The SAVAGE Series, Books 1-3: The Pearl Savage, The Savage Blood and The Savage Principle

by Blodgett, Tamara Rose

  She gazed into Matthew's face, which was upside down.

  He put a finger to his mouth for silence and her vision lingered on the lips beneath it.

  She nodded and he took his hand away. She quietly stood, thinking this was the worst of ideas.

  Being alone with Matthew.

  But her body had no such compunction, she grasped the hand he extended and followed him deeper into the forest.

  *

  They leaned up against a tree, its bark surely cutting into Matthew's back but he did not complain.

  “Let me see the wound on your shoulder that my clumsiness put there.”

  “It is nothing,” Clara lied.

  He turned her in the circle of his arms until they faced each other. The moon was waning but three quarters. Without the strong, steam powered lights of the sphere and the vast wilderness all round, the stars and moon lit everything in a bright phosphorescent glow. It was an entirely different effect and Clara gazed up at Matthew, illuminated by silver, his body a shadowed and muscled bulk around her.

  Her expression did not tell him no as his fingers traced the collarbone revealed from the nightdress which covered the top of it, smelling of the lemon soap of the clan and fresh hung laundry. When his fingers traveled to where his fist had brushed her he paused. “I must know,” he said.

  She gasped as his warm fingers grasped the shoulder, the shadow of his knuckles a mar on her pale skin.

  His head lowered until his breath was above the spot.

  Then his lips pressed against the tender area. “I am so sorry,” he whispered.

  Clara did not care about the pain, his lips took everything away. She did not think on Bracus, Charles or the paradox of her blood.

  Everything drowned in the face of this moment with Matthew.

  His forearm curled about the small of her back and pulled her against him as his lips traced a path from her injured shoulder to the hollow of her throat, fire from his lips a trail which blazed where his mouth had been.

  Clara's arms came about his neck and he lifted her off the ground, pressing her against him so tightly she could hardly breathe. Her hand ran pathways through his hair and held on to the back of his head, using the gentlest of urging to find her mouth.

  When his mouth came to hers she opened it to him and his tongue licked her lips sensuously, one at a time and she groaned.

  It was then that he put his hands about her waist, the fingers meeting and turning her, he pressed her back against the tree. Matthew lifted his face and looked deeply into her eyes, which were glittering pools of onyx in the unrevealed light of the moon.

  “I love you,” he said simply, kneading the smallness of her ribcage.

  “And I, you,” she replied honestly.

  He dipped his head again as a large palm rode up to where her heart beat and he used a finger to trace around the sensitive tip of her nipple that lay beneath her nightdress and it hardened She moaned, pushing against his finger and he heard her small sound of pleasure, covering her breast with his entire hand. Unlike the assault by Prince Frederic he cupped her sensitive flesh tenderly, moving his mouth and covering the cloth which encased it, sucking and teasing the nipple which rode underneath the thin fabric. Clara felt the electric heat begin there and surge to every extremity she had.

  Every one.

  She tried to swim to the surface of her consciousness and tell Matthew to stop. But it would have been a lie. She wished not to stop.

  She wished for more.

  He was so in tune with the vibrations of her body he lifted his head and looked at her. “You but need ask me to stop and I will.”

  The thought of him stopping struck her with grief and she ground against him slightly and she watched the breath catch in his throat. “Do not tease me, my Queen, I am not as most men. I give you your leave but at great cost.”

  “Do not stop,” she whispered.

  “Ask me,” Matthew said.

  “Please do not stop,” and Matthew smiled, taking her away from the tree, holding the back of her head as he ravished her mouth with kisses that were almost bruising, her lips swelling in response.

  Matthew lay her upon a bed of moss and straightened, stripping off the tunic over his head and she watched the beauty of his body as his muscles flexed and rippled with the movement. He lay beside her and tucked her head into the cradle of his body, fanning her hair out and away from her body.

  His hand carved into the hair which lay at her temple, his head bending down to gently kiss where his hand lay buried in her hair, then moved across her brow to linger between her eyes. His lips moved again to her mouth and she kissed him fiercely. His hands left her hair and gathered her into his body, their bodies married together, hip to head.

  Matthew had lost all sense, he knew what he did was unfair, that he must not press the advantage that he had over her, but she was as a beacon to him. He must be with her, touch her. Pressed against his body like this he could think only of her.

  His hands moved along her sides, cupping her breasts that lay like luscious globes beneath his hands, the smallness of her fitting underneath him perfectly. He was struck anew at how this tiny female could move him so passionately and he thought about how it had been to see her in the arms of those that wished to harm her.

  *

  Matthew sprinted, the fighting of the few Band and the fragment a clanging and meaty thing. He tried to pick out the females, Clara was not easy, her hair dark against the night. His eyes searched.

  Finally, he opened his senses to her as a select, letting that internal barometer seek her heat like a moth to a flame.

  His head whipped in the direction of the pulse of heat he had felt and with it, fear.

  Clara was afraid.

  He ran.

  His gills opened fully and he used the oxygen to propel him toward that small heated signal. There! He saw her being held by a much taller figure, blending with the gloom.

