Hers to Choose (27 page)

He reached for a small ceramic bell
next to them and rang it. He settled back against the cavern wall and opened his arms. “Come, sweetling. Let me hold you.”

Sophi scooted up the
pallet and into his arms as Mother Lyre walked in. “Sophi! Sweet daughter! Oh! Oh!” With her hands clasped in front of her face delightedly, she whirled back out and could be heard running, shouting, “Tallen! Tallen! She’s awake! Tallen! She’s awake!”

Eric
cocked an eyebrow and asked, “Who is Tallen?”

Sophi drew back
and looked at him in wry bemusement.

“
Primus
G’hed. You didn’t think his lady called him
Primus
G’hed in private, did you?”

“I never gave it any thought,” Eric returned.
“But now that you mention it,
Primus
G’hed seems rather stuffy for bed-play.”

Sophi blinked at him innocently. Her shocked, “
They have sex?” was followed by an impish grin.

“Sophi!” Doral burst
into the cavern and dropped on his knees, pulling her out of Eric’s arms into a ferocious hug. “Sophillia Gloriana DeLorion, you frightened ten years off my life.”

“Doral, you are safe!” She had tried so hard not to cry, but the images of Mother Lyre and
Primus
G’hed, as well as Adonia, Maeve, and Layna, appeared through welling tears of unrestrained thankfulness. They knelt around her in a babble of happy voices with not a single dry eye.

Arms crossed over his chest,
Eric sat back to watch the joyful reunion. His heart warmed with happiness for her.
She is so greatly loved.
Determination firmed his jaw.
I want this woman. I can’t think of anything I have ever wanted more.

Eventually
, all the kisses and hugs were exchanged, explanations given to everyone’s satisfaction and the small cavern cleared of all but two occupants.

Eric drew
Sophi to him, pulling her into his lap and hugging her back to his chest. “Finally!” he whispered. She raised her glorious eyes to him and he leaned in to taste her lips. “I have wanted to ask you this for some time, but the circumstances never favored us. I am not waiting any longer.”

She
pushed away, puzzled.

“You said to make you willing. Have I? Made you
willing?” Joy shone from Sophi’s eyes when she realized what he was asking. It gave him the courage to go on.

“Will you marry me? I love you. I want a life with you.”
He cupped her face and captured her mouth again. “Say yes, Sophi,” he whispered against her lips.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Yes,
I am willing.”

“Thank the Goddess, you wonderful woman.” He smoothed her hair behind her ears. “You have made me the happiest man alive, Sophi.”

She smiled gloriously. “I have baggage—a very possessive, very high-placed brother who will never think you are good enough.”

“
Doral doesn’t concern me. I’m not perfect either.” Eric shrugged. “I glow.”

He
would have preferred Sophi not laugh
quite
so loudly.

“Yes, you glow,
” she said when her laughter died. She stroked his cheek gently, her eyes wandering over his face. “Someday we might wish to find out what else we can do.”

Eric eyed her warily. “
Not anytime soon, if I have my way. I need to consult with the
docenti
in Sylvan Mintoth, but from all that I can gather, my body behaves like a
diamantorre
, channeling energy. The triggers remain a mystery.”

“Evidently, I
provoked this last episode,” Sophi said with a wince. “I’m astonished that Mother Verdantia used us to sweep the Haarb from the surface of our planet. I’m astonished that she heard me. I...” Sophi’s voice tapered off into a bewildered silence. Finally, she just shrugged. “I’m just astonished about all of it.”

Eric groaned. “May we please allow a little normalcy to creep into all the madness? I would like a day
—no, several—where I didn’t worry about you being killed, me being killed, or the fate of Verdantia.” At her amused sound of agreement, he snuggled her closer into his arms.

“
I would like to be married in
Sh’r Un Kree
.” Sophi said. “I would rather not deal with all the pomp and ceremony marrying in Sylvan Mintoth entails.”

“That thought pleases me
to no end. Everyone who is important to you is here. Your brother, Mother Lyre,
Primus
G’hed, your
flight
. Even the Queen Constante and High Lord DeTano are present.”

Sophi mu
rmured in surprise, “The queen? I saw the
Tetriarch’s
armies crossing the Plain and assumed our High Lord led them, but Fleur?”

Eric laughed silently.
“When Doral, the Primus and I rode to join you and Mother Lyre, DeTano stayed with the army. Our High Lord had discovered the personage underneath the shining silver helm of his flag-bearer was none other than the Queen and refused to allow Fleur out of his sight. Only the entire might of the Army of the Second
Tetriarch
was sufficient to protect his diminutive monarch. Have your brother tell you. He witnessed it firsthand.”

