“Only once?”
“Believe me, once was enough.” Enough to keep me awake for years until I learned to set it aside. Where I should have left it. What about this mercenary made me dredge it up again?
“Who was it?” Suspicious anger ran deep in his voice. “Did he hurt you?”
Yes. Oh, yes, it had hurt. And I had broken my rule and wept. Told him to stop, that I’d changed my mind, but he hadn’t. I’d come away from that night wounded in some unhealable way, where the blood never dried, broken inside. So strange, the injuries of the invisible self. I’d take a physical hurt over that any day.
And now . . .
Now these questions brought back those memories I’d thought dulled by time, their edges as sharp as the dagger that slices, leaving you bleeding out before you feel the pain.
“I’m not talking about this.” My words came out on a gasp, my chest so tight I had no breath. “I have to move. Let me out.”
Thank Danu, he moved out of my way and I lunged to my feet, gulping in deep lungfuls of the sweet mountain air. Head swimming, I leaned my hands on my knees, head down, willing my heart to stop its frantic pounding. Forcing the tea to stay down.
A hand on my shoulder made me spin, my dagger in my hand before I knew it, pressing the point to the soft spot at Harlan’s throat. He held up his palms in surrender, expression full of some sorrow.
“I’m not the enemy, Ursula,” he said gently, as if I didn’t hold his life in my hands. “I’m not him.”
“He’s not—wasn’t the enemy either.”
“That’s a matter of debate. He hurt you. That makes him my enemy.”
I sighed. Sheathed the dagger in a slow, deliberate movement. “It’s ancient history. Go slay dragons for some other princess.”
“How many times must I say it?” He settled big hands on my waist, testing my reaction, then cupping my hips when I didn’t protest. I flattened my palms on his muscled shoulders, holding him off as much as I could muster. We stood eye to eye and worlds apart. “I don’t want some other woman. It’s all about you. I want you.”
“Surely even you know we never get everything we want.”
“That doesn’t mean we give up trying.”
“I can’t give you what you’re asking for. I can’t talk about this. Don’t ask me to.”
He let out a long breath, the sense of strategic retreat palpable. “All right. I’ll let it go for now. And I’ll take whatever you’re able to give. Even if this much of you is all I can ever have.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, mercenary.” I tried for a dry tone, but I’d gone breathless again. In a different way this time. My heart pounding another rhythm. The way I’d felt seeing his golden skin gleaming with oil and sweat.
“I always keep my promises.” He edged me closer. “So here’s one for you: tell me to stop and I will. No matter what. Always.”
He leaned in. I readied the words on my tongue, but he did nothing more than brush my cheekbone with a kiss, as light as a butterfly’s wing. I held my breath, waiting for the awful to rise up.
It didn’t.
Harlan waited, too, then, with a deep hum that I felt more than heard, he kissed my other cheek, at the high point just below the temple. Warmer this time, a tingle of heat that filtered into my bloodstream. Both energizing and comforting.
“Does this hurt?” he whispered, and I realized he meant my bruises. Of course he meant those, not that other, invisible wound.
“No,” I breathed, surprised to find that was true of both, that I’d changed my grip so that I no longer held him away, but curled my fingers into his shirt, absorbed in the sweetness of his mouth on my skin.
“May I kiss you?” He’d already trailed several more soft kisses down my cheek, to the line of my jaw, to the corner of my mouth. But he hovered there, waiting for me to decide. He meant more than he had already. A real kiss. Like lovers do. Like I never had.
“I don’t know how,” I admitted, hating that I had to, certain that I should say so. A concession in that it revealed so much about that other time, that awful night. So many skills I’d perfected, and yet I’d never kissed anyone, mouth to mouth. Amelia had awakened her lover that way, with a deeply sensual kiss that had stabbed me with a strange emotion. At the time I’d put it down to suspicion of Ash’s motives. Now I wasn’t sure what it was. Envy, perhaps.
More, I’d wanted to know how that felt, if only once.
“Let me show you,” he murmured, lips a breath away.
