Lost Hearts

Excerpt

Desire rushed in her blood, making it pulse with life. Molten lava burned her stomach, making each breath a small gasp of excruciating want. A rush of untried sensations swirled through her brain, drowning her in drunken lust. Panting, she cried out a final release which he answered with his own whisper, just her name breathed into her hair and filled with heartbreaking devotion. She shattered.

Laurel sat up in her bed with a start! He had returned to her. Broken joy blended with sick terror deep in her soul. Shivering and alone, she wept. Replaying the last fragments of the dream in her head she let the tears wash away the fog of sleep.

For the past six months she had slept peacefully without the dreams.

Not now, she silently begged the heavens. With the ceremony forever bonding her to another man only days away she could not bear to have him return to her mind. She was in love with a dream. How was it even possible to love the creation of her fertile imagination? He who arose from her pent-up frustration, materializing into the perfect dream lover. He, the nameless one, had come to her since the day she turned seventeen. How a sheltered virgin created those dreams spoke of the influence of the many passionate encounters she espied during festival nights at court. Awaking each morning to the sad realization that even if he felt real, he was not, had driven her to read everything ever written about dreams and the dreaming mind. He might not truly exist but he left his mark on her. Laurel felt genuine longing for him and it never failed to make her cry.

On her nineteenth birthday her father announced she was to marry his dearest friend and ally's son, Lord Evanston. Laurel awakened the morning after her betrothal with a sense of deep loss and the feeling of abandonment in her hour of greatest need. Her dream lover was no longer.

Dear Lord Evanston was the great playmate and conspirator of her youth but her feelings for him would never be any more intense than deep friendship. Even if she was to go to him physically untouched and innocent her heart belonged to a wispy spirit, created by her own mind, who gave her passion-filled nights. Her body tingled with the burning touch of his hands and the exquisite joy of his hard cock as if he had form to touch her, as if he possessed substance to make love to her.

Her love had no name but Laurel felt his brand on every inch of her skin. His body, perfect in every imagined way, appeared built by a life of physical labor. A bit too long, his dark hair fell just so into his eyes, exotic eyes of the summer sky mixed with the turbulence of the coming storm that darkened erotically as they drowned in the depths of passion. His sun-kissed skin was smooth over his broad shoulders and the prickly little hairs that covered his chest always felt like sand on silk when her hand passed over them. His vibrant, pure strength and male grace was amazing and he had a boyishly sexy playfulness that gave his face an ageless handsomeness. His lips were a firm demand against hers and every dream ended with them whispering her name as a broken plea, a prayer of desperate devotion confirming the communion of their souls.

Still shivering, even with the summer heat rolling over her, she got out of bed and pulled on her silk robe of robin's egg blue. It was the last gift her mother had given her before her death. As quietly as the lost sprits of the night she left her room and gracefully wandered out into the castle garden. The twin moons were at full radiance tonight and lit her path better than a lantern.

Both Moons reaching full moon in concert happened once every sixty years and it was considered a night for good fortune and festivities. Laurel was the heir to the noble title and as such she was kept extremely sheltered. Unlike the other girls her age she would not have the freedom to choose a village boy to discover the pleasures of her body with. She could hear the rivalry at the bonfires, and as she passed various dark nooks of the garden she could hear soft sighs of love. It made her edgy and sad to hear evidence of the freedom others enjoyed. It made her heart yearn even more for her mysterious dream lover who treated her like a woman, not a princess.

Her father was a great storyteller and spun fantastic tales about other worlds, some with many more moons and one with only a single moon. He told her about strange customs, clothing, and food, all the things he sampled while in the service of his country's military.

As the youngest son it was never expected for him to inherit the title, but while he was away an electrical windstorm engulfed the village and castle, taking with it every person he loved. Her father came home to a title, but it was an empty consolation. For many years he lived in the workers cottages, draining the family's fortune to repair the village and helping his people rebuild with his own hands. He even married a girl of the peasant class whom he loved with a passion not even her death dare end. These things made him a ruler his people adored and gained much respect among the ruling class. He eventually became known as the Counselor King, and their ill-fated lands were prosperous once more. Laurel often visited the sick, and spent hours in service to their gods, yet she knew she would never live up to her father's legacy. As the daughter of the king she strove always to be good and giving, as was her duty. So why did she feel like such a fraud?

Laurel longed to explore, as her father had in his youth, but she knew she would never leave Etropica as her first responsibility was to her people, not her heart. Her mixed blood, noble and common, exposed her to only a small amount of discrimination as her father was beloved by so many. A few of the older noble lines would never consider her for their sons, even with her wealth and her title, as she was considered to be tainted with common blood but old Lord Ambrose welcomed her as his future daughter. Ambrose and her father had been friends since boyhood and often talked of uniting their children. Laurel knew her father held off the betrothal out of deference to her hopes she would mate out of love, but each year she did not declare a preference for a suitor was one more year she was inappropriately unwed. Only the ruling class held such a high standard of monogamy, to insure the purity of the bloodline for inheritance and power. Most girls her age were mothers and many wives. Fertility was a sacred duty; a woman bringing children with her to a marriage was a blessing and a pregnant bride was good luck to the groom and his family. Most women were ripe with child at the gift binding ceremony making them a wife. Laurel thought of her gift binding, and instead of looking forward to it with joy and hope she saw it as the tragic end of her hope to find the man who matched her dream in the flesh. She looked for him in each of her suitors, but every one left her cold and disappointed.

Filled with such melancholy thoughts she returned to her bed and dreamed of him no more that night.

Gift binding was a sacred event, it was for life and there was no divorce. The priestess and the Counselor King blessed no changing of one's mind after the ceremony. With youth came the freedom to be with many lovers and explore sexuality, the blending of two people by the Nature Mother left no opportunity for those who decided to bind to change their minds. Once bound, the souls of the pair converged and a telempathic link formed, never to be divided. A bound pair could feel the emotions and needs of their partner.

Laurel heard many a whisper about the way this bond enhanced physical intimacy, and there were men who swore they felt every labor pain their Bonded suffered. Laurel even knew a woman who died right at court the very moment her husband died from a weak heart a league away. If one did not have regular and satisfying relations with one's bonded mate then the telempathy dulled. Most of the pairs at court were arranged bonds, and as such had little connection. She'd even heard talk of a man who brought other women to his bed and his bonded wife had no idea, as their bond was so weak.

She knew Evanston would not push the strengthening of their bond on her, and in her heart was sure he would even be relieved if it never grew to be more than it was on the first night it formed. She still felt nervous he would know her secret, her love for another, as soon as they bonded. Laurel was too embarrassed to tell him, yet she felt she should. Evanston was kind and sweet but she suspected he would not be forgiving if she bonded to him with such a secret between them. There had long been whispers that he preferred male company, but Laurel knew he must carry on the line for his father's sake and so did not dispute the betrothal. Evanston was as trapped by their upcoming gift binding as she was herself, and it made her want to weep for his sake as much as her own. As her oldest and best friend she cherished him dearly, and if she could not have love at least she knew there would always be friendship in her bonding.