if he were a boat she was riding through a storm, her head thrown back, wet hair trailing so he knew it was caressing the delicious shape of her backside. He had the fleeting thought that he wanted the time, years maybe, to lay her on her stomach so he could press light kisses on those quivering curves, see her smile, grow taut with desire again, overflow with it as she was doing now.
"Ahhh . . ." Her eyes, desperate, turned up to him.
"Hold on," he commanded without mercy, but his own muscles were quivering. He let the magic build, build, felt it surge forth in her, and knew she'd been right. Even i
f he didn't agree with her about the use of the Joining Magic, the intense pressure of it building within him, reaching eagerly for hers, told him he'd been wrong to deny her this, to make her feel as if her effort was solitary and unappreciated.
Spiraling, spiraling. The magic began to fit itself to hers, much as their bodies were interlocked, arms, legs, sex . . . and it was his turn to be amazed by the weight and shape of it, the pure scope as it built around them. Dazzling silver light mixed with the blue of his blood, joined by that rich purple that had been part of her tail color before she shifted and which still lingered in the faint markings along her arms. He'd noted the tattoo pattern changed every time she shifted, positing a wild array of creative tracings for his mouth, his fingers.
When his cock hardened further at the thought, he wanted nothing more than to release inside of her, feel her squeeze down on him as she was now. His sultry innocent who knew no restraint with him, had never been bruised by a lover such that she'd learned self-consciousness, and she never would, because he could never bear anyone else to touch her . . .
He lost the thread of that unlikely and unexpected thought as the climax roared over him, taking her with it. Their magic came together like the creation of a universe, exploding and pulling their bodies together, an irresistible gravitational force, his face buried in her neck, her hair streaming down his arm, her arms locked over his shoulders as she worked her hips on him, slamming down, taking him fully to the hilt, gasping out her release, a soft, whispered word he knew she thought he wouldn't hear.
Yours.
He didn't know if the word applied to him or her. It didn't matter. The magic washed over them both, and the poison cowered in his soul before the power of it, ducked beneath the hard rock of his fears and doubts as it swept by, swept through him, making him want nothing more than to be the person she most needed him to be.
He could do this for her, go see this shaman. Maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out all right. If it didn't, at least he would have tried. For her.
At last, they came down, in almost the same cyclical path, for he felt a sense of dizziness he saw reflected in her silly smile, a young girl's shyness. He couldn't help but smile back, but he also saw the weariness she'd kept at bay close in. The waters had restored her, but the healing process had been draining, as most healings were. On top of that, her demanding lover had seduced her into a mind-altering coupling that pushed her right back into the arms of exhaustion, whether she resisted it or not. So now he turned her in his own arms, wishing he could wrap his wings around her to hold her in her sleep. In a gratifying way, she seemed as comfortable as if he were doing just that. Snuggling back against him, she fit her body so tightly to his he knew he would likely wake with as raging a desire as that which he'd just released. He looked forward to it.
