by Ann Vremont
“Teacher, you press your privilege too far,” Cenn growled in warning.
The Bloodstone’s beat against her chest became violently erratic as it echoed the anger building in Aideen. Her hands clenched into small fists, the pressure forcing new blood from the wound. But Dhonn ranted on, oblivious to the triple danger he now faced.
“The Stag will be our salvation, our Savior, but how are we to find his heart if you are busy bedding this miserable cunt?”
A blow, unseen, knocked Dhonn to the ground. Aideen felt Cenn stiffen next to her in surprise. His glance darted to her then to the unconscious form sprawled at their feet. His mouth was just beginning to form a question when Dhonn moaned softly in pain.
Cenn knelt beside the priest. “Teacher, forgive me, I did not mean to harm you.”
The lie flowed smoothly from Cenn’s lips and Aideen had to hide her own surprise. Cenn had warned her that his enemies could not know of her power. Was Dhonn, then, Cenn’s enemy? She felt another ball of anger begin to build and quashed the emotion. The priest certainly was her enemy, she thought as she looked at the angry flush that covered his face and the baleful glare he directed at her.
“No,” Dhonn said and dipped his head in apology. “As you said, it was the wrong time.” With Cenn’s help, he rose and brushed the dirt from his robes. His gaze searched the darkening sky and he turned, motioning for Cenn and Aideen to follow him. “Come, they will be waiting in the hall and we cannot be caught out in the dark.”
Chapter Six
A fire lit one end of the hall and the solemn crowd from the ceremony lined the tables next to it, silently vying with one another for the place closest to the rare blaze. Spreading from the tables by the fire were smaller groups of lesser nobles and household servants. Dim torches added to the light from the hearth.
Cenn escorted Aideen to the head table. A heavy otter skin cloak was draped across the back of one chair and he pulled it around her shoulders before he sat down. Dhonn, she noticed, sat directly to the left of Cenn’s elbow. Cenn clapped his hands and called for music and warm mead. Two young men dressed in worn doeskin carried a harp into the center. A middle-aged woman followed behind them with a stool. As she sat the stool down and began to play, a serving girl brought food and drink to Cenn and Aideen. Aideen’s stomach gave a delighted gurgle when a plate of freshly cooked meat surrounded by baby potatoes and carrots was placed in front of her. She looked around the hall to see surprise registering on the faces of the guests as similar dishes were presented to them.
“From whence came these provisions?” Dhonn asked. Caution mixed with suspicion cloaked his voice and his gaze drifted between Cenn and Aideen.
“From traders.” Cenn’s response was brusque, warning the priest to leave off with any further questions.
“With what in trade?” Dhonn asked, either unaware of Cenn’s tone or unwilling to heed it.
“My freedom,” Cenn answered. A smile played at the corner of his mouth and he shot a warm glance at Aideen.
The glance didn’t go unnoticed by the priest and his gaze settled on Aideen and narrowed into thin beams of hatred that pricked at her skin and made the Bloodstone grow hot once again.
“The dowry the wench came with could have been put to better use,” Dhonn grunted even as he gnawed at a piece of rib.
“Better use than feeding the hungry?” Cenn asked. A look of incredulity settled over his features and he stared at the priest. But the man was impervious to the questioning gaze.
“Informants, spies, assistance in finding the heart of the Stag or gleaning information on the forces that are amassing beyond the veil of fog,” Dhonn rambled on. “This will but last a few days.”
Aideen saw Cenn bite back a response. True, in her times, the ceremonial stones Cenn had taken from her were semiprecious or of a mass-market quality. Amethyst, opal, jade, emerald, sapphire, ruby—the stones could be purchased over the Internet or at a local jeweler or department store. But the stones were faceted beyond a skill level she could imagine Cenn’s artisans to be capable of and some might be rare for the times in which she now found herself. Having the stones to barter with had been her whole reason in bringing them. One stone, she would expect, might be worth a month’s rations for the cashel’s inhabitants.
Cenn could not completely hold back a response and he turned to Dhonn. His arm rested on the back of the priest’s chair and his heavy hand encircled the back of the man’s neck. “I have paid informants, sent spies,” Cenn spoke, the words tight and clipped. “And such fees brought me no closer to possessing the Bloodstone than when we first set out to find it.”
