by Karin Tabke
Wulfson nodded, then softly said, “History has a way of repeating.”
“If William is so concerned the Godwinson line will rear its head to rule, then why not chase after my cousins Magnus and Godwine, Harold’s own sons?”
“They hide in Dublin. But mark my word, the day they set foot in England they will be hunted down.”
Tarian threw up her hands, and in a quick movement she unsheathed her broadsword from where she had hung the scabbard on a peg on the wall. She had meant to hand it over hilt first to the Norman, but he was up and weaponed so swiftly she could not believe a mortal could move so fast. He pushed her hard against the wall, one sword to her throat, the other to her belly. “If you were a man, you would be lying in halves on the floor.”
He stuck one sword into the timber behind her and grasped hers from her hand. “’Tis lighter of weight than a man’s.”
She scowled. “Of course it is. I could not wield the weight of yours more than a minute.”
He grinned and pressed his body full against hers. “I would wager you could not handle the full weight of me for more than a minute.”
Her body steamed, and with only her undertunic separating her from him, Tarian was acutely aware of his maleness. He rose harder against her hip, and though she had walked that dangerous road with him just the night before, fear of his intentions gripped her.
His nostrils flared and she knew he caught her scent. His eyes narrowed. “Would you play me for a fool, madame?”
Vigorously she shook her head, denying what she knew to be true. He tossed her sword to the floor, and keeping her pinned with his short sword, his right hand moved down her belly to her hips. “Nay, do not trespass!” she cried.
Wulfson’s piercing green eyes held hers. A soft sheen of sweat covered his chest and throat. She felt as if she were about to be swallowed up in a wild whirlpool.
He pressed the palm of his hand to her mound, and Tarian hissed in a breath. She had no control of the hot shards of desire shooting through her. Her breathing increased in volume and her breasts swelled with more weight. She could no more ignore the primal cords that bound her to this warrior than she could change the color of her eyes. He had awoken something in her body the night before, a craving, a hunger such as she had never known, and did not understand. Whatever it was, she could not deny it. But she would do her mightiest to control it. He pulled up her tunic in slow fistfuls, his eyes never leaving hers. As the fabric cleared her thighs, her soft musky scent wafted up between them. He closed his eyes and softly inhaled. When he opened them, she knew he knew. Her body quaked in fear. Would he end her life now?
What he did next shocked her. His fingers slid beneath the fabric of her tunic and in a slow easy slide he dipped into her wetness.
“Jesu!” She gasped and fought the urge to open wider for him and press more intimately against him. Instead, she clamped her thighs around his hand and grasped his shoulders. “Pray, stop your trespass.”
His finger pushed deeper into her, and Tarian could not suppress the deep moan of pleasure that escaped her chest. “Pray, Tarian,” he said as his lips pressed to her ear. His tongue licked her and shivers rent her entire body. “Who trespassed first?”
With every muscle she possessed, combined with the will of a mighty warrior, Tarian pushed him away from her. When she moved across the room to the hearth, she glanced back at him. He stood, sword in his left hand, bare-chested, his other sword poking his braies for release. He had let her go, and they both knew it. He brought his right hand to his nose and inhaled her scent, his gaze never leaving hers. She shivered, and now, despite the applied honey and violet scent she had prepared and applied to her body, her natural scent overrode it.
“Honey musk. A scent that, once experienced, I would never forget.” He stepped closer to her, his eyes blazing, not, she realized, in lust or passion, but in fury. “What game are you about, Tarian Godwinson, that you should drug me, then see yourself spread upon my bed in the middle of the night?”
She shook her head in denial. “I know not of what you speak. I only met you this morn.”
“Nay,” he softly said. He sheathed his sword and turned back to her. “Remove your garment.”
“What?” she indignantly demanded.
“You heard me.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“Is this a barbaric attempt to exert your power over me?”
“I am master here. Do it now, or I promise, you will not like how I will remove it.”
