Captive Heart (12 page)

Strong arms at my waist pulled me away and up to my feet. I whirled, a glance telling me Marrok’s soldier was already rising from the dead. With a sweep of his arms he gathered my skirts. “My lady would not be so discourteous as to remain clothed when we are not.” It was not a question, but I also had no desire to refuse.

The gown was a simple thing, easy to slip on and off with no handmaid to help, with only a rope to belt it. I undid the knot myself, then the cloth was lifted over my head as I raised my arms to help. Then the cloying cloth was gone, and I stood wrapped in starlight. I hadn’t known how vulnerable I would feel without my linen armor. Or how the cool night air on my bare skin would arouse me.

I was both terrified and enflamed. Marrok’s eyes on me glowed demon red. But it was not his gaze I craved.

Then a pair of tender arms claimed me from behind, one hand splayed across my breasts, the other spread over my belly like a protective shield. Warm, bare flesh molded itself to my back.

Marrok snarled and advanced upon us, his weapon now at full attention.

My stomach muscles rippled under the heady pleasure of Gareth’s hand, and I clenched below in anticipation of Marrok’s approach. “I would have both of you,” I said in the moment before Marrok’s lips slammed into mine. One step more and his staff was trapped between our bodies, quivering half against my belly, half against Gareth’s hand.

“But which will you have first?” Gareth whispered in my ear as he teased the nub of my breasts between his thumb and forefinger. It needed little encouragement to respond. A nudge at my hip told me another soldier had been resurrected.

Both eager. Both ready. Both flaming me to delirium, every touch of them sending thrills to the one place neither had yet breached.

How could I choose?

And yet if I didn’t choose, I feared how these two virile champions might choose for themselves.

A pair of intimate finger’s—whose I didn’t know—stroked between my thighs. “Unnh!” My cry was muffled against Marrok’s bruising lips as I bucked between them.

Another touch and I knew I had to choose now, not for their sake but for my own.

Gareth had power and skill to best Marrok at arms, I had no doubt. But Marrok’s wolf made him more dangerous. And right now, both were mine to command. Gareth had already proven he was knight enough in heart to bow to my wishes. That left Marrok for me to try the heart of.

I twisted my lips away from his so I could speak. “Gareth.” I stared into Marrok’s red-limned eyes to watch his reaction as I repeated, more urgently, “Gareth!”

Would Marrok wait upon my word? Could his wolf? Fury flamed in his eyes and his face hardened. Had I acted rashly? Gareth was naked and unarmed. If the wolf should attack…

It was, I think, my sudden fear that saved us all. Marrok surrendered me into Gareth’s arms. I turned in them, Gareth’s hands on me still, a tender, urgent smile on his lips. Relief and passion beat in my blood. I needed Gareth in me. I needed… A glance at Gareth’s staff and my heart failed me. So long, so thick. How could it ever fit?

I stumbled, and Marrok’s strong arms bore me up, holding me against the broad plane of his chest.

Gareth cupped my chin. “I was frightened, too, at first with Marrok. But I trusted him and the reward for that trust brought me to heaven’s sweetest gate. Will you trust me?”

“Yes.” Of course. I could trust
him
. It was myself I wasn’t sure of.

Leaning in, he kissed me with soft, gentle lips. It was a kiss I could lose myself
in
but not lose myself
to
. Too polite, too soft for the urgency that beat at me. For the urgency I knew coursed through him too when I felt the first prod of him between my legs.

I returned his kiss with that urgency, startling him with my desire. Delighting him as he gave into his.

Then suddenly there were hands everywhere. Touching, rubbing, squeezing, in every intimate crevice, on every intimate peak. Two hands, four, six.

Gareth’s tongue thrust in and I sucked at him, the rhythm in cadence to the urgent beat of my blood. Desperate for him now, I arched forward, his nudges closer now, more insistent, but not yet on target. I reached around from where my hand had fallen of its own to grip that magnificent taut flank. I thought to guide him, but found a hand already there.

