Gaelic Goddess

"No. that is the one secret I kept. Kept for years. Kept above all else. Can you imagine that monster with a lifespan that challenged ours?

"But let us speak of more pleasant things. If we agree that a marriage might wait until we are sure we are suitable to each other, are you willing to consider an alternative?

"For instance," she said, her voice low and smoky, "I might declare you my consort. That has a long tradition among my people. You have heard the stories of men or women who have gone down into the fairy-mounds and emerged a hundred years later, unaged?"

Tom nodded.

"Some of those were consorts of my kin. It is never done without consent, but the ones who were seen again are those who could not accept a life apart from all that they knew.

"Kinder to kill them, I always thought," she said pensively. "Even when my kin freed them, they emerged into a world that was strange to them. Poor things. Tyr-Na-Nog is not meant for mortals."

"And I don't believe that I could live there, either," Tom said seriously. "Aside from my mother, I don't have much of a family. But I have friends. And I have a calling to help this earth I live on.

"I care for you very much, Rhiannon. But I could not live in Tyr-Na-Nog, separated from everything that I know."

"No one is asking you to!" she said in alarm. "I was just giving an example. And I am not going back there anytime soon. I told you before that mortals and their talents were a wonderment to me. Despite the pain that one mortal caused me, they still are. I want to live, Thomas. I want to explore this world and drink deep from the cup of life, not sit in an unchanging world, telling myself that the old ways are always the best, until I wither and fade into myth.

"So, will you be my consort? Stand at my side, tall and proud? Love me at night, live with me by day?"

His arms wrapped around her and he bent his mouth to hers.

"Rhiannon, I will."

****

"This is all wrong," Rhiannon fumed.

"I'm sorry, love, but Illinois has a regrettable lack of stone circles used by neolithic cultures. And if we were to try this around here, anyway, the best thing that could happen to us would that we would be arrested."

It was the following evening. Tom had been surprised to learn that being taken as Rhiannon's consort was not a simple matter. There was a ritual, which usually demanded the participation of several other parties.

Rhiannon, however, was determined to do it without the assistance of her kin, which meant that sacrifices to expedience had to be made.

Most of which came as a great relief to him, to tell the truth. The thought of performing a ritual in front of an audience was enough to give him the shakes, despite his training for the courtroom.

The thought of performing this ritual in front of Rhiannon's kin was enough to give him the dry heaves.

At her insistence, they had fasted throughout the day, eating no food and drinking only water. They had slept apart the previous night, an absence that caused him pain that was almost physical in its intensity.

"True enough," she sighed in answer. "Very well. Let us begin."

He swallowed as he pulled off his thick gray bathrobe, nude underneath. Rhiannon had found it a matter of great hilarity that it was the closest he could come to an old-style linen robe. It had taken a lot of convincing for him to dissuade her of her idea that he also wear his fuzzy bunny slippers.

Rhiannon was clad in a plain white linen shift, a circle of white flowers bound across her brows. Like Tom, her feet were bare. In her hands she held a group of thin cords.

At her direction, Tom lay on the bed, face up. In deference to Rhiannon's regret that there had been no suitable altar stone, he had stripped off the warm covers and pillows, leaving only a bare sheet on the mattress. It was not as impressive as a hunk of Irish granite would have been, but it would have to do.

Her movements quick and sure, Rhiannon knotted the cords to the bedposts, then tied them around his wrists and ankles. Tom tested them, frowning. He had never been one to enjoy games of pain or restraint, but to his relief, these cords seemed to be more symbolic than actual bonds.

"You could snap them as easily as you could slice cheese, my love," her voice came from behind him, warmly amused.

"Then why have them at all?"

"They are a sign of the choice you are making, and the ease with which a bond can be broken. You will be my consort, not my husband. Think of this as...a representation...of our new relationship.

"Your junior standing, in power as well as age, is symbolized by the fact that you are beneath me, as well as by the cords that restrain you. However, since this is not a marriage, you have the option to break the cords and leave at any time.

"In fact, should we get through the ritual with the cords unbroken, that is taken as a good omen, as it shows that you have the self-control necessary to make your wishes subservient to my own."

"As the senior partner," she said, stripping off her shift, "I have the duty to care for you and to see to your well-being. Which means that I must not abuse the power the cords give me over you.

