by Jan Delima
“If the reports are true,” Maelor snarled, “the Norseman is there. You cannot ask this of me!”
With only a sniff to hint of his displeasure, Pendaran removed his sword from the casing of his staff and skewered Maelor’s neck to the back of the wooden chair. “Why, Maelor . . . whatever gave you the impression I am asking?”
Eyes bulging, Maelor gasped blood and tried to breathe through an obstructed windpipe. The sword distended from his throat and quivered over the table in rhythm with Neira’s chirping sobs. His lower half sagged while a putrid odor filled the air; with spine severed, he defecated in his chair.
Pendaran yanked the sword from the man’s throat. Without a stopper, Maelor’s head fell forward and blood flowed freely down his shirt.
Bran looked across the table and caught Merin’s gaze. Like Taliesin, though not nearly as pretty, he had golden hair and old eyes of the sea, turbulent and hiding many secrets beneath. Merin knew a few of those secrets. Do not interfere, she warned him silently. Now is not the time.
“And, Neira . . .” Pendaran let out a grievous sigh. “My dear, I fear Rhys may be right about your voice.” Looking around for a suitable place to wipe off his sword, he opted for her red suit. “You must stop your sniveling. After all, Maelor’s head is still attached. The servants shall carry him to the woods. His shift might be painful but no more than what he deserves.”
Sheathing his sword, Pendaran scanned the table, pinning each Guardian with his pale gaze. “Next time one of my orders is questioned, I will not be so generous with my patience. We will meet again ten days hence and discuss the information you will bring. In the meantime, the preparations for Beltane continue. I have every confidence our lovely Rosa will be cooperative by then.”
“She is not the submissive wolf we once thought,” William warned. “According to Briog, she pulled power from a dead forest—and held it. She came with an army of insurgents and a new husband to assert her claim to Avon.”
“The marriage is troubling,” Edwyn said with a frown, disturbed. There were some parts of their humanity that even Council members clung to for solace. Edwyn honored tradition, if naught else.
Pendaran only smiled as if proud of his future mate. “Husbands are disposable. Prophecies are not; nor are they spun for the weak. Have faith. Ours will come to fruition.” He tapped the table as a farewell. “I expect to see you all this evening. Our eldest has passed and his crossing deserves our respect.”
Fifteen
In all her years of existence, Rosa had never awoken to a man in her bed. Her response, though admittedly craven, was to pretend she still slept. Nothing had prepared her for the experience or, more important, how she should act.
He had been angry when last they spoke, and then he’d not come to bed until after she’d fallen asleep.
His attitude must have changed at some point in the night, because Luc had gathered her against him. And now his arm circled across her side while his palm rested against her stomach. More discomforting, his erection pressed against her backside and she wasn’t sure he was completely awake.
With her eyes closed, she tried to relax. But how was she to remain unaffected when he smelled like temptation rolled in musky pine, like warmth and desire and slumbering power. Those sensations came again, the ones he had produced in his brother’s cabin. She almost squirmed at the memory.
She knew he had awakened when his arm tensed. His hand moved from her belly to her thigh . . . Did he think that a less insinuating place?
He inhaled. His intake of breath sent chills skittering across her skin.
“Rosa . . . ?” Her name was a husky growl.
She shivered, and then cringed, because the involuntary response foiled her ruse. “I’m awake.”
He leaned in, then stilled as if rethinking his original intention. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did; thank you for asking.” Was it normal to have mundane conversations while her nipples strained against her nightshirt?
“You’re welcome.” She heard a grin in his voice and wanted to see whether it touched his face—needed to, after last night.
Wiggling free of his arm, she turned onto her back and found that it did. “You’re not angry with me anymore?”
His expression faded. “I wasn’t angry. I was . . .” A sigh fell from his mouth.
“I suspect the generators will be strained with morning showers.” She purposefully changed the topic to domestic matters, sensing his unease and not wanting to reopen an argument that couldn’t be won. “If we want hot water we best be up and going.”
“In a moment.” He rose up on one forearm. He slept nude, of course. Why would he not when it would give her some relief? The owl tattoo weaved a dark pattern around his torso and down his side. He looked very much the Pagan as he observed her, with promises of carnal delights gleaming in his mercury-colored eyes.
An ache settled in her chest and it refused to part, a longing that only fed the cravings of her weakened flesh. His hair had been left unbound for the night. It fell down to mingle with hers in a tangle of golden and black fleece on sapphire-colored sheets.
It was decadent.
And sensual.
And her heart began to race as if a hundred tiny drums beat for an ancient dance and she had yet to find the proper rhythm.
His eyes roamed her face, down her throat, lingering on her breasts covered only by a thin shirt. He reached out and brushed a taut peak, just the tiniest of caresses with the backs of his fingers. He was testing her body—and her willingness to accept his touch.
She turned her head and looked away, hoping to hide the incessant yearning that had taken root, reminding herself in that moment why she’d told him only the once. But the line between what she wanted and why she resisted blurred.
Simply because he kept his heart for Koko didn’t stop her from wanting what he had offered her—pride be damned.
