Captive Heart

by Phoenix Sullivan

  In a breathspace she had my tunic off. A day had added generous yellows and purples to much of my chest, and she traced across the patterns with a tender hand, oohing as she went.

  Marrok rose to see as well, and Nessie followed.

  “These were gotten for Nessie…and me,” Lyn said, awe and gratitude in her voice. “And I never properly thanked you.”

  A memory of Lyn’s expression when she knew Nessie was truly safe flashed before my eyes. “You did,” I assured her.

  “Not nearly enough.” She leaned down and kissed her way up, moving from bruise to bruise till she reached the last one. Then her mouth was on mine again, but this time warm passion gave way to desperate urgency as she mashed her lips to mine, her hands wrapped about my head, and thrust her tongue deep inside.

  Closing my eyes, I sucked on its sweetness until a stirring below my belt cautioned against too much joy right now. With a gentle murmur, I ended the kiss.

  Immediately she crossed to Marrok and bent his head to hers. “And you,” she whispered, “thank you, too.” She breathed across his lips and their kiss was ignited. I saw Marrok’s cheeks working, heard the wet rhythm of their mouths.

  If I’d thought merely ending our kiss was enough to kill the insistent stirring of my staff, I was mistaken. I tried not to think about the wide beds that beckoned behind me, but about Nessie and not exposing her to too much affection in a single morning.

  The way Marrok cocked his leg against Lyn told me he was having similar issues.

  It was Lyn who broke off their kiss, reluctantly but firmly. After a moment to catch her breath, she looked to Nessie, appraising her sister’s reaction.

  “Do you love them?” Nessie asked, a touch of wonder in her quiet voice.

  “Yes.” Lyn watched Nessie closely.

  “Both of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could—Do you want me to leave the room?”

  “No.” Lyn crossed to her sister’s side and took Nessie’s hand. “Love isn’t always…physical. Love is what we are, who we are, inside. Love isn’t lust, and lust isn’t control. What you were forced to do—oh, Nessie, I can’t tell you how heartsick I am for what they did—was revenge and nothing more. Ugly, evil vengeance. But just as a hand can slap with cruel intent, it can also caress with purest affection. Don’t mistake the deed for the doer. Hate, yes, as I hate. Nimue and Ironside deserve every ounce of it that you can muster. Just don’t be afraid to touch another or to let another touch you. Otherwise, they win. And you lose so very, very much.”

  Nessie’s eyes were wide with fear. “I…can’t,” she whispered. “Not now.”

  “Of course not,” Lyn soothed. “Who would even expect that? Not today or tomorrow, this year or the next. Or however long you need. Love will wait.”

  I thanked a merciful God that I wouldn’t need to wait too long.

  That night by the brazier’s soft glow, barely more than shadows, Marrok and I stood mouth-to-mouth next to our bed on the far side of the room from where Nessie lay watching us, held close in her sister’s protective embrace.

  As urgent as our needs were, we danced slowly, ever mindful of our audience. Marrok nipped at my lips before I raised them to kiss his closed eyes one by one before darting my tongue into the hollow of his ear.

  His chuckle at the teasing turned into a muffled moan as the rhythm of my hard tongue increased. His hands slid under my tunic, across the tight muscles of my chest that I flexed for his pleasure, before landing at the sensitive nubs that he flicked to attention with the backs of his nails.

  “How would you have me?” I whispered into the ear I was tormenting.

  He stepped a leg behind me, bringing us chest-to-chest, the hard bulge of him against my own. “Face down, on the bed. Let me lead tonight.”

  He peeled my tunic over my head and dropped it to the floor. Running his hands down the length of my bruised chest, he tugged at the short hairs as he went.

  When he came to the waistband, he slipped a finger beneath to tickle the tip of me. My staff leapt painfully against the fabric of my breeches. I was panting now, waiting for Marrok’s slow hand to unbelt me, my own hands roaming under his tunic now, my fingers curling in the heavy mat of hair that covered his chest that put my sparse forest to shame.

