Shan gasped, a breath of both release and reprieve. Jeren’s body convulsed in a sob and he held her closer, calming her with his voice and touch.
When he brought her into one of the Shistra-Phail’s tents, laying her down on blankets and stretching out alongside her, he wiped them away with the pad of his finger and smiled again.
“Stay here,” he told her. “Don’t move. Not for anything. Promise me.”
Bewildered, she pushed herself up on her elbows. “I promise.”
And then he was gone, fleet as a wolf in the moonlight. Jeren waited, listening to her breathing, to the distant singing, to the night sounds beyond. In only minutes he was back, carrying a wide bowl full of water and a pile of soft cloths.
Without words, he took her in his arms again and peeled back the layers of clothes that covered her. Her own hands took up the task on his behalf, unlacing his tunic and gradually exposing the marble-pale skin beneath. So beautiful to her, her husband, her love. She kissed where she could and protested when he pulled away from her.
Warm water scented with herbs smoothed across her skin. Shan trailed the cloth across her clavicle so the water ran down between her breasts. He washed away the dirt and pain, the fear and humiliation. He tended her cuts and grazes, the bruises that purpled her, and then she did the same in return, tending and exploring. At last, naked together, their world was bounded by the reach of their arms.
Shan kissed her again. It started so gently, a brushing of lips, which deepened until all Jeren could feel was that kiss, the way it infected her whole body with desire. He trailed his mouth down the line of her throat, and one hand slid around her waist while the other caressed her breasts until the nipples tightened into peaks. His wicked mouth caught them as well and when Jeren gasped out his name, she felt as well as heard the groan of need deep in his throat.
His long fingers slipped between her thighs, seeking out the honeyed warmth that filled her and tormenting her most intimate places.
“Please,” she whispered and the world around her trembled with her need for him.
“My guiding light,” he murmured, as he rose above her, gazing down in wonder at her face. “My Jeren. Always.”
The image came to her again, of all the horrors she had seen in the pool. It must have shown on her face, for his stilled in concern and he watched her, waiting.
“Please,” she repeated, more solemnly now. “Shan, please, my love.”
Perhaps this was all there could be for them, she thought, though it broke her heart to admit that, especially here and now. But that grief and worry was for another time. Here and now, he was hers and that was all that mattered. The whole world, she thought, running her hands up the taut muscles of his arms to his shoulders, wrapping her legs around his hips to pull him to her.
“I might hurt you,” he warned, and for some reason she wanted to laugh. She was thinking about her vision, about the pain she saw in that future, the agony of separation from this wondrous man. And he was thinking of her.
“You could never hurt me, Shan.”
He relented and smiled as he bent to kiss her once more. His body pressed against hers. He filled her, moving slowly within her, and to her joy, proved her right for once. They moved together, caught in the moment of another dance, one as old as time itself.
She opened her eyes and captured his, saw the studied concentration there. His smile brought her to ecstasy. Her soul took wing again, flying with Shan as she had with the owl, high into the sky and beyond.
The mountain sunlight streamed through the grey silken material of the tent. Later they would return to the Spring Camp, but this was a time for respite. And more. Wrapped in blankets and fur, Jeren rested her head against Shan’s chest, listening to the rise and fall of his breath, and beyond that the beating of his heart. His skin glistened with a light sheen of sweat, and her body warmed again with the thought of him against her, inside her. She pressed her lips against him and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath.
“Careful, little one, or we’ll have to start all over again.”
She laughed, a chuckle that rippled out of her and into him. “That can be arranged, my love. I think you’re an addiction. One I do not want to be rid of.”
Even as she spoke, the ghost of what she had seen in the waters below the Vision Rock filled her mind again, and she tried to push it away, to no avail. Her time with him might be finite, but it didn’t have to be boring. She sighed, nestling closer again.
“What is it?” He ran his fingers through the length of her chestnut hair. “Last night…for a moment, you were lost in such sorrow. Talk to me, Jeren.”
She hesitated, hating the thought of telling him. Would his face fall? Would he be angry or just disappointed? Worst of all, would she have to watch his heart break right in front of her?
“I saw my future. I saw myself as ruler of River Holt, carrying Vertigern’s child.”
It wasn’t that he froze. Not really. For a moment it seemed like he completely stopped breathing. Then he let all that air out in a single rush and pulled her into his arms, gathering her to him as he sat up. “What else?”
“That was all.”
“Ariah didn’t look for another option?”
Options? Ariah had mentioned options, hadn’t she? But then Torvin had attacked and everything had descended into chaos and disaster. “There wasn’t time.”
He pressed his lips to the crown of her head and she felt them draw up into a smile. His embrace tightened and his voice came again, oddly thin. “There are always other options, my beloved. Always. Nothing is fixed. Destiny depends on our actions. You have to believe that.”
She tried to nod, wanted to believe. But she knew what she had seen, recalled the feeling of Gilliad’s blood on her hands, of the hurricane of power unleashed inside her and the voices of her ancestors raging in her mind.
“I want to, Shan. I want to.”
“Then what is stopping you?”
“I saw…”
He lifted her as he got to his feet. Startled, Jeren could only babble a complaint as Shan stepped out of the tent and into the hustle and bustle of a camp about to be struck.
Jeren buried her mortified face in his naked chest as he strode past the Shistra-Phail, past the startled gazes of Vertigern and Elayne, the amused smiles of Indarin and the new Ariah, the disapproving glare of Fethan and his Seers.
“Stop! Take me back. They can’t see me like this! Shan, please.”
He laughed. She had longed to hear that sound for so long. Now she flushed red from head to toe. “You are beautiful, my wife. Let them look.”
“They’re looking at you too!”
“I do not mind.”
They passed out of the camp and through the narrow channel of stone that led to the sacred grounds of Aran’Mor, away from prying eyes and indulgent laughter. Jeren opened her eyes once more.
The blood was gone from the pool below the Vision Rock. Shan lowered her to the ground, holding her against him.
“Look again.”
“Isn’t this forbidden?”
“Not when you have been here once already. Look, Jeren. Look and see an alternative.”
Their faces gazed back, his so handsome it made her ache for more of the closeness that had made her cry out his name and arch to meet him. Her own face was just her face, though touched with a glow she did not remember seeing there before. A breeze rippled across the water and her image fragmented, reformed.
An old woman looked back at her, old but beautiful, her skin so pale as to be almost translucent, her hair as white as his, tightly braided. She smiled and Shan nuzzled her neck, pressing his lips to the pulse there in a tender and familiar gesture. Then, in the distant future, and now. Her lover, her husband. Her mate.