“I have never before seen that particular smile,” Vartan said as he came to sit by her side. “What are you thinking?” He put an arm about her waist, drawing her closer.

“I was thinking how like a rabbit or a fox I am, looking for a winter refuge,” she told him, and he laughed.

“So you consider my hall a winter refuge, do you?” he teased her.

“Well, it is,” Lara replied. “I can think of none better.”

“I can,” he said quietly.

“Where?” she asked him.

“My bed,” he responded.

She stiffened briefly, but then she relaxed against him. “You want to take pleasure with me,” she said.

“I want you for my wife,” he answered her.

“And when my destiny calls to me again, Vartan, then what? Will you let me go? Or will you exercise your rights as my lord and master, keeping me forcibly by your side?” She turned to look up into his attractive face. Her hand caressed his cheek. “If you desire my body, my lord, then have it. I am ready to share it with you. But ask no more of me for I cannot give it to you. I must follow my destiny wherever it may lead me. Please try to understand that.”

“I do,” he replied. “I understand far better than you think, Lara, for you are my destiny. You are she for whom I have waited my entire life, the woman I would have ride by my side in the hard days that are coming.”

“Hard days?” Lara asked. “What do you mean?”

“The Devyn are more than poets and minstrels. They carry news and messages between the clan territories. While the Fiacre have been involved in the harvest and planning for the Gathering, there have been Devyn in our hall. They tell me that Hetar has begun to encroach upon the lands belonging to the Piaras and the Tormod. Those lands are rich in precious metals and gems, and the Hetarians have grown greedy. They have enslaved many to toil in the mines, and open new ones. They have sent their Crusader Knights to steal these lands, and to keep order over the oppressed. When my fellow chieftains meet at the Gathering we must decide how to respond to this subtle act of war. Hetar cannot be allowed to steal what is not theirs.”

“There has been no war between Hetar and the Outlanders for centuries,” Lara said slowly. “What can have made them do this?”

He shrugged. “Hetar has always considered itself a perfect world, far superior to those of us in the Outlands. Their society is carefully set, and while advancement is possible, it is only so by following certain rules, as your own father did. Hetar has laws that are legal, but not necessarily just. Hetar is ruled by pride, and by the desire for profit and more profit. For the first time in the history of the Outlands we will have to band together to stop this invasion, or none of us will be safe, and our clans, our ways, will not survive. And the magical beings who share our world will have to become involved. They will not be able to help themselves, for there is power involved here as well as wealth.”

Lara felt a shiver run down her spine. Then she said, “Come, my lord, and let me soothe you, for I can see that your concerns are very great. Let me come into your bed, and give you pleasure that you may forget these difficulties, if for only a short while.”

“You will share your body with me because I have told you of the threat to our very way of being?” He laughed. “There is still much sweetness in you, Lara, for all you have endured.” He bent and kissed her mouth slowly, feeling her lips soften beneath his.

“Before we taste pleasure together I must tell you that I have entrapped you, my beautiful Lara. You say you will not be my wife for you fear I will not allow you to follow your destiny. But when your destiny calls I will not prevent you from heeding that call, and I will probably ride by your side if I can, for I love you. But you are already my wife under the few laws that the Fiacre have, for you have lain with me two nights. And there are witnesses to it. My cousin Sholeh, and the headman Evin and his wife.”

“That is not fair!” she cried. “I will not be bound to any man but one of my own choosing! I refuse to accept such a thing, my lord. It is not worthy of you. Besides, all we did was sleep next to one another. There was no pleasure taken nor given.”

“My mother said you would be angry, but what else was I to do? You are the most difficult woman I have ever encountered, Lara. Men have used you cruelly, used you as they would have used a breeding animal, and you have accepted it. Yet I would honor you as my mate, and you scorn me.” His blue eyes were troubled.

Lara stood abruptly. “When I escaped the Forest Lords I swore I would never again be used by any man. At Shunnar, Prince Kaliq educated me to make my own decisions. One night in his hall I willingly shared myself with all of his fellow princes, and it was glorious, for I wanted it. I belong to no one but to me, Vartan. If you would be my husband, my mate, then you must acknowledge that not just with words but by your deeds. I do not know if you can do that. For all your scorn of Hetarians, you are much like them in your need for order and discipline.”

“I am in love with you, Lara. Whatever I must do I will do, but say you will accept your place by my side as my wife,” he said.

She shrugged. “I wish I could feel love for you, my lord,” she told him sadly.

“You will one day,” he told her. “I promise you that.”

“You cannot know that,” Lara replied. “You wish it, but you cannot be certain that what you say will come into being, Vartan. I do not want to hurt you.”

“Would you shame me before my people?” he asked quietly. “I have only resorted to trickery out of my desperation.”

“You could have had my body if you had but asked,” Lara responded. “I am not averse to sharing pleasure with you, but I must be free. A wife cannot be free, Vartan.” She put her hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort.

“Your body tempts me, Lara-I would be a liar if I denied it. But it is your heart I want. You say faerie women have no hearts, yet you are but half faerie. And as you have told me yourself, your mother cared so much for your human father that she would not wed again until your grandmother faded away, and as queen she needed to sire a faerie heir. I think you do have a heart, but you are fearful of giving it because you do not want to be hurt. I will never hurt you, my love. Never! And if the time comes that you feel compelled to leave me, I will release you, though it breaks my own very human heart to do so. Accept me as your mate, Lara, and know that I truly love you.”