“Patience,” Dhonn clucked. “Have I not—”
Cenn rose from his chair, cutting Dhonn short. He offered Aideen his hand and motioned to a servant to gather up their plates. Cenn handed Aideen a cup and raised his own to the guests. “I bid you all a good meal and a good evening,” he said and took a long drink of mead. “But my wife and I retire to more fully satisfy our appetites.”
A blush heated Aideen’s cheeks and spread to flush her face and throat as a chorus of huzzahs erupted from the guests. Once they were clear of the hall, he swept Aideen up into his arms and bounded up the steps. The maid, plates and cups bouncing against the tray, had to run furiously behind him to keep pace. Cenn already had placed Aideen on the mattress when the girl dropped the tray on the table and bolted from the room.
“What do you think she was afraid of seeing?” Cenn teased.
His fingers plucked at the chiton’s side ties. After he had the ties unknotted, he lifted the shift over Aideen’s head. He kissed her eyelids closed and brushed his lips across her mouth before lingering at the hollow of her neck. While Cenn nuzzled her neck, his hands worked her nipples into hard tips until her body strained against his from the need he was creating inside her. His mouth latched onto her nipple—his lips pinched the sensitive peak. His hands massaged their way down her sides, over her hips, and he clasped her ass, kneading the muscles while his thumbs traced hard circles against the entrance to her vagina. His mouth fastened on her clit, sucking, sucking while his thumbs entered her pussy to fuck her to her first climax.
“By the gods, woman,” Cenn groaned and flipped her onto her stomach. “You have a body and soul meant for loving.”
Aideen felt Cenn’s cock, blood-thickened, stretch her walls wide and plunge into her in one sharp thrust. He eased out slowly and made shallow, gyrating thrusts against the spongy entrance. His fingers slipped beneath her and parted her labial lips to find the hard little nub that his mouth had just pleasured. He pulled it, stroked it until her wild bucking buried his cock inside her. Cenn pushed her forward, his hands gripping her ass and hips, and began to ride her in long strokes. He could feel her cunt contracting around his cock as her orgasm peaked. Aideen’s body writhed along the mattress as she gave up all pretext of control and let her body and his cock take command of her mind.
Even after another climax claimed her, Cenn held his own pleasure in check. His hands roamed her body in appreciation. His lips and tongue teased her a hundred different ways but he denied his own release. Aideen twisted beneath him then forced him onto his back.
“My turn,” she said, her tongue licking the lobe of his ear.
His hands moved to stop her and she shook her head. She looked around the room, saw the robe with its sash on the floor beside the mattress. Freeing the sash from the robe, she rolled him onto his side and tied his hands behind his back. She brought his legs up and out so that they formed a sideways diamond. Holding his feet in position with one hand, she began to stroke his cock with the other. While she stroked, her tongue ran the length of his erection, beginning below his balls at the smooth tissue of his perineum and ending with a flick at the mushrooming tip. She pressed his feet closer to his body until his heels were wedged against his ass, exerting pressure on the heavily muscled hole. She covered his cock with her mouth. Her lips, wet with saliva, contracted against the shaft, swept up
and down its length, the tip pressing against the back of her throat as Cenn surrendered, his seed rushing hot against her throat. She felt the walls of her cunt squeeze and her own climax thundered through her.
While he still trembled and jerked beneath her, Aideen’s mouth released his cock. She turned abruptly, and slid onto his shaft in one fluid motion. With deep, rocking motions, she held him inside her. His cries of pleasure joined the rhythm of the rocking. Pressing his heels against the opening to his ass while her cunt, fluttering in waves of climax, swallowed his cock, Aideen rode him to their mutual oblivion.
Chapter Seven
“Dhonn is your enemy?” Aideen inquired gently the next morning as they lay recuperating from a long night of lovemaking.
“He is my teacher,” Cenn corrected her. “Or was. I am apprentice no more…have not been for over ten years.”
“And yet you did not tell him that the Bloodstone is in your possession or admit the source of the power that knocked him to the ground last night?” Aideen continued.