Tarian swallowed hard, resentment at his humiliation riding her. “Give me your oath you will not touch me once it’s removed.”
He shook his head and stopped halfway toward her. “I swear no oath to you. Remove it.”
Tarian looked past the hulking knight to where Thyra, her sword, still protruded from the wooden wall, then to Wulfson’s twin blades near his broadsword. She would have to get past the nimble knight to get her hands on any weapon, and from what she had witnessed she was no match for him. She straightened. So be it. It would not be the first time he would see her naked. But it would, she decided, be the last. For all that there had been a momentary reprieve, she was intelligent enough to know that it was only a matter of time before William reconfirmed his kill order. And to that end, so long as this knight lived and breathed, she would not. There was only one alternative. But in the meantime, she would demonstrate just who had power over whom.
She smiled a slow seductive smile, and as Salome had danced for Herod, Tarian slowly and seductively raised the damp tunic. As it passed up to her thighs Wulfson’s eyes blazed brighter. At her waist she heard a slow hiss emerge from his chest, and as she raised it past her breasts he cursed. When she pulled it over her head, then pulled it away from her long hair and shook the damp tendrils from her shoulders, she watched his body twitch and stiffen.
From beneath lowered lids she smiled up at the knight. He stood ramrod stiff now, as an oak in a brutal storm; he did not so much as flinch. Tarian arched her back and her full breasts jutted toward the Norman, her nipples hard and distended. Her flat belly fluttered under his heated scrutiny. Her smile deepened and she ran her hands up her sides to her breasts, grazing the tips with her fingertips. They both hissed in air, she at the hot shot of desire the caress evoked and Wulfson, she could only surmise, from the sight of her touching herself.
“Do you like to see my hands upon myself, sir knight?” Tarian boldly asked. When their gazes caught and clashed, she realized his great chest rose and fell in a quick staccato. “Would you touch yourself for me?”
Wulfson groaned. “You are wanton,” he said softly, his voice even lower than its normal deep timbre.
Tarian relished the control she had over this man sent to destroy her. She dug her fingers into her long hair and pushed the mass up on top of her head. Thus she proudly stood, every angle, every curve of her viewable. Slowly she turned and came back around to fully face the warrior who, she noted, had stepped closer.
“Do I please you, milord knight?”
“You would please any man.”
“’Tis not any man I wish to please.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do not set your sights on me, madam. I will be gone from this damp clime before too long.”
“With my head upon a platter?”
He stepped closer to her and reached out a hand to her breast. “Mayhap,” he said, barely audibly. He slipped his long arm around her waist and pulled her toward him. “Mayhap not.”
“Mayhap, milord knight, you will wake to find my sword buried in your chest one morn.”
He yanked her hard against his chest and lowered his lips to hers. “Never fear. There are more Blood Swords where I come from. You cannot defeat us all.” Before she could utter a word, his lips descended upon hers.
Wulfson told himself he would resist what she so shamelessly taunted him with, but then he decided that would serve no purpose. His body burned too hot to be denied. And though sh
e might want to deny it, she burned as hotly for him. He smiled against her lips when her body went limp in his arms. He gathered her closer and wished there were at least a pallet in the small area. But there was not, and though he had taken many a maid on the floor or the grass, he did not want to with Tarian. The wench had pride. She was a noble lady of royal blood; she deserved better then a quick tryst on the dirt and stone floor of an abandoned Celtic ruin. And as he realized what he’d just thought, Wulfson knew he had waded too deep into her waters.
He growled, and as he was about to set her from him, she kneed him hard in the groin. He grunted in pain, his arms loosening, and she was gone. When he looked up through the haze of his pain, he found her sword tip pressed to his heart. His blood, already quickening, thrummed through him like a runaway stallion. He stood to his full height, and though he read murder in her eyes she had not done the deed. She looked magnificent in her fury, her petite body, so perfectly shaped, flushed pink in her excitement.
A storm more ferocious raged in her eyes and face. But he would not be swayed by it. Nay, now he would show her once and for all that if her destiny was to die at his hands then it would be so.
