by Lori Dillon
Baelin pulled out of her and his cock went slack as shock and disbelief slammed into him. Whether she was a virgin or not was no longer the issue, for she was a maid in truth no more. The fresh smear of blood on her thigh attested to that fact.
He closed his eyes to the irrefutable evidence and shoved himself away from her. In a single act of mindless lust, he had dishonored the maiden and, in doing so, damned them both.
"Dear God, what have I done?"
Jill watched Baelin retreat to the other side of the fire, where he paced like a wild tiger, his expression of betrayal and distrust warring with graceful flex of his nude body.
Damn. Nothing like sharp, unexpected pain to ruin the mood.
She stood and struggled back into her torn smock.
"This is sooo unbelievable. I have to be the first woman in existence who's managed to lose her virginity twice." She shook her head, still trying to figure out how that could even be possible. "And let me tell you, it was just as uncomfortable the second time around."
Baelin glared at her as he jerked on his breeches and yanked at the ties. "My lady, you are not the only one who has lost something this night."
"Oh please, don't start in about honor again. We're both consenting adults. We both wanted—"
Baelin's head whipped around and in three strides he was on her side of the fire, towering over her. His bitterness surrounded her and she tried to swallow around the lump in her throat.
"'Tis not honor I speak of." He swept up his aketon but did not put it on. He stood there, crumpling the thick padding in his fist. Then he tossed his head back and looked at the moon, a bright spot punching a hole in the night sky. He stared at it for a long time, before turning his piercing gaze back on her.
"For over two hundred years I have had but one goal, one dream that has kept me from going mad. Yet in one moment of weakness, I may have lost any chance I had to break this damned curse the witch has set upon me."
Jill's heart broke at the stricken look in Baelin's eyes, making him look every bit of those 216 years. He was always so strong and brave, so sure of himself and the world around him. She never thought to see such despair weighing him down. That she saw it now scared her to death. What if he was right? What if they had ruined everything?
"Hold on. Let's not jump to conclusions. Maybe this doesn't affect anything."
She reached for him and he shook her off. "Nay, the damage has been done. 'Tis too late. We have failed."
"What are you talking about?"
"The challenges. They are based on the knightly virtues."
"So?"
"Chastity is one of the virtues. The maiden—you—must be untainted. When you said you were not and yet you passed the first test, I began to believe maybe chastity 'twas not one of the virtues required to break the curse. But now…now I know you were virgin in truth. All along, you were pure of body. But no longer. By giving in this night, I have ruined it."
Jill watched those broad shoulders of his sag. He was taking the blame on himself, but she knew the truth. This was all her fault. She'd seduced him. There was no other word for it. He'd fought her tooth and nail the whole way, not because he didn't want her, but because deep down inside he knew he had to.
Ashamed at being so forward and brazen, she looked away from him. She'd won, but at what cost to them both?
His softly spoken words pierced the night and stabbed right through her heart. "I am doomed to forever remain a dragon. And you…"
He didn't have to finish the thought. She knew what the consequences would be for her if the curse was not broken.
"I'm sorry, Baelin. I didn't know."
"How could you not?" Baelin chuckled humorlessly as he slipped his aketon over his head. "You strike me as an intelligent woman, one who would know if she had been bedded by a man or not." He turned accusing eyes toward her, hurt softening the edge of his anger. "You deceived me about it, though I cannot begin to fathom why."
"But I didn't lie to you!" Jill huffed, feeling as if the wind of blame was beginning to shift. "I wasn't a virgin. Or at least I wasn't before I landed in this godforsaken place. Believe me, I'm as surprised about that little turn of events as you are."
She couldn't understand it herself, much less try to explain it to Baelin. "Look, I honestly thought that crazy old midwife in the village was lying so they could use me as dragon bait instead of one of their own girls. I had no idea traveling through time would somehow make me a born again virgin."
"'Tis not possible."
She didn't like the way this conversation was going. Usually it was the girl who had second thoughts afterwards while guys couldn't wait to carve another notch on the bedpost, or their sword hilt, or whatever knights did to keep track of their conquests.
"Time travel isn't possible, but here I am. Dragons aren't real, but you are one. I can't begin to understand the how or why of it. For Pete's sake, half the things I've seen and done since I got here don't make any sense, starting with one particularly snippy lizard lover currently having a major case of the morning-after-regrets. For all we know, chastity or a lack thereof has nothing to do with any of this."
"And yet it may have everything to do with this!" he snapped at her. "What we have done here tonight may have ended the quest ere we had a chance to complete it."
Jill growled. If he wanted a fight, he could have one. "Oh, you are such a pig-headed, morally uptight man. Sometimes I think I liked you better as the dragon."
"At the rate we are meeting these challenges, my lady, you may get your wish."
"Fine." Jill crossed her arms and resisted the strong urge to tap her left foot. "Then let's get it over with and find out right now. Check the tapestry."
"What?"
"Let's check the tapestry to see if what we did changed anything. Since it seems to be a living record of everything we've gone through, maybe it will show…"
What? What would it show if they had failed to complete the quest before the time was up? Would the image of the knight be gone and only the dragon remain? Would the maiden still have Jill's face, perhaps branded with a big fat 'S' for slut on her forehead?
