A Stroke of Midnight (Merry Gentry #4)(18)

He pushed himself inside me, using his hands to hold my body where he wanted it. The feel of him entering me fluttered my eyes closed, parted my lips, and made me raise my hips up to meet his body.
He shuddered inside me, and when I opened my eyes he still had half his length to go. His fingers had tightened painfully on my body. He held me immobile with just his hands on the cheeks of my ass. “Don’t help me,” he said in a voice that was almost lost to a growl of thunder. “If you help, I won’t last, and I want to last. I want this,” and he squeezed his fingers tight enough to make me cry out, “to last.”
I nodded because I didn’t trust my voice.
He tried to shove himself inside me in one last movement, but he hadn’t made enough room. He had to fight for it, pushing hard and deep with his hips, to work his width up inside me. He seemed to fill up every inch of me, as if I couldn’t have held another piece of him. He almost drew himself out of me, then again that slow, hard push inside. The feel of him filling me was too much. He brought me screaming, back arching, before he’d made me open enough for him to truly do what he wanted.
I thought it would bring him, but when my pleasure passed, he was still hard and firm between my legs. But the orgasm had done one thing, I was more open. He finally had room to truly thrust, and he knew what to do with the room.
He let me slip to the floor, but I kept my legs up, knees bent, and he stayed propped up on his arms, hands flat on either side of me. I watched him go in and out of my body, as the twin glows of our power grew bright and brighter. I’d always described my glow as moonlight, but this was more like sunshine. My hair and eyes reflected around us like burning blood and emeralds and gold that had gotten so hot they melted into light.
Mistral found his rhythm and it was hard and fast and deep. He did it as if he could have done it all night. I smelled ozone. The hairs on my body stood to attention, and the air squeezed tight around us. I felt that warm building of pressure between my legs, and just as it rolled over me, spread through my body, he thrust one last time inside me. I knew in that instant that he’d been gentle before, because it was deep enough that it drove me up off the floor screaming. I dug my nails into his arms, half in pleasure, and half in pain.Lightning cracked down the hallway in both directions. It didn’t exactly come out of Mistral’s body, but it came from the glow of him. His body shuddered inside me, and the lightning crashed down the hallway, thunder beating against the stones as if the force of it all would bring the walls down around us. And I didn’t care.
I was trapped under the force and power of his body, blinded, deafened, by the explosion of his magic. My body became light, became magic, became pleasure. I forgot that there was skin to hold me, bones to move me. I simply was the pleasure.
When I was aware of my body again, the weight of Mistral was collapsed on top of me. He was still inside me, but not as hard or solid. He had thrown those wide shoulders to the side, so I wasn’t suffocated under the bulk of him. I could feel his heartbeat thudding through his body as he fought to regain his breath. His hair was its usual grey, and his skin back to its normal slightly off-white, not as pure a color as my own. The armor on the one arm I could see was torn, and blood showed through. I tried to raise my hand to touch the damage, but I couldn’t make that much of my body move yet.
A movement in the hallway beyond us made me turn my gaze to where Doyle and the others had been standing. Doyle was kneeling beside the far wall, dazed. Most of the others were flat on the floor, some immobile. Frost got to all fours, as I watched, shaking his head as if to clear his senses.
Rhys came around the corner with Kitto in tow. He drew his gun, obviously thinking it had been an attack. I couldn’t blame him.
“Sex,” Doyle said in a hoarse voice, “sex and magic.” He cleared his throat sharply and tried again. “The Goddess and Consort have blessed us all.”
“Shit,” Rhys said, “and we missed it.”
Galen’s voice came heavy with afterglow. He was flat on his back, and the front of his pants was stained dark. “It sort of hurt. I don’t like my sex that rough.”
I heard groans from the other side of the hallway, and I could turn my head now. Mistral’s men were all flat on their backs. Some were struggling to sit up. Adair tried to climb to his feet against the wall, and fell over with a metallic clatter. There was a black burn mark across the front of his armor. “Goddess save us,” someone said in a voice hoarse with pleasure.
“She just did.” Mistral moved slowly so he could raise up enough to gaze down at me. He smiled, and his eyes were the blue of spring skies with fluffy little clouds floating through. I’d never known there was a sky that peaceful inside his eyes.
