Paladin's Prize

by Gaelen Foley

  “Because I’m a healer?”

  “No. Not for your powers.” He let out a breathy laugh, sounding almost nervous. “I like…being around you. You make me feel more…comfortable than women usually do. You’re beautiful and kind and warm and brave. You care about others, and I think we’re very compatible. I’m sorry if this shocks you or if it’s too fast, but in my mode of life, hesitation isn’t usually wise. I prefer to find my target, follow my instincts, and take action. Experience has taught me you don’t always get a second chance.”

  “Is that what I am? A target?” she asked, arching a brow.

  “Of a sort, yes.” He smiled, holding her gaze. “I think you and I would suit each other very well. That’s why I said I would come back for you. I had already made up my mind on it last night.”

  Her eyes widened. “You did?”

  He nodded. “I planned to bring a ring. It was supposed to be a surprise, but since our plans have obviously changed… Well, do you really think I’d let a woman like you get away?”

  She stared at him in amazement. She had never been on the receiving end of such words from a man before.

  He held her gaze and seemed to hold his breath. “There’s also the fact that I sort of fell in love with you last night.”

  “You did?” she breathed, tongue-tied.

  He looked deeply into her eyes. “You know full well I did,” he whispered. “And I think you fell at least a little in love with me, too.”

  Wrynne couldn’t speak to confirm or deny. She held his stare, incredulous with pulse-pounding joy.

  But slowly, her heart sank as she remembered there was a logical explanation for what they were feeling. The very reason she had said no from the start.

  She longed to just say, Yes, of course, I’ll marry you. What woman in her right mind would give any other answer?

  But she had to tell him. The man deserved to know.

  She lowered her head. “Thaydor, there’s something else you need to know about the Kiss of Life spell. In the interests of total honesty…since that matters so much to you.”

  He furrowed his brow, a renewed flicker of wariness in his eyes. “Yes?”

  She winced to have to break the news, unsure how he’d take it. “I’ve heard from other healers that the Kiss of Life…can create the sense of a powerful bond between the two people involved,” she said gingerly, her face burning. “I think it’s possible that what we seem to be feeling for each other…could be, um, just a side effect of the magic.”

  He leaned closer, pinning her with an avid gaze. “So you feel it, too?”

  “Of course I do,” she whispered in a strangled tone, well aware that the man of her dreams could slip through her fingers, thanks to too much tiresome honesty. But that was what he obviously needed from her, and so be it.

  “Perhaps I should’ve mentioned it before, but I-I didn’t know it would be this strong. And I didn’t want to burden you after all you’d been through. Most of all, I did not want you to feel obligated to me. I knew you would, and now you do, and I hate it. So, no, my darling knight,” she said with a sorrowful gaze, “I cannot take advantage of you when you might be under the influence of magic. We don’t know if this is real or illusion. It could wear off in a week, a few days… Until then, it wouldn’t be fair to hold you to this offer. So, I’m sorry, Thaydor. My answer must still be no. Despite what I feel right now.”

  Frustration flickered in his eyes. “You don’t understand. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to me. I’ve never felt this way before. I want you…so deeply.”

  “And I you.” Watching her fingers as she let them go traveling up his arm, she struggled to give an answer she did not want to give and one he clearly did not want to hear. “But while we both might be feeling this way now, marriage is forever. These effects might wear off—”

  “Not for me. I know myself, Wrynne, and these aren’t side effects. I was meant to find you and make you mine.”

  She clung to reason as best she could, though the passion emanating from him intoxicated her. “I could do more research at the Bastion, try to find out more about the spell. How long these residual effects might take to wear off—”

  “I don’t want it to wear off! I won’t let it.” He cupped her nape and stared into her eyes. “Please just say yes. Be my wife. You think I’m a good knight? I’ll be an even better husband, I promise. I’m loyal. I work hard. I don’t lie. I’ll never abandon you. I’ll never let anybody hurt you. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy.”

