Highland Dragon Rebel

by Isabel Cooper

  Those who were on the street largely shared the metallic skin and bright hair of the patrollers, but the wings varied. Some were as leathery as Moiread’s own when she transformed, in colors that matched the person’s hair. Some were insect-like and shimmering, while others were almost mist-like, and she couldn’t see how they supported the full weight of even those as slim as the Caduirathi.

  Men and women both wore loose-wrapped garments, like togas, woven carefully around their wings, and many wore open sandals. Most carried no weapons, though guards like those at the gate did pass through the streets, watching everyone around them carefully.

  The blue-and-gold building was in the center of the circle. As Moiread and Madoc neared it, the other structures also got larger and more ornate, and the number of guards increased, until they came to another smaller pair of golden gates and a half-dozen Caduirathi met them.

  “Her Majesty waits for you,” said the leader, once Madoc had given his name. “We shall care for your mounts.”

  “I thank you,” said Madoc. He didn’t look entirely easy as one of the guards led away their horses with their saddlebags, and Moiread wasn’t overjoyed about it either. Still, when royalty summoned, there was no delaying.

  Side by side, they followed their escorts through a lush garden, up a set of golden stairs and through sapphire doors, and then through many gold-and-white stone halls and up winding staircases until they came to the throne room.

  That room was a long oval, the walls unornamented save for wide curving windows. A circle of glowing wisps on the ceiling lit it without torches or candles. A small crowd of Caduirathi within looked Madoc and Moiread over curiously, then parted and let them proceed toward the front of the room. There, a deep-violet carpet covered a short set of stairs, and a lovely woman sat on a delicate golden throne.

  Moiread needed no prompting from Madoc. She went to one knee and bent her head, waiting for the queen to speak.

  “Do rise,” she said, her voice sweet but metallic, like the strings of a gittern. “Son of our hall, we rejoice at your return.”

  “My lady Gilrion,” Madoc said in a courtier’s voice that glided like warm silk. “It soothes my heart to be here once again. As my kind counts such things, it’s been too long since my last visit to your lands, and I have sore missed them, and you. I beg that you allow me to present my most noble and skilled friend, Lady Moiread MacAlasdair.”

  Moiread rose and curtsied, awkward as that was in male attire. “Your Majesty,” she said, knowing that her skills in this area would be a poor shadow of Madoc’s and so not trying to compete. “Your hospitality is a great honor, and your kingdom amazes me.”

  Queen Gilrion herself would have been amazement enough. Ridged golden wings fanned out behind her, matching the pure gold of her eyes and hair, while her skin shimmered silver. If the white gown she wore was the silk it appeared, then the fabric alone could have bought a small kingdom, though there was far less of it than in most gowns Moiread had seen. The price of the golden circlet on her head, studded with square purple gems the size of Moiread’s thumbnail, could have probably purchased England.

  The queen surveyed Moiread calmly, smiled with full, pale lips, and said, “We have no doubt of your ability, lady of the MacAlasdairs. Madoc is a man of excellent judgment. He has our regard and our loyalty both, as few merit and fewer among mortals.”

  Ah. Although not Artair or Douglas’s equal in intrigue, Moiread nonetheless had trained with them, and she was a woman of the world. Gilrion wasn’t doing anything so vulgar as making a threat, even a veiled one. She was only letting Moiread know how matters stood, should Madoc’s description of her turn out to be less than accurate.

  “Our acquaintance has been brief, Your Majesty,” Moiread said, weighing her words carefully. “But from it, I would say that he deserves the regard and loyalty of any who know him. I’m not surprised that a woman of your wisdom sees so clearly.”

  She didn’t look at Madoc to see how she was doing, no matter how much she wanted to. Moiread kept her eyes on Gilrion’s face, waited, and saw the queen’s smile widen fractionally. She felt that she had passed one test, though there were likely more ahead.

  “Tomorrow we will feast and make merry in your honor,” said Gilrion, “and discuss all that is needful. But it is a long way to the world of man, and I think you have both come a long way in it.” She clapped her hands, and two of the courtiers detached themselves to come forward. “See to our guests’ comfort.”

