Clamping a hand over the aching cramp below her rib cage, she altered her direction the slightest degree, watching to make sure her feet stayed clear of the shadows. She got no farther than an unseen hawthorn. The shrub's thorns pricked her skin and snagged her gown, forcing her back onto the path.

She swore again, using one of Dain's vile words, and drew the Damascene. There was naught to do but face what came.

Rhuddlan shifted in his chair, turning his face into the wind and smelling the message-scent of the trees.

Ceridwen was once again testing the boundaries he'd set, trying to forge her own path. The maid from Usk had a strong will, but not strong enough to negate his need of her, not yet. She would come to the grove, and in Deri she would learn of sex and magic. She would mate with the Horned One to seal a bond.

The sorcerer was ready for such. There was not a man or woman among the Quicken-tree who did not sense Dain's arousal, each of them taking a part of it inside him and herself and nurturing it into a living flame. Like the burning rowans, the flames bespoke of lives past and of life yet to come. Slumbering seeds brought to fruition with warmth and lust, quickened into being on the forest floor.

Rhuddlan smiled and turned back to the dance, where men and women were already pairing off anddisap-pearing into the trees. Another's scent came to him on the wind, sneaking in from behind the throne to tease his nose.

Rhayne.

All was well.

With a lift of his hand, he signaled the Liosalfar to leave the grove. 'Twas time for Ceridwen to be brought home.

Dain saw the bitch first, a white streak of hound cutting across his line of sight, betraying him with her presence. His first instinct was to follow her and bring her to heel. Something stronger made him look instead to the bower from whence she'd come.

For an instant, no more, he felt the circles of life stop their ceaseless wheeling. For an instant, no more, everything around him faded away, 'til naught was left except Her.

The Goddess had been chosen.

She graced the flower throne with a beauty made stark by anger and fear. Her cheek was scratched, her gown torn and ragged at the hem. On either side of her, Liosalfar stood guard, their faces banded with the diagonal stripe of warriors, their bows drawn.

Rhuddlan's betrayal made Numa's look as nothing.

Dain started forward and was stopped by the glint of a knife in Rhuddlan's hands.

"She came armed, Lavrans," the Quicken-tree leader said, smiling, "and nearly cut Trig."

"Then I taught her well." He kept his voice steady despite the confusion surging through him. He had been part of the dance, weaving a spell out of firelight and drumbeats, and though the spell had been shattered, neither his mind nor his body was free of it. He was still the Horned One.

Rhuddlan nodded, lifting the knife. "So 'twas you who gave her the dagger. Tell me, mage, did you also teach the blade what it knows of death?" He ran the pad of his thumb along the knife's edge, incising a thin red line into his skin. "This steel has tasted more blood than most. See how it draws mine into its groove? It fair reeks of carnage."

"You speak of the knife's past."

"And its future, I fear, my friend." Rhuddlan gave him a knowing glance. A fresh wind dropped down from above and swirled through the fire, stirring up the flames and filling itself with rowan smoke before disappearing back into the sky. The eddies of its passing rippled through the grove in the wake of Rhuddlan's prophesy-for the Quicken-tree's words had been no less.

"If we are friends, you will choose another." Dain made his terms clear.

"Because we are friends," Rhuddlan replied, his smile growing cold, "I will let you fight with your own knife." "No!" Ceridwen lurched to her feet and was pulled back into the chair by one of the men who had caught her in the forest. She now recognized the darkness for what it had been, Rhuddlan's magic. Wood demon, indeed. Dain was not the only sorcerer in the grove.

Rhuddlan gave her a long look, his eyes far too innocent to be those of a satyr, yet she knew why she'd been brought to Deri. Dain had warned her, and she had ignored his warning, trusting instead her own damned instincts and a sprite named Llynya.

She struggled against the strong hands holding her shoulders and gripping her pack, but the men about her were serious in their intent to keep her in the flower-draped chair.

"Hush, child." Rhuddlan's voice was low and oddly reassuring. "Do not squirm so. Nothing will happen here that you do not wish."

"I do not wish to be held," she said between gritted teeth, again trying to jerk free, and again failing.

"So be it." The Quicken-tree man gestured with his hand and the men retreated from around her.