  “I know you’d do that all.” How she didn’t swoon outright was the only question. Is this indeed the perfect man? she wondered. And he could be hers. She lifted her trembling hand to touch his hair, still damp with rain. “Oh, Thaydor, my golden angel, why must you tempt me so?”

  His eyes flickered with heat at the question. “Darling, I haven’t even begun to tempt you yet,” he whispered as his lips inched closer to hers.

  Breathless with want of him, she did her best to fight this losing battle, resting her hand against his rock-hard chest, trying only halfheartedly to hold him at bay. “It’s just that if I agreed and the spell wore off and you regretted marrying me, I would die. I mean it.”

  He shook his head in fond amusement, so close she could feel his warm, moist breath on her face. “Never.”

  “Think!” she pleaded. “Please don’t just charge in for once, I beg you. This is my heart. I am nobody, and you are the hero of the kingdom—”

  He stopped her with a finger over her lips. “Never call yourself a nobody again in my hearing. And by the way, haven’t you heard? I’m not a hero anymore,” he whispered as he flashed a roguish grin. “I’m an outlaw.”

  And then she really did swoon, letting out a small sigh of yearning distress.

  He tugged her closer with a knowing, crooked smile. “Marry me, demoiselle, and do you know what you’ll achieve? You’ll give me the proper incentive to clear both our names and put all this to rights.” He shook his head, his blazing eyes full of zeal. “They go after me, it’s one thing. They go after my wife, I’ll give them a war.”

  She looked at him breathlessly and did not know what came over her. She suddenly threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He seemed surprised but pulled her closer, his large hands sliding around her waist.

  Heart pounding, she broke the kiss and rested her forehead against his. “You say you want the truth? Very well,” she admitted in a shaky whisper. “I’ve never wanted anything more than I want to be with you. I think I’ve loved you ever since I first saw you years ago from a distance in the city. If this is what you truly want, then I’ll marry you. But if a day ever comes when you regret it, know you’ll break my heart.”

  “I never will. Believe me, sweet, you’re safe in my keeping. I am nothing if not steadfast.”

  She looked at him in soft surrender. “Then I’m yours.”

  A leonine glow stole into his eyes and a seductive half-smile of anticipation curved his lips. “Finally,” he purred, softly teasing her. “Shall we seal our troth with another kiss?”

  “Maybe one,” she conceded, her cheeks warm with the flattery of his interest. Her heart pounded with crazed joy. She could hardly contain herself at the thought that she was actually going to marry Thaydor Clarenbeld.

  She slid her arms around his granite shoulders as he pulled her flush against his body. He nuzzled her nose with his own and, cradling her in his embrace, eased her onto her back on the bedroll. Wrynne watched him, riveted, allowing him to do with her what he willed. He slowly moved atop her, bracing himself on his hands while his mouth descended to hers with feather-light softness.

  A blissful sigh escaped her as her eyelids fluttered closed. At first, his heated lips brushed hers with tender reverence, his urgency carefully restrained. But when she moaned and pulled him closer, desperate for more, he parted her lips with a stroke of his tongue and tasted her in dreamy intensity.

  With a sound of pleasure low in hi
s throat, he deepened the kiss. She drank it in, thrilling to the dominance and demand building in the rhythm of his mouth on hers. Her legs parted slightly to let him lie between them, though they were both still fully clothed.

  She planned to keep it that way but gave herself freely to the passion of his kisses. She buried her fingers in his thick hair and consumed his delicious tongue swirling against hers. He tasted of rain. Indeed, their clothes and hair were both still damp, but the moisture turned steamy in the heat of their newfound desire.

  Warrior that he was, it would have been easy to be intimidated by the sheer size and might of him in such a situation. Well over six feet tall and built for combat, he was a lot of man to contend with. Her breasts were pleasantly crushed against the muscled planes of his chest. She could feel the taut force of his thighs, the leanness of his hip brushing hers. His hard body imprisoned her, but she had no desire to escape.