Something within her softened. It was a feeling such as she had never before experienced. Was it possible she could actually care for this man? And could she trust him to keep his word? She realized her hand still rested on his arm. She could feel the muscle beneath his shirt. They were strong arms. In a moment of very human weakness, she realized they were arms in which she could hide. And sometimes even she needed a safe place. With a sigh she looked up into his anxious blue eyes.

“Very well, then. I will accept my place by your side as long as you understand that if I say I must go, then I must,” Lara replied.

He picked her up and swung her about, his big hands meeting as they spanned her tiny waist. “I adore you!” he told her, grinning happily.

“Put me down, you great fool. It has been months since I have known the pleasure of a manroot inside me, and I long for it, Vartan, my lord!”

He set her upon her feet again, and taking her face between his hands, began to kiss her. His mouth was hot and eager. His kisses touched her mouth, her eyelids, her face. And Lara stood quietly enjoying them. He sat down in his big chair by the fire, loosening his garments to reveal his manroot. She looked at it admiringly, easing her gown off to stand naked before him. His eyes devoured her, and she smiled at him. Her hand reached out to touch him. He was hard, and his skin warm.

“I have never seen a manroot so large,” Lara said, stroking the pillar of flesh. “The Forest Lords were big men, but not like this.”

“And your Shadow Princes?” He was reaching out for her.

“Skilled, and well-made, but not like you,” Lara admitted. She bent and kissed the ruby head of it, then climbed onto his lap.

Reaching out, he began to fondle her breasts while she caressed his manhood. He groaned as her delicate hands reached beneath him to fondle his seed sac. She gasped when he pinched her nipples, leaning forward to lick at the soft twin mounds. He unplaited her thick gilt hair and spread it about them like a curtain. Then lifting her he slowly, slowly impaled her upon his manroot until he was fully sheathed. Lara sighed deeply as their two bodies were joined so neatly and easily.

She wrapped her slender arms about his neck whispering to him, “You fit me perfectly, my lord. More perfectly than any other.”

“Because our bodies were created for each other,” he told her. Then he said, “You must ride me now, Lara, like the great horsewoman I know you to be. Ride me, and give us both the joy we know awaits us.”

She began slowly, rising and falling until he was moaning with delight. Then she moved faster and faster until finally he cried out, and she felt his love juices flooding her. To her surprise, however, he remained hard and when he had recovered slightly he stood, still buried deep inside her. Lara clung to him as he walked across the hall to the high board. Laying her upon the great rectangle of the table, he took the dominant position, and she trembled with excitement. He moved as she had, slowly and deliberately at first, and then more quickly until they were both lost in a white-hot passion that when it peaked left them both weak and exhausted as his juices flooded her a second time.

There were no words to be said. He gathered her up in his arms, and carried her to his chamber behind the hall. It was there Lara awoke several hours later to find herself in his embrace. When she attempted to slip from his arms he growled a sleepy “No!” and his arms tightened about her.

“I must go,” she whispered.

“Nay, we will share the lord’s chamber from now on. Noss will bring your possessions in the morning.”

“I must clean the high board before anyone finds our juices all over it,” she said.

“The servants will clean it,” he said. “Go back to sleep, Lara, my love.”

Obediently she closed her eyes, her fingers going to her crystal as she began to grow sleepy again. She was Vartan’s mate, his wife. Yet he had promised he would not stop her from following her destiny. She knew he meant what he said when he said it, but the proof would come when that moment arrived. In the meantime, he was a good man and a passionate lover-the coming winter would not prove dull. But first there was the Gathering to attend. She was concerned by the news he had shared with her this evening. She suspected that Bera did not know it yet. And was Bera aware of the union between her son and Lara? Still more questions.

She awoke with his lips on hers, his big body covering her as he entered her slowly. “Vartan!” she chided him, amused by his great lust for her.

“I cannot resist you,” he admitted. “I could spend the next six months in this bed with you, my Lara.”

She squeezed his manroot as it filled her, and he cried out. She licked his ear, her tongue tracing the whorl of flesh, pushing into the cavity to tickle him, murmuring to him what she thought of his masculine attributes and what she wanted him to do to her.

“You are a wicked faerie wench,” he told her as she wrapped her legs about him. “I will pleasure you more than you have ever been pleasured before, Lara, my love.”

“Actions,” she said softly, “speak louder than words, my lord Vartan.”

In reply he pulled her two arms above her head, holding her wrists firmly in one hand. Then he began a slow, deep, deliberate thrusting. Again, and again, and yet again he pushed into her body with a leisurely measured cadence. Shortly, Lara’s green eyes widened with surprise as she found herself responding to him strongly. She had known great pleasure with her Shadow Prince, but it had been an elegant pleasure. The feelings she now felt were wild and uncontrollable. She gasped in shock, for she had never imagined passion could go so deep or be so fierce. She struggled against him, but he gently mastered her, forcing her to his will, yet loving her so sweetly that she found herself weeping.

He kissed and licked the salty tears from her face. “Let go, Lara, my love. Trust me enough to let go.” And when she did, his great desire for her burst forth, leaving them both breathless and weak. Satisfied, he drew her into his arms, kissing her face, his big hand smoothing her hair. “We are fated to love each other, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword,” he told her quietly. “I am yours, and you are mine.”