Hawthorne sat up in his green plate mail, propping his back against the wall. He, too, had a black burn mark across his chest. “The next time you plan to call lightning, warn those of us wearing metal. Mother of Gods, that hurt.” 
“And felt good,” another voice said.
Hawthorne dragged his helmet off, showing a pale face, and his dark green hair braided to fit under the helm. He nodded. “And felt good.” He looked at me, and for just a moment in the triple colors of his eyes—pink, green, and red—I saw a tree. A tree on a hill, and that tree was white with blossoms. He blinked and it was just the colors of his iris again.
I remembered the vision and how the lightning had cleared away the dead from the tree. Had we cleared away the old wood here? Had we done more than give them pleasure and pain? Time would tell. For now, we had a double homicide to solve. The police were on their way, and we hadn’t even started to question the witnesses.
I said a little prayer. “Goddess, can we slow down the magical revelations until after we solve the murders, or at least until we get presentable for the police?” I didn’t get an answer, not even that warm pulse that lets me know she’s listening, which I took for a no. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand that bringing the magic back to faerie was important, maybe more important than solving murders. But I did not want the human police to find us spread around the hallway like an orgy gone horribly wrong.
Someone moved at the far end of the hallway. The person who sat up was female, decidedly female even under the armor. She took off her helmet and gasped at the air. Her curly black hair was cut very short, which was different from last I’d seen her, but the face was still Biddy. She was one of Cel’s guards, half-human and half–Unseelie sidhe, even though she’d never been a fan of Cel. She’d once belonged to my father’s guard, and when Cel co-opted many of my father’s guards, she was trapped in the turnover. What was she doing here?
A shadow formed over her face and flowed down the bright silver of her armor. The shadow held a figure, a tiny figure. A baby like some dark ghost coiled in front of her.
The ring on my finger was suddenly warm against my hand, as if someone had breathed across the metal.
I gazed down the hallway, still trapped under Mistral’s body. Biddy sat at the turn of the hall that was farther than the hallway to the kitchen. I shouldn’t have been able to see her this clearly from this angle. But she stood out to my gaze as if she was outlined in something more real than the rest of the figures in the hallway.
Mistral whispered above me, “Do you see it?”
I whispered back, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“A child,” he said.
“A baby,” I said.
“Go to her quickly, for the vision will not last. Somewhere in this hallway is her match. The father of that shadow child.”
“What is that in front of Biddy?” Galen asked. He’d raised up on his elbows.
Mistral raised himself off of me. “Go to her, Meredith, go to her before the magic of the ring fades.” He pulled me to my feet with his pants still undone. “Hurry.” The tone in his voice made me start down the hall, unsteady on my feet in the high heels. The sex had been too good for my legs to be steady. I stumbled and had to catch myself against the wall. Hands steadied me, and I looked down to find Hawthorne’s hands on my hips. “Are you all right, Princess?”
I nodded. “Yes.” I gazed down the hallway at that solid shadow in front of Biddy. I felt as if that phantom child was whispering to me. Whispering, “I’m here.” Other hands touched me as I stumbled and hurried. A handful of the others could see the shadow child. Their hands seemed to push and hurry me as much as catch me. The ring was like a warm weight on my hand, heavy with pressure. The pressure of a spell building, building to a great conclusion. I had to be touching Biddy before the spell burst. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I was absolutely certain that the ring needed to be against her skin before the spell finished. Something would be lost if I failed.Biddy had struggled to her feet, though her tri-grey eyes were a little unfocused, and she leaned heavily against the wall. I found my legs could move as the pressure built in the ring, like some warm living thing against my skin. I was running full out, and Biddy’s eyes were wide and frightened. She couldn’t see the spell, but she knew something was wrong.
I reached for her hand, and she reached automatically out to me. Her hand wrapped around mine just as the spell burst over us. It was as if the world held its breath, as if time and magic stopped, and there was a moment where Biddy and I stood outside of all of it. There was no sound, not even the hush of my own pulse. She stared at me, eyes huge with fear, or something I couldn’t feel. The spell wasn’t for me. I was merely the vessel for it. I had no idea what was happening to Biddy. I knew it didn’t hurt, and that it was good, but what she heard in that moment must have been for her ears alone. The Goddess spoke to her, and I held her hand, let the magic take her while I was in silence, because I simply didn’t need to know.