“All right.” I braced myself and he chuckled, low and deep, running his hands up my back in that sensual, soothing way.
His mouth feathered against mine, exquisitely gentle, barely there and gone. I sighed out, breath mingling with his, and it seemed we created a web that drew our lips together again, lightly caressing, sweet, almost innocent.
My heart softened, thudding with lulled beats.
“More?” he asked.
“More,” I agreed.
He changed his angle, careful of my broken nose, and kissed me again. Deeper this time, lips moving over mine with leisurely heat, opening and inviting me to do the same. Vaguely surprised at myself, I wanted to taste more of him. The inner edge of his lips possessed a velvety texture, a contrast to his man’s mouth and the slight scrape of stubble on his face.
Then his tongue touched mine. His hands soothed me before I realized I’d tensed. Another kind of stroking, this. But one that went to the core of me, the hot glide of his mouth on mine. I made a sound, something incoherent, needy, and he pulled away, surveying my face.
“Still okay?”
“I don’t know.” An honest answer, if an unsteady one.
“Let’s sit.” He took my hand, lacing his roughened fingers with mine, and coaxed me back to the pallet.
“I don’t think—”
“Shh. Don’t think.” He tugged me down to sit beside him. “Only kisses and only if you want to. I won’t hurt you, Ursula.”
Taking my hands, he pressed his mouth into each palm, in that place he’d found me to be so vulnerable, and this time I let the shiver take its course. A delightful fire that shimmered through my blood, heating me throughout. He drew my hands behind his neck, then slowly lay back, guiding me to lie atop him, steadying me with his gentle hold on my hips.
“Kiss me, little hawk,” he urged. “Your mouth is like the finest wine.”
“You can save the flattery and compliments.” A line I should draw, though the muscled bulk of his body under mine made me even more breathless. I might as well be some seaside recruit newly arrived to Ordnung’s heights, as much trouble I seemed to be having keeping my breath. “I’m not a woman who needs romance.”
He brushed my cheek with light fingertips. “On the contrary. I think you need it more than most. You’ve had so little of it in your life. Kiss me.”
I studied his mouth, picked my angle, and settled my lips on his, anticipating now the delicious shock of contact. My breath rushed out in a long sigh, and he swallowed it, hands roaming down my back, never dropping below the line of my hips.
Softening with the sensation, not caring that he’d called me on that very thing, I relaxed against his reassuring bulk, sinking into his scent, taste, and texture. I lost myself in him, in the long, slow moments of tongue glide and sweet caress of lips. Restlessness built in me, like a hunger for more food after a few tastes. Like I wanted to take bites out of him, or lap him up. I shifted, moving to deepen the kiss, and he flinched, making a pained sound.
“What?” I pulled back, seeing nothing, then scanned the moonlit meadow for danger.
“Your sword, darling Ursula.” Harlan laughed and moved me off him, pressing a hand to his groin. “The hilt caught me in a sensitive spot.”
“Oh.” Chagrin cooled me. What had I been thinking? I knew enough of the vulnerabilities of male fighters to have paid attention to that. I unbuckled the belt and set it next to me, edging away as I did so. “I apologize.”
> “Don’t pull back.” He caught me by the hand, drew me down by his side, settled me so that my head lay on his muscled arm, the bulge as mounded as any pillow, our faces close together. He brushed the hair back from my temple, then stroked my cheek. “You are so beautiful in the moonlight.”
“Because the shadows hide the bruises and swelling, no doubt.”
“On another woman, that might be so. But your beauty is of a different sort—in the set of your jaw and the fire in your eyes. You burn with a strong, clear light. Like the stars in the sky. Remote. Glorious. Exotic.”
“Don’t tease me. I don’t need your lies, as poetic as they may be.”
His thumb rubbed over my bottom lip, tracing the edge. “This is the truth. I know beauty when I see it.”
“So do I. When your younger sister is ten times more beautiful than you are and the youngest ten times more beautiful than that, you quickly learn how such comparisons work. And it’s not important to me. I don’t need beauty to accomplish what matters most.”
