ReluctantConsort

by Lora Leigh

  “What madness is this?” Confusion filled her, locked within her mind, and made even the fact that the chains were no longer secured to the wall hard to process.

  How had they pulled free enchanted chains? How could they be Ogres rather than mere warriors? They were not of grotesque form. They had driven her to the heights of pleasure, but never to the heights of madness.

  “Do not use the tunnels,” Trine told them then. “There is another way free of this place.” He glanced to Arabella, pain marking his lined face as helpless regret shimmered in his eyes. “I could not release those chains, I have tried many times before. But they are free now, and King Alistair will know it was not of my doing.” He glanced to the iron door behind him quickly. “Can you unlock the cell door as well? The key used to open it moments ago will no longer work. The enchantment requires a different key each time it’s released. The stones of the far wall.” He nodded to the back of the dungeon. “Press your palm to the center stone and it will open to allow you to pass to tunnels hidden from even King Alistair’s knowledge.”

  “We need no keys,” the other warrior murmured as she found herself unable to tear her gaze from the one watching her so intently.

  What manner of heat was building in her veins?

  What was this strange lethargy that had her tight in its grip?

  The warrior’s hand lifted then, touched her cheek, then her brow as his arm slid behind her back.

  “Sleep, Princess,” he whispered, his fingers moving to brush against her lashes as she felt her eyes close, unable to keep them open. Sleep claimed her as the warrior lifted her into his embrace and moved for the door.

  “Forgive me, Trine,” Caedan murmured as he flicked his fingers to the warrior and watched him slowly wilt to the floor in sleep.

  The powerful sleeping potion purchased from the Gnomes of Spring Valley was one of the few properties that worked for both human as well as the magi.

  He was aware of Daelan holding the princess in his arms now, more tender than he had ever sensed his brother being.

  “We move,” Caedan hissed at the sound of voices moving along the hall.

  Stepping to the cell door, he inserted the key the Ogre Mage had bespelled before their leaving the Obsidian Fortress and turned it quickly.

  The cell door opened soundlessly as Caedan drew his sword and allowed Daelan to pass first with his precious burden.

  Their consortress. How much more precious could any woman be to her warriors than this one, to warriors who had never imagined they could have such a creature for themselves? One who braved the mists to find them. One whose powers would create an alignment of power that they had never dreamed would be theirs.

  Pressing his palm into the stone, Caedan watched as the wall moved slowly, far too slowly, for the voices moved closer far faster than the wall moved.

  Finally, Daelan was squeezing through the narrow opening. As he passed through Caedan followed, gripping the side of the door and dragging it quickly behind as he did so. The sound of metal keys clanging and voices calling out to Trine could be heard as the stone slid smoothly back into place.

  At the scrape of the heavy rock meeting, indicating it was once again secured, the guards’ voices raised in alarm from the dungeon on the other side of the stone wall.

  Standing still, silent, Caedan waited until the sounds of the guards’ voices were loud enough to ensure any sound their passage through the narrow tunnel made would be covered before leading the way through the near-dark of the corridor.

  The darkness showed in shades of colorless gray as the night sight the Ogre possessed ensured their way was clearly seen.

  “Her magick awakens, Caedan.” Tension filled his brother’s thoughts as heated magick began to build within her as it reached out to both Caedan and Daelan as they raced through the tunnels.

  They had hoped that using the sleeping dust would ensure her magick slept as well. Ever when they were about her, magick touch made them insane to have her.

  “Warh, our exit has changed, can you locate us?” Caedan called out to the commander at arms, hoping the Ogre sense would work in the human lands as it did in the mists.

  The gifts magick had given them for the purpose of protecting the mists were unique among all the magicks. The gift of night sight, apparent by the spora dust that glittered in their black eyes, and their Ogre sense for each of those belonging to individual houses were but among the few.

  “We await you, sire. You will exit from the fortress along the banks of Eldorah Falls. A very clever exit.”

