Night of Fire by Vonna Harper Read Free Book Online Page A

between her legs, that wasn’t wise, but it
would be worth the discomfort. They would mate again as soon as they’d returned
to her time, she reassured herself. The thought of mating on a down and feather
covering prompted her to slide her hand down his hip.
    “What?” Taurus caught her hand. “Don’t tell me you’re getting
raunchy all over again. You’re going to be the death of me.”
    “No. You will not die. You must not!”
    “Calm down, will you. It’s just a figure of speech. I swear,
you are the most confusing—”
    Much as she loved the sound of his voice, particularly the way
it seemed as if she could feel it in her spine, there wasn’t time to talk.
Grabbing his wrist again, she plunged ahead.
    The arch fire had been constructed out of tree branches and
limbs fastened to a frame nearly twice as tall as Taurus. Although she knew
what they had to do, the sight of all those dancers and other performers
stopped her.
    “I do not understand,” she said. “The women in white, men
who have painted themselves the color of fire or summer grasses. Why do they do
those things?”
    “I’m not the one to ask. My friend explained some stuff
about the festival, but all I can give you is the short course. It’s all
supposed to symbolize the seasons, concentrating on spring of course.”
    “The fire arch. Have the color-people already gone through
it?”
    “I think so. According to Paul, that’s the first thing they
do. Then the May Queen—she’s the one wearing all those colors—makes a circuit
of the hill with her companions. From what I understand, they visit sites that
represent air, earth, water and fire. They must have already done that
because—yeah, see those Red Men?”
    The Red Men were running around the Rainbow Woman and the
others with her. At first Maia was afraid the Red Men would attack and kill
someone, but no one acted afraid, and no one had pulled out a weapon. Instead,
everyone ran here and there, yelling, laughing. So many colors and bodies were
in motion that she was getting dizzy watching them. None of it made sense.
    “Do you want to try to get closer?” Taurus asked. “I take it
you haven’t seen this before. Neither have I so if that’s what you want to do
before we— Well, you don’t need me to spell that out, do you?”
    His hip grinding into hers left no doubt of what he had in
mind, and if this was any other time, she’d take hold of his seed-maker and
find a way to put it inside her again.
    But this was tonight. Her mission had to be completed before
morning.
    Turning her back on the barbaric spectacle, she propelled
Taurus toward the burning arch. A few people stood within a few feet of it, but
everyone’s attention was on the heathen dancers who knew nothing of the magic
of Bel-fire. She felt the heat on her face, breasts, arms. The flames were so
intense that she couldn’t keep her gaze on it, and the way it crackled and
snapped gave her pause. Just the same, she didn’t stop walking.
    “What are you doing?” Taurus demanded when they were only a
few steps from it. “What if it collapses?”
    He was right. All the wood was ablaze and much of it had
already been destroyed. From what she could tell, the branches had been
fastened in place with rope and when that burned through—
    “We must hurry.”
    “Wait a minute.” Taurus grabbed her around the waist and
pulled her against him. His seed-maker poked her backside. “I’ve gone along
with everything you’ve wanted so far, but I don’t have a death wish.”
    Neither did she, she wanted her people to live and flourish
and celebrate as they had since the beginning of time.
    “We must run through it.”
    “No, we don’t! This is crazy.”
    “Taurus, please! I will not let anything happen to you, I promise.”
    “That’s not a promise you can keep, so don’t throw that at
me. Look, lady, sometimes you flat-out scare me.”
    How could that possibly be? He weighed nearly twice what she
did, and she’d