"So it is a balance. Each side both giving and receiving trust."

She crawled onto the bed beside him. In her left hand, she held a knife, bound in leather, made of flint. It had taken them all day to find a shop that sold antiquities and purchase a knife that suited Rhiannon's needs.

"You remember the rules?" she asked.

"Once blood is drawn, we cannot remove our hands from each other until we have both achieved orgasm," Tom nodded.

Rhiannon returned his nod solemnly. She then grasped his left wrist in her right hand and made a shallow cut in his palm. She repeated the act, now cutting his right hand. Kneeling up, her buttocks resting on her feet, she used the knife on her own hands, dark blood running in thin rivulets down her wrists to the crook of her elbow.

She tossed the blade from one hand to the other, then swiveled her hips and threw it at the wall. It hit and sank to the hilt.

As Rhiannon sank down towards him, Tom raised his eyebrows.

"I would rather you not do that again. I still have the damage deposit deposit to recover on this place."

"Like I give a fuck about that," she said. She clasped his hands, and even with the dull senses of a mortal, Tom could feel the power that pulsed through them, beating in time with their heartbeats, mingled with their blood.

Tom had had his share of lovers, but he had never been tied up while attempting the act of love. It was incredible frustrating, he found, to be bound so. If he needed to, he supposed he could move from his back to his stomach, but that would mean being very careful that the bonds at his ankles didn't break. By the same token, the constraints put on both of them, to insure that they did not remove their hands from the other until they had climaxed, while arousing in the abstract, were incredibly frustrating in the here-and-now.

Rhiannon giggled softly as he tried to scratch his nose with his shoulder.

"Don't laugh," he grumped, as his palms left blood-stained trails down her back. "Or I'll tickle."

Her eyes grew wide. "You wouldn't!" she gasped.

"Try me," he growled, then gasped in pleasure as her clever fingers began working wonders of passion on his groin, teasing his stiffening cock. He watched, face soft with pleasure, as her hands left red smears of blood on his phallus, then shook as she rested them on his thighs, kneeling at his side, her lovely mouth dipping to take his length into her mouth.

At the first touch he groaned, his hands now clenched on her slender wrists, keeping the channel of power open. He watched helplessly as her quick, clever tongue bathed him, licking her blood off his cock.

"Oh, this is powerful magic," she sighed, her breasts flushing pink as her arousal grew, her nipples stiffening into long, thick nubs on her chest. Already, pearly drops of milk hung enticingly on their tips, and Tom's mouth watered as he remembered the taste. "Blood and sex. In the old days, when I and my kin first came into the world, our people would mate in the fields after someone died, sowing life in the presence of death."

She looked up at him through the unbound glory of her black hair, eyes wild, and Tom could imagine her, smeared with earth and mud, taking some fortunate scion of Eire as the death-fires burned, rutting shamelessly, the bright flame of her passion searing away the grief of a loved one's passing. He shifted uncomfortably on the bed. It really was growing amazingly difficult to keep under control, to keep from snapping the thin ropes like so much tinsel and take her. At the thought, his cock jumped, eager muscles throbbing in her mouth, impatient to spill its seed into any waiting vessel.

"Oh, no, my lover. Not yet," she purred, letting go his shaft from her voracious mouth. It fell to his belly with a lewd slap, then surged high, straining upwards. She laughed at it fondly, then crawled up his body to lay on top of him, face snug against warm face, her hands on his chest, his on her back. She wriggled contentedly, sighing as his rod pulsed urgently, hotly pressing into her stomach.

She kissed him again, loving the feel of his velvet-soft tongue, delightfully skilled, as it explored the corners and crevices of her mouth. She took his lower lip between her teeth, sucking, then bit down sharply, barely breaking the skin.

"Shit," he said, startled, but any other words were cut off as she kissed him again, moaning lustfully, her tongue licking at the tiny cut, then sharing his blood with him, mingling with their saliva. Below him the bed seemed to grow harder, pressing uncomfortably at his head and hips. Rhiannon's hands slid up his arms until they grasped his wrists, circling them where the cords were knotted. Her fingers entwined with his. She shifted and brought her turgid nipple to his mouth.

"Drink, my lover. This is the second binding."

