"The Summoning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morgen Shelby)

“That was another time, another place,” he reminded her. “Here ye are no’ too old. Ye have lived but a third of thy life. ‘Tis foretold in the prophecy. Ye will have babies here, at least one more. She stands Guardian to the races, holding back the dark tide. Her name is to be Evalayna.”

Prophecy. In a land of Magic and mysticism, where a woman might live a century and a half, there would be prophecy. Marylin leaned back against him, wanting to believe. “Teach me, Roanen. Teach me to love again. Teach me to believe.”

Long dark hair touched lightly with silver cascaded over her as he bent his head, his lips caressing her temples, her eyebrows, her eyelids before they found their way to her mouth. Sweet, soft, the tease of a butterfly’s wing, the touch, then again. He was bolder now, sucking her lower lip between his as she parted to him, her breath a sigh of acquiescence. Real or dream, it no longer mattered. He knew her and still he loved her.

She would have turned in his arms to face him fully, but he swept her hair aside—Ayailla wore it long—to settle his lips against her neck at the base of her robe. Shivers coursed over her skin like small trails of electricity. She turned her head away, arching her neck, granting him access to as much of her skin as he wanted.

“So beautiful. So perfect.”

She’d never felt perfect before. Not in this lifetime. Or was it the last one? Each touch of his lips, each stroke of his hands, so sure, so knowing as they skimmed over her body to rest in just the right spots, made her feel beautiful, and more alive than she ever had before.

How did he know to touch her just there, where the curve of her hip met the small of her back? How did he know his kisses along the edge of her neck would coax her head back against his shoulder, baring her breasts for his touch as her robe fell open?

Her body knew him, knew his touch and responded. Her mind knew him, knew him as more than a dream remembered. He was no stranger, this dream lover. Yet each kiss was new, as if he explored her for the first time.

“Lord Lindall?”

Marylin cursed the voice from beyond the tent that intruded like a knock at her heart. Her body cried out with the loss as Roanen ceased his attack on her senses. “Wait here for me, my love,” he murmured as he rose, sliding her deftly to the furs that covered the dais. “ Much as it pains me to leave you, I must see to the men, else we will have no privacy. I will be but a moment.”

The cold where his body no longer protected her raised goose bumps along her arms and thighs. Marylin stood long enough to survey the bed, making a few careful mental adjustments to the place where she intended to gift this intimate stranger with her virgin soul. She thought of a mattress, something luxuriant as well as comfortable, but immediately dismissed the idea. She should not ask for things that were not of this world. The magic might become confused. A down comforter? Was that too much to ask? It appeared as easily as the mud and ruin of but a few minutes ago had vanished. The hides moved to cover the floor like a carpet, while a deep feather bed softened the hard lines of the dais.

She scattered a dozen silk pillows across the dais for both atmosphere and comfort. She could hear Roanen’s voice, a deep rumble, almost a growl, from beyond the tent, instructing the guards that he was not to be disturbed. From off in the distance the mournful call of a lone wolf split the night air. Another voice answered, closer, and soon a chorus took up the calls, as if they were passing messages back and forth. Rather than fear, something in her strained to understand, as if she should have known their language. Something in her longed to join the pack, to answer the call.

Shaking herself out of the strange reverie, she dismissed the wolves as she concentrated on the room. The setting must be perfect. She imagined the soft perfume of wildflowers as a crisp breeze blew all traces of smoke from the room. She searched the tent with her eyes, but found no washstand or mirror with which she might study her reflection. She was plain enough as it was. ‘Twould not do to have the residue of burnt tent streaked across her face.

The thought gave her pause. What face would stare back at her from the mirror? Hers? Or Ayailla’s? Surely a body could not transcend time and space. The corporal entity must be left behind for the spirit to travel.

Would she know the difference? Except for the dress, dark cobalt robes dusted with snow, the body Shammall had shown her could as easily have been her own. What if—what if what Shammall had said was true? Could she really be dead? She didn’t feel dead. Not now. She’d never felt more alive. Perhaps the Elf-Mage had given her a new chance to salvage a wasted life.

No. She would not—could not—think of this time and place as reality. This was but a fantasy she was indulging. Still, she needed a mirror. If she was to bed the love of her fantasy life, she would at least indulge in some warm water and a moment in front of a mirror…

Why could she not think a mirror into existence? Were there limits to what she could wish for and hope to have appear? Well, then, how about some light? A dozen short, fat, flickering candles that would add light as well as fragrance to the room?

No sooner thought than they appeared. She thought of the mirror once more. Nothing. Damn. A stand with a washbasin and a pitcher and a mirror on the back? She got the washstand, exactly as she had pictured it, minus the mirror. All right. No glass. Anything shiny enough to offer her a reflection, then. She rethought the washstand. A highly polished silver oval appeared between its ox-bow frames.

Hesitant, now, she dipped the cloth in the water—warm this time—slowly raising her gaze. Her own face looked back at her, streaked and smudged and slightly fuzzy, yet still her own. She ran the cloth over the streaks, frantically trying to restore order to her image and her emotions. Her hair was a tangle, a rat’s nest of unimaginable proportions. A brush. She needed a brush. A—

The brush appeared, Roanen’s huge hand wrapped firmly around the handle. He stood behind her, his chin level with the top of her head. One arm slipped around her waist while the hand armed with the brush went to work, gently stroking through the tangled length of her curls.

Next to Roanen she felt once again, as she had in her dreams, small, and protected. She shivered as she let herself relax against him, giving herself up to the heat and strength of his body. The fear and uncertainty faded under his touch. Real or not, she would have this memory of a man who had loved her.

“Ye are so beautiful to me,” the man in the silver mirror whispered. He bent his head to nuzzle the skin where he’d brushed her hair back away from her neck. “So delicate, like a fragile flower.”

Delicate? Fragile? Marylin closed her eyes, willing the tears away. Dear God how she’d wanted to hear those words. Wanted to be something other than what she was—too tall, too old, too unloved. An over-the-hill ex-wife. A stuffy old college professor with nothing but her job and her dreams left to cling to.

Now a stranger stood behind her, merely brushing her hair, and she found herself transformed. For him, for this man, this here and now, shewas small and delicate and fragile. For this man she would be anything, everything.

The feel of the brush caressing each strand of hair was almost too erotic to bear. She fairly hummed with tension as he continued his slow, measured strokes. “I remember the first time I saw ye. I thought ye a goddess, dropped to Earth, walking along the Nile. Ye wore a wrap of white linen, so fine-spun that in the sunlight your nipples seemed to beckon to me. I was but a youth, assigned to the temple as a guard. I swore ye were more beautiful than Nefertiti. Ye scolded me for my blasphemy, but ye did not send me away.”