Instinctively, Hunter understood and sympathized with the displaced feeling, and he tried to make it up to Rayne. He sat in the single chair and fed her bites of the morning’s golden cakes, dipping an occasional piece in honey, to the foal’s blissful enjoyment. He scratched her itching horn and talked to her softly and gazed into bottomless black eyes so eerily like Siri’s.
When Rayne finally trotted from the cabin some time later, Hunter found himself restless. He paced around, looking at without seeing the room’s simple furnishings. And then he saw.
One bed. One table. One chair.
He stared at that chair for a long time. It grew in his eyes, looming ever larger and larger in importance. One chair. A place for one. A place for only one.
A life intended, shaped, for only one, with not even the simplest conveniences set aside for any other.
No place for any other.
Slowly, he turned away, moving to the shelf by the hearth. He lifted his long hunting knife, sliding it from its sheath and staring down at the gleaming blade. Then he slammed tempered steel home in rich leather and strode purposefully from the cabin.
—
This time, Boran summoned her even more deeply into the dark privacy of the forest. Watching her last night, he had grown more impatient, and in the dark hours before dawn he had decided to test his mindspell’s limits. The conflict in her mind was growing stronger with every passing hour, and he knew that the time for him to act was now; if he wasn’t careful, Hunter would get in before him and steal what he intended for himself.
He was confident that he had charmed the sorceress. She was his to do with as he wished. So he summoned her again. And when she arrived, he was stretched out on a soft bed of moss, boldly naked.
Control was easy now, and when she stood over him she was completely under his mindspell.
“Boran?”
“It feels wonderful,” he murmured. “Try it for yourself.” He heard a rustling sound and opened his eyes, pleased to find that he had guessed correctly. Raised in the solitude of this valley, she had no sense of modesty, no feeling that clothing was emotional protection. He watched while she undressed.
“You have a lovely body,” he remarked casually, feeling his loins tighten and swell.
“Have I?” She was pleased.
He waited until she was lying beside him, then raised himself on an elbow to gaze down at her. Eyes closed, she stretched like a cat, her lithe body supple.
“It does feel good,” she murmured.
Relaxed, he reached out his right hand and laid it over her breast. “The body understands pleasure,” he told her, moving his palm in a slow circle over her hardening nipple.
She opened her eyes and smiled lazily at him. “That feels good, too.”
“Yes.” He leaned over and licked the hard bud gently, then drew it into his mouth and sucked, his tongue rasping. He could feel her shiver with pleasure. Lifting his head, he gazed down on the wet nipple, then smiled at her. He was concentrating hard, all his energies focused on relaxing her, making her compliant and aware only of her sensual feelings; he didn’t allow himself to think of his true motives at all.
“I can teach your body to feel wonderful things,” he promised softly. “Will you let me do that, princess?” Gambling that his mindspell was strong enough now, he allowed his twisted left hand to stroke over her flat belly. And he discovered that to be correct when her smile remained undimmed, trusting.
“I like to feel wonderful things,” she confided.
“Good,” he murmured. “Then just lie there with your eyes closed, princess, and feel the pleasure.”
He caressed her breasts gently, carefully, and her sighs were music to him. Her warm flesh tasted sweet, and he concentrated fully on the swelling mounds. He licked around her pointed nipples slowly, tracing the areolas, flicking the hard tip, and then drawing the erect tissue into his mouth and sucking strongly.
Siri murmured something in the back of her throat and shifted restlessly.
Boran didn’t try to part her legs yet, but his hand trailed down over her quivering belly slowly until he could stroke the triangle of silken hair. He could see her thighs tighten in a reflexive movement, but her eyes remained closed and she sighed softly.
Even as his own body swelled and throbbed and desire sought to cloud his mind, Boran remained alert, his attention fixed on her, on the soothing, seducing thoughts he was sending to her mind. He caressed her slowly and expertly, watching her skin flush with sensation, her breathing quicken, her body shift subtly in sensual discomfort.
“Open your legs for me, princess,” he whispered, probing gently with his fingers while his twisted left hand rubbed methodically over her breasts.
A faint, troubled frown flitted over her features, but when his fingers discovered the slick flesh they sought, she caught her breath and her thighs slowly widened to permit the caress. Boran stroked her delicately, barely aware that his own breath had quickened, that his own heart pounded as wildly as the one beneath the flesh his lips caressed.
He wanted to make it last, wanted to watch her while passion caught her in its merciless toils. But his own body raged, and the patience he had imagined last night shattered. With a groan, he rolled over to cover her body, his legs forcing hers wide apart, his aching manhood probing stiffly.
Her eyes opened, and she gasped. “Boran—what are you—no, don’t—”
“Pleasure, princess,” he muttered harshly. “I promise you pleasure. Let me in—let me show you—”
“No!” Her face was changing even as she struggled, the serenity and sensual hunger of his mindspell disappearing. And her purple eyes were darkening with anger and a wisp of awareness. “No, I won’t! The Unicorns—”
He knew then, even through the haze of passion, that he was losing his control of her. And for an instant, trapped in the toils he had wished for her, he very nearly gave in to his own consuming passion. But rape was not what he wanted. He wanted her willing, wanted her to give to him what no man had been given in ten thousand years.
