by Penny Dawn
"When will you marry Morgana?"
Preston smiled, and after a glance over his shoulder at the knight, prodded, "Would you like to get your hands on our Lady Morgana?"
"No, sir. I beg your pardon, but no!"
The man's shoulder brushed against him with enough force to cause a stumble, but not enough to topple him.
Sebastian regained his footing.
"Then I suppose it's none of your business," Preston said quietly.
"Not my personal business, perhaps, but business of the foreign embassies. Although Bismalle cited the fuel crisis when they waged war against Carman, we all know it's due to your imprisonment. You alone can end this threat by returning to the nation of your birth."
"That I cannot do, but it would assuage nothing. My father, the senior duke, wishes to pluck Carman descendants from the face of the earth as easily as I will take down a caribou. It's the reason I refuse to return. I will not be a pawn in his game."
"Why must Carman descendants die?"
"Why does the embassy see fit to become involved?" Beau stepped between them. "What do you care if we kill each other? If we do, you'll have plenty of opportunity to capture our crystalline fuel."
Sebastian waived the motive. "The embassy sees the value of your resources, but the old men are dying. We younger men have a plan for conservation and recycling of our own resources. It's the only long-term answer to our dilemma."
"The bill to recycle fuel passed by only a narrow margin, ambassador." Beau crouched at the wounded animal's side. "You youngsters have quite a long way to go."
Preston yanked out the golden arrow and wiped the beast's blood against his pants. He removed the gold amulet from around his neck and opened it like a locket.
"What is that?" Sebastian peered over Beau's shoulder to see a golden balm encased in the amulet.
"Serum." Preston rubbed a fingerful into the caribou's wound. "It dulls the pain."
"Does it heal?"
"Not yet, but I'm constantly at work to improve it. Besides, if you hit a target in the right place, as I have, he can live."
"Then why hunt at all?"
Beau stood and took a step closer to Sebastian. "Be thankful he doesn't take aim at you. Why won't you tell us what we require of you?"
"You're on the wrong track." Sebastian clenched his teeth. "My position here has nothing to do with the embassies coveting your fuel, and if it does, I don't know about it."
"For the last time, ambassador, tell me why the embassy sent you."
"As often as I've been asked, I'm beginning to wonder why as well." Sebastian took another step closer. His chest contacted the knight's. "Like your sidekick, I'm perfectly content to remain as prisoner among the Carman ladies, but I will not be treated like a common criminal. I'm as much in the dark as you. The answers you seek lie in the lands of your enemy. Before you insult me again, and if you still deny me a meeting with your queen, I demand you allow me to take leave to Bismalle!"
Beau grabbed him by the shirt front. "Our hippos grow hungry." Sebastian felt the heat of the knight's breath on the bridge of his nose. "Come along."
* * * *
Caroline escaped to her chambers and seated herself at her dressing table in front of the gilded mirror. "Am I carrying Sebastian's child?"
Her reflection zoomed out to reveal the ambassador lavishing her nude breasts with wet kisses, his hands circling her swollen belly.
"How can that be? I'm a virgin. I've never--"
::Caroline.::
The voice was that of her late mother, Olivia. She spun around, but her quarters were as empty as when she'd entered. "Mother?"
::The mirror shows what you desire, as well as what may come to pass. You must determine what is real and what is not.::
"So real. It's all felt so very real." She gazed again into the mirror, seeking her mother's image. "You left us just when things became complicated!"
::Not of my own will, princess.::
In the mirror, Sebastian was handcuffed on the back of a horse. "Is he in danger?"
::He will be, if he arrives in the hands of our enemy.::
The mirror clouded over, and Olivia slowly emerged in its reflection. Caroline felt the caress of her mother's hands through her hair, just as she had as a child, and the late queen stood behind her.
"Then I must stop him!"
::I beseech you, Caroline, you must not follow him.::
"Wouldn't you follow Daddy to the ends of the earth?"