  It was the nightdress she wore in white that allowed her to be seen even at the distance he was from her.

  He ran harder when he heard her scream in pain, a figure partially obscuring her form. Even from a distance he recognized who assaulted her.

  The vile Prince had his hands upon her body.

  He would die.

  Matthew crept up behind the Prince and watched the man he would later know as Tucker widen his eyes in alarm. He had but a moment to see Clara's eyes fill with relief before his dirk was against the flesh of the Prince. He pressed the blade until he felt the flesh beneath it give and began to slash in a practiced arc.

  As he watched the blood splatter across Clara, he belatedly saw the delicate throat slits fill with the blood of the Prince, the shock of the sight made his blade waver, the cut more shallow than he intended.

  He dumped the Prince and leaped over him to get at the man which held Clara. He dragged him to his body and began to hammer his fists into the male's face until he heard bones crunch to his satisfaction and dumped the body.

  He crashed beside Clara and saw that she was drowning in the Prince's blood, her gills struggling to aid her breathing and her main airway blocked.

  She was Band, Matthew noted in a shocked daze as he called to Evelyn to bring the water which would cleanse the throat slits...

  *

  He crushed her to him, raining kisses upon her, her throat, her face, her breasts. He moved atop her and pressed himself into the hollow of her hips, his weight on his elbows.

  Matthew looked down at her fragile beauty, belying the woman he knew lay underneath. He would always protect her.

  He watched her eyes widen just as he felt a blade at his throat. He rolled off her and swung his leg at where he thought the arm would be and connected with Bracus.

  He watched the shiny arc of the dirk as it spun off into the woods and he sprang from the ground, his body hovering in front of where Clara.

  Clara squealed and righted her nightdress backing up into a little ball, covering what she co
uld.

  Bracus' eyes flicked to hers, his eyes raking over her disdainfully. They settled on Matthew's. “She was unprotected while you had your way with her,” he shrugged. “I could have been the fragment, the abominable Prince. Anyone. You neglect her for your brainless pursuit of burying your flesh.”

  Clara gasped and Matthew struck a blow to Bracus' chin. Bracus roared and charged him. They met with a smacking of flesh that Clara was sure would wake all within one hundred yards.

  They struck and fought each other, grunting and rolling about, Clara moved away from where they fought. She saw the brow of one break open and begin bleeding.

  Finally, Matthew tore Bracus' arm up between his shoulder blades and turned him to face Clara.

  She stood there in the moonlight. She could not have known how it framed the silhouette of her body, the form of it in stark relief underneath the material. She was a shining thing before them and it stilled Bracus' breath.

  “Look upon her!” Matthew whispered on a hiss.

  Bracus did. Tears rolled down her face and she glided over the dense carpet of cool moss soundlessly. Standing before him she raised a shaking hand to his cheek and held it there. “I am so sorry but I love you both.”

  Matthew released Bracus and he scooped Clara into his body, cradling her against him. “I cannot let you go. I cannot bear to see you with him,” he said as he buried his head in her neck, wrapping her up in his massive arms.

  The three of them stood that way silently for a time. Finally, Clara extracted herself from his embrace and looked at Matthew and Bracus. Blood had congealed and lined Bracus' brow and temple, Matthew's jaw was swelling near his chin. Scrapes and welts peppered their bodies, their gills fully open from the fight, their eyes boring into hers.

  Clara had made up her mind. “I choose no one.”

  They came to her then, both of them pulling her against them and Clara began to cry harder, she would have to let them go so they could find happiness. She was not their answer. Select of no, she was a source of strife and animosity. She could not be that. She must rule and not always be selfish.

  There was sometimes sacrifice with justice. A true ruler would lead her people with fairness and keep their happiness above her own.

  One could not always have their heart's desire.

  Clara's intellect had decided for her but a splinter of her heart belonged somewhere else.

  What was left beat without joy.

  She sobbed while four arms held her against them for the last time, pieces of her joyless heart breaking off and floating away.

  CHAPTER 15

  It may have well been a funeral wake. The listless group approached the sea's edge without pleasure. The events of the past night was known to all.

  Charles was pleased beyond measure. He had always known that Clara would not choose the savages. They were simply not a good match for a royal. Even one of savage blood. Mayhap she had seen reason and would finally look upon him in the correct light.

  A romantic one.

  He was trying for patience but the way she moped about like a schoolgirl rankled him mightily. Sarah flew around her like a butterfly, so concerned. It was ridiculous. She would get over her infatuation in a few weeks and realize the inappropriateness of wedding with anyone but one from the sphere. He and Clarence had conferred at length and they both saw the same thing: royals of the sphere should marry within the sphere. It seemed a simple enough idea.

  The alliance was a fine thing in theory and mayhap some of the women of the sphere would choose to marry the clansmen. But the thought they would be forced to wed with the brutes of the Band? They seemed entirely ill-suited to domesticity. But rather, protection should be their sole purpose. Had not the Guardians, in their infinite wisdom, seen to some things well? There was a reason for everything, Charles believed. As a point of fact, he was concerned that Clara's new knowledge of the supposed Travelers bordered on blasphemy. One knew that the Guardians were the saviors of the sphere-dwellers. The absurdness of the time travel theory was beyond him. Perpetuated by the fragment.

