Across thousands of years, the power of love and an ancient goddess light a fire of hope even in the darkest seasons. Three women, three eras, and three loves to save the world.
In the Bronze Age, a meeting of two pagans, a maiden and a mystic, plants the seed.
In the time of Charlemagne, the wisdom and erotic power of a maternal village priestess meet the challenge of a Holy Roman soldier.
In the future, beneath a smoke-blackened sky, a modern wise-woman holds the key to the survival of the world.
Maiden mother, and crone, Standing Stone celebrates the power of female love to transform reality.
Feli growled beneath the stranger as she fought to free herself. Her stomach trembled at the sound vibrating from her chest as the memory of her mother’s throaty menace mixed with the strange churning of fear and determination that fueled her struggles. Her mother’s growl had been one of chastisement when Feli snatched meat from her father’s beard, and…
And…
By the fire, under a low, swollen moon, her mother and her father tied to each other, arms and legs, hair and teeth. She’d heard that growl then, too, from her mother, low, a trill of throat that intrigued Feli as flesh smacked sweaty flesh in rising rhythm, nails clawed, tumbling and wrestling until her father shouted a cry to the skies before their paired movement stilled.
Her mother fed the earth now, but the offering of her life did not stop the merciless sun or the early snow, and only that rumbling from her throat was given to Feli. The sun stole the water, turned the grass hills to dust and then the snow fell, thick and white and cruel. The dry seasons took her people one by one. Babes cried and thin men fought until blood stained the rocks and turned the dust to black mud.
She stilled, willing her heart to calm, binding her breath like she might a wayward lamb. The man on top of her pulled her hands together over her head and Feli did not resist. She looked beyond him to the sky, to the stars that decorated the night, looked to the crescent and received ivory strength in the fresh streams of light that reached her beneath the edge of the massive oak’s limbs. Sharp enough to cut, hard enough to stand, soft enough to shape, smooth enough to comfort, warm enough to desire.
Was that not her?
His free hand gripped the doeskin and yanked it over her hips, exposing her thighs and belly to the night. The hard length of his cock fell heavy and hot on her stomach. Shadows hid his expression, but his rough hands raked over her hip, testing the flesh there, the strength. She shifted her leg away from his hand, easing his bare body between her thighs. Feli’s stomach tightened and the pulse between her legs thudded like hooves. She slicked.
Feli had not lain with a man, but she knew the way of it, knew she was ready.
His hand slid under the front of the doeskin, forcing it uncomfortably up, over her breasts, the gathered hide bunching at the base of her shoulders, the scratch of stones and dirt in the folds of the garment scraping her back.
He squeezed her small breasts, snorting as if disappointed, even as he lowered his mouth over one pebbled nipple and pulled it between his teeth.
Feli smiled as sensation shot through her, along with understanding.
She lifted herself as much as she could and put her lips to his hair. Against the coarse strands she murmured the words, slow and careful so he would hear them.
“I am yours.”
His teeth released her nipple, the hair of his rough beard teasing. He lifted his head and looked at her.
Feli breathed over his face, her pulse pounding in the skin of the nipple he had pulled. She leaned upward, toward the stranger, straining against his weight, her shoulders aching as she tried to free her wrists. The quickening within her belly rippled like a brook in a green field.
Her lips met his strong chin and kissed the burn of rough whiskers that covered it. She smiled and parted her lips, bared her teeth, and nipped through his beard to the flesh beneath. His muscles jumped as if she’d struck him and she gave her own light snort. His hand loosened on her wrists. She stole the moment and pressed her lips to his cheek, nipped again, her teeth finding smooth skin, tongue touching before the bite.
He released her as though she were fire.
Feli giggled. The stranger pulled away, falling on his butt, scrambling back as though she were a viper.
He fell against the tall stone and there he waited, his breath ragged, his eyes reflecting the moon.
Feli nimbly righted herself and squatted.
She watched him. She knew him. He was the sun.
And she, like her mother beyond the circle of the fires, outcast from the arms of the tribe.
She was the moon.
