by Anne Bishop
"Thank you for stopping by, High Lord." He gave her a wan smile. "It was my pleasure, Lady." She doubted that, but she smiled and stayed in the kitchen until she was sure he was gone. After making a cup of tea for herself, she sat at the table for a long time.
It must have required a kind of steely courage for the High Lord to come to the eyrie, not knowing what he might find, what kind of damage he might have to try to repair. Remembering the stories she'd heard about Warlord Princes, she had to admit he and Lucivar both had a valid reason for asking if she needed a Healer. It hadn't occurred to her that Lucivar wouldn't know she didn't need one.
Maybe Lucivar's bolting this morning hadn't been meant as a rejection. If he hadn't cared, at least a little, he wouldn't have been as concerned about what had happened during the rut, would he?
She sighed. There was nothing she could do to settle things between them until he came back, so she might as well get some work done.
After bundling up again, she opened the front door…and stared. There wasn't so much as a flake of snow on the entire flagstone courtyard except for Tassle's den.
Taking the hint, Marian went back inside. She'd clean Lucivar's bedroom and make some soup. And she wouldn't allow herself to wonder if he was afraid to come home because of things he couldn't remember.
Saetan waited throughout the day, knowing Lucivar would come to him before going to the eyrie. It had been easy enough to keep track of his son. It hadn't been easy to resist summoning Lucivar to the Keep to offer what reassurance he could. But a summons of any kind would be misunderstood, and Lucivar's fear had bordered on panic too many times during the day to dare give him any kind of push.
Finally, as the afternoon waned, Lucivar walked into the room where Saetan waited. He looked exhausted, and his hands trembled a little as he poured himself a glass of brandy.
"You saw her," Lucivar said, staring into the glass for a moment before he gulped the brandy and poured another glass.
"I saw her," Saetan replied.
"Did she need a Healer? I asked, but…"
"No, she didn't need a Healer."
Lucivar sagged with relief. "Is she… upset?"
Saetan hesitated. He thought he'd taken an accurate measure of Marian's temperament when she'd stayed at the Hall during Winsol, but the woman who had flung snow on him and snapped at him in her kitchen didn't fit that measure. "She wasn't reacting as I would have expected." He frowned. "She'd struck me as a quiet-natured woman, but…"
Lucivar shrugged. "She usually is, but she gets feisty when she's riled."
Riled. Yes, that was a good way to describe the woman he'd seen that morning.
Lucivar set the glass down so carefully, Saetan suspected it was taking every bit of self-control to keep from throwing the glass at the wall.
"Is she going to leave?" Lucivar asked. "Should I stay away until she can—" He swallowed hard, unable to finish.
That, Saetan realized, was the root of Lucivar's fear…that the woman he was in love with, the woman he'd been courting so carefully over the last few months, would want nothing from him except the chance to escape. Lucivar wouldn't believe him right now if he said escape was the last thing on Marian's mind.
"May I offer you some advice?" Saetan asked. "Not as your father or as the Steward of the court, but as a man who talked to Marian this morning."
Misery filling his gold eyes, Lucivar said, "What's your advice?"
Saetan smiled dryly. "Get your ass home in time for dinner."
He found her in the kitchen, arranging slices of bread and cheese on plates while something that smelled delicious simmered on the stove. How many times had he come home to find her like this, preparing the evening meal for them, her warm smile of welcome a feast to a heart that had been starving for love for so many centuries? Now he wasn't sure what he should say to her, what he should do.
"Marian."
She looked up, and the unhappiness in her eyes was a twisting knife in his gut.
"I wasn't sure you would come back," she said, turning back to fuss with the bread and cheese.
"I wasn't sure you wanted me to come back," he replied honestly.
She started to speak, then shook her head and picked up the plates. "Have something to eat." The plates clattered on the counter. She hunched her shoulders, as if to ward off a blow. "You didn't have to run away. I wasn't expecting anything from you because of this. You didn't have to run."
