by Kris Kennedy
If making him laugh brought her such deep-rooted pleasure, what would it be like to make him love?
She almost fell out of bed at the thought.
“What other borders have you walked, Raven, when your heart feels earthbound?”
Her head fell back on the cushions, tears pressing hungrily against her nose. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. No one understood.
“Talk to me, Raven.”
And so she did. She talked because the night was dark and she didn’t know where she was. She talked because she needed a reprieve, however brief and however gained, from the yawning Ache, and in this man was the only place she’d ever found it, mad as that was.
She talked because he needed her to, and to succor his ache was a taste she’d never sipped on before.
And these storm-tossed revelations were nothing like what she’d told him before, when they’d ridden in the woods. Those things had told something of her, but they swam on the surface of her life, bobbing on daily events, the things that could have mattered, but did not.
The things she told him in the storm-veiled darkness were sunk so deep inside she felt like she was mining her very soul.
She told him about Windstalker and their midnight rides. About how she used to walk the ramparts in thunderstorms when everyone else was abed. About how she struggled alone against the force of the loneliness and sometimes thought herself losing. She talked about the difficulty of running her castle, of being hen-mother and war-lord, of how she’d stared into the abyss of her life and batted her eyes, how she almost succumbed to despair when her father had died.
She never mentioned her castle’s name, and she never told him hers, but she told him everything that made her who she was, everything from five years of age until just a moment ago: the aloneness, the lost mother, the misting nights, the wishing-it-could-be-other moments, the Ache.
Good God, she wasn’t speaking of that, was she?
“I understand.”
Chapter Eighteen
Griffyn spoke from where he sat in the dark corner of the room, but he felt light, buoyant, snared. The image of this woman walking on a deserted battlement, dark hair flying, as lightning streaked across the sky, was simply too beguiling. She had passed her breath over the room and it was transformed. He didn’t know it was dark, he didn’t know he was captured. He only knew her.
She looked through the shadows at him. Time slowed to the pace of the tears spilling down her cheeks. The bench felt solid beneath him, yet it was as if he were floating.
“Raven.”
A gulp of watery laughter bounced across the room. “That is a poorly given name. If I could have—” she said, choking softly on the emotion, “I would have flown away so many times. You’ve no idea.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Only because I’ve no wings.”
“You didn’t, and you wouldn’t have.”
She nodded, collecting herself with little tearful gasps, her breath coming in short, jerky inhalations. “I love my home so much it hurts,” she said, clutching her fist to her chest. “But all those things I did…” Her voice trailed off, then lifted again on a hush. “All the things I’ve ever done in my life, were wishing for only this one thing.”
A hammering started in Griffyn’s chest. “What?”
“This thing right now…with you.”
As if in a dream, he rose. “And I, you, Guinevere.” Kneeling beside the bed, he took her hand and lifted it to his mouth.
For a brief second Gwyn held to herself, exquisitely aware. Her choice was to move away or step forward. Embrace it or squander the hope it held.
God forbid. How long had she been waiting for some such alchemy as this man was?
Her whole life.
She reached out and touched his cheek. “I don’t care what your name is or what you’ve done. The world is far away right now, and I would that it kept its distance for this one night.”
It was nothing for him to crush her to him, to bend his head and lay claim with a raw, enveloping kiss that left her witless. Putting a knee on the bed, he pushed the furs away, and bent low over her, his dark head intent, moving with breathtaking skill down her body she’d barely known existed, until his long, carved body was stretched out above her, hot and hard and wanting her. She was hyperventilating, the room spinning around. A wet pulse began deep in her womb. Right where the Ache pulsed.
She would follow this man into Hades.
Later, she would deny the blasphemous thought. At the moment, though, she put her arm around his neck and drew him down. His mouth closed over hers, claiming her, his tongue hunting in the recesses of her mouth for the breathy gasps and moans that shuddered free. He was sweeping her senseless, making her arch her head back, press her breasts into his chest, cling to his neck.