  * * *

  Both of the courtiers who took them up the stairs had known Madoc in his boyhood: Erulhieth, who’d been full-grown then and, like the queen and the rest of her subjects, looked no older now, and Celened, who had been a child himself and thus one of Madoc’s partners in mischief and idleness when they could manage it. Quick of speech and laughter, Celened lost no time in recounting old stories as the four of them made their way to the living quarters, nor in asking questions.

  “And what have you done, roof brother, that so many unpleasant men should seek you with so many instruments of death? Stolen the jewels from a crown, or the wife from a prince?”

  “You esteem me too highly.” Madoc laughed.

  “Then could it be what you know?” Celened’s red-orange eyes danced like flames in a hearth. “Did you overhear dire secrets? See rites of a mystic and fell cult?”

  “Insulted the ale in the wrong tavern,” Moiread suggested with an amused twitch of her lips.

  Erulhieth witnessed it all in calm silence, as she had done as long as Madoc had known her. She had never been a woman of many words, nor had her moods ever been public. Once at Moiread’s room, she gave Madoc their version of a bow between equals, a brief lowering of the head with her hands flat at her sides. “I rejoice to see you well, Madoc Firanon, and I wish you a pleasant evening.”

  “And I you,” he said. “Both of you.”

  In company, he couldn’t let himself linger and watch Moiread depart. Instead, he had to follow Celened up another flight of stairs and through a short hall. His old friend fell oddly silent in the process, and Madoc was wondering how to inquire what was amiss when they came to a door.

  “Your quarters,” said Celened. “But stay a moment and tell me true: is the dragon woman with you by your own wish? If you were silent earlier out of threat to yourself, or because you would not endanger Haryin and his troops in battle, then be assured that Her Majesty has more than enough strength here to address any such danger.”

  “Did she tell you to ask me that?”

  “She did give such an order, but I ask also as your friend, and for myself. The lady seems amiable, but so do many hazards.”

  “It is true,” said Madoc, and he couldn’t be angry. In Gilrion’s place, he might well have done the same. “And I thank you for your concern, but need it not. Moiread has proven her loyalty, and her friendship, more than once, and she has never threatened me or mine.”

  “As much as one could wish,” said Celened, his usual smile reappearing, “particularly in one so comely. To bed, then, and rest. I warn you, you’ll need it tomorrow!”

  He departed, and Madoc slipped into a low-ceilinged square chamber whose walls were pale gold, where thick rugs covered the floor and a wide bed hung with dark-green canopies filled nearly the length of one wall. A vast, white marble tub sat in front of it, with pine-scented steam rising from the water. A small table nearby held bread, fruit, and wine.

  The magic-borne luxury of Gilrion’s realm had always been a wonderful change. After weeks of riding and sleeping in dubious inns, not to mention the pitched battles, it was close to heaven itself. Madoc ate his fill, quickly undressed, and slid into the hot water, letting it cover him to his neck.

  He didn’t turn at the knock on the door, but called, “Come in.” Even in the mortal world, a man expected to have the occasional conversation in the bath, and the Caduirathi had no s
queamishness about such things.

  The voice he heard, when the door had closed behind his guest, had no squeamishness in it either—only low, rich appreciation. “That’s quite the view,” said Moiread.

  Twenty-one

  As Moiread’s escort had told her they would, the walls had lit up when she spoke a name, showing her the path to take. Still, she stood for a tense heartbeat before she knocked, and knew vast relief when she heard Madoc’s voice and knew she hadn’t wandered into some stranger’s quarters.

  She was more nervous, truth be told, than she’d been with any of her previous lovers. Most of those had been spur-of-the-moment affairs, hasty fumblings in the heated aftermath of battle or the tipsy conviviality of celebrations. It had been a long time since she’d planned a tryst, and she’d never journeyed there through such unfamiliar surroundings as she had that night.

