Captive Heart (21 page)

I closed my eyes so the man wouldn’t succumb to the unguarded sight of her mysteries so near my tongue, though I could do nothing to block the deep musk of her from tempting my nose.

I whined and pushed my insistent muzzle into her palm, then through her hand, insinuating my head between it and the perfectly curved jut of her hip. Fearlessly now, she ran her fingers deep into my ruff. I arched my neck into her hand, demanding more.

She turned her eyes away then from the cliff’s high fall and focused her attention on me.

Dropping my forequarters to the ground, I swayed my hips, tail wagging and giving her my best wicked grin.

She turned half to me.

Encouraged, I thrust my nose boldly again into her palm, my tongue following through the channel of her hand. Then I slipped between her and the edge of the cliff, pressing my weight into her. She backed a step into the wall behind her. My ribs pressed into her knees and I arched back my neck over my shoulders, jaws parted, my tongue flopping rakishly to the side.

She fell over me then, clinging desperately, one arm around my throat, the other clutching at my shoulders. Her breasts mashed against me as she crushed me, hard, rocking me, crying into my dark fur.

Then she shuddered, back and shoulders shaking, releasing all the grief and anguish, sorrow and horror pent within.

With a gentle tongue, I licked her tears away.

She had no strength to walk. As easily as I could, I shifted, my strong arms safe around her, my head buried in the curve of her neck. When I lifted her up, she clung yet to my shoulders, seeming to not recognize I was a wolf no longer. I picked my way carefully along the rocky trail, mindful of the sharp stones, the slide of gravel and my most precious burden.

Lyn and Gareth were waiting at the top. Gareth’s bare chest was a welcome if curious sight until I saw his tunic gripped in Lyn’s hands.

“Nessie?” Lyn’s voice was careful, seeking recognition only, not asking anything more of her traumatized sister.

“Lyn?” Nessie peeped above the round of my shoulder. “Lyn!” She bit her lower lip as recognition and memory flooded over her. I lowered her to her feet, expecting her to flee the two steps to her sister, but she stood against me still, gaining not just her physical balance but her mental one too.

Lyn trembled with the effort to not throw her arms around Nessie and shower her with kisses. I nodded an acknowledgement of that restraint and she took courage from my smile. “Here, let’s get you into this, shall we?” Lyn lifted one of Nessie’s arms into a sleeve of the tunic and I lifted the other. Together we pulled it over her head, then draped it down, across her breasts, over her hips and to her knees. It was ripe with sweat and dirt, but Nessie wrapped her arms gratefully around it, snugging it close.

The tunic seemed to give her confidence and to stir better memories. “Oh, Lyn!” Throwing her arms around Lyn, Nessie hugged her sister to her amid a fresh flow of tears, and I knew it would be some time before they could be parted.

From the shadows of the forest’s edge, Ironside, shamed, looked on.

We returned to Ironside’s castle, to stay till Ness was ready to ride. The solar we commandeered was drafty but large enough to accommodate the two beds we had brought in as well as a table and chairs for dining and, apparently, discussion. Which Lyn and Gareth engaged in at great length the first two days.

Where next to go, what to do with Ironside and his men… I had little care for the deciding, though I would be perfectly happy to help in executing the decisions. If, for instance, they needed my wolf to rip out Ironside’s throat, I stood ready to accommodate.

My only care in those matters was that Nimue had fled, to Avalon likely, gone now beyond our reach.

“She was never ours,” Lyn told me, when I sat with them to sup. “Not really. I
saw
her future and she was free.”

“Only because you let her go,” I grumbled, and immediately regretted both words and tone. Lyn had not made the choice lightly, and my bitterness was not directed at her.

Laying a cool hand on my forearm, she said, not for the first time, “I’m truly sorry. I know your disappointment. But Nimue’s magic could not have helped you.”

“Merlin said there would be a cure.”

“And we’ll find it,” Gareth added, “I swear.”

I didn’t doubt his intentions, pure and noble as he himself. I basked in how much he cared for me. But it was an empty vow if there was no cure to be had.

Still, but for Ness’s presence, I would have shown Gareth just how grateful I was for his staunchest support.

It was not out of shame, of course, that we abstained, but deference for Ness.

“You care for him, don’t you?” Ness asked when we retired to two high-backed chairs before the flickering fire, leaving Gareth and Lyn once again to their plans.

“I do.”

“And for my sister?”

“Her too.” I watched Ness guardedly.

“I mean,
really
care for them.”

“I would give my life for them. And they have already given their souls for me.”

“And the wolf?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What of it?”

“Would you give your life for it?”

Rising abruptly, I paced around my chair. The question was ridiculous.
Or was it?
“I
am
the wolf.”

“Then why are you trying so hard to get rid of it? Would you try so hard to rid yourself of a hand or a foot?”

I dragged my chair close to hers and sat again, knee-to-knee with her wit that was proving to be as exquisitely formed as the rest of her. “It isn’t that simple.”

