Heart of Darkness

by Jaide Fox

  A slight laugh had his belly shifting and moving against her mouth. “Are you sure you are a maiden?” Wolfe asked huskily and then let his hands tug and gather the thick and copious waves of her thick, red hair. He swept it to the side and bared one of her shoulders. The tips of his fingers trailed along the length of her throat.

  “Are you casting aspersions on my honor?” she asked, her voice mock-annoyed, but her lips were smiling. “I challenge you to a duel.”

  He laughed and she was sure that this was one of the first times, in her presence anyway, that Isabeau had even seen him truly amused! The emotion literally transformed his face. From a sardonic and somewhat demonic cast, to a vivacious and masculinely beautiful one.

  If she had found him attractive when he was the former, then she certainly found him attractive as the latter.

  He bent down and her eyes caught the delicious play of muscle along the length of his torso. Never before had she seen a man's flesh in this stunning display of nakedness. Before she could explore him further with her gaze, his mouth caught hers and instantly, Isabeau was swept away in something that was completely beyond her control.

  The slow beat of her heart and the steadiness of her breathing became a thing of the past. Instantly, she felt her body's increase in exertion as she reveled in his mouth and he in hers. His tongue gently lathed the silken expanse of her lower lip and the sensation was so magical that a slight shudder rushed through her. She blew out a gentle breath that parted her mouth and he took immediate advantage. The slippery muscle entered her mouth and brushed tauntingly against her own tongue.

  Swallowing a little convulsively, Isabeau shuddered at one of her first tastes of an intimate touch. The very delicacy of his kiss ensured her cooperation more than anything else. Perhaps she had swiftly decided to comply with Wolfe's wishes, perhaps it had been rather impulsive, considering he had kidnapped her and held her against her will, but...

  Inwardly, she groaned. It always came down to the but.

  To say that something inside him called to her, seemed rather simplistic. Childishly facile even, but there was something that did call to her.

  It may have been the fact that they shared the loss of their parents through the hands of some mad group of people who despised the Sidhe.

  It may have been that he had told her why her parents had died. That in itself came as some sort of relief. For years, she had been fleeing someone or something...yet had been entirely unaware as to why!

  It may have been simply because they now shared the same blood. Sidhe. She finally knew what her powers were and that was also thanks to him.

  Perhaps it was the fact that his story simply touched her. That he'd lost people he needed at far too young an age then been...Isabeau did not even know how to describe it. He had suffered more than torture. He'd been irreversibly altered into something that he wasn't. It was akin to...she shuddered at the thought of what he'd been through.

  For all these reasons, and more, she accepted his kiss and his touch. She reveled in the hands that cupped her breasts through the thick velvet of her dress and because she hungered for him and wanted him, she quickly pushed the bodice down and let him touch the never-before-exposed flesh.

  Immediately, she quivered. As his hands pressed against the swollen nubs of her breasts, as they tweaked and rubbed them, quivers of fire swam through her and exposed her to another side of her nature that she had never even known existed.

  He pressed her back against the bed, and she let him. There was nothing here that she wanted to run from. Nothing that frightened her. She relished the possessive drag of his tongue against hers, moaned in pleasure and affirmation as he cupped her ankles and slowly dragged his hands along the length of her calves. He gently and slowly but surely spread her legs and moved in between them.

  Her back was now pressed against the eiderdown and as his own weight was added to hers, she was enveloped by its cushioning bosom. She welcomed the press of his hips to hers. Indeed, more than welcomed. A part of her felt thrilled and the other, desperately voracious. He had taken her somewhere that she had never before experienced and she wanted more. Hungered for it dangerously.

  When his chest was a leaden weight against her torso, she moaned as her breasts were squashed indecently against his. His mouth literally ate at hers and she merely added fuel to the fire. Inwardly, she knew that the moans and whimpers that escaped from her throat merely deepened his own hunger for her and enticed him all the more.

  Perhaps he'd expected a frightened virgin and was shocked by her reaction, but even though her innocence remained, she had been forever altered by her experiences the four years past.

  Her arms tightened about him as her hands explored the silken expanse of his back. His own fists gripped her thighs and pressed them to his muscled hips. When she began to wiggle against him, the friction was so delicious that she almost cried out from it. It powered through her, setting her alight in so many ways that it seemed impossible.

