Viyelle studied her as she slid the bracelet onto the other woman’s outstretched wrist and spoke the words that would bind them together. Merinda wouldn’t meet her eyes. Viyelle was willing to give the woman a chance, mostly because the others were. But would Merinda meet them halfway? Viyelle had to wonder. And worry.
For when Merinda took her turn, she spoke the vows so softly, no one could hear save for the one she vowed to, and then only with effort. And she never raised her eyes, not even when she shared the kiss.
Then it was done. They were ilian together, nine strong. Viyelle marveled that she should be a part of it, that they had welcomed her in. There was love here—real, wonderful, terrifying love—and it seemed possible that it might spill over onto her. The most terrifying thought—could she live up to what they deserved? To who they were?
The prelate stepped forward again to speak. Briefly, thank heaven. She clasped Kallista’s and Torchay’s hands, signaling the rest of them to do the same. With nine, they scarcely had to move farther into the center to reach.
The prelate proclaimed them one. She placed Kallista’s hand in Torchay’s and backed out of the circle. Viyelle smiled. No, she grinned, something rare for her. Then the magic hit.
It flowed into her, a mountain stream rushing down the slope, picking up speed and power as it leaped from one to the next, from Fox to Viyelle to Stone and back to Kallista. Merinda cried out, would have pulled away but for Fox and Joh holding on tight. It was frightening, Viyelle thought, and it was glorious. Delight beyond any she’d ever known.
They were with her, riding the magic, all nine of them together, though Merinda felt faint, distant. She heard Stone laugh out loud, felt joyous tears sliding down her own cheeks, but mostly she danced in and around and through her iliasti, one and yet nine. Hers as she was theirs. Home.
Merinda wrenched herself away as she wrenched her hands from the men on either side of her. The magic shattered, snapping through each of them in a sharp and startling pain. They all cried out, the women’s higher-pitched cries sounding above the men’s deeper shouts. All of them except Merinda.
It
hurt
, though Viyelle couldn’t point to the place where it did. She whimpered, cutting off the sound when she realized it. Fox turned to her, his back on Merinda, and folded her in his arms. They had all let go hands when Merinda broke the magic.
Stone joined them, sandwiching Viyelle between the
brodir’s
embrace as they sought comfort. She could see the others past the Tibran’s broad shoulders as they did the same. Kallista and Torchay lifted Obed from his knees where he’d fallen. Joh already cradled Aisse in his arms. Only Merinda stood alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
T
hen Torchay’s family recovered from their shock. They swarmed them, babbling their concern and rampant curiosity. The new-wed ilian was borne off to the great hall to recover—and to clear the orchard so the feasting tables could be set up and the food brought out. Kallista assured them that whatever had happened was no more than a mild peculiarity of the extremely peculiar magic they all shared, and the celebration should go on as planned. But they needed a moment alone.
As soon as Torchay’s mothers were gone, Kallista rounded on Merinda. Torchay was already there, hand closing on her throat.
“Sergeant! Stand down.” Kallista’s order snapped through the room.
Torchay growled, his hand not moving from Merinda’s throat. It did stop closing. Merinda’s eyes were wide and terrified, rolling from side to side hunting escape or help.
“Sergeant Omvir!”
The whipcrack of her major’s voice reached him and with another wordless sound, he released his victim and whirled away to be caught by Obed who didn’t look any less violent.
Kallista sighed. Would things never get easier in this magic-riddled ilian of theirs? “She didn’t know what would happen. We didn’t warn them what would happen. How could she have expected it?”
“Viyelle nor Joh pulled away” Torchay argued. “They didn’t cause it.”
“They’re marked. They knew what it was. And they know about backlash.”
“Actually—” Viyelle raised a tentative hand. “I don’t. What’s backlash?”
“Nor I,” Stone said, still cuddled around the prinsipella, Kallista couldn’t tell whether for her comfort or his own.
She told them, succinctly, about backlash and its potential for harm. “Fortunately, as backlash goes this wasn’t so bad. It just hurt. It didn’t harm. Probably because Merinda isn’t marked. Her only magic is her own. Nothing shared with us.”