Yes, he did. But he hadn't run far. Just down to the orchard, where he would be out of sight of the eyrie while he puked his guts out in sick relief that he hadn't seen any visible wounds on her, hadn't seen any missing limbs. He'd been terrified to look when he woke up that morning, hadn't known how keen an edge panic could have until she'd walked into the kitchen on her own.
"It's difficult to explain," he said, flinching at the tears in her eyes when she turned to face him.
"How can a woman understand if no one will explain?"
"I don't remember!"
Now she flinched. Then she whispered, "So I was just a body."
Lucivar shook his head. "Oh, I remember you, Marian. The taste of you, the smell of you, the sounds you made, the feel of you under my hands. The feel of my cock inside you. I remember you. But I don't…" He closed his eyes. "I remember bits and pieces, moments that are jumbled together and shrouded in a violent, red haze that needed some kind of release. But… "
Hadn't he run from this all day? This one picture in his mind. He'd worked himself to exhaustion because every time he thought of her, desire burned through him, and he couldn't ask her to be with him tonight. He couldn't. Because of that one fragment of memory. But he had to ask. Had to know. She couldn't stay here with him if he didn't know how close he'd come to destroying her.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. "I do remember one thing. Me standing by the bed, holding my war blade. And you cowering in one corner of the bed."
Marian shook her head. Then she paled as his words sank in. "No, Lucivar. No. You weren't trying to hurt me. You thought something had gotten into the room, into the bed. You were trying to protect me."
"Nothing could have gotten into that room, not with all the shields I had around it."
"Nothing did," she agreed. "But you didn't know that. You were startled and…"
"By what?" he snapped, feeling raw…and not sure he really believed her.
She mumbled something and wouldn't meet his eyes anymore.
"What?"
"I didn't know my feet were that cold, but then you screamed and leaped out of bed and—"
He looked at her feet.
"I'm wearing socks."
She sounded grumpy. Grumpy was good. Grumpy was wonderful.
"You didn't hurt me, Lucivar. Not in any way."
Relief surged through him, but his heart still ached because he'd sensed a lie beneath her words. He tried to smile, "But you don't want me for a lover." He saw hope in her eyes—and maybe something more? "Do you want me, Marian?"
"I—" She swallowed hard. "Yes, I want you."
He held out a hand. "Then take me."
She turned shy and uncertain. Couldn't quite look at him. Another kind of woman wouldn't have hesitated to take what he offered. Marian might, given time and encouragement, initiate sex by giving a quiet invitation, but she would never demand.
He approached her slowly, his fingers linking with hers when he got close enough to touch her. "Take me, Marian." He stepped back, bringing her with him, until he could sit in one of the chairs. A quick tug and a deft move had her straddling him. He brushed her hair away from her face, enjoying the feel of that black silk flowing around his fingers. His lips touched hers, a soft kiss. "Take me."
He remembered her, but now he could savor the sensations of being with her. The way her mouth opened for him. The timid way her tongue stroked his, encouraging him to take what he wanted. Soft. Sweet. The kind of sex he'd never had before.
Her fingers flexed on his shoulders, her
only signal that she wanted more.
His mouth drifting along her jaw and down her neck, he undid her tunic lacings and slipped it down her shoulders as he vanished her undershirt. He doubted she was aware of arching her back in an unspoken invitation to suckle, but he took the invitation while his hands slipped under the tunic to caress her back.
He played with her until she squirmed in his lap, looking for what was still caged behind leather. She gasped, startled, when he vanished all of his clothes and all of hers below the waist. His hands kneaded her buttocks, rubbing her against him.
"Take me." He lifted her, sheathed himself inside her. "Take me." She was too focused on the feel of his cock to understand he was offering more than sex, but he knew he was offering his heart as well as his body. She was ready to ride. He wanted to be ridden. But she didn't have the leverage, so he slid his hands down her legs and cupped her knees, giving her stirrups.
