Captive Heart (9 page)

What Marrok asked of me held no surprise. I had come upon couples before, had heard the intimate details of my brothers’ conquests.

What did surprise me was how the slightly salty taste of him, the sweated smell of him and the extraordinary feel of him ignited me. How his exquisite pleasure became mine simply by sharing through his eyes. How being the instrument to his bliss made my own staff ache with desire.

I wrapped my arms about his corded thighs, gripping his hard flanks and rocking him closer, my teeth raking against him as I devoured the length of him, urging him on.

Then his strong hands were on my shoulders. I braced to support him, but he pushed me away, withdrawing. He was glistening and hard yet. My own staff faltered fearing I had disappointed him.

When he squatted beside me he was tense, shaking. The hand he laid on my cheek trembled. “Are you ready?” he whispered. “Because I am. Because I’ve never been more ready.”

I blinked.

He made a sound that was half-laugh, half-snarl. “For me to be inside you. To finish in there what we started out here.”

I nodded. I was ready for anything if it meant I could touch him again, see him roused again, share his pleasure, even his pain.

He dropped a hand to my staff, circling it, brushing his thumb across its tip as it obediently filled his wide grip. His other hand snaked to the back of my neck, urging me forward and down.

I lay on my stomach, the hard fist of him between me and the blanket. I pressed into his hand.

Then Marrok was straddling me, pinning me to the ground.

My body’s reaction was swift, tensing and bucking. I fought it down. I had promised Marrok control. I would cede it to him now.

On top of me, Marrok growled as he rode out my tantrum. Beneath me, his hand squeezed overtight, the pleasure of his touch rapidly turning to pain, though where one started and the other left off I couldn’t tell.

At last my body went still, accepting. “Don’t stop,” I panted, pled.

At my ear, Marrok answered. “I never planned to.”

He spread my flanks with his free hand and I felt him prodding, searching.

Then I felt his lips gentle against my cheek and his other hand began a slow and rhythmic squeeze that teased me to distraction. “Relax,” he encouraged, though how that was possible I didn’t know.

He prodded again and I opened for him. Seizing the opportunity, he thrust in, fast and sure. There was one moment of exquisite pain, fled just as rapidly that, coupled with the insistent activity he continued below, quickly turned to a pleasure like none I’d ever known.

I gasped as he moved inside me, his first tentative thrusts quickening till he was pounding me from within. I moved with him, unable to do more for him than clutch at the arm he held beneath me. As he neared his peak, he sank his teeth into the back of my neck. He shuddered, and hot seed rushed into me. Locked in Marrok’s grip my own staff fountained into the blanket below.

We lay together like that—Marrok in me still, his teeth and hand on me yet—until the abbey bells rang out the Office of Terce and recalled us to ourselves.

I slept with the servant girls in a crowded room, though out of respect for my station they did accord me a mattress of my own. It wasn’t they who kept me up half the night through, but my own apprehensions about Nessie and guilt over how I was forced to treat Beau. Losing him from the table last evening was bad enough, but for Marrok to have followed…

When we met in the dining hall to break fast, I noted they looked as haggard as I felt, as though they too had gotten little sleep. Avoiding my eye, they sat at the sideboard while I supped with our host.

Even when we took our farewells with Lord Corbin and struck off to regain the road with new provisions packed onto our spare pony, they shunned me. Not by harsh word or darting looks but simply by ignoring me. Which pained me as much as if they’d stoned me for my actions. Doubly painful because I regretted being forced into chastising a man I would far rather woo.

Even now I admired the very backs they turned to me as they rode, knee-to-knee, ahead of me. I wished I could hear their conversation but they spoke low, heads close, and I could only pray they weren’t speaking ill of me.

Late morning, Marrok drew rein, falling in step beside me. “Why?” he asked.

I blinked. There were many things he could have meant by the question, but I knew which one it was. I just didn’t have a ready answer. Not one at least to share.

“Why do you scorn him so? Was he not the first to take your quest as his? Did he not fight for you yesterday and prevail? How is it a lady’s tongue can be so rude?”

There was a blackness in Marrok’s eyes, and I knew something equally dark lurked within his soul. He intimidated me. They both did, truth be told, but I felt it now acutely, I on my ambling-gaited palfrey slung low to the ground, he towering above on a great war steed.

But wrapped in that intimidation was shelter and strength. A formidable ally if I could simply open myself and let him in.

Would Nimue really know if I confided all to my champion’s second? Could she and Ironside really make life more unbearable for Nessie? I struggled with the answers, realizing if there was any possibility, no matter how remote, of a “yes” to either question then, much as I craved to unburden my soul, leave off the abuse and make amends, for my sister’s sake, I couldn’t.

“Bah, if you won’t tell me why you belittle him at every turn, you
will
tell me now that you will leave off. He might tolerate it but
I
will not.”

Was there a reason he was being so protective of Beau? If he hadn’t been looming above me and I hadn’t been so distracted by the pounding of my heart that wasn’t fear or the blood blushing my cheeks at his proximity, I might have guessed his motive.

For now, my thoughts were turned on how to confound the anger simmering at Marrok’s core. “You might think you hide in shadow,” I whispered, “but I know your secret.” Which wasn’t precisely true, for my half-fae sight
saw
only that he bore the burden of a dark and heavy mystery, not what it was. But it did serve the purpose to distract him.