  Moving forward was the best cure for nerves. She stepped further inside and closed the door behind her. Water splashed as Madoc turned to face her. Wet and taut with muscle, his arms and chest gleamed pale in the light, and water matted the thick, dark hair on his chest.

  “No,” she said, raising a hand before he could leave the tub. “I wouldn’t dream of cutting your bath short.”

  She’d had one herself, and her hair now fell damply against the collar of her short white tunic. The palace was warm enough that she needed no more, and the closer she came to Madoc, the more she knew that warmth was unlikely to be a problem any time in the near future.

  “No?” he asked, recovering enough to tease her with a knowing smile. “I should indeed think you’d know I need one, but what then do you come to do?”

  Moiread trailed her fingers from his elbow to his shoulder, relishing the way his arm tensed beneath her touch, then plucked a soft cloth from a nearby stand. “I’d a number of ideas on the way here. Finding you as I do, I’m now thinking you might wish an attendant, aye?”

  “Oh, aye,” he said. His voice was still teasing, but lower and huskier, and Moiread saw his eyes darken. “That’s most generous of you.”

  “I take my duties very seriously,” she replied. Dipping the cloth into the hot bathwater, she slowly set to work.

  Up his lean, corded arms she went again, from fingers to shoulders, then down the length of his spine as far as she could reach and up again to the back of his neck, rubbing not with her full strength but firmly enough that Madoc groaned in satisfaction and leaned back into her hands. Knotted muscles from long days on the road eased under her touch, and when she reached the top of his head, he was practically purring, his eyes closed.

  “If you fall asleep now,” she said, soaping his hair, “I may stab you.”

  “I’d not be so ungentle, I promise. Even if I didn’t fear your threats.”

  “The which you do.” His hair was thick and silky between her fingers.

  “I like to think I have that much wisdom,” he said. Before she could reach for the pitcher, he caught her wrist, turned it over, and brushed his lips across the vein just below her hand. “Among other attributes.”

  After Moiread rinsed out Madoc’s hair, she leaned forward, the angle now pressing her breasts against his wet back. The thin fabric of her tunic quickly grew damp, and the friction quickened her breath and made her bite her lip to keep her concentration on the task at hand. Slowly she circled the cloth down Madoc’s neck and over the hard planes of his chest, washing his sides and trailing down toward his flat stomach, until a new and far more pleasant tension entered his body and the sounds he made spoke more of urgency than relaxation.

  By the time she’d reached the limit of her arms’ length, Moiread could see the tip of Madoc’s erection sticking up through the water, flushed red and rising tight against his stomach. The sight drew a quiet hum of arousal from her throat and sent a pulse of longing through her sex, already damper than the tunic she wore. Still she made no move toward Madoc’s groin, but drew her hands back up to his shoulders, stepped back, and made her way to the other end of the tub, making sure Madoc had a clear view of her breasts in their almost-transparent covering as she walked.

  “My lady MacAlasdair,” he said huskily, “you’re the most dreadful tease.”

  “Aye?” She started to wash his legs, trailing lightly up over shin and calf. “I’d say I’m a very good one.”

  Yet she moved a touch more quickly up one muscular thigh and then the other, her will to torment and prolong not as powerful as the growing need in her body. Each gasp she heard from Madoc, each low moan, fired her blood more, and when she finally closed her hand loosely around his cock and he thrust up into her touch, she mingled her groan with his. He was both long and thick in her grasp, and felt as hard as the marble of the tub and almost as hot as the water.

  After a few lingering strokes with the cloth, each a little firmer than the last, Moiread cast it aside and took him into her bare hand, fingers playing over the length of his shaft. The tip was wet with more than water then, and Madoc had once more thrown his head back against the rim of the tub. His hands clenched on the sides, knuckles white.

  Deceived by his posture, Moiread blinked in surprise when he suddenly closed a hand around her wrist—and then actually yelped as he sat up swiftly and, with his other arm, pulled her into the tub on top of him.