Then be mated to me . . . Or at least let us try.
Luc over William, Rhys, Pendaran . . . ? Truly, the list could go on and on, and if she had to be bound to one man for an eternity—Luc was the most appealing prospect.
“You’re in need,” he whispered. “Let me ease you.”
“We mustn’t.” But even as she spoke her body betrayed her. Moisture gathered below in her feminine parts, now healed and whole and ready to be used for their designed purpose. And that one place—the one Cadan and Tesni had many names for and loved to recite simply to make her blush—that place strained to be stroked.
Pleasure button indeed; more like a wicked miscreant.
Luc rested his forehead next to her temple, nuzzled his face into her neck. “It can be done without risk of pregnancy.”
She tensed with distrust. Granted, she knew of such things. Of course she knew, but no one had ever offered them to her, at least not a man, and most certainly not one whose touch she craved. It went beyond comprehension—to give her pleasure without asking for anything in return.
“You would do that?” The question fell unbidden from her mouth as blurred lines disappeared.
He made a sound that implied he was in pain. “Yes, I’ll do that.” And so much more if you would just let me. It wasn’t said outright, merely promised in his voice. “I would have offered it last night if I knew it would produce such an agreeable response.”
“If you’ll recall, that is the opposite of what you proposed.” She drew an unsteady breath as he slid down the length of her body, tugged off her underthings and discarded them on the floor. Rising up on her elbows to stare down at him, she asked, “What are you doing?”
His head tilted in a way that reminded her of the Great Hunts, how warriors promised their skills with haughty glares as they chased their prey across golden fields.
Slowly, he parted her legs. “Exactly what I said I would.”
Anyone weak of s
pirit would have run; not weak of bodily desires, obviously. No, the latter would have done the same as her, offer the hunter what he wanted and not cared if the end resulted in her demise. If his lower half didn’t hang off the bottom of the bed, she might have garnered the courage to resist. Instead she waited breathlessly to feel his hands and his fingers, startled when he started biting kisses along her inner thigh, nipping gently toward . . .
“Surely you don’t mean to do . . . ?”
Oh, but he did. Her back arched off the mattress. He nuzzled at first, parting her folds, stroking circles with his tongue. And, yes, he found the pleasure button and he knew all too well what it liked.
This act had never been done on her before, never, and the indulgence was almost too intense to bear. She fisted her hands in the sheets as that glorious tension rose on a wave so great she ascended to greet it, head back, daring it to claim her.
Everything was different with Luc. It was no wonder she wanted more. He made her into a heathen writhing in a once-forsaken bed. With him she forgot the ugliness of her past, and she realized this act could be one of giving and selflessness, and therefore healing in its ecstasy.
A breeze brushed her skin. A warning. She turned her head toward the side panel covered with purple damask. A matching drape moved away from the hidden passageway; a normal intrusion while she’d been married to Math, but only he, Mae and their porter had the key.
Gareth hovered in the narrow doorway, a looming shadow frozen in surprise. She pushed at Luc’s shoulder, so close to her release words refused to form.
“Luc,” she managed, though it was more of a breathless hiss. She even tried to squeeze her thighs and twist away—but his grip remained strong and his intent focused.
Without moving, his eyes rolled up to meet hers and they burned with sparks of cobalt blue fire.
He knew.
He knew Gareth watched and yet he continued to stroke her with his tongue. Oh, what a picture they must form, with her shirt rucked up to her waist and her husband’s head buried between her thighs.
Rosa lifted her gaze as if called by their observer. Gareth’s initial disbelief turned to anger, and then ultimately . . . lust. Anger and lust, why must they always weave an unbreakable knot?
Bold, so bold, she realized then, for him to walk into her room unannounced and expect her to be alone. And arrogant, too, as if he had the right.
By choosing not to stop, Luc denied Gareth’s claim as alphas had done before the dawn of their kind.
Her release was almost violent when it came; it washed over her in wave after wave of inner contractions, not like a river with gentle currents, but an ocean during a storm that destroyed ships and carved rocks with the power of its force.
She may have cried out, was fairly certain that she had. Her hand tangled in Luc’s hair. Had she been holding his head? Her heart calmed and her muscles relaxed into the mattress, enough to become more aware of her surroundings and that Gareth gripped the wooden frame of the door while Luc crawled between her thighs.
Once nestled above her, his hair hung down like a curtain, shielding her from any view but him when he captured her mouth for a kiss. If Gareth was bold for his interruption, then Luc was just as brash with his arrogant demands.
When the pleasure receded, embarrassment followed to take its place. She had lived in a different era from her Pagan-born husband and felt her cheeks burn with what Gareth was witnessing.
Perhaps Luc realized, or felt her heated skin, because he professed against her mouth, “You understand that what we do in our marriage bed is nothing to be ashamed of.”
Her breath caught on a hitch because the desire in his voice refused shame. “I do with you.”
“Then trust me now.” He entered her in one long thrust.
“Luc—” She could not help but cry out his name as his body bowed above hers like a huntsman’s weapon, imposing and primed, and piercing her with unleashed fury.