  “And why did we not sense these tunnels when we scryed the area?” Caedan questioned the commander, the thought of the ease that they could have taken her versus the intricate plan they’d been forced into before clenching his teeth in irritation. “No magic exists in this land supposedly, yet I find a female unlike any I have known of existing, manacles bespelled and tunnels magickally hidden, though we cannot find the magick to scry these places?”

  “Aye, sire, answers will be found,” Warh assured him. “Perhaps our isolation had made the humans as much a mystery to us as we are to them. Once the princess is safe I will gauge the danger of speaking to the one called Trine and enlisting his aid and possibly that of his house.”

  “Once we exit the falls we must ride hard for the mists,” Caedan told the commander as he sensed Arabella’s magick brewing within her. “There is no time to spare. Since the moment we entered her cell her magick has begun sparking with a power we cannot hope to contain in this place.” A land so hungry for magick that the Ogre could often hear it weeping for the bright, heated touch of what it had lost so long ago.

  “She is the Dungarrin Consortess then?” Warh questioned, the reserve Caedan could feel emanating from the Ogre commander reminding him of all the dangers they would now face in ensuring her safety.

  “She is ours,” he assured the warrior, knowing she was much more than they had suspected. “We must find our traitor, Warh. No longer is just our Guardian Select’s daughter in danger, but the source of what could be the Dungarrin’s greatest power.”

  “Sire?” Whar questioned the last statement with a heavy sense of tension.

  “She is not of the Crae’all line. This is no Spry our magick has aligned with,” Caedan informed him. “It is not a consortess we have, Whar, but a Consortress. She is a Sorceress, and no Halfling either.”

  Caedan could sense the magick rising inside her, feel its threads and knew its warmth as the lands knew the warmth of the sun.

  “The House of Dungarrin has been gifted a Sorceress for the first time in all of the magicks. A Sorceress who does not yet know the essence of her magick, and one all of Sentmar, magick and human alike, would kill to possess before our alignment,” Daedan warned them both, the strain of holding the princess so close, her magick all but flesh to flesh with his own, was no doubt torture.

  There was no comment, no thought emanating from Whar as he blocked his mind, though not his presence from his liege.

  “All preparations are being made,” Whar informed him moments later, assuring Caedan that whatever he thought of his liege’s suspicions of a traitor, still, he was preparing for their escape. “We are but a short distance from the mists of the Causeway from where you exit the falls and should have your Consortress safely within the Obsidian Fortress before her magick can be detected by Wizard Twins or by her magickal sisters.”

  And this, neither of them had thought of, Caedan thought in disgust.

  “Have we ever not thought to think of the impossible?” Daedan’s irritation fed easily to both Caedan as well as Whar.

  “Have we ever thought to have to deal with such magick needing rescue from human lands?” Whar asked then.

  Caedan could not have imagined such a thing before now.

  As his gaze searched carefully for the end of the tunnel shades of color began to simmer in the air around Daelan’s shoulders, the oddest colors of bronze and sweet golden hues of magick.

&
nbsp; “We must hurry, Whar,” Caedan warned the commander. “Are we near?”

  “Very close,” Whar assured them. “You should hear the falls.”

  They did indeed hear the falls. And none too soon, for the powerful magick of their sleeping Consortress was wrapping about Caedan now, slipping beneath the coarse material of the woven shirt he wore to touch flesh that had never known the sweet caress of such powerful magick.

  That magick slid over the skin of his chest like the softest, warmest hand, calling to his own power, sensitizing his flesh until the caress was the most delicate torture he had ever known.

  “Light.” Caedan felt his body tense further, Ogre hunger gnawing at the broad shaft of his cock now. A fierce, burning need, a sense of the pleasure to come tightening his body as anticipation surged like a summer storm over the Mystic Mountains.

  She was theirs.

  Chapter Five

  At that moment, Whar stepped to the entrance, the moisture of the falling water tumbling over the cliffs beading his face as eyes as black as a star-studded night swept over them quickly.

