by Lisa Cach
As she was finishing, George caught her again, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her naked, wet body flush against his. He lifted her up into his arms and carried her from the water, up onto the beach. There he lowered her to a smooth patch of stone, the mist swirling over their bodies. Alizon dug her fingers into his hair and coaxed his head down to hers for a kiss.
His hand stroked down her side, then up again to her breast, massaging it, his fingers playing with her nipple. “Will you be all right here?” he asked, and she knew he meant making love in the lair.
“This is where it has to be,” she said, not fully understanding why, but knowing it to be true.
He started to lower his mouth back to hers, but she stopped him, her hands still in his hair. She looked up into his green eyes, alight with caring and with passion; they held nothing back from her of what was in his heart.
And she was truly no longer afraid to show him what was in her own. “I love you,” she said, and then she said it again, liking how the words felt, and liking the way his gaze deepened as she said it, as if his soul were opening even wider to her. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“My little dragonslayer,” he replied, and she thought she saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes. Then he was suddenly lowering his mouth back to hers, and she was feeling his chest against her bare breasts, his legs entwined with her own, and his hand—oh, his hand!—moving up between her thighs, to stroke there her most sensitive place.
She parted her legs and tilted back her head as his lips moved down her throat. She opened herself to him, trusting him with her body and soul. He had seen into every dark corner of her heart, and he loved her still.
No, there was nothing to fear. He had taught her how to free herself, and now she gave herself over to his touch, trusting him to lead her into this new world.
His fingers played against her, moving slickly over flesh grown full and sensitive with desire. Alizon arched her hips up against him, wanting more, that emptiness growing in her that ached to be filled.
George positioned himself against the entrance to her body, the head of his member as large and blunt as she remembered. He held himself up on his forearms, his face close to hers. “I love you,” he said.
Alizon felt her body relax, open. George pierced her and slid deep, and this time, instead of being rent, she was filled. She wrapped her arms around his back and let him guide her hips into a rhythm, rejoicing in the feel of his muscles moving beneath her arms, and in the sweat that dampened their skin as they moved together.
She wanted it to go on forever, this thrusting fullness inside her, these deep waves of pleasure, the sound of his breathing beside her ear broken only by his whispers of her name. Then he pulled slightly away from her and reached down between them. He touched her as he thrust once more, and then she was lost within her climax, feeling the contractions of her sex around the thickness of his shaft.
He held her tight in his arms, his hips barely moving against her own, and he was saying her name over and over and over again as she felt the pulse of his release.
The cold stone virgin was gone forever.
The cold stone virgin might be gone, but a cold naked woman had taken her place. Alizon roused from her doze against the side of George’s chest, feeling the chill of the beach beneath her body. She shivered and snuggled closer.
“Cold?” George asked and rolled her up on top of him.
“A little.” She kissed his chest as he held her in place with his arms.
“I would suggest we get dressed, only I don’t know where our clothes are.”
“That is a problem,” she agreed dreamily. “Perhaps we’ll have to stay here forever.”
“I might almost be tempted.”
She was quiet a moment, thinking. “Where will we go, George, when we leave the mount? I know the virgins will return to Markesew, but where will we go?”
“Where do you want to go?”
She thought. Only one answer seemed right: “Wherever it is that you are.”
He ran his hands down her back, cupped her buttocks, and kissed her deep and hard in reply.
When the kiss ended and she got her breath back, Alizon went on: “I think I should like to see this homeland you have spoken of, and to meet your sister. If I could.”
“You would not miss Markesew?”
“I have no one there but Emoni. It is perhaps weak of me, but I should rather go to some town and country that are new to me, and me to them. I can truly begin anew that way.”
He was quiet, his hands idly playing in the small of her back.
“What is it?” she asked, a little thump of anxiety in her chest.
He squeezed her and smiled, albeit not entirely reassuringly. “I did not lie to you when I said that Emoni had summoned me with her magic. The only way I know to reach my home again is through that same magic. I do not know that it will work, and do not know that it will allow another to accompany me.”
A cold flush went through her body, and Alizon began to shake. “You are going to leave me?”
“No! No, never! You are what I came here for, not the dragon.”
“I thought you said you came to be a hero.”
“That’s what I thought, but I was an idiot. That tapestry you have been weaving, Alizon. Doesn’t that tell you something? You wove my face into it, before you ever met me. We were meant to be together, no matter the distance in time or space.”
He might be right. She set her mind on that and refused to think about any other possibility. “If we were meant to be together, then Emoni’s magic should work on us both.”
“But it might not. I do not want to take the risk.”
“I do not want to stay in England,” she said softly.
“It might not be so bad; we could find a different town …”
“Please take me away.”
He met her gaze, a frown of worry upon his brow. “Even if the spell does work, you may not be so happy with the result. My world is different from yours, in ways you would think me mad if I tried to explain.”
