"A wedding," I breathed. "I am watching a wedding and I feel like I should be arrested."
"Silence," Eira hissed. "Look at the energy."
The Elder gestured to the stone slab. The couple moved toward it. They climbed onto the furs. This wasn't just a union of spirits. This was a witnessing. A confirmation. In this world marriage clearly wasn't valid until it was proven in front of the tribe.
The bride lay back on the furs. She spread her legs. The angle from my ridge was clear. It was too clear. I felt the heat rising in my neck. It was primal and raw and completely alien to the sterile and private world I came from.
The groom knelt between her legs. He didn't rush. He placed his hands on her knees. He stroked the inside of her thighs with his thumbs. His head was bowed as if in prayer.
"He is asking permission," Eira narrated softly. "Not from her mind but from her body. He is syncing his pulse to hers."
He leaned forward. His silver hair curtained them both as he kissed her. He did not kiss her mouth. He kissed her stomach. His lips traced the line of her navel down to her groin. The bride arched her back. Her hands tangled in his hair. A low and melodic cry escaped her lips and echoed in the amphitheater.
I watched his head move lower. He was tasting her. Her hips bucked off the furs. Her thighs fell wider apart. He was worshipping her. His tongue worked with a rhythmic precision that made her keen. I could see the flush rising on her copper skin. It turned her chest a rosy hue.
"See the glow?" Eira asked.
I squinted. She was right. There was a faint luminescence rising from their skin. It was like they were radioactive with desire.
After a long moment he pulled back. He rose to his knees again. He positioned himself. The head of his cock pressed against her slick entrance. She reached down. Her slender fingers wrapped around his shaft to guide him.
With a single and fluid thrust he pushed inside her.
The crowd let out a collective breath. A soft "Hah" sound rippled through the trees. The groom froze for a second. His jaw was clenched. Veins stood out on his neck as he buried himself to the hilt. The bride gasped. Her eyes flew wide. Her legs wrapped around his waist to pull him deeper.
Then the rhythm began.
It was slow at first. It was deliberate. The slap of skin against skin was audible even from where I hid. He withdrew almost completely leaving just the tip inside before driving back in with a powerful roll of his hips. I could see the muscles in his back rippling. The cords of his thighs strained as he leveraged his weight. She met him thrust for thrust. Her nails dug into his shoulders. Her head was thrown back exposing the long line of her throat.
"Sky-bond," I thought. "Twisting paths together."
This was the physical manifestation of it. The witnesses stepped closer. Three Elders stood right at the edge of the stone slab. They looked down. Their faces were solemn. They were checking the connection. They were watching the way their bodies joined. It was clinical and erotic all at once.
The groom's pace increased. The wet and slapping sounds grew louder and faster. He was pounding into her now. He was animalistic and fierce. Her cries became a continuous high-pitched vocalization. It was a song of pleasure that rose toward the canopy.
And then it happened.
The bride turned her head. Her eyes were glazed with ecstasy but they were searching. She looked past the Elders. She looked past the crowd. Her gaze drifted up the ridge.
She saw me.
I froze. I expected her to scream. I expected her to point and alert the guards.
She didn't.
Her eyes locked onto mine. They were dark and endless pools of ancient knowledge. A slow smile spread across her face. It was a wicked smile. It was the smile of a predator who had found a new plaything.
She didn't break contact. Instead she reached up and grabbed her husband's hair. She pulled his head back so his throat was bared. She arched her back impossibly high. She ground herself against him with a renewed and frantic energy.
"She sees you," Eira whispered. Her voice was tight. "She sees you watching."
The bride began to perform. She wasn't just consummating a marriage anymore. She was putting on a show for the stranger in the shadows. She moaned louder. She threw her legs wider. She locked eyes with me and bit her lip as her husband drove into her with bone-jarring force.
I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through my groin. It was undeniable. The sheer brazenness of it was overwhelming. Here she was in the middle of a sacred ritual and she was sharing the moment with me.
"You have a terrible effect on women," Eira muttered. I could hear a trace of jealousy in her tone. Or maybe it was possessiveness. "Even happily married ones."
The bride's gaze was hypnotic. She wanted me to see everything. She wanted me to know exactly what she was feeling. Her husband had no idea. He was lost in the sensation. He grabbed her hips. His fingers dug into her flesh. He lifted her pelvis to change the angle. He drove harder and deeper.
The bride's expression shifted from performance to pure ecstasy. Her eyes rolled back for a second before snapping back to mine. She opened her mouth in a silent scream. Sweat glistened on their bodies making them shine like gold in the gloom.
The energy in the amphitheater spiked. The onlookers began to chant. It was a low and rhythmic thrumming that matched the pace of the lovers on the stone. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The groom leaned down. He captured her mouth in a savage kiss. Their tongues mated as furiously as their bodies. I saw her legs tighten around him. Her heels dug into his buttocks urging him on.
He was close. His thrusts became short and jagged and desperate. He pulled out and slammed back in over and over. His grunts of effort merged with her cries.
Suddenly the bride stiffened. Her back arched off the furs so violently only her shoulders and heels touched the stone. Her scream shattered the chanting. It was loud. It was over the top. It shook the leaves on the trees. I watched her inner muscles clamp down on him. Her body convulsed in a visible wave of orgasm.