“What logic does that make?” Cenn asked.
His words reminded her of Dhonn’s and Aideen let off lightly stroking the dark ladder of hair that ran down from Cenn’s navel to mix with the black curls that tangled against his shaft. She returned her hand to her hip. “Ah, I forgot, Dhonn was your teacher and so you have been taught that women are awash in illogic,” she said with no hint of play.
Cenn paused as if to consider her statement then noticed the cold anger building in Aideen. Contrition furrowed his brow and he pulled her to him. “That is not it,” he explained. “It is just that friend or foe can betray a secret.”
“He does not feel like a friend to me,” Aideen said. Cenn was massaging the small of her back and she brushed his hand away in irritation.
“He spent far too much time among the Romans,” Cenn said and tried to roll her onto her back but she pushed him away. “He has too great a love of their philosophers and mathematicians, their logicians, their Socrates and Aristotle, to be content with the company of a woman.”
Aideen bit back a snicker at what she thought was the true cause of Dhonn’s disenchantment with women. “So, you do think we are illogical.”
“Women are,” Cenn began, choosing his words as carefully as any newly married man could, “without instruction in such matters.”
Aideen sat up and began to scan the room for the brandub board she had seen earlier. She spotted it lying on the wooden chest wedged into the corner. She crossed the room naked, but for the Bloodstone and its pouch, and scooped up the board and its pieces. In the center, she put the king-piece and its four knights then she arranged her eight opposing pieces. While Cenn watched her, his dark gaze quiet, she made her opening move.
“What is your point, my lady?” Cenn asked, his voice a soft caress of reconciliation as he moved one of his knights.
“That Dhonn is wrong and that I do not merely feel that he is a danger to you.” Aideen moved a second piece and blocked two of his knights. She saw by the sharp knit of his brow that his attention had become split between her arguments and her board strategy.
“And you have proof, having been absent from this room no more than a few hours total?” He moved another knight forward, saw his error and winced as Aideen removed one of his pieces from the board.
“I have a set of objective observations that make the possibility more likely than not,” Aideen began, her pieces pressing in on the king. “And something that, by your own beliefs, you cannot deny.”
“Which is?” His lips were pressed into a thin line of concentration, making the question sound like a single-word statement of witches.
Aideen smiled and removed another of his pieces from the board. Witches, indeed. “The Bloodstone,” she answered simply and made his king retreat further from the center.
His interest redirected, Cenn lifted the brandub board from the mattress and placed it on the floor. “You have proven you are most capable at a game of strategy,” he agreed. Cenn reached up and trapped the pouch that rested between her breasts. He pulled the string tie over her head and removed the Bloodstone.
“And the stone speaks to you,” he added before dropping the stone back in the pouch and returning it to her. “What then,” he asked, “do you advise?”
Aideen began to speak but a sharp knock at the door interrupted her. Cenn gave a dismissive shake of his head and waved the interruption away but the knock sounded again, harder and more urgent.
“Crom, it is unforgivable for me to intrude,” Dhonn’s voice came from the other side of the heavy wooden door. “And yet, I must…”
“Cover yourself,” Cenn said, his lips once again set into a thin line. “It will only take a few seconds to send him away.”
Cenn tossed on his robe and lifted the latch on the door. He opened the door a crack, just enough for one eye to pass over the priest in an irritated glare. Dhonn pushed impatiently at the door and Aideen hurriedly fastened the ties to her gown. Cenn’s strength was too much for Dhonn and the priest resorted to his persuasive powers.
“Do not be so quick to shut me out,” Dhonn warned. “I know why you no longer seek the Bloodstone.”
Cenn hesitated just long enough for Dhonn to give a hard shove against the door and push his way into the room. Dhonn pointed a shaking finger at Aideen, his voice trembling as he levied his accusation. “You no longer seek the stone because you have it, and it is this witch who brought it to you.”
Dhonn lunged at Aideen and Cenn jumped forward to intercept him. Both men fell to the floor as a protective burst of energy erupted from the Bloodstone. Cenn sat up, blood dripping from his nose. Dhonn crept toward the mattress, one hand still reaching out for Aideen. Cenn flung the priest back onto the floor and straddled him, his thumbs pressing against Dhonn’s Adam’s apple.
