Where in the world could he go but back inside? Life lived in that castle. The fields, the road, the open heath—they were all death to him now. He belonged in there, with those living souls and their small concerns.
He got up and stretched his legs. He stood there a long time more and gazed on the castle—his new home, his only home. He wasn’t going anywhere but back in there. Carmen was in there. His brothers were in there. Ewan was in there. All those people meant more to him than anything in the world. He would never leave them, not as long as he had any choice in the matter.
He strolled back to the river and paused again. He surveyed the drawbridge open to welcome him. No many-headed monster roared out of the river to chomp him and stop him entering. This was his place now.
What happened to change it? What happened to change him? He didn’t know. He could think of only one thing. Carmen.
Chapter 29
Carmen lounged in the bedroom she shared with Angus their first night in the castle. Her mind revolved on Hazel. Hazel slept in another bedroom nearby. She took a long time to quiet down after her harrowing experience with Angus that afternoon, but once she got something to eat, Carmen put her to bed.
Carmen peeled off her down vest and kicked off her shoes. She wanted to take off all these rough, hard clothes, but when she searched the room, she found only a frilly lace nightgown hanging in the cupboard.
She laid it out on the bed. She never wore anything like it in her life. She might be ready to change a few things, to let down her battle armor and soften up, but she wasn’t ready to go that far.
She turned away and crossed the room to the window. Instead of the open casement, a long wide double window gazed out onto the fields beyond the castle. A low bench seat stretched the length of the window and invited her to sit down.
She leaned on a cushion against the wall and relaxed into the night. The moon sparkled on the river, and the wind rushed in the forest treetops. Now that she was back, she didn’t want to be anywhere else.
The concrete jungle back in modern day America remained fresh in her memory. The anguished despair of belonging to no one and nothing still twisted her heart in knots. How could she ever go back when she had this beautiful world to live in?
She crooked her elbow under her head and reclined on the bench seat. She let out a contented sigh. Everything was right with the world, even if they hadn’t broken the curse. She was where she belonged. Hazel would recover, and Angus would come back to his senses. They just needed time, and they had all the time in the world.
Just then, the door creaked back. She looked up to see Angus walk into the room. He shut the door behind him, and when he saw her spread out on the bench seat, he frowned. She sat up to face him. Whatever he wanted, she would deal with it. If he wanted to rage and threaten and hate everybody, that was his business. Whatever he was or became, she wouldn’t turn her back on him again.
He strode across the room to plant his feet in front of her. He glowered down into her face. His hair hung around his chiseled features and cast his countenance in shadow. He looked big and dark and mysterious above her, but she wouldn’t look away from him. She accepted him, whatever he was.
He raised one hand to cradle her cheek. His fingers wound into her hair and tightened around the back of her neck. In that momentary touch, he became her master, her King. She worshiped him in all his glory, whatever he was.
She still didn’t understand all Lucy’s talk about Urlu being inhabited by dragon people, but none of that mattered now. He was Angus—her Angus. She didn’t want him to be anything else.
He stroked his thumb across her cheek, and his voice rasped when he tried to speak. “Lass.”
She couldn’t hold back. She turned aside and kissed his palm. She pressed her mouth and cheek into his hand. She wanted everything he was, to heal him and give him peace and to find it in him.
His face twisted when she kissed him. His midsection contracted like something stabbed him in the guts. He wouldn’t smile. His body seethed on the brink of explosion.
All at once, he went down on his knees in front of her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her lap. She touched his neck and shoulders, but he wouldn’t rise. His shoulders heaved, and he broke out in sobs.
Carmen stared down at his broad back. He howled into her legs, and his tears wet her jeans. She stroked his hair and even slithered her hand down the back of his shirt, but she had to smile. He was back. He was coming back from his madness. He could let himself feel the grief of losing so much and coming back to sanity again.