  There was a moment of laughing confusion while they sorted out limbs and angles. Considerable water splashed onto the floor, but it was mostly pleasant, though Moiread grazed her elbow against the tub and swore. “I don’t think this is built for two people,” she said, raising her lips from Madoc’s shoulder, “or not two of our size.”

  “Likely not,” he said against her neck, hands tracing heated patterns along her spine, “but we’re surely used to thinking on our feet, no?”

  “We’re neither of us on our feet.”

  “Ah, if you start bringing logic into this, you’ll spoil everything. Besides, I’d never resist you for long like this.” He shifted them, with more sloshing of water, so that she straddled his lap and he could cup her breasts through the wet cloth. “No man could, no matter the space at hand, not with such a clear view of these so lovely and stiff.” He took one of Moiread’s nipples in his mouth through the thin, wet silk of her tunic, and she cried out, rubbing her sex against his cock where it throbbed between her thighs.

  Her tunic was in the way of a full joining, and the angle wasn’t quite right, but when Moiread moved to rectify that, she found Madoc’s hands on her thighs, holding her firmly in place while the pressure of his fingers stoked her desire further. Still kissing her breasts, he chuckled at her sound of frustration and swept his hand under the hem of her tunic.

  “Oh,” she said, breathing the word out, and could manage nothing more coherent. The water lapped around them, caressing Moiread’s skin in a gentle counterpoint to the more insistent pressure of Madoc’s body. It paradoxically stripped some of the slickness from her, but the slow intrusion of one finger and then a second quickly remedied that, and when Madoc began to rub the outside of her sex as well, she was reduced to desperate whimpering.

  Only then did he change their positions once more, guiding the head of his erection to the cleft between her legs and letting her sink onto him. The tub made her move slowly, despite her eagerness, and keep briefly very still when he was all the way inside her, both caught in the moment of pleasure and working out how best to proceed. Madoc, perhaps in the same state of mind, was patient, but she felt small pulses and jerks that said he wouldn’t be for long, and those movements wore away at her own endurance.

  Experimenting, Moiread gradually settled on a slow, subtle rocking that kept their bodies close together, brushing against each other with every slight rise and fall of her hips. She was already breathing fast, already closer than she’d been much further into matters with other lovers. Slow and subtle sped up as she found balance and rhythm, as Madoc’s hips arched below her and his ha
nds roamed feverishly over her breasts, as his ragged moans echoed in her ears. Back arching, thighs clenching around Madoc’s hips, she built quickly and inevitably toward a climax that drew a scream from her throat and sent colors exploding behind her closed eyes.

  Madoc wasn’t far behind. A deep thrust upward sent half the water out of the tub—his hands digging hard into her thighs as he muttered an awed oath in Welsh—and a rush of warmth within to match the heat without. Then he collapsed, a stringless puppet, and Moiread let herself fall against his chest.

  “Stay.” It was the first thing he said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Stay. If you want…like. They’ll think nothing less of us here.”

  His shoulder fit her head nicely. “Good,” she said, not disposed to argue. “That just leaves the one problem then, aye?”

  “Oh?” He brushed wet hair away from her neck with one hand. “Problem?”

  “Getting to the bed before my legs give out.”

  Twenty-two

  The Caduirathi had bells and hourglasses to mark time, but in the dark silence of his room, Madoc had no way of knowing how long he’d slept. He knew that his weariness from the journey was gone, though it would take a few days of rest to truly build up his reserves again. For the moment, it was enough to open his eyes easily and take in the beautiful woman dozing at his side.

  Moiread slept on her back, one arm thrown across her chest as if even in sleep she guarded her neck. She’d managed to strip her wet tunic off before tumbling into bed, and her naked skin glowed in the dim light. A faint scar ran down the outside of that arm: an uneven line, probably from a blade. The arm was muscular, the hand long-fingered and callused from blade and rein. As Madoc watched her, she glanced up at him through her dark lashes and turned so that she could run a finger down his bicep.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” he said, though he was turning to her as he spoke, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling her toward him.