Calling the Wild Read online

  “I don’t know.”

  It was the truth. A lie would have tasted foul in the magic-soaked air. He could press her for answers, use the magic she’d called to force her secrets from her. She did not know the answer, but he could riddle it out, end the mystery that drew him in.

  But the burning questions, whose answers had seemed so important he would let her die for lack of them, no longer mattered. All that mattered was her.

  “You would have let me die last night,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Because I’m evil.” It was not a question, and the hopeless surety with which she said it made his heart clench.

  “No, evil does not exist.”

  “It does, I have seen it.”

  “There are evil things in this world, but there is no evil.”

  She did not believe him, did not understand, as he did, that no lies could be spoken while the watchtowers looked on.

  He moved in closer, and spotted the bruising on her ribs.

  “You are hurt.”

  “So are you.”

  Kiron held up his arm, which showed no sign of swelling, the flesh warm gold rather than angry red.

  “I healed myself, and saw what you’d done to bring the swelling down, thank you.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. I do not have the power to heal with my hands.” There was a strange detachment in the way she spoke. She seemed distracted, as if the magic still held sway over her attention.

  “I have that power. Let me heal you.”

  “You would touch me?” she whispered, and he heard the thread of hope in her question. “Yesterday, you wouldn’t even look at me.”

  “I cannot support what you do. You cannot use that power for your own gain.”

  “Even if what I seek is my life?”

  “Even then.”

  She looked away. “The God and Goddess aided my spell, The Wild sent you to me. I told no lies when I cast.”

  Kiron tilted his head, considering her words. There was merit in what she said, proof that she was meant to be here, that he was meant to help her.

  “I am glad you pointed this out.” What he was truly glad for was an excuse, any excuse, to stay with her. To ignore his duty. Now he could say her successes proved her cause was just.

  But her success in calling The Wild could just as easily mean that he’d been sent to stop her.

  “Do you believe me now? Will you help me?” Though she stood tall and proud before him her voice was small.

  “There must be full truth between us.”

  “I can’t.” She backed away.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t understand everything, but I know it’s… bad. If I tell you, you’ll turn from me.”

  “It cannot be worse than what I thought of you yesterday.”

  “Maybe not, but I won’t risk it. I would rather you think I’m selfish or foolish.”

  “Moira—”

  He meant to continue his protests, could sense she was weakening, but at the sound of her name on his lips she sighed, the movement jarring her hurt ribs, and the sigh ended on a pained whimper.

  He could not watch her suffer. What he’d done last night, what he’d been willing to do, would haunt him forever. Healing her now could not begin to atone for his sin, but he would offer her whatever comfort he could.

  He moved to the cauldron. “May I?”

  When she nodded he, lowered himself on his front knees and lifted the cauldron off of the fire. Taking a handful of grass he ripped it up by the roots. Closing his fist around the center of the long shafts, Kiron squeezed. In his grip the thin flexible grass went rigid. The soft green melted to brown as the grasses fused together.

  A moment more of steady pressure and Kiron held a stout stick. He added it to the fire below her cauldron, which had dropped to embers. He repeated the motion several times, until he’d created enough wood to raise her magic-born cauldron fire to a blaze.

  Moira turned to the fire, watching as he built it higher. She appeared entranced by the flames. She was staring into the heart of them, into the yellow-gold center of the blaze.

  Now that he could see her better, Kiron moved beside her, changing from centaur to man as he went, his human foot completing a step started by a horse’s hoof. He turned her from the flames, keeping her injured left side to the light of the fire.

  Placing his had on her hip Kiron ran it up her waist, settling it over her ribs, his thumb brushing the bottom of her breast.

  Healing her was a simple matter, his magic tracing the bones beneath his hand, coaxing them back together.

  Moira drew in a deep breath, smiling when it didn’t hurt.

  “Where else?”

