“You’re staring,” he said. “And you’ll drop that cheese if you don’t concentrate.” He pointed to a piece of bread in my hand, with cheese balanced on top, half way to my mouth.
“Sorry,” I grinned sheepishly.
“I’m glad you like what you see,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
I gave up on food. It could wait, my desire could not. I rose and moved toward Torvec, he lay back on the bed and I climbed over him. Those long fingers stroked my flanks, playing with the new scar under my ribs. I kissed his soft and responsive mouth, moving down his jaw and neck. He sighed and released a long, low moan when I bit his shoulder. For the first time we had space around us to really explore each other.
He kissed my neck in return and my skin reacted, making my body quiver. The exploration of flesh continued, we tumbled, fought for control and I allowed him to win, our bodies already long past the point we could stop. He rolled me onto my front, pinning my wrists to the bed with his hand. He straddled me and I could feel his desire heavy on my backside. He kissed my neck and shoulder. I writhed under his weight.
“Hold the headboard,” he ordered.
I did as asked and he began exploring my back, licking, biting, fingers stroking and scratching. I groaned.
“Open your legs,” he said.
Almost out of my mind with need I tried to think clearly. “Torvec, I’m not good in this role,” I said.
“You’ll learn,” he whispered. “Trust me.”
I felt his finger press gently at the entrance to my body. The muscles in my back tightened in panic. “Torvec,” I said in warning, releasing my hold on the bed. “I really don’t –” I gasped.
He’d slipped inside me. “Too late to worry about it now,” he whispered. I found the fingers of his other hand close to my mouth and I sucked them deep inside. He groaned and pushed deeper. Something switched inside my head and I realised I wanted this – I wanted him. I wanted to feel him inside me. His kisses and bites on my back grew harder and his teeth would leave marks. I felt more moving inside me and my hips offered to help his dominance.
“More,” I murmured. “Do it.”
He vanished from my body for a moment and I rose effortless onto all fours.
“No,” he said. “On your back. I want to see your face.”
I obeyed and the moment we could see each other, our eyes locked. “Gods, you are perfect,” I said in honesty. His white hair curled around his angular face, softening it slightly. His eyes were bright with unspoken emotions. I stroked his face and he hid in my palm, kissing it and my wrist.
“Holt,” he murmured. “I have to tell you something.”
“Not now,” I said. “No words now. Tell me with your body, Torvec. As I will with mine.” I’d never come so close to confessing the secrets in my heart.
He nodded his consent and continued his quest to take something from me I’d never really given to anyone else. When the moment came I cried out his name and my back arched. He held me off the bed and I straightened, a version of our previous night together. This time we were able to kiss, to hug, to whisper and murmur. He filled me perfectly, deeply and I revelled in the surrender, the dark surrender I’d never managed before. My soul came alive to his touch, his scent, his words.
Torvec sometimes whispered through me, sometimes thundered making me cry out in submission. He began to reach the end of his endurance, his hand wrapped tightly around my cock while the fingers of his other hand dug into my back. We kissed, a broken, heated movement sharing our desperate breath.
“I love you,” he seemed to breathe just heartbeats before he shuddered.
I groaned as once more his desire tore through me and ripped my own climax from my control. I’d never felt anything remotely like this grand passion raging in my arms and my heart. I quaked in fear – words torn from my lips – “I love you.”
He wrapped his arms tight around me, our lust cooling but our words refusing to suffer such entropy. A ribbon of light seemed to unwind inside me and life took on a new sheen, a new meaning, a new shape.
“A Torvec shape,” I said, my head resting on his shoulder.
“A what?” he asked, pulling my head up so he could look in my eyes.
“In me,” I shifted off him so I could kneel and pointed to my chest to make my meaning clear. “In here, there is a new shape – a Torvec shape.”
