Obsessed (34 page)

“Trust me in this.” Jalen cupped her face with his strong hand. “Once we return to Seraphine and I confer with the Council, I shall know what course of action to take next.” His thumb rubbed across her cheek, wiping away traces of her tears. “My mother, Queen Yanea, is a Seer of incredible powers. Through her we can locate your heart-sisters, and then we can do what it takes to find them.”

“Do you mean it?” Ranelle placed her hand over his as she looked up into his sapphire eyes. “You will help me search for them?”

Jalen brushed his lips over the enrli at her forehead. “I promise to do what I can, and to make sure they are found.”

“Thank you.” She turned her mouth into his palm and kissed it, brushing a butterfly stroke of her tongue against his salty skin.

He took her hand and placed it to her bare belly. “I have waited ’til we are alone to tell you this.” A smile lit his eyes and without his telling her, she knew pride and joy filled his heart—but for what?

His gaze held hers as he murmured, “Within your womb, you carry our child.”

“A—a babe?” Fluttering erupted within Ranelle’s soul, and she could scarce believe him. It seemed somehow surreal, as though it wasn’t true. “Are you certain?”

He sighed and caressed her belly, his hand warm against her skin. “The morning before you fled into Wilding Wood, do you remember our lovemaking?”

Heat rose in Ranelle’s cheeks at the thought of their frantic lovemaking and then how she’d foolishly fled into the wood. She nodded, unable to speak.

“I did not know it at the time, but Anistana had sprinkled a potent Faerie dust upon us.” Jalen’s hand moved to her hip and he gripped her tight. “When the dust is used between heartmates, a child is always conceived.”

An odd flush poured through Ranelle. So many thoughts rushed through her mind—countless feelings and emotions that soared through her like a flock of nordai in flight.

A mother? She would be responsible for another life?

Yet at the same time excitement skittered through her—she was carrying Jalen’s child.

Their child.

“Does it not please you?” Jalen’s expression had gone from pleasure to uncertainty.

“Yes.” Ranelle smiled and her heart filled at the joy she saw in Jalen’s eyes. “I want more than anything to have a child with you. Many children.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her tight to him. “How I love you, mi enchantrei.”

“And I love you with all my heart,” Ranelle replied against his chest, her own happiness rivaling Jalen’s. “It seems that in her own way, Anistana has given us a precious gift.”

“Aye, that she did.” Never in his many years upon Dair did Jalen ever believe he could be so happy, and love anyone as much as he did Ranelle.

Carefully he eased her to the krstn, needing to slide his cock into her and feel her from the inside.

Ranelle clamped her knees around his waist and gripped his muscled arm with one hand. With her other she reached down, grasped his cock, and guided it to her folds.

Even as his cock penetrated her, he pressed his lips to hers. He thrust his tongue inside her mouth while his cock thrust into her core. Harder and deeper he fucked her, wanting to bury himself as far as he could go.

When she came, his mouth was still pressed to hers, and he swallowed her cries. He absorbed her every tremor and aftershock into his very being. And in return he emptied all of himself into her.

* * * * *

After they finished their light meal of Elvin gorni, Jalen stood with Ranelle at the limits of Wilding Wood. Blue mist spiraled around them, a hazy barrier to the Xardu Moors and the dangers that lay ahead. With his keen eyesight, Jalen searched the moors, hoping on this day that the qinok would be too full to hunt for prey.

Sunshine filtered through the Faerie wood, light dappling across Ranelle’s long tresses. A color-changing urli butterfly floated by, for one second its color going from white to brown as it passed her hair, then to white again as it continued into the wood.

Reaching up, Jalen caressed Ranelle’s cheek and smiled. “You understand your instructions?”

“Yes.” Although she returned his smile, the corner of her mouth trembled. “If we encounter danger I am to fly beyond the moors.” She took a deep breath, as though it was difficult for her to continue. “When I am safely in the D’euan Forest I am to shriek the Nordain call to arms.”

Jalen took her by the shoulders and pressed his forehead to hers, their enrli joining and sending warmth through his body. “I love you.”

This time her smile was radiant. “And I love you.”

