Shadowheart

by Laura Kinsale

  "Someday I may find this Raymond, and kill him." He bent his head, trailing his mouth down the curve of her throat, and closed his teeth on her skin.

  Elayne drew a sharp breath. He hurt her, but an instant afterward he pressed his lips to the place softly, as if to soothe it, and the flow of his breath on her skin was like thin fire.

  From the corner of her eye she could see the pendant that dangled from his ear, a blurry gleam that lay against his neck. The smooth curve of his bared shoulder was before her, the outline of graceful strength. She was angered by her own desire, by how his beauty alone lured her close to him. It was not the love she felt for Raymond, nor the conjugal duty she would have owed a truly wedded husband, nor anything but simple, sinful lust. Her fingers curled, drawing her nails across the hard plane of his back. He pulled her to him with a deep growl.

  She knew herself then, fully. Everything Cara or Lady Beatrice had ever said was true. She was a wanton, unchaste creature, without even constancy. She might have resisted him, for her fidelity to Raymond, or for honor, or at least for the sake of her pride. But she let her lips touch him. The taste of rain and heat mingled with his quick reaction. He kissed her throat hard and drew her earlobe between his teeth. She met him with a fierce reply, opening her mouth against his shoulder, a willing she-cat to his leopard, biting him as viciously as if she could draw blood.

  The sound he made went down her spine like a panther’s hiss in the deep forest. He flung her from him without effort, holding her at arm’s length. They were both breathing hard.

  Red marks burned on his shoulder. He glanced down at what she’d done and then slanted a look at her from under his night-black lashes. With a faint menacing smile, he said, "That is what you like?"

  "What weapons I have," she said breathlessly, "I will use."

  "To what end?"

  She did not know. She only knew that she was full of angry ferment, and he was beautiful and flawless and arousing, and claimed her body for his. She was ready to fight with him, her heart beating hard. Hot. He put his palm at her throat, his thumb pressed into her vein. It made her pulse throb in her own ears, a casual threat that turned to something else as he drew his fingers down to her breast and made a light circle at the tip, dislodging her shift. The touch of him there made her suck in her breath. He smiled, made a little cruel prick with his nail and then another circle of the lightest tenderness.

  The sensation seemed to burst in her, in parts of her that bloomed with flowing heat. She whimpered, pulling back. But he followed her, pushing her slowly until her hips pressed against the rug-draped chest. She felt the golden pitcher topple, a hollow clatter in the silence of the chamber. Her smock dragged downward to her waist with the tow of the rug, binding her arms at the elbows.

  A bolt of real fear seized her. She was trapped, bared of any modesty, as he leaned over her. He had warned and threatened, assured her of her fate, but until this moment she had not believed it. Somehow she would be saved—as her guardian angel had always saved her—but the edge of the chest cut into her hips; the more she struggled with her elbows bound awkwardly behind her, the more she arched to meet him. With a spurt of panic, she felt him pull her shift above her knees and then higher.

  He leaned on his arms, holding her confined, as if to imprint her helplessness on her. She could not reach him to bite or scratch now. Deliberately he lowered his head to her breast, closing his teeth on her nipple. Elayne jerked against the bright pain, felt him suck hard, sending fire and torture through her whole body. She threw her head back, trying to thrust him off.

  He made a rough sound and held her pinned easily. For an instant she felt his hand search between them. She threw herself wildly as he came between her legs, his naked member pressed to the place he would take her.

  "Yield!" he said between his teeth. "You are my wife."

  She twisted her head back, impossibly ensnared, panting. He pushed into her, and it hurt. It hurt and burned, and he did not stop. He thrust against her hard, lifting her toes from the floor while she squeezed her eyes shut. He drove again, invading her deeper with each shove until with one fierce pang he forced himself wholly inside her; as she dug her fingers into the rug she could hear his animal breath. The throbbing in her body grew into an ache that numbed the pain, dampened and smothered it. She felt as if she were dying for air.

  With a fierce effort to heave him off, she lifted herself on her elbows. His arm came under her head, pulling her face against the smooth hard skin of his chest. She scored him savagely with her teeth.

