Again she tried to reach for him with her body, and again he held steady.
“Are you trying to drive me mad?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She heard the humor in his voice, and was glad of it. There had been little cause for humor in days past, and if this moment was the only respite he had from pain, then she was glad to be the one to offer it.
In a burst of joyful frustration she rolled atop Lyr and straddled him. He guided himself to her, into her, and with great relief she plunged down to take him inside her body. All of him, everything he had to give, inside her welcoming and needful body.
That done, she allowed her movements to slow. She rose and fell in a languid motion, and he moved his hips with hers. He reached up and twisted one hand in her hair, hair which fell loose and thick to touch his chest.
She’d never had power in her life. Every day had been structured for her, every lesson well planned, every betrayal beyond her grasp. But as she and Lyr moved toward the pleasure of release, she felt true power. In her heart, in her soul, and in his. Making love was more than comfort or satisfaction or making babies, it was a great power all its own.
She moved faster as she felt release coming to her, but a part of her did not want this moment to end so she held back a little. She didn’t move all the way down to take him fully into her body again. When she did, this moment of wonder would be over. Lyr’s hands gripped her hips and he guided her down, all the way down, so that he was deeper than he’d ever been. Immediately she began to shudder, and then release came in forceful waves that brought intense pleasure from where they were joined to the top of her head. She saw stars; she saw the roots of life; and then she saw nothing. She felt Lyr’s release as he shuddered and came into her body in yet another way.
Still joined, but much less frantic, she dropped down to take his face in her hands. His beard was rough beneath her hands, but she did not care. She kissed him deeply, holding his face so that he could not move away from the intimacy of mouth to mouth, so that he could not deny her what she wanted at this moment.
“I do so love you,” she whispered against his fine, full lips. “I’m tired of war, Lyr, tired of what is asked of us. Give me a child, and take me to a place where no one will ever find us. We could hide there, far away from politics and war and responsibilities.”
“It sounds tempting, but we can’t hide forever.”
“Why not?” she asked, but even though a part of her wished to escape, she knew he was right. They couldn’t run, not from Ciro and not from what they knew had to be done.
“Because I am Prince of Swords and in possession of the only weapon that can kill the monster, and you, apparently, are a Goddess.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said, so softly the words were almost lost.
“I do,” Lyr said. “I very much believe.”
***
“Leave my sons alone,” Liane insisted, not for the first time. Hours had passed since she’d shown up at the room where the Fyne sisters, the Fyne witches, had waited. “You don’t know their names, and you don’t know where they are. You don’t even know the name I have been using all these years.”
“Now that we have seen you, I suspect we can get that information, as well as the names of your children,” Isadora said. She owed much to Liane, but she would not sacrifice an entire nation on her behalf.
“One of your sons fights for the rightful emperor,” Juliet added calmly. “We know that much.”
“Many fight,” Liane said sharply, but she went a little pale. “He is only one. Foolish boy,” she added in a whisper. “I told him to stay away, but did he listen to me?”
It was Sophie who sat before Liane and took her sister-in-law’s hands in her own. “You know we would not come to you if there was another way. Placing your eldest son on the throne will save Columbyana from further war. Only the legitimate, rightful heir will be accepted by all when Ciro is defeated.”
“If Ciro is defeated.”
“When,” Sophie said without anger, and then she took a deep breath. “Please tell us what you’ve been doing since you came here. Did Ferghus and Mahri stay with you?”
“For a while,” Liane answered.
“Ferghus was in love with you,” Juliet said as they left the questioning about Liane’s sons behind for a moment. “Did you marry him?”
Liane shook her head. “No. He asked, many times, but Sebestyen never left me. I dreamed of him every night for years, and there were times when I was certain his spirit was with me. How could I marry another when I was still in love with my husband?”
Love was strange, that was sure, Isadora thought as she watched the angry woman clasp her hands tightly on her lap. There was no man less deserving of love than the former emperor Sebestyen Beckyt, and no woman less likely to remain faithful to a dead man than Liane Varden, former concubine and assassin, a decidedly cold woman.
Sophie nodded, as if she understood. “So you made your own way all these years.”
“I’m not a bad seamstress,” Liane said with a nod of her head. “And I remember how to put together a few useful potions. I looked over the shoulders of many a palace witch in my years as Sebestyen’s slave and as his wife. Those talents were enough to provide for me and my children.”
“It can’t have been an easy life for you,” Sophie said.
Isadora rolled her eyes and gently but firmly moved her youngest sister away. “Liane has never been a woman in need of coddling. It was one of the traits I most admired in our time together.” She took Sophie’s seat and looked Liane in the eye. After so many years those eyes remained achingly familiar. They brought back memories, horrible and wonderful. “You protected your children and I admire you for that. I would’ve done the same. But your sons are now grown men, and the eldest is emperor. Do you understand that, Liane? Your eldest child belongs in Arthes.”
Liane’s chin trembled. “I hate that palace,” she whispered. “I do not want either of my sons to be trapped there.”