“I saved your life. Does that not count for something?” she demanded.
Wulfson shook his head. “Nay, you nearly cost it.”
She pressed the tip into the thick scar tissue on his chest. “You are a most arrogant man, Wulfson of Trevelyn. Had I not filled those men with my arrows, I would be safely back at Draceadon enjoying an afternoon respite with Brighid.”
“Had I not pulled you from the bowels of that place, you would be dead as we speak.”
She threw her head back and laughed, and it was just the distraction Wulfson needed. He slapped the blade away from his chest, grabbing Tarian’s hand that held it, and squeezed. She cried out in pain but did not release the hilt. She twisted and turned in against him, knocking them both off balance. Wulfson was not used to such a small, slippery foe. He guarded what made him a man as the length of the blade struck downward in their battle over it. He pushed Tarian back against the wall, and when she hit the timber with a hard thump, Wulfson grabbed the sword from her. He pressed it horizontally across her chest, then shoved her back into the wall, keeping her completely immobile. One wrong turn and the honed blade would slice her open. As it was, the upper edge dug into the tender flesh at the top swell of her right breast. A small drop of blood beaded above the steel where it hovered, then dripped slowly down the side.
“Lady Tarian, you sorely try my patience.”
Her ocean-colored eyes glittered in fury, and he felt a different pain rise up between them. Her eyes widened, and he grinned, despite the most precarious position they found themselves in. “It seems I am a man who not only enjoys watching a woman touch herself but one who likes rough play.” He tossed the sword behind him, where it clattered against the far wall. Before she could move, he dug his fingers into her thick hair and pulled it back so that she could do naught but look him in the eye. “Do you want to continue this charade of cat and mouse, or do you want to lie with me here and now?”
“I would never lie with a Norman!”
Her words did not hurt. Her refusal to lie with him did. “You lay with me last eve. What has changed?”
“You are mad to think I would come to you in the night! I would never do such a thing! I am a widow of just a month.”
His hands moved through her hair, drawing out her long tresses. “Is this the way a widow wears her hair?” He nodded toward her clothing on the floor. “Is that how one who is in mourning dresses?”
Tarian remained mute. Wulfson studied her for a long time. “Why, after he had agreed, did your husband refuse to marry you?”
If it were possible for her to look more furious than she had moments before, she did. “’Tis no concern of yours.”
His hand slid down her belly and rested just above her mons. He felt her flinch, and resisted the urge to sample her honey. “Are you with child?”
Taking a deep breath, she answered him honestly. “I do not know.” He stood still, watching her for any clue she lied. “Does it matter? If your king decides to see his original order met, the child will die with me.”
Wulfson drew her close, his head dipped; his lips hovered just above hers. “If you are such a resourceful warrior, why do you act as if when the final order comes you will hand me your sword to do the deed?”
She rose up on her toes and pressed her breasts against his bare chest. His muscles tightened. “I would never do such a thing, because I do not think you have it in you to kill an innocent woman and babe.” She nipped his bottom lip and hung onto to it. He jerked his head away, blood beaded on his bottom lip. Tarian laughed. “My husband called me Lilit.”
Wulfson swiped his thumb across his lower lip and saw the blood there. He licked it. “Who is Lilit?”
Tarian laughed again, her voice this time verging close to hysteria. He shook her and she sobered, then looked him hard in the eye. “Lilit was a succubus of the highest order.” His eyes narrowed, and she explained. “Lilit came to warriors in the night, and as she made love to them she sucked their vigor from them, so the next morn they were useless on the battlefield, where they succumbed to their enemy only to be reunited with her in their death.”
“Did Malcor fear you?”
“Indeed, and he had much to fear.”
“Did you slay him?”
“’Twas either he or me. I chose to live.”
Wulfson stepped back from her. “Get dressed. The rain has waned, and I would see us back for the midday meal. I have a great hunger.”