::Only if he can't find his way back on his own.::
Olivia pressed a kiss onto Caroline's cheek, yet when the younger reached for her, she was gone.
Chapter 6
* * *
"What are you doing here?" After Sir Beauregard settled the handcuffed ambassador into a chair with a sharp shove, he turned to Lady Morgana, who was beckoning to him with the crook of a finger into the infirmary. "If you weren't feeling well, or if you needed something, you ought to have sent your chambermaid for the physician. With the state of Carman being what it is, you have no business--"
"It's a highly private matter, Beau." The lady didn't give his prisoner a second glance, but tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Uncuff the ambassador, so I may speak with you at once."
"You heard the lady." Sebastian's grin was sly, provocative, and he held out his hands. "I believe she'll put these to better use than you'll ever manage."
"You watch your tongue, ambassador!" Morgana spoke over her shoulder as she began toward the door. "Lest you forget Caroline's and my combined experiences can force you to resign your commission with the embassy."
Beau unlocked the armor device that detained his prisoner. "Don't try her."
The ambassador's smirk was gone. "I wouldn't dream of it."
"The nurse will get you some balm for the burns on your wrist." Beau pivoted toward Lady Morgana, whose face wore a concerned expression.
When he was close enough, she planted a hand over his heart and whispered, "I am with child."
Delight spiraled in the pit of his belly. "You're sure?" It dissipated when he realized Morgana had yet to smile. Perhaps... "It is mine, isn't--"
The glare of her eyes shut him up. "Of course!"
He lowered his voice even more. "Forgive me, Morgana, but you've disclosed this information in an antiseptic hallway, with a frown upon your face. Naturally, I assumed bad news was to follow."
"I didn't say it was bad."
"Are you unhappy with your condition?"
"If you don't start making sense, I'll slap some into you." Her hands landed on her hips. "Do you not listen to the things I whisper to you in the dead of night? Of course I'd be pleased normally, but you must know the assembly of foreign embassies awaits a Carman heir. They plan to steal him, to use him for their own purposes! In having this child, we're giving them what they want!"
"You aren't suggesting we don't have it."
"Aren't I?"
"I hope not." He flattened his palm against Morgana's womb. "This nonsense about the assembly and an heir...who's filled your head with it?"
"Carrie. I haven't the time to go into details, but if I were you, I'd stop torturing the ambassador for our sordid love affair and investigate this lead so we know how to proceed!"
He brushed a kiss onto her lips. "If there's any truth to it, m'lady. I promise you and our child, no harm will come to either of you. I will speak with your sister--"
"You ought to."
"But I'll still require your jewels this evening."
"This has nothing to do with crystalline fuel, Beau."
"So I'm told. But I don't believe it. You gestate. Leave the solving of the political problems to me."
She opened her mouth in protest.
"Someone sees me worthy of the Brigade of the Secret Service, Morgana. Let me do my job."
"Well"--her gaze combed from his eyes to his feet and back again--"get on with it already."
Chapter 7
* * *
While the good Sir Beauregard busied himself with Lady Morgana, Sebastian slipped from the infirmary. Thoughts of Lady Caroline danced in his head like proverbial sugar plums of Christmas stories, but he forced his way to the front of the castle.
With dusk falling, escape to Bismalle was now or never. He'd return later for the lady. Before he called himself a fit suitor, he had to prove his worth as an ambassador, and ambassadors came and went as they pleased.
"Sebastian." She fell in stride beside him, two steps to his one.
He took her hand, but did not fall out of step. "I beg you, Caroline, let me go."
"Are you planning to traipse through the moat? The only way you can wiggle past the footman is with my help, and I won't let you go alone."
"I've yet to decide if Bismalle is a safe haven for the people of Carman. You must stay."
"There was blood in my panties."
He stopped then and spun to face her.