When Kallista looked at her, now and finally, Merinda stood glowering at them, sullen, defiant, angrily miserable. Kallista took a deep breath and let it out. No sighing, no matter how tiresome this got.
“If she has magic of her own,” Obed said, “then she should know already about backlash.”
“He’s right.” Kallista’s anger came seeping back. “You should. You
do
, don’t you.”
To Kallista’s surprise, tears overflowed Merinda’s eyes. “I never meant to hurt anyone. I thought it would rebound into me. I didn’t know what else to do. I was afraid. I—I—”
“Panicked?” Kallista managed to soften the sour edge of her voice. A bit. The younger woman did seem truly sorry.
“Yes.” Merinda stared at her feet, her voice as soft as it had been in the ceremony. As if she didn’t want anyone to hear her. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Since you’re not marked, I doubt there’ll be opportunity.” Kallista smothered the rest of her anger. “But I will hold you to your word. You agreed to this binding. What happened in the orchard, at the end of the ceremony—
that
was the binding. Not the ceremony itself. The magic.”
She frowned. If the magic was the binding, could Merinda’s pulling away have harmed—? But when Joh and Viyelle had been marked, been bound, they’d been bound to all of them—even those far distant. Surely Merinda’s action would have harmed only her own connection. That was bad enough, but—Kallista would make sure nothing else had been touched. Later.
Was
Merinda the ninth intended for their ilian?
“I
am
sorry.” Merinda addressed Torchay. “Truly. Can you forgive me?”
Perhaps she was. People made mistakes. It was part of what made them mortal beings. People could correct their mistakes, and refusing to allow it wouldn’t help matters here. Kallista raised an eyebrow at their red-haired ilias.
Torchay put his scowls away. “The One commands us to forgive, and I was in the wrong myself. I overreacted. I apologize.” He rubbed his hands over his face as if scrubbing away tension.
“I’ll forgive you, if you forgive me.” Merinda smiled and Kallista saw again the quality, the person Merinda could bring to their magic.
“Done.” Torchay took the hand she offered and used it to draw her in for a kiss.
It seemed to disconcert her a bit, as if she hadn’t intended to get so close to any of them. A little late for that now, given how very close she had to have been to get them into this situation. Kallista smiled, showing her teeth more than anything. This ilian was going to work if it killed them, and at this point, she didn’t care which of them survived.
“I’m sure they’re ready for us now,” she said. “Let’s go help everyone celebrate.”
They had much to celebrate. Three new iliasti, at last joined formally and legally to the whole. Three healthy daughters in their parents’ arms again. Kallista never tired of holding them—her own twins or Aisse’s Niona—and her girls had finally stopped looking at her like she was a strange creature dropped into their midst. The celebration—the feasting and dancing and drinking, tales, tears, laughter and games—lasted the rest of the day and well into the late hours of the summer’s night.
The moon had already set when Torchay’s two mothers laid claim to the babies and sent the new-bound ilian off to their oversized guest house. The door closed with a definite echoing
thunk-clank
, and there they all stood, staring awkwardly at each other.
Kallista let her gaze drift over the big empty room. The polished wood paneling of the building’s interior walls gleamed in the lamplight. The tables and benches that normally lined the walls were all outside, under the apple trees. The movers had left the richly colored cushions and fur throws stacked on the couches pushed together to serve as beds or in big piles on the stone floor. The rugs that softened the stone had been taken up for summer. It was a comfortable place to stay, more comfortable than Noonday Suite in Summerglen Palace, because no one had to worry about breaking something priceless or getting bloodstains out of silk. And none of this musing was helping ease the current situation.
She drifted her gaze back to her iliasti who were mostly staring at her. Merinda seemed to find the floor utterly fascinating, and Viyelle was staring at Stone. Hadn’t she got that fascination out of her system yet? Then again, once
in
a woman’s system, Stone was difficult to dislodge again. Kallista ought to know.
“So…” She couldn’t come up with anything else to say.
“I’ll just—” Merinda waved her hand toward a pile of cushions and fabric at the far end of the room from the pushed-together couches. “I don’t—I think it would be better if—I’d rather be alone.” Her voice got softer and softer as she spoke until she was barely audible.