He laughed. He threw his head back, the last of the day’s light catching his hair and turning it red, and he laughed. “I love you,” he said again. “I love you and I’ve been terrified of saying it.” He kissed me, he kissed me and didn’t stop even when I collapsed backward, laughing at him.
We rolled, we tussled, we cleaned up and finished off the victuals. I watched him move with confidence around my small home and I loved it. I simply loved seeing him move through my world. Eventually we curled up in my bed and at last I collapsed in Torvec’s arms and slept.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A booming noise echoed through dreams of passionate embrace and loving arms. The boom overrode my desire for comfort and I struggled in the warmth of my dreams to reach the surface.
“Holt, wake up, there’s someone at the door and I don’t think you want me to answer it,” Torvec shook me from a deep sleep.
“My Lord Pendragon,” came a rough voice from the street. “My Lord, your presence is needed at the palace.”
“Morgana,” I whispered. I struggled out of my bed and toward the window, throwing open the sash. “I’m here,” I called down.
“My Lord,” the guard said. “I have grave news.”
“I’ll dress and be with you in a moment,” I said.
“No, my Lord, his Highness has sent me to warn you. The Lady is in the palace. He says you must run, run to Camelot and beyond. The Queen... The Queen of Albion, my Lord... Morgana...” The guard, his stoic features falling into despair, dropped his head to hide his grief.
“The twins?” I asked.
“The ladies, Morgan and Nim are still in the palace with the young prince,” he said.
“Stay put,” I ordered.
I turned back to the bed and found Torvec already dressing. He pulled clothes out of my chest in the corner and threw them at me. “I’ll have Sparrow ready,” he said. “I’ll meet you somewhere I can find, just tell me where,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You’re going after the girls, right?” he asked.
I struggled into my hose and boots, grabbing handfuls of weapons. “You are wonderful,” I told him.
“Just don’t get killed,” he ordered. “It’s taken me a long time to find you.”
I grabbed his face and stared into his eyes. “It’s taken me longer to find you,” I told him before kissing him. “You meet me at the gate we rode in through.”
“That’s a long way from here,” he said.
“Yes, it means you’ll be safe on my horse, which knows where Camelot is if something should go wrong. My sister will protect you. Hopefully that won’t be necessary, I will meet you on another horse and we’ll ride for Camelot together.”
He nodded once. “I’ll pack – you go,” he said. We kissed briefly and I buckled on my sword, reached for the rest of my weapons, ran downstairs and strapped on almost every other knife I owned in the process. When I reached the guard downstairs the night of passion sat firmly in the back of my mind, I needed to concentrate.
“My Lord, you really should leave,” the guard said.
“Morlay, right?” I asked.
“Yes, Sir,” he sounded surprised I remembered his name. My father taught me well.
“Tell me everything,” I said. We began to walk quickly up my small street.
“The Queen,” he stopped talking again.
I reached for his shoulder. “I need you to focus. We will have time to mourn the Queen when her children are safe, all of them.”
He nodded and straightened his back. “The moment the Queen died w
e heard the bell of warning set on the pool The Lady uses to reach the palace. By the time we arrived, she’d killed the guards with two dozen of her own. The prince told us to stand down, I think he was trying to save lives,” Morlay said quietly.
“Who told you to come to find me?” I asked.
“Prince Galahad pulled a few of us to one side, after he’d welcomed The Lady. He ordered us to find you and make you leave The City. He was scared, Sir. We had to keep you safe and I have to say he’s right. You and Camelot are the only things that stand between us normal folk and The Lady, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Morlay said.
I squeezed the guard’s shoulder, unable to say anything productive in return. I had no idea people in The City thought of Camelot as something other than an inconvenience. “Do you know where the twins are?” I asked.
“No, Sir, but I really don’t think this is a good idea. Her people are everywhere,” he said. We were in the palace grounds and moving toward the buildings. I could feel the tension and the grief.
