As threatened:
A little delayed, but in case anyone (stateside that is) needs an emetic after overindulging tomorrow:
You may remember we last saw Larkin and Blair involved in a little esoteric masochism, well, now we get the follow-up:
She vaulted onto him. "Let's fly, cowboy."
She'd never get used to it. Even in the rain it was a thrill to feel the wonder of what was beneath her, and rise up and up. Into mists now, drenched with wet, that curtained the land below. It was like flying inside a cloud, she thought, where the sound was muffled and there was nothing but the flight.
She decided she'd never be satisfied with anything as ordinary as an airplane again.
The rain thinned, and as the sun struggled to carve beams through the clouds, she saw the rainbow. It arched, a bleeding blur of delicate colors that seemed to drip through the rain. With a lazy sweep of wings, Larkin turned so that the arch glimmered like a doorway ahead. And the colors deepened, seemed to shine like wet silk. As shafts of sunlight cut through the clouds, the rain and those soft, arching colors turned the sky to wonder.
There was a trumpeting call, a kind of joyful blare. Then the sky was filled with dragons.
She lost her breath, literally felt it whiz out of her lungs as beautiful winged beasts soared beside her, in front of her, behind. In more colors than the rainbow she realized, with their emeralds and rubies and sapphires. She felt Larkin's body ripple as he answered their call, and grinned like a fool when he turned his head and fixed a laughing gold eye on her.
She was flying with a flock of dragons. Herd? Pack? Pod? What did it matter? The wind from their wings over her face and hair, sent her coat billowing as they soared through the rainbow sky. The other dragons circled, looped, somersaulted in playful dances. Anticipating, she gripped the harness, showted for Larkin to "Do it! Do it!"
And screamed with excitement as he dived and rolled. Hanging upside down as he soared belly-up, she could see the mists tear and reveal the sparkling green and deep, deep brown of the land of Geall.
He skimmed the treetops, dipped over the rush of a river, then climbed, climbed, climbed into air that gleamed with the strengthening sun.
They flew on, past rainbows and jeweled wings, until it was only the
two of them and the sky. Overcome, she lowered to him, laid her cheek on his neck. He'd said he owed her a gift, she remembered. He had given her one beyond price.
They flew through sunlight now, and occasional and surprising showers of rain. Below she could see small villages or settlements, the rough roads that joined them, the tangle of streams or narrow rivers, tough little knuckles of forest.
But ahead lay the mountains, dark and mist shrouded and somehow foreboding.(from Dance of the Gods, Nora Roberts, 2006
So much for Serpens, nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco!
Not quite
You may remember we last saw Larkin and Blair involved in a little esoteric masochism, well, now we get the follow-up:
She vaulted onto him. "Let's fly, cowboy."
She'd never get used to it. Even in the rain it was a thrill to feel the wonder of what was beneath her, and rise up and up. Into mists now, drenched with wet, that curtained the land below. It was like flying inside a cloud, she thought, where the sound was muffled and there was nothing but the flight.
She decided she'd never be satisfied with anything as ordinary as an airplane again.
The rain thinned, and as the sun struggled to carve beams through the clouds, she saw the rainbow. It arched, a bleeding blur of delicate colors that seemed to drip through the rain. With a lazy sweep of wings, Larkin turned so that the arch glimmered like a doorway ahead. And the colors deepened, seemed to shine like wet silk. As shafts of sunlight cut through the clouds, the rain and those soft, arching colors turned the sky to wonder.
There was a trumpeting call, a kind of joyful blare. Then the sky was filled with dragons.
She lost her breath, literally felt it whiz out of her lungs as beautiful winged beasts soared beside her, in front of her, behind. In more colors than the rainbow she realized, with their emeralds and rubies and sapphires. She felt Larkin's body ripple as he answered their call, and grinned like a fool when he turned his head and fixed a laughing gold eye on her.
She was flying with a flock of dragons. Herd? Pack? Pod? What did it matter? The wind from their wings over her face and hair, sent her coat billowing as they soared through the rainbow sky. The other dragons circled, looped, somersaulted in playful dances. Anticipating, she gripped the harness, showted for Larkin to "Do it! Do it!"
And screamed with excitement as he dived and rolled. Hanging upside down as he soared belly-up, she could see the mists tear and reveal the sparkling green and deep, deep brown of the land of Geall.
He skimmed the treetops, dipped over the rush of a river, then climbed, climbed, climbed into air that gleamed with the strengthening sun.
They flew on, past rainbows and jeweled wings, until it was only the
two of them and the sky. Overcome, she lowered to him, laid her cheek on his neck. He'd said he owed her a gift, she remembered. He had given her one beyond price.
They flew through sunlight now, and occasional and surprising showers of rain. Below she could see small villages or settlements, the rough roads that joined them, the tangle of streams or narrow rivers, tough little knuckles of forest.
But ahead lay the mountains, dark and mist shrouded and somehow foreboding.(from Dance of the Gods, Nora Roberts, 2006
So much for Serpens, nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco!
Not quite