  Heathens spreading gossip. And he was supposed to believe their secondhand story told from the mouth of a clan girl not yet ten and four years? No!

  His internal musings were brought up short by Clara as she hiked her skirt up, brazenly showing the skin of her ankles and dipped her feet in the water. Charles sighed, she had certainly changed since her introduction to Outside.

  Evelyn waded in beside her and before long the girls were getting themselves drenched. Charles deliberately reminded himself that she was royal.

  It was not without effort.

  *

  Clara grinned as she put her toes in the sea, lifting the hem of her skirt to not soak it, dragging sand everywhere she went.

  She looked up as splashing permeated her senses and Evelyn was there splashing her. Clara turned and heaved water into her face. Evelyn began choking and Clara showed no mercy, splashing continually until Evelyn dove underneath the surface and dragged her beneath the cool waters.

  Clara had only swum in the cool fresh water lakes they had at the edge of the fields and this was much different, the sea teeming with life. Evelyn's arms wrapped around Clara and she panicked.

  She could think only of the river that Tucker drowned her in.

  Her gills burst out of her throat and sucked in oxygen and Clara was suddenly breathing. She opened her eyes and turned in Evelyn's arms, shoving her away.

  Rough arms plunged beside her and latched onto her arms, jerking her out of the water in a rush.

  It was Bracus, Matthew at his side. Tears trembled on Clara's lashes, the memory of Tucker so near she could taste it on the air.

  Then with great effort she looked about her, telling herself this was a different place, a different time.

  That the strong arms of the Band held her.

  “I'm sorry, Clara. I did not think...” Evelyn began then burst into tears.

  Clara opened her mouth to respond and seawater poured out. Bracus turned her and she did not fight it but let it come. It was less like vomiting this time and more akin to expunging.

  Finally, catching her breath she turned to Evelyn. “Fret not. I cannot help that memory surfacing.” She gently took herself out of Bracus' hold and he released her.

  “He was but worried, Clara,” Matthew said by way of explanation, his hungry eyes burning into hers, her body responding despite her will.

  It was most difficult, filling her with sadness. She felt Bracus' warmth leave her arms and she felt bereft.

  They had agreed to be her protectors, honoring her decision to be her suitors no more. As she looked at their faces, she was unsure of herself, the decision wavering within.

  Philip interrupted her weak moment with, “Captain, others approach.”

  Bracus looked at Matthew for a heartbeat and Matthew nodded, clasping Clara to him they left the water.

  Clara was acutely aware that her dress now clung to her like a second skin, gills naked on her throat, her bronze hair in coiling wet spirals laying everywhere, dripping.

  She was unsightly. And had never looked less like a Queen in her life. Ada would have beaten her for an entire fore-night and she shivered at the thought, Matthew glancing down at her and he held her tighter.

  How she loved him, stifling a sob.

  Gripped like she was in his arms, her heart a splintered mess, she watched the group gallop to the shore, the sun shining on the leader.

  Her hair shone as spun gold with the sun at its zenith, her tunic laced tightly around a figure that curved exactly like Clara's.

  She stopped within two horse lengths of Clara and she looked into her eyes.

  Lavender colored eyes.

  “Daughter,” she crooned in a husky contralto.

  *

  “Rowenna,” Clara acknowledged and a golden brow arched. Clara fought not to squirm under her scrutiny. It was not such a difficult thing to manage after her years with Ada.

 
; Her eyes broke contact with Clara and they touched on each person in the group. They settled upon Anna and she started. Joseph pulling her subtly in against him. Rowenna followed his movement like a falcon, her expression puzzled.

  “I know you. You were there that day at the marsh when we traded with the Red Men.”

  Anna nodded. “Aye, it is I.”

  “Your Band seeks you,” Rowenna stated, studying her.

  She cowered back against Joseph and he put her behind him. “She has not need of that Band. She is part of our clan now.”

  Rowenna set the reins of her mount over its neck and dismounted. Clara watched her walk toward them and as she did Bracus and Phillip spread to either edge of their group, Clarence pairing with Philip and Charles with Bracus.

  Rowenna swung her gaze to the men. “Fear not, I come in peace.”

  “Be that as it may, you are a foreign Band, with higher number,” Bracus stated the obvious with a massive shrug.

  She stopped her advance, looking at him. “Are you captain of your Band?” she waved that away. “I am Rowenna, from the Band of Cape Cod and you are...?”

  Bracus strode to her and one of the Band which rode with her trained an arrow on Bracus. He paused. “That arrow feels very much like war, Rowenna.”

  She looked up at him from beneath long lashes, femininity wrapped in a dangerous package. “Maddoc, do not.”

  He kicked his heels into the sides of his steed and moved toward them. Dismounting beside her he said, “Mother, let me stand beside you.”

  “I do not need your protection,” she replied levelly.

  Bracus raised an eyebrow, skeptical.

  The young Band member smiled. “She speaks true. However, she is a rare female of the Band and my mother as well.” He shrugged. “She cannot stand unguarded while a warrior of a different clan approaches her.”