She wasted no time in leaping up and away, running to the end of the arch-roofed bower before realizing she had no safe place to go. The forest was no haven, not with Rhuddlan about. He had charmed her into Deri, and she had no doubts that he could keep her there.

She looked to Dain-and blanched. There was no safety in his dark gaze, only a quiet, seething rage trying to break through an unsettling disorientation. He did not look himself. She took a step back, and he started toward her, dropping his crown into the grass, shedding the clawed gloves from his hands, letting the wolfs cloak fall to the ground. She retreated farther, her gaze darting across the grove, searching for a refuge, yet never truly letting him out of her sight. He was frightening in his beauty, with raptor feathers braided through his hair, his bare torso gleaming in the firelight. His face was banded in woad. Lean, supple muscle corded his arms and legs. He looked fiercer than she remembered from the night of his bath, more feral, even a little mad about the eyes.

Mayhaps he was still the Demon.

Mayhaps the transformation to a god had not worked. Had she not doubted it from the beginning?

Mayhaps Rhuddlan was the safer of the two after all.

She stumbled in indecision as Dain kept coming toward her. A cry lodged in her throat, cut short by Rhuddlan's shout.

"Lavrans!" The Quicken-tree leader rose from his throne and strode down the alley of trees, his voice strong and sure across the grove. "The Goddess may in truth choose to be with Ceraunnos tonight and not this green man, but the choice is hers. So take your blade, friend"-he tossed the Damascene forward with an underhanded throw-"and parry to first blood with me for her favor."

From where she righted herself on the ground, Ceridwen saw Dain pick the dagger out of the air in a move so full of grace, 'twas as if the haft floated into his palm. A muffled groan escaped her. She feared the contest was over before it had begun, and that the Demon would have her in the end.

Dain harbored no such illusions. Rhuddlan would not be easily dissuaded from his folly, but folly it was.The man had erred badly in his taking of Ceridwen ab Arawn. If the earth grew fecund only with the sacrifice of her virginity, then the Quicken-tree were in for a damned lean year. Dain had not saved her from himself to let another have her. He had locked her in the swivin' tower, and he had expected her to stay there.

His jaw clenched, and his hand tightened around the knife.Son of a bitch. He was in no mood to parry for a virgin's favors. His blood and his life were demanding what had been denied, overruling every shred of interfering intellect and shame. The heat of the fire burned at his back, its sizzle and crackle the only sounds in the grove, the silence of the drums a potent reminder of where all the dancers had gone.

He watched Rhuddlan walk steadily closer, the full, high moon throwing a dappled shadow upon the bower path. At the end of the alders, the Quicken-tree man reached down and drew a blade from the sheath on his belt. 'Twas a dazzling, gold-encrusted thing, catching the firelight with its crystal haft and throwing diamondlike sparks into the air.

Dain forced himself to loosen his grip on the Damascene, balancing the dagger and fitting it to the fingers and palm of his left hand with an ease he'd learned as a boy. The other side of parry was thrust, and with a well-placed few, he could disarm Rhuddlan and be done with it. There would be no more blood on his knife.

But such was not his opponent's game. Rhuddlan circled slowly, looking for an opening, holding his knife lightly, too lightly. His fingers did not quite close around the clear bluish-white haft. The dagger was a truly fine piece, a rare glassen treasure, and suddenly Dain realized it was much more than it seemed. He wasn't sure what gave him the crucial moment of insight, whether the openness and size of the grove lessened the dreamstone's power, or if having succumbed once to the dancing lights, he had built up a resistance; but the warning was enough to save him when Rhuddlan turned the hilt of his knife more fully toward the fire. Light gathered in the white heart of the crystal, coalescing to a pulsing brightness for no more than a blink's worth of time before Dain lunged, forcing Rhuddlan to close his hand around the crystal and meet his attack.

Twice more they came together, once with the scrape and slide of metal ringing throughout the grove.

Dain took the Quicken-tree's measure even as his own was being weighed, and 'twas a fair match, he decided, fairer than he had expected. Rhuddlan was fast enough by a hairbreadth to elude any thrust he made. Or mayhaps the dreamstone was slowing his own movements, for even with Rhuddlan's fingers on the haft, flashes of light escaped from the crystal and grew more brilliant with every parry-blindingly brilliant. Soon he would not be able to see Rhuddlan's hand. He would have the restofthe Quicken-tree's body to guide him, but where the man's movements terminated, where the pain would come from, would be naught but a ball of light.