  I inhaled the musk of him, wondering how I must smell to his wolfen nose. Ready, I hoped. Because I was.

  The rope at my waist fell away. The lacings at the front of my breeches required a delicacy beyond Marrok’s thick fingers if the undoing of them wasn’t going to further excite the hardened flesh beneath.

  I groaned as he pulled at the leather thong till my breeches opened wide and my staff sprang free.

  Someone gasped from across the room, and it rose higher.

  With frantic hands, Marrok slid the leggings over my hips and knees, and I kicked them away. Before them all now, I stood proud. Beaumains, Sir Kay had once christened me, but I knew he didn’t name me that for the beauty of my hands alone. Rarely did I think about how I looked to others, but here, before the two I loved and the one I suddenly wanted to impress, I could admit that God had favored me.

  In a breathspace, Marrok ripped off his own tunic and kicked off his leggings, his eyes never leaving the promise I offered him in the night. He fell to his knees, and the sheets rustled as the women lifted themselves to their elbows to better see.

  I shuddered at the touch of Marrok’s mouth, warm and wet, over me, his tongue flicking at the hooded tip, teasing along its crevices. The moist sound of his sucking grew louder as he swallowed me, his large hands on my flattening hips.

  Above the sucking, I head a feminine whimper. “He… Ironside…made me—” The words choked in Nessie’s throat.

  “I know,” Lyn soothed. “We don’t have to watch.”

  “I thought he was…degrading…me.”

  “He was,” Lyn said, and her voice was firm.

  “But Marrok…”

  “Is paying worship to his love.”

  I prayed that worship would continue as I arched my throat and dug my fingers in Marrok’s hair.

  Then his mouth retreated and he stood, leaving me wet, straining and abandoned. He ran his warm hands where his mouth had been, gathering up the wetness and slicking it over himself, drawing attention to the readiness of his own sturdy staff.

  We moved to the bed, its frame creaking beneath our weight as we knelt atop it, at its foot, me to the fore and Marrok behind. His arms circled my waist and I fell to my forearms, the tip of my long staff brushing the sheets.

  Marrok’s hands slid around my hips to open my flanks. As he positioned himself, I braced for his entrance.

  “But that…the pain…” Nessie’s shocked whisper floated to my ears.

  “Is short. Anticipated even when you welcome someone in. Because on the other side of the pain lies a moment so sublime…”

  “I…never…”

  “Because you fought, my sweetling. Because you were brave. Because the only way to joy in this is to surrender, which you never did.”

  Swift and sure, Marrok thrust into me, impaling me. My stones shriveled at the sudden pain. I inhaled once, twice, then surrendered completely.

  Marrok laid his head on my back, his beard bristling my spine. Once he found his rhythm, he circled his hands over the tense muscles of my stomach, circling lower till one hand wrapped itself around the root of my staff and the other climbed to its tip.

  “Down,” he panted.

  I obeyed, spreading my hands to either side as I lowered my cheek to the bed, flattening myself to the sheets as he flattened over me. He held to me yet, his hands maddening me, exciting me with their delicious abuse. My head rolled back and forth over the sheets as Marrok’s breath quickened and he pounded above me.

  When he touched the pleasure spot deep inside me, he ripped a groan from my throat. His own echo of exhilaration filled my ears and thrilled my staff.

  He bit my shoulder. No love nip this, but the p
ain only added to the torture of my building rapture. I clutched at the sheets and my body clenched around Marrok. I was shaking, my breathing deep and ragged, ridden to the brink of bliss.

  Then I swallowed breath as starfire exploded within. Without. My hips shook and I christened Marrok’s hands with my joy. Inside, Marrok’s own joy spurted into me.

  Growling into the shelter of my shoulder, he collapsed over me.

  Sated and spent nearly beyond moving, I knew there was one more lesson for Nessie this night.

  Pulling one of Marrok’s hands from under me and leaving the other still curled with wicked abandon around me, I drew the hand I’d caught to my lips and kissed it. Then, twining my fingers through his, I tucked both of our hands against my side and, sighing, gave myself over to sleep, Marrok, snoring softly, still atop me.