  He made a brutal sound, closing his eyes, his head thrown back. His hands gripped her head, pulling her closer even as she hurt him. His whole body convulsed, driving into her as if he could not get in deep enough. She closed her teeth. His muscles bunched like a man in torment; his throat worked as if he tried to weep and could not. For an instant he held rigid, his fingers tight in her hair while Elayne bit him again, tasting blood. She heard his frantic breath as he lost himself. His body gave a violent jerk, a shudder as he arched. He pulsed and throbbed and burned inside her.

  He tore her away from him by her hair. "Jesu," he growled, thrusting into her roughly once more. "Have mercy, sweeting."

  "Mercy," she cried, trembling under his absolute domination. She could not move one inch without his compliance. "Damn you!"

  He withdrew, releasing her and moving back with such quick grace that she could not kick him before he was out of reach. She rolled aside, dragging her smock up over her breasts as she sat up. She pushed the skirt down, seeing blood on her thighs and garters—her own this time, real.

  "God curse you," she said, sitting hunched with her arms about herself. Then with a wild move she flung herself off the chest and grabbed for his dagger—but he had her wrist before she was anywhere close to the thing.

  "Do not," he said softly. "Do not make us live in fear of one another."

  Elayne gave a raving laugh. She stepped back, holding up her shift with her free hand. "Oh, of course not! What should we fear?"

  He caressed the underside of her wrist with his thumb. "My lady, you have nothing to fear from me. From this night, your protection is all of my ambition."

  There was a bruise and a trickle of blood near his shoulder blade, where she had assailed him. She felt wetness sliding between her legs. She knew what it was—his seed mingled with hers. He watched her with a faint wariness, but no anger. There was even the trace of a smile in the tilt of his mouth.

  "We are wedded now, vows on a church step or no," he said.

  She sat back on her bridal bed of a lead-bound chest in a locked cave. "It hurt," she said between her clenched teeth, as if that were the worst of it.

  "That did not please you?"

  She looked at him. "No!"

  He put his hand on his shoulder. His fingers came away bloody. "Ah, I understand. Only to hurt me pleases you."

  She felt sticky and achy and hot. But she would have lied to say that there was no deep kernel of angry lust for him still locked in her belly. It was amazing to look at him and know it had been her teeth that bruised him. She had made her own mark on him. Her own brand. She narrowed her eyes and felt a moment of powerful pleasure in it.

  She heard him draw in a slow breath. She met his eyes. The leopard was there, watching her from between the trees of a nightmare forest.

  "You may hurt me, if you take delight in it," he said softly. "Only never outside of bedding, or with a weapon beyond your body."

  Elayne wet her lips. She looked away from him, at the books and the candle on the floor, letting her hair make a curtain to hide her face. "A most obliging bridegroom," she said bitterly.

  He came to her, put his hands to her head, pushing her hair back with infinite care. "You will find that so," he said.

  He drew her into his embrace, holding her cheek against his chest. She did not kiss him, but she tasted his blood on her tongue and smelled the male scent of him and his seed blended with the odor of her own rain
-dampened skin. There was nothing of delicacy or courtliness or high-minded spirit in this joining. It was all of the earth, like this cave. Something deep and hidden, never to be spoken of in the light. She pressed her lips to his shoulder and ran her tongue over his wounded skin with a malevolent satisfaction. She felt him grip her closer. He rested his head on her hair.

  From where they stood, through her lashes, she saw the daggers’ hilts agleam in the faint blue light. She would not attempt them; she had no will to murder in her—that instant of pure fury was passed. But she saw that she could not get to them if she wished. And she understood that even now, as he held her like a lover, his breath in her hair, he knew to a fine degree how far away they were and what she could reach.

  She stood back a little. He released her easily. Elayne lifted her eyes from his boots to his black hose, his man-parts in shadowed half-concealment, his elegant form: fine shoulders and straight height, his face like fallen Lucifer from Heaven.

  He knew she looked. He stood and let her. "Franco Pietro," he said casually, "is said to resemble a loathsome toad."

