Christina Phillips - [Forbidden 01] (24 page)

This—could not be understood.

He retraced his path, eyes narrowed, watching the forest. And as he once again reached the summit of the original hill, the forest inexplicably expanded.

Eerie shivers raised the hairs on his arms and back of his neck. What dark magic had he uncovered?

Carys stared at the minuscule portion of mashed root in her small wooden bowl and a slither of apprehension chilled her. Such powerful aids to bridge the chasm between mortals and gods were used sparingly, during sacred ceremonies. The results could never be anticipated, and as such no untrained Druid was permitted to use them unsupervised.

As a Druid only halfway through her training, Carys knew only too well that without a powerful link back to the earth, she could end up forever lost in the spiritual abyss revealed by the magical properties of the root.

But she would be careful. For a start, she wasn’t making the required preparations for a ritual with all the bodily and spiritual cleansing such undertakings required. She intended to swallow only the minutest amount, just enough to open the doorway and allow her access to the upper realms.

Smothering the lingering thoughts that persisted telling her she was merely twisting words to suit herself—
because of course she wasn’t—
she trickled fresh water into the bowl and stirred the contents with her finger. Meditation was all very well but couldn’t guarantee a connection, and she desperately needed a connection with Cerridwen.

She inhaled slowly, then licked her finger clean. She needed only the merest taste, just enough to let her—

The breath jerked from her lungs as she catapulted through the misty veils, without warning, without even swallowing the forbidden mixture. Faster she sped, landscape merging into an emerald blur, and she could feel the wind on her face, whipping through her hair, and yet she could also feel the grass against her legs where she sat, frozen within her mortal body, at Cerridwen’s Cauldron.

She tried to call for her goddess, reach her with her mind. But Cerridwen remained beyond her grasp.

Panic flared. If Cerridwen wasn’t here, how had she crossed the chasm so swiftly? She could feel her finger still in her mouth, could taste the magic as it seeped into her tongue, but couldn’t move a muscle, on either the spiritual or physical dimension.

All movement ceased. Heart pounding with sudden realization of where she was, Carys stared at the forked path before her.

A beautiful maiden materialized, and Carys trembled, in her mind and her soul and the core of her being. Despite all she had experienced during her years of training, despite the numerous occasions Cerridwen had graced her with her presence, the Great Goddess, the Morrigan herself, had never appeared to her. And Carys had never before entered her most divine of domains.
Was this further proof that the goddess had decided to welcome her into her sacred embrace?

The maiden turned, showed Carys the face of the Mother. And then she turned again, to present the Crone.

Carys tried to prostrate herself on the ground, but she had no body, no will over her mind, no substance. And although, incomprehensibly, the eyes of the Crone bored into her with malice, Carys had the eeriest conviction the Morrigan couldn’t see her at all.

The Morrigan looked down the path that led into the far distance. As Carys followed her gaze, she felt the warm, familiar comfort of the ages envelope her, caress her with their combined love and knowledge of all that was and all that could be.

Her ancestors, the spirits she called upon whenever she required their assistance.

Her kin. The powerful women of her line who had gone before her.

And relief rushed through her. The Morrigan, who had never once honored Carys with her presence, had come to her at last. Whatever Carys had done to offend the goddess was clearly forgiven; otherwise why would the Morrigan show her how intrinsically and intimately they were linked?

Carys attempted to show the Great Goddess her gratitude, but as if she was still utterly unaware of her presence, the goddess turned to the fork in the path.

For one terrifying moment Carys saw the fork through the eyes of the goddess. Both paths led into the future. Her people’s future. But the choice of that future hovered in the balance, shimmered on the edge of the precipice, and could as easily shatter into oblivion as bloom into everlasting life.

Ice clawed through her heart, both physical and spiritual, cleaving the realms together, spinning impossible scenarios through her pounding brain.

But it made no difference, as her soul, her mind, her spiritual entity coalesced into an image of her physical self and
shoved
her bodily along the left-hand path.

Flames engulfed her, searing her skin, singeing her hair, and instinctively she raised her arms to protect her face. Black smoke billowed, war cries ripped through the foul air, and water boiled with blood and fury.

Druid and Roman fought, and an immense and terrible knowing slithered through her, coiling around the essence of her being, leaving no room for doubt or disbelief. The battle she foresaw was not merely for land or pride or some faceless barbaric emperor.

The battle was for survival of everything her world had ever known.