“The enemy has sent her, can you not see this?” Dhonn pleaded. “She has used the stone against you.”
“Against you,” Cenn corrected but Aideen did not miss the backward glance of suspicion he gave her. “The enemy would not give me the Bloodstone, the very weapon with which I will defeat this army of fog and darkness.”
“Ah,” Dhonn crowed. “The enemy is smarter than we can know. He has sent the greatest of gifts, our Savior, the Heart of the Stag, but wrapped it in the worst of evil—a woman. She will use the stone at this close distance to destroy you!”
“That is not true!” Cenn yelled and his thumbs pressed more persuasively against Dhonn’s throat. “You have gone mad, my friend.”
“Can you command the stone?” Dhonn screamed the question. Dhonn saw the confusion that filled Cenn’s second backward glance at Aideen and he pressed his point. “It is as I suspected, then. You cannot.” Foam began to fleck Dhonn’s lips as his argument grew more venomous. “Kill the woman,” he urged, “and the stone will be yours to command!”
Shock filled Cenn’s gaze and he loosened his stranglehold on Dhonn’s neck. Aideen scrambled backward off the mattress and desperately looked around the room for a weapon within her reach.
“Why do you hesitate?” Dhonn begged, his screams bringing the guards crashing through the bedroom door. “There are plenty of whores for you to bed. Kill this one, and you will have the power to be king!”
“Take him,” Cenn ordered the guards, his voice rough with emotion. “He does not leave his rooms, is that understood?”
Once Dhonn, hurling curses at them, had been dragged from the room by two guards, Cenn closed the door and looked at Aideen. Her back was pressed to the wall. Her gaze, wide and fearful, jumped around the room, measuring and then discarding the value of each object as a weapon. Mindful of the stone’s power, he approached her carefully. He held his hands in front of him, the palms open, but she still shook as he touched her.
“Shh,” he coaxed and pulled her to him. “I would never hurt you and, even if you do not believe me, the stone does.”
Aideen realized he was right. The stone did not burn her flesh
in warning as it did in Dhonn’s presence. Rather, it emitted calming waves of warmth. She relaxed against him and brought her hand up to caress the blood smear across his cheek. “I am sorry—” she began but he placed a fingertip against her lips and then kissed her.
“Bad aim, that is all,” he said and wrapped her more tightly in his embrace. “You sought to protect yourself from a madman… I got in the way.”
Aideen nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek. Her breathing hitched then released in a ragged sob. “What he said…” she started and then trailed off. Dhonn had said too many terrible things for her to focus on just one.
“He has gone mad,” Cenn reassured her. “We have been fighting this unseen evil for so long, none harder than Dhonn. He was the first to recognize it, the one who started me on my search for the Bloodstone. The fight has, at last, consumed him.”
A warning premonition pricked the back of Aideen’s neck and resonated across her body. She looked at Cenn, saw the fatigue that weighed him down and decided not to press her feelings about Dhonn at the moment. He had just placed his mentor under house arrest. Surely she could allow Cenn a few hours rest before she asked him to consider whether the priest had orchestrated the menace from the very beginning.
“What is it, love?” Cenn asked as he saw the doubt that still lingered in her gaze.
His body sagged against hers and Aideen guided him back onto the mattress. She smoothed a fingertip over his brow and across each eyelid. Her chest rested against his to allow the Bloodstone’s calming effect to ease the tension from his mind and body. She didn’t answer him, choosing, instead, to massage his temples until his curiosity surrendered to fatigue.
Chapter Eight
Aideen drifted off to sleep next to Cenn. Her dreams were troubled by shadowy figures that crawled and grunted at the edge of perception. She recognized the scene from the scrying ceremony her father had made her perform and yet there was the taint of premonition in what revealed itself. Black metal encased disfigured bodies and she saw the occasional dark flash of an unsheathed sword. Screams filled the air and a path of chaos stretched all around, strewn with the bodies of women and children who could not outrun their doom. Instinctively, she reached out to Cenn in her sleep but found only empty air and blankets still bearing traces of his body heat. She opened her eyes to see him stepping into his leather boots.