She hugged him as well as she could and let him cry out all the pain and loneliness and anxiety he carried since this nightmare started. He thought he lost her, and now he cried out the relief of getting her back.
All at once, he shot upright and kissed her. She tasted the salt on his lips, and he attacked her mouth in rabid ferocity. He couldn’t kiss her fast enough. He wrestled her off the bench seat into his arms. He covered her face with his tears and his kisses and his passion.
Carmen struggled to keep up with him, but she didn’t have to worry about him anymore. He was with her. They were together, and they would never separate again. She pulled him up toward her with the same desperate urgency he tugged her down toward him. She wanted to kiss him, to hold him and comfort him, even as her buried desire burst forth to consume him.
His hands covered every inch of her at once. They glided down her back, around her sides and up under her armpits, over her breasts, back to her face and down her hips. She tugged at his shirt, tucked her fingers inside his collar to stroke his chest, and wound her arms around his waist to hug him against her. She couldn’t get enough of him.
All four limbs twirled around them going a mile a minute. She tore his shirt off while he peeled her T-shirt up to expose her bra. He tugged one cup down, and her breast fell out into his hand.
She fought to unclasp her bar amid the delirious ecstasy of his mouth nibbling her skin. All the aching need she bottled up back in the old world boiled to the surface. She needed him so bad. She would never turn him away again.
She yanked his belt loose, and his kilt crumpled around his knees. He tried to unfasten her pants, but he couldn’t figure it out. She flicked the button loose and slid down the zipper. Once she got them open, he did the rest. In a few seconds, they catapulted together stark naked.
Angus lunged to his feet. He caught her up in his powerful arms and lifted her off the bench. He swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. Carmen stared into his smoldering eyes while their lips remained locked in that eternal kiss.
All the tenderness of their last night in this room came together with their raging hunger for each other. Angus lowered his solid bulk on top of her, and their bodies fused into one.
She welcomed him into her deepest being. That’s where he belonged. She folded her arms and legs around him. Her lips and breasts and stomach and hips connected down his long length, and deep satisfaction melted away the last reserve holding them apart.
Angus propped his muscled arms against the bed and craned back to glare down at her. His body flexed all the way down to his knees, and his pulsing anatomy filled her beyond anything she could ever imagine. His veins throbbed against her insides and sent shivers of quaking ecstasy to the limits of her awareness.
She stroked down his chest to his tight midsection. She fingered his hair and rubbed his neck while his bulging shaft caressed her deepest recesses. She could never get enough of him.
Her nostrils flared, and her pupils dilated looking up at him. She panted through parted lips. Her quickening pleasure sucked the breath from her lungs. The sight of him so strong and powerful above her excited her to her core.
She couldn’t contain all this surging energy pumping through her. She had to explode to cope with it all. She must fly apart into a million pieces, but she couldn’t stop staring into those magnetic eyes of his.
He dove down to kiss he
r and retreated to his lofty position. His body rippled against her, and every beat filled her to the breaking point. Oh, that felt so, so good. She never wanted him to stop. She matched his undulating strokes and spurred him to escalate his pace.
Angus gasped for breath, but he never slackened his unstoppable rhythm. His lips curled back from his teeth, and the air rasped at every effort. She worshiped him like this, so majestic and overpowering and certain.
The faster he pumped, the more she wanted him. Her heart burst for love of him, and the searing desire in her guts flooded all over her. She had to ride that galloping rhythm to the stars and attain the highest pinnacle of rapture in him.
He never wavered, but matched her, stroke for stroke. Sweat sprang out all over his skin. She wanted to taste him, to drink him to the dregs. She fought up from the bed and took one bite of his chest. His sweat stung her tongue before she dropped back.
That bite drove him wild. He roared out loud in animal fury. He burst into rapid fire thrusts that pushed her upwards on the bed into the pile of pillows. His bones pounded her to smithereens. She couldn’t hold back the torrent a second longer.