Unthinking, mindless with lust, Tom suckled at her breast. As before, her intoxicating milk ran down his throat, slaking his thirst. When the flow eased, she shifted him to her other breast, until that, too, ran dry. His lips remained on her, tongue lapping at her nipples, tongue flicking the stiff buds. He tried to free his hands from hers, but her grip tightened, denying him exit.

"No, Thomas. No. Not after the second binding. From this point it is only lips and mouth and tongue." She looked down between their bodies, where his shaft was nestled happily in the folds of her sex, its fluid mingling with hers. "Well, not quite," she amended, eyes twinkling merrily.

She rose above him, her thighs shifting, opening, her nether lips spreading, the gates of her portal ready to admit a welcome visitor. A slight cant of her hips, and his head was nudging inside, an honored guest poking its head into a dark room.

Tom's vision wavered as she sank onto him, his cock exploring her depths. He blinked, lights flickering on the edge of sight, and shook his head, trying to clear his mind.

God, that would be all I needed, he thought mordantly, to stroke out while I was in bed with an immortal. What would the EMTs think of that when they found me?

He opened his eyes and choked.

They were no longer in his small apartment, just off the Northwestern campus. Instead, they were in a grove of trees, a circle of ancient oaks rising up around them. The bed was gone, and they were now lying on a huge, flat-topped granite boulder. Beneath his back he could feel the edges of carvings biting into his skin. He was still bound, but now the ropes were connected to and knotted around four wooden posts. At their tops were brass bowls which held the oil which fed the fires lighting the scene.

Rhiannon's head whipped up and she looked around, her hair flying with her movements.

"You dare," she hissed. Under her Tom stiffened, but her anger was not directed at him.

From the shadows figures emerged, surrounding them. Their faces were beautiful, and he recognized them from his research. Rhiannon's eyes fastened on a woman as she came forward, walking with stately grace. Her face seemed to shift with each step, and Tom closed his eyes, hoping his death would be quick, because he now knew he was in the presence of Brigit Herself.

Rhiannon's mother, the triune goddess of the Irish.

Amazingly, Rhiannon kept up her movements as the tableau unfolded, her fingers still holding him tight. With a flash, Tom understood. She dared not stop, not at this point in the ritual. The backlash from the power could damage her.

And if it damaged her, it could kill him stone-dead.

"Well, daughter," said Brigit. Her voice was calm and deep, like a tree's heartwood. "This is unexpected. That after finally being freed you would choose to bind yourself again so soon? How well you love mortals. It might be seen," she concluded, "as a flaw in your character."

Rhiannon's eyes flashed, even as her hips came down to merge with Tom's once more. "I did not choose to bind myself with Mick Phelan, Mother. I was young and stupid and trusted the honor of a man who had none.

"But yes, I have chosen to take Thomas as my consort. He is worthy of my love."

"Can you be sure? He is, after all, the grandson of your enemy."

Rhiannon laughed, them moaned as Tom moved up to kiss the heaving swells of her breasts. "Yes, darling, that's lovely," she said to him. She turned her attention back to her mother.

"If you have brought me here, now, then obviously you have been watching over me. You have seen what he has done, and what he has not done. He could have used me for his own pleasure, as his grandsire did. He did not.

"He took me in when I was desperate and terrified. He fed me, clothed me and sheltered me. He held me when I wept and freed me when I was held captive. He is decent, kind, gentle, intelligent, fantastic in bed," she groaned, as Tom placed a series of tongue-sweet kisses on the fragile skin of her chest, "and he loves me. As I do him. I could ask for no better man to be my consort.

"And if our love holds, I intend to make him my husband."

Brigit nodded, not altogether happily, and walked even closer. Tom caught the edge of her power, potent as a lightning strike, as she bent to look into his eyes.

"Tell me truly, mortal man, for on this rock none can lie. Do you love my child?"

Shaking with fear and passion, his balls tightening as they prepared his seed for delivery to his beloved's body, he nodded.

"Lady, I do."

She nodded, somewhat mollified. "So you do. That is well." She threw up her hands, sighing. "Very well, daughter. Take him and be welcome."

"I will," Rhiannon said shortly. "And at this point, Mother, don't think that your disapproval would have stopped me. After forty-eight years with no aid from my kin, I am not feeling particularly charitable towards you." Tears glimmered in her eyes. "Forty-eight years, Mother! Why didn't you help me? Why didn't you aid me in breaking the contract? Do you mean to tell me that in such a span of time you could not find what Tom did in a matter of days?" Her thighs slapped Tom's lewdly as her pace increased, punctuating her anger.

