Spirit Flight

CHAPTER 2

There was the sound of a solitary drum beating in the rhythm of a heart. A voice accompanied it in a chantlike song offering prayers in a language Marisa didn't understand.

Instead of pain, there was only heat. Moving through her. Over her. Building in intensity as the song built, peaking, fading. The process repeated over and over again until the voice stopped. The drum stopped.

Into the sudden silence came the eerie sound of water dripping in the distance. The sensation of being watched. The hint of a woodsy scent that coiled in Marisa's womb and gave her the strength to open her eyes and struggle to her elbows.

It took her a minute to see him, and even then she blinked. Licked lips that were dry as she forced herself into a sitting position. The movement made her lightheaded for an instant, warned her that she shouldn't try to scramble to her feet.

He rose from where he was squatting next to a small fire and her fingers clenched involuntarily-not with the need to defend herself, but with the urge to draw him. To capture him on paper.

He was a vision from history. A warrior. His muscles toned from a life where only the fittest survived. His skin bronzed, revealed except for the area covered by the loincloth he wore.

The bulk of his black hair was a curtain flowing over his shoulders and down his back. But on either side of his face beads and feathers decorated tight, narrow braids.

«Drink this,» he said, kneeling next to her and offering her a cup she hadn't noticed him carrying. His voice deep, confident. His words English, firm.

She shook her head in confusion as the memories flooded in, of overhearing Ethan and Kaitlyn plotting to kill her, of running, of being injured, of knowing she was dying and seeing the thunderbird swoop down from the sky.

«Drink this,» he repeated, gripping the back of her head and holding her still as he pressed the cup to her lips. She struggled instinctively, wondered if she was drugged.

Her captor set the cup down and quickly subdued her. His arms around her torso all that was necessary in her weakened condition.

A different kind of awareness ripped through her when skin came into contact with skin. When she realized she was completely naked.

«Easy,» he said, as if sensing her rising panic and her intention to renew her fight. «Easy. I'm not going to hurt you.»

Marisa's attention flitted wildly around her, taking in the rock, the darkness, the campfire and finally her clothes. Torn and bloody, dripping from a peg pounded into the wall. The sight of them calmed her as nothing else would have.

Her gaze returned to the man holding her. Seeing the dark eyes. The thunderbird's eyes. The colorful feathers braided into his hair. Red and white and black with splashes of blue and yellow. The thunderbird's colors.

«You rescued me,» Marisa whispered, understanding dawning. She must have been delirious when he found her, her mind lost in the last piece of art to make an impression on her. The totem poles.

Marisa pulled away from him and this time he let her go. Wonder flowed through her, disbelief as she gazed down at her body and saw no open wounds, felt no broken bones even though the state of her clothing attested to the fact that she had been injured and bleeding.

She glanced up and her nipples tightened in reaction when she saw his gaze travel over the same territory hers had just explored. His eyes darkened with masculine appreciation at the sight of her exposed nipples and cunt.

His nostrils flared as though he could scent her sudden wetness and Marisa's womb fluttered in response. Her hand went to the apex of her thighs in an attempt to shield her mound and arousal from his view. The other hand dropped to the material underneath her and she realized it was thick fur, a hide tanned and softened.

«No,» he said, his fingers going to her wrist, stilling her when she shifted, intending to free the fur and wrap it around herself. «I will bathe you first.»

Marisa's breath caught in her throat. Her entire body hummed at the words, at the possessive way he was looking at her. At the command in his voice.

He picked up the cup and once again held it to her lips. «Drink this. It will help you gain strength, Marisa.»

She opened her mouth to ask him how he knew her name and he used her response to his advantage, tilted the cup and left her no choice but to drink the contents or choke on it. She swallowed, expecting something cold and bitter. Finding instead something warm and thick and tasting of honey.

Almost immediately the heat of the drink spread out from her belly, going first to her cunt and breasts and making her whimper. She licked her lips and groaned as warmth spread there too.

«You've drugged me,» she whispered, her eyes meeting his then going to his mouth, her upper body leaning forward, following the direction of her gaze.

He laughed, a small husky sound, and once again took her into his arms, this time brushing his lips across her temple. «You are feeling the call of our spirits to one another. The drink was to aid you, nothing more.»

She allowed herself to simply luxuriate in the feel of hard muscle and hot flesh, to soak in his strength and breathe his scent. A shiver went through her and another whimper escaped when his hands smoothed over her back, slid down to her hips and pulled her more tightly against him. Her breath caught when she became aware of what his loincloth was concealing. «I don't even know your name,» she said, wondering how she could be naked and yet so at ease in this stranger's arms.