  Her hips began to rock against his and she gasped as he released her mouth and began to suckle at the exposed skin of her throat. She felt his tongue and teeth there and groaned as he sucked and she knew there would be a mark there. Perhaps it would brand her as his whore, but she cared not.

  She pressed a hand to his head to keep him there, the sensation his mouth wrought in her body with this gentle suction amazed her. So powerful was it, that she almost did not hear the knocking at the door. Only when he stopped, when he kissed her and touched her as though to soothe rather than to incite, did she realize that he was leaving.

  Crying out when he moved away from her, he hushed her by rolling on to his back and pulling her atop him. He called out, “Wait there. I shall be out soon.”

  His hand stroked along the length of her back and then curled in her hair. She felt as though he were almost petting her as he would a prized poodle, but rather than irritate her, it charmed her. He could have simply abandoned her. Left her to recover from the mélange of volatile emotions that were currently rushing through her. But instead, he stayed to soothe and to calm.

  When she felt almost as though she could fall asleep, Isabeau was gently transferred from resting against him to the bed. A gentle press of his lips to her forehead, a soothing stroke of his hand along her arm and then the tug and weight as the eiderdown was pressed over her to both cover and keep her warm, and he was gone.

  The feeling of loss that assailed her was not to be denied and Isabeau forced herself not to think about it and pushed herself to sleep. In the morning, she would have to be awake to sit in the sun.

  With that reminder, she closed her eyes and awaited slumber.

  * * * *

  “Dammit, could it not have waited?” Wolfe hissed as he pressed the door to Isabeau's chamber gently closed.

  Spinning around, he grabbed his shirt and pressed it over his head and as he tugged it over his face, he glared at his estate manager.

  He received a wry and unangered response.

  “Knowing as I do how important this mission is, do you think I would have bothered you unless it was necessary?”

  Gerard's very sardonic reply made Wolfe flush. Where he was angry, Gerard was calm. He'd been one of the Sidhes that had escaped the Milesians all those years ago and had become indispensable over the years.

  The majority of the staff were Sidhe. But where he had been fortunate and had come to age and inherited his wealth, many had not had an airtight family trust to protect them. The Milesians were tricky bastards and had friends in high places. Because they could live freely, they had contacts upon whom they could trust and whom could inveigle their way into places that no one ought to tread.

  The Sidhe, on the other hand, had to hide. Whilst they grew wealthy, they could trust no one but their own kind. And so, they had no one to protect them.

  Gerard was one of the many who had come to him for help. The Milesians had stolen their fortune through corrupt lawyers and they were left without homes or
funds to live. Gerard was a Viscomte, what the revolutionists in France had left him, the Milesians had taken.

  How he could accept his fate so calmly, Wolfe did not know.

  “Well? What is it?”

  “Jaegar,” Gerard replied bluntly.

  “What does the bastard want now?” he gritted out.

  Lifting his chin and thrusting it at the door to the bedchamber, Gerard murmured dryly, “What do you think?”

  “Why he thinks he can simply make demands and I'll follow through, is beyond me.”

  “Probably a retrogression to our pasts. When Jaegar, said jump, we merely replied, how high.”

  “Yes. Well, times have changed, dammit. I'm no longer a terrified and willful child and nor are you.”

  “Thank the Lord for his small mercies,” Gerard replied mock-piously.

  Narrowing his eyes at his man, Wolfe scowled. “What does he want then? In detail?”

  “No details. Simply Isabeau and the ring.”

  Lifting an arm, Wolfe scratched the back of his neck. “Arrange more sentries to guard the grounds. The woodland is both our friend and foe. Stage men along every twenty yards and tell them to be alert.”

  “Already done.”

  “You're too good, my friend.”

  Gerard grinned. “I know. You can return to your salvation now, if you so wish.”

  Wolfe rolled his eyes. “I think you've spoilt the mood, Ger.”

  For some reason, that had him raising his eyebrows. Wolfe irritatedly noted that they were near as dammit touching his hairline.

  “What?” he spat exasperatedly.

  “I have never heard you say something like that before. That is all.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Gerard shrugged uneasily. “If it were...a tavern whore or your mistress, say, you would simply return to the chamber and unspoil the mood.”

  “Stop speaking in riddles, man!” Wolfe grunted uncomfortably and loped the linen of his cravat about his neck and looped it into a facile knot.