Both her arms splayed across the bed. She arched her head back and screamed out loud. Once she gave voice to her inner desires, they wouldn’t stop. They poured out through her every pore, through her eyes and mouth and hair, from her fingertips down to her toes.
She stared up at him while the cataclysm ripped out of her soul. She cried out her buried passions to him alone. She wanted to fill this castle with everything she felt for him, to bring it alive through their joining.
As soon as the first wave broke free, he answered her call. His gasping moans turned to full throated roaring. He pounded into her harder than ever, but that only compelled her to rise higher into the stratosphere.
She bucked her hips into him and met him coming down. Their steaming juices commingled and overflowed down her hips. They sparkled over her and tickled her to greater delight. Burning flames licked through her insides every time he drove into her engorged channel.
She couldn’t stop screaming. She raged from side to side, but he nailed her down to the bed. She wouldn’t move away for anything. He felt so good inside her. She wanted more and more and more, without end.
All at once, he collapsed on top of her. His chest sealed against her skin all over, but he didn’t stop pumping, filling her with himself, driving her to the brink of insanity with his manhood and his blistering concoction coating her from the inside out.
His arms surrounded her. His weight crushed her, and she enfolded him in her heat. She kissed his face and hair and eyes. She whispered her rising desires into his ear. She wanted him all over again, and he moved his hardness inside her dripping cavern to answer her.
Chapter 30
Angus and Carmen, Jamie and Fergus, Callum and Ewan all stood in front of the Phoenix Throne. Angus read from the Fire Trilogy.
“As near as I ken figure it, we’ve already broken the curse. I got me thistle…”
Carmen snorted. “Some thistle.”
Angus grinned. “Ye ken what I mean. Besides, the whole castle feels different. Can ye feel it?”
“I ken what ye mean,” Callum replied, “so why are there still naught any people about, naer horses naer cows naer dogs, naer naught?”
“I still got tae pay the Tribute,” Angus replied. “The hag says Andrew Cameron lost the Throne fer failing tae pay the Tribute, and I’ll no get it back until I do. That’s all there is tae it.”
“So how do you pay the Tribute?” Carmen asked. “We don’t even know what it is.”
“Perhaps ye mun’ mount the Throne and tak’ yer place,” Ewan suggested. “Perhaps that’s all ye mun’ do. Just tak’ it back, and it’s yers.”
“Nae.” Angus eyed the dragon carving. “I’ll no mount that Throne until I ken fer sure it’s mine. The Queen told me I’m not tae break the Law, and I’m no King as yet. When I know fer sure, I’ll mount it, and no before time.”
Carmen looked around. “Well, how do we find out what the Tribute is?”
“The hag told ye this whole realm is occupied with some kind o’ dragon people,” Fergus reminded her. “What could that be, I wonder?”
“You could almost wish we didn’t break the curse if that’s the case,” Carmen agreed. “They could be dangerous, or hostile to us, or anything.”
Angus wouldn’t take his eyes off that dragon. “They winnae be hostile. If I’m tae be their King, then I’m one o’ ‘em.”
His brothers exchanged glances. “That mun’ mean we’re one an’ all the same thing.”
He turned around to face them. “That’s richt. This dragon mun’ mean summat. We’re these dragon people, too. We just don’t ken it yet. That mun’ be the Tribute we ha’e tae pay.”
“What is?” Jamie asked.
Before anyone could speak, a shadow separated itself from behind the jet black Throne. It emerged into the light and took the form of a figure shrouded in a brown cloak and hood. The others drew back in horror, but Angus expected this. He expected Ross to turn up at the most critical moment.
Ross descended the steps to join the group. “Ye’ll no go near that Throne until ye pay the Tribute, or ye’ll wind up back on the road with all the minions of Hell hounding ye tae all Eternity.”
The wizard’s antics no longer frightened Angus. “What be the Tribute? Tell me, and I’ll pay it gladly.”
