Calabi Chronicles: Bloodstone Read online

  “Baile Átha Cliath,” Aideen answered, providing the older name for the Dublin area. Her hands moved with his as he pulled the robe open to expose her upper chest and breasts.

  He pressed his thumb against the faded image of her firedrake. “How did you come by this?”

  A snarl twitched along her upper lip as she answered. “My father thought to put it on me.”

  “You did not wish it?” His question, a disconcerted sigh, hung between them.

  Aideen glanced down at Cenn’s hands, as tattooed as the rest of his body. She shook her head. “No, I did not.”

  Cenn noted the growing distance in her gaze and tried to soften her mood. “So it often is between parent and child.” He pulled the robe’s edges further apart. “Still, Baile Átha Cliath is a considerable distance for any sorcerer and you did it outside a cromlech.” The flecks of obsidian pooled and darkened his gaze. “And you did this under your own power?”

  A flurry of thoughts passed through Aideen’s mind. Her father’s words came unbidden as they always did: There is a power within you Aideen… She dispersed the bodiless voice with an angry twitch of her head. Surely, she thought, it is the Bloodstone.

  Cenn released the robe’s collar and let his hand travel down to her breast. He teased the nipple in a protracted pinch until Aideen tipped her head back and parted her lips. His teeth grazed along the lower half of her mouth and sucked the bottom lip. His fingers released the nipple only to make her gasp a second later as he pulled the sharp peak taut. She could feel herself growing wet, the walls of her vagina coating themselves in anticipation of the long strokes she hoped he would soon be delivering.

  The robe began a slow slide down her body. Cenn’s mouth trailed behind the fabric and covered her with sharp kisses. His tongue played at her navel while he urged her legs further apart. “Will you not tell me,” he said and paused to ease his fingers into her cunt, “how you crossed this distance on your own?”

  His tongue played along her clit and Aideen twined her fingers through his hair. She pressed his mouth more firmly to her, relishing the rough brush of his facial hair against her labial lips. Cenn moved to withdraw and she gave him a short, visceral growl. “Finish it,” she warned and looked down into the dark blue eyes. “There is time for your questions later.”

  Hunger—hot, erotic—flashed across his face and in his gaze. He pressed against her legs with his elbows until her legs were forced into a wide stance that wrapped the walls of her cunt around his probing fingers in a tight grip. His tongue laved the lobes of her pussy, pulled greedily at her clit like a wild beast that had been caged too long without food or water. He sucked, pumped and nibbled at her, her body rocking against him as the tension coiled inside her to the point that she was curled over him, riding his mouth to orgasm.

  When she would have pulled away from him, he held her tighter, sent her crashing against another wave of pleasure that threatened to rob her of her sight. He stood in one swift motion, his hand staying between her lower lips to guide his cock into her with the same quick, single action. Aideen wrapped herself around him and he lifted her, impaling her with his shaft as he carried her to the mattress. He towered over her, still forcing her legs apart as he took slow strokes, teasing the exterior of her cunt with the tip before driving it into her. His nipples had hardened into dark pebbles and she trailed her nails down his chest. Cenn wedged himself into her, his hands curling under her ass and around her hips to pull her closer, to pump her in quick thrusts that had her raising her body from the bed and flinging it back down as another orgasm tore through her and left a trail of tingling flesh from her face to her toes.

  “Now, witch,” he said. His seed erupted inside her in a hot burst and he collapsed against her. “I am finished.” He panted the words against her neck, the brusqueness eased with tender kisses. “Tell me how you came to Kenmare.”

  “The Bloodstone,” Aideen answered. Sleep tugged at the corners of her words and she snuggled against him. Her hands traveled over his chest, followed the outline of a stag near his heart. The animal reared its legs against—or in cooperation with, she could not tell—a firedrake. But for its blue coloring and wholeness, it matched her own. Frowning, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “It told me how to find you.”

  Cenn released Aideen long enough to grab the blanket and pull it over them before returning to embrace her. “The Bloodstone is said to be capable of many things,” Cenn said before finishing with a short snort, “but no one has ever claimed that it can talk.”

