Protector of the Flight (20 page)

“Vrrrooom,”
she said.

Koz
whimpered. Shook his head, and yelled strange words, “Put that down! I’m done
for.” Marrec didn’t know what that meant, but she dropped the item and Koz
folded to the floor in a cross-legged position, back damp and rising and
falling with his panting breath. His hair had come loose from the tie and swung
in front of his face. Marrec thought Koz had just forfeited his chance, too,
but didn’t feel too bad. The man had a huge estate and enough zhiv to last him
a lifetime. He’d been rich in Exotique Terre and had brought jewels and gold to
Lladrana when he came.

Two
of them left. People began to filter back into the room; the noise level rose
with interest. With bets. Marrec figured he was the long shot.

He
and Faucon eyed each other. Faucon straightened and Marrec realized he’d fallen
into a slouch. He stiffened his spine, too, jutted his chin, tucked his thumbs
into his pants, then looked back to Calli.

She
stood blinking down at the last two offerings. Faucon’s silly hat and Marrec’s
knife. Damn, he wished he would have put in his stone! That might have given
him a better chance. It might be over by now with a clean win for him instead
of him standing here with sweat trickling down his back, providing speculation
and entertainment for an audience.

Calli
stroked the hat. Faucon shoved back against the wall to brace himself, his jaw
clenched. Her fingers left the purple velvet and closed around the hilt of
Marrec’s knife.

Song
save him! Her touch was warm, caressing. Tightened around the knife, his own
hard shaft. She smiled. He hoped he wouldn’t disgrace himself. Then she took a
stumbling step back from the table. Alexa and Marian hovered around her,
questioning her in Exotique Terre language.

Calli
nibbled her bottom lip, held firmer to the knife, brought Marrec to his knees.

“Yes,”
she slurred.

She
couldn’t have chosen him!

Lady
Knight Swordmarshall Thealia Germaine’s cool gaze snagged his. “Marrec
Gardpont, arise and come here for the Binding Ceremony.”

A
wave of pleased shouting roared around him. Two men hauled him to his feet,
slapped him on the back, hauled him toward the table. Thealia brought him
behind it, where his bride waited to be blood bound with him. Forever. A
coeurdechain. What had he done?

Volaran
trumpeting sounded through the room, from Power, not equine lungs.
We did
it! We did it!
Dark Lance sent to his mind, then took off to fly in
exuberance.
Won the Volaran Exotique. Will be admired above all.

Oh,
yeah. That’s why he did it. For glory, for zhiv, for an estate.

Calli
looked into his eyes, her own so large, he thought he fell into them. Her face
showed exquisite vulnerability. His heart caught.

For
the woman.

He
had to believe that this was right. That the Song had guided her. That her
Power had led her to choose him because they were meant for each other.

Then
her Song surrounded him, pulsed through him, connected from his knife to him,
sifting through blood and muscle and bone and it was the most fascinating music
he’d ever heard, full of brightness and shadows, unexpected twists and turns.
It pulled him on a visceral level, instinctively pleasing, caressing him with
the notes and chords.

“Drink,”
said Swordmarshall Thealia.

Riding
on a wave of triumphant lust, he gulped the full goblet down. He’d been
expecting something nasty, but it was rare orange juice and mead, made
effervescent by Power.

The
potion’s effect was immediate. His vision blurred, then narrowed until all he
saw was the woman. The fabulous woman. A fantasy woman.

She
was frowning and wandering back down the tables. The room spun a little. His
brain was slowing. What was he doing just standing here when his Pairling was
getting away from him? She stopped at the last table and swayed, held on to the
edge, staring at something. He tried to follow her gaze and noticed that all
the objects on the tables shone with a repulsive glow.

Except
one at the very last table. Some small item—a brown lock of volaran hair tied
with a multicolored ribbon. The ribbon twisted and throbbed with a compelling
mixture of colors—bright yellow, sickly green, orange-red, black-blue. The
combination tantalized, mesmerized. Pulsed with
wrongness.

Calli
reached for it.

15

T
hat shocked him
into motion. “Ttho!”

Her
hand hovered as she turned her head to him, eyes wide and uncomprehending.
Surely she must know the word
no!

“Ttho!”
he shouted louder. Heard a few snickers as if he was a jealous fool overreacting.
You couldn’t overreact to evil. All his movements clumsy, he stumbled toward
her.

She
focused on him and a sweet smile lit her face. She said something and the other
two Exotiques chuckled behind him.

One
more long stride. Then he had her caught close against his heart, soft and warm
against him. Oh, she deserved to be kissed. How had he resisted kissing her
over the last interminable two days since he first saw her? He should have
claimed her then, the minute she’d appeared in the Temple. He’d wanted her from
then. Tipping up her chin, he lowered his mouth to hers and pressed his lips
against her plump red ones and a thousand tiny explosions set him afire. No
more waiting.

He
traced his tongue over the junction of her lips and she opened her mouth for
him and he explored it and tasted a flavor he’d never known before, a taste
that became instantly addictive. Her back was bowed toward him under his hands,
but he wanted her closer. Needed to be inside her, her wet heat clamping around
him. Now.

Hard
hands grabbed both his arms and tore her away from him. He struggled, let up a
fierce cry of loss, of battle. He was slapped.

Think,
man!
said a cold, smooth voice from his left, his sword arm. “It is time to
bond
with her,” Luthan Vauxveau said.

“Bed
as soon as you do,” said Bastien with a chuckle. The man holding him on his
right.

Thought
crept in. He wanted Calli more than anything else in his life and if he
bloodbonded with a…a…whatever the word was, he’d
have
her forever.

“Mine.
My woman,” he said, just to make it clear. Three other women—Alexa, Marian and
Thealia—had surrounded her and were herding her to the little table with the
knives and strips.