«Ukiah,» he said, rubbing his cheek against Marisa's, giving her the name the townspeople and guests at his lodge knew him by. The name he went by in the physical world.

He tangled his fingers in her hair in order to keep her from turning her face away as he settled his mouth on hers, coaxed her lips into parting so his tongue could slip into the wet heat of her mouth, tasting her essence along with the drink the Creator had directed him to give her.

She was lush and sweet, utterly desirable. His. Given to him by the one who had called up the storm and drawn the thunderbird into the air. Leading him to where Marisa lay dying, her soul ready to flutter away.

It was not Ukiah's place to question the Creator's choice of a wife for him and he had no desire to do so. She was beautiful. Long-limbed and exquisitely feminine. Her breasts tipped with large dusky nipples, her pubic hair trimmed into a small dark triangle left to arrow downward toward a delicate clit and bare cunt lips.

He hadn't known what reaction to expect from her. Had thought only of carrying her to the cave and stripping her of the wet clothing, of starting a fire and beginning the sing, offering up prayers and supplications and promises that he would accept her and care for her and teach her so that she would answer the call as a thunderbird.

Until she opened her eyes and became aware of her surroundings he had tried to respect her privacy, to not stare at her naked body where it lay on furs, warmed by a fire that was created by the Creator's will, just as the drink Ukiah had given Marisa was.

Ukiah groaned as his cock pressed against the loincloth. His heart soared as her tongue twined with his. As her arms wrapped around his neck and she clung to him, the smoothness of her skin and scent of her arousal tempting him to lay her back down on the furs and cover her with his body.

He ached for her as he'd never ached for another woman. Wanted desperately to peel away the loincloth and bathe his penis in her wetness before pressing into her, merging his body to hers.

He'd waited so long. Had dreamed of having a woman at his side. A helpmate and companion. A mate who would fly with him when the thunderbird was called to the sky, who would winter with him when the snows came and celebrate with him when spring kissed the land.

But even as his cock demanded to be sheathed in her wet heat, Ukiah wanted to finish caring for her. As he'd promised to do. He wanted them to know each other better, to have their first joining be more than an urgent, mindless rush toward physical release. He wanted her to welcome him into her body as a soul mate, not simply as the man who had rescued her.

It took all of his strength to lift his mouth from hers. «I need to bathe you first.»

«No, I need this more,» she whispered against his lips, her arms tightening around him as her tongue forged into his mouth, as she became the aggressor.

Marisa knew she was reacting to the betrayal, to the wild run which had very nearly ended in her death. A part of her mind argued for her to pull away from Ukiah and put some distance between them. But that part of her seemed powerless against the deep anguished cry of her soul, the clamor of her body for warmth and comfort, for the security he represented.

She shivered when he responded, when he moaned and eased her backward so she was once again lying on the luxurious pelt of fur. His body straddled hers, making her whimper and arch in a futile attempt to rub her pelvis against his. She slid her hands down his sides and settled them on his hips with the intention of removing his loincloth. But he grasped her wrists and held them to the ground above her head.

«No,» he said, lifting his mouth from hers, the rich waves of black hair a curtain on either side his face. The narrow braids with their beads and bright feathers brushed against her cheeks, overlaying the present with the past in a burst of deja vu that made her think they'd once been like this before, in another lifetime.

His eyes widened slightly and she wondered if he was experiencing the same thing, but before she could ask him he lowered his head and her breath caught in her throat. Need pulsed through her cunt at the glimpse of herself reflected in the dark pools of his eyes. Her naked body made golden and sensuous, wanton, in the flicker of a fire that seemed too small to provide so much light.

Ukiah's tongue traced her bottom lip before sucking it into his mouth. His knees tightened against her hips to keep her from arching high enough to rub against him. He altered his grip, shifted so he could hold both of her wrists with one hand while the other moved to her breast, cupping it, worshipping it with his touch. A thin sheen of sweat formed on his upper torso as the ghost drums sounded in his mind, as ancient, long-dead ancestors joined their voices in a prayer for fertility rather than a healing song.

He groaned as he slanted his mouth, penetrated hers with his tongue. His testicles heavy with seed. His cock pulsing in time to the mystical drum beat.

Images of other lives fluttered past with the swiftness of a falcon, whispered voices called him by names his spirit had once answered to. Whispered the names he'd known Marisa by.

The tempo of the ghost music increased, built, urged Ukiah to consummate his union with Marisa. Filled his chest with echoes of a long ago emotion, the fierce pride of ownership. She'd once been his captive, his war prize.

The drums and songs and whispered voices blended, so tightly knit that they stripped him of control. He freed her wrists and kissed downward, no longer able to separate the man known as Ukiah with the ones who had come before him. From the thunderbird who knew this woman as its mate and wanted to reclaim her.