He couldn't touch her, had effectively tethered himself so that he could only submit. Watching a woman ride him to her pleasure had never thrilled him before, but watching Marian lose herself in a sexual haze made him wild to touch her, taste her. But he stayed tethered, helping her ride him, gritting his teeth against the need to explode until she cried out and crested—and took him with her.
She melted against him, limp and trembling, her head pillowed on his shoulder. Feeling his own muscles quiver, he released her knees and wrapped his arms around her, content to hold her. But as the sweat began to dry on his skin, he shivered.
"Come on, sweetheart," he said, giving her a little squeeze. "We can't sleep here."
"Can," she mumbled, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.
He considered picking her up and taking her to bed, then dismissed the thought. With the way his legs were quivering right now, he'd just dump them both on the floor.
"We can't sleep here. It's too cold." He pushed and prodded until she finally raised her head to look at him. Her eyes were dull with fatigue, and he realized she must have tried to work herself into the ground to run from her own thoughts. "We'll have something to eat and then cuddle up in bed."
"Cuddle?"
Before she could fold around him again, he got her off him enough to dump her in another chair and call in a blanket to wrap around her. After calling in the robe she'd made him for Winsol and putting a light warming spell on it and the blanket, he brought the bread and cheese to the table, then ladled out two bowls of soup. She just watched him, which told him well enough how tired she was.
Even hunger couldn't compete with exhaustion, and neither of them managed to finish the soup. But Marian roused enough to insist on putting the food away properly, then stumbled with him to his bedroom.
It smelled clean. Fresh. He wasn't sure how she'd managed to air the room "when it was still so wickedly cold outside, but he was grateful the thick musk of sex was gone.
A few minutes to add fresh wood to the fire, add more power to the warming spells, and get Marian focused enough to call in a nightgown.
Then he bundled them into bed, set his teeth, and shifted his legs until she could warm her feet on him. Damn, they were cold!
She curled up against him and sighed in contentment.
Lucivar brushed his lips against her forehead and smiled. If sex wasn't enough incentive for his little hearth witch to share his bed, having a man who would keep her feet warm this winter would be.
NINETEEN
After a hard winter, nothing lifted the spirits in quite the same way as the warmth of spring thaw, Marian thought as she went from shop to shop to do the marketing. Even Riada's muddy streets couldn't dull her pleasure…especially since Lucivar had taught her how to air walk and she could keep her boots above the mud.
He'd taught her a lot of things over the winter months.
As she considered stopping at The Tavern to chat with Merry and have a quick bowl of soup or stew before going home, she almost ran into the woman who stepped out of a shop directly in her path.
She hadn't seen Roxie all winter. Didn't want to see her now.
"Lady Roxie," Marian said, stepping to one side to go around the other witch.
Roxie stepped into her path again. "You'd better start looking for a new position. When I move into the eyrie, I'm not sharing Lucivar with the likes of you." She gave Marian one scathing look from head to toe. "I suppose using you for relief was better than using his own hand, but not by much. Once I'm there, Lucivar won't have any interest in you, and I'm not going to have a servant working for me who doesn't know her place."
A chill went through Marian. "What are you talking about?"
"Lucivar's going to be my lover. I'll be moving into the eyrie with him any day now."
Marian shook her head. "He doesn't want you. He'd never invite you to live with him."
Something ugly glinted in Roxie's eyes before she smiled. "He's not going to have a choice. He's going to have to do everything I want."
"He's the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih," Marian protested. "You can't force him to do anything he doesn't want to do. He doesn't serve you."
"He's going to," Roxie said smugly. Then she leaned close to Marian. "I'm going to tell everyone he tried to force himself on me but came to his senses before it became an actual rape. The Queens in Ebon Rih won't demand an execution…they wouldn't dare, considering who he's related to. But I'll insist that he be made to serve me for a year as the price for the trauma inflicted by his unbridled lust. And they'll give him to me."