  She was his for the taking if he changed his mind and gave her no choice. If he did let her choose—and of course, he would never do otherwise—she wasn’t sure she had sufficient will to say no.

  Her heart slammed in her chest as he paused in kissing her and slowly ran his hand down the center of her chest to her midriff. Arousal sang through her veins as he set about familiarizing himself with all that would soon belong to him, touching her, learning her.

  “You are so damned beautiful,” he said tenderly after a moment. Then he lowered his head and kissed her throat, nibbling it lightly.

  She panted, arching her back as he kissed his way down her neck, loosened the small front tie of her bodice and caressed her breasts. She looked down and watched him touch her where no one ever had. His warm, wet mouth soon followed where his hands had gone. Her whole body throbbed as his tongue explored the rosy tip of each breast, and he made her writhe with pleasure while the bonfire crackled nearby and the rain pattered steadily outside.

  “Tempted yet?” he whispered knowingly, leaning on his elbow beside her.

  “More than I can say.”

  “It’s right that it should be like this tonight,” he whispered. “The two of us together here. Seems it’s you and me against the world.”

  “Why don’t you take this off?” Lifting a trembling hand to his chest, she ventured to begin unlacing the front of his gambeson. “Let me make you more comfortable.”

  She plucked the cords free until her fingertips found his bare chest. He stared at her the whole time.

  “There’s no one I’d want by my side more than you, Wrynne.”

  “No place I’d rather be. Except perhaps a bed,” she confessed with a shy smile. “But only if we’re both there.”

  “I’ll give you a bed,” he teased as he slipped the garment off his strong shoulders, then peeled his shirt off over his head and cast it aside, muscles rippling down his abdomen. “Hell, I’ll give you a palace when all this is over.”

  She laughed breathlessly, rapt with the sight of his magnificent, bronzed body sculpted by shadow and flame. “I don’t care about a palace.”

  “Precisely why you deserve one.” He pulled her astride his lap, and clutching at her skirts, inched them higher up her thighs.

  She moaned, her lips skimming his velveteen shoulder. “Darling, we can’t. You know we mustn’t.”

  “Why not? We’ll be married tomorrow,” he said as he slipped his hand under her gown, kneading her hip. “Day after at the latest. I don’t know if I can wait. I need you with everything in me. I feel like I’ve been waiting for you forever.”

  She thrilled to his touch, to his longing for her. “You want to break the rules? For me?”

  He groaned, half in jest. “Can’t I please, just once?”

  She smiled against his fevered skin. “You’d never forgive yourself. Besides, if we stray and incur guilt—”

  “What, for the sin of lust?” He cast her a devilish half-smile. “Guilty as charged, love.”

  She laughed and nipped playfully at his earlobe. “That makes two of us. All the same, we both know where we get our powers from. What if going astray even for one night diminishes our gifts just when we need them most? Your fighting skills. My healing. We’re going to need all we’ve got to battle what we’re up against.”

  He paused and scowled. “That is a good point. Damn you,” he added in jest.

  She hugged him with a soft chuckle. “It’ll be worth the wait. For now, it’s enough just to kiss and touch…isn’t it?”

  “Ah, you drive me mad.” He tilted his head back as she began to stroke him. He sank back on his bedroll and let her do to him as she pleased.

  She leaned atop him with a wicked smile. She whispered in his ear what had happened to her earlier.

  He laughed aloud.

  “Hmm, I could have some fun with that,” he murmured.

  And he did.

  As the night moved on in unbearable temptation, they learned the secret of the extraordinary pleasure a healer’s hands could bestow, gliding all over each other’s bodies.

  “Your touch is amazing,” he panted, looking almost drunk with sensation. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

  His frank sensuality made her bold. Just once—over his clothes—she rested her hand on his bulging nether regions and stroked him. With a naughty smile, she sent her knight’s long, rigid lance a pulse of the same warm, glowing energy that she had used so many times to heal.