  “We ride,” Whar growled. “Humans are riding this way and we have not much time.”

  Definitely no time to enjoy the caress of his Consortress’s magick.

  “Shadow Hell,” Daelan cursed, his entire body tight, tense with a need unlike any he’d ever known even when her magick had touched them in the Vale. The touch of her unconscious magick had his shaft harder than the obsidian stone of the fortress and his body as sensitive as a babe’s.

  He prayed as he never had before that somewhere within him he could find the strength to hold back the hunger raging at him until they reached safety. And for the first time in all his decades of war, he was uncertain if that were possible.

  As twins, he and Caedan had not known hungers this powerful to sweep through them. As all magickal twins, they were wont to share their women, even to take a single magickal female as a lover should they not be opposed. But this hunger to share a woman, to mark with not just their body but the magick surging inside them like a storm was near more than they could believe. It was much stronger, much hotter than all the times they’d touched her, prepared her in the Vale for their possession in the past.

  And a Sorceress? A true Sorceress. This fierce little thing whose pride had held back her tears, whose sense of belonging to her brother, and wild, tempestuous magick within a hidden realm was like a call to the very depths of what he had not realized was his and his brother’s lonely hearts for such a radiant soul—this being of female heat and magick most beloved by the One.

  Holding to her tightly, he rushed to the huge, surefooted horses they had called to them as they stepped from the mists the past eve. As Caedan swung onto the first jet-black beast, Daelan relinquished his burden to his brother, aware of Caedan’s indrawn breath as the magick pulsing beneath her skin took him unaware.

  There was no time to acknowledge it, nor to truly enjoy it, for the sound of the humans’ mounts beating upon the path leading to the falls could now clearly be heard.

  Gripping the beast’s mane, Daelan swung himself onto the animal’s back, gripping its powerful sides with his knees as he pushed his leathered feet into the stirrups of the light saddle.

  Without sound, the animals moved swiftly the short distance to shallower waters before splashing across the wide stream to the forest on the other side.

  The Ogre warriors disappeared into the forest just as the humans’ mounts were galloping to the banks beyond.

  They had escaped, though how the king’s guards had known to search first a place well removed from the fortress, he would know soon. There was a traitor among the Ogre, they had known this for many years. How else could the human hunters slip so easily, so quickly across the Causeway to steal away with the magickal beings that had obviously been drawn to a place where they could be taken?

  Even the little goddess Muse was not exempt from treachery, though knowledge of her origins was limited. Not but a fortnight past she too had confronted human males intent on removing her from the Causeway to the human stronghold of Alistair the Perverted.

  She had escaped without showing her power only by chance.

  As the horses tore through the forests, instinct guiding the magick they possessed only when the Ogre rode them. They were as swift as the once-plentiful Pegasus, and as surefooted as even the mountain werecats.

  This day, Daelan and his brother both knew it was not just their lives they owed to the beasts, but the life of their Sorceress as well.

  *

  As the mists of the Causeway enfolded them, the mounts were brought to a stop, the warriors dismounting quickly and moving to the four-legged, broad-muscular mounts of the Causeway, the Torc.

  Torc, resembling the small-winged dragons or the enchanted dragon form of the Sorceress protector Garren, though without the ability to walk on two legs or speak with disrespectful mockery. For that, the Ogre thanked the One.

  The Torc were large, with blocky bodies, carnivorous appetites for human flesh and excellent hearing and eyesight. They were the perfect creatures for moving quickly through the Causeway.

  The little prince who had arrived begging for his sister’s life was shadow-damned lucky he had not been found by the Torc before the Ogre sensed him.

  Transporting the sorceress to the Taithleach fortress though would be a bit tricky, especially for Caedan, the only warrior of the group whose Torc had been trained to allow a female upon his back. He was so trained by Muse, giving Caedan to wonder once again why she had chosen his mount.