Marrok.

Opening my eyes, I raised them above our kiss, found Gareth’s eyes on the man behind. The man who held his staff in one hand, my breasts in the other. Their ragged, heavy breathing filled my ears.

An unaccounted-for hand ran up the back of my thigh, settling against the crevice between the globes of my flanks, one of which Gareth held and kneaded firmly in his grasp. Not so firmly that two fingers couldn’t trail over the invading hand-that-was-not-a-hand, and Marrok gasped.

He dropped his head to my shoulder, growling as he grabbed the tender skin half-delicately between his teeth.

Then the tip of Gareth found my entrance and slipped inside. Two fingers breadth only, then three, then four. I felt the knuckles of the hand holding him against me preventing more.

I opened in anticipation, the channel of me growing, begging, wide now as starlight. The last vestige of fear wafted away.

“Whatever you’ll do, do now,” I begged.

The knuckles fled and the hand at my breast flattened.

With a groan of pleasure that echoed to my core, Gareth crushed me to him, the length of him sliding hard and fast into me, lifting me to my toes.

“Uhhh!”

Heaven’s gate indeed!

But barely had I had a chance to feel him there at the core of me then he backed away.
Had I displeased him
? Ah, no. He thrust again, deeper still. I gasped at the sharp pain, frightening him, and he did the one thing I couldn’t bear right then.

He froze.

“Have I hurt you?” The concern in his voice, his eyes touched me deeply.

I shook my head. “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. Don’t stop.”

“But my Lady—“

Marrok raised his head from my shoulder. “Her maidenhead. You’ve only just made her a woman. Now make her yours.”

Gareth, vigorously, complied.

When he thrust in again, I arched my face to the moon.

Marrok’s mouth fell to my throat.

Gareth’s thrusts grew faster. He panted through gritted teeth, moaning rhythmically between them.

When I felt the small explosions begin, I knew heaven was much too polite a term. Only hell could grant such pleasure on earth. It had to be a trap, a sin. But it was one into which I happily fell.

Gareth thrust again, tickling the depths of me. There came a pause when neither he nor I breathed or moved, save for the straining of our muscles both without and within as the stars whirled on the cusp of that one perfect moment.

I clenched, fast, hard, and unexpected. Gareth fountained, his seed rushing into me. I clawed at him, urging him closer. His staff inside of me wasn’t enough. I needed more of him inside.
All
of him inside. To be one with him.

I was clawing still when the final explosion ripped through me. I cried to heaven as it shattered me again and again until it rippled away at last leaving me spent and panting, hung between Gareth and Marrok on the strength of their passion.

I was still catching my breath when Marrok enfolded me in his arms, the hard plane of his chest with its course mat of hair rough against my breasts.

“My turn,” he whispered.

So soon
? I could barely stand. How could I endure that kind of pleasure again? Or was such joy reserved for the first time? Is that why they’d vied to be the first—to be the one to share it?

When he squeezed my flank the flame of desire that had been banked flickered yet again.

He had shown humility, keeping his wolfish lusts at bay by my whim. That deserved my recognition and reward. I clung to that as my obligation. Not his insistence, nor my growing passion, nor the hot tongue exploring my ear. Not even Gareth circling his arms around us, ready to sacrifice his body to our any need.

“Your turn,” I agreed.

Eyes limned with red, lips trembling in the moonlight, Marrok faced me. His staff, rude and hard beyond bearing, quivered as it arrowed toward me. “I’ll be quick.”

Promise or apology
?

I nodded.

“This time.” He spun me around, lip-to-lip with Gareth, then bent me forward. Gareth filled his palms with my breasts, bracing me. Hands on my hips, with no preamble, no hesitant probbing, Marrok entered me from behind. One thrust and he was to the hilt, his stones slapping the backs of my thighs.

I gasped.