The virginity of the Keeper of the Unicorns.
And the strength of that desire overbore the aching of his body. He went still above her, staring into her eyes commandingly, focusing every atom of his will. Siri went still as well, gazing up at him with blank eyes and a face suddenly wiped of all feeling.
In a strange, suspended voice, she said, “I can’t do this, Boran. Forbidden. I would be Outcast…I would die.”
He was shaken by her strength, by her ability to penetrate the veils of his mindspell to voice those words, and he concentrated even more on controlling her. He steadily shored up the wall he had built in her mind between knowledge of him and the awareness of her precious unicorns, but for the first time that wall felt unsteady to him.
And he realized then that this taboo was indeed a powerful one, because the near breaking of it had wrenched her from his control. The knowledge was bitter, but his explosive rage brief. He had just moved too quickly, that was all. She would surrender to him. She would.
Slowly, still maintaining the fierce control, he moved until he was beside her again. And he carefully probed her mind for the memory of this attempt, working to neatly remove the knowledge. Her face became serene again, and her eyes closed.
He reached out and stroked her body with a steady hand, undemanding now. And he held her mind captive in a limbo as he murmured, “You will be mine, princess. If I have to mount you with all the roughness of a stallion with his mare, I will take you. But I want you willing. You’ll be a mare in season, my love, and more than ready for me.”
He rolled over onto his back, fighting for the control not to take her now, willing or not. “Get dressed,” he ordered harshly, still holding her mind caged.
Her face blank, Siri rose and got dressed, her movements automatically graceful. And Boran watched, his hunger growing. “Legend says I’ll have your power when I have you,” he murmured. “I’ll have what no man has gained in
ten thousand years. I’ll have the power of your witch’s mind, and your virgin’s blood will make me even stronger.”
She stood, face blank, awaiting his command.
“I’ll have my revenge. And I’ll have the Triad,” he said to himself. Then he ordered her to return to her other life and watched as she vanished into the forest.
He remained where he was for a time, frowning up at the trees. Whether she were willing or not, taking her virginity would accomplish a part of his plan—why did he hesitate? Why did it matter that she be willing?
Boran lay and cursed slowly.
—
Siri returned to the cabin just after noon, tense and preoccupied. She felt unsettled, all her senses unusually alive and aware, troubled by something she couldn’t see clearly and didn’t understand. And troubled by the coming confrontation with Huntmen. She thought that the violent emotions of the morning had probably driven the cards’ prediction from Hunter’s mind, but she could not forget.
Returning to the cabin after her swim the night before, she had found Hunter deeply asleep and had consulted the cards again. Again, they had predicted Huntmen violating the valley late today. That prediction had been made before and would, should she survive this day, be made again. It had not frightened her.
But there had been more to the prediction. A smothering blanket of darkness and pain had blinded her ability to see further than the coming of Huntmen; the cards had prophesied something so blackly agonizing that she simply could not see it.
That frightened her.
It frightened her because what she could not see she could not control; whatever was meant to happen would happen. It would be impossible to impose her will on events she would not see until their occurrence.
It frightened her and there was no one to turn to in her fear. She dared not lay that burden on Hunter’s shoulders; whatever his ability to carry it, the responsibility was not his, and she was terrified of taking that first step toward giving in to her feelings for him. And her mother, confined by what she was to the sea beneath The Reaper, could not help.
She was frightened and confused and tired, and for once—just this once—she wished that there was someone she could turn to and say, It’s enough. I’m tired. You take over now.
But there was only Hunter, and she couldn’t reach out to him. Greater than her fear of the Huntmen and the darkness they brought with them like a plague was her fear of what would happen if she reached out to Hunter.
She would never be able to let him go.
Siri’s first Summer in the valley, at the age of three, had been spent with her parents. She had met the Unicorns and watched the old Keeper, but had understood little. During the long Winter, she had understood more. Her second Summer had marked her coming of age at thirteen, had seen her first gritty battles of protection, her first kills in defense of her beloved Unicorns.
Her third Summer was tearing at everything she was. Her certainties were no longer certain. Her loyalty was no longer whole. Her heart no longer belonged solely to the Unicorns. And a womanhood of the flesh, something she was never intended to know, loomed just within reach.
She had never been meant to love a man…but love a man she did. She had never been meant to ache in the night for strong arms to hold her…but she did. And she should never have been asked to make the choice Hunter and his love demanded of her. But he and his love demanded.
She was lost.
Torn, bleeding from the inner wounds of certainties tearing away, she stood near the cabin with bowed head for a long moment. Then she looked up toward The Reaper—and beyond. To lands she had never seen, worlds she knew only by the cold facts of their existence, peoples she had never seen nor heard. Oh, she knew them all in a sense. She could assign each world its place in the galaxy, could have drawn a map for Hunter that would have been accurate to the last star. She could speak the languages of peoples she’d never met face-to-face—and never would meet.