  Chapter 41

  Lyn

  I held Nessie’s hand in mirror to my champions—squeezing it now as I once did when we shared sisterly secrets—while we watched the men fall to sleep wrapped together in a shared secret of their own.

  Earlier, I’d held her hand with a desperate grip as my breath shuddered and all the muscles of my stomach and below clenched with need, anticipation, memory…my whole body craving to be with theirs as they rode toward that moment of zealous delight.

  Now, it was—almost—enough to gaze my fill on the naked length of Marrok, his hard flanks spread over Gareth, his wide shoulders a vow of love and protection.

  “He looks so…content,” Nessie whispered.

  “Which?”

  “Gareth. See how lightly his eyes are closed? How he’s almost smiling even in sleep?”

  I looked at Nessie, not Gareth, watching for signs of distress. That she focused on Gareth’s not-unlovely face rather than on the twine of naked limbs was telling. I deeply appreciated Gareth having given her that final view, emphasizing his and Marrok’s closeness and their bond over the physical act of their love.

  “It takes so much trust to be that content,” Nessie said.

  “Earned trust,” I agreed. “And that can take time.”

  Nessie nodded. She looked as though she would say something else, didn’t, and then, “I thought I would be frightened,” she confessed.

  “And you weren’t?”

  “At first. They looked so much like Ironside. That same hunger in their eyes, in the way they moved, the things they did. But when I saw they both wanted the other to do those things, I wasn’t frightened anymore.” She blushed. “Well, perhaps a little.”

  “They frighten me a little too,” I grinned. “Not that I doubt my safety and security in their arms, but because of what they do to my heart.”

  “And yet you risked it?”

  “At first,” I said. “And then I surrendered it.”

  There was something about Nessie’s earnestness and innocence that affected me in our room sheltered away from the rest of the civilized world. When Gareth pressed me again about Ironside and how I wished him disposed, I told him I would leave the Red Knight’s fate in Nessie’s hands. A part of me secretly hoped she would want to see him flayed alive. Yet another part of me knew that Nimue’s curse to redeem him would not be my punishment but my salvation.

  “You would slay him if I asked?” Nessie said to Gareth when we brought the judgment to her.

  “Whatever my Lady commands.”

  “But you say he was compelled?” she asked me.

  “Not all was compulsion. He wanted revenge. And once he had you, he wanted you. Nimue’s spell merely augmented his desires, just as she augmented his strength. To compel for so long against a man’s natural state would be a feat beyond Avalon itself.”

  “But without her spell, he might have refused, might have said no to her plans?”

  “It is possible, yes.”

  “But not certain?” she pressed.

  “No.”

  “What,” she asked Gareth, “is the penalty when a knight is defeated in single combat such as this?”

  “His life and lands and means are forfeit. The champion decides their disposition.”

  “How, then, would you dispose them?”

  “The same way I disposed his brother’s. I would commend him and his knights to King Arthur. To be part of Arthur’s army that would bring justice to this Isle. To atone with body and sword in that service from this day forward, and to be subject to swift retribution should he fail the oath he’d be required to swear.”

  “You would trust his oath?”

  “He has honor yet. Did he not send Nimue on her way? Do we not bide in his keep—and are we not still alive?”

  “Then you would let him live?”

  Gareth went down on a knee beside Nessie. A sign of respect, of neutrality, of fairness when done on the battlefield. “It is not mine to weigh Ironside’s honor against the pain and harm he has done to you. To Lyn. I am…an instrument…of justice. Your sword. Not justice itself. Command me.”

  Nessie’s eyes went wide with reverence. And I realized as my younger sister she had never had a decision not made for her. Never had a man offer to gift, had only had Ironside forcefully take. Even our father, who had been a fair man, had never given Nessie the gift of command.

  She held it close, said at last, “I cannot forgive him.”

  I swallowed hard and squeezed shut my eyes.

  “But so long as I never have to see him again, and so long as he remains in Arthur’s court and abides by Arthur’s laws, then give him to Arthur. I will not have his blood on my hands.”