“I made a promise to their mother, Morlay. I have to keep them safe and I have to find Galahad,” I said. “Get to the stables, see their horses are ready, all three of them, and find me something good to ride. Don’t get caught. I don’t want to leave people behind who are going to be hurt for helping us. If you can find the shifters we arrived with – so much the better. Tell them we’ll be leaving the way we came.” I spoke quickly and quietly, watching our surroundings and trying to assess my danger.
He nodded and raced off to do my bidding. I opted to circle the main living quarters of the royal household and approach from a direction I’d not used since being young enough to defy my father and escape his rooms in my quest for freedom. I found the tall line of yew trees, which screened the sneaking traveller from the large windows on this side of the palace, and raced along the dark shadows. I needed to breech the building without stumbling over any of The Lady’s guards and time was not on my side. Dawn lay too close for comfort.
Once the hedge ran out, a wall began and I vaulted it effortlessly, crouching for a moment. The grass I needed to cross was wet and soaked my riding leathers where I knelt, which meant my tracks would be clear come dawn, because I’d disturbed the dew. I needed solid ground.
“Damn it, Nim, just fucking pack your things. Galahad can shift for himself,” Morgan shouted.
I grinned. They were in their shared suite as I’d hoped and the window must be open. Tracks or not, I needed to stop them leaving. I decided to run along the edge of the flowerbed on my toes, leaving confusing tracks but I must have looked a very strange sight, trying to race on tiptoe across a dark lawn.
I made it quickly enough and approached their window. “Hello, ladies,” I said.
Nim squeaked and dropped her bedroll. Morgan cursed and threw a knife at my head. I twitched sideways in shock. “Bloody hell, woman, watch what you are doing with those things!”
“Holt,” Nim cried out. “You frightened the life out of me.”
“Sorry,” I said, climbing through the window.
“Prick, I could have killed you,” Morgan groused. “That was my best knife.”
I took her hands in mine and kissed the wrists. “I’ll buy you a new one.” I looked into her eyes. Fear and heartbreak lurked behind the angry stare. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She nodded. “I know. But no time now. I take it you’ve heard.”
“I have, are you ready to leave?” I asked. The three of us had known each other for eighteen years and we shared that strange shorthand only close siblings seem to share.
“We are ready if my sister stops worrying about our foolish brother. He is not our problem,” Morgan said to Nim.
“He is. He’s the one that sent the guard to warn Holt, right?” Nim asked me.
“Galahad is our problem and we are helping him,” I said.
“He let that fucking woman into my mother’s room,” Morgana shouted.
“Keep your voice down,” I ordered her. “He and we are in a combat situation. He cannot stand against her over something as daft as guarding a corpse,” I said harshly. “Morgana ordered me to protect you and him, that is what I am doing and so is Galahad in his way. He needs to manage The Lady of the Lake.”
Morgan glared at me. I fully intended to provoke her because I needed to keep her focused but I needed her to see the real enemy as The Lady and not her brother. “He’s a pig,” she said.
“Yes, he can be, but he’s our pig so we are going to find him,” I said.
A small smile graced her pouting mouth. “Fine.” She tossed back her thick black braid just like her mother would have done. It made my heart ache to watch. “When I’m Queen of Albion I’m draining her fucking lake,” Morgan promised.
That made Nim laugh and suddenly we were all on the same side. Both women carried short bows, short swords, knives and full packs. We’d all been hunting together on a regular basis so they knew what to expect by leaving the comfort of their home.
“What about mother?” Nim asked, just as I prepared to leave the way I’d arrived.
Her small voice and large solemn blue eyes made my stomach clench. “There is nothing we can do, Nim. I’m sorry.”
“But she wanted to be buried with father and Uncle Arthur,” she said.
“I know and she will be, but not yet. If we can’t do it, the Brownies will,” I said. “Quilliam knows what’s happening and I should imagine he’s doing everything he can to cover our escape. Morgana is already with them, you know that. She’s been with them for weeks, here...” I touched my chest.