The door opened, and the three men walked in bearing what they had planned to be a late supper for six. Liane’s head snapped around. Kane instantly recognized his sister, even though it had been years since they’d seen one another. He swore, and then he smiled, and then Liane rose and they hugged one another tightly.
Isadora stepped back and watched, anxious to move on but willing to give the siblings a moment. Juliet sidled up beside her.
“We must get those names,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” Juliet snapped. “Sebestyen is coming for Liane very soon. If she doesn’t tell us before that happens...”
“He’s dead, and he’s going to kill her?”
“No. Someone else is going to kill her, and Sebestyen will be waiting to greet her spirit.”
“We will protect her,” Isadora said insistently.
Juliet sighed tiredly. “That’s a lovely idea, but I don’t think we can.”
***
Rayne looked very different in her brightly colored striped skirt and the green blouse which showed off more shoulder than her more proper traveling dress. Her hair was simpler, too, gathered at the top of her head and falling in tendrils around her face. She wore her mother’s blue gem as usual, and it added yet more color.
Was there power in that gem which had once belonged to the woman who’d fashioned the crystal dagger? It was certainly as possible as the supposition that he’d awakened her gifts, or that somehow she’d been suppressing them until her father was no longer a threat to her.
Did he believe Rayne was a Goddess? Yes, he truly did. His life had been too enmeshed in magic to dismiss any possibility.
Last night she had told him more than once that she loved him, but he had not been able to say the words in return, even though he knew that was what she wanted. He would only offer her truth, and at the moment Lyr did not know what the truth was. He wanted her, he was dedicated to protecting her, he wo
uld die to keep her away from Ciro. Was that love? No. It was duty wrapped in physical attraction; it was honor mingled with the respite of sex. When this battle was over, would he still feel the same way about her? Would she feel anything at all for him?
Gwyneth had sent them on their way early in the morning, with the sun not yet over the horizon. She’d fed them breakfast and sent them into the swamp with one warning: Beware her sister Beatrisa, a spiteful witch who lived on the opposite edge of the swamp. She would be beautiful and sweet at first glance, but when one looked beyond the facade, she was rotten to the soul and filled with hate.
Rayne glanced down at the shallow water they passed through, suspicious even though Gwyneth had promised them that for at least the first few hours of their journey the creatures of the swamp would leave them be. Once they entered Beatrisa’s domain that would change, but for now they were in Gwyneth’s territory, and the reptiles and birds kept their distance.
“Last night I dreamed I could make the water move,” Rayne said, “but that can’t be right, can it? No one can control the flow of water.”
“I did not think anyone could make vines grow the way you do, so I cannot say it is impossible. Have you tried?”
“No.”
“Why not? Afraid it won’t work?”
Rayne turned her head to look at him, and he saw the truth in her eyes. She was afraid it would work. The idea that she possessed such powers terrified her.
She turned her gaze to the front once again. “I wonder if I’m pregnant.”
“If not, it’s not for lack of trying,” he said lightly.
“Perhaps we can try again tonight, just in case we weren’t successful at Gwyneth’s cabin, or before. I’ll feel much better when that is done.”
“Even if you are with child, we won’t know for a while.”
“So we must keep trying,” she said, her voice almost calm. He heard the trill of anticipation, actually felt it somehow.
“So we must.”
“If it’s months before we see Ciro, perhaps he will be repulsed by my misshapen body and the knowledge that another man’s child grows inside me and he’ll send me away.” She waved one hand casually.
Surely she knew that imagining was a fantasy. If Ciro was determined to plant his child in Rayne, he would not let another man’s child stop him. That babe would not survive long at Ciro’s hands, though Lyr would not put that theory to Rayne and spoil her good mood. Deep down, she surely knew she was speaking nonsense.
Ciro was not the kind of man who would send anyone away. Those around him would be servants and slaves, or else they’d be killed.
Lyr knew he had no choice. He had to kill Ciro in order to save not only Rayne but the country itself. The very world, parts known and unknown. If he failed, he could not allow Rayne to fall into the monster’s hands. The child of a demon and a Goddess would be too powerful, too dangerous, to allow to exist.
He had known from the start that it was possible he’d have to take Rayne’s life before his duties were done. In his mind he saw her as she had been last night, lit by candlelight, swaying above him with uninhibited passion, writhing beneath him with need, smiling at him with a love she was not afraid to voice. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure he could do what had to be done, if it came to that.
For the first time in his life, Lyr was not certain he could accomplish the mission that had been entrusted to him.
***
Phelan plodded toward the cabin, every step an effort. He was on their trail, he knew it. He could smell Lyr and Ciro’s bride, the traitorous bastards.
As he stepped onto the porch of the solid cabin, the front door opened and an attractive woman in a vividly colored dress greeted him. “I was told that you were coming,” she said with a smile.
Phelan was instantly suspicious. “Told by whom?”
“The creatures of the swamp,” she replied. “I’m sure that you are hungry. I have stew.”
“I’m ravenous,” he said.