  “I'm not speaking in riddles, you're choosing to misunderstand me! She's, well...” It was Gerard's turn for discomfort. “You're obviously growing...attached...to her.”

  “I am not!” he asserted fiercely.

  “You must be. Otherwise you would simply have stalked back in there and seduced her into forgetting what a door actually was! You forget, my friend, I have seen you in action. Many a time.”

  “You're wrong, Gerard.”

  “I don't think I am. You're striding down this corridor as though the hounds of hell are after you. Why? She's coming to mean something to you...is that wise?”

  “It does not matter, because she is not.”

  “Why lie?” Gerard pointed out easily. “I already know all of your secrets. And you mine. If you feel the need to hide, then that merely confirms what I am saying.”

  Wolfe grunted and as he vaulted down the stairs, almost as though trying to escape Gerard's words as though they were physical blows to his body, he strode into his father's office which was just a way down the hall.

  It was a room that would forever and regardless of time, remind him of his parent. He could not think of it as his own. It was his father's.

  He slammed the door shut and grimaced as rather than smacking against the jamb, it hit Gerard and was then quietly closed.

  That was one thing that he hated about the other man. How he could stay so bloody calm in the face of anger. Whilst Gerard had learned restraint and serenity at the hands of the Milesians, Wolfe felt as though he had learned the very opposite!

  He headed to his desk, hesitated over the seat then changed his mind and moved past the walls of books and to the study windows. As he looked out on to the land outside, land that as far as the eye could see, belonged to him, Wolfe sighed. His eyes were caught by the moon and he grimly stared at it as he replied, “What if I am...growing attached, as you put it?”

  “Nothing.”

  Wolfe glared at the glass panes then spun around and faced his agent.

  “Obviously you have an issue, otherwise why mention it?”

  “No issue. I'm just surprised. I thought your...well, to be perfectly frank, I thought your mother had entirely put you off women. Women are for fucking not for keeping, is something that you said if I remember right?”

  “I haven't promised to keep Isabeau. She has agreed to this.”

  “She's agreed? You actually asked her?”

  “The woman is obviously willful, Gerard. Let's face it. She wouldn't let me do a damned thing unless it was rape. And then, knowing her, she would actually do something to abort the child if she wanted. Although...I highly doubt that she would do something like that. But, still, even though I would never do so, she could be raped and still be in charge.”

  “So you seduced her with words?” his agent asked skeptically.

  Wolfe laughed a little. “No. No seduction. I told her the truth.”

  “The truth?” Gerard sounded even more shocked. If that was possible.

  He shrugged uncomfortably. “It was...” he paused and hesitated over his choice of words, which was telling in itself. Especially to the man with whom he was speaking. “...relevant.”

  “Relevant.” Gerard clicked his tongue.

  Sighing, Wolfe grunted. “Yes, dammit! Relevant! It was relevant. She wanted to know and I told her. I'm asking a lot of her, Gerard. Asking her to bear my child. I'm not giving her my name. Not giving her any security. And the legend might not even be true!”

  “You obviously believe in its viability, Wolfe. You must have spent close to thirty thousand on finding her.”

  “Finding the ring. It's the ring. I was looking for a Sidhe of the light with the ring, Gerard. Let's not forget that little discrepancy.”

  He conceded the point. “That I did forget. But it seems to have worked out rather nicely, don't you think?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “What? It has!”

  Wolfe spun around and glared at his agent. “You're not making this any better, you know.”

  Gerard raised a wry brow. “You're actually admitting that this exists, then?”

  “Maybe I am. Whatever this is! Perhaps...Well, I cannot deny that there is something between us.” Wolfe scraped a hand along his stubbled jaw. The bristling sound eased some of his tension. “I'm not actually sure about what it is.”

  “Maybe it's the fact that she's willing to drop out of one of the gallery windows?”

  “Christ Almighty, the gallery? She said that she'd fallen, but from the bedamned gallery!”

  “I know. The men found that the area was, let's just say, disturbed.” Gerard laughed a little. “It's a wonder she survived.”

  “There's more to the legend then we ever imagined. It transferred to her.”

  “Merde. Really? The ring transferred to her from your possession? But that is impossible, non?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Well, if we ever had any disbelief about the veracity of the legend...then, this surely strengthens it?”