When he stepped away, sparkles flashed in the air and Ranelle changed into her nordai form. She flapped her wings and alighted on his shoulder where he had instructed her to remain—unless they encountered the qinok.

The moment Jalen stepped from Wilding Wood onto Xardu Moors, the very atmosphere changed. An electric tension filled the air, along with a stench like rotting flesh and urine. A dismal cloud of gases hung over the gloomy moors, blocking the warmth of the sun.

Jalen’s body hummed with the need to reach his own lands, the D’euan Forest, and his people—but most of all, to take his heartmate and their unborn child to safety. He scanned the moors one final time, his senses high, and began to sprint as fast as he could through the treacherous land.

Hold tight, he told Ranelle in thought as his feet found what firm ground there was in the swampland. Her bird’s talons dug into his tunic, a comforting feeling as he dodged through stubby bushes and spindly trees, leapt over hidden quagmires and treacherous quicksand, and bypassed the poisonous waters.

On and on Jalen ran, his muscles fluid, his feet silent. The journey would take an ordinary man two days—however it was most unlikely a mere man would even survive the first. Running at his full speed, Jalen would be able to make the D’euan Forest by nightfall, if all went well.

He sensed Ranelle’s fear, along with her courage. Throughout the journey he read her mind that she kept open to him, and they spoke to one another only in thought. The slightest of sounds could alert the qinok, and it was a dangerous beast to confront. He knew of only one man who had survived a confrontation with the multi-legged and dagger-toothed qinok, and Renn still bore the scars of that encounter.

Always present in Jalen’s consciousness was the concern that Zanden could more easily track them now that they had left the safety of Wilding Wood. If the Sorcerer chose to attack while Ranelle and Jalen were in Xardu Moors…

Thorns scraped his arms and snagged at his clothing as he dodged through the brush. The moor was silent save for the occasional slosh of water or eerie howl of the nofsta, mysterious and clannish wolves that hunted the swamplands for prey. Thank the goddess their appetites did not extend to faire folk, Nordain or humans.

Jalen’s worries remained intense, but stride by stride, he put the hateful moors behind them.

By the time Jalen and Ranelle neared the end of Anistana’s parting trial it was early evening. Not much further and they would reach the D’euan Forest and safety within its confines.

But even as relief added fuel to his tiring muscles, Jalen’s senses rose and he came to a halt.

Something was wrong.

Jalen.
Ranelle tensed on his shoulder, as though preparing for flight. She knew it, too.

By the goddess! The qinok has found us!

Flee to safety!
Jalen told Ranelle at the same time he swung his bow from his shoulder.
The qinok!

A screech shattered the silence of the moor as the eight-armed qinok thrust up from the swamp and bounded into their path. The bluish gray creature roared and tossed its head, flinging putrid water across the moor as it bared dagger-like teeth. It charged toward Ranelle and Jalen, claws slashing through the air like countless scythes. The scaly beast’s rotten meat stench was nearly overpowering.

While Jalen nocked an arrow to his bow, Ranelle hesitated.
I do not wish to leave you to battle the qinok alone.

The Nordain battle call,
he reminded her as he released an arrow at the beast’s single giant eye. You must reach the D’euan Forest or you will never be heard by my brothers-at-arms.

I love you!
Ranelle cried in his mind as she took flight and flew over the qinok, toward the Elvin forest.

The beast slashed at her, one of its claws barely missing her tail feathers. Her raven cry echoed throughout the moor as she escaped, her shriek a haunting and lonely sound. Even as he released another arrow at the beast, Jalen felt her fear for his safety straight to his lifeforce.

The qinok bellowed as the first arrow struck its scaled head, missing its eye. It flung up one of its arms in time to block the second attack and screeched again.

Arrow after arrow Jalen nocked to his bow as the qinok drove him farther back into the moor. For such an unwieldy creature, the beast was fleet and its eight arms reacted swiftly, its single eye seeing everything that came at it.

Darkness was falling across the moor, the swamp’s gloom deepening.

And soon Jalen would be out of arrows.

He had no fear for himself. No fear of death. But he did fear for his heartmate and his unborn babe, and prayed that Ranelle had reached safety.