'Twas an eventuality he wasn't inclined to wait for, having less interest in seeing his own blood than in seeing Rhuddlan's. Thus he changed his attack to a retreat, slowing his movements to draw Rhuddlan out, baiting the Quicken-tree with an advantage. The risk was a calculated one. Rhuddlan was a good fighter, highly skilled, but he was far older, and his age showed in the way he slowed his parries to match Dain's.

Dain didn't hesitate when he saw his opening, rushing in with a high inside feint, then marking Rhuddlan across the ribs when the Quicken-tree man exposed his torso with his blocking parry.

A shadow seemed to fall over the grove as the light went out of the dreamstone. Rhuddlan immediately fell back, and rather than the curse Dain expected, he smiled. "Well done."

"There is not much blood," Dain said. "And I am duly grateful." The smile broadened.

Moira hurried forth with a pot ofrascaand began tending the slight wound. Elen was soon at her side with a cloak of Quicken-tree cloth. She was beautiful still, her hair as shiny and soft-looking, her cheeks as prettily blushed.

but the allure was gone. Whatever promise had been between them had been broken along with the spell.

Rhuddlan extended the crystal and gold-hiked dagger. "The Goddess may choose, but the blade must be won. Her name is Ayas, and like your knife, she has a compassionate streak."

That he was offering the dagger was apparent, but Dain did not step forward to take it.

"Come, Lavrans. She is yours. See?" He opened his palm to show the dark crystal. "Already my mastery over her is gone. She is your dreamstone and will cast her light only for you."

"And if I do not wish to conjure a Druid's sleep every time I hold the blade?"

"Then do not ask for one. Dreams come in many forms, mage. You'll find Ayas is much more easily controlled than your Goddess." Rhuddlan grinned and gestured toward Ceridwen. "I do not begrudge you that one." Madron did, though. Dain had not forgotten the witch's warning.

"In all truth, friend," Rhuddlan went on, "she is yours with my blessing, for the price of another hour's magic."

Dain looked to Ceridwen. She was standing at the far side of the grove next to Ceraunnos's dais, her uneasy stance indicating wariness-justifiable wariness. Madron could not save her now, for he was no longer counting the cost of having her.

"Aye. I will pay your price, Rhuddlan." And Madron's too-damn him to hell.

She had spoken of love. He would see what she knew of the depths of love.

He took the crystal blade and started toward her, sheathing the Damascene in the band of leather that belted the loincloth around his waist.

"Run," he warned her in a whisper too soft for her to hear, yet her eyes widened, and she stepped back.

"Run, and do not stop."

Her hands came down to lift her skirts. He would not take her in Deri among the Quicken-tree. She was his in a way Rhuddlan could not understand, his need of her different from the Quicken-tree's for a Goddess.

Run, Ceri. Run as fast as you can, and still you will be mine.

She took off like a doe in flight, darting into the trees on the north side of The Bramble. Dain kept his strides even, letting her gain distance. It did not matter. This night, there would be no escape for the quicksilver maid.

"Sweet Jesus, save me." Ceridwen came to a stop, leaning against one of Wroneu's sturdy oaks. She gulped in air and wrapped her arm around her waist. To her left, the trees were awash in silver light, but there was no sign of the beast stalking her. Brushing the hair back from her face, she looked hesitantly to the east-and swore. He was there, the damned crystal dagger glinting moonlight in his hand, not ten yards distant. He had come no closer, but neither had he allowed her to get any farther away.

She struggled to slow her breathing and prayed she could thus slow the beating of her heart. She had no plan except to go north, ever north into sanctuary.

A sob broke from her throat. He had her knife. She had been doomed from the start. Another sob followed the first, and she rested her forehead against the oak, squeezing her eyes shut while drawing in a shuddering breath. She had naught but herself to save her, naught but-A shift in the air brought her head up.

There! He'd moved.

Moonbeams streamed down through the boughs, marking him with bands of light and shadow, golden light. 'Twas strange. She bent her head back and looked up through the towering branches of the oak to the sky above, and there she beheld an amazing sight. A gilded veil-of what? the very ether itself?-appeared to be falling over the moon in silken folds. All the light in the forest changed to the aureate hues, the silver remaining only as sparkles hanging in the air.