Nim nodded, clearly not trusting words, and I helped her scramble out of the palace window. Morgan didn’t need my help, or anyone’s, so I left her alone. She’d ask for reassurance when she felt ready.
They followed me in silence, matching my steps perfectly. I’d taken great pride as a boy in showing them the tracking techniques I learnt from Camelot’s hunters and Albion’s.
We stopped when I reached the place I considered safe for us to talk. “Do we know where Galahad is? I need to get to him,” I asked.
“He wanted to stay with mother, but The Lady ordered him to her rooms,” Morgan said.
“Fine. I’ll head in that direction and see what happens. I want you two mounted up and riding to the south gate. Once there, you will see Sparrow with a man I trust with your lives. You stay with him. If I’m not there by dawn with Galahad you ride for Camelot with him and tell my sister what’s happened. Understand?” I asked.
“You expect us to leave you?” Morgan hissed, her eyes wide.
“I expect you to follow orders,” I said. “We are at war, you are following my orders because I am King of Camelot and a general in your army. Do you understand, Morgan?” I held her shoulders firmly to make her think about what we were doing. This wasn’t a child’s game.
“Fine, General Pendragon,” she snapped.
Her anger would see them both safe. I nodded to Nim and she smiled, understanding me completely. I loved Morgan for her fire, but I loved Nim just that bit more for her quiet cleverness.
I left them and raced around the palace grounds, avoiding all the guards who were thrown into some confusion with arrival of The Lady and the loss of their Queen. Breaking back into the building on the west side of the visiting nobles’ quarters proved effortless. Brownies were everywhere and doors were standing open. The Lady’s quarters had been barricaded for years after her claim over Galahad tore him from his father’s enraged arms. Lancelot had been beyond control for months, everyone but father, Morgana and Tancred unable to handle him for any length of time. It had not been a good year for any of us.
I found a way through the dark halls and waited on the edge of a busy thoroughfare, listening for something familiar.
I didn’t have to wait for long, the gods were working with us for a change. Galahad walked right past me, completely alone. I stepped out behind him, placed a hand on his mouth and yanked him back into the shadows.
“Hush, it’s me,” I whispered and removed my hand.
He coughed slightly. “Ever considered just tapping me on the shoulder?” he asked.
I grinned. “Sure, but then I wouldn’t get to hold you close to my chest,” I said.
He pulled a face but the look of relief in his eyes gave a lie to his supposed prejudice.
“I told you to leave The City,” he said.
“And I told your mother I would keep you safe. The girls are already at the stables and heading out of the south gate, meeting up with Torvec. I’m hoping the guard you sent will find the wolves. We have to leave now,” I said.
“I’m not going. I can protect you if I stay,” he said.
“Seriously? You still believe that?” I asked.
I watched the collapse of his convictions. “No, maybe not, but I have to try. Morgana... Mother said... She told me what happened, before...” He rubbed his eyes. He must be exhausted. He hadn’t slept in two days and nights. He’d been pushing himself for too long.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sometimes you just have to hand yourself over to someone you trust. Do you trust me or The Lady?” I asked.
Galahad didn’t speak, so I continued quickly. “I know you are finding this hard. I know you are exhausted but I have to think about the future of Albion and Camelot. You are my best hope of maintaining peace but only if you are working with us, not against us. She wants you but so do I. You have to choose a side, Galahad, and I can’t leave you here if you choose me.”
His dark eyes searched my face much like Torvec had earlier that night. He nodded. “I choose you.”
“Then we have to run because that woman can kill any of us with a single thought, unless you know something I don’t. She needs stopping and we have to find the means to stop her,” I said. “But the first thing we have to do is protect your sisters.”
“Morgan is not a virgin, is she?” Galahad asked.
The change of subject floored me for a moment until the dots joined up and revealed a disturbing pattern. “No,” I said, watching his face carefully.
The Pendragon Legacy: Sons Of Camelot Book One Page 8