Heart pounding with the force of a thousand drums, Ranelle bolted toward the D’euan Forest. Her very soul flamed with terror for Jalen. She had wanted to stay at his side, to help him fight the beast, but she knew he was right. They stood a better chance against the qinok if she was able to summon the Nordain.

She pumped her wings, pushing herself forward and trying to concentrate on her mission, rather than on the horrible screeching sounds the qinok made as it battled Jalen. The beast’s shrieks raked along Ranelle’s spine, causing her to shiver even as she tore through the sky.

Ahead, through the gray gloom of the darkening moors, Ranelle’s keen raven sight spied the green of a forest on the horizon. Hope and fear combined to give her the fuel to fly at a dizzying pace above the swamplands. The moor’s noxious fumes made breathing difficult, but she would make it.

She could not lose Jalen. Could not let anything happen to him.

Like she had allowed her mother to die.

The moment Ranelle entered the D’euan Forest, fresh air filled her senses. She sucked in her breath as she alighted on a bush, and then shrieked with all the power she could muster. Again and again she cried out to her kinfolk, calling them to arms, telling them that one of their own was in peril. Phoenicia was too far to the north for any man to travel quickly enough by horse or foot, but as the raven flew, it should not be long before Nordain help arrived.

A flutter and a rustle alerted Ranelle to a presence behind her, and her senses flared. She had been so consumed with crying out for help that she had failed to maintain her guard.

Ranelle started to turn when large hands clasped around her raven’s body and fingers pinched her beak shut.

The man’s hands had a horribly familiar feel to them. As his sickening smell washed over her, Ranelle’s heart dropped to her belly. She did not even have to look to know that Zanden had captured her. Again.

Ranelle is in danger.
The knowledge sliced through Jalen’s heart and chilled his blood. At his forehead and cock, the enrli burned with intensity as he shot the last of his arrows at the beast. He had to find some way to defeat the qinok and rescue his heartmate—before it was too late for either of them.

With the speed of lightning in a storm, as he nocked his last arrow, Jalen considered plan after plan. He finally settled on the one that would give the qinok confidence enough to underestimate its prey.

Jalen allowed the beast to back him into a pocket of land—where he was almost completely surrounded by the swamp. The only escape was through the qinok, for no man or other being could survive the poisonous waters of the moor.

Shrieking its bone-chilling cry, the beast advanced on Jalen and swiped at him, ripping one dagger-claw through the flesh of Jalen’s thigh.

Ignoring the pain searing his leg, Jalen trained the last arrow on the beast’s eye, then dropped and rolled across the small inlet. As the qinok looked down and raised six of its eight arms and prepared to pounce and finish its prey, Jalen released the arrow.

His bow sung and the arrow shot forward. The beast flung up his arms, but the arrow moved so fast the qinok never had a chance to block it. A shriek rent the air as the arrow pierced the beast’s eye, the shaft buried in the qinok’s brain.

With one last scream, the beast staggered, then toppled into the swamp with a tremendous splash, and Jalen barely escaped the fluid landing on his bared skin. Bubbles rose and broke the surface of the murky waters as the qinok disappeared into its depths.

Silence, immediate and deafening, weighed heavy on Jalen’s ears. His leg throbbed, blood gushing down his thigh from the artery that had been sliced. But he had no time to waste. He had to get to Ranelle, and he did not have long before the qinok’s mate would sense its companion’s demise and seek revenge.

Quickly he jerked the krstn from his pouch and tied it around his thigh. The magic in the blanket would stem the flow of blood, and help him make it through the moor.

Holding out his hand, Jalen summoned all his spent arrows with his magic, retrieving the gifts of the goddess. Even the arrow that had been lodged in the qinok’s eye and those buried in its flesh rose from the swamp and returned to his hand, each magically cleansed of filth before coming in contact with his skin. In only moments every arrow was replaced in his quiver and he was on his way to his heartmate.

Jalen sprinted toward the D’euan Forest, his speed hampered by his wound, but he pressed himself to run beyond his body’s ability.

And prayed to the goddess that he was not too late to save Ranelle.

* * * * *

“Never again will you leave me, my little magpie.” The Sorcerer turned Ranelle, his hand clenched around her raven form, and raised her so that her eyes met his enraged black gaze. “For you are mine.”