There was only one way to find out.
Jill picked the tapestry off the ground where it lay by Baelin's discarded sword belt. He turned his back on her and retrieved his mail, as if he couldn't bear to see that all hope was gone.
She was glad because she couldn't stop her hands from trembling as she unrolled the weaving. She only glanced at it briefly before she let out the breath she'd been holding and closed her eyes, sending up a brief prayer of thanks.
"It hasn't changed. Look, Baelin. The tapestry is the same. Maybe we're okay. Maybe we can still break the curse."
He snatched the tapestry out of her hands, causing the torn section to flutter to the ground. She scooped it up while Baelin moved closer to the fire to examine the larger piece in the light.
Jill moved to stand beside him. "See, it doesn't look like anything has changed one way or the other to me. It's the same as it was before." She waved the torn fragment in his face. "It's even still torn."
The moment she said the words, a tingle shot up her arm and the torn piece flew out of her hand. She heard Baelin's sharp intake of breath and he dropped the tapestry to the ground.
They watched, neither uttering a sound, as the fragment pulled itself across the tapestry to the ragged edge as if a magnet drawn to metal. Before their eyes, the threads rewove themselves, twisting and looping, until the tapestry was once again whole, as if it had never been torn.
"Did you see that?"
"Aye."
"Wha…what just happened?"
Baelin picked up the tapestry with cautious movements, as if he were afraid it might fly away like a frightened bird if he startled it. He stood slowly and held it to the firelight.
"The tapestry has healed itself." His voice was low, soft, awed.
Jill shivered, not quite believing what she'd just seen.
"But how
?"
"It must be magic." He couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from the tapestry in his hands. "Can you not feel it all around us?"
Indeed, there was a prickling on her skin, an electricity in the air. But she didn't know if it was from some magical force or coming from the man standing beside her.
"What do you think it means?"
"I think it means we may yet have a chance."
"Thank God." Relief washed over Jill and she learned how to breathe again. "So we're okay. Nothing's changed."
He turned his penetrating gaze to her. Something more than renewed hope now shimmered within those dark brown depths. Something she didn't quite understand, but felt all the way down to her toes.
"That is where you are wrong, my lady. Though the tapestry may be once again whole, everything has changed."
CHAPTER 31
Isylte held the wad of colorful threads in her hands, the thin strands like a nest of wiggling snakes slipping though her fingers.
"No!" she shrieked, the high-pitched sound echoing off the walls of her inner chamber.
Several guards burst through the door, swords drawn, searching the room for the cause of their Queen's distress. When they discovered no visible enemy, they turned cautious gazes her way. The only thing out of the ordinary in the cavernous room was the irate woman standing in a puddle of twisted threads under an unraveling tapestry.
"Get out at once!" she ordered.
The guards stumbled over themselves to do her bidding.
"Hold, Edgar!"
The last guard stopped in his tracks and grimaced, his gaze wistfully following his fellow soldiers' flight before he turned back to face his mistress.
"Where is Grend?"
"It has not returned, my queen."
"And why not? I sent it out at yesterday. How long does it take one demon to kill a girl or steal a scrap of cloth?"
The guard stood silent, his wary gaze darting about the queen's chamber as if the answer floated on the air.
Isylte picked up a small section of the tapestry that had come off in one solid piece, the edge ragged as if it had been torn off instead of unraveling like the rest. She crushed the fragment in her fist.
"Something has happened. Grend has failed and Baelin's tapestry is now stronger than ever, whilst mine weakens with each day's passing as if unseen moths eat away at the very threads." She whirled on the hapless guard, the only other person in the room and thus the unfortunate recipient of her anger. "Must I be surrounded by idiots? My warriors cannot kill one single maid without burning down an entire village."
"'Twas but one inn," the guard mumbled.
"Silence!" Isylte paced before him. "I send one of my wiliest creatures to make certain the task is carried out properly and it not only seems to have vanished into thin air, but it has also somehow managed to weaken my curse in the process. Why must I suffer such incompetence from all who serve me?"
The Dark Witch's pacing brought her face to face with the guard. "Where are they now?"
Edgar cleared his throat nervously. "We think the dragon and the maid are still hiding in the Grizedal Forest."
"You think?" she sneered. "I do not want you to think. I want to know where they are. Find them."
"As you wish, my queen." The man bowed his head. "When we find them, shall we kill the maid as you ordered before?"
"Absolutely not. You will only bungle it and Baelin will move further out of my reach than before."
Isylte paused, her eyes resting on the tattered remains of the tapestry. She would not underestimate Baelin again. She had to remember she was dealing with a trained knight, a warrior with a keen mind combined with the cunning of the dragon.
"Nay, find them, follow them, and send word to me of where they go. I will deal with them in my own way." She waved the guard away. "Now go. I want them found before the next sunrise."
Edgar's eyes bulged. "But…but the Grizedale Forest is over four leagues wide. 'Twould take a small army a fortnight to search it all."
She smiled and took a step closer to the large man.