Coeurdechain.
That was the word he wanted. That was the
bond
he wanted. The forever
bond.

“Your
woman,” Bastien agreed.

Marrec
stopped fighting the hands that still gripped him. Caught sight of Calli’s arm
being washed and anointed, held out for the cuts that would make them one. He
surged toward her.

Thealia
stepped in front of him. “Right or left handed?” asked Thealia.

She’d
never bothered to notice before. A sting of bitterness nipped at him. Then he
realized his emotions were being amplified. He’d have to be careful.

“My
right arm is my shield arm,” he said thickly. He turned his head away. Other
faces swam in his vision, watching him—Lady Hallard, Yan, Seeva. He blinked and
looked for his archrival, Faucon. The man wasn’t there. He’d lost the lady.
Marrec grinned. He’d
won!

Neither
was the new Chevalier with the gold ring. Koz was there, though. Marrec could
gloat over Koz—that Exotique-Lladranan was as rich as Faucon, had at least two
estates. Marrec winked at him. Koz winked back.

Marrec
laughed, paying little attention to the cool wetness on his arm, the tingling
of the herbal oil. Even the slicing of his vein was no more than a sharp bite,
quickly over.

“Look
at your lady and say the words,” pressured Luthan.

His
lady. She was that—and more, and less. The passion of their entwined Songs was
strong enough to last a lifetime, and the rhythms of one of the harmonies of
her Song hinted at the earthiness of a woman who lived close to the land. A
strong woman who could turn wild in bed. Marrec gazed at his woman, his lady.
Her face was lovely, the shape of her lips and eyes, her coloring, different and
perfect.

A
tiny tube was inserted in her left arm. He flinched. “Don’t hurt her!”

“All
over now,” soothed Thealia.

He
growled at her. She took his right arm and connected the other end. Calli’s
blood pumped into him, bringing a flood of strange images—mountains, not quite
as tall or as massive as Lladrana’s. A yellow sun, much like their own, a
cloudless day with a blue, blue sky the shade not at all like his own.

Feelings
swamped him. The love for the land. Deep, abiding hurt and betrayal from a
tall, lean, older man with bitter lines chiseled on his face.

“I’ll
kill him for you,” Marrec offered.

Father,
she said in his
mind and he could understand her. Because of the feelings, the images, the
knowledge of Equine she’d already learned.

Father.
Oops. But the man had hurt her, and that was not allowed. Not allowed that
anyone should hurt this person who was becoming
his.
Someone to love.
After all these years.
Another person to love who would love him back.

And
he knew that thought resonated and spiraled back and forth between them.

He
yearned to hold her. Looking down, he saw their arms bound together. He touched
her shoulder with his free hand, curling his fingers over it. Her muscles were
strong and flexible, and quivered under his touch.

His
vision dimmed as images came from her of sex in darkened rooms, arousing him
again, even as his memories of his own infrequent sexual encounters with tavern
women or another Chevalier siphoned into her.

Calli
made a rough, wanting noise, tipped forward into him…and was pulled away, to
his side instead of his aching front.

“Ttho!”
they cried out simultaneously. She knew “no” now.

Her
Song had already captured him—bright and fierce and free, the essence of a
first volaran flight, with threads of harmonies and rhythms he only half heard,
like wisps of cloud against his face, the slant of warm sun against his skin.

“Vows,
now!” Thealia commanded.

Bastien’s
hand turned Marrec’s face to his. “Hold on, Marrec. You need to say the vows to
complete the ritual magic. They’re long, and we know you didn’t have the
Lorebook to memorize them like Faucon, so just repeat each phrase after me.
This
is important.
”

“Important.”
He nodded. Calli’s blood trickled into him, ebbing and flowing like a tide, as
his mingled with hers. He liked the feel of it, slick and sensual, licking
flames brighter and hotter within him. He straightened his shoulders.

“I,
Marrec Simon Gardpont, offer my body and heart, soul and Song to you, Callista
Mae Torcher,” Bastien said.

Marrec
rattled off the sentence, settled deeper into the Power that whirled around
him, so thick he could
see
it. Streams of Power, drifts of Songs from
everyone in the room. The people near him glowed with Power, especially Alexa
and Marian and Calli.

“I,”
said Alexa.

“I,”
repeated Calli.

“Callista
Mae Torcher,” Alexa said.

“Callista
Mae Torcher,” parroted Calli.

“Offer,”
Alexa said.

“Offer.”

And
so it went, the whole long vows, archaic and arcane words he barely understood
even when he wasn’t drugged. He repeated phrases or sentences. Calli said them
word by word.

The
atmosphere in the room hummed with more than the Power of all who were in it.
The air thickened, took on the scent of a coming thunderstorm. Night gathered
and dimmed the room, adding to the mystery. Marrec thought he could hear the
ultimate Song—the whispery, sliding revolution of the stars.

Every
so often a different-smelling herbal strip was tied, binding their arms
together, at elbow, mid-forearm, wrist. Marrec watched, noting the paleness of
Calli’s skin, so translucent as to show blue veins. Utterly fascinating.

He
promised one last vow, desperately hoping he’d remember his oaths in the
morning, and felt as if the last syllable echoed through the hall, through the
sky, to far-off galaxies. A single note so pure in tone, so Powerful he would
have fallen to his knees had he not been supported, so touching it brought
tears to his eyes, rang in his head.

His
vision cleared and he saw the woman before him, looking at him. Promises in her
eyes, too, vows whispering tremulously from her lips.

They
connected. Beyond blood, beyond memories, beyond anything else, their souls
touched and clung together.

The
hall rang with cheers and shouts and Song. The Wedding Song everyone knew by
heart rose to encompass them. He found himself singing. Celebrating the joy
this bonding gave him. She smiled, but didn’t sing.