He slid a wicked hand under her waist and lifted her hips into his. Hot, sizzling spurts of fire burgeoned in her womb. More. She wanted more.
He was demon-fire, danger to her soul, and she reveled in it.
Griffyn knew it, too. When she bent her knee, when she begged for more in wet whispers against his chin, when she let him lift her hips, he knew something unforeseen had happened. She was falling into his blood, his bones, his very being. The breath locked in his throat, unable to fathom the crashing awareness drowning him. A well-dammed river of tenderness—years of work—was beginning to overflow.
Stop now, or never.
She whispered in his ear and called him saviour.
Never.
He tore off his shirt and braies with one hand while the other roamed her body. She moved against him wherever he touched, her body a wave of desire under his command. He knew what her body wanted and gloried in knowing it, in making her half-lidded eyes close in ecstasy, in releasing the breathy, pleading pants from her lips, in knowing he could bring her lush, curving body shuddering right to the edge.
His hands spread out around her breasts. His thumbs flicked over the russet nubs until she cried out and arched backwards into his arms. He took one breast fully in his mouth, sucking, his tongue flicking across her nipple.
Her breath shot out in a gasp, and Griffyn pushed her gently back onto the bed, feeling drunk on the sight of her body spread out beneath him: high cheekbones lit by firelight, tangled ebony hair spilling all around her face. Her eyes were just barely opened, a glint of green behind the lids, her rosy, kiss-swollen lips parted.
He slid his hands over her hips, down to her trembling thighs. Pushing them ever so slightly apart, he slid his fingers up her inner thigh, until he hovered against the pink folds dripping with slippery juices. His hand was determined and sure, gliding across the wetness that trickled along the line of her folds. One gentle brush against the sensitive flesh brought the desired moan. His confident fingers searched and, as her body shuddered, he found the small spot at her apex and flicked it gently, lifting his head to watch.
Her head jolted back and her hips bucked into the air. Her tongue clung to the edge of her mouth, as if holding on for life. Her breath drifted out, heavy with moans. Slowly one eyelid opened and a green eye locked on his.
“What are you doing to me?” she whispered, her voice pale and ragged.
A corner of his mouth curved up. “Making you mine.” He slipped one finger fully within her pulsing wetness and she flung her head to the side. Her hips arched up instinctively.
“You are ready,” he whispered with hoarse satisfaction. Rising and putting his weight on one knee, he spread apart her legs with his other.
Her hips came up against him, moving in a natural rhythm that surged lust through him so fierce he had to stop, hold himself still and look at the wall, counting backwards.
“Please.” Her soft voice almost drove him over the edge.
“You’ve ridden horses your whole life, lady?” he asked raggedly, positioning himself between her thighs.
She nodded, interlacing her fingers around his neck.
“Then
mayhap ’twill be without any pain, this first,” he growled against her ear. The idea of being the first man to delve her depths but bring no pain was a powerful, head-spinning notion.
Gwyn felt soft hardness, velvety hot flesh push against her thighs, move up between her legs. She arched backwards as cords of heat whipped through her body. His hardness strained against her, then he slid the tip of his manhood along her seam, wetting his erection. She threw her head back, banging the wooden post she’d somehow slithered close to, and whispered the only thing she could: “Pagan. Aye.”
He nudged her legs apart even further and pushed the tip of his hardness into sensitive flesh already throbbing in spasms of pleasure. She cried out in breathy words, indistinct, uneven, and fully charged. More. He clenched his jaw for restraint. Then she lifted her hips.
Slowly he entered her, one smooth, effortless plunge that brought her nails raking down his back. He pressed in further but felt no barrier, only her wet warmth, urging him on. He moved inside her again, holding back, filling her in long, slow strokes so she could grow used to the feel of him. It was exquisite torture. Wet and tight, her flesh was hot, swelling, sweet womanly depths. The muscles of his back and legs were taut with restraint. Another slight push forward made her sigh, a breathy, wanton thing. The small, aching whimper pounded lust through his blood. He growled and shifted his hips, nudging in further.