That triggered him. He threw his head back. His face contorted in a mask of pleasure and pain. He drove one final and burying thrust into her. He held it there. He was shaking. His hips ground against hers as he poured himself into her.
The Elders nodded. One of them raised a hand. The crowd erupted. It was not in cheers but in a chaotic and joyous noise of drums and shouting.
The groom collapsed on top of her. He buried his face in her neck. They lay there tangled and heaving. Their skin was slick with sweat and sex. Their tribe celebrated the consummation around them.
But the bride was not done. From beneath the heavy weight of her husband she turned her head one last time. She found me in the shadows. She winked.
Then she whispered something to her husband.
The groom went rigid.
He lifted his head. He didn't look at her. He looked where she was looking. He looked at the ridge.
He saw me.
The joyous expression on his face vanished. It was replaced by a mask of pure unadulterated rage. He pointed a trembling finger at the ridge.
"Outsider!" he roared. His voice was like a thunderclap. "Watcher!"
The drums stopped instantly. Every head in the amphitheater turned. A hundred pairs of eyes locked onto the ridge.
"Run," Eira said.
She didn't wait for me. She scrambled backward and slid down the far side of the ridge away from the amphitheater. I scrambled after her. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Behind us the joyous celebration turned into a hunting party in the span of a single heartbeat. I heard the shout of orders. I heard the twang of bowstrings being tested. I heard the heavy thud of feet hitting the earth.
"Go! Go!" Eira shouted. She abandoned stealth. She broke into a sprint.
We tore through the forest. The damp moss that had been so soft before was now a treacherous sludge that tried to suck the boots off my feet. I pumped my arms and forced my legs to move faster than they had ever moved in my life.
An arrow hissed past my ear. It struck the black bark of a tree next to me with a sickening thud. The shaft was still vibrating. It was fletched with black feathers.
"They're shooting at us!" I yelled.
"They take the sanctity of the ritual very seriously!" Eira yelled back. "Keep moving!"
We dove under a massive root system. We scrambled over a fallen log that was covered in slime. The sounds of pursuit were getting closer. These elves knew the forest. They moved through it like water. We were stumbling through it like rocks.
"Left!" Eira commanded.
She banked hard to the left toward a dense thicket of thorns. I didn't question her. I followed. The thorns tore at my jacket and scratched my face but we pushed through. The thicket opened up into a ravine.
"Jump!"
We launched ourselves into the air. For a second I was weightless. Then I hit the mud on the other side. I rolled. I came up running.
The sound of the Hunters was right behind us. I could hear their breathing. I could hear the whistle of their weapons.
"The Gate!" I gasped. "How far?"
"Close!" Eira said. "But we have to cross the clearing!"
Ahead of us the trees thinned out. There was a clearing of grey stone. In the center of it the air shimmered with the heat haze of the Slipgate. It looked like a mirage.
We burst into the clearing. We were exposed.
"Drop!" Eira screamed.
I hit the deck. A spear sailed over my head. It sparked against the stone where I had been standing a second before.
I scrambled on all fours. Eira was already at the shimmering distortion. She grabbed my collar and hauled me up.
"Together!" she yelled.
We threw ourselves at the distortion.
The world turned inside out again. The smell of pine and ozone vanished. The pressure slammed back into my ears.
We hit the floor of the diner hard. I slid across the linoleum and crashed into the legs of a barstool. Eira landed in a crouch beside me. She spun around and slammed the heavy brass door of the Slipgate shut. She threw the bolt. Then she leaned her back against it and slid down until she was sitting on the floor.
She was breathing hard. Her chest heaved. Her hair was a mess of leaves and twigs.
I lay on my back staring at the ceiling fan. It was spinning lazily. The jukebox was playing a soft ballad. The smell of lemon cleaner was back.
"We made it," I wheezed. My lungs burned.
Eira looked at me. Her eyes were bright with adrenaline. A slow smile spread across her face.
"That," she said between breaths, "was educational."
I sat up and rubbed the bruise on my shoulder where I had hit the stool. "Educational? We almost died. That guy wanted to mount my head on his wall."
"He was protecting his bond," Eira said. she stood up and offered me a hand. "But you saw it. You saw the energy. You saw the commitment."
"I saw a lot of things," I said taking her hand. "Including a bride who needs to focus more on her husband."
Eira pulled me up. She dusted off my jacket. Her hands lingered on my lapels for a second.
"She sensed your potential," Eira said quietly. "You have a strong resonance Marcus. Stronger than you know. That is why Pearl wants you. That is why the bride looked at you."
She stepped closer. Her emerald eyes searched mine.
"And that is why we need to find a sponsor," she said. "We need an Elder to witness us. Without a witness the bond is just sex. With a witness it is permanent."
"Great," I said. "So we just need to go back into the forest of death and find an Elder who won't shoot us on sight?"
"Precisely," Eira said. She turned and walked toward the coffee pot. "But first coffee. Then we plan."
I watched her walk away. I thought about the bride. I thought about the raw power I had seen in that amphitheater. And for the first time since this whole crazy mess started I wondered what it would be like to have that kind of connection with Eira. To be bound in a way that defied physics.
I shook my head. One problem at a time.
"Make it a double," I said. "I have a feeling I'm going to need it."