Captive Heart (8 page)

“It was six to one,” Marrok pointed out. “And I doubt they gave warning.”

Corbin’s eyes clouded. “Truth.” Then he turned to Lynette, as much to absorb her life and beauty when he’d so recently thought to lose all than out of courtesy. “You’re quiet, M’lady. Is there something amiss?”

When she cast her eyes down rather than facing him, I went on guard. Beside me, Marrok stilled with concern. Had her fall been more serious after all?

I half rose from the bench when she at last looked up and I saw the pain in her eyes. “You—you sat a kitchen page at our table, Lord Corbin. I would…” She swallowed, hard. “I would rather eat with swine.”

I heard the words clearly. Understood them clearly. What didn’t make sense was the expression on her face, the guilt in her voice or how she avoided my eye. Even Corbin was startled, unsure of his reply.

I spared him the embarrassment. Whether Lynette meant the words or not, they shamed me. “With your leave,” I told Corbin as I took my trencher and cup and returned to the sideboard to finish my meal. I expected a look of pity thrown my way from Marrok. What I didn’t expect was for him to join me.

“She doesn’t mean it,” he said.

“No.” I’d seen the appraising looks she’d bestowed on me. I’d caught her more furtive glances filled with the want that belied her words of rebuke. “There’s nothing of disgust in her, so why did she scorn me?” Not that Marrok would know. He seemed too occupied with secrets of his own.

“I think she’s afraid of you.”

“Afraid?”

“Of how she feels about you. Or she’s afraid you won’t feel the same for her. So she’s protecting herself. Her heart.”

His dark eyes on me stirred something primal. “Why would you think that?”

He half-growled in frustration. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s because I’m afraid of you too.”

I gasped a little for air. Obvious? A bull in a lady’s sewing circle couldn’t have been more obvious. But to speak of it… I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it. Not from Marrok. Not from Lynette.

Because I was afraid of them too.

Because I had never been…afraid…of anyone before.

I was a king’s son, even though there were three brothers before me. And as I had a fair enough face, there had been fawners even before my beard tried to grow in. Not for lack of opportunity had I never fawned back. For while my body had urged me to it, my heart had never been engaged enough.

Until Marrok and Lyn, who challenged me both.

In a way I welcomed Lyn’s rebukes. Without them, I might have already made a fool of myself with her, trying to win her affection while she was still so clearly suffering for her sister.

Marrok, though, was more…complicated. Not for his gender alone but for the dark secrets he hid. It was one thing to trust Merlin’s vouch of Marrok as a companion on this quest. As a companion otherwise? I was unprepared to accept Marrok or Lyn in that capacity—yet. Perhaps never. Or perhaps…

I shook my head to banish the word before I could think it, but the ghost of it hung like temptation in my mind. Or perhaps
tonight
.

We finished our meal in silence both awkward and charged with anticipation. I could feel Marrok’s dark, steady gaze on me, felt Lyn’s jealous glances from across the room. She hadn’t meant for Marrok to leave her table too. Though her looks were not reserved for him alone.

I gulped down the sweet mead our host had provided. The drink was potent, heady, and I was determined to lose myself to it. To drive away those ghost thoughts that plagued me.

In the end, I still wasn’t drunk enough when I stumbled to the quiet corner of the hall where a servant had laid my pack and a blanket, and I collapsed on the makeshift bed.

Like a shadow, Marrok followed.

Only a slow-burning torch on the far wall lit the hall, and in our dark corner Marrok’s eyes glittered with a hint of demon red. He stretched himself beside me, not on his blanket but mine—our elbows propped under us and only a handspan’s breadth between.

With a smile he laid a hand on the back of my neck.

I tensed as his touch seared through me. Aye, there was the sweet ache as my body swiftly responded, but I also felt the hard clutch of his fingers as he drew me toward him. A predator with his prey.

Innocent in this I might have been, but I was no man’s prey. Twisting away, I rose above him on the blanket. Then I circled my arm across his shoulders, trapping him. Testing him. Five brothers in a household with three older than me and more experienced had taught me well the sport of wrestling. Of domination.

I didn’t need to prove I was Marrok’s better in any way—just his equal. If he understood that, we had a chance.

He shrugged off my arm and surged to his knees. Face-to-face, I braced for his next move, prepared I thought, for anything. But he threw a move my brothers had never taught. Hawk-swift, he captured my lips with his.

Strong, insistent, his lips to mine, he doubled my animal response to him. As I ground my lips against his, the blood in my staff began to beat.

Then suddenly I was breached, his tongue invading my mouth, thrusting for my throat.

I parried back and we closed, arms around one another, on our knees still, drawing close. Marrok’s breath rasped loud in the dark.

Then his hands were on the hem of my tunic, urging it off. I brushed him away. “I’m not so drunk I can’t undress myself.”

“You’d allow a servant the pleasure. Why not me?”

Pleasure?
It hadn’t occurred to me Marrok might enjoy undressing me. Maybe I
was
too drunk for this after all. Where did domination end and teaching begin? I would need to be led the first time. I would need to be willing to submit in order to learn.

“I can’t.” I pushed him back. “Not tonight.”