  Torc, like the wizard snow owls, bonded with their riders, which made it near impossible for other Ogre warriors to ride them.

  And Torc rarely sensed females in the mists and had no trust toward them. That quirk had made it incredibly difficult for Muse to train the creature. It ensured now that the Torc accepted Arabella easily.

  With her slender legs now straddling his thighs, her breasts pressed against his chest, she was a treasured weight.

  A torturous pleasure.

  “Brother.” Daelan’s low tone drew his immediate attention for it was heavy with warning.

  “Daelan?” he questioned his twin.

  “Should you close your senses to me while carrying her so, for even a moment—take even the briefest second of shared sensation that I may feel from her riding atop your cock and I promise you I’ll feed you to the dracas outside the fortress myself. Do we understand one another?”

  And Daelan was in no joking frame of mind.

  Caedan maintained his blank expression but amusement threatened at the corners of his lips as he gave a short nod.

  “Understood,” he assured his brother.

  Accepting the rest of the slight weight of the petite princess as Daelan arranged her thighs over his, Caedan swore he would lose his seed to his breeches immediately.

  “Sweet mercy,” Daelan rasped as Caedan felt the soft heat of Arabella’s mound settle across his hardened flesh.

  “Aye, brother,” Caedan breathed out, his voice rough as his twin stepped back slowly.

  “Ride easy,” Daelan bit out, his voice guttural as Caedan buried his fingers into the long curls trailing down her back.

  Silken.

  Daelan could sense the feel of her hair against his own palm as the twin bond kicked in more strongly than ever before, Caedan knew.

  Caedan blew out a hard breath and closed his eyes briefly. He assured himself he would indeed survive this venture into the magickal alignment that would ensure the bond of warriors to a Sorceress they had never imagined could be theirs.

  Such pleasure.

  Arabella wanted to lift to it, to ride the peaking sensations heating between her thighs and torturing her mound with such exquisite sensations.

  The hard heat of her warrior’s leather-covered erection was making her crazed. Especially after her father’s mistresses had torn the curls of her mound free with the heated wax they’d poured upon it days before
.

  Her thighs clenched on the powerful breadth of his, her nails biting into the woven shirt covering his back.

  Caedan. She knew his name.

  Just as she knew his brother’s, Daelan.

  They were the lovers she’d met in the enchanted garden of the Causeway. The ones she had so grieved of losing when she’d left them last.

  “Ease me,” she whispered as her magick gathered, writhing beneath her flesh as she fought to release it.

  “Soon, little heart.” His voice was rough, controlled. “Too many warriors surround us now.”

  “They can turn away.” Her thighs clenched again, found strength, then slowly rode the thick ridge torturing her sensitive flesh.

  Such pleasure. It bloomed and burned within her as the prickling heat of magick built with such wondrous power that it should have frightened her. Always she had feared the magic growing inside her, knowing that should it be detected her life would be forfeit.

  Here, in this dark, desolate place, it was only growing though. Held against one of the warriors she had grieved of never seeing again, she could feel those twisting bands of power reaching out to both of them. Not just the one who held her, whose hardened shaft she rode with such pleasure.

  “Sweet princess,” he groaned, his lips caressing her neck as his breath came hard, panting from his chest. “I cannot allow you to find your release yet, love. Not here, not as we did within the Vale.”

  She was so close. How could he stop her from that pleasure? How could he refuse the bands of sensation tightening between her thighs from releasing?

  Yet she hadn’t found release, she reminded herself, no matter how desperately she reached for it. No matter her need for it.

  Lifting her lashes to stare at the warrior holding her, she was shocked by the sight of the luminous threads of magick weaving around her, touching her, stroking her, mixing with the strands of her own violet-hued magick. Magick that had never wafted from her in such a way.

  It twined with their magick, stroked over it, stroked over the warrior holding her as well as the brother she considered the darker of the two, the one whose magick called to her on a level that went beyond her spirit.