  "A loathsome toad is in the eye of the beholder," she replied.

  "You think so! And who taught you that?"

  "Libushe."

  "Your wisewoman?"

  Elayne nodded.

  "Still," he said, "I think you would prefer me, between the two of us."

  She gave a little shrug.

  "I doubt he would let you bite the hide off of him, at any rate," he added darkly.

  NINE

  The blue sphere suddenly grew fainter, its peculiar light dying away. Elayne started up as the shadows closed, but before the chamber was completely enveloped in blackness he struck a spark. Flame burst from the pile of charred linen in a small brass tinder bowl. For an instant, as the little fire flared, his face was hued in red like a youthful demon bending over his inferno.

  He drew back from the smoke spiraling upward and quickly lit a candle, snuffing the tinder bowl with a metal lid. The candle made a brighter, warmer light—trading smoke and unsteady illumination for dyeing everything in more comfortable and human hues.

  Outlined by dancing shadows, he clasped the belt again about his hips, girding himself with swift skill. As he moved away from her, Elayne found herself growing deeply chilled in her damp smock. He handed her one of the towels.

  "Bind up your hair."

  She glanced at him as she took it, shaking her hair back over her shoulder. He watched her, holding the candle, as she lifted her arms to coil her hair. She felt as if she were on indecent display, as close to naked as it was possible to be while wearing a garment. But they were in this secret place. He had made himself her bridegroom here, by force and blood. No witnesses, no banns, no Christian troth-plight or vows. He simply declared it, and ravished her. A pagan wedding between heathen beasts.

  She damned him, despised him for bringing her down to his dark vice, but she thought wildly that it suited her. Somewhere there was a paper, full of high clerks’ seals, assenting to her betrothal to Franco Pietro of the Riata. In dreamlike despair, under Lancaster’s daunting eye and Lady Melanthe’s chill acquiescence, she had put her hand to it in England on the day after the May.

  She broke that contract now, with contempt. No one had tried to spare her, beyond mere weeping and regret. Not her godmother, nor her sister—not even Raymond. They had all bowed unquestioning to the Duke of Lancaster and flung her to the wind of fortune, until this pirate caught her up.

  From this night, he said, your protection is all of my ambition.

  She submitted to his study as he had allowed her to look at him, dipping her head to wrap the towel about her hair and then lifting her chin when she had the linen secure. If she were a wanton creature, an unfettered, unchristian harlot with too much learning to be modest; if she could never have the man she loved—wella, then she would take a beautiful murderous bandit instead, and read his books and learn his wiles and live with him in wickedness.

  He threw open a chest and dragged a folded robe from inside, shaking it out in the dim light. "Wear this."

  It was scarlet, cut full like a long tunic, embroidered about the hem and throat with astrologic motifs of indigo thread. The sleeves draped down over her hands. The hem fell in a voluminous puddle about her feet, measured for his height and breadth. But it was dry. She turned her back and divested herself of her chilly undergarment by wriggling free of it from within the capacious folds.

  She kicked the wet smock out from under her feet and faced him. He was daubing a cloth on his shoulder, scowling at the smudges of blood as if he had never had a cut upon him before.

  "Do you think it will leave a scar?" she asked with light malice.

  "Nay, I do not scar," he said. He gave her a half-smile, almost an apology.

  It was true that he had no flaw on him. But for the place her teeth had scored, now turning black-and-blue, the skin of his chest and face and arms was perfect in the candlelight, unscathed by any injury. He blotted at the abrasion again, hissing air between his teeth.

  "Leave it be," Elayne said.

  "It stings."

  "Of course, if you will pester at it like a child."

  He flicked the bloodied cloth away. But still he had that odd ghost of a smile.

  "It requires an herbal compress to take out the bruise," she said.

  "An herbal compress," he echoed in a bemused tone.

  "Have you never heard of such? I suppose you have no books of simples among all these weighty treatises."

  "No," he said. "I prefer to confound my brain with arcane wisdom only." From beside the cot he took a box, bejeweled and enameled, lined with silver, and held it open to her. "But spare no compassion for my battle wound. Will you indulge in a gentler pleasure?"