  “In my dreams,” Aideen explained. Irritation quivered along the length of her nose and he kissed its tip. “At least it seemed that way,” she finished with a heavy yawn.

  “But without a portal and at such a distance?” His voice remained alert, with no sign of fatigue as he traced slow circles along her bottom.

  Distance? She tried to wrap her mind around the relevance of his question but couldn’t. The distance she had traveled paled in comparison to the other half of the journey—the chasm of more than a thousand years.

  “Tired,” Aideen mumbled and burrowed further beneath the blanket.

  “Fair enough, little sorceress,” Cenn said and pillowed her head against his chest. “There will be time for answers after the ceremony tomorrow.”

  Chapter Four

  Aideen woke to find Cenn hunched over the room’s small table. He had a string of leather that he was weaving through a cut circle of similar hide. He was chanting quietly as he did so, but the room was heavy with his words. The language, foreign to her, cautioned silence. Confused that the Bloodstone didn’t ease the translation as it had with Cenn’s more ancient dialect, Aideen concentrated. No meaning revealed itself and she tried to roll the tension from her face and shoulders. She let the words wander through her mind until she understood that she was listening to the fifth language, the language the druids had learned from the Celtic sorcerers that preceded them. Just as easily, she understood the spell he was pouring into the small pouch that he was making. A spell to bind and protect and yet conceal the magic of the pouch and what it was to hold—the complexity astounded her.

  When she saw what the pouch was to hold, a possessive flare shot through her body. The Bloodstone sat on the table half a meter from where Cenn’s hands moved rhythmically to complete the pouch. A slight shift of Cenn’s body told Aideen that he was aware of her presence as he moved to block her view of the stone. She fought the urge to rise, to remind him that it was she who had brought the Bloodstone to this room, to this time and place.

  Cenn stood and placed the stone in the center of the cut circle. He repeated the chant as he cinched the leather lacing tight. He tied the ends together and lifted the pouch and strings into the air.

  “Come,” he commanded Aideen.

  Aideen pushed the blankets aside. The cold air licked at her bare flesh and made her ache for the stone’s warmth and that of the man holding it before her. Cenn slipped the leather string over her neck and the pouch comfortably wedged itself between her breasts. He pressed his palm against the pouch and a hot burst of energy enveloped them. His fingertips brushed lightly against her nipples before he pulled her to him and rewarded her obedience with a slow kiss of tangled tongues and bruised lips.

  “You are mistress of the Bloodstone, Aideen,” he whispered against her ear. “It will have no other…nor will I.”

  Emotions unknown flooded her, squeezed at her chest until her knees began to buckle and Cenn was forced to lift and carry her back to the bed.

  “You must learn to control your power, little sorceress,” Cenn said. His lips and tongue teased her breasts between his words, pulling her back from the confused whirlwind of her thoughts. “I cannot have my enemies learn of my two newest and best allies.”

  “I told you, I am no sorceress.” Her hands stroked the thick black hair that crowned his head. Her arms stretched to maintain contact as his kisses descended to cover her stomach.

  “With or without t
he stone, magic spills from you, Aideen,” Cenn said. He moved back up the bed to plant a kiss on each temple. “So, if, as you claim, you are not a practitioner of the arts, you should apprentice yourself to one.”

  “And do you know of anyone looking for an apprentice?” Aideen teasingly asked even as she began to squirm beneath the expert rub of his hands over her body.

  “Think not that I would let another have you, Aideen, even as an apprentice,” he growled against her ear.

  “Think not that I would take another,” she echoed.

  Cenn rolled on top of her. The warm press of his erect cock pushed against her stomach and she inched further up the bed until she could wrap her legs around him and invite him to enter her. “Nay, temptress,” he said and kissed her before he left their bed. “There are preparations for the joining ceremony that I still must make.” He leaned over for an instant to cup her breast and indulge in a soft, sucking kiss of her nipple. “I will enjoy you more fully this evening—once we truly are bonded forever.”