Her eyes burned with mystery, and her mouth, with lips slightly parted, deserved a last kiss. "And thick liquid like semen trickles down my thighs, and thoughts trail on the wind, and memories of the most pleasured activities--"
"What has any of that to do with me?" But he knew.
"What happened this afternoon?" Her grip was one of iron. "Did we...did we do what I think we did?"
Although he wanted to declare her theory a winner, he shook his head. "I would never steal a lady's virginity without her direct involvement. I've been a womanizer, and more recently a pawn in a political game of chess, but I wouldn't do that."
"Why did you tell me what you told me as you left? If you know what I taste like, I demand you tell me how!"
"I can taste your tears, your pleasure, your anger. I can hear the catch in your throat just before you come, and the chime of your voice when you whisper my name. I feel your fingernails digging into my shoulders, the hot sheath of your cunt, and the pillow of your magnificent breasts, but don't ask me to explain."
"Why does the assembly seek a Carman heir?"
"I don't know."
"But you agree that's what they want?"
"M'lady, have I given you one?"
"It's too soon to say." Her eyes softened. She brought a finger to his temple and smoothed his hair.
In that moment, he forgot his intent to flee, for nothing mattered beyond making her his.
"Now," she whispered. "It's time."
"Long overdue."
When the sounds of footsteps carried through the corridor, they both turned to gauge from which direction.
"Carrie?"
"It's Morgana," she whispered. "Quickly, come with me."
He followed the pull of her hand through connected parlors, through a maze of corridors, and finally through a mahogany passageway hidden behind a bookshelf.
"Where does it lead?"
"Shh!"
It didn't matter. He'd follow her anywhere. The path zigzagged and swelled and dipped. His heart beat rampantly inside his chest, and sweat poured from under his arms.
With heavy breath, Lady Caroline leaned a shoulder against a crack in the wall, and together, they toppled into the butterfly garden.
The hidden door clapped shut, leaving them to the serenity of foliage and butterfly nests. Cicadas hummed, but their song was drowned with sounds of passion--sounds they created together as they tumbled to the ground.
"Why can't I control myself when you're with me?" He didn't give her time to answer; his tongue darted out to taste her.
Her hands tore at his fly.
His ripped layers of satin from her body.
Without a hand to guide him, his cock found its way into her parting slit, as he cradled her bare breasts.
She moaned and lifted her hips to take him.
Once buried in her depths, he rolled her over so she was on top. He was deep inside her now. He cupped one full breast in each hand, and stared up at the vision she'd become.
Sunset glowed behind her. Her hair, a mass of long curls, shimmered, and her eyes ignited.
Visions of playing the harp for her, taking walks on beaches with her, and making love to her played like a slide show in his mind. They'd shared a life, and a bed, before, in some realm of the universe he would never understand. It was Caroline calling him to Carman, Caroline he'd been meant to comfort when Queen Olivia passed, Caroline he could never leave.
"Will it always be this way?" Her whisper alone evoked his groan.
"It's always been this way."
"Will I have your children?"
"By the scores."
She lowered her mouth to his, and in the moments encompassed by their kiss, he saw her with a pregnant belly, with a baby at her breast, with a child bouncing on her knee.
"I know you," she whispered against lips.
"I love you, too."
A slow smile spread onto her face, but he didn't have time to relish it. Another image darted through his brain, one of his own colleagues stealing the infant from his bed. The cufflinks were undeniable--gold with the filigree symbol.
"Sebastian?"
"Guard him with your life, my love."
She shrieked as she was pulled from his arms.
"Caroline!" Before he managed to reach her, he felt the pricking of an arrow at his chest.
"Don't move, ambassador."
"Jade!" She pulled the cloak from his captor's shoulders and covered her lovely body with it. "Jade, don't be a fool. Put down your weapon."
"I cannot, by order of Bismalle."
"Preston? Where is he?"
Sebastian grasped the arrowhead and the frame of the bow. "Steady, garçon. Don't make a move you'll regret."
Jade hitched his chin toward Sebastian. "He's the enemy, m'lady."
