Claudia Dain (44 page)

"
So
inconsiderate of us, Walter. I will try not to keep you long," Juliane snapped.

"Lady," Ulrich said, taking her hands to lock them gently within his own, "look not at him but at me. I am your adversary in this chamber of stone and light. Do you not see that I cannot do this thing? The echo of the other is heard too loud within my heart."

"That echo lies," she said, looking up into his eyes. "I am none of her, and there will be no wounding in this."

"Juliane, can you not see that from the start I wagered against you because I saw none of her in you. I saw strength and valor and an arrogance that matched my own. I played hard. I did not protect you as a man must protect a maid, she being the weaker vessel, to quote Saint Paul yet again this night. And look what my carelessness has wrought. Again. Another woman taking blows I could have prevented. I will do no more. I will not add this blow upon the others. I would only protect you, and so, I will not take you."

"I am not she," Juliane said softly, pulling him into her embrace, holding him against her heart. "She did not fight for you. I will. I may be bleeding, but
I am not broken
. Fall against me and find the truth of it. The only breaking in me is if you ride away from me, throwing stones against my heart until it can no longer beat. But until my heart is dead," she whispered hoarsely, tears gathering at the edges of her eyes, "I will love you and I will fight for you."

He grabbed her to him and held her hard against his body, his face buried in her hair, his hands lost in the folds of her bliaut. He murmured something, his voice a plea.

"Now," she said into the sweet heat of his scent, "will you lie on the bed or must I knock you down?"

"Lady," he said, leaning away from her, his grin wobbly with emotion, "you speak fierce, yet let us play this out slowly. I will withdraw at a word from you."

"I do not know the word for withdrawal. I am ever forward," she said, leaning up to kiss him on the chin. His scent was like wine to her, heady and spicy sweet.

"Aye, you
are
ever forward," he said, kissing her tenderly on the mouth. Then he stepped free of her and let his cloak fall to the bed.

He lifted off his tunic next, and she could do nothing but watch, and try to control the hard hammering of her blood. He stood in his mail, glimmering gray and silver against the yellow light. Edward came forward silently from out of the shadows and lifted his mail from him, a heavy piece of work. The mail in his hands, Edward drifted back into shadow, the chink of metal marking his passage.

Ulrich stood in the light of flame wearing gambeson and leggings, the leather marled by sweat and the strong scent of him. His dark hair hung down over his forehead and about his shoulders, curled with moisture, wet with heat. Blue eyes, piercing, molten, studied her. He did not take his eyes from her as piece by piece he stripped himself bare.

She could not look away. Not even when he stood naked before her eyes, his shaft lifted high and hard. Unfallen.

From the watchers she heard Walter's grunt of satisfaction and Avice's gasp.

"Look at me, Juliane," Ulrich said. "Think only of me."

To look at him, at the hard, naked force of him, at the long expanse of muscle, at the jagged scar that marked his left shoulder and the puckered scar that ripped through the muscle of his right thigh, would be no hardship. Yet was not Avice looking also?

A quick shift of her eyes confirmed it. Avice, her eyes wide and hungry, was looking hard.

"Put out the candles," Edward said. "Leave only the smallest light that we may see the marriage done. This chamber is like as to the noonday sun."

"Aye, put them out. I would not have you see my lady," Ulrich said, "nor what she is prepared to endure."

Edward squashed the wicks with the palm of his hand, leaving only a single candle, which flickered fitfully, casting twisting shadows and contorted light. Ulrich stood with the candle at his back. He stood in silhouette, a dark force of animal hunger that reached out to her like the lick of a wolf before the bite.

"You look fierce of a sudden," she said. "Are you trying to frighten me from this fight, my lord? Nothing in you can ever cause me fear. I will not run. Not from you."

"Then I will have my taste of you," he said, his voice heavy and dark.

He leapt upon her, his fists tangled in her hair, and lowered his mouth to hers.

She met him open-mouthed, ready for his heat and his rage and his passion, welcoming him into her, devouring him with her mouth. Losing herself in desire. His tongue raged within her, licking, snarling, tasting.

She could not get enough of the scent of him, of his heat and power and hunger.

She wanted this, wanted him, wanted the feel of his hard body against hers, the scent of his skin mingling with her own, the hot wet of his mouth on her. Marking her. Claiming her.

If he thought to make her fear, he had badly misjudged.

He pushed her to the soft edge of the bed, the eyes of their witnesses behind her, hidden in shadow, though she could feel them and hear their quickened breathing. She fell upon the bed, the mattress sinking down under her weight, her legs hanging over the side. He fell atop her, his weight a welcome heaviness, his heat branding her. She slid her arms around his neck and lifted her throat for his touch. He did not disappoint. His mouth nipped down from her lips to her jaw to her throat, and there he bit her, a sharp nip of ownership and dominance that caused a shiver to roll within her belly.

His hand slid up her thigh, dragging the heavy shield of her bliaut and pelisse with it, touching her skin, his hand splayed out to hold her thigh in his open hand, his mouth moving down her throat and over her shoulder, ripping the seams of her clothing with teeth and hand, exposing her right breast to the light. To him. To his mouth. To his hand. To his teeth.

"Are you not afraid?" he breathed against her nipple.

"Only that you may stop," she sighed, closing her eyes to the chamber and her thoughts to those who watched.

"Can you bear this? This public consumption? For I would eat you raw, lady, leaving not even bone. I want to be in you, surrounded by you, a wild devouring that will leave nothing behind but sweat and pants of pleasure. Can you bear it? Tell me now, Juliane. I am losing the will to stop with every beat of your heart."

"Let my heart then speak for me, Ulrich," she said, gasping beneath his hands. "Lose your will and lose your way in me, for I can stand up to anything you may attempt. Have I not always proclaimed it?"