  Elayne peered inside. She expected jewels, or some other hoard, but it was full of many-colored grains, their hues reflecting in the shiny lid. When she hesitated, he dug his fingers into the mound and lifted them, the grains clinging to his skin and falling through his hand. He took some from his palm onto his tongue and savored it. "Confetti." He raised his hand to Elayne’s lips.

  Some of the grains on his fingertips clung as he touched her mouth. She licked her lip in spite of herself. The rich flavor of candied seeds of coriander and spices filled her mouth, bitter and sweet at once, drowning out the lingering taste of his blood.

  "A particular specialty of Monteverde," he said.

  She sat down on the carpet-covered chest, biting the sticky grains from her lip, each seed a burst of aromatic spice. "Yes. My sister repined for such."

  "Poor damsel," he said. "Breaking her heart over sweetmeats, is she?"

  Elayne glanced at him. "She’s mentioned often how she missed it."

  He poured more confetti into his palm, shut the box with a snap, and set it aside, as if the topic bored him.

  "She never spoke of missing you," Elayne said, with the same intent she’d felt when she had scored him with her teeth.

  The shaft did not seem to touch its mark. "I’m certain that she didn’t. She was acutely pleased to be rid of me. Are you jealous that I loved her once?"

  "No!"

  "Alas," he said lightly. "Will I never win a lady’s heart?"

  "You can hardly expect to win my heart by the manner of your courting!"

  " ’Tis fortune that all I require is the use of your body." He lifted his chin and tossed the confetti into his mouth. Then he offered his open palm, covered with a frost of the glistening grains. "Wound me again, hell-cat," he said, holding it to her lips.

  She turned her head. "Don’t call me that." It was too close, too near a twisting of Raymond’s endearment into this underground mating like barbarians.

  He dusted the seeds away between his palms. "My graceless love talk!" he said. "I beg your pardon, most worshipful and obedient wife."

  "I have made no vow to obey you."

  "Nay, I place no dependence on vows." He reached out and brushed a clinging grain
from the corner of her mouth with his thumb. Elayne wet her lips, tasting sugar; tasting his blood. "They are easily made and easily broken. I don’t aim to direct your whole existence, but when I require that you obey me, you may be certain that you will."

  He spoke with such simple ruthlessness that she could find no way to defy him that did not seem merely weak and peevish. Instead she drew the scarlet wizard’s robe close and looked about the little chamber, where candlelight danced on gold and pearls and his bared skin. "Demon!" she said sullenly. "I must be halfway to Purgatory."

  "Aye, it is a desolate place," he said, disregarding her insult casually. "I’ve felt so myself, banished here, but we will not be condemned to this island for long."

  Elayne glanced quickly at him. "You are condemned here?"

  "Did you suppose I live in exile by choice? You named me outlaw, and it is the vile truth. I am a declared felon."

  "Fie, if you will turn to piracy—how else?"

  He flicked the little silver clockwork with his finger and made the bell ring. "I was cast out for who I am, not what I do. If I prey upon Riata commerce, ’tis not robbery, but justice."

  "Blessed Mary, all this?" She lifted a hand toward the riches that surrounded them. Her fingertips barely showed beneath the overlong sleeves of his robe. "Only of the Riata?"

  "Your province is great in trade, Princess," he said.

  She looked aside at him. "Did you build this castle?"

  "I had the walls and towers raised. The foundations lay here in ruin before I came."

  "That strange black stone, and the fine porticos, and the Moorish tiles, and the frescoes in your chambers?"

  "I brought the stone from the mountains of Atlas. The porticos and chambers, and my observatory and study and—other things—aye, I caused them to be made to my desire."

  "And the bridges?"

  He smiled. "The bridges are ancient, like that great sculpture on the headland."

  "A curious exile! I do not believe you rob only the Riata."

  He looked at her with a wicked gleam. "I have certain friends. Sometimes they make me gifts, in return for—dispensation— from pillage on the seas."