“I don’t care. If there is French toast and sandwiches, I will be able to eat. If there is a sofa, I will have someplace to sit. And there will be you.”
“That is enough?”
“It’s more than I could ever have dreamt.”
He kissed her and smiled. “There is one other good thing about returning to my world.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m filthy rich. You’ll be able to buy anything your heart desires.”
She traced his lips with the tips of her fingers. “Then may I buy another kiss from you?”
He growled, and nuzzled her neck. “A penny will get you that … and plenty more.”
“I’m going to like your world.”
Then he showed her again just how very much she had to look forward to.
“You should be wearing the surcoat, not me,” George said several hours later, standing on the dark stairs in the passageway to the kitchen.
“They’re all women. I don’t care if they see me nude, but you can be certain I care if they see you.”
“They’ve already seen me plenty of times,” he grumbled. A draft wafted up under the hem of the surcoat, brushing his butt with coolness and pressing its chill touch to him in uncomfortable places. He felt absurdly naked without his pants or briefs, bits of his body hanging much looser than comfort demanded.
Their clothing, so happily discarded in their passion, had unhappily sunk out of sight in Belch’s pool. The only garment remaining was George’s surcoat, which had been thrown across Belch’s eyes as a blindfold—and Alizon had insisted that he be the one to wear it.
“What are they going to think when we open that door?” Alizon fussed. “I still haven’t been able to come up with an excuse for losing my gown.”
He laughed. “Did you really think you could?”
“Greta is going to be so disappointed in me.”
“She do
esn’t like me much, does she?” he asked. There was always one relative or girlfriend who didn’t like a guy, no matter how nice he tried to be.
“She’s scared she’ll be abandoned. I promised her that that would never happen, though. It won’t, will it?”
“Does she have family in Markesew?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if they will take her back,” Alizon said. “If worst came to worst …”
“Yes?”
“If worst came to worst, could we take her with us?”
“I’d be willing to try, but …”
She turned to him, and he could only barely make out her features in the dark of the passageway. “Would you be willing to try with all your heart, the same way you will try to take me with you?”
“I don’t know if—”
“But you’ll try?”
“Because you love her, I will try with all my heart,” he said.
She threw herself into his arms, nearly knocking him off his feet. She planted kisses all over his face as he found his balance, leaning up against the damp wall. He might get used to doing as Alizon wished, if this was the reaction he always got.
He let his hands roam freely over her naked body, then lifted her up so that she was straddling his hips. He was so caught up in what they were doing, he barely heard the sounds of scraping metal and soft female curses of frustration from behind the kitchen door.
He noticed when the light flooded down upon them.
“Got it! I told you I could pick the lock,” Pippa cried in triumph at the top of the stairs. Then she gasped.
He and Alizon both looked up to see the silhouettes of half a dozen heads limned in the doorway.
“A little privacy, if you don’t mind?” he called up to them.
There was a collective gasp, a quick mad shuffle complete with Pippa being dragged forcibly away, and then the door slammed shut.
“You needn’t worry about an excuse for your missing gown, now,” he said to Alizon, as she hid her face in his neck.
“Jesu mercy,” she whispered.
“Another good thing about my home: good locks on all the doors.”
Chapter Twenty-five
“Are we ready, then?” George asked.
The question was met by a dozen pale and frightened faces. Alizon and her eleven charges were standing on the north terrace, dressed in their finest gowns, hair loose and woven with wildflowers from the banks of the mount. The breeze caught at tresses and skirts, swirling them around these figures who stood still as stone.
It was the day of the summer solstice, and the virgins of the mount were returning to Markesew.
He and Alizon had decided that waiting the few days until the solstice would make for the biggest impact on the villagers. They would all be waiting there on the seawall, a perfect audience for their procession.
He did know a thing or two about making an entrance, after all.
The wait also had given the virgins time to adjust to the idea that they were leaving, and time to pack up those things they wished to take with them. Their makeshift bags, filled with gowns and small treasures, were piled on a cart that Milo would pull behind them, like a medieval skycap.
“You’re going home! This is good!” George said. “No one can hurt you any longer. Belch is dead.” There was no response, as if they were unconvinced. “No one can throw you to a dragon that’s dead. And even if they don’t believe our words, they’ll believe this.” He held up the foot-long tooth he had pulled from Belch’s jaw as a souvenir.
He had wanted to bring the dragon’s entire head with them, but Milo had refused to go down in the cavern to help him, and it was too heavy to carry or drag on his own.
Not that anything could have stopped him from trying, after he had pulled the tooth. He had tied a rope to Belch’s head and had dragged it halfway up the cavern stairs before it slid off over the side and splashed into the pool, sinking out of sight.