Before Ross could answer, the ground shook beneath Angus’s feet. At first, the tremor came from so far away no sound accompanied it. Only a dull vibration translated through the Throne room floor.
The group looked all around, but they couldn’t see anything. Then another tremor shook the castle to its roots. Then another.
Louder and louder, faster and faster came the steady beats. Now the stained glass windows rattled in their frames. The tapestries fluttered against the walls. Pounding thumps echoed closer.
Every man groped for a weapon. “What is it?” Ewan asked.
At that moment, the great doors at the hall’s far end burst open and the giant-headed monster from upstairs charged into the Throne room. Its slithering serpent body flowed through the door, one curving link after another. Its paddle feet slapped the flagged stone underfoot.
The enormous head arched back, and the monster bellowed to the sky. The sound shook the roof beams in their sockets, and the whole castle quaked with the monster’s every step.
High on the monster’s reptilian back rode Gahkra. She waved her arms and howled in malicious glee. Her beady black eyes glinted down at the puny humans cowering before her. How did she ever tame that thing to do her bidding? Angus didn’t understand it, but here she was, riding it in triumph to destroy them all at last.
Angus retreated before the terrible creature, but his heel struck the lowest step of the Throne. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder. That ebony dragon glared down into his eyes. For one instant, the two locked their gaze and understood each other.
This was it. If Angus wanted the Throne, he had to defeat this thing once and for all. He had to put Gahkra in the ground and rid himself of her odious presence for good.
He drew his sword and leapt forward with a vicious snarl. “Come on, lads!”
Ewan matched him step for step. His brothers hesitated only an instant before they joined him. Even Carmen charged forward to join the fight.
The monster’s wicked long tail lashed around and cracked across their path. It whipped so fast it knocked Jamie back. Carmen slashed her sword sideways and flayed the tail open to the bone. She always wore a sword now. She wouldn’t be caught dead unarmed.
The monster spun around with a deafening roar. Its bulbous head yawned open its gaping mouth to roar at her. Like lightning, the head darted down to snap and bite at her. The murderous rage that died in Angus’s heart when Carmen returned flared up again. He dove between her and the monster and impaled his sword into its eye socket.
The creature sh
rieked to wake the dead. Its neck arched back. Muck and stench oozed from the wound, and Angus saw the way forward. “Blind the thing!” he called to his comrades. “The next time it comes near ye, blind its other eye.”
They heard, and they all focused their gaze on the thing. All they had to do was entice it to strike again. Angus formed a plan to make it lower its head. Before the thing had a chance to attack again, he rushed under its chin and stabbed into its scaly hide.
His sword penetrated this monster much easier than that many-headed dragon at the river. He impaled his blade halfway before the monster felt the sting. It writhed all over the place and jerked away from him. This time, Angus kept hold of his weapon. He danced back on his heels and pulled it free.
He never got a chance to retreat before the head came at him one more time. The monster would have made mincemeat out of him if Fergus hadn’t kept his wits. When the monster took another snapping bite to gobble Angus, Fergus launched himself forward and sank his saber into the monster’s one good eye.
The monster whipped back in fury. It tore the sword out of Fergus’s hands and left him defenseless, but the damage was done. It couldn’t see. It tossed its head right and left, and its screeching cries echoed to the skies.
Angus took his chance. He raised his sword over his shoulder and lunged to one side. He dragged his weapon across the creature’s neck right below its chin and slashed its throat with all his strength.
The moment he made his stroke, he ran back to his place in front of the Throne. The monster let out a disgusting gurgling cry, but its throat wouldn’t work. It lifted off its front feet to rear high into the air. Its head brushed the ceiling, and black blood sprayed all over the Throne room.
The brothers scattered in all directions. The thing stomped here and there in desperation. Fergus’s sword hilt still stuck out of its eye socket. The creature’s snake body whipped every which way. Its bloody tail cracked through the air.
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