“Oh, that feels good.” Her voice came up like a sigh, and she lifted her hips, widening his entryway.
With a ragged groan, he lifted himself into her with a long, unstoppable thrust. Needing to fill her, to feel her hot slippery pulsing along the entire length of him. Dropping his head, he bent his elbows on either side of her, muscles flexed and gleaming with sweat, and lowered his head to her breasts. Their hips met in another long, slow thrust.
“Jésu, woman,” he exhaled in a ragged voice.
“Don’t stop,” she whimpered.
As if he would ever stop again.
The desperate passion built with furious swiftness. Her neck was arched back, the top of her head pressed against the pillow, her mouth wide and panting, her hips pounding against his in the reckless rhythm. Shifting his weight to one elbow, he put his other hand beneath her knee and bent, lifting it into the air.
“Oh, Pagan.”
Her flesh shuddered and rippled around him. Growling, he lifted himself higher into her. Thrust, slide, hold. Thrust deeper, slide longer. Push.
“Oh. Pagan.”
He felt it begin. The sudden freeze of her glorious body, the tightening of her fingers in his hair, the senseless, jagged whimpers, caught short as if on a sob. Her passion-drugged eyes slid open and locked on his.
“Tell me, Raven, does it please you?”
She shuddered over the edge. Her head jerked backwards as her body exploded in thudding tremors that undulated along his shaft, and he lost himself too. Hard, hot spasms of orgasm surged through him. He propped himself on his elbows and their bodies hammered together for plunge after plunge of hot, wild thrusts. She was calling his name, crying. Something never before felt, picked Griffyn up. It sent him hurtling through walls of denial, toppling old convictions of aloneness, crushing his commitment to mistrust, and sending him spiraling headlong into some heretofore unknown sentiment. He did not dare name it.
She just held his face in her hands and cried into his mouth. “Aye, aye, aye.”
It took a long time for their hearts to slow again. He held her the whole time, and when she quieted, he lifted himself and lay down beside her. She turned towards him, satiny inner thighs curved around his, still quivering. Her mouth planted hot, aimless kisses along his neck and jaw.
He closed his eyes and ran his palm over her hot hair, murmuring nothing. Finally her whisperings quieted.
They lay this way for a long while, their bodies spent and sweaty, entangled and enflamed, and tried to catch their breath while their minds tried to register the import of what had just happened.
A few minutes later Griffyn pushed himself up on one elbow. He looked down at her, searching her eyes for a reaction. But they were closed, her lips parted in a faint smile as she slept.
Chapter Nineteen
Before dawn, Griffyn was striding through the clearing in front of the Saxon fortress, surrounded by men preparing to mount up. The light was sullen and grey, and the clouds hunkered low, creating a sopping wet blanket that leaked fat drops of rain on the helms and tunic-clad bodies walking in circles and beating their hands on their thighs to keep warm.
Griffyn walked through the centre of the group, with a word here and there to his men, talking quietly and clapping arms. A red-eared, white-furred cat followed him, winding between his legs as he strode through mud puddles.
“Ruadgh.” He muttered the cat’s Celtic name in faint irritation when he and the feline got entangled in one particularly muddy leap. She smiled up at him, her blue eyes closing slightly, her tail stuttering back and forth in feathery twitches. She rubbed up against his boot-clad leg, leaving a silky thatch of fur on his breeches. He sighed and ran a hand over her arching back.
“Nuisance,” observed a gruff voice.
Griffyn turned.
“She’s a devil-cat.” Hervé Fairess expanded on his opinion crossly, then reached down to run his calloused palm over her back. She purred happily, rolled over, and sunk her claws into his hand.
“Arrgghh!” He leapt back, clasping his hand to his chest, and glowered at the creature. “Devil-thing,” he growled.
Griffyn smiled and ducked his head beneath Hervé’s horse’s neck, heading towards Alex.
