A Stroke Of Midnight

We looked at him. “I met one of the queen’s maids on the way up from the kitchens. She and Ezekiel have taken a personal interest in Gwe

“Poor bastard,” Rhys said.

Even knowing he’d put a spell on me and Biddy, using our human blood against us, I couldn’t do anything but agree with Rhys. Torture was one thing, being at the queen’s mercy was another; to have both her full attention and her pet torturer’s attention, that was an entirely new level of pain. One I had no wish to contemplate.

“But there is a little more time,” Frost said, “that is all I meant.”

I gazed up at Adair. “Lower your shields for me, oak lord. Let your magic call to mine, and make light and shadow dance upon the walls.”

A look of something close to pain filled his eyes. He whispered so low that I think none but me heard. “I am afraid.”

I didn’t ask him what he feared, for to do that would risk the other men realizing what he’d said, and he obviously didn’t want that. “Kiss me, Adair, just a kiss.”

“It will not be just a kiss with you,” he whispered.

I smiled at him. “Do you want me to make this offer to Ivi or Hawthorne instead of you?”

He lowered his face, almost making the top of his head touch my body. “No,” and that was almost a shout. He raised his face to me, and there was that look of determination, anger, pride—all the things you usually saw in his eyes. “No,” he said again, and he let go his shields.

CHAPTER 38

HIS MAGIC TREMBLED ABOVE MINE, SHIVERING OVER MY NAKEDNESS. I writhed under just a touch of his power, and the power wasn’t even manifesting. He had simply stopped shielding as hard as he could. My voice came breathy. “Why does your power feel so different to me?”

He was still just above my body, on hands and toes. He had to swallow twice to say, “Our magic is similar.”

“Like calls to like,” I whispered.

“I am the power that makes the seed break forth from its prison and reach toward the sun.” He began to lower himself, as if doing some exquisitely slow push-up. It was as if he were pushing himself down through layers of power, and our auras began to flare between us, like two different kinds of flame. I could see it inside my head with that vision that has nothing to do with optic nerves and everything to do with dreams. He spoke through the power. “And you are the earth that receives the seed.”

“No,” I whispered, “Amatheon is the earth.”

“He is the plow, not the earth,” Adair said.

I shook my head, shivering as his power curled over mine. Our auras, the very skin of our magic, pushed against each other, two pieces of a half joining together.

“Amatheon is the magic of the earth that quickens the seed. You are the heat of the sun that calls that seed to the light. Amatheon is the lord of the shallow dark, who holds the seed in its dark cradle until you call it forth.” The words were mine, the voice was mine, but I knew the echo of the Goddess by now.

Adair’s power flared so bright we both closed our eyes, as if the vision fire were real, like shielding the eyes from the sun. My power blazed in turn, a white luminance to balance his golden heat.

When the light died down enough to see his face, his eyes were one solid yellow glow, as if his power had swallowed the other colors. It was as if there were some great, golden candle inside his skin, glowing in a long, thick line down the center of his body, but leaving the outer edges of him in a kind of darkness.

My skin glowed as if the full moon were rising up through it. But the moon’s light is a reflection of the heat of the sun. Reflecting Adair’s power made mine grow brighter. It was as if his power was meant to feed mine.

His mouth hovered over mine as he whispered, “If I am that which calls forth the seed, and Amatheon is the ground that holds the seed, then what are you, Meredith? What are you?”

“I am the life that springs from the seed, Adair. I grow, I feed my people, I die, but am reborn. I wax and I wane. I give light and hide in the dark. I am always, and always will be.”

“Goddess,” he whispered. “Danu.”

Our lips met, and he breathed in a rush of warmth through my mouth. It was as if I could inhale the essence of him, his magic.

He drew back from that kiss and magic trailed between our lips like something warm and thick and sweet. He whispered through that sweet power, “Meredith.” I felt his body settle against mine. “Meredith,” he said again. He slid his legs between mine, and I spread my thighs for him. “Meredith.” He whispered my name like heat against my skin, as the thick curve of his body began to push between my legs, seeking. He was so hard that just feeling him thrust against me made me writhe. Made my hips roll toward him, help him find what he sought. He slipped inside me, and I expected him to have to push his way in, for he was not small, but he did not. He entered me like a sword finding, at last, its perfect sheath. The magic seemed to draw back for a moment, like a giant taking a breath. We lay on the bed in that most intimate of embraces, as close as man and woman can be, and it was like coming home. It was as if I had waited lifetimes for this man to hold me, for this body to be inside mine. I saw the same wonder in his face.

I watched the glow at the center of his body begin to spread outward again. I felt the magic begin to swell, the giant was about to exhale, and with the sensation of that rising magic, Adair began to draw himself out of me. He pulled himself out until only the round head of him remained inside me. The magic blazed to life, and a heartbeat before the power took us, he slid himself home deep inside me. He brought my upper body off the bed, screaming, my nails digging into his flesh, trying to hold on to something, anything, while his body, his magic, thrust inside me again and again. Until I was no longer certain which was flesh and which was magic, pounding through my body.

Then the world shifted. Through the blaze of white and yellow light that was our magic, our bodies, I saw a great dark space rearing above us. We were no longer in the queen’s chambers. Doyle, Rhys, and Frost climbed to their feet, and stood watch over us. Part of me wondered where the sithen had taken us, but most of me didn’t care. I cared for nothing in that moment but the feel of Adair between my legs. Our magic shattered the dark into shadows and dancing light, and still Adair thrust between my legs. Still the power pulsed and grew until I thought my skin could no longer hold it. That I would melt away and become the light. I screamed my pleasure into the fire-shadows of our lovemaking, and still it was not done.

I felt my nails tear along his skin, watched his body bleed yellow and gold like sunlight.

The ground underneath my body began to move under the thrust and push of Adair’s body, as if I would sink into the ground as Amatheon had done in vision. The ground boiled and for a moment the earth was water, pouring around my body in a thick, warm tide. The water spilled inside me, so that Adair pushed himself through it, and forced that blood-warm water deep inside me. Hands came out of that warm liquid. Hands and flesh pressed against me, following where the liquid ran. Muscles, skin, a body, whole and real, formed beneath me. I knew who it was before Amatheon raised his face up enough for me to meet his flower-petal eyes. His body was already inside me when it became solid. Inside me, as Adair thrust inside, so that their bodies shared me.

I was glad now that the magic and Adair’s body had worked so long and hard inside me. Even with all they had done, it was a tight fit, with so much stretching, pushing, fighting against each other’s bodies.

I screamed again, and this time it was a mixture of pleasure and pain. They were almost too big, almost too wide for me.