“I don’t want you to stop,” he rasped.
She didn’t want to stop. That her touch, just the smallest flick of her tongue or stroke of her hand, could effect him so profoundly made her feel powerful and passionate. It was something that went beyond centaur or woman. Exploring Cuchulainn’s body made her revel in her own femininity. She stroked his amazing, fascinating length of hardness sheathed in skin the texture of silk. When she brought him to climax with her hands, and later with her mouth, she found a different kind of passion than she’d experienced with centaur lovers. She knew the joy of her lover’s pleasure, and she reveled in how his satisfaction touched the very core of her being.
That night they slept dreamlessly, hands linked together, bodies pressed so close that in the darkness it was hard to tell where man and woman ended and centaur began.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
When the bay stumbled for the third time Cuchulainn pulled him up. Brighid had to watch her own stride. Her overtaxed muscles felt alarmingly loose, and she was afraid she had little more control over herself than the poor horses had over their equine limbs. She concentrated on gradually changing her gait and stopping more slowly so that she wouldn’t embarrass herself by collapsing in a heap. Drawing in careful, controlled breaths she circled back to where Cu stood next to the trembling horse.
“He can’t go any farther. He’s game-he’ll try, but it’ll kill him. I’m going to leave him here. He’ll rest and then eventually find his way to McNamara Castle. Or maybe one of the small farmhouses will take him in,” Cu said.
Brighid wiped sweat from her face. “The buckskin is in better shape, and we should find a place to camp soon.”
“It’s true, he isn’t at the point of collapse yet, but I think it would be wise if we slowed some.”
“Agreed,” she said, careful to keep the relief from her voice. She didn’t want Cuchulainn to know just how close she was to collapsing herself.
Brighid looked around them as Cu unsaddled the exhausted horse. They’d pushed hard since dawn, choosing to avoid McNamara Castle and the luxuries it could afford them. Instead they’d saved time by cutting across fertile farmland and angling into the well-kept forest on the south side of the Calman River, which had led them-finally-into the Blue Tors. Now as night fell Brighid was surrounded by reminders of why the tors were named so. The gentle rolling hills were covered with ancient trees whose thick leaves appeared a smoky blue-green in the waning light. Like Cu’s eyes, she thought. Let’s hope that’s a good omen.
Damn, she was tired! She felt shaky and light-headed, and she suddenly understood all too well how Niam had run herself to her death. Brighid, too, was nearing the end of her strength. Maybe they should just make camp at the next clearing and look for a place to quest for Epona’s Chalice tomorrow-after they’d slept.
The turquoise stone that hung between her breasts had grown uncomfortably warm and the hawk had to repeat its call three times before its cry registered in Brighid’s exhausted mind. When she finally looked up she saw the bird circling in a tight spiral overhead, a distinctive gold and silver slash against the mellowing sky. The moment her eyes found the hawk, it broke from its circle and moved lazily to the south, keeping low over the trees.
Come…
Brighid’s skin prickled as the silent call washed through her mind.
“Cuchulainn, we need to go,” she said.
“What is it?” he asked, slapping the bay’s rump before he pulled himself wearily aboard his reliable buckskin gelding.
“I think I know how to find our campsite.”
Squinting, he followed her gaze skyward. “That’s not your mother’s raven, is it?”
“No,” she said softly. “It’s my hawk.”
She followed the bird with Cuchulainn staying close behind her. She could hear his muffled “harrumph” and didn’t need to see his face to know he was frowning up at the sky. She should probably remind him that he’d better start getting used to the presence of the spirit realm in their lives. But she was too damned tired-plus, more often than not she tended to agree with his mistrust.
The hawk called again, bringing Brighid’s wandering attention back into focus. She forced herself to kick into a lumbering trot and heard the gelding blow wearily through his nose as he struggled to keep up with her. She just needed to concentrate on placing one hoof before the other and following the golden bird as it led them deeper into the Blue Tors, taking them on a winding path that cut across the tree-filled, rolling hills. The bird flew on and on, totally unmindful that it was leading them on a route that was ignoring the few trade roads and that it would soon be too dark for them to see anything-even a golden bird.
Brighid clambered up yet another of the gently rounded hills and then had to struggle to maintain her footing as she slid down the surprisingly steep far side of it. When she hit the bottom of the decline, she stood still, breathing heavily, thankful that exhaustion hadn’t caused her to misstep. In her condition it would be a simple thing for her to snap one of her equine legs-a simple thing with disastrous consequences.
“Are you all right?” Cuchulainn’s gelding stumbled to a halt beside her, and the warrior was off the horse and running his hands down her legs in an instant.
“I’m not hurt,” she assured him, and then passed a shaky hand over her face and tried to laugh. “I’d say today was becoming dreamlike, but lately my dreams have been much better than this.”
The hawk shrieked at her again and she frowned at the sky-then was surprised to see that the bird had perched on the top branch of a tree not far from them.
Soon, Huntress…we shall meet again.
With another cry it lifted, beating the warm evening air with its massive wings. Then it seemed to evaporate into the sky.
“Did that bird just disappear?” Cuchulainn said.
But Brighid wasn’t looking at the bird, her gaze had shifted to where it had led them. They were standing at the edge of a small clearing that appeared to be encircled, horseshoelike, on all sides except one, by a ring of hills. She walked forward on legs that trembled to the far edge of the clearing, the side that wasn’t closed in by the green of foliage-covered hills, and even in the vague, shadowy light of evening she could see that the world dropped away from her and the land spilled out and down until it emptied into…
“The Centaur Plains,” Cuchulainn said, walking up to stand beside her.
“I hadn’t realized we were this close,” she said, straining her eyes to see through the encroaching darkness to the waving grassland that had been her home. “So the hawk was leading us there.”
“Actually I think it was probably leading us here.”
He pointed over her left shoulder. She followed his finger to see that what she had originally discounted as just another tor, was actually the large open mouth of a cave. A stream ran from the interior and waterfalled over the edge of the clearing. Her stomach tightened.
“It’s an entry to the Underworld,” she said. “Just like your father said.”
“Not tonight it isn’t.” Cuchulainn walked back to the gelding and began pulling the saddle and packs from the horse’s sweaty back while he spoke. “Tonight it’s just shelter and a ready campsite. Neither of us is in any shape to travel anywhere else-be it in the physical world or the Realm of Spirits.” He glanced over his shoulder at her when she didn’t respond, noting the stubborn set of her shoulders. “Do you want to chance facing your mother’s spirit tonight?”
She blanched. “No.”
“Neither do I. So tonight we sleep. Tomorrow we worry about the Otherworld.”