“All is ready? Well-good. I will join you at the Wareham docks within a day.”
Alex shot a brief glance at the upper window of the building. “After Saint Alban’s?” Griffyn nodded silently. “Is that wise?”
Drawing in a half-formed breath, Griffyn pursed his lips and looked at the sky. “Quite possibly, no.”
Alex looked at him sharply. “Does she know who you are?”
Griffyn slowly arched a brow. “Do you know who I am?”
Alex ignored the oblique threat. “Because you know what could happen if she revealed who—or where—you are, correct?”
Certainly he knew. Death. Dismemberment. All sorts of nasty things.
Griffyn scowled, primarily because these very real considerations were not what had stayed his tongue with Guinevere. In fact, cold, vengeful satisfaction had counseled revealing his identity. Something much more tender had persuaded him to hold his tongue.
“Pagan, all I am saying is that if this goes badly, it could go very, very badly.”
“I am not seeking counsel on it, Alex.”
Alex lifted the flap of his hauberk and looped it into place over his shoulder. “As you will. My lord.”
Griffyn nodded. “I’ll meet up with you before the horses are loaded on the ship.”
Alex pulled the mail basinet up over his head. Its metal links sat heavily on his blond hair, framing the incredulous look now on his face. “You’ll ride to Saint Alban’s Abbey, drop your cargo, and be at the Wareham docks the same day as we, who leave straight away for the docks now?”
“Aye.”
Alex shook his head and called to Hervé Fairess.
“What is it?” he asked, hiking up his hose as he came.
Alex gestured to Griffyn. “Pagan is going to Saint Alban’s.”
Fairess glanced at the inn. “The girl? Aye, well, she can’t stay here. I’ve done a few fool things myself for the ladies.”
“And we’re waiting here for him,” Alex continued. “The others will go on.”
Griffyn shook his head. “No. You all go on.”
“No,” Alex retorted, copying Griffyn’s tone and urgency. “Hervé and I will wait here.”
“Alex’s idea has some merit, my lord. If I may.”
Griffyn ran the palm of his hand over his face. “Or even if you mayn’t.”
Hervé had an expression of determin
ation on his wet, red face. “You’ve never asked me to bind my tongue before, Pagan.”
“And if I were to start now?”
“I ’spect it’d be a little late,” Hervé reflected uncomfortably. He hiked up his breeches again. “But as I was sayin’, you’re the one to say what’s this and that, and I always said you should be—”
“My thanks.”
“—but if you’re thinking of going anywhere alone, especially the docks, that’s bad thinking, if I may say so.”
Griffyn rubbed his hand over the shadow beard on his chin and cheeks. Hervé never meant insubordination, but he always, somehow, did it.
“That’s what I said,” Alex said, seconding the notion. “If this goes badly—”
“If this goes badly,” Hervé cut in, looking at Griffyn with such intensity the only thing he wasn’t doing was wagging a finger, “the last person we need captured is yourself. Us, they’ll ransom off, if they even bother capturing us. You?” He shook his head sagely, his lips pursed, and ran his finger across his neck in a swiping motion.
Griffyn exploded in laughter. “I’m not a child, these aren’t bedtime stories, and you’re not going to frighten me.”
“’Tisn’t your fear I’m speaking to, Pagan. ’Tis mine, and the men’s. It’s unwise to be risking your head. And,” he added significantly, “the fitzEmpress will surely have ours if anything happens to yours.”
Alex crossed his arms over his chest. “He’s right.”
“He may well be right,” Griffyn said firmly, “but you will simply have to manage Henri’s moods. If I die, I suggest telling him the news after he’s had a few cups of wine and been with the Lady Eleanor.”
Hervé frowned. “Now, sir, ’tisn’t a laughing matter.”
“Indeed it is not. And therefore, I will not endanger either of you, so important to me, for something I alone have taken on. This is not your burden. You go with the men. I need you there.”
“We need you there,” Alex countered.
“And so I shall be. Within a day. Now go.”