But she had never, could never, feel them. Would she know how to laugh at their humor? Would she know what roused them to anger or compassion or love? Would she be able to interpret the smile on an alien face as being one of amusement, or pity, or tenderness? Would she see the reason behind customs developed for individual peoples and places?
No.
Bitterness rose in her throat, choking her. Why me? she cried silently to an uncaring universe.
Hunter had walked upon alien worlds, mixing among their vastly differing peoples. And he had done so, she thought, without realizing what a precious gift that was. And then he had come here, into her life, this man from a distant world but whose racial roots were here just as surely as hers were, and he had opened doors that tormented her. She was bound to this valley and this life, and she felt cheated.
Cheated.
She would never walk on a distant world. She would never even be able to see the ocean of this world. She was tied to the life a child had chosen, and nothing could ever alter that.
She didn’t blame Hunter for her sudden bitterness; she could not be certain that his coming here had roused all these feelings within her. Perhaps she would have realized one day without the spur of his questions and demands. But he had come, and demanded, and questioned.
And she now craved the sounds of her own footsteps treading on alien soil.
—
Hunter saw the change in her the moment she walked in. He didn’t know if her patrol had changed her or if he were simply seeing more clearly now after his struggle with a bewildering and emotional morning—but he suspected the latter.
Her great black eyes were as dark and empty as the outer reaches of a cold, dark space, empty with an iciness that came straight from the soul. There was no anger in her, and the coldness was not directed at him but simply emanated from her as though the very core of her being were ice. Despair clung to her like a leech, sucking the life out of her. And a bitterness alien to her very nature twisted the gentle lips. She seemed in another world, one which was terribly unfamiliar and a threat to her.
“What is it?” he asked immediately, alarmed.
She looked at him, aching with love and pain. “Nothing.” Her voice was normal, shockingly so. “Nothing’s changed.” But everything had changed, and there was a sense of time rushing past, things out of her control.
And then she saw the chair.
It stopped her in her tracks. There was nothing particularly special about the chair. It was roughly made, the pieces of it notched and fitted together with accuracy but little beauty. It was functional and looked to be no more and no less comfortable than the chair that had been in the cabin as long as Siri could remember.
There was only one difference. This new chair was built a bit larger, a bit stronger. Built to hold more weight. Built to hold a man.
And Siri knew what it meant, knew what Hunter was telling her. He had found her life within this cabin shaped for one—herself. He had taken one small but vital step in changing that. By building the chair, he had made a place for himself.
She looked at him with hot eyes. “Leave. Please leave.”
He shook his head slowly. “I can’t. And if I did—what would change? You can try to wipe me out of this valley. Burn the chair. Erase every footprint I’ve left in the—Earth. But I’ll always be here, Siri.” It was the raw, aching sound of truth, the tethered wildness of a spirit and heart captured by an immutable certainty.
Siri looked at the chair and at the man who would destroy her, and wondered vaguely if Fate had meant to be unkind or if she herself had paved her road to hell by saving, beyond all reason, the life of a stranger and an enemy.
What does your world look like, Hunter? Are your Winters cold and bleak as they are here?
“I’m more yours than my own,” he said slowly, holding on to that certainty. “I belong here. I belong to you.”
But you have walked on other worlds. You weren’t cheated. “I belong to the Unicorns.”
“Why does it have to
be one or the other?” he asked intensely. “I’m not trying to take you away from them—I know they need you. But I need you, Siri! I don’t want to hurt the unicorns, and God knows I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to love you.”
“You can’t.”
“I do!” He was willing her to believe, to understand.
She looked at him almost blindly. “I can’t escape what I am,” she murmured. “I can’t…love you.” But I do! Please, someone tell me what to do!
He stepped forward suddenly and caught her in his arms, wild with the driven impatience of a man in love. “You can love me,” he said gratingly. “You do!”
“No—” She had struggled in his arms once before, but there was no strength left in her for that now. No physical strength, and precious little will. But even with her confusion and longing tearing at her mind, she was dimly conscious of other emotions and sensations. As if the faint memory of some half-forgotten dream flitted through her mind.
He fitted his mouth to hers in utter possession, his tongue driving deeply to twine with hers, and Siri felt a shocking pleasure jolt through her body. She was only indistinctly aware of her hands pressed between them against his chest, the fingers curled into the palms until her nails bit into the skin. She wanted to stretch her fingers wide and touch him, but her knowledge of what was forbidden to her was desperate enough to keep her hands frozen in fists of resistance.
Forbidden! Outcast!
His powerful arms drew her closer, one hand sliding down her back to her hips, and she felt another shock as the swollen hardness of his manhood pressed against her. An aching tingle began in her breasts, spreading outward like ripples in a pool, and there was something distantly familiar in the sensation—but different. There was an elusive memory of the physical sensations, but not of the terrible yearning that came from her heart as well as her body.
Longing…No! Outcast.