I was right in one regard. He left off thought of Beau as he grabbed my palfrey’s reins and dragged his stallion to a halt. Leaning in so close I could feel the heat of his breath on my cheek, and in a voice that was chillingly measured, he said, “Beau may be courteous enough to tolerate your ill graces,
lady
, but you’ll taunt
me
to your peril. Speak clearly of what you know, or hold your tongue lest you find it gone from your throat, and perhaps your head along with it.”

With no more than a breathspace between us I saw the blacks of his eyes flame red. For a moment, his whole face wavered before me. I blinked, but the trick wasn’t of my vision. And then I saw it, whether with fae Sight or mortal eyes I wasn’t sure. What I was sure of was the beast that stared back at me through fire-brimmed eyes
brand
.

“Shape-shifter,” I whispered.

I knew then he spoke truth about my peril. A knight of Arthur’s Table Round might speak sharp, but he would never do a lady harm. This knight’s beast, on the other hand…

“’Ware yourself,” Marrok snarled, releasing my palfrey’s reins and drawing himself quickly away.

At distance his face was Marrok’s again—strong, bearded, beautiful. Only a limn of red about his eyes betrayed the beast inside.

“You will not speak to Beau of this.” His tone brooked no argument.

I gave none, merely nodded.

“And you will leave off berating him as you have. Do we understand one another?”

Nimue’s threat to my left, Marrok’s threat to my right. Scylla and Charybdis to either side, my sister’s life and mine in the balance.

And then I recalled the words of one of the wisest of the fae:
“Ironside slakes himself upon your sister. His revenge is watching her innocence bleed away… When you find her, she may not be the same sister who was spirited away.”

What, really, would Nimue do to Nessie that wasn’t already being done?

It dawned too on me what more Merlin had done. Not only had he helped ensure I had a knight the equal of Lancelot in my company, he had given me a shape-shifter for my quest as well. I rode now in power, craft and a glimmer of fae magic.

Nimue’s magic was not so powerful—certainly not as powerful as the three Ladies of the Lake who held all of Avalon in their grasps. No, what made Nimue a threat was her treachery and lies—how she manipulated situations to her advantage and trusted to fear to keep all in line. I knew of only one other who could match her in deception like that—Arthur’s fae half-sister, Morgan.

Yet for all her cunning, we three had the means to stand against her. But only if we worked together under the bonds of truth and trust. I had a choice: Let fear of her rule my actions or be ruled by the weapon Merlin had put into my grasp—hope.

“Marrok, I—”

I never finished the thought.

Beau’s stallion startled a pheasant from its roadside roost and the panicked bird flew into my horse’s face. Frightened, it balked. I almost lost my seat as the horse lunged forward.

Tied to my saddle, the pack horse had little choice but to follow. It neighed in surprise and my saddle slid back in the moment before the pack horse found its feet and fled with us, forcing Beau’s stallion from the road as we rushed past and ran headlong down the open road.

Clutching to my horse’s mane with one hand, I sawed at the reins with the other. To no effect. The terrified beast had only one thought in its head—run.

The roadtrack was overgrown but smooth. If we kept to it, the horse would wear itself out in a league or two. I stopped fighting the headlong flight and simply clung to its back, praying I wouldn’t fall.

Then the fool of a horse panicked again. A shadow? The sun? I saw nothing, but the horse veered into the woods, running blindly, wildly, kicking up deadfall and debris into the pack animal that followed.

We jumped a low log, an easy obstacle even for my terror-blind mount, but the pack horse, unable to see it in time, stumbled over it.

Under me, the saddle wrenched and my horse, brought up short, sat on its haunches. I breathed in relief, thinking our flight done, but then it plunged forward yet again.

One of the pack reins snapped as the horse behind struggled to find its feet before settling in again. Its packs, though, had loosened, and when I looked behind, the bundles had begun sliding to the ground and breaking open, strewing food and garb across the forest floor.

Further behind, Beau and Marrok came, their heavy stallions well-equipped for the combat field but ill-suited for the chase. Dodging trees and deadwood we out-distanced them again.

Then the ground slipped away, cliffing into a narrow stream. Without hesitation, my horse plunged down the steep bank but the pack horse balked. The second rein snapped at its tie freeing the beasts from one another. I hoped the fast-flowing water might stall my horse, but it jumped in and, swimming strongly, headed straight for the rocky ledge on the stream’s far side.

The water-slicked rocks slowed it at last as it scrabbled for purchase. It didn’t occur to me the horse might not make it until it slid back into the water. Futilely I hauled again at its reins.

At the top of the far bank Beau and Marrok at last appeared. They kicked their stallions down the steep slide even as my horse made another attempt at the rock ledge.

We were halfway up when both front hooves slipped. With a sharp scream, the horse fell backward, heels over rump, toward the water.

With threat of the horse landing on its back and trapping me, I half-jumped, half-fell sideways into the stream, my hip striking a jutted rock when I landed. The water, deep and swift, wasn’t my greatest peril. The thrashing horse next to me was. Hampered by skirts and the water’s rush, I quickly stopped fighting the water and used it to carry me away from the flailing hooves.

But I’d underestimated the current’s strength and the weight of my gown. Even as I tried to kick my way to the bank against skirts too heavy to move, that encased my legs like stone, the water closed over my head and swept me away.