  Aideen snuggled beneath the blankets and watched him dress for the day. When he was fully clothed, he returned to the bed and caressed her cheek. “I will send breakfast and bathwater up, and a maid to dress you for the ceremony.” Worry momentarily clouded his features and he held her chin between his thumb and index finger. “Remember, you are Etain,” he cautioned. “The maid will address you as such.”

  Aideen nodded her understanding and watched him go. A maid came up a short time later. She carried a tray with some cheese and bread, a small bowl of blueberries and a cup of milk.

  Remembering the prior evening’s meal, Aideen gave a small frown. “Not much variety, I see.”

  The maid didn’t respond and Aideen looked at her. The girl’s face was pinched and she kept her gaze focused on the floor. She held her hands behind her back but Aideen could tell that the girl was worriedly wringing her hands. Clothes, too wide for her thin frame, hung from the girl’s shoulders.

  “Sit down,” Aideen suggested and pushed the chair next to her away from the table. The girl’s gaze darted to Aideen and then back to the floor.

  “I would like you to sit down,” Aideen repeated. She broke off a piece of bread and cheese and put them on a piece of cloth. Grabbing an empty wooden cup, she poured half the cup of milk into it. “Please.”

  The girl glanced nervously at the closed door before she allowed her gaze to meet Aideen’s. “I cannot,” she said. “I…I have to get your bathwater.”

  “Will a few minutes of sitting with me matter?” Aideen asked and reached up to gently squeeze the girl’s shoulder. The Bloodstone grew warm against the leather pouch that held it and Aideen was overwhelmed by a stabbing pain that twisted its way through her stomach. The girl was half-starved.

  “Please, I know no one here beyond…” on the verge of saying Cenn’s name, Aideen stopped herself. She drew a deep breath, released it, and pushed the chair a little further from the table. “I know no one here beyond Lord Crom.”

  The girl glanced once more at the door before sitting down in the chair. She sat as if made of stone and Aideen pushed the food and milk closer to her.

  “It is not customary to eat alone where I come from,” Aideen said. Immediately, Aideen wished she could swallow the words back but the girl’s state of hunger overwhelmed any curiosity she might have about Aideen’s home. After she watched the girl swallow a few bites, Aideen risked asking her a question. “I have not seen the sky in days…how is the weather?”

  Confusion clouded the girl’s gaze and she stopped eating to stare at Aideen. “Why would you expect any change since your arrival, lady?”

  Aideen wondered how many questions she could risk asking the girl and what small lies Aideen could tell to cover her own truth. “It is just that I come from a distance and am not familiar with your weather this season.”

  “There are no seasons in Kenmare now, lady.” A small shudder passed over the girl as she answered. “When it should be spring or summer, blackness covers the sky all but a few hours a day and the sun cannot pierce the gray fog that weighs heavy in the air regardless of the hour.”

  “For how long has this gone on?” Aideen asked.

  The girl shot Aideen another confused look before gulping down the last of the cheese. “I would say you come from a very great distance, indeed, lady,” the girl began, “if you do not know. But we have had no news of the other provinces, so I should not be surprised that you have had no news of us.”

  “How long?” Aideen repeated her question.

  “Two winters?” the girl ventured. “It has become hard, indeed, to tell sunset from sunrise or when the moon has shown us all her faces.”

  “And the cause?”

  Here, the girl’s expression closed in on itself and she gave an emphatic, negative shake of her head. “I must be getting your bathwater, lady,” the girl said and backed quickly from the room.

  Aideen did not press the girl further when she returned with the water and helped her put on a bleached silk chiton. She would, Aideen decided, ask Cenn tonight after their joining ceremony. He had his own questions that he wished to ask about the Bloodstone and it was only fair, she mused, that he answer a few of her questions.