Marian stared at Roxie, stunned. Accuse Lucivar of rape? The accusation alone would require going before a tribunal of Queens to determine the man's innocence or guilt, and even if he was declared innocent, the taint of being accused could shadow him the rest of his life. It had happened to a friend of her father's. Despite being falsely accused, the Warlord had been dismissed from the court…and had ended up leaving Askavi because even his closest friends had turned away from him, afraid their own reputations would be smeared if they were seen with him.
Even though it still chilled her to think about it, she understood why the Warlords who attacked her had planned to kill her. If she had survived the rape and accused them, at the very least, their standing in society would have been ruined. If a nobody hearth witch could ruin aristo Warlords in Terreille, what would an accusation made by an aristo witch do to a man in Kaeleer, where the laws and Protocols were upheld far more strictly?
And if the people in Ebon Rih thought Lucivar was freed because of his family connections rather than because he was truly innocent, it would shatter his life. The Blood here would never continue to accept him as the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih.
"You can't," Marian said. "Even if they believed you, even if they did demand that he serve you, he's an Ebon-gray Warlord Prince. You'd never control him."
"He'd have to wear a Ring of Obedience," Roxie replied. "I've heard those Rings can control any male."
Roxie didn't care that this would ruin him. She just wanted to enslave him, wanted to force him back into that pain he'd endured when he'd lived in Terreille. Lucivar would never obey Roxie willingly, so she'd have to use the Ring to hurt him…and because he'd never shown any interest in her, she would enjoy hurting him.
"You can't do that to him," Marian said as something inside her strained to break free.
"Watch me." Roxie turned and started to walk away.
"No!" Dropping her basket, Marian threw herself at Roxie.
Lucivar pushed his way through the crowd, cursing under his breath. A brawl on the main street of Riada. Just what he needed today. He'd hoped to convince Marian to set aside her chores for an hour to go flying with him since it was a lovely day and she hadn't had much of a chance to enjoy her recovered skills during the winter. Although that icy free fall they'd performed one sunny afternoon had ended with an enjoyable evening keeping each other warm in bed.
First he'd take care of this mess, then share a midday meal at The Tavern with Jaenelle as they'd planned. After that, h
e'd go home and see—
He reached the front of the crowd and stared at the two women rolling around in the mud, punching, slapping, and generally trying to tear each other apart.
"Mother Night, Marian," he said, shaking his head. What in the name of Hell was she doing?
Moving forward, he waited for an opening, then grabbed the back of Marian's belted cape and yanked. He heard cloth rip as he lifted her enough to get his other hand under her and haul her back out of Roxie's reach.
He felt her legs tuck up and had a moment to think she was trying to help him set her on her feet before he recognized the intent. Releasing the back of the cape, he pivoted in time to take that two-footed kick on the thigh rather than in the balls. Since he was still holding the front of the cape, when her feet dropped to the ground his fist became the hinge her body swung on. Straightening his arm at the last second prevented her roundhouse punch from connecting with his face hard enough to break his jaw or her hand, but it would still leave a bitch of a bruise.
And that, he thought, was more than enough.
One fast jerk that ripped more seams and she landed on his shoulder with a whoof that knocked the air out of her.
"Bring that one," he growled as he marched toward The Tavern, which was the closest place that had chairs and enough space to deal with… whatever this was.
The crowd, he noted sourly, didn't move out of his way. Seeing where he was headed, they stampeded toward The Tavern to get ringside seats.
Great. Wonderful. At least they had sense enough to leave two tables empty.
He dumped Marian in an empty chair. When she popped right up again, he shoved her back into the chair and held her arms down as he leaned over her and said in his most menacing voice, "Sit down, Marian. Sit. "
His quiet, gentle hearth witch bared her teeth and snarled at him.
He would have kissed her for finally producing a decent snarl except he was fairly sure she'd bite him if he tried, and then she'd feel bad. Not as bad as he would, but once she came to her senses, she'd feel bad about doing it.