“I did not know that Andais still spoke with you, Goddess.”
“I did not stop speaking to my people, they stopped listening to me, and after a time, they could no longer hear my voice. But I never stopped speaking to them. In dreams, or that moment between waking and sleep, there is my voice. In a song, the touch of another’s hand in theirs, I am there. I am Goddess, I am everywhere, and in everything. I cannot leave, nor can you lose me. But you can leave me, and you can turn your back on me.”
“We did not mean to leave you alone, Mother,” Amatheon said.
“I was not alone, Child. I cannot be truly alone, but I can be lonely.”
“What can I do, Mother, to repent?”
“Repentance is an alien concept to us, Amatheon. But if you wish to make it up to me . . .”
“Yes, Goddess, with all my heart.”
“Make the earth live again, Amatheon. Spread your seed over that which is barren, and make it live again.” She began to fade like mist in the sun.
“Goddess,” he said.
Her voice floated to us. “Yes, Child.”
“Will I see you again?”
Just her voice now, young and old at the same time. “In the face of every woman you meet.” And she was gone.
He gazed at the spot where she had been, and only when I let the sword fall to the ground did he turn to me.
“What would you have of me, Princess? I am yours in any way you want me. Whether by my life, my blood, or my strong right arm, I will serve you.”
“You sound as if you’re about to pledge me your sacred honor like some knight of old.”
“I am a knight of old, Meredith, and if it is my honor you want, you may have it.”
“You told Adair you had no honor, that the queen had taken it with your hair.”
“I have touched the chalice and seen the face of the Goddess. Such blessings are not given to the unworthy.”
“Are you saying your honor is intact because the Goddess treated you as one who is honorable?”
A quick puzzled look flashed through his multicolored eyes, then he said, “Yes, I suppose I am.”
“Say what you are thinking.”
He smiled, a quick flash of real humor, that made his face less perfectly handsome, but more real, more precious to my sight. “My honor was never gone, because no one can take your honor from you, not without your letting it go. I was going to say that you have given me back my honor, but I understand now.”
I smiled at him. “No one can take your honor, but you can give it away.”
The smile wilted around the edges. “Yes. I let fear take my honor from me.”
I shook my head.
He smiled again, almost embarrassed. “I mean that my fear became more important than my honor.”
I stopped his words with a kiss. I wrapped my hands across his back, the chalice still held in my right hand. His arms came up tentatively, as if he wasn’t certain how to begin. I think the sex would have been slow and gentle, but I held the symbol of the Goddess, and I was the living symbol of the Goddess. An impatient Goddess. The chalice pulled us backwards as if there was some huge magnet underneath the ground. When the chalice met the earth, it went into the ground, and I was left holding nothing. Amatheon’s back hit the spot where the chalice had vanished, and his spine bowed, eyes fluttering closed, his fingers convulsing against my back, his body pushing against mine. The strength of his hands, the solidness of his body, and the raw need in his face, all of it pulled me down to him, put my mouth against his, my hands eager on his body. When my hand slid between our bodies so I could cup the hard, thick length of him, he shuddered and cried out. His eyes were wild when he looked up at me again.
“Please, Princess.” His voice was so hoarse it didn’t sound like him.
“Please what?” I whispered against his mouth.
“I cannot promise how long I will last.”
“What do you want, Amatheon?”
“To serve you.”
I shook my head, so close above him that my hair brushed his face when I did it. “Say what it is you want, Amatheon.”
He closed his eyes, and swallowed so hard it sounded painful. When he opened his eyes again, he was calmer, but there was something in those flower-petal eyes that was still cautious. His voice was a whisper, as if he didn’t want to speak his wish too loudly, as if someone might overhear him. “I want you to ride me, to press my naked body into the dirt. I want to watch your breasts dance above me. I want to feel your body slipped over mine like a sheath to a sword. I want to watch your skin shine, your eyes and hair dance with power while I shove myself into you as far and as often as I can. I want to hear you cry out my name in that voice that women use only at the height of their passion. I want to pour my seed inside your body until it spills down the sides of you, and trails down my own hips. That is what I want.”