“Doral was there?” she asked.

“Hmm. I only heard bits and pieces. I don’t envy our queen when Ari gets her alone. Rage turned our High Lord incandescent. Doral’s leaving him in Sylvan Mintoth infuriated him. Those present said that after Ari got through mauling Doral, he shouted at your brother in a fiery tirade for long minutes. But, when Ari saw Fleur on the battlefield? Silence. Utter silence.”

Her eyes
flared wide. “Ari silent? Bad sign–very bad sign. Shouting—definitely preferable.”

“
I don’t want to speak about them. I don’t want to speak at all.” He ran his hands down her arms, reveling in the silky skin stretched over tight, lean muscle. “I feel like I cannot hold you enough, touch you enough.”
Damnation, I wish there was a door to lock.
His ears listened intently, his attention split in half—one half on Sophi, the other half on detecting any sound of footsteps.

His hands followed her arms to her wrists. Breathing in the scent of her hair, he hung over her shoulder
and watched as his fingers drew circular patterns up her front. Her nipples hardened, standing out as little points beneath the soft weave of her garment. “You are so sensitive,” he breathed.

Cupping her breasts in his hands, he smoothed his thumbs
gently over her nipples, smiling inwardly at her sudden inhale. With a low moan, she melted into him and her hands found his head, scratching gently through his hair. Heat surged into his loins.
I am going to pay for this sweet indulgence.
Her cheek nuzzled into his neck and Eric could swear Sophi purred. The muscled globes of her buttocks cradled his hardening cock and it was his turn to inhale sharply when she rocked from side to side, wiggling into him. “Can we?” she murmured. “I want you, Eric. Can we?”

“Sophi,” he groaned. “There is no privacy here. Anyone could walk in.”

“I don’t think I care. They wouldn’t stay. As soon as they saw, they would leave.” She placed one hand on his and moved it to the warmth between her legs. “Touch me here.”

He massaged her gently as she writhed in his lap
with rocking strokes that spiked his arousal until he throbbed with carnal need. An enticing goddess of erotic pleasure squirmed in his lap, warm and willing, asking to be taken. He would have her here on the floor, regardless of the consequences. Hating himself, he said the only word he thought might cause her to reconsider. “Doral?”

Her rocking stopped. Her hands left
his head and he silently cursed himself for his stupidly noble action.

“Goddess.
That
would be bad.” Sophi inhaled, shuddering. “We won’t have another opportunity until we reach
Sh’r Un Kree
.”

“No,” he whispered.

She straightened then moved off his lap. Turning, she knelt facing him, then rose and her lips moved over his in a warm surrender of love. “It will be an eternity.”

His aching balls and
iron-hard cock agreed with her.

When she and Mother Lyre planned the joining ceremony, Sophi surprised her with a request. “I want to look feminine. I want to be the most elegant, desirable creature he ever set eyes on. Can we make
Flight Leader
DeLorion vanish? Can we replace her with Lady DeLorion?”

Mother Lyre had laughed. “Oh, yes, child. It will be such fun.”

Sophi sighed with pleasure when Mother Lyre finished and held the mirror for Sophi to view the results. A mass of artful braids held the sides of her hair upswept from her face but allowed the remainder of her heavy, blonde mane to fall freely. A narrow, golden band circled her crown with a jeweled dangle in the middle of her forehead. The dark kohl outlining her eyes emphasized their aqua brilliance. A soft pink gloss flushed her full lips.

Cloth of
spun gold tissue wrapped her bodice. The full mounds of her breasts rose perilously above the deep, square plunge in bountiful tease of pale skin trembling on the brink of escape. Sophi’s every breath promised disaster. The material clung to her lower body and long legs in a sensuous, tantalizing flow of gilded temptation, every step outlining the juncture of her thighs like the road to heaven. Sheer, pleated sleeves opened from her shoulders like a fan, revealing her left wrist wrapped by a broad gold cuff bearing House DeLorion’s crest. Simple slippers of gold brocade replaced her normal hide boots.

“I cannot find
Flight Leader
DeLorion anywhere in this mirror.” She raised a radiant smile to Mother Lyre. “Thank you. Where did you find such a glorious gown so quickly?”

Mother Lyre’s eyes sparkled
with suspicious brightness. “It is mine—the dress of my joining to
Primus
G’hed. It’s been put away for many years. I’d given up, long ago, any hope of seeing it worn by another.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Your beauty will stun him, daughter.”

Lyre
blinked rapidly, wiping away her tears, then mischief filled the older woman’s expression. “Is the commander familiar with the
Oshtesh
custom of using
incollare
on the wedding night?”

