Captive Heart

by Phoenix Sullivan

  CAPTIVE HEART

  A sexy historical paranormal.

  Includes M/F, M/M and ménage.

  When Lady Lynette's half-sister is kidnapped by the Knight of the Red Lands—the powerful son of a despot slain by their father—Lyn knows more than her beautiful sister's innocence is at risk. The scheming fae Nimue has aligned herself with the vengeful knight, and to rescue her sister, Lyn must find a champion who can best all the traps the treacherous Nimue has set.

  At King Arthur's court, Lyn, half-fae herself, finds an unlikely champion in a kitchen scullion mockingly called Beaumains. The seer Merlin, however, vouches for the quiet Beau, just as he does for the damaged Sir Marrok, recently fallen under a werewolf's curse and struggling to control the beast vying for dominance within.

  With the two outcasts by her side, Lyn takes on the desperate quest to free her sister. As the challenges mount, the three of them turn to one another for strength, finding comfort in their sensuous embraces. Together, if they can discover the terrible secret that gives the Knight of the Red Lands his power, they might have a chance to defeat him and, in the process, rescue not only Lyn's sister but each other.

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  MORE TITLES BY PHOENIX SULLIVAN

  Arthurian Hearts Series

  (Arthurian Paranormal Romance)

  HEARTSONG (Book 1)

  QUEEN’S HEART (Book 2)

  CAPTIVE HEART (Book 3)

  ANGEL HEART (A Christmas Novella) – Releases Nov 26, 2015

  ~

  Arthurian

  (Non-Paranormal with Romance Elements)

  SPOIL OF WAR

  ~

  Medical Thriller

  SECTOR C

  Find Phoenix’s Books on Amazon

  Copyright © 2015 by Phoenix Sullivan

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without the written permission of publisher or author, except where permitted by law.

  Chapter 1

  Nimue

  I stretched on the samite sheets, twisted now and knotted into the small of my back, as the knight laboring above me stroked my long breast. His breath shuddered in my ear, the gasps deeper and slower now.

  With a grunt, he pulled out of me and rolled to his back, my skin cooling quickly where he had been. “So will you help me or no?”

  I smiled at the demanding tone with its hint of exasperation. Few men dared address me so. That this one seemed to have no fear of me excited me in all the best and secret places.

  The soft cord that wrapped about my wrists and bound me to one of the iron rings driven into the wall at the head of the bed teased at me. He had left only enough slack so the wicked metal would not burn me, but where too I could not escape its threat. “Only so long as the older sister, the one with fae blood, will be mine to direct.”

  “As long as Lynette suffers more than I’ve suffered over the death of my father, she will be yours to command. Agreed.”

  “She will be as Job unto my devil. And the younger one?”

  Sir Ironside, ruler of the Red Lands now that his own father was dead at the hands of the sire of the sisters over whom we bartered, rolled to his side and spread his hand over my naked belly. “Only eighteen, and the bards are already singing of Lyonesse’s immeasurable beauty. The whip for her, I think. Lash upon lash, her fair virgin skin blushing for my pleasure.”

  His hand slipped lower, fingers curling over the thatch of hair and arch of bone to caress and thrum my eager flesh. “I would only she had her maidenhead to give over and over again.”

  Lifting my hips, I pushed into his hand, saw him hardening with the thought of thieving away Lyonesse’s innocence. “Take it again,” I whispered.

  From the tangle of sheets he produced two soft cords tethered to the bed’s sturdy frame. The first he looped over my left foot, the second over my right. I struggled, but only to hasten his lengthening and rising.

  Tracing a line from my throat down with the ruby ring on the back of his hand he ended its journey with one, two, three sharp slaps to my tender mound. “Burn for me,” he commanded.

  It did burn, like the welcome sting of fire on frostbitten skin. “Again,” I begged.

  He complied before turning to thumb the peaks of my breasts, touching nothing more than their sensitive tips. I writhed with impatience.

  Smiling, he slid between my knees. I held my breath waiting for him to plunge in. But no, it was a gentle tap only as he lowered himself over me. When I looked down between the planes of our bodies, separated by the length of his shaft, I saw him throbbing, as eager for the consummation as I.

  Yet he held himself back, teasing me senseless, while my body, tied, could only struggle so far in protest.

  “Look at me,” he commanded.

  I was looking at the him of him that mattered most to me in that moment, but I dragged my gaze up to the deep brown eyes of him that bored intently into mine. His thumbs continued their relentless circling for one breath, two, and three. Then with the twitch of his hips he stabbed into me. My eyes rolled back with the force of him.

  “Look at me!” he growled.

  Pleasure flooded me with every thrust. Every pleasure reflected in his eyes, amplified between us.

  And at pleasure’s height he cried out, “Lyonesse!”

  “Yes,” I echoed in kind.

  Long moments later I added, “We will make Lyonesse yours.”

  The Red Knight untied my hands and draped them about his neck. “We’ll make her ours,” he said.

  I sincerely hoped he didn’t expect protest because I certainly wasn’t going to offer any. Instead, I told him, “Your cause is my cause too. Together we will avenge your father’s death. Together we will see that the bloodkin of his killer pays for their father’s crime. This I swear.”