"Then you had best get started." She whispered in his ear, her voice deceptively soft and low. "I do not care if you must cut down every tree and turn over every stone. You will find them or I shall slice you into pieces so small naught a trace of you shall be left to show you ere drew breath in this world."
Jill stared at the broad shoulders leading the way up the mountainside in front of her.
Broad shoulders she'd kissed and caressed in the firelight last night. Shoulders that had flexed with strength and tensed with barely-leashed power under her hands as he'd held his naked body above hers.
Broad shoulders that had been giving her the cold shoulder all morning.
She glared at those same shoulders now, which was a good thing because they stopped so suddenly, she nearly smashed her nose into them.
"We are here."
"What?" Jill stumbled as she tried to avoid trampling over Baelin. Once she regained her balance, she glanced around, but could see nothing but scraggly brush grappling for purchase in the rocks. "And where exactly is here?"
"The cave."
Her gaze traveled up the sheer rock cliff they'd been skirting for the past hour. A sheer rock cliff that looked surprisingly familiar, even from this angle far below.
"How did we get back to your cave so fast?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "What have we been doing, walking around in circles all this time?"
"A dragon lays claim to a territory." Baelin shrugged as if it this tidbit of dragon zoology should be common knowledge to her. "He guards it well and rarely ventures out of its boundaries."
"So what, all this time you've been keeping us in your territory? I thought we'd already been through this. What if the challenges aren't in your territory?"
"Nay, you said the challenges could not be faced by staying in the cave, and you were correct. However, the first test was met within my territory. There is no reason to believe the others will not be also."
"So? There's no reason to believe they will be either. And seeing as we haven't managed to stumble on whatever the second challenge is in the past three weeks, I think there may be a high probably that they aren't."
Her palm itched to smack the stubborn streak out of him. Amazing how quickly almost-had-sex euphoria could morph into the-honeymoon's-already-over irritation. Guess all those pent up emotions that came to an abrupt, screeching halt last night had to come out somehow.
"Damn it, Baelin. The clock is ticking for both of us here. We're wasting time. You need to stop listening to those dragon instincts of yours and start using your man's brain."
His nostrils flared and he clenched his jaw several times before answering her. It looked like she wasn't the only one feeling a wee bit frustrated. "Right now this man's brain tells me we both need more clothing, more weapons, and more supplies."
"Oh." That logical bit of thinking took a good chunk of her pique away. Damn, she hated when he was behaving rationally and she wasn't. "Okay, I suppose you have a point there. So let me guess, you're going to fly up there and get them for us."
"Unless you wish to travel about the countryside in naught but a tattered smock, aye."
Jill looked at the equally tattered bandage wrapped around the base of his wing. "Can you fly? Need I remind you, you were shot with an arrow yesterday?"
"We shall see. Dragons being the immortal creatures that they are, heal quickly."
Jill walked over and sat on a semi-flat rock. "Fine, you fly on up there with your bad pterodactyl self and I'll wait right down here."
"Do you not wish to choose your own clothing?"
"I trust you. Just make sure it's good and sturdy. I don't need to make a medieval fashion statement."
His brow creased in confusion, then she watched his expression change as he mentally shifted gears. "I do not wish to leave you here alone."
"Well, you're going to have to because I'm not about to relive the flying experience any
time soon. You dropped me last time, remember?"
"Aye." His pupils dilated a fraction in those fathomless brown eyes of his. "But then I caught you."
Jill's mouth suddenly grew dry. "Yeah, you sure did." In more ways than one. She shook off the sex-induced thought. "But I'm still not too keen on the idea of going airborne again without the benefit of a parachute."
"Parachute?"
"It's this thing people wear—oh, never mind. Just get what we need and I'll wait here."
"After all that has happened, are you not afraid to be alone?"
She shook her head. "Not at the moment. You've got the tapestry, so there's no danger of me losing it. Again. And we can see for miles from here. As far as I can tell, there's no place for a troll baby to lie in wait or any nearby towns filled with irate villagers wielding pitchforks. So if it's all right with you, I'm going to sit my tired little fanny on this rock and keep a look out. I promise if I so much as see a chipmunk looking cross-eyed at me, I'll scream the mountain down."
His expression blank, he stared at her for a long moment before he spoke. "If you must scream, try not to cause the mountain to crumble whilst I am still inside of it."
Jill opened her mouth to reply, but he was already airborne. She watched him in flight, struck by the graceful vision he made as his powerful wings bore him upward like some earthbound archangel soaring for the heavens. She looked away only after he'd landed safely on the narrow ledge and entered the dark maw of the cave.
She sat and waited, letting her gaze wonder out over Baelin's 'territory.' There wasn't a tree to be seen, only moss-like grass and occasional scrubby brush finding purchase in the craggy rocks.
Baelin didn't have too much to worry about. Barren and desolate, there wasn't a single living thing in sight, much less a harmless little chipmunk. They were probably all giving the dragon's lair a wide berth to avoid becoming a furry appetizer. There would be no rock slides caused on account of her vocal abilities today.
With nothing to do but watch out for non-existent villains, Jill's mind began to wander. It didn't have far to go. Since the mind-blowing events of last night, she could hardly think of anything else. That, and of what had not happened afterward.