He circled and laved her nipples with his tongue until they were ripe and hard. The sounds of Marisa's moans and the sharp sting where her fingers buried in his hair, tugging as if she would pull him into her very skin, only made him feel more. Only made him crave her more.

He bit and suckled as his hands roamed over her breasts possessively. Exploring their fullness. Imagining the sight of them hanging free beneath her like ancient symbols of fertility when he took her on her hands and knees.

With a groan he forced himself away from them, kissed down her belly and buried his face between her thighs, doing nothing at first but inhaling her, filling his lungs with her unique scent. She whimpered and arched into him, a primitive plea for succor and pleasure and protection. A submissive yielding as if she too was locked in a long ago role where she lived or died at his will.

Ukiah tilted his head so he could see her face, wanted to watch her expression as he took the first taste of her, his tongue gliding along her lower lips, dipping into her slick channel in a primal claiming.

Her skin glistened, her eyelashes were delicate black crescents against taut skin. He wanted to command that she look at him but he couldn't bring himself to leave her silky wet cleft.

She gasped when he pierced her with his tongue, tightened her grip on his hair, her luscious breasts flushing a deeper color. He thrust again and the muscles of her sheath clamped down, trying to draw him deeper even as she drowned him in arousal.

The cadence of the ghost drumbeat demanded that he thrust again, and again. His hips jerking in time to the press and retreat of his tongue. His cock pulsing, rigid and confined, making him as much of a captive as she was.

Her cries of pleasure filled the cave and he could imagine them drifting upward and rolling through time like a supernatural thunder. Carrying a message, a scream of victory, a promise for the future.

Ukiah spread her thighs further, bent her knees and tilted her pelvis so that every inch of her was exposed, open, his to lick and suck. To fuck with his tongue.

Her clit was swollen, as rigid as his cock, its hood pulled back just as his foreskin was. Its head nearly purple.

«Please,» Marisa said, her voice hoarse, her back bowed as though she could force him to swallow her whole, her hands trying to guide him to her clit. «Please,» she begged again. Her skin coated with a sheen of sweat. Her heart racing, pounding so fast that it made her think of drums beating on a dark night, of ancient fertility rites and gods so old they were no longer named.

Ukiah licked over her swollen knob and she convulsed with pleasure, the icy-hot shards of it spearing through her, making her buttocks clench and her breath so scarce that she felt lightheaded. He closed his mouth around her clit and the tears came. Mixed with whimpers and cries as he sucked, hard and fast, aggressive now, somehow knowing she needed a violent release in order to cleanse her of the horror of what had happened to her.

He pinned her to the fur. Held her down as if she was his captive. The feathers and beads and silk of his hair making him seem primitive, savage. The shadows on the wall dancing like some ancient people around a timeless campfire.

Over and over again he swirled his tongue across her clit as he sucked. His lips firm, resistant, driving her higher and higher until she came, shuddering and writhing. Ecstasy rolled through her like a fierce storm and Marisa rode the pleasure until the last of it passed into distant rumbles and short bursts of lightning, leaving her feeling cleansed, calm, like the earth after a rain.

Color flooded her cheeks when she finally forced her eyes open. A sudden shyness at having taken so much from him but given nothing in return.

Ukiah's skin felt stretched tight and his cock ached with the need to sheathe itself in her wet heat. He could feel the dampness against his flushed foreskin where the head had leaked in preparation for coupling with Marisa.

For long moments his chest rose and fell in sharp pants, only gradually did his heart slow as the drum beats and singing faded, leaving him the choice as to when to join with her.

He kissed his way up her body, stroked her heated flesh as he did so, cupped her breasts, lingered to suck before once again claiming her mouth. This time sharing the taste of her pleasure with her.

She wound her arms around his neck and even that simple gesture filled him with a contentment he'd never known before. A sense that all would be well. That there was no need to hurry or rush.

He rose to his knees and lifted her into his arms before standing. Carried her to the cavern next to the one they were in and settled her into a small indentation in the floor that was filled with heated water.

Ukiah smiled when she squeaked, her eyes widening with surprise and confusion. «There are still volcanoes in this range,» he reminded her, though in truth the water running down the wall and into the shallow pool was heated at his command, as was the cavern itself. Everything within created and maintained for her safety and comfort.

They were not abilities he had in his mortal form, only in this one. When he was both thunderbird and man, a creation of magic and belief.

Ukiah squatted by the natural bath, grimaced as his cock and balls pressed against the loincloth. He dipped his hands into the water before reaching for a crudely made bar of soap. Tumbled it over and over until lather coated his fingers.