  Gareth bowed his head. “Your wish, my Lady.” Then with considered gentleness, he captured Nessie’s hand in his and lifted it to his lips, watching her carefully.

  She tensed at his touch, and by the wild look in her eyes I feared he had dared too much. She took a breath, and then another, before steadying herself.

  Only then did Gareth release her hand. She snatched it away, but only a short distance before it faltered. She flushed.

  “Thank him,” I prompted. “In other circumstances, you would offer him a ring or bracelet for his services.”

  “But how do I know I’ve chosen right?”

  An image flashed across my sight. Ironside at Camelot. Older. Sterner, as though the weight of a thousand sins rested on his brow. And seated, not just with Arthur’s court, but at the Round Table itself.

  Penitent. Cleansed. Absolved

  Weeping, I embraced my sister. “Never doubt, sweetling. You have truly redeemed us all.”

  Chapter 42

  Nessie

  We stayed on at the Red Castle for almost a fortnight. I ventured into its halls only in the company of Lyn, ever afraid of running into Ironside. While Lyn had shared her vision of him at Arthur’s Table and while he’d sent servants and jewels to me in way of comfort and apology, there was no gesture he could make to ever wash away the memory or the pain of what he’d done.

  My only balm was the bond of trust Lyn and her champions were building with the greatest of care. In our chamber, open as it was, no gesture, no deed, no touch was private. And yet I felt wrapped in privacy and respect, all deference shown to me by the men who’d rescued me. Never once did they pursue an unwelcome touch or stare, and yet I was free to be a voyeur of their most intimate acts. To discover that not all men’s lances were weapons to be feared nor were all men slaves to their brutish passions.

  Even Marrok showed me every courtesy, only indulging his wolfish appetites with Gareth and the occasional deep, swift kiss and hard embrace with Lyn.

  For seven nights Gareth and Marrok jousted with abandon in their bed across the room. For seven nights I watched them joy in the same acts that had caused me only despair, heard their cries of pleasure where I in their place had whimpered in pain. For seven nights Lyn held me in her protective embrace, responding with unabashed desire to the spectacle of their lust—of their love.

  And on the eighth night I told Lyn, “Go.”

  The eagerness in her eyes was tempered with heart
breaking concern. Her hand on my cheek burned. “Not if it will cause you pain.”

  “Your joy is my joy, not my pain.” I told her. A week ago I may not have meant it. A week ago I did not know Gareth and Marrok for the champions they truly were. A week ago…seemed a lifetime past.

  “If you change your mind and need me here again…”

  I smiled at Lyn’s sincerity, at her love. “Go,” I repeated.

  As she eased away from me, I felt the void of her—alone, but not alone. Not anymore.

  Gareth stood in the firelight to greet her. I followed the now-familiar lines of him as he brushed her lips with a kiss, then lifted off her shift. For a moment, I saw her not through a sister’s eyes but through Gareth’s, marveling at how the shape of her fit his questing hands. Through his eyes, she was lovely and desirable, a prize to be won, never a possession to be conquered.

  And she was ready to be won.

  But was I truly ready to watch?

  The hard planes of the men were distancing in a way the peaks and valleys of Lyn were not. She was both an echo of Nimue and a second self through whom I could experience all. If Marrok touched Gareth there, I could only imagine what it must feel to him. Anywhere Marrok touched Lyn I would know its feeling for sure.

  Or would I? A welcome touch must surely feel different from a loathed one.

  What if I only felt the pain and none of the pleasure?

  Panic flooded through me.

  Then Gareth was kissing Lyn, one hip molded into his hand, the other hand tracing the curve of a breast mounded between them. Both Lyn’s hands kneaded the ample muscle over Gareth’s ribs and back. With a moan, she arched into him.

  I couldn’t yet feel the depths of her passion. I resolved myself that it could be I never would. That perhaps Ironside and Nimue had stripped that from me too. But knowing Lyn went willing into this gave me the strength to continue.

  Although when I caught Marrok out of the corner of my eye staring not at them but me, I faltered.