Magic. Beltaine magic.

She looked back to Dain and found him much closer, startlingly close, no more than three yards away.

Their gazes met, and her mouth went dry. There was still a hint of madness in his eyes, and behind the madness, desire. 'Twas a palpable thing, reaching for her across the short distance of sweet grass and lavender.

She wet her lips and nervously watched as his gaze tracked the tip of her tongue. A slow, hot ache pulsed to life between her thighs. He had kissed her and made her yearn for more than kisses. Now he stood before her, wild and silent, promising more than she could imagine. What did he know, she wondered, that put such desperate need in his face?

Did she dare hold her ground and find the answer? He walked closer, stepping forward with a soundless tread, and she grabbed her skirts and fled, proving herself too great a coward.

Dain followed, keeping pace with her, yet indulging her with the illusion of freedom. Her booted feet fell lightly upon the earth, racing through shafts of golden moonlight and night-blooming flowers wet with silver dew.

They ran together, with him subtly guiding her toward their destination. She did not know it yet, but she was already becoming his. The stars were wrapping them together with distant light. The wind was binding them with its soft caress, enveloping them one with the other.

At the first rise of the land, he slipped to her left, forcing her to move to the right, onto the lower path.

The trail quickly narrowed and grew darker as the woods thickened on either side.WycheElmPass towered above them, yet they continued to descend. Soon he had no need to guide her, for the earth itself delineated the path. Moisture entered the air, warmer than the breeze. Woodland ferns unfurled their fronds and brushed against her skirts. Mosses grew over the rocks. He was taking her to a place beyond the cavern of the grotto, where the grass was softer than goosedown, where water bubbled up warm from the ground, and the trees made a nested bower graced by slivers of the moon. Carved from the rock that formed the base of the hills, the glade had only one way in and out-the path they were on, with him closing in behind her.

Dain sensed the moment when she realized she was running into a trap. She hesitated slightly, her pace slowing, but 'twas already too late. What looked like the darkness of night between the trees ahead was the exposed face of the limestone. There was no going past it. When she understood, she whirled to confront him, and he was already so close, her gown swept against his legs.

Rebellion burned brightly in her eyes. Her hair had been tangled by the wind and fell in tumultuous disarray to her waist. Her hands were white-knuckled as they gripped her skirts. She tried to dash by him, but he raised his arm to block her escape, the unintentional threat of Ayas enclosed in his palm. She tried the other side, and he did the same-then he walked forward, pressing her ever backward, gathering her against the rock wall. When she could go no farther, when her body lay up against the stone, he placed a hand on either side of her shoulders, and there they stood, not touching, but close enough for him to feel the shallow, uneven expulsions of her breath and the heat rising off her skin.

Warm, honeyed, female scent. He wanted to fill himself with her.

She did not look at him, but kept her head bowed, her chest rising and falling with the need for more air in her lungs. She had run far. His own breath came hard too, but had naught to do with the run from Deri.

Tonight he was the Horned One, and with the stamina of a hart, he could have chased her for leagues without tiring. Catching her, though-Ahh, that made air hard to draw, and thoughts hard to order, and words impossible to speak.

He lowered his face to the crown of her head and rubbed his cheek across her hair, giving himself a small pleasure to keep from devouring the whole. It wasn't enough. It never could have been. A flame curled to life in his groin, and he let his mouth slide lower, holding her pale, tangled curls away from her face so he could nuzzle her with his lips and tongue. He kissed her downcast lashes and her eyebrows, her scratched cheek and her temple, and heard a small sound catch in her throat. He traced every delicate curve of her ear and warmed her skin with his breath, and he felt her tremble. She was musky sweet, like life, and salty with sweat, so lovely and erotic in her acceptance of his touch. She could have pushed him away with a fingertip-he used no force-but she did not. She stood silent and quivering in his embrace, the Goddess to his Horned One, a willing doe in heat. He smelled the scent upon her, that sensual ripeness known to every rutting stag, and it intoxicated him. He opened his mouth on her neck, tasting, and pressed his phallus against the soft curves of her body, giving in to his most heartfelt desire.