Tarian nodded, and as they dressed she noticed again the growing bloodstain on his leggings. “Your wound will fester if it is not tended.”
“I will see to it.”
As they mounted and turned their horses toward Draceadon, the distant thunder of hooves from the west road leading toward the town of Dunloc met them. Wulfson inclined his head to her to ride behind the ruin, and they hurried to see and not be seen.
Eleven
A handful of armed soldiers on horseback thundered past the chapel, followed long moments later by at least twoscore foot soldiers. If they could be considered soldiers. They reminded Wulfson more of churls playing at war. The argent lion emblazoned on the sable standard was familiar; he had seen it at Hastings amongst the Saxon army.
“’Tis Rhiwallon,” Tarian said after the train passed.
Wulfson scowled. Between Rangor’s men, Tarian’s guard, and now the Welsh king’s detail, the Blood Swords, though worth five men apiece, had become sorely outnumbered.
“Does the mighty knight fear the Welsh?” Tarian snidely asked.
Wulfson scoffed, turning to her. “Did I fear them earlier in the wood?”
She smiled and shook her head, her long hair swirling around her waist. For the hundredth time that day his blood quickened at the sight of her. Her pluck and exotic beauty gave him pause nearly every time he set his gaze on her. “Nay, but you must admit, knowing I had your back, there was little to fear.”
Wulfson scoffed again and urged Turold forward. “I will admit for a woman you have a talent with the bow.”
“Hah! I can shoot the eye from a boar at seventy-five paces.”
Wulfson shook his head.
“I can!”
“You would have to prove such prowess to me. But for now let us return to Draceadon and hear what Rhiwallon desires of you.”
“He desires that I go to Powys for his protection.”
Wulfson waited for her to catch up to his pace, then said, “I will not allow it.”
She shrugged. “I have no desire to leave my home.”
Wulfson eyed her sharply. “You are as mysterious to me as any woman I have come across, Lady Tarian.”
“I am many things to many people, sir knight, but there is no mystery to me. I want what every woman wants. A safe home to raise her children.”
“Safety is difficult to g
uarantee.”
“Especially when there is a price on one’s head.”
“There are no rules on the battlefield.”
She flashed him a smile that stirred his cock. “Aye, of that I am clearly aware.”
“You make light of a serious situation.”
She flashed him another disarming smile and leaned toward him, and said softly, “I will not die by your hand, Sir Wulfson.”
He leaned toward her, catching her deep blue eyes with his. “Never underestimate the enemy. ’Tis the most fatal of flaws.”
He watched the color rise in her cheeks. “Aye, and so I say the same to you. Do not forget it.”
Wulfson sat back in his saddle and contemplated the erect back and proud set of her shoulders. A niggling trepidation clawed at his gut. Here was a foe he had never come face to face with. Nor one he had been trained to defeat. He thought he understood the workings of the fairer sex, but this Saxon witch mystified him. His cock burned with a heat he fought to quell. Lilit, Malcor had called her. Mayhap the earl knew more than most. The warrior princess was a demon, and either he had dreamt of her coming to him or she truly had, and in her demoness form no less. He scowled deeply. He found not only his strength to be tested this day, and had the wounds to prove she had sucked his usual vigor from him. But he had not used his brain to its fullest capacity when he rode off with no helm, gauntlet or company, and was Turold not so expertly trained in the art of war he would not have won the day. He gave the horse an affectionate pat on the neck, and was rewarded with a snort and shaking of his great black head. Aye, Turold, like all the Blood Sword mounts, was of the finest Spanish blood.
His lips twitched in a half-smile. They had left Iberia with more than their lives that fateful day. His mood was quickly soured with the realization that had Tarian not come to him in the night, he would have had more sense about him and been most capable of quelling the Welsh single-handedly, and in shorter order.
His eyes narrowed, and he made the decision right then and there to stay as far from her as humanly possible. She was deadly in her treacherous female form, and, being but a lowly male, he found himself battling his inhuman desire for her.