Wild Magic Four: The Light Beyond Constellations- a M/M fantasy romance

After Epilogue: Faith

The Guardian watched the two men with something like confusion in his pale blue eyes. His huge form invisible to them as they lay in each other's arms, their breaths synced, their bodies sated from their lovemaking— if only for the moment. The pearl contraption on the back of the young human kept the Guardian from seeing too much of the knot, or the young man's ass, but he kept his eyes on their hands and faces anyways. The way they watched each other, the way they met to kiss every few minutes, in between breaths of rest, had the Guardian's chest tightening with desire. Want. Need.

Not for either of the men. No, he had never felt that for men. Nor for women, really. Not for anything physical. At least, he didn't think so. He had given up on a mate a millennia before, and without that bond he didn't understand the need for sex or even physical pleasure. He had assumed a long time before, despite his mother's protests, that a mate wasn't in his fate. That one hadn't been made for him.

"They will come when it is time, my sweet Marlin," she would say, and he would wait. Forever, he would wait, if only to feel even a glimmer of what the bear shifter and his mate obviously felt, if the way they held each other was any indication.

"You know, mortals tend to frown on others watching them during, or even post, coitus. Whether the voyeur is divine or not, I don't think it really matters."

The Guardian looked up and met the eyes of his mother— the eyes of the Goddess of Beasts, Ravin.

Her dark eyes sparked with amusement and affection as she glanced at the two men, laughing together quietly, their hands rubbing up and down each other's arms, necks, backs, the bear shifter grabbing his mate's pearl-clad ass every few moments, to the absolute delight of his younger mate.

"I didn't..." Marlin began, rolling his eyes as his skin heated with an embarrassed blush. "I didn't watch them. I came in... after."

"I mean, I wouldn't judge you," the goddess replied with a shrug and a wink. "The boy can fill out a skirt, can't he? And did you see that line of kohl? I want to ask him how he got them so perfectly even. He's a treasure."

"I still don't see their significance," the Guardian murmured with a frown, watching as the two men began to rock against each other. The bear's knot was still swollen, but it seemed to matter not at all to either of them as their moans and gasps began to fill the space of the small suite of rooms.

"They are... They are small, compared to the others you're keeping an eye on. The others you are using to free... him. Why them?"

"The greatest heroes in history didn't become legends alone, dear Marlin," she replied with a small smirk and an uplifted brow as the men's cries began to rise and Marlin's cheeks darkened with each noise. "They received help— from friends, from family, from lovers. Those two men will see a time of great change and movement. They may only be the protectors for the legends, but they are just as vital because they will save the lives of my chosen leaders countless times. And the ripples of their relationship will reach him, and in a way I can't explain yet, they will be instrumental in freeing him."

"And the spirit witch?" Marlin asked, holding his hand out to Ravin, pulling her away from the men, out the door, still completely unnoticed by the two men. He led her through the halls of Swyer, then in one step they were in another place, another country, another continent. They watched, unseen by the mortals they viewed, as a young woman, a teenager, still a child, really, laughed boisterously as she leapt into the arms of a man not much larger than she. She wrapped her legs around his waist and tears filled her eyes as she clutched the tunic at his back in her fists and breathed him in.

"Mem, my dear sister, I'm so glad you're here," the man murmured, holding her just as tightly, his own face pressed up against her neck as if he could breathe her in as well.