“Then educate me,” she said softly. “I knew you first as a wolf, and it was he that rescued me. I-I wouldn’t wish you any different than what—who—you are now. Would Lyn? Does Gareth?”

“Lyn—never. Gareth”—I recalled the dark times when I hadn’t been sure about Gareth, or he about me—“accepts.”

She stared at me out of wise and wounded eyes. She who had been so abused thinking to heal me. What could I possibly give her in return?

Patience and gentleness, of course. And perhaps understanding.

“When I was cursed, it was a thing done
to
me. Against my will.”

She caught her breath at that.
Had she thought I’d been birthed this way?

“I’m a knight. Skilled. Strong. Ill-tempered at times but honest. And yet, somehow, some wild fae-thing got the best of me. I couldn’t stop the doing of it. And once done, I couldn’t undo it. And now the wolf is my stigma to bear. Those who love me have no shame of me. I bear all that shame myself. Should I care what any others think?”

Swallowing hard, Ness shook her head. For a moment I lost her to vile and hurtful memories. When she’d buried them again in pain, she asked, “Can you—” she swallowed and tried again. “Could you still love others even if you hate yourself?”

“I would insist on it.”

“And if no one”—she inhaled a shaky breath—“no one loved you back?”

“Any who wouldn’t would be a fool. But I don’t think you’d be so foolish as to love a fool.”

That brought a hint of a smile to her lips. The same sweet and endearing expression that I had caught, though rarely, on Lyn. Then she ducked her head. “Lyn and Gareth aren’t fools, and you love them.”

Hoist by my own petard. She was trying to heal me yet.

“Are you a fool?” She caught my eye, held it. “Am I?”

“What we are,” I said at last, “is blameless.”

And for the first time since I’d been cursed, I believed it.

In their bed that night, Ness and Lyn slept in their shifts, cuddled together in a sisterly embrace. In our bed, I kicked off my leggings once I was under the sheets, and Gareth discreetly did the same. We touched and kissed in silence, swallowing each other’s gasps and sighs, and falling asleep at last in an immodest tangle of sheets and limbs.

I woke to a pair of eyes staring from across the room. Acutely aware of Gareth’s and my half-naked flanks, I stretched the sheet across them, stirring Gareth who sleepily draped an arm across my neck.

“We have a spy,” I whispered. Lyn’s head rose from her pillow. “Two,” I amended.

With a sharp look, Lyn took Ness’s hand. “Let’s see if we can find a privy.” Halfway to the door she retrieved my leggings from the floor and, irritated, tossed them on the bed. “See you’re up when we return.”

Ness’s shy but insistent stare never left our bed until she and Lyn were out the door.

After we broke fast with an array of meats and breads and fruits, Lyn and I continued to sit at the table while Marrok took Nessie off to a corner to teach her to play Noddy with a deck of cards brought when the servants cleared our plates.

Lyn smiled softly toward her sister. “I was sure we’d find her a broken thing, made mad even by her ordeal. Yet she’s still Nessie. More fragile now. More anxious. Less trusting. But Nessie.”

“And you’ll do all you can to shelter and protect her.”

“Of course. That’s not even a question.”

“Perhaps it should be.”

My voice was soft, but still she bristled. “Explain yourself. With great care.”

 “I want to protect her too. Her circumstances beg it. Her fatal beauty and that core of innocence that neither Ironside nor Nimue could steal away are precious assets to be guarded. With all that I firmly agree. I look on her and see the very reason I strive to be a knight. More, I see you in her, and my heart knows it must love her as it loves you.”

Lyn’s expression softened at that. With all my being I wished I could leave it there.

“Because I see so much of you in her, I have to believe she has your strength and your resilience too. Would you protect her from life itself? Would you have her hidden away playing cards until she grows old and dies? How will she learn that strength can be tempered and lusts controlled, that the act of love is not a torture to be endured but a pleasure to be delighted in if she is dragged away from every instance of affection? If the only experience she has of intimacy is the one she’s been rescued from, what does that tell her of the world and of her future?”

Lyn shook her head. “It’s too soon.”

“Too soon for her or for you?”

“For—us. Strength is an odd bedfellow. When you’ve been hurt the way she has, it has a way of breaking when you’re most in need of it.”

“Her wounds need time and more to heal,” I agreed. “I’m suggesting no more than letting her be witness to love when it’s not used as a weapon but a balm. To let her watch when we do this.” Leaning in close, I covered Lyn’s lips with mine. At my gentle urgings, her reluctance dissolved into a kiss she returned with equal passion. No tongue save for soft teases across our eager lips before they slipped away.

She stole a look toward Nessie who was watching openly with innocent charm. Across from her, Marrok grinned.

“Enough.” Half-playful, half-serious, Lyn pressed her palms against my shoulders to push me away.

I winced.

Lyn’s eyes flew wide. “You’re hurt,” she accused.

“Strength of seven, remember?” I said drily. “I may have suffered a bruise or two in the fray. Which you would have noticed yesterday had your eyes not been for Nessie and no other.”