Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,27
warmth and beauty, of flowers and sunlight, bright green mosses and the thick green grasses.
It stood on a little rise. Through a break in the trees they could see Delae’s homestead in the near distance, framed by the hills around it.
Here in this little glade, though, the sun was warm and there was no one but themselves.
He felt an odd sense of familiarity with this place. For a moment, Dorovan went still. He’d seen this place before…then he smiled as it came to him.
“The tapestry?”
She nodded. “I know you’ve worried about my people seeing you come here or someone spotting you by chance. But we can meet here safely and I can still watch over my people.”
It had been a concern, a risk he was willing to take to see her but it was better without it. With a laugh Dorovan caught her up in his arms, wrapping them around her hips to lift her into the air with a smile.
Here he didn’t have to worry about betraying himself or his people and they could share their pleasure in each other freely. In the wintertime, closed in by the snows, there was less concern…
Although he could only stay a short while, it was enough.
The sudden sense of pain was shocking, surprising and yet oddly not alarming. What Dorovan sensed through their friend-of-the-heart bond from Delae was joy. It was puzzling and a shock to realize it had been six months or more as men measured such things since he’d seen her last. Summer waned and fall was nearly upon them. It was so easy to forget how brief their time together might be when you lived so long, especially when she was so much a part of his heart, so he knew her joys and sorrows, as now.
Suddenly the need to see her was sharp, intense. He missed her deeply.
It might not be a soul-bond but it still brought them both much joy.
Charis waited, his ears pricked, eager to be on their way, not just racing around the vale with the other horses. Like Dorovan himself, the horse had a restless soul.
Dorovan could sense Delae long before he saw her as he and Charis picked their way through the trees of the forest, already anticipating the time to be spent with her.
The last time they’d talked of many things, eaten what Delae had brought in the picnic basket, made love on the sweet grass and simply basked with each other in the sunlight. It had eased the longing and the loneliness for them both.
He stepped into the glade to find her sitting there, her glorious hair tumbling around her shoulders, so brilliant in the sunlight.
There was something different about her, a glow, and then he stepped closer.
For a moment his heart both lifted and stopped, looking at what she held in her arms. A part of him longed for what he saw even as another part feared.
Clearly, seeing the look in her eyes, he wasn’t alone in that.
Delae looked up at Dorovan and her own heart caught to see him.
“Her name is Selah,” she said, softly.
Amazed, Dorovan reached out to touch the baby’s soft cheek, the downy hair. She was beautiful, perfect, with her pretty little pursed mouth.
There was no sign of Elven ears.
Her eyes uncertain, unsure, Delae said, in answer to the question he couldn’t ask, “I don’t know.”
As much as she wished the baby to have been Dorovan’s, there had been Kort that one night…and Elves weren’t a fertile race. It was unlikely.
Dorovan looked at the wonder that was the child. Among his people any child was a gift and a joy.
“It doesn’t matter, Delae. For us or for her. My people have so few children we would welcome another if she proves to be of my race.”
Some would be concerned but if Selah were Elven she would be taken into Talaena when she was old enough. It might be awkward but he was Elf, it was the way of his people.
“Mine or not,” Dorovan said, “she is yours and for that alone I love her.”
Something inside Delae eased and she closed her eyes with relief.
Touching her cheek, Dorovan said, “Will you never learn? You are loved, Delae. And she is, too. Can I hold her?”
She smiled. “Of course.”
With the wide-eyed wonder of all babies, Selah looked up at him, her arms and legs kicking as he held her.
Children were such a joy to his folk - so rare, so precious.