Chapter Six
One Year Later
Katharine Leigh Parker held her breath. Her teeth dove into her bottom lip like ivory daggers, digging in and settling painfully where they landed. Steady... She narrowed her eyes at the dropper in her hand. The bubbling orange liquid hesitated on the lip of the device, hovering precariously on the edge. Any more than one drop, and it would all be ruined. Her work would go up in flames. Sweat puddled on the back of her exposed neck. She held her breath.
“Katharine!”
Drop. Drop. The orange liquid spilled over into the heated kettle below, turning the once-silver mixture into a thick, black paste.
“Dammit!”
She threw the dropper to the ground, almost reveling in the satisfactory crash of the glass device. She turned on the intruder. Her handmaiden, Khalis, stood with her hands raised in premature surrender, her face shocked into a grimace of regret.
“I’m sorry, Katharine.” She raced to get the apology out, an apology that filled Katharine with regret for her harsh tone. She surveyed the young woman who gave up a life of war to serve as her handmaiden. After almost nine months of treatment, all that remained of the blight that once ravaged her body was a series of faint scarification along her face and neck, scars that danced and blended with Khalis’s luminous Carvings as if they were always meant to be there. Breccon bore the same scars, scars of a war with a dying enemy, a dying disease. Katharine, too, now had marks of her own, though they weren’t from the blight. They were Carvings, the marks given to her by the planet every time she saved a life with her work. There was one for almost every warrior in Breccon’s tribe. “But... But... Do you really have to do that in your wedding clothes?”
The Rune-Yonians thought Katharine holding to the human tradition that a husband not see his wife on the wedding day absurd and superstitious, but when she insisted, Breccon ultimately relented, swearing that they would make love all the more passionately for having missed a night in each other’s arms. Waking up alone on her wedding day hadn’t changed Katharine’s routine. While Breccon devoted his time to the ongoing peace talks with the other tribes of Rune-Yon—talks in which her serum played a vital part as both bargaining chip and incentive—she spent her days in the pursuit of science. Today may well have been her wedding day and she may have been going mad without Breccon’s touch, but that didn’t mean she had any excuse to stop her experimenting. She came to Rune-Yon to save the people and be with Breccon. She didn’t see why she couldn’t do both at once.
“Well.” She cleared her throat and glanced down at the thick, brocaded robes covering her. Thankfully, nothing had spilled on her. She couldn’t imagine having to tell Breccon that some of her harsh chemicals had eaten through his family’s ceremonial robes. “I had some time, I thought I’d get some work done.”
“Was it important?” Khalis asked, peering over the edge of the kettle.
“The most important.”
“What was it?”
Katharine removed her gloves, resolving to clean out the dirty equipment when she wasn’t wearing tribal heirlooms. All day, she’d been wrapped up in the thrill of discovery and experimentation. She looked at each equation to balance as a kind of puzzle, puzzles that had the power to save lives. It consumed her, distracting her from everything. Including her own wedding nerves.
“I’m flavoring my serum like jaro beans so the children will take their doses. Not to mention the brave warriors who nearly cry at the taste.”
But now, without the veil of work before her, without a task to complete or a puzzle to solve, she was left with only one task: wrangling the butterflies in her stomach so they didn’t carry her away.
“You really are late,” Khalis muttered after a moment of silence.
Practically choking when her eyes brushed the timepiece over her mirror, Katharine gave over to panic. She must have been really absorbed if she hadn’t heard the chimes warning her.
“Is that the time? Oh, Khalis. You’ve got to do something with my hair. Just...” The butterflies flew in earnest now, striking her stomach lining with knife-edge wings. If she sat down with nothing to do but look at herself in the mirror, they would surely try to escape through her mouth. And she didn’t want vomit breath when she kissed her soon-to-be husband. “Just let me sit here so I can get some work done while you do.”
* * *
The wedding feast lasted six days. The ceremony itself was more elaborate, more formal than any Katharine could remember attending on Earth. There was no one to walk her down the aisle, no flowing white gown she’d seen so many of her friends married off in. There was only Breccon and their vows, vows made in the eyes of the Tallel and their gods, and that was the way Katharine liked it.
There was also drinking. So much drinking. Katharine struggled to keep up with the hot, strong liquor usually reserved for battle celebrations, and when the six days of feasting and drink finally came to an end, Katharine couldn’t contain her relief when Breccon suggested that they go to the water’s edge for bathing. She left her sturdy boots near the tree line, preferring the soft crunch of sand beneath her heels. They walked hand in hand down the shore until her toes touched the water. She moved to undress, but was interrupted.