  And together we sealed that vow with a kiss.

  Chapter 2

  Lyn

  “Do you think God will be angry if I said I can’t wait to be gone from here?”

  I smiled, if only because Nessie’s frustration was mine as well. “Even God’s own Son didn’t spend all His days behind holy walls. I don’t think He’d begrudge you longing for home.”

  Nessie sighed as I undid the laces at the back of her gown and helped her out of it before she turned and did the same for me. “At least it’s just one more night.”

  We tangled in the tiny cell when we both tried stripping our undergowns off at the same time. We weren’t ungrateful, of course. The abbot, after all, had given up his private bed to my sister and me for the three days we’d been here before Father was interred and the two days it had now been since. The abbot and his monks had been more than kind as Nessie and I shed the last of our tears for our dear Papa, cut down in some meaningless show of arms in the Red Lands. He had lived with his wounds for two days while his squire and page bore him homeward, but he was dead long before he reached us, and his men had brought him to Sibton Abbey to be given to God.

  “He fought honorably,” his squire assured us. “He slew the Baron Knight who killed him.”

  “Papa was on the Baron’s lands,” I pointed out. “Was he not wrong to offer challenge?”

  “The Baron was a despot. The people of the Red Lands joyed in his death.”

  “And what of his knights? Did Papa not win them in fair battle?”

  The squire, no
older than Nessie’s eighteen years and a year or two younger than me, squirmed, clearly unsettled by what should have been an easy answer. “As vile and discourteous as the Baron was, his son is doubly so. When the Baron was slain and with your father wounded, we fled for our lives. No Red Land knights will be yielding to you. Sir Ironside holds them still.”

  “Then the people of the Red Lands are no better off than they were before, and my sister and I will see no profit from Papa’s victory. His death was in vain.”

  “His honor—” Geoffrey mumbled.

  “His honor won’t feed our household or the serfs who work our fields. I daresay even you won’t stay at Castle Savage much longer, though it was Papa who lodged you and trained you up.”

  When Geoffrey wouldn’t meet my eyes I knew I had guessed true.

  And when I was more than ready to be gone from the austerity of Sibton Abbey, I dreaded the long task ahead of keeping Castle Savage ours. Nessie had no head for such things. She slipped through the world on gentleness and beauty. More than being innocent of body, she was innocent as well in worldly ways. Endearing when she was the spoiled and pampered daughter of a noble knight whose wife had died in the birthing of her. Frustrating when I needed her to be a helpmate in the business of running home and holdings.

  As she and I slid under the rough flannel sheet and on top of the abbot’s straw mattress that smelled of must, my head whirled with all that needed to be dealt with once we were back home.

  It was whirling still when screams and the sharp cracks of shattered glass pierced the night.

  Chapter 3

  Lyn

  “Invaders!”

  Suddenly the small abbey seemed even smaller.

  The flannel sheet sliding over my naked skin as I lunged for my boot knife buried in the stack of our clothing reminded me just how vulnerable we were.

  Something heavy slammed against the cell door. I dug frantically for the knife, cursing the thin lock bar meant to protect nothing more than the abbot’s modesty, not repel armed and determined men.

  On the bed, Nessie had drawn herself to her knees, wrapping the sheet over her. “Lyn!” She screamed as the door shook under another assault.

  My hand wrapped around the dagger’s hilt and I pulled it free just as the lock bar broke and the door crashed open.

  Two men pushed into the room. No mere brigands these. Swords and armor claimed them knights. They overpowered the tiny cell, taking up what little spare space there was.

  What use my pitiful weapon could be I knew not, but I edged back onto the bed determined to protect my sister however I could.

  One of the men looked to follow.

  “No!” Nessie cried.

  Acutely aware of the knight’s eyes on my naked body, I held the dagger before me. “Don’t you touch her,” I hissed.

  The man’s lips twisted into a frightening expression—half smile, half sneer. He lunged toward me. Did he think I was unskilled in the use of the knife? Did he think I had never seen men being armored before? I plunged the blade, short but true, into the joint under his arm where leather and steel scales opened into a vulnerable gap.

  “You she-worm!” he howled, swinging out with his other arm and knocking me back into my sister so we both went sprawling, the sheet abandoned. I clung with determination to my bloodied blade expecting only for the second knight to raise his sword and claim their revenge.

  “Hold!”

  The sharp command came from without. Most surprisingly, it was a woman’s voice that uttered it.

  For a moment I truly believed the men weren’t going to obey. The lust in the second knight’s eyes was plain as his gaze swept past me to Nessie as she and I gathered ourselves up to huddle again on our knees.

  “Leave off.” The woman’s voice was strong and clear. “I will not command a third time.”

  I felt it then. A shift in the air, a pressure behind my eyes. A compulsion spell, beautifully wielded and delicately controlled.

  The knight threatening me backed off the bed and draped a supporting arm over his comrade who held a reddening hand over his wound. With glares black as death they backed from the room.