Mesmerized, Aeron watched Carys from the far side of the stream. There was no doubt in his mind as to what she had sucked from her finger, as her instant ascent into trance was impossible otherwise for a mere acolyte. The fact she shouldn’t even be in possession of such magic barely concerned him—at least now he knew why the Morrigan searched for her. To punish her for her disobedience.

Without taking his fascinated gaze from her, he slowly advanced. Even by taking the magical root, such instant ascent was unusual. But then, Carys was no ordinary woman, no ordinary Druid. If the gods allowed her such rare honor, it reinforced his conviction—as if he had ever doubted—that she was meant for him.

He crouched before her, stared into her glazed, blinded eyes. “Carys?” But he didn’t expect an answer. She was too far beyond the mortal realm to be aware of his presence.

But perhaps he could still glean information from her.

“Where are you?”

Her body jerked, as if she heard. He grasped her wrist and pulled her bloodied finger from her mouth. Her lips remained parted, full and pink and bloodstained. No longer denying him access.

Lust burned his arteries, blazed through his groin, as he imagined capturing those lips with his mouth. Her breasts rose and fell with each erratic breath, and it would take only one sharp tug of her ties to once again feast upon her beautiful, tantalizing flesh.

Heart thudding in tandem with the blood pounding through his loins, Aeron opened her bodice and sucked in a shuddering breath as he revealed her full, rounded globes.

Still as perfect as he recalled in every one of his heated, lust-fueled dreams.

He laid aside his hazel rod and roughly pulled her gown from her shoulders, exposing her more fully to his gaze. She made a small sound of distress but nothing more, as if she knew, deep in her soul, that he had the right to touch her as he saw fit.

And of course he had the right. Since the moment he had first noticed her as a child of five, he’d been entranced by her strange eyes, her golden hair and infectious laugh. Then eighteen years old, he had already been well on his way to accruing power and prestige and any woman or boy he so much as glanced at.

But from that day he’d set his sights on the young princess. The girl whose noble birth was so far removed from his own humble origins that such a joining was beyond contemplation.

Except Aeron had overcome his poverty-stricken beginnings, thrown off the shackles of serfdom by virtue of his astounding abilities, and been accepted into the hallowed ranks of the Druids while still a child himself.

He rolled one rosy nipple between finger and thumb, and cupped her other breast with his hand, squeezing and delighting in the way her flesh filled his palm, perhaps more so than she ever had before.

“You should never have left me, Carys.” His voice was hoarse as he stared into her vacant eyes. “I waited years for you to grow up. Years of frustration before I finally made you mine.”

He sucked her reddened nipple into his mouth, grazing her with his teeth. Desire arrowed through his throbbing cock, more pain than pleasure, for it had been so long since he’d been inside her and he couldn’t wait any longer.

Dragging his mouth from her, he gripped her jaw. “You don’t deserve me.”

She began to tremble and her eyes dilated, as if even deep in trance she couldn’t deny her desire for him.

The knowledge seared him. So she could see him after all; she did know he was there, knew what he intended to do to her.

And she wanted him to.

His fingers bit into her soft skin. “I’m going to fuck you, Carys. Now. While you’re communing with the gods. And you’ll take my seed into your womb and our son will be blessed above all others.”

Erratic pants issued from between her lips and her eyes began to water, as if in gratitude that he was prepared to forgive her the last three years of denial.

He eased her down onto her back, pulled her gown up, exposing her thighs and her glorious pussy. He wanted to fuck her every which way in every hole she possessed, take her as he had never taken her before, because she had never allowed him to.

But time was short. He needed to fill her now, while she walked in the realm of the gods, and if he waited too long, he’d spill his precious seed before he even entered her.

Grunting with need, he freed himself, kneed her thighs farther apart. After today she would never again deny him. And he could indulge in every fantasy that had haunted him for the last fifteen years.

“Welcome your master home,” he said, and positioned himself above her open, willing body.

Maximus didn’t know what compelled him toward the glade where he’d encountered Carys. There were other, more direct, routes to the inexplicable forest, but still he urged his horse through the narrow wooded path where he had previously followed Branwen.

Dismounting, he walked the last few feet to the edge of the wood. Through the gaps in the trees he caught glimpses of the stream, but no Carys.

Why had he expected to see her here?

Only because he had wanted to.

And then he did.

His entire body stilled, blood, breath, his very heartbeat. His gaze locked on the scene, seeing yet not quite believing, understanding but unable to comprehend the evidence filtering through his numb brain.

She lay on the grass, her hair cascading around her head like a golden halo, while a man spread her legs as if he had every right to do so.