"Jesu," she gasped, and he groaned, letting the heat pour into him. She had wanted, she had asked, and now he was giving.

Reaching up, he buried Ayas in the tree limb arching above them, then brought his hand down to cradle her head in his palm. He kissed her hair and shifted nearer to her, closing his body around hers and relieving her of her pack-the beginning of her deshabille. Unbidden by him, the crystal began to glow, bathing them in soft blue light. 'Twas as close to pure magic as he'd seen by the river, a stone working with no trickster to manipulate it, and he wondered what had called forth the dreamy incandescence, whether 'twas the carnal power of the sex he and Ceri were conjuring, or the aching tenderness he felt for the woman in his arms. There was wonder in both, and even more so for having them together.

Aye, a tender carnality was what he felt, that he could take her with all the crude simplicity of an animaland love her with all his man's heart.

One tug freed him from his loincloth; the Damascene clattered unheeded to the ground. Deft fingers made impatient with need unlaced her gown and kirtle and dis-carded them into a pile on the grass, leaving her in the linen chemise. He bunched that soft cloth into his hands and brought it up around her waist, exposing her skin to the night and the heat of his body.

She grew utterly still beneath his hands, speaking to him in a voice so soft that even though her mouth whispered close to his ear, he could not hear her words through the haze of lust driving him. He held her hips, and her soft, damp curls welcomed his forward thrust, their mere touch more tantalizing than any well-taught flutter of tongue. She was slick and warm, and no doubt sweet.

The vision proved impossible to resist. He bent his head and nuzzled and licked her breasts through their soft linen covering, working his way down to the bareness of her belly, and then lower still. He kissed her deep, his mouth open on her vulva-the hidden secret place between her thighs-exploring every fold and finding her most luscious and sensitive spot to savor with his tongue. Gasping, she pressed herself closer, and excitement surged through him.

Ceridwen fought panic even as she opened for him, her knees weak, his hands and body her sole support. She was hot, so very hot, and frightened, and desperate to have him close. There was madness in his touch, and she had caught it. The pulse of the earth was beating in her veins, rising through the soles of her feet and urging her on to an unknown end. The trees were alive around them, and the stars above them, their silent energy and light rushing through her. If he was god, then she was goddess receiving the cosmos. She had tried to tell him, repeating to him in a whisper the songs being sung in the forest and the sky, but her words had melted into a sigh of unutterable sensual delight as that part of him called "cock"

by the cleric at Usk had slid between her legs, high up against her most private area that not even the cleric had named.

Then his mouth.

Good God, she feared she might die.

But 'twasn't death that overcame her as he plied his tongue ever more quickly, then sucked on her ever so gently. No, 'twasn't death a'tall, but ecstasy-pure and clean and untouched by any thought. The flash of pleasure suspended time, arcing through her like heat lightning before the aftermath rolled through her, rippling like a succession of waves, nurturing places inside herself she had never felt.

She sank to her knees, and he took her in his arms, laying her down in the tall grass and in the same move pushing himself inside her, filling her. The pain was sharp, and quickly over. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek, his mouth, ran her tongue along the curve of his jaw, tasting salt and man. To have him so close was a gift. He was Dain, the mage of Wydehaw, untouchable, and yet he touched her and made her feel whole. Sweet Jesu, no wonder he had longed for this. Groaning, he partially withdrew, and she murmured a soft protest.

By the light of the crystal and the moon, she saw the flicker of his smile. "Shh, Ceri, shh. I can go nowhere other than deeper inside you."

And he did, slowly sliding back into her, then withdrawing and coming on again, filling her with wondrous pleasure. His smile faded as each thrust built in intensity. Silky hair and feathers fell over his shoulders, drifting back and forth across her breasts with his movements. 'Twas so beautiful to watch him, his muscles flexed and straining, to feel the strength and power of his body striving for release. Shecaressed his back from shoulder to buttocks and felt the tremors running through him. She held him and whispered gentle urgings, for now she knew what had put the desperation in his face. The pagan magic of Beltaine was incontestable.

Yet 'twas more than the golden moon causing tension to gather all along his body. His breath quickened, and with the knowing ease of a woman, she shifted beneath him, taking him deeper, holding him tighter.