You have been bitten many times by insects.” The woman took his hand and led him into the house. Her hand was soft and gentle. He had not known such a gentle touch in many years. “I have a soothing balm which will help, if you’ll allow it.”
Phelan gave her his best, most charming, most Segyn-like smile. “I would be a fool not to allow such ministrations.”
The woman introduced herself as Gwyneth and then she fed him well. When that was done and the dishes were cleared away, she insisted that he remove his filthy vest. She bathed his chest and arms and neck and applied the balm, which was quite soothing. She even treated a few irritating bites on his bald head.
There was a sexual energy to her touch, an earthy connection neither of them could deny. She liked him. At least, she liked the man he pretended to be. Phelan had become adept at convincing people that he was someone other than himself, and he did so now. He charmed the attractive woman. He smiled at her and looked her squarely in the eye and touched her cheek when he felt it was appropriate to do so. She shuddered at his touch, in that way a needful woman might.
Gwyneth had been without a man for a long time, and Phelan was not one to turn away a pretty woman who wanted use of his body.
Since she’d introduced herself as a seer, he had been very careful. As he had in years past, he became Segyn, he became, for a while, a good man with nothing to hide. Phelan was buried deep, so deep she could not see him.
He knew very well how to seduce a woman, how to become someone he was not in order to get what he wanted. Gwyneth didn’t need much in the way of seduction, but he smiled at her, he laughed with her, he touched her gently, and then he screwed her on the table where she’d fed him what he suspected was snake stew. Her half-clad body was not what he would call perfect, not like Ciro’s bride. Her age showed here and there, but she was far from an old hag. There were nice muscles in her legs and her arms, and though her breasts were not firm with youth, neither did they sag.
It didn’t take either of them long to find fulfillment. The woman screamed and wrapped her legs around him with an unexpected strength as her pleasure came. Her fingernails dug into his flesh, drawing blood, and he liked it. He liked it very much.
While Gwyneth was flushed and smiling and he was still inside her, limp and useless, Phelan traced the line of her jaw with one finger. “Have others been this way, of late?”
Still breathless, she nodded once, though he could see the confusion in her eyes. Now was not the proper time for such questions, he supposed.
“Two, a man and a woman,” Phelan said as he withdrew.
Suddenly she looked suspicious, rather than confused. “Yes. Do you know them?”
“They are dear friends. We were separated during our travels, and I fear they think me dead.”
“You’ve only missed them by a few hours,” Gwyneth said, reaching up to touch his face. “Pity,” she whispered. “I suspect you will chase after them, and I was so hoping you would stay for a while. A long while.”
“You would like that, eh?”
“Very much,” she whispered.
The demon whispered to him, and Phelan listened. “You are lonely here,” he said when the demon had finishing speaking.
“I am.”
“You need a man to see to your keeping.”
“I do,” she whispered. “A man and a child. I do so want another baby. A child to raise and love and teach. Maybe a girl this time.”
“A girl to replace the son you lost?”
Beneath him, Gwyneth’s body jerked slightly.
“You wait for your son to return to you, but he’s not coming back, lover. He’s dead, long dead, bitten by a poisonous snake and left to die a long, painful death before slipping into the water to be eaten by crocs.”
Her body stiffened, but he remained atop her so she could barely move. “I didn’t tell you about my son.”
“No, you did not.”
“I would know if he was dead!”
&n
bsp; “Long dead,” Phelan whispered. “The animals who speak to you didn’t tell you that, did they?”
“No.” Her voice was weak. Pathetic.
“It was your sister’s creatures who killed and ate him, that’s why. Beatrisa knew. She’s always known. Your son wandered into her part of the swamp, and she gleefully led the snake and the croc to him.” Phelan leaned down and kissed Gwyneth’s cheek and the tears there. “She laughed when she watched him die, she laughed at your foolish hopes that he would return, and right now she laughs at your pain.”
If he had more time, he would stay for a while, but Lyr and Rayne were more important than this insignificant swamp witch. Those he sought were just a few hours ahead, Gwyneth said, and if he hurried, he could catch them.
Beatrisa would slow them down for him.
Phelan squeezed Gwyneth’s pretty neck until she stopped breathing, and then he gathered a bit of food and one of her dead son’s clean shirts before reentering the swamp.
Chapter Twelve
Something howled, something large, and even though the sound came from a distance, Rayne shivered. It was as though she had physically felt the exact moment they’d passed from Gwyneth’s swamp into Beatrisa’s. The sky had darkened, the creatures which had left them alone all day moved closer, and now there was that awful howl.
After a long day of travel, night approached. They’d stopped a few times during the day, when the bank had appeared safe and dry, but never for more than a few minutes. There was no decent place for them to camp. It seemed that they traveled more slowly than if they’d walked, since they had to plod along with great care when on horseback. Now and then, when the banks were high and fairly dry, they’d walked and led the horses so the animals could have a rest from the laborious plodding through the swamp water. Rayne wished to turn away from the swamp altogether, to turn north toward the forest and some semblance of civilization, but Lyr said that leaving the swamp and making their way through the forest would cost them days of travel they did not have to spare.
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