A Magic King (34 page)

"I'm alive, Daken. Very, very alive," she whispered to him.

"No." He shook his head against her shoulder, his coarse stubble scraping her skin. "You're still sick. I can feel it."

She bit her lip, wondered how much he understood about radiation poisoning, then decided now wasn't the time to explain. She lifted up, pulling his face from her body as she dropped light kisses along the clenched lines of his jaw, lips, cheeks, and eyes.

"When you're stronger, you can take care of that too." She drew back, releasing a laugh half in amazement, half in awe. "You're a miracle, my warrior healer. I don't think you realize how much of your life—all life—is a miracle."

His body stilled while he studied her words. She shook her head, trying to push her thoughts into coherence.

"You're fighting all the time, Daken. Against the Tarveen, against Kyree, against yourself. You have to be a good king and a good healer. You have to eradicate the Tarveen and bring your lands into prominence with the Elven Lord. When will you stop fighting everyone and allow yourself to be the miracle you are?"

His laugh was harsh and bitter. "Don't romanticize me, Jane. Don't forget the butchery I made of Kyree a few hundred feet below us."

Jane repressed a shudder at the memory, but she kept her expression soft, her eyes loving. "Yes, and that must be very hard for a man who is a healer."

Daken shook his head. "Killing Kyree wasn't hard at all."

Jane settled back down on his chest. "No, but convincing me of its necessity was." More than the sight of Kyree's body, Jane felt haunted by the hurt in Daken's eyes at her shocked realization of his violent side.

"There's no convincing, Jane. You either understand or you don't." Though his voice was flat, his body was rigid and angry.

Jane looked up at him again, her words slow though no less fervent. "Violence destroyed my world. It took away everyone I loved, flattened everything I knew, and changed my entire race so now I'm the alien. It's hard for me to reconcile that fact with the knowledge of violence as sometimes necessary."

His eyes were dark and intense. "You do understand?"

She nodded. "I do."

"But you're still disgusted I was the one who did it. That I was, I am, capable of such brutality."

"No," she said, raising up to emphasize her words. "I'm grateful that it's you. You're smart and wise and very, very self-controlled. You'd never descend into mindless brutality. Necessary force is what we used to call it."

"I'm not a saint, Jane."

"You're not a demon, either. You're a warrior and a healer. Reconciling the two must be very hard."

He ground his teeth together, his body tightening as he fought with his words. "I can't forget, Jane. I remember the faces of every man and beast I've killed. Even the Tarveen."

She was silent a long time, watching the pain etch lines of granite into his face. Then slowly, she kissed each hard edge, soothing away the strain with her lips while her tears wet the spaces between them.

She couldn't take away his pain or give him the answers he sought, but she could give him her love, her total and complete acceptance of who and what he was.

"I love you," she whispered into his lips. "I always have and always will. Even when you order me around and call me a fool."

Suddenly, he surged forward, rolling her over until he pressed her down into the bed. Other than a soft gasp of surprise, she offered no resistance, loving the weight and the solid feel of him.

"You are a fool," he rasped, "to give your heart to me."

She smiled, a teasing quirk to her lips. "That thought had occurred to me."

He kissed her again, and this time there was no pain in his touch, no fear in his caress. It was tender and sweet and filled with awe. She returned it all a hundred-fold to him.

There was no embarrassment when he lifted off the shift she wore at night. She was naked before him, her body exposed in all its thousands of little flaws. But he already knew the worst of her—her temper and her failures. If he accepted those and could still gaze at her with eyes like blue fire shot with gold, then he wouldn't mind the mismatched shape of her breasts or unattractive clumps of cellulite.

Or so she told herself as he stared at her, his hands still between them, his breathing shallow.

"You're beautiful," he whispered, and she flushed from the top of her hair to the tips of her toes.

Then he caressed her, tracing her curves with the palm of his hand, trailing his fingers from her face to her hip. She felt his every callous as it scraped against her skin, and her nipples tightened at the erotic feel of it.

After he explored her body with the broad strokes of his hand, he bent down to worship her every hollow and peak with his lips. His first kiss landed over the pulse in her neck, and he held it there as though he needed to reassure himself she was still alive. Later he trailed down to her collar bone, stroking its sloping curve with his tongue.

His first touch at her breast was off center, to the right of her peak, and she cried out at the sweet torment. He pulled at the flesh there, alternately sucking and soothing, but never on the target she craved.

When at last his lips found her nipple, she bucked beneath him, shocked to the core by the tremors that filled her. She was orgasming? From what he did to her nipple? The surprise of that fell away as she rode the tide of pleasure.

Then, when she could breathe again, she focused on his cocky grin. "How do you do that? It's like all you have to do is to wet your lips, and I'm a pile of quivering flesh."

He leaned down, whispering his words into her ear. "The same way you do it to me." He pressed his groin against her for emphasis, his swollen shaft a hot brand even through the thin material of his shorts.

She smiled and pressed back, wiggling her hips to make him groan.

"Woman, you unman me."

She laughed at his old style phrasing. "I certainly hope not. Maybe we should check." Pushing him flat on his back, she sat up and started to pull off his shorts. His gasp of shock at her outrageousness only pushed her to further excesses. "You know, I don't think you ever answered my question," she said.

"What question?" His voice was hoarse as he lifted his hips, allowing her to strip away the last of his clothes.

"You never told me if the women of this time are as energetic, as, um, bold as I am." To punctuate her remark, she grasped him in her hand, alternating her words with quick, staccato squeezes.