“And what is that?”
“Upholding the legacy of my mother and father. The peace that so many sacrificed so much to obtain.”
“You don’t mention your mother often.”
“No. It’s . . . painful still. Even after so much time.”
“We never stop grieving some people. How old were you when she died?”
Odd that I didn’t mind speaking of it right then. The shadows wrapped around us, bodies close together, intimate and quiet. With long caresses, he followed the line of my throat and collarbone, light, chaste touches that I relaxed into.
“I’d just turned ten years of age. Andi was five and Amelia barely born. I was lucky—they hardly knew her at all.”
“Lucky to know her. Hardest on you because you did.”
Maybe so.
“I heard she died from childbirth?”
Because he’d stroked down to my waist, smoothing his hand over the curve of my hip, I touched his chest, intrigued to feel the play of muscle beneath. He sighed a blissful breath and closed his eyes. Pleasurable, then, too, to feel him soften under my hand. I began to understand why he liked it from me.
“That’s the story. It may be true. I have reason, though . . .” I hesitated, but he said nothing, staying pliant and quiet. “It wasn’t right away. Maybe the fever took her.”
“But you don’t think so,” he murmured, shifting back, so my fingers brushed the skin inside his open shirt. Surprisingly soft, with a scattering of crisp hairs. He made that deep humming sound as I explored that texture, too.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The alternatives are . . .” Unthinkable . “Salena was this amazingly powerful woman. Some say Uorsin won the Great War because of her and the Tala magic she brought to the battlefield.”
“Did she love him?”
“No.” I’d answered too quickly, lulled by the moment. By the seductive scent and feel of his skin. I pulled my hand away and he caught me by the wrist, putting it back.
“Don’t stop. You feel even better than I imagined. And I’d imagined a great deal.”
Ah, yes. He’d mentioned those fantasies of my hands on him. I flushed, hoping the darkness covered it, but resumed caressing him. Even moving his shirt aside so I could follow the fold at the crease of his shoulder.
“Why do you suppose she did it, if not out of love?” he asked after a time.
“Others than you would like to know that answer. Salena kept her own counsel. But, in the end at least, she hated Uorsin. I remember that well.”
“She doesn’t sound like the sort of person who could be forced.”
“True. She married him—and stayed—for reasons of her own.” It won’t be an easy path. The one of duty and honor never is . . . a path I myself chose. “She told me once that she did it out of duty and honor.”
“Ah. That’s where you get it, then.” Harlan closed his hand over mine before I could pull away again, opening his eyes to stare fiercely into mine. “All that extraordinary strength and power.”
“I’m my father’s daughter.”
“You’re hers, too.”
In that way, you are the most my daughter.
He unbent his elbow and leaned up, slowly gathering me against him, giving me time to consider. To say no. I didn’t. Instead I tipped my head back, anticipating the drowning kiss that followed. Waves of it swept over me, melting, tumbling. This time I touched him back, his skin hot under my hand, corded neck enticing me to dig in, to take more.
19
After an eternity of drifting on that sensual sea, I blinked dreamily at him when he pulled away, brushing my hair back with a sweet affection I wasn’t sure how to handle. I felt not wholly myself, as if the boundaries between us had somehow blurred with the physical intimacy.
“Why did you stop?”
“You need more sleep. And you’re finally relaxed enough to do so.”
I frowned. “I already slept. I should take first watch.”
“You chose a good place. We are protected on all sides but one. You and I are both well trained enough to wake at any disturbance.” He drew his sword and laid it on my other side beside mine, turning me so I lay with my back nestled in the curve of his body, our blades between us and the rest of the world. Side by side, as we were. “We’ll both sleep.”
“I thought you wanted sex.”
His laugh rumbled through me and his arm around my waist tightened. “I want you, Ursula. And here you are. I told you—whatever you’re able to give. I meant it.”
“This is your seduction technique. To leave me wanting.” Not just that, but needing in a way I’d never thought possible.