Over Jade's shoulder, her gaze bore into Sebastian's and, try as he might, he couldn't keep the truth from her. At last, he began to see the situation from Carman officials' viewpoint.
In order to play the role of a neutral party, the assembly had to send an agent, but--as Beau had suspected--they wanted a quick in and out. The assemblymen had probably anticipated Sebastian's volunteering, especially with the masquerade on the horizon, and they'd hoped he'd be more concerned with Carman ladies than with asking the right questions of the right personnel.
By taking up with Lady Caroline, he'd played into their hands, and he had no ace up his sleeve with which to save Carman now.
"Sebastian?" The fear and disappointment in her eyes glared as vividly as the sliver of sun still visible on the horizon.
"M'lady, I'm a pawn! They've used me to--" A rag doused in chemicals gagged him. He pushed at the cloth with his tongue, fighting to say the necessary words, to make her understand he wasn't one of them. Not anymore. But the more he fought, the fuzzier his brain became.
"No!" Caroline shrieked.
He reached for her and pleaded with his eyes--please understand!--but a burlap sack soon hooded his head. Twine bound and burned his wrists and ankles. The world spun at an alarming rate, then everything was still.
Still.
Chapter 8
* * *
The backs of his eyelids became a cinema screen, on which magical images of Lady Caroline and four other women played. All nude, kissing, and stroking, they waited in a bed chamber at Olympian Hall, where the annual masquerade ball would take place. Waiting for him.
Lady Caroline's beauty surpassed all others', and she was the center of the scene. A brunette laid Caroline's back against her breast, cradling her, and stroked the lady's hair. The remaining three strangers were blonde. Two bridged Caroline in a kiss, creating a menagerie of nipples. The remaining parted Caroline's thighs and worked her slit with slender digits before tonguing her clitoris.
"Get her good and ready for me," an unfamiliar male voice boomed.
With the droning song of cicadas filling his ears, Sebastian opened his eyes, but saw nothing but a beam of light shining through the back of a burlap sack.
Caroline! What had happened to her? A
kick to his shin arrested his attempt to rise, and intensified the pain throbbing in his skull. He struggled to take in a deep breath, but only gagged on something large and cottony against his tongue.
"Wake up."
Morgana. When he tried to speak, he remembered the rag filling his mouth. Instantly, he was conscious of the trousers bunched at his knees, but when he moved to cover himself, he found he could not move his arms. The stones beneath him dug into his shoulder blades.
"Where is my sister?" She ripped the hood from his face and yanked the cloth from his mouth.
The light of a lantern stung his eyes, and a medicinal taste coated his tongue. Brassex. It tasted like the drug offered at the masquerade and other orgies. Brassex enhanced sexual experiences, even if it caused drowsiness and nausea in large doses. He didn't want to keep his eyes open now, but he didn't dare look away from the lady.
Morgana raised a brow.
After a gasp for air, he managed, "Ask Jade."
"I'll ask again, ambassador, and then I'll allow the Brigade of the Secret Service to interrogate you. What brings you to the butterfly garden surrounded by my sister's clothing and your pants halfway to your ankles?"
Fresh air proved to be no friend. While it filled his lungs, it spurred nausea down below. He wretched, but nothing came up. "She came of her own free will, I swear!"
"And you had your way with her!"
"I beg your pardon, m'lady, but it seems Carman ladies have a way all their own." He shut up when he felt the tip of a high-heeled slipper nudge against his testicles. "No, no, I beg--"
"Is it true the assembly of foreign embassies seeks a Carman heir?"
"Yes, but I know nothing--"
"Is this why you've given them my sister? Have you planted your seed to fulfill their needs?"
"M'lady, I'm shackled and nude on a quartzite path. Do you think I've agreed to any of this?"
"Did you intend to impregnate me after my mother's funeral?"
"Would I have taken extreme safety measures against such things, if I had, m'lady?"