"Then, by your word and upon your strength, this marriage will go forth," he said. "I will see it done so that none may say that Ulrich fell to Juliane."

His fingers stroked between her thighs, those wet folds that throbbed with hot need. She wanted him. She could think only of the need he must quench, the hunger he must fill with his body and his touch and his sweat.

He was covered in a mist of sweat, his back arched above hers, his chest glistening. The scent of sex permeated the very air. She soared upon it, drunk on the smell, ravenous for more.

He plunged his fingers into her and she jerked with pleasure. One finger. Two. Three. She could feel him stretch her, but there was no need. She was wet for him, wide and hungry and pulsing with empty want and desperate need as she had never been for Nicholas.

Nay, an errant thought. There was no space for Nicholas here. Not now. Her thoughts were all for Ulrich.

His manhood, hot and hard, pressed against her, seeking entrance as his mouth opened wide upon her own, his tongue delving deep, learning the taste and shape of her, sucking out her very breath so that their scents were merged, so that she could not breathe.

Nicholas.

Nay, Ulrich.

Cold panic ran through her blood, rushing her heart to frantic beats of terror. She could not do this. Not now. Not yet.

As the tip of him, hot and moist, touched the opening of her womb, all passion died before the living memory of Nicholas and his cold, hard push into her.

She bucked beneath him, Nicholas or Ulrich, it did not matter, she had to throw him off. She had to get free of this. She pulled his hair and kicked out with her feet, breaking free.

Winning free.

"You are free, Juliane," he said, rolling off her, his hand gentle on her trembling thigh. "I release you," he said quietly, his blue eyes moist as he looked down at her.

Released? She did not want to be released from Ulrich.

She wanted Ulrich more than life, yet... yet she could not lie beneath him and let him plunge into her.

"I have fallen," Ulrich said to the witnesses. She heard a sniff of tears from Avice. "The marriage is broken. Her legend stands."

"Nay!" Juliane cried, her tears breaking free of her will and tumbling down her cheeks. "I want no legend which is not bound to Ulrich's life. This is not over."

"What is not over, my love?" he said, standing naked and unashamed, his cock falling softly to lie upon his thigh. "I am broken upon your legend, as must all men be. 'Tis foretold, is it not?"

"He cannot win," Avice said softly from her corner. "You defeat them all. 'Tis a fact well known."

"My father believed in you," Walter said. "He misjudged. As did I."

"Nay," Juliane said, lifting herself from the bed and turning to face the witnesses. "I know my legend best of all, and I can break it."

"None can break you, Juliane," Avice said. "Is it not now proved?"

Juliane would not lose him. Not now. Not because of a lie she had been too foolish to refuse. She had thought that being untouchable, unconquerable, would be only to her gain, that she would soar upon the air of freedom with the wings of legend to lift her.

All false.

She had been untouched in solitary seclusion, living out her legend upon a lonely plain of empty song. As to freedom, she had less than any woman, for all her choices were made before they had been birthed. She was le Gel, destined to drive all men from her, destined to live out her life alone, living only in legend upon a stranger's lips. Living a lie.

But no more.

She loved, and she would not have love die to feed the fires of legend. She loved, and she would fight to keep Ulrich to the end of her days.

"It is not proved," she said, thinking fast and hard. "It is only proved that none shall
take
Juliane le Gel, but she may be
given
, and so I do. I give myself to Ulrich, taking from him what I would take from no other man."

"What is this?" Walter said. "Giving, yet not taking? These are words, when actions are all that are needed now. He must pierce you. That is all. He has not. There is nothing more. The marriage is broken."

"Watch yet and see if I lie," she said. "I will take this man who is bound to me by oaths and vows and I will make him mine. Can I not see it done, my lord?" she said, turning to face Ulrich.

He stood in silence and considered her. He was beautiful beyond the words to tell of it. Tall and broad of shoulder, long of limb, his throat a cord of muscle, and his eyes the blue of fire. And he was hers, if she could only reach out to take him. If he would only help her see it done.

"Lady," he said, his eyes smiling, "I know you can. See it done. Prove it upon my body."

"My lord," she said, smiling, a tear breaking free to fall in a silver arc to the floor, "I shall."

The chamber was still of all but the twirl of smoke from the flame. Ulrich came forward, took her in his arms, and held her fast. She slid her hands down his body, soaking up his heat and the hard feel of muscle beneath her hands. Her clothing hung about her loosely, the right shoulder ripped from her in their earlier frenzy. She let it hang, a single breast exposed, but she would bare no other part of herself to this crowd. She would have Ulrich in
her
fashion and her time. She would take him on her terms, and Walter would accept them.

"Why?" he whispered, shielding her from their eyes with the width of his back. "Why fight so hard for this? I would release you, freeing you, at a word."

"Because I want you," she said, holding him by the back of the neck, nuzzling her face into his throat. "Why else?"

"That is all?" he murmured, laying a hand upon her breast in gentle supplication. "You have wanted me from the start."

She chuckled. Ulrich ever and always made her laugh. There was none of Nicholas in this. She slipped her hands down along the lean edge of his hips, muscled and covered in a sparse coating of hair, and then up again to cup his buttocks in her hands. He was softly furred, like a wolf.

"As you wanted me," she said, stroking his buttocks and the small of his back.

"And always will," he said, letting her touch him. Letting her find her way with him. Letting her find her power again.

"I shall prove that upon your body, my lord. A new legend shall be born this night," she said, pulling his hips against her own with gentle urging, finding safety in control. He was high and hard again, though his back was to their witnesses. "Will you show them that you are not fallen?"

"Lady, I will do whatever serves you best," he said. "Ask and it shall be done."