“I can be patient. This is enough, to hold you against me, to have the scent of you in my head, the flavor of you on my tongue, and the feel of you under my hand. I want you, yes, but not frightened and panicked. And not until you’re sure of me. One day you’ll want me enough to overcome what went before.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“No. I never imagined that, my fearless hawk. We have time. Time enough for you to heal inside and out. I told you I don’t mind waiting. One day you’ll tell me what happened and we’ll proceed from there.”
“I don’t want to speak of it.”
“Don’t tense up. I won’t have only part of you. Only once you trust me with your wounds will I know it’s time to take this further. I am a patient man.”
I had no doubt of that. He gathered me closer and, for once, it didn’t rankle so much that he saw that in me, the bleeding wound that no one else knew lurked there. Still, I blinked out at the night, unsure what daylight would bring. His breathing deepened and slowed.
I doubted I would sleep before dawn. Though his broad body curled around mine lulled me with its protective warmth. Restorative in its own way.
Still I worried over it all. Enough to overcome what went before. I hated that it had become a big deal between us, especially since I’d never thought of it as one. I tried it and I didn’t care to repeat the experience. Ever. I meant that when I said it. Though physical intimacy held greater appeal now than it ever had, I would not pay such a high price as discussing that terrible night. The awful humiliation of it.
“Relax, Ursula,” Harlan murmured, stroking my flank. “I’ll sing you a lullaby.”
I laughed. “I don’t need that. I’ll keep watch.”
Instead of replying, he sang, low, deep, and soft, a song in his language of blurred syllables and the cadence of the ocean. The dark melody wrapped around me as surely as his arms, and after a time, I forgot what had worried me so.
I must have drifted off, because birdsong wakened me, a chorus of calls greeting Glorianna’s sunrise. The events of the night returned in a rush at the same moment I became aware that an iron-thewed arm held me down. Startled, I tried to leap away, but Harlan pulled me back against him, laughing sleepily.
“I should have known you’d come awake all at once. Don’t run yet.”
“Not just yet.” Stretching his big body, he rose on his elbow, coaxing me onto my back and studying my face.
“What?”
“You look better,” he pronounced.
“I’m so relieved,” I replied in a dry tone. “Does that mean my captivity is at an end?”
“Almost.” He smiled and leaned down, brushing my mouth with one of his gentle, searching kisses. It sighed through me, delicious, tingling and soothing both. “Good morning, Ursula.”
“Hi.” I felt absurdly shy suddenly. Something I hadn’t felt since I got over being a too-tall, awkward girl. I shifted restlessly, turning my head to see the growing light, anxious to be on the move. Sifting through all I had revealed the night before.
“Shall we have a workout before we ride?” He loosened his hold on me, though his hand fell intimately to my hip. The feel of you under my hand.
I rolled away and stood, my body stiff from the long sleep. “Yes. Danu knows I need it.”
“You look good to me.” He grinned, unrepentant, when I pinned him with a glare, then shrugged one shoulder. “I can’t help it. If I started falling in love with you when I first saw you in court, watching you run that sword form of yours cemented it. Never have I wanted a woman so much.”
I picked up my sword and pointed it at him. “You should stop saying these things.”
“Not speaking of my feelings won’t make them go away, Ursula.”
But I’d be less self-conscious. Something he no doubt knew and wielded against me, another weapon in his vast arsenal.
When I returned from answering the call of nature, he’d stripped down to his small clothes and had already worked up a fine sweat, grunting through a series of push-ups. Deciding to ignore him to the best of my abilities, I settled into the Midnight form, letting it clear my mind and body of the dregs of sleep and seduction.
Much as I hated to admit it, and despite my injuries, I felt better than I had in days. Maybe longer. Muscles and ligaments growing elastic, my body sang as I moved through Danu’s ritualized forms, the first blending into the second and on through the twelve. Blood coursing, heart pounding, breath flowing—not with emotion, but with honest exertion—I moved faster and faster, exultant, powerful.
The Twelve Kingdoms Page 17