Gareth turned then, a hasty retreat that she heard more than saw, restoring intimacy to the room as his shadow faded beyond the passage. “He’s gone.”
“I know.” Luc withdrew, shuddered, rose up on his forearms. His shaft pulsed against her inner thigh as he denied his own release. “And now he knows not to invade our privacy.”
“And we have a witness to . . .” How had he phrased it? “. . . an active marriage.” Which she suspected had been her alpha husband’s primary intent.
“Yes,” he said over the gravel in his voice. “It’s truly sealed now, because no man would believe I stopped.”
If he hadn’t sounded so aggrieved, she might have thanked him for doing so. “My room was a common place to meet while Math was alive,” she explained instead. “I’ll have a talk with Gareth.”
“And I’ll ask you not to do that. He’s loyal to you and deserves the respect of his position. He just needs to knock before entering our room. I trust he will from now on.”
“You’re right,” she admitted, grateful that he was confident enough not to undermine Gareth’s station. She ran her hand down his back, savoring the pull and tension of his muscles, and the way he arched to her touch. “Change will be difficult for him. More than the others, I think.”
He reached out and brushed a fallen strand of hair away from her face. “You are glorious to behold in the height of your pleasure. And now, you should see how you look at this moment.”
Her hand stilled on his back, halted by the gravity of his tone while uttering such pretty words. “I could say the same of you.”
If ever he had resembled the Beast of his moniker, it was then, as he scowled at her with his features frozen in a mask of need.
“I’ll stop in time,” he said, and then entered her again.
He didn’t ask. Humans asked. Not alphas. And his had risen to control the man. Wolves took what they wanted and claimed their mates.
She arched to meet his next thrust, and his next, because it felt good to be claimed, mindless of stupid human indecisions when her primal instinct rose to tamper them away. Her pleasure mounted again. It was easy with him, to find this place, only this time it was a gentle climbing for her, a slow build over a tender rise.
Not so for him.
He swore under his breath as his movements became frantic, harsher—closer, so close . . .
She hissed, clawing at him to move faster because her gentle climb had reached its peak and because she, too, had lost control of her wolf.
The corded muscles of his neck stood out with his strain. He made a sound, a rumble turned to a shout, guttural with a will stronger than frustration, stronger even than his wolf as he withdrew to spill his seed onto her stomach.
She watched, shocked that he had done it, but also fascinated as that part of him, thick and glistening from her own moisture, pumped and pooled its essence near her navel. His face pinched in a scowl that would have been comical had it not been driven by a mixture of discomfort and relief.
He swore, as if he, too, was surprised by his fortitude in the end, and then collapsed on top of her.
After a long silence, one that cautioned he was contemplating an unpleasant topic, he said, “This will happen again.” A warning, not an apology. “Not just once, or twice, but many more times.”
She didn’t argue, not when a third party had witnessed her weakness toward this man.
He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him so she lay nestled by his side only without his weight. “I’ve loved once,” he began in a tone of a practiced speech, as if he’d mentally rehearsed this throughout the night. “Losing Koko . . .”
“You don’t have to—”
“No, let me finish because I won’t speak of her again. Losing Koko was like losing my only balm after a thousand years of turmoil. Koko calmed my beast; she quieted its voice.” A pause. “It’s the opposite with you.” She tried to pull a
way but he only tightened his hold. “Koko and I were not mated. I’m sure of that now.” He lifted her hand to examine her fingers, weaving them with his own.
“How are you sure?” Rosa couldn’t help but ask.
“Because I almost broke my word to you just now.” He sounded indignant. “I almost finished inside you. Even now, my wolf is”—he paused—“not pleased that I didn’t. I intend to drive into the nearest town and pick up some of those condoms that humans use.”
Diseases weren’t transmittable to their kind, and children were rare and coveted, so what he spoke of wasn’t a common item to have on hand.
She swallowed past a sudden thickness in her throat. “It was arrogant of me to suggest you remove her memory. I won’t speak of it again.”
“It was only what a mate would ask,” he said. “I wasn’t angry with you.”
“You weren’t?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I was hard as a damn river rock.”
“Really?”
“You don’t have to sound so pleased.” A slight chuckle, but only a fleeting reprieve. “I want you to reconsider the offer I made you last night.”
“I will,” she told him. “And I’ll give you a decision soon. Until Mae awakens, I’ve no means to null my fertility.” She didn’t offer him false promises, only the truth. “If I must be mated, please know that I would rather be mated to you than any Guardian.”
A child was a gift; she understood that more than the Council planning a misguided ritual. Was it selfish to want her child’s conception to come from love? If indeed she was even deserving of such a miraculous thing. If it was within her power, a decision she reinforced with each application of Mae’s potion—her child wouldn’t come from desperation and fear, or even for territories and convenience.
She didn’t share her personal wants with Luc, fearing he might balk at such romantic ideals. In the end, circumstances may force a concession. And she’d spoken the truth; if forced to make a choice, she’d rather be mated to Luc.