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“I can and I did.”
“How? That’s not a druid power.”
“The runes, the spells, the beast-call, the chants, the rituals, the geases. That’s only part of it. The superficial rituals that hide the true potential. When I became Arch, I learned that there was… much more. So much more if you have enough power to seize it and enough will to pay the price.”
And he did. “That’s… unexpected,” I said, understatement of the century. “What are the runes for?”
“Protection spells, mostly.”
“Mostly?”
He painted the brush down, a cool trace of sensation following and I gasped. He drew a complicated rune just above my sex, lingering at it. The sensation went deeper until I felt what he did with the brush on the inside as well as out.
“This one is for pleasure,” he murmured.
I remembered something. “You did this once before. Soon after we reunited, almost twenty years ago. It’s not just for pleasure, right?”
His gaze bore into mine, and there was a promise in it. “That’s right. It’s a very powerful spell, more powerful now than it was then. I’ve been preparing for it since you flew away seven months ago. Do you remember the rest?”
“Something about ownership.”
“Yes. That’s right. Any objections? Speak now.”
“Do your worst,” I told him.
He pulled back for a moment, looking at me, a world of intensity in his mercurial eyes. A lifetime’s worth of our tempestuous history was there as well. How not? “Lie still,” he ordered me. “I need to do something important.”
He splayed me out on the bed, arranged my arms at my sides, pointed straight outward, even arranging my hands and fingers just so. My legs were placed a foot apart, my feet placed straight, pointing up. He tilted my chin up. He even arranged my hair evenly around my body. “Don’t speak until I’m done,” he whispered and began to chant.
He worked on me for at least an hour. It was torture. It was ecstasy. I couldn’t move. Each rune was precise, and he covered nearly every inch of me with them.
I had to stay quiet so he could concentrate.
His white robes lit up with dark runes as he began to place light kisses all over my body, chanting in Druidic as he moved. It was not a language I had ever learned, but it sounded like some form of Gaelic.
Slowly, his magic worked its way all over me, and it became hard not to cry out in pleasure. It was running in my very blood, that cool, irresistible force. It infiltrated all of my senses with a feeling of comfort and security. He had placed this spell on me before or something similar. It was a strong protection spell. I did not know what it would cost him, and I knew he would never tell me. But all druid power had a price of some kind.
I had given him a protection spell of my own, unbeknownst to him. I had placed drops of my blood in his drinks many times back when we were together. Dragon blood had many beneficial effects, not the least of which was making the drinker more powerful and harder to injure. It was one of the reasons it was so dangerous for anyone to know what we were. If any slayer could get the jump on us, we would be weakened, chained, and harvested for parts at the first opportunity. Every part of our bodies had magical benefits, if consumed. Eyes, blood, teeth. It was a gory business, being dragon kin.
Bright white runes began to flash across my skin as he chanted faster and faster. It was ecstasy, the sweetest sensations running through my veins. His hands and lips and voice were reverent as he moved over my heart. He stayed there the longest, his lovely deep voice almost singing, his lilting accent bringing me to tears.
“The runes are similar, but each one means something slightly different,” he explained. “Put together it is a tapestry of power and an added layer of protection.”
“Protection from what?”
“Anything that seeks to harm you.”
He was looming over me, his attentions on my nipple. He was painting it lightly. My back arched involuntarily.
“Stay still.”
“When you said you were taking me to bed, I pictured something else.”
“Shh. Give me time.” He did something subtle with the brush, and suddenly I was gasping, coming between one breath and the next.
The smile he gave me then would stay burned in my memory, a shadow of it haunting every fantasy I had from that moment forward.
“Your pleasure points get something extra,” he said, still working at my nipple, working the brush over it delicately, relentlessly. “These runes mean I own your pleasure. With a thought I can make you come. Your body will dance to my tune.”