  She held out her hands, and he cupped them in his, leaning to blow gently across the scrapes and swelling. One by one, he healed each injury she showed him, until finally she laid her hand on the top of her head.

  Kiron had chosen to wear jeans when he changed, knowing how his body was reacting to her and taking into account that she was hurt. It had seemed right to shield her from his reaction.

  Kiron slid his arms around her bare waist, indulging himself by stroking his hands up her back, through her hair, until his palm covered the knot on her head. A momentary flare of magic and the pain was gone, wiped from her body.

  He should pull away, but he did not.

  Cupping her head, Kiron looked down at her, gaze focusing on her lips, dark gold in the moonlight. If he concentrated he could see the sparks of magic in each exhalation of warm breath.

  “I want to kiss you,” he murmured, sliding his hands down to cup her neck, fingers stroking her jaw.

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I told you what I wanted, want.”

  “Then why are you hiding from me, why do you touch me only to heal me?” Her eyelids lowered, gaze shifting to the side. “Can you not bring yourself to want me now that you know the truth of my ‘quest’?”

  “I desired you even when I was angry. You have bespelled me.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Not consciously, but you have. The desire I have for you is strong, a hunger for flesh like I have never known.”

  “And yet you won’t touch me.”

  “You won’t touch me,” he retorted, cocking a brow.

  Moira curled her hand into the waistband of his jeans. There was a flare of emerald light, and Kiron stood naked before her.

  He shuddered as the magic faded, the touch like sparks of light again his skin.

  “I want you.” Her simple words hung in the magic thick air. “I want you more than I should, more than I know how to fight.”

  “Then do not fight.” Kiron stroked one hand down her back, keeping the other at her head. He took the first step, bringing their bodies together from knee to chest.

  Now they could not turn back, as naked flesh met naked flesh. Their first shared breath was a sigh, of pleasure, of relief, of joy.

  Moira wrapped her hands over her shoulders, breasts rubbing over his chest as she brought her mouth up for a kiss.

  In this kiss, he dominated her, holding her head as his lips and tongue opened her mouth. He fused their lips, tongue foraging in the warm, dark hallow of their kiss.

  She touched him as he kissed her. While his hands remained at her neck and back, Moira trailed light fingers over his shoulders, down his sides, tracing the seams of their welded bodies, caressing them both.

  Tilting her hips, she rubbed her belly against his hard length, which was pressed between their bodies. His lips trembled, and he bit her tongue gently in a soft reprimand for the teasing.

  Her hands played over his back, pushed hard against the ropes of muscle that tied flesh to bone. Her nails tested the flesh of his ass, and then, with hands curled into claws, she raked small furrows up his back.

  That was all he could take, the restrain he’d cultivated, the cultured teacher in him, gave way to the base animal.

  Kiron
hooked his heel behind her legs and dropped them both, bearing her down amid the tall grass. When the rough stalks scratched her, he swept out his hand and the grass fell away. So great was the force of his command that roots lifted from the soil, carrying the plants away, lifting the hard-packed topsoil, exposing the soft inner belly of the earth.

  Kiron lay her down, her hair melding with the dark rich soil so that it appeared she lay on a vast blanket of her own hair.

  She laid her arms out at her sides, like a pagan offering, but then she lifted her chest, arching, demanding his touch on her breasts, and she was no victim, but a wild dark Goddess demanding tribute.

  He cupped her breasts, obeying her silent command and his own desires. He swiped each nipple with his tongue, wetting them so the cold night air aroused her further while he kneaded the soft, heavy, handfuls of breast.

  He shifted above her, putting one leg between hers, his knee sinking deep into the earth. Resting his weight on one elbow, he teased her left nipple with his right palm. Holding his hand flat above her breast and swirling it, so only the tip of her nipple was touched, he shuddered in arousal when she gasped and moaned in pleasure.