“Sounds wonderful to me,” I said.
He gave a small frown.
I smiled, and touched the lines between his eyes that would have been frown lines by now, if he’d been able to wrinkle. “What I mean, Amatheon, is yes. Let’s do all that.”
“You mean I get my wish,” he said.
“Isn’t that what we used to do, grant people’s wishes,” I whispered, smiling.
“No,” he said, “we, none of us, ever granted wishes.”
“It was a joke,” I said.
“Oh, I’m . . .”
I put my finger on his lips and stopped him. “Let’s make the grass grow.”
He frowned.
“Fuck me,” I said, and removed my finger from his lips.
He smiled that bright smile that made him seem younger and more . . . human. “If that is what you wish.”“Now who’s offering to grant wishes?”
“I will grant anything that is within my power to give you.”
I sat up and pressed my most intimate parts against his most intimate parts, and even through all our clothes, the sensation was amazing. He was so hard, so very hard, that it must have been a pleasure that was nearly pain.
“Give me this,” I said, and it was my voice that was hoarse now.
“Willingly. Let us get out of our clothes, and it will be done.”
I stared down at his face with that eager hardness pressing up through my jeans. It sounded like a plan to me.
CHAPTER 17
OUR CLOTHES FELL TO THE EARTH LIKE THE RAIN THAT HAD FORGOTTEN THIS LAND.
He lay back against that dry, parched earth, like a jewel laid upon a rough grey cloth. He had begun to glow before all his clothes had come off. When I brushed my hand over his bare arm, his skin glowed behind my fingers as if lightning flared underneath his skin, as if the lightest touch of my fingertips on even the most neutral parts of his body was almost too much. I wondered what he would do if I touched less neutral places.
I laid the very tips of two fingers against the swell of his upper chest. Light blossomed at my touch. His whole body glowed bright white, but around my fingers the light glowed orange and red like true flame. Where I touched him, his body ran hotter, and that red, hot heat followed my fingers down his body. I traced down his stomach, and just the touch sped his breathing, made him writhe against the dry earth. His eyes fluttered shut and his hands scrabbled at the bare earth, and all I had done was trail fingers across his stomach. I lost patience then, I wanted to see what he would do when I wrapped my hands around that most intimate part of him.
I think he expected me to at most trail my fingers across the long swollen bit of him, to give him some warning, but I didn’t.
I wrapped my hand around him and squeezed. He cried out. His upper body came up off the ground, and the feel of him in my hand closed my eyes, bowed my back, because he was so much harder than I’d imagined. So hard, so terribly hard, that he felt more like smooth, hard marble, except he was so very warm.
“Oh, don’t, don’t do that, Merry-girl, or I won’t last.”
“So hard,” I said, and my voice sounded breathy and hoarse.
“I know,” he whispered, “too hard. I will not last.”
“Then don’t last,” I said.
He frowned at me, eyes still wild. “What?”
“Then don’t last, for this first time, meet your need. You can prove your stamina next time.”
“Next time,” and he laughed. “I don’t believe in next times. All that’s real to me is you, here, now.”
He sat up and leaned in toward me. We weren’t touching now, just close.
“If I am not good enough, you won’t want me again.”
I leaned in toward him, putting our faces very close together.
“Did she judge you all on just one night?”
His eyes widened. “Yes,” he whispered.
“I don’t.”
He smiled. “Are you saying that Frost and Doyle were less than spectacular the first time?”
I had to smile. “No.”
“Then who?”
I shook my head. “Everyone was wonderful, some just got spectacular with practice.”
He drew back far enough to see my face clearly. “You mean that?”
“Yes.”
“They can’t all have been amazing.”
“If they weren’t, I’ll never tell.”
“You won’t tell,” he whispered.
I started to touch his face, but he pulled back just enough to be out of reach.
“Tell what?” I asked.
He gave me a look, a look eloquent with meaning.
“Oh,” I said, and smiled again, but it was a gentler smile. “No, Amatheon, I won’t tell.”