Above me, Marrok growled into Gareth’s mouth as their lips clashed. Below me, Gareth’s half-limp staff, slick and glistening, tried valiantly to rise. Behind me, Marrok backed out. I held my breath, and in that moment of anticipation I drew courage, cupping staff and stones before me in my cool hands.

Gareth groaned, arching into my hands while his grip on my breasts tightened, his thumbs tapping a distracting melody on their peaks.

Marrok’s left hand slipped from my hip to my curled thatch, holding me steady as he plunged in again. Then his fingers dipped lower, searching my wet folds till his middle one found my sensitive nub and began to thrum it in cadence with Gareth’s thumbs.

“Unnhh.” My moan echoed Gareth’s as my right hand crept up the length of him—lengthening more at my hands’ insistent command—and my circling fingers brushed the hooded tip. Like a miracle, the heavy rod grew to fill my hands, purpling and hardening as it rose.

I was fascinated by the feel, by the sight, but my attention kept being dragged away by the fingers playing on my most intimate parts and by Marrok’s quickening thrusts.

Then it was all Marrok, the beautiful miracle in my hands forgotten as the werewolf’s final thrusts ignited me. On his last plunge, his hips shook against mine, and I constricted around him. The thrumming stopped as he pressed my folds against him. He jerked once, twice.

I felt the spurt of his seed, joining Gareth’s in the warm hollows of my womb.

Pleasure as intense as starfire shook me through. I cried my joy, Marrok’s howl echoing mine in triumph.

Spent, Marrok slipped out, I sinking to my knees.

It took me a moment to realize I held Gareth still, squeezing him tight in my ecstasy. Horrified, I loosened my grip.

“Don’t!” he begged.

I looked up to find his seawashed eyes on mine.

Marrok knelt behind me, chin on my shoulder, cheek to mine, chest to my back. He circled his arms around and his hands joined mine, guiding them.

We stroked up, down, then up again. One of Gareth’s hands left my breast to find Marrok’s shoulder.

We stroked faster.

His other hand left my other breast to join ours. Calves, thighs and stomach tensed.

“Now,” Marrok encouraged him. “Now!”

Groaning, Gareth spilled his seed over our hands. A benediction. A sealing of our unspoken pledges, one to another.

We had bared our bodies, souls and selves tonight.

Only Marrok’s true self stayed locked in shadow, a secret he still dared not share with Gareth, a shape he kept hidden from our eyes.

Had he only trusted more…

The look in the spirited mare’s eyes as we hung our packs over her withers in the morning was contrite. She nudged Lyn who, with generous spirit, patted her nose.

“What fright took you yesterday, hmm?”

“Was it fright?” Marrok asked. “Or something—someone—else?” Lyn studied the mare’s wide, brown eyes. “You don’t think—? Nimue?”

“As easy to bewitch a horse as a man.”

 “Or to unbewitch them?”

They exchanged a look over Lyn’s gentle voice. Their secret. The one I felt I could almost touch, almost know. The one they yet refused to share.

“Do we blame magic now if we so much as stub our toe?” I honestly tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. I honestly failed miserably. “If so, we will be looking for dark fae everywhere.”

“I already do.”

I immediately regretted my words for the bleak look that crossed Lyn’s face.

“Even Merlin doesn’t have that power,” I tried to assure her.

“Are you fae to know what Merlin can or cannot do? Did you sit in a cell and hear Nimue’s threats as godly monks and a holy abbot were slain around you? What do you know of fae and how they’ve shaped this world? What do you know of magic and how it shapes men and beasts? Answer me, my champion. How do you fight a thing you do not know?”

“You learn of it, until you know more of it than it knows of itself. We will find your sister,” I vowed. “And neither Nimue nor Ironside nor all of Avalon will stand against us.” I wrapped my arms around her, reminding her of the strength she yet commanded. Then I helped her onto the Orkney pony and we headed once more for the Red Lands.