"By the Father!" he exclaimed, nearly jumping out of the bed. But he quickly fell back down, overcome by her enthusiasm.

"Well, Daken? Are they?" She switched to long, pulling strokes.

"Ah," he said, groping for his thoughts. "Energetic, yes. Bold, no. A charging zlebaar isn't as bold as you."

"Oh," she said, slowly removing her hand from his body. Then she leaned down and gave him one long, wet, lingering kiss before withdrawing. "Then you don't like it?" She raised her eyebrows in an expression of total innocence that he took for the teasing challenge it was.

Faster than she thought possible, he surged up from the bed, once again capturing her and pinning her beneath his weight. "Yes, my little bold one. I liked it. But no, you won't be allowed to continue." He wedged his knees between hers, slowly spreading her thighs apart. "It's time I staked my claim in you."

He was hot and hard as he pressed against her entrance, but she arched away from him, drawing herself up onto her elbows. "Staked your claim? Excuse me, I'm not some plot of land you can just claim."

He drew back onto his knees, trailing his hands lowly, lovingly over her breasts and belly. "Did I say you were?"

"No. You said you were staking your claim. Let me tell you..." She gasped as he ran his hands further down, trailing in her soft triangle of hair. She swallowed, then tried to speak again. "Nobody owns..." His thumbs probed lower, spreading her delicate petals. "Owns me. No..." He shifted his position quickly. One moment he was towering over her, then the next, he was off the bed, his face between her thighs. Her words faded into a gasp as his lips began to explore the same flesh his fingers teased. "Oh, wow," she breathed, temporarily abandoning her feminist stand as she gave herself totally over to pleasure. "Do that again."

He did.

And he did much more until she writhed beneath him, her back arched, her arms aching as she strained forward, needing the fulfillment only he could give her.

"Now, Daken. Come to me now."

But he waited, withdrawing his caresses as her passion ebbed.

"Oh Daken, you're cruel," she accused without rancor. "You're good, but you're cruel."

He punished her for that comment, teasing around her but never within until she was once more pleading with him for her release. Then he stopped, looking up with an expression of total innocence. "Does that mean you don't like it?"

She groaned, knowing now he'd gotten his revenge for the way she'd teased him before. She sat up, pulling him to her for a deep, heavy, mind-numbing kiss. And while he followed her lead, she still had the impression he stalked her. Like a predator about to take his fill, he moved over her body, dropping delightful nibbles where the fancy struck him, slowly, relentlessly pressing her backward onto the bed.

And then he found her mouth.

He thrust into her above and below at the same instant. She was more than ready for him, arching in the ecstasy of his penetration. She drew him in, pulling at him with her legs and arms, wanting him deeper within her, yearning for more than a physical union could give.

Daken ended the kiss, lifting his head, keeping his hips still. She pressed and moved beneath him, urging him to the next step, but he stopped her, holding her motionless with his weight.

"I will heal you now," he said. His eyes were dark with passion, but his voice remained steady and controlled.

"What?" She struggled to make sense of his words.

He grinned. "I've wanted to do this since that first time in the water. Remember? With the Old One?"

She nodded. Even with her thoughts clouded by passion, she'd never forget that delightful and humiliating healing in the stream.

"I wanted you then," he said, "but I had no right. But now..."

Trusting him implicitly, she pulled him down to her. "But now, I give you the right to do whatever you want."

Their kiss was tender and sweet, a touching distraction to another stroke, another brush that warmed her mind.

"Before, it was just your skin," he whispered against her cheek, the heat of his breath curling around her ear. "This illness is much deeper. This goes down into your bones."

Jane nodded, knowing bone marrow was especially vulnerable to radiation poisoning.

"I want to be there too, Jane. I want to be in your bones, in your heart, in you."

"You could hardly be any closer." She wiggled her hips for emphasis, but Daken just grinned.

"Watch," he said.

It began on her lips which he continued to stroke with teasing licks and tiny nibbles. It was the same heat she remembered from by the stream, but this time there was more. This time, she knew it was Daken slowly entering her body, seeping in, extending his influence in ever widening circles.

She felt him within her. His warmth, his love, his passion were all a part of her. Her lips parted in slow astonishment.

Still he grew, expanding until he heated more and more of her. Never before had she felt so at one with another, so unified in body and mind.

As if of its own accord, Daken's body began to move, thrusting into her, always pressing for a deeper penetration. Jane knew Daken's consciousness was within her. She could feel his passion surging through her veins, his ecstasy driving her hunger higher and harder; his delight echoing within her mind.

She lost herself to the sensations, the fulfillment, and the joy. They moved together, pulsing within and around each other. Then with one final thrust, he burst through her, filling her body with his seed as he filled her soul with his light. She cried out at the wonder of it while her body tightened and stroked him with a rapture all its own.

They were one.

She'd been a fool to think she remained independent of him. No matter what her feminist mind told her, she belonged to Daken. He had long since staked a claim in her life and in her heart. This moment of passion was only one tie out of hundreds that bound them together.

But it didn't upset her. This presence in her body and her mind didn't bother her. It was Daken who was with her. And she knew she was as much a part of him as he was of her. And together, they had...

Joy.

They lay cradled together for a long time, trying to prolong their strange, mystical union. In the end, exhaustion forced them to separate. His healing presence withdrew, leaving her cold and empty except for where their bodies touched. She looked up at his face, noting the gray cast of fatigue coloring his features.

"You're tired." Until this moment, she hadn't realized how very weary he must be.

"I'm sad I haven't the strength to stay as we were forever."