  In their place, the woman behind the mysterious voice stepped in. I’m not sure what I expected. A warrior queen, perhaps, dressed in the same armor as her knights. The lady walked in as confident and regal as any queen, no doubt, but dressed in robes of flowing samite, costly, demure and sensuous. With a face that promised ecstasy and a figure that swore to follow through.

  No mortal beauty she, but fae.

  I drank in the power of her. Old Magic might be fleeing from the land, but in her it flowered still. Not so strongly as it did within the Ladies of the Lake who had all of Avalon at their beck, but certainly more strongly than it had flowered in my mother who had crossed into Avalon a twelve-year past. And immeasurably stronger than it budded in me, half-fae only that I was.

  But being fae, this Lady was my blood and kin. In relief, I unfolded myself from the bed and stood to greet her.

  “Who gave you leave to rise?” she demanded, her cold voice dashing my expectations of a warm welcome. “Give me the knife.”

  I shook my head and held to it tighter. The pressure in my head built.

  She took a step nearer. “I said yield it to me.”

  I knew it was a coercion spell she worked on me. But the knowing of it was not a weapon against it. Though I willed myself to slash out in defense of my sister, she had only to snap her fingers and the blade fell from my grasp.

  “Sit,” she next commanded, as she took yet another step nearer.

  Of their own my knees bent, perching me on the edge of the bed. The ache behind my eyes pounded.

  Another step closer and she was towering above me, exuding magic and power I could only dream for myself. Then she did the unthinkable. Turning her attention from me, she crooked a long finger at Nessie. “Come.”

  “No!” I rallied what feeble magic coursed through me and lunged to my feet. We were of a height the fae and I. In fair battle, I could overpower her, but that was faint satisfaction in the face of magic so impressively stronger than my own.

  A look from her froze me as the pounding in my head beat against my skull with near-blinding force.

  She crooked her finger once again toward Nessie who had no gift of fae and who had already crawled to the middle of the bed. I could do nothing but watch as Nessie unfolded herself from the mattress and stood obediently before the fae woman. Her eyes found mine and the fright in them was as plain as the trembling of her exquisite body.

  “Strength,” I whispered, and she nodded bravely.

  “Ironside,” the fae called then, her gaze sweeping slowly, lingeringly over my sister.

  Then there was commotion at the door and a tall knight with the breadth of shoulder to match pushed his way into what free space was left in the room. The leather binding the burnished scales of his armor was dyed a blood red, with gloves and boots to match. Even the leggings beneath his heavy hauberk were the color of heartblood, as was the very hair upon his head. As was the very real blood upon his sword.

  Had his eyes not found me first, I doubt he would’ve known I was there. For as soon as he caught sight of Nessie, I heard his sharp gasp and saw the rivet of his gaze.

  “She is all that the bards have sung,” he breathed.

  Nessie’s blush deepened under the stare of the stranger knight, and I was acutely aware of the tears that sprang to her eyes.

  “And now she’s ours, Nimue.”

  Nimue. Like most, I knew the name of the traitor fae, and with a chill I recalled the name of the knight whom Nimue had summoned. Ironside. Holder of the Red Lands. Son of the Baron Knight my father had slain and who in turn had killed my papa. Nessie and I were no happystance finds for a band of brigands plundering some nameless abbey. We were what they hunted.

  Burdened by the sword in his right hand, Ironside lifted the left to his teeth and stripped the glove from it. Nimue flowed
around him, making room for him to approach Nessie.

  “Don’t touch her!” I cried.

  “Oh, I intend to do much, much more than that.”

  He ran an intimate finger between her breasts, tracing a line down her stomach and ending in her curls. She shrank from him and my heart grieved at the horror dawning on her face. Despite the pain of compulsion shredding the inside of my head, I struggled to be near her. But all my efforts only ended in a single whimpered, “No.”

  Ironside—for I would not sully the courteous title of knighthood by even thinking of him as Sir—took notice of me then. Locking his eyes to mine he draped his arm across Nessie’s shoulders, his bared hand filling itself with her breast. Stepping against her from behind, his eyes never leaving mine, he cocked his hips in mime once, twice, three times. With deliberate flare he sheathed his bloody sword, swept an arm beneath her naked knees and carried her off.

  Beyond my sight.

  Beyond my reach.

  Lost to me.

  Stolen away.

  I wailed in grief.

  I might have gone mad then were it not for Nimue speaking words I had to hear. Words that pulled me from the brink only to dangle me over the precipice again before she was done.

  “You wish to see Lyonesse again? Then you must find a champion. A knight as bold as Lancelot, as powerful as Tristan. Yet humble and obedient enough to follow you, no matter how much you abuse him. For abuse him you will. Distract him, try to drive him away. And if he will not go, then he must fight. The way to Lyonesse will be hard and dangerous, but not insurmountable. I’m giving you a chance to see your sister alive again.”

  “And unharmed?”

  “You mistake me for something I am not. I make no warrant for her condition—not her body nor her mind.”

  “But she’s an innocent!”

  The mingled look of anticipation and lust that settled across Nimue’s fair features chilled me. She was no savior to be appealed to with love and reason, but the left hand to Ironside’s right in this tragedy they spun before me.