  She had not meant to bring him to climax. But she found—triumphantly—that she had. He surrendered to her ministrations with a gasp of such sweet agony she realized too late that he had been trying with all his might to hold back. But it seemed the paladin was capable of losing a battle, after all.

  And then he was adorably embarrassed—though he laughed and said his bad day had certainly taken a good turn. And then, with an azure gleam in his eyes, he claimed his wicked revenge by paying her back in kind.

  Several times.

  Well, they needed it, she supposed. Both of them had so much hunger pent up inside from a lifetime of trying so hard to be so very good.

  As she moved under him, still fully dressed, she could hardly wait for him to take her in their marriage bed. Tomorrow night seemed too far away. But slipping a finger, and then two, inside her, he satisfied her for now beyond her wildest dreams.

  When she was spent, dazed, breathless, and emptied of all care, he held her in his arms for the rest of the night and kept her warm while the rain drummed on. She cast her arm across his chiseled abdomen and slept, her head nestled on his bare chest. It felt like the most natural place in the world for her to be.

  Elysium, indeed.

  Chapter 8

  Oracle

  The white tower gleamed in the brilliant midday sun, dominating the plain below the ridge where Thaydor halted the wagon for a moment.

  Having set out from the cave early this morning, their half-day’s journey was almost at an end.

  They had reached the outer edge of the many thousands of acres controlled by the Ilian church and were approaching its official headquarters. The Bastion comprised a tiny, semi-independent city-state within Veraidel, and was under the kingdom’s protection.

  But given that His Majesty’s spies were probably already posted around the perimeter awaiting his arrival, he and Wrynne were wearing their simple gray pilgrims’ cloaks with the hoods drawn up to prevent them from being recognized. Thaydor had even put Avalanche under harness beside Polly to try to make his famous warhorse blend in as well.

  His enemies would no doubt expect him to come here sooner or later, seeking guidance and practical support from his strongest allies in the church hierarchy. Perhaps he had beaten them here, he mused as he scanned right and left. If not, he should be able to slip in unnoticed. Either way, he was not unduly worried. Not even Reynulf would launch an attack on holy ground. All they had to do was get there. It wasn’t far.

  A world away from the troubles that besieged them, the busy, sprawling complex around the white marble Lux Aeterna Tower
on the plain below bristled with lofty spires and soared with seemingly weightless flying buttresses.

  Countless gargoyles kept watch from the eaves of an ornately carved collection of large, honey-colored sandstone buildings in the Gothic style, many with stained glass windows to dazzle the eyes of the faithful and lift their aspirations to eternity.

  In the center of it all, the massive white marble tower reached toward heaven. Swans drifted across the large lake that cast the tower’s mirror image up to the ever-watchful eyes of the Almighty and his armies of angels.

  Wrynne and Thaydor exchanged an intimate smile at the sight of the place where they would soon be wed. The Bastion had shaped and molded so much of who they had become, from the university halls with their cloistered dormitories to the chapter houses of both their confraternal orders, from the military training fields where he had learned to fight to the sprawling physick gardens where she had learned to nurture and grow the apothecary herbs used in the healing arts.

  They’d be safe here at least for a day or two, until the oracle told them what to do next. No one in all of Veraidel’s long and colorful history had ever dared attack the Bastion, for even those who did not believe in Ilios were unwilling to risk waking the golden dragon who lived at the bottom of the lake.

  None in living memory had seen the mighty Talath, but in bygone centuries, she had been known to rise up out of the depths in all her terrifying glory and roast any forces sent against the place. As ancient guardian of the Bastion, the mighty beast answered to no one but Ilios, Thaydor supposed. If she was real.

  In any case, Thaydor knew the Golden Master himself would grant them sanctuary—and not even Lord Eudo would chance a public confrontation against the old holy man of Ilios. Still, neither he nor Wrynne wished to risk provoking any sort of political retaliation against the church for harboring them. So while they would seek brief solace here, they’d be on their way again as soon as possible.

  He glanced at his alluring companion, eager to get her to safety. “Shall we?”