He had spent a good fifteen minutes cursing Belch for that. Now all that the villagers would see when they came to the lair—if they had the nerve to come to it—would be a headless, rotting body. The dragon did not look half so intimidating as it should, without its head.
On the bright side, maybe when the decomposition was a little further along, Belch’s head would float to the surface and scare someone silly.
“Don’t you want to see your friends and families?” he asked them.
It was Flur, standing beside Alizon and clinging to her hand, who finally answered in a small voice. “What if they don’t want us back?”
“But … your mother,” he said in confusion.
“What if they don’t recognize us?” someone else said.
“Or remember us?”
“What if they won’t take us in?”
“What will we do?”
“Can we come back to the mount if we want?”
“Peace!” Alizon said, breaking in. “If they don’t want you, then you’ll come with me and George, as we discussed. No one is going to be left alone, to fend for herself. No one.” She locked her gaze with George’s, her black eyes widening in a prompt for him to speak.
“There is room for everyone in my house,” he said, and for the hundredth time prayed to God that Emoni’s magic would be powerful enough to accomplish the miracle. It had been Alizon’s idea to offer such an option to all the virgins, and her determination was strong enough that he almost thought they could be transported on it alone. “It is far away, and in a land different from this one you know, but it is a good life you’ll have there.” Assuming they got there.
What was he doing, telling them he could bring them back with him? He didn’t even know if he could take Alizon—an uncertainty that still had him considering staying here forever.
Alizon, though, had utter faith in the powers of Emoni and in the prophecy of her own tapestry, and had refused to listen to any further suggestions that they stay in her world.
When Alizon was adamant, the forces of heaven and hell could not move her.
George’s other concern was the creepy certainty he had that his “real” body, or a version of his real body, was still sitting in that wingback chair in the great room of his house back home, his sister sitting across from him. This was real, here with Alizon, but it was somehow also real there.
The dragon had been killed, the virgins were leaving the mount, he had found his Alizon: he had accomplished all he needed to, in this world. He feared that Athena would soon be waking the other him, and he might disappear from this world whether he wished it or not. If he must go, then he wanted to go on his own terms, with Alizon.
Somehow.
God help him.
“So. Now that that’s settled, are we going? It’s nearly noon.” He heard the reluctance to leave in his own voice, not wanting to bring them any closer to the moment when he might be separated from Alizon forever.
“Think of that girl they are about to choose in the lottery,” Alizon said to the virgins. “She, at least, will be happy to see us coming.”
That won a smile from the group.
“All right, then,” George said, and motioned Alizon to come stand beside him. He was wearing his washed and mended surcoat, with the red cross of St. George. Alizon might know he was no saint, but the villagers would react better if they thought he truly was the legend come to life.
Alizon took her place, and then the virgins lined up behind them in order of when they had come to the mount. Flur was last, with Milo behind her.
The shepherd, quiet as always, was nonetheless grinning like a lunatic, and kept making sniffing noises suspiciously like those of a man hiding tears.
Pippa dashed out of line and back to the cart, rummaging amid the bags until she found her own. A moment later she pulled out a wooden flute. She played a few notes, her eyes meeting George’s in question.
He nodded. Entrance music. Of course!
Pippa stepped back into line, playing her merry tune.
George took Alizon’s hand and raised its back to his lips. “Are you ready?” he asked softly.
“With you, I’m ready for anything.”
Together they took the first steps.
Alizon’s heart beat with sickening thumps in her chest, her muscles trembling as she walked beside George across the causeway. They were halfway there, and she could see that the gathered villagers had begun to notice that something strange was going on. More and more people were crowding up to the seawall, their murmuring, excited voices carrying over the empty bay.
“They’re about to get the surprise of their life,” George said, giving her hand a jiggle of encouragement.
“I hope they fall dead from the sight.”
He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t be frightened.”
Curse the man. It was galling that he seemed to know whenever she was scared. The tougher she tried to be, the more he soothed and coddled. And the kinder he was, the more she wanted to crawl into his arms and stay there, with her face pressed to his chest.
“I’m not frightened,” she lied.
“You shouldn’t be. Remember,” he said, and deepened his voice, “You have Saint George to protect you!”
She laughed, and he squeezed her hand again. She moved closer to him, so that they bumped together with each step, the contact a reassurance that there was one who loved her, one who would stand by her, come dragons both real or of her heart.
The only other person who might love her enough to forgive her her crimes would be waiting on the seawall: Emoni. It was seeing her friend again, and admitting that for twelve years she had given no sign that she yet lived, that had her scared more than facing the villagers.
The villagers could rot in Hell for all she cared. She doubted she would ever fully forgive them, and certainly would never forget what they had done, but with George and a new life she thought she could at least leave them in the past. She could start over, in a place that held no memories of hurt, and with a man who would give her anything, even the freedom to choose her own fate.