“You
can’t
?” Anger simmered in Marrok’s voice. “You bring me this far and now say you
can’t
?”

“
You
brought yourself this far,” I snapped. “Another night when I’m not so drunk.”

“Would you truly lay with me sober?”

Would I
? It was a fair question. “If I would lay with any man sober, it would be you.” I gave him a drunk’s honesty.

The demon-red gleam in Marrok’s eyes intensified but he withdrew. Despite all, he remained a courteous knight.

My heart responded to that gesture as swiftly and surely as my body had responded to him. “Another night,” I said again, and this time it wasn’t just a possibility but a promise.

I sprinted from the hall. Outside, the security of the woods beckoned. Throwing myself down on the bank of a small creek that cut through the trees, I howled my frustration to the stars. The beast beat from within, demanding to be freed.

I had left with a promise, but Beau had rejected me all the same. Not only that, he had challenged me for power, for dominance. Such a game excited Marrok the man. I had hardened in anticipation when he rose above me. The only thing I had wanted to conquer this night was Beau’s reluctance.

But the wolf…every move from Beau was a direct challenge to it. A threat to its nature. A pack leader, my wolf would brook no other—man nor beast—to be its equal.

Even as I struggled with the wolf now, I had struggled with it in the hall. The devil’s humor was plain in my curse. The wolf craved Beau as much as the man did. In the end it wanted what I did—Beau beneath me. Hands, nose and eyes filled with him. Teeth nipping at his bared and beautiful flesh while I took my pleasure inside.

The wolf, though, would take Beau by force, for no reason than to prove it could. It was the wolf that made me impatient, that roughened my every action.

And suddenly I found myself questioning how much of me wanting Beau was actually the wolf wanting to subjugate him. New I was still to this maddening beast. Was it trying to dominate
me
the same way it needed to dominate Beau? Would my laying with him be
its
victory?

How could such a simple and straightforward lust be so rife with confusion?

And why, really, had Beau refused me?

Once again I howled my heartgrief, and my human cry became the wolf’s. Giving in to its demand, seeking the forgetfulness it promised, I shifted, allowing it to take me, body, grief and soul.

Together, we ran.

Two hours, maybe three, later—for distant abbey bells pealed Matins—I shifted back. The hard run and sharing the beast’s simple, single-mindedness had centered me. Slipping back into my tunic, long enough for pre-dawn modesty, I bundled my leggings and slinked back into the hall and to Beau’s side.

He wakened immediately. Or, more likely, he had never been to sleep, waiting for me, having only shed his leggings for comfort.

“Was it me?” he asked quietly.

“What?”

“Why you left out of here like a whipped stallion. Was it because of me?”

“Yes.” I could sense his body tighten, feel the wince on his face as though it were my own. “I mean no. It wasn’t because we didn’t… I mean, it’s complicated. Merlin was right when he said I’m not as other men.”

“Are you malformed?” I heard the hint of smile in his voice, knew he softly teased.

“No.”

“Unendowed, perhaps?”

“I’ve heard no complaint—from neither woman nor man.”

“Then I would not be your first?”

Sure I was on hearing it he meant my first bedmate with stones and staff. Was it possible, though, he meant my first
at all
? “Would I be yours?”

The flame at the end of the hall burned low. I could see him well enough through beast eyes, but I knew I was little more than shadow to him.

“Yes,” he said, no doubt of his meaning in the tone.

My staff twitched and I slowly exhaled. “I didn’t know.” And now that I did, I wanted him more. “Let me teach you,” I pleaded. A way for me to lead, him to follow, and my beast’s need for dominance be sated without sacrifice to pride.

Beau seemed to understand. “This night—and this night alone—” he said, “I am yours to command.”

The beast growled its approval and I hardened with renewed desire.
Patience
, I schooled the wolf before lowering my head to school Beau. No rough kiss this as before, but one of sensuous passion. Of lips on lips, brushing, teasing, parting, connecting again. Slipping a hand behind his head, twining my fingers in his thick blond hair, I urged him to sit. Parting his lips with a gentle, insistent pressure, I painted them with my tongue, he breathing softly against my face. Then I thrust in, pulling his head to mine, forcing myself deeper.

Then his lips circled my tongue and he sucked, drawing it deeper yet. My staff, free under my tunic, rose swiftly. I groaned.

Grabbing handfuls of his tunic I raised it till we were forced to break our kiss to slide it over his head. His shoulders, that kiss, the trail of hair disappearing into shadow…

“I think this first lesson will needs be short,” I panted.

His hands were already reaching for my tunic. “Show me first,” he breathed. “Instruct me later.”

Naked, I stood, drawing him to his knees. My staff, desperate for his touch, quivered before him.

He obliged, cupping his hands around it.

“Now do to it what you were doing to my tongue,” I begged him, no matter how much I tried to make it into a command.

He hesitated only a moment before capturing me with the hot ring of his mouth. I groaned again and its echo in my head reminded me the beast felt all I felt, shared all I did.

He swallowed more of me and, lifting his eyes deliberately to mine, began to suck. I gasped, pulling at his hair, knowing he watched the exquisite joy building on my face. But this first time was supposed to be about Beau. And there were other places my staff belonged.