She tore her mouth from his. “Bryant!”
“Aye, lass?”
“You . . . that . . .”
“Nothing is forbidden between mates.”
Her head came forward, her mouth settling against the join of his neck and shoulder. “Mates,” she whispered before biting him in a way meant to leave a mark.
His entirely masculine groan of appreciation shivered through her, making her thighs clench. “I thought only wolves bit to mark their mates.”
She nuzzled into his neck, kissing and licking where she’d bitten him. “I will scent you, too, though maybe not as thoroughly as you have done me.”
Her eagle only needed this kind of cuddling, head to head, to be satisfied. The feminine Chrechte inside her, on the other hand, wanted Bryant to wear marks of her possession just as she was sure to wear his.
He laid her down on the furs. “This is forever, you understand that?”
She looked up at him in confusion. “Isn’t it always?”
He shook his head. “But that doesn’t matter, because this is.”
“Yes.”
He growled and then devoured her, his mouth following the trail his fingers had blazed earlier.
When he took one of her nipples into his mouth, she arched up off the furs, feeling that right in her core. He continued to caress her body to a higher and higher pitch of pleasure.
She wanted to return the favor, though she had no experience of a man’s body.
He didn’t seem to care, moaning and growling with every exploration of her fingers. She traced the lines of his muscles down his chest, along the tree trunks he called legs and then to that hot, throbbing erection between them.
It pulsed in her hand, her fingers unable to completely encompass its girth.
She did not ask if he would fit in that place inside her. There was no option. He had to fit, because she must have him inside her.
She spread her legs in invitation and his head came up just like a wolf scenting the wind. “You want me.”
Did he need the words? “Yes. Claim me.”
Stillness came over them, the moment profound, where only a second before it had been all heated passion.
He shifted until his engorged flesh pressed against her untried opening. “Do you accept me into your body?” he asked in ancient Chrechte.
“Yes,” she responded in kind.
“Do you accept me into your life?”
“Yes.”
“Does your eagle accept me as her mate?”
“Ye . . .” Una had to swallow back inexplicable and wholly unexpected tears. “Yes.”
“Will you accept my protection, my care and my Chrechte honor as yours?”
“I will.”
He fell silent.
She stared up at him through the candlelight, taking several calming breaths before she asked. “Do you accept my body as your only succor?”
“I do. I will never lie with another.”
Though true mates were not physically capable of doing so, his tone said his promise was deeper than mere physical ability.
“Do you accept me into your life?”
“Now and always,” he promised in their ancient tongue.
“Does your wolf accept me as your mate?”
“Oh, yes.”
She smiled at his vehemence and then asked the final vow. “Will you accept my care and support, the love my heart will have only for you?”
It was not a necessary promise in the current Chrechte ceremonies, but the ways of the ancients were strong in Una’s treetop home this night.
“Always.”
Anya Gra would bless their mating later, speaking the ancient words over them in benediction, and they would receive their mating marks, tattoos of blue ink that would show any who cared to look that she and Bryant were mated for life. The prince would proclaim them man and wife before the entire tribe, but these vows spoken tonight were irrevocable.
None could undo them or deny their validity, though none but the Creator witnessed them.
Neither spoke or moved for long seconds and then he breached her, the pain instant and great. She cried out in shock, but he stopped moving even before she made a sound, remaining still while her body adjusted to the foreign intrusion.
Miraculously, the pain brought back no bad memories and soon was transforming to a pleasure so intense, the world outside the joining of their two bodies ceased to exist.
She shifted her hips, sending pleasure zinging through her. He reacted with a curse in their ancient tongue and she found reason to smile even as she moved again.
The wolf could not stand for her to be in control for long and within a moment he was directing their movements, his body thrusting so his big erection pushed and pulled in and out of her body.
Each tiny increment forward and back brought with it a million sparkles of delight throughout her body. She was soon mindless with the ecstasy of his claiming, her body moving of its own volition in ways meant to enhance the already overwhelming pleasure.
“You are mine,” he ground out as he bottomed out in her, pressing against something inside that was beyond pleasure and not quite pain.
“You are mine.”
“Aye.”
“I am yours,” she agreed then.
His smile was feral.
And then he swiveled his hips on the next downward thrust and she felt the maelstrom inside of her spiral out of control. She screamed as her body exploded with pleasure too great to bear in silence.
“I give you my child,” he promised as his body went rigid and then he cried her name out and spilled his seed inside her.
“You believe we made a child?” she asked in awe, but grave doubt.
Even sacred mates didn’t get with child that quickly, did they?
“I know I did.”
ELEVEN
And suddenly, they were no longer in her bedroom in the trees, but lay together, joined as one beside the bubbling brook in the land of the Chrechte spirits.
“We are not asleep,” Bryant said in awe.
“We were never dreaming.”
“You like to be right.”
“Mayhap.”
He smiled down at her, his hardness inside her not deflating as she’d once been told by her mother to expect.
“Bryant?”
“I will claim you again, here in the place that gave you to me.”
She could do naught but nod.
And they made love again. It was love, too . . . as he had promised. He’d shown her the emotion that defied reason, time and circumstance.
This time she spoke her words of love as she found the ultimate pleasure. “My heart beats for you now.”
His expression held such a wealth of emotion it brought healing tears to her eyes. “I love you this day and forever, my eagle. My sacred mate.”
“You believed.”
“And now you do.”
She nodded, her throat too choked for more words.
“You will be a bridge between the races.” The words spoken by the celi di Una had met the first time she’d come to the spirit plane washed over them with a power that sent Una’s pleasure spiking again.
“Your children will bless this generation and the ones to come,” the celi di continued to intone.
And then she was gone.
“That was . . .” For once, Una’s Faol warrior appeared lost for words.
“Surprisingly right.” Having a celi di speak a blessing and prophesy like that over them as they consummated their sacred mating was . . . the ancient way of things.
And really beautiful.
The spirit realm melted around them and they were back in her bedroom, her mate still inside her.