  Dipping his head, Kiron set his mouth to work on her right nipple, first sucking as much of her breast into his mouth as he could, then raking her gently with his teeth. When he turned his head to the side and bit down on her with his back teeth, Moira screamed, hands fisting in his hair.

  He might have thought her cry to be one of pain, but her sex wetted his thigh with proof of her arousal.

  Lifting his mouth from her breast, he settled his head between the soft mounds, pressing his forehead into her sternum.

  “You bring out the savage in me,” he panted.

  “Then savage me, I want it.”

  As if taunting him, Moira slid her hand between their bodies, finding and pinching his nipple, twisting it until he jerked up. Kiron leaned low over her, licking her cheek and then raking his teeth over her cheekbone.

  “I want to be soft with you.” His voice was deepened by arousal, his accent more pronounced.

  Moira bent her left leg, sliding it up his side, hooking her calf over his back.

  “I did not ask for soft.”

  Kiron sat up, reaching for the leg not hooked over his back, preparing to draw it wide and plunge into her, but Moira forestalled him. She lifted her leg from where it was trapped between his knees, sliding her shin along the underside of his arousal, then teasing him with her soft toes.

  When he couldn’t take it anymore, he wrapped his hand around her ankle, the slender column of flesh and bone captive in his fist, and forced her leg to the side. Gripping her knees, he slid his hands forward and down, fingers splayed as he caressed her thighs. When he reached the apex, Kiron parted her with his thumbs, spreading her moisture across the soft folds of her sex. Sinking one thumb deep into her body, Kiron watched her head arch back, throat working, as small sounds of pleasure escaped her parted lips.

  Pulling his fingers from her, he skimmed his hand up her torso, smearing her with the moisture from her sex, and then slid it to her hip.

  Taking one hip in each hand, he lifted her ass off the ground. Moira planted her elbows in the ground, looking at him up the gold length of her torso. He knelt between her legs, hands possessively on her hips, body large and threatening between her broadly splayed thighs.

  Kiron rose and looked at her sex, watching as he sank into her, opening her body inch by inch with his own. She was hot, and tight. Against his fingers, the muscles of her ass twitched, her breathing, hard and short, pushed between her teeth.

  He held still once he was all the way in. Keeping their bodies fused together, he leaned forward, lowering her hips and resting on his elbows beside her.

  Moira slid dirt-streaked hands over his shoulders and chest. Her gaze met his, and only then did he begin to move.

  He wanted to be slow, but the feel of her body around his, the puff of her breath against his face, the brush of her pebble-hard nipples against his chest, drove him over the edge.

  Kiron pressed her hips into the ground as he slammed into her. Again and again, he took her, fierce and hard with long, rough thrusts. He made her fight for each breath as his heavy chest lay over hers, and when she tried to gentle him by lifting her leg to cup him, Kiron took her knee and forced it up alongside her chest.

  This time when he thrust, she screamed, and he stilled.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The words were slurred, half mad with the pleasure of her body.

  “What?” She gasped.

  “I’m sorry, too rough.”

  “I told you—I don’t want it gentle.”

  Moira clenched her inner muscles, and Kiron pulled out to slam into her again. This time when she screamed, he cursed, pushing up off his elbows onto his hands so he held himself above her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Kiron, in the name of all that is good and holy in this world! Stop talking. Do that again. Now.”

  “The screams were from pleasure?”

  She bit him as a reply.

  Kiron dropped back to his elbows, and drew her other leg up. Moira reached around behind him, grabbing her ankles and holding them in place against his shoulder blades.

  She was completely open to him, and he took advantage of it. He plunged into her with long, hard strokes. When she screamed in pleasure, he slammed into her harder, rotating his hips as he did so to be sure she felt every inch of him.

  Her eyes were closed, but he watched her. Watched the fluttering of her lashes, the arousal that tinted her cheeks a deep rose and swelled her lips. She blinked her eyes open when he settled his teeth into her bottom lip, sucking her into his mouth the way her body sucked him in.

