Star People Legacy by Smith, T.L. (feel good books to read .txt) 📕

I was that Ci’in. I was the Ci’in. I had slept for over a hundred years, but I was awake again.

CHAPTER

25

I had lived so many lives. I had fought so many battles, but I had never vanquished a Maxa’xak. My sister had. I had seen her Spirit released. She had gone with joy, transformed back to pure energy. It was so beautiful, it hurt. The urge to return to my real form burned inside me. I willed my Spirit to Rise, but a weight pulled at me. My mortal body.

A small body, one I had slept within for many of her mortal years. I had slept until I felt the darkness of one possessed by a maturing Maxa’xak. Now I was awake. Now I would lead a battle against the Maxa’xak. The last battle. I could feel the energy of this universe, so close to being returned to balance. I had only to destroy this last obstacle and we could be free.

I had only to go out to find it. I tried to Rise, but a weight held me. A tether pulled me back. A rope attached to my waist. Hanging from that rope, feathers the color of blood. I was Bound?

My fingers ran over the rope and down the feathers, before letting my eyes follow the length. A man knelt at the other end of the rope, clinging to it as I floated above him. I could dislodge him with the flick of a thought, except I didn’t.

I looked down at him, at the scars marking his body. Another memory returned. Her memory as she watched his blood turn the feathers red, whisking away the wounds he suffered, for her. I dropped closer to look at him more closely, with my own consciousness.

He had proven to have a pure Spirit. Born to replace an old Spirit that had reached ascension. It was good that these people were still capable of finding the path. It was good we had fought to save them.

I set my foot down upon the blanket where he knelt. He held firm of the rope, even though I no longer fought to be freed. His eyes stared at me with sheer wonder and a touch of fear. But not fear of me. Fear…

I leaned closer. I could almost touch him, but I didn’t dare. In this state I might hurt him.

Staring into his dark brown eyes I knew his fear. He feared only one thing, losing the woman he’d Bound his soul to.

I’d seen this devotion many times. Love. These humans felt love. We felt love. Love was stronger than fear, stronger than desire, stronger than the pain of exile. I knew him and his love. I knew her love for him. Despite the yearning to go home, I couldn’t deny her the one thing she truly wanted. I could not break her promise. We could not break a Bounding of this mortal love.

“I will not leave you, Casey.”

Those words brought the full weight of the feathers onto me again, drawing me down to kneel before this man. A hand rose to his chest. My mortal’s hand, overlain by the glowing mist that was me. My Spirit. I could feel this mortal’s heart beating harder.

We were one, aware and integrated. I could feel his heart beat wildly against the mortal fingers I pressed to his bare skin. “I will be Bound.”

“It is done!”

I didn’t turn to look upon the priestess. I could see nothing but the face of the man before me. His fear was gone, replaced by an indescribable joy that matched hers. Nothing else existed except this bond between them, between us. I had resisted, but with the merging, I opened myself to all her emotions.

Nothing else existed. Not the stars, not the priestess, not the people who slipped through the shadows, leaving us alone. I slid my hand towards his face. He didn’t pull away from a hand that wasn’t the human he knew. He accepted the form I still held. He let me touch him, his body even trembled slightly as my hand slipped back down his chest, slowly.

I leaned into him again, this time letting my lips brush his, kissing him. I felt his hesitance and remembered he’d been told not to touch me. “The ritual is over, or almost...” I pressed my body against him. His hand grazed my leg, barely. I leaned into the kiss as his lips parted and pressed my leg against his hand.

His fingers slipped under my knee, drawing it around his leg. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders as his other arm slipped around my back. I might still be projecting my Spirit, but this body was fully conscious. The silk-thin leather of my skirt and his loin cloth did nothing to disguise his growing erection.

I tightened my arms and wrapped my other leg around him. He was quick to catch me, holding tight as I pressed against the heat spreading from both of us. “Make us yours. Now.”

Casey’s eyebrows furrowed together slightly and there was another moment of hesitation. “Who am I with? The Ci’in, Din’ah or Beth?”

I took a deep breath, which did nothing to ease the heat building inside this body. “I have always been Din’ah. I am the Ci’in to the Nations and in battle. I am Beth.” I kissed him lightly letting her come through. “I am Beth.”

Casey ran his finger along my cheek, then back into my hair, or what he saw as some semblance of hair. I knew what I looked like without a mirror to reflect the image he embraced. My ethereal overlay embraced the mortal body, making me humanoid, but her features were blurred out by the energy that comprised my Spirit. On this dark rooftop, I was nearly as bright as the moon above us.

But it didn’t matter as I leaned back into his arm and he followed, laying me down onto the blankets. His lips went to my neck