Secret glee filled Sophi and she shook her head slowly. Mother Lyre laughed until tears ran down her cheeks. “Poor, poor man,” she sighed.

* * *

Sophi’s eyes swept the
occupants of the large gathering hall in
Sh’r Un Kree
.
They are all here.
Queen Constante with her darkly dangerous consort on one side and the golden menace of my brother on the other.
The tips of Fleur’s fingers barely peeked from the ends of her sleeves. Mother Lyre must have given her a hastily-altered gown.
She still looks like a queen.
High Lord DeTano bespoke formidable dignity in his sparkling armor and black battle dress.
And my brother. So lethally handsome, even in those shabby, oh-so-worn leathers. He deserves the love of a queen and a warlord.
Doral smiled at her—a rare, wondrous smile—the smile that had brought Verdantia’s ferocious High Lord to his knees. She returned it with one equally brilliant.

Next to him stood
Mother Lyre
. So serene.
But Sophi saw the extraordinary joy radiating from her.
My flight sisters, Adonia, Maeve and Layna.
A momentary sorrow pierced her at the memory of Petrina and Eudora.
You are missed, dear sisters.
And there, behind her flight sisters, stood Captain Biron, Lieutenant Crawford and the remainder of Eric’s
ride.
Lieutenant Crawford caught her eye and winked broadly, his grin stretching from ear to ear, almost bouncing on his feet in uncontained excitement. Sophi laughed out loud. Her eyes traveled to the celebrant of their joining,
Primus
G’hed.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite so happy.
A sob of joy escaped her
. He recognizes the gown I wear.

F
inally she lingered on the single most important being in her world. The slow, appreciative smile that appeared on his face when he saw her sent a tingle up her spine—from its base to the nape of her neck. The fire that flared in his green eyes liquefied her center with answering heat.
My Commander.
She would have loved him for his deeds alone but his elegant masculinity set fires burning in parts she’d once considered long dead. He’d completed the rebirth of the woman the Haarb had destroyed.

With Eric she had come full circle
, back to the woman Mother Verdantia had created her to be. With Eric, the dream she had surrendered under Haarb captivity of children with a loving husband would be realized. As his partner, her life would fulfill a new purpose—service to her mother planet, service to Verdantia’s struggling people. Joined with Eric, she was vastly more than she would ever have been alone.

She went to hi
m joyfully, reaching for the hand he held out to her.
A hand he has always held out to me.
With gladness and inexpressible elation she placed her hand in his, gripping firmly. As they turned to
Primus
G’hed, Eric’s eyes continued to devour her. A soft blush of warmth crept up her neck then flushed her cheeks.
I look different from the desert warrior, don’t I, my love?
She dropped her gaze from his in a moment of shy confusion.
Thank you, Mother Lyre. I will remember the look on his face to my dying day.

* * *

Eric didn’t remember the words he spoke at their joining. The sex goddess in gold consumed his total awareness.
How long do we have to stay at the reception? Would five minutes be considered impolite? I might be able to do ten. No, five would be better.

He and Sophi had chafed at their lack of privacy.
He’d been reduced to stealing kisses from her in alley ways and behind doors like some adolescent suitor. His frustrated body reminded him constantly of his irritating nobility in the caverns of Nathar. He gritted his teeth.
Just one more day.
Now that day was here.
And none too soon.
But the damnable reception ground on and on. His patience was exhausted.

“I want to leave,” he whispered in her ear. “Now, or I’ll strip you naked here in the gathering hall.”

She choked on her drink and swallowed hurriedly. “We cannot go before the queen. It would be a terrible breach of etiquette.”

“Right. Naked in the hall it is.” He started to push her gown from her shoulders. With a soft
gasp, she slapped at him.

“Stop!” She grasped his hands in hers and kissed them. “Let me speak to my brother.”

“And how will that get you naked in bed, my lovely bride?”

Her eyebrows arched in humor. “Don’t you think those three have some unfinished business of their own?”

Eric threw his head back and laughed. “Point taken. Speak to your brother.”

With a swirl of diaphanous gold cloth, Sophi joined her brother. Standing on tiptoe, she whispered in his ear. Doral drew back and eyed her with a look of appraisal, then nodded. When Sophi joined
Eric again, he looked at her expectantly. “Well?”

She flashed him a knowing look
. “Just watch and wait.”

He snorted but pulled her into his arms and between nibbles on her bare shoulders and neck threw glances at the royal trio. Doral leaned over
and murmured something to Ari. Ari examined Fleur through narrowed eyes and with a tightening of his lips, nodded slowly. Ari’s eyes followed Doral until he left the hall.