  When he made to pull away, Moira released her ankles to cup his face, neck straining to bring their lips together. Their teeth bumped as she brought their mouths together. The kiss was wet and hard, to match the thrust of their pelvises.

  Kiron changed the angle of his hips, the tip of his cock brushing along the top of her channel, and Moira broke their kiss with a scream, head back, nails raking across his neck and cheek.

  Her body clenched around him like a vise, her orgasm triggering his.

  Kiron spun out of control as he found satisfaction. There was nothing stable in the world, save her. The earth and sky seemed to spin around them, the ground no longer solid beneath them. Magic, green and white combined, swelled from their bodies. It covered the meadow, hitting the watchtowers and flowing up into the sky, illuminating the circle.

  The wildly flowing magic fed their mirror orgasms, would not let them come down, find relief, from the excruciating ecstasy.

  The magic danced, the night bright with it, and in the light of the magic Kiron could see the tears which streaked her face, that beautiful face, different and the same as the woman he’d known all this time.

  Moira’s lips trembled, her eyes glowing with her power. She looked at him, whispered words he could not hear above the thrumming of his heart in his ears, but the magic heard, and it understood.

  Emerald and white magic raced back to their makers, exploding inside them. Kiron roared as the overflow of magic forced itself into his skin, his body twitching where it was still lodged in her, the magic made sexual by his body’s desires.

  It was too much for either of them, and Kiron collapsed beside her as the magic went dark, pulling him into darkness along with it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Thin vines wound around the base of Moira’s breasts, squeezing and lifting them from her chest. The tips of those vines made their way across the plumped mounds to flirt with her nipples, the touch as delicate as the brush of jellyfish tentacle, but lacking sting.

  Something thicker, and rough, pushed against the inside of each thigh, pushing them apart, then cupping and lifting her knees.

  The vines at her breasts wrapped around her nipples, two loops on each. And the zing of pleasure brought Moira fully awake.
It had seemed a dream, but when she looked, loops of pale green vine ringed her breasts, the flesh above it tight and shiny. Her nipples were the same, the thin tips of the vines wrapped around them, only a sliver of pink visible above the green.

  Moira lifted her head, looking down to see what cupped her legs. Branches rose from the dirt, existing without the benefit of a tree. Her knees were each caught in a crook of the branch, and even as she watched the branches grew, lifting her legs further apart and higher, until her ass lifted from the ground.

  A fern sprouted at her side, growing from spore to mature leafy plant in a matter of moments. The soft fronds dropped to dance across her belly, first tickling, then lying flat and rubbing, their rough caress like lace again her skin.

  Between her spread legs, Moira’s sex was hot and ready, and when she turned her head, spotting the sorcerer behind the devious, molesting plants, her belly fluttered, her sex clenching in remembered pleasure.

  Kiron sat on the ground beside her, one knee bent, arm resting casually atop it. His heavy lidded gaze played over her body, surveying his handiwork.

  Moira licked her lips, drawing his attention to her face. Kiron reached out and slipped a finger into her mouth, playing with her tongue as she sucked on him, before removing his finger and running the wet digit over her trapped nipple. He treated the other nipple to the same attention, scraping his fingernail lightly across it, before trailing his hand down the center of her body.

  The morning sun, barely cresting the tall trees on the horizon, washed her lower body in light, illuminating his hand as it dipped between her legs. His fingers parted her sex, then slid inside, working her open.

  Moira clenched her teeth, biting down on the pleasure of his fingers playing over her body. The foreign and erotic way he was using The Wild to pleasure her quickly escalated her arousal, so that when his thumb brushed over the knot of nerves at the top of her sex, her first orgasm of the morning, a sweet, soft one, rolled through her.

  Kiron stood and moved between her legs, looking at her. Her nipples were tight, the stimulation from the pressure of the vines constant and aching. Her sex dripped with moisture, and her body twitched from bearing her weight on shoulders and knees.