“Allow me.”
He pressed himself against her back. His unclothed body contoured to every inch of her own and his cock strained against the fabric covering her ass. She shivered. It wasn’t from the cool water tickling her toes. Big hands wandered the fabric of her torso, inching down towards her thighs. Every inch was painful; the anticipation was sweet, sweet poison. When he reached the hemline of her robe, he played with it, dragging out the moment when he would finally touch her flushed skin. Behind her, he grew harder with each passing second. His hot breath on her neck weakened her. Undress me, she silently urged, closing her eyes to absorb every whispered touch.
Then, he crossed the boundary, and relieved her of the robe in one swift motion. In less than one crest of the tide, she was totally naked before him, totally bare on a beach where anyone could see. Her breath shuddered and her inner thighs were wet before they even touched the water. Breccon extended his hand, mischief glinting in his smile. She wished his lips were doing other things.
“Come with me.”
“Where?” she said, taking his hand before he answered. She’d go anywhere with him if it meant he’d touch her.
“I’m going to wash you.”
Her knees shook, and she followed him into deeper water. When they came up to their waists, Breccon began the maddening, dizzying, frustrating task, which he carried out with agonizing care. He started first with her shoulders, cupping water and letting it drip down her body, rubbing his wet hands into her skin. It was less of a bath and more of a seawater massage, but Katharine didn’t mind.
In fact, her body relished it. As the water ran over her and Breccon massaged her curves, Katharine’s most sensitive areas became impatient. Heat puddled in her pussy. Her nipples ached to be taken between Breccon’s lips. Her hands itched to thread themselves through his hair. Hips, mercifully hidden below the waterline, sent ripples as they arced and moved, hoping for some friction that would bring her release.
She hadn’t had him in five days. She hadn’t come in six days. And he was so close to her. So naked. So ready to thrust himself inside of her. One little movement of her hips and he would easily fill her up.
But when Katharine looked down at a single drop of water trailing down her breast, her lust was overcome by something else. Something more practical. Breccon’s hands finally made their way to Katharine’s nipple, but just before he did, Katharine broke the spell.
“Breccon.”
“What?”
“There’s something I can’t stop thinking about.”
“And—” Breccon raised an eyebrow, slack-jawed that she would stop the pleasure for anything in the world. “—what is that?”
“Your mother said we were supposed to take on five tasks.” She reached for the amulet still hanging around her neck. With one tug, it came over her head. Finally, she was completely nude, though that didn’t bother her so much as the swirling stone. “But we only took on four, as far as I can see.”
No sooner did she hold the amulet in her hand than it began to glow. Only this time, it was not the warm glow willing her to clutch Breccon to her and hold him there forever, it was a burning heat. As Breccon pulled his heating stone from his neck, Katharine dropped hers into the water, a reaction from the heat. Breccon only managed to hold on to his for a moment before following suit.
The amulets hit the water, sending up threads of steam as their heat collided with the translucent purple water. Katharine watched as, to her amazement, the stones melted away, releasing a silver dust into the water. The dust released by both of their tokens twirled and danced until they painted a rune. She recognized the shape from the Temple of Kaal-Nokt, but it wasn’t one she understood the meaning of. For as much as she’d learned about the Rune-Yonians in the last year, their written language sometimes evaded her. No language needed eighteen symbols for sword.
“What is that?” she asked, her heart hammering against her chest. Since earning Mayyalka’s approval, she had assumed that they were out of the wilderness, that nothing could challenge them now. Had she been wrong? She looked up at Breccon for some confirmation of her fears. In his smile, though, she only found hope. No, not hope. Promise.
“Lasting Union.”
Katharine could have cried with relief, but instead, she merely closed the gap between them, placing her small hands on Breccon’s chest, relishing the life-giving rhythm of his heart. It was his heart, of course, but he’d given it to her. Just as she’d given hers to him.
“Well...” She absently traced one of the Carvings on his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good.” A devilish grin stretched across his face. Katharine knew he wouldn’t rest until she was screaming in rapture. “Because I’m not done with you yet.”
Just like that, they fell into each other’s arms in the shallow water, ready to face their final, eternal task together.
* * * * *
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