With no warning
, Ari flipped Fleur unceremoniously over his shoulder. Strangled gurgles of protest floated through the air and small, slippered feet kicked futilely. In a voice that would carry across a battlefield, the High Lord of the Second
Tetriarch
announced, “Congratulations, Sophi, Eric. Lovely party but we must leave. The queen is tired.” Turning, he strode off.

Fleur propped
up on Ari’s waist, her hair a tousled, bobbing mess, her gown gaping and bunched in an untidy fashion. She smiled brilliantly and waved a hand that flopped rhythmically to Ari’s stride as he carried her out. “Congratulations, Eric, Sophi!”

Amidst the
sounds of amusement rising and falling throughout the room, Eric snuck Sophi away.
Once outside, he swung his bride up in his arms. With a lingering look at her marginally covered bosom, he strode rapidly toward the small villa Mother Lyre and Sophi’s
flight
sisters had prepared near the outer wall surrounding the village. The villa shared a common wall with a much larger one now occupied by Ari, Doral and Fleur.

“How do you stay in that damn thing, Sophi?”
He hefted her in his arms, none too gently, and glanced down again. “Hell’s breath. Still covered.” He bounced her a few more times.
Shit. That must defy some natural law.

Her soft chuckle answered him. Relaxed in his arms, she ran caressing fingers through his hair. Her warm breath whispered against his neck and his loins tightened eagerly in response to her moist tongue tracing his earlobe. “You have never heard of women being glued
into their gowns?”

“Glue! Hells
, Sophi. How do I get it off you?”

She hung her head back
languidly, her long hair swaying in a golden curtain over his arm. “Saliva. Saliva dissolves the
incollare,
the glue,” she purred.

Eric stopped dead in his tracks. “Unnhuh.”
The velvet of her skin will flow across my tongue as I trace those glorious mounds, rooting further and further into the fragrant valley between them, licking, sucking, slowly peeling the material away to find erect nipples taunting me with her desire...
He set her down, clasped her hand and ran, towing a giggling, tousled Sophi as fast as her dress would allow through the door to their temporary housing.

Eric turned and took the
time to carefully lock it behind him.
Splendid! A door that locks.
When he turned, an empty, darkened hallway met his eyes. “Sophi, where are you? I’m not in the mood for games,
Flight Leader
.” Silence.

Slowly stripping his clothing as he prowled the quiet villa, Eric peered into several dark rooms before the low, ambient light of
shaded candles led him to his bride. He paused in the doorway to appreciate the unparalleled sight.

“
You are glorious,” he said simply. “I am a lucky, lucky man.” A softly radiant Sophi stood in the flickering light. Her eyes spoke to him of love—and hot desire.

“I want you
,” she said.

“And I want you out of that dress.”

“Then you had better do something about it, don’t you think? Unfortunately, I can’t take it off myself.” She backed up slowly, her seductive, enticing smile that of every willing woman since the beginning of time. The wall stopped her teasing retreat.

With a low growl
, he crossed the intervening space and stopped with his arms propped on either side of her shoulders. He leaned in to place soft kisses on her collar bone, then to the slender column of her neck. His shirt lay abandoned somewhere in the hall along with his boots, socks and tunic. The soft warmth of Sophi’s slowly increasing exhales washed his bare neck. Her arms wrapped around him and her hands gently scratched his back. He ignored the pounding iron erection that demanded release from his breeches. He’d been like that for days. He’d never have another wedding night.
I’m not rushing this.
His impatience vanished. Now, he had all the time in the world.

“Please, my love.” Sophi pushed him back slightly, her hands guiding his head to her breasts.

Both of his hands cupped her bountiful cleavage, then he drew back with a slight frown. “I can’t believe I’m saying this to you, but how does this work?”

A
breathless, gurgle of laughter trickled from her lips. “I’ve been told you just lick.”

“You mean like this?” Holding her right breast gently, he ran his tongue in a
wet, lingering pass along the seam where her warm flesh bulged over the gold material. He smiled in satisfaction at the appearance of the puckered, rosy-pink flesh of her areola above her bodice as the material surrendered its hold. With another slow pass, her erect nipple peeked from the boundary dividing gold cloth and snowy flesh.
Too much temptation.
He flicked it firmly with the tip of his tongue.

With a low moan, Sophi straddled his thigh, pressing into his
engorged cock with electrifying results. “No!” Eric choked and gently dropped his hands to push her hips away. “Don’t encourage him. He’s behaved poorly all week. I cannot vouch for his good behavior if you provoke him.”

“Poor fellow,” Sophi said, her wicked eyes gleaming. “
Tell him the wait is worth it. Soon, he can be a very bad boy, and I will be very, very nice to him.”