"Actually," came a deep voice from behind Brigit, "we knew the terms of breaking the contract as soon as we saw it."

Rhiannon froze. Below her, Tom gave a hiss as the muscles of her cleft clamped down on him as she turned in shock to her grandfather.

The Dagda gave her a sorrowful smile and nodded, cutting off her shout of outrage.

"We knew, Granddaughter. Of course we knew. Do you think one of the ancient Sidhe, the Firstborn, could fail to see the trap? It was only your inexperience and ignorance that trapped you. But what could we do?" he asked, spreading his hands helplessly. "It had been signed. The deed was done. And to give you that knowledge would only serve to tighten your chains. Your captor would have been even more certain to make sure the one who next held your contract would never allow your release."

Eyes burning, Rhiannon nodded. "I will think on this," she said, beginning to move again. Tom sighed as the velvet sheath of her sex loosened on his cock.

"Do so after you have completed the ritual," Brigit said with some asperity. "If you don't, I might take your place. I must say, you have chosen a fine specimen to be your consort." Tom's eyes widened. Brigit's raiment had changed, and her tunic now stopped bare inches from the tops of her thighs. One hand had slipped inside, and was obviously fondling the full curve of her breast.

"Horny little tramp," said the Dagda.

"Thank you, Father. I know," she smiled serenely. "Well, daughter. We're waiting." Her eyes overflowed, holy tears tracking down her cheeks. "And We are very, very happy for you, and that you have come back to Us at last."

Rhiannon pulled her gaze back to Tom, pinned and helpless beneath her. She smiled into his eyes. "I'm not staying," she said, but whether it was to her mother, herself, or him, he could not determine.

Tom felt the first flutters as her core began to tremble around his cock. She pushed their joined hands high above his head and lowered her mouth to his, kissing him, hard, fierce and loving, as her breasts rubbed the skin of his chest. Soft dribbles of her milk leaked from her breasts and joined with their blood, dripping down their writhing bodies and pooling in the crevices of the carven runes on the stone.

Where it lay, pure white light surged up around them, hiding them from the view of Rhiannon's kin. As it did, Rhiannon and Thomas both gasped, their lust redoubling as the ancient power of the Tuatha surged around them. A glorious scent rose about them. Warm fertile earth after a heavy rain, and the musk of sex, and the smell of a farm, redolent of healthy animals and good food.

The clutch of Rhiannon's fingers was painful about his, but Tom drove through the agony, pushing towards the completion of the ritual, mindful only of their pleasure. Rhiannon's face was frustrated as she danced on his cock, the fluid of her arousal slowly seeping down her thighs. She shook her head from side to side, obviously only a breath from her orgasm, just as obviously not achieving it.

"Here, darling," he breathed. "Let me help."

He braced his feet on the rock, his toes finding purchase in the runes of the stone. With that slight bit of gained leverage, he moved his hips in rhythm with hers, meeting her strokes, pushing his pelvis as high as he could, the skin of his cock scraping on the sensitive flesh of her clitoris.

A wail of passion burst from her lips, then she dropped down to cover his mouth with hers, her thighs and buttocks slapping hard against him. Slowly, her rhythm eased, her strokes slowing, lingering, as if she sought to draw out her pleasure.

Suddenly her sheath closed down on his erection, gripping it tightly even as it pushed inside her. She shouted her joy into his mouth, the muscles of her belly, her sex, her thighs, all tensing, then releasing in a lovely surge as her orgasm flowed over her in a mighty wave. She opened her eyes and met her lover's gaze as, with a gentle whisper of love, he emptied himself into her, a torrent of come pulsing from his straining cock, overflowing her, dripping down to mingle with the sweat of their joined bodies.

As they climaxed, the light redoubled in intensity, then faded, and the grove echoed with the toll of a brazen gong.

"Damn," said the Dagda. "That was hot." Rhiannon glanced over and saw that his tunic was tilted by the force of his arousal.

"You bet your ass it was, Father. Why don't we leave these two alone for a while? I bet they would like to make love again soon. And so would I." Brigit walked over and patted her daughter on the cheek, then gave Tom a wicked grin.