“You don’t have to,” Kallista said.
“I’d rather.” Merinda edged backward until she seemed to feel no one would stop her, then she turned and scampered away.
Kallista let her go. She’d talked the woman into marrying them, but damned if she would talk her into sex if she didn’t want it. She looked at her remaining iliasti. Now all of them were looking back. “Did someone die and promote me to command?”
Torchay chuckled. “You’ve always been in command, Major. Whether you wanted it or not.”
She grimaced. “I never did. I don’t want to think about it.” She looped an arm around Aisse’s neck, caught Joh by the wrist and started off. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Who?” Torchay stayed where he was.
“All of us. Together.” She snagged his belt and tugged, then shoved at Obed to get him moving. “I want us together, touching no matter who is inside who, and I want to use magic. I want the magic binding us like it did at the ceremony this morning, but closer. Tighter.”
“Go.” Aisse used both hands to push Stone and Fox toward the couches. “I never had magic sex—” She stopped talking as her Adaran words tangled. “No, I had that. In the cave. But never had magic
and
sex. I want it. Now.”
Kallista laughed, remembering the Aisse who had hated sex only a year ago. The small woman had her clothes off and folded neatly beside the bed, waiting, with an equally naked and eager Stone whose clothing had been tossed in the four directions, as the rest of them walked up.
This was new to Kallista, utterly different from any of their previous weddings—mostly because of her. She’d resisted the first one, when she and Torchay had joined Stone and Aisse. They’d all have slept alone that night if the magic hadn’t broken her resistance to what she truly wanted. They’d slept alone for weeks afterward. Even after Obed joined them, they’d been separate. Alone. Her fault.
When Fox had married in, they were already on their way to Tibre and he’d been a wreck of a man—starving, lame, profoundly blind without the
knowing
the magic gave him later. She’d feared hurting him. And had still been fighting her feelings for the others.
Now everything had changed. She’d given up her fight and accepted the love she had for them. Even for Joh and Viyelle, though she scarcely knew them.
Once again, they stood and stared at each other, but these stares held admiration, awe. For they were all naked and they were all beautiful. At least the others were. Kallista had a strong urge to hide the little belly she hadn’t been able to rid herself of since the babies.
“Shh.” Torchay read her mood—he’d always been able to—and moved into her, setting his hand on her waist, brushing himself across her stomach as he curled down to kiss her. His flame-red curls teased her cheek.
Fox pressed himself against her back, between her buttocks, and stroked her hair aside to kiss her compass mark, his lips making it tingle. Stone kissed Viyelle, Aisse kissed Joh. Only Obed held back. Kallista stretched her hand out to him, wishing she could help him be more comfortable. As he took her hand and let her draw him in, she touched the links—all seven at once—and nearly drowned in the rush of sensation.
She kissed all of them at once, Stone’s devouring mouth as well as Viyelle’s mouth being devoured. She touched Fox’s scar and toyed with the hair on Joh’s chest, even as she knew the softness of her own breasts crushed against Torchay’s hard planes. She knew, somehow, which sensations came from her own body, but willingly lost herself in the flood.
“Bed,” someone said. “Before we fall.”
“Before it starts.” Someone else. Male.
“Dear Goddess, she hasn’t started yet?” That was female.
Strong arms lifted Kallista, savoring the feel of her bare skin, arms that belonged to the man who toppled onto the bed with her. She could have named him if she wanted to make the effort, but she didn’t want to.
She drew the magic in, wrapping the pleasure around her to bind herself together with them. She stirred it until the separate tastes of her iliasti could not be picked out from the magic and then she poured it back out along the links.
Aisse cried out, shivering with a tiny climax as the magic touched her. Kallista tightened her grip to keep the others from joining her. The touch of mouths on skin, skin beneath hands, hands moving everywhere, slowed her thoughts, but Kallista knew this wasn’t how she wanted it, wasn’t what she wanted the magic to do.
In the ceremony, it had begun with her, ended with her, but it wasn’t—it didn’t—She couldn’t
think
. Kallista let go of the magic for a moment, let it slide back where it belonged and she understood what was wrong. She didn’t want to call the magic to her and send it back out to them, bound only to her.