  Chapter Five

  Aideen stepped into the stone circle. Even in the fog-shrouded daylight, she knew the circle well and its familiarity wrapped her in a cold embrace. Had Cenn not told her earlier that she was in Kenmare, she would have known the location as soon as she saw the dolmen and its ring of companions. She had accompanied her father on visits to every Irish circle still distinguishable as such. Prepubescent, clothed in a light cotton shift, moonlight falling on her shivering flesh, she had been placed on Kenmare’s center boulder, a burial capstone, as a participant in one of her father’s ceremonies. She shuddered as she remembered how her father would raise his arms in offering, his sleeves falling back to reveal inked images identical in theme to those covering Cenn.

  “What worries you, my lady?” Cenn whispered against her ear as he pulled her to him and led her to the center stone.

  “Memories,” she answered and forced a smile. “Nothing more.”

  Cenn hesitated to accept her answer and she forced the smile wider. His gaze continued to question her and she looked away from him to the group of people within the circle’s stone boundary. Except for the maid who had led her to the ceremony, the same maid that had brought her food and dressed her, Aideen had seen none of Cenn’s people. They looked at her now. Their expressions revealed nothing, but the clothing and the tired way their skin hung from them told her that Kenmare was suffering from some blight. She looked back at Cenn. Was this why he had made such a desperate search for the Bloodstone? Or was it his lust for the stone that had reduced his people to poverty?

  His gaze sharpened as if she had asked him the question directly. “Just memories…my lady?” he asked.

  Aideen nodded and he gently urged her closer to the center stone. A middle-aged man in white robes too close to those her father had worn joined them on the other side of the dolmen. A finely wrought chalice of gold stood empty beside a silver dagger. Watching the man’s hands gesture above the cup, a hollow feeling began to build in Aideen’s stomach and she leaned against Cenn for support. Her vision narrowed and the man’s voice came to her as if she were listening from the bottom of a drowning pool. The cold crept closer to her, threatened to consume her but for the Bloodstone’s warm press between her breasts.

  “Etain!” Cenn’s voice, low and urgent, reached her and she looked at him, forgetting for a moment that he had given her the name.

  Cenn motioned her hand forward and she felt a new heat as the priest’s dagger sliced across her palm. Cenn’s hand held hers and she saw that he, too, was bleeding, their blood joining in the cup. She had time to think that this was no simple handfasting ceremony before the cup was placed against her lips and she was required to drink. Aideen swayed wildly backward and Cenn caught her. His arm encircled he
r waist, steadying her with its firm presence.

  The priest carried the cup, still holding Cenn and Aideen’s blood, to an old woman standing in front of the circle’s entry stone. He handed the cup to her, watched her take a shallow drink and then bowed to her before handing the cup to the man on her left. A decade’s worth of medical warnings on contact with another’s blood went squirming their way through Aideen’s head as she saw the cup’s journey come full circle. The priest returned to the altar and took his own mouthful of the congealing liquid.

  As silently as they had watched the ceremony and taken their turn drinking from the cup, the small group bowed and faded into the fog. With the audience gone, the priest shot a sharp glance at Aideen before addressing Cenn. “No good will come of this,” the man said, his gaze raking over Aideen’s shivering body.

  “Not now, Dhonn.” Cenn’s voice was reverent but tired.

  “How many more days shall I wait?” the man asked. “How many more days are you to spend locked in your room, rutting with this wench you now call wife while the darkness holds sway?”

  Cenn drew Aideen closer to him and answered the man, his voice etched with the threat of violence. “There have been no raids, no visits these past few days—”

  “Because the darkness is gathering itself and its minions, this is but the calm before the storm!” Dhonn protested. He gestured wildly at Aideen. “Do not let this creature weaken you, Crom. I beg you!”

  The wound in Aideen’s hand began to throb. Its ache pulsed through her and she felt the Bloodstone drum a sympathetic beat. Dhonn’s gaze darted to her chest and Aideen brought a protective hand up to cover the spot where the pouch rested against her skin.

  “You should have spent these days of calm searching for the Heart of the Stag,” Dhonn protested. “Women are weak, their flesh too easily cut, their minds awash in illogic and too easily confused. Better you had fucked some serving girl and kicked her down the stairs the next morning. At least you would be closer to finding the sacred stone.”