Free Heart of the Forest (Arwn's Gift Book 1) by Christina Quinn

wildly around him as my consciousness grew spotty. He sucked in air sharply through his teeth as he began once more to coat my sex with his viscous elven seed. I blacked out mid-orgasm. All I remembered was the crack of thunder over us, a blinding flash of lightning, and then nothing.
    * * * *
    Shivering, I woke to the sounds of footsteps splashing in the mud. Blinking against the light, I felt rain continuing to pelt my body. Squinting, I made out the form of an elf standing over me. Groggily, I sat up and looked around…and then panicked. Aneurin lay asleep beside me, with one leg possessively curled on top of mine. We were both coated in the almost black mud, but that wasn’t what caused my heart to beat like it was going to explode. The garden had bloomed overnight. Full-grown plants with the greenest leaves I had ever seen stood in rows where I knew the meager crops had failed. Well, they are certainly going to burn me now.
    “Aneurin!” The elf yelled his name, his voice echoing off over the rolling hillside. With a growl, Aneurin sat up and gasped as he looked around.
    “Fuck,” he cursed as he quickly stood, almost tripping over a lettuce plant that I knew had died a week ago. He did a double take as he looked at me, and before I could say anything he gathered me into his arms. He took me inside and set me down in front of the hearth. The elves started yelling at one another. The other four were dressed and dry and clearly pissed at Aneurin. I couldn’t help but smile as Aneurin stood with his arms crossed, naked, covered in mud, and unashamed, as he argued with his friends in their tongue. The word “Dy’ne” was thrown around, and I knew enough to know it was derogatory, and something made me think they were referring to me when they said it.
    Once I was warm enough to move, I stood, and the conversation paused as I stretched. I could feel their stares trailing me as I poured water into a clean kettle and set it on the fire. Maybe I should have felt self-conscious about being naked around four strangers—five if you counted the whore who was passed out on one of the cots—but I didn’t care. The only thing I was focused on was getting warm and washing the mud off myself.
    The moment I left the room with my bucket of warm water, the arguing commenced again. And they were still arguing when I returned, free of mud and in a nice dry lavender dress that matched my eyes. Letting them argue, I put on a kettle, took out a small linen pouch of fisher’s root tea, and tossed it into the water.
    “Is anyone going to tell me why I now have a garden in full bloom when yesterday everything was dead? Or are you all going to argue about Aneurin fucking me?” I asked, my voice silencing the room. They turned and looked at me once more.
    “Have you heard that old story about…” Aneurin sighed and stopped, looking around. “I’m a Swynwr .”
    “A swinor?”
    “Swynwr. It’s a mage supposedly naturally gifted by the gods. The ways of the Swynwr are long dead. I can’t do anything with my power, and no one can teach me how to use it. Essentially, I’m a remnant of elven society before we fell. Before, I would have been a druid; now I’m a bandit. And some, like Islwyn, still consider me and my person sacred. Others think I should be put down like a rabid animal.”
    “Call me crazy for refusing to let our culture die,” Islwyn grumbled narrowing his crystalline irises at Aneurin. They shared a long look for a handful of moments and then Aneurin turned his attention back to me. “He’s also not telling you all of it. A Swynwr is born to be our king, not a tribe’s mhenaduriaid , but the one king to all of us.”
    “If you are raised in the old ways—which I wasn’t. I was raised godless and quite happy for it,” Aneurin groused as he left the room.
    As I opened my mouth to say something I was silenced by pounding at the door. I gestured for everyone to go into my private rooms, and they all filed