Kathleen Kirkwood & Anita Gordon - Heart series (43 page)

When the maid servant took the sheets away, she seemed well convinced their marriage had been consummated.

Once more Lyting and Ailinn joined the procession to dine in yet another of the many splendid halls and enjoy more lavish wedding entertainments arranged by Constantine. Lyting and Ailinn sat patiently through the ceremonies throughout the day.

Night came all too quickly, and again they were faced with the temptations of the night. The day
’s tension, wrought by Ailinn’s nearness and too many beakers of wine, depleted Lyting. Still, he waited until Ailinn fell asleep before he stretched out beside her on the bed.

As the first glow of dawn
touched the skies, Ailinn awakened to Lyting’s warmth and found him sleeping beside her. He lay atop the sheet, bare to the waist, his lower half swathed in a separate linen.

Ailinn watched him in repose, aware of the empty ache that pulsed through her body. Shifting onto her side, she raised herself carefully to her elbow and gazed on him.

Love spilled through her. As the night before, Ailinn eased forward and gently touched her lips to the scar on his cheek. Then gathering her courage, she kissed him fully upon the mouth.

Lyting
’s eyes opened instantly. Ailinn froze, her heart jolting against her ribs.

Lyting
blinked, wondering if this to be yet another dream. Ailinn’s hair tumbled about her face and shoulders in entrancing disarray, and he felt the heat of her body pressed against his side. She leaned over him partially, her fingers holding the sheet just beneath her heart. His gaze traced over the smooth column of her neck, her bare shoulders, and the enticing mounds of her breasts to where they disappeared beneath the cloth.

Heat
suffused his loins. The warmth of her breath and the tendril of her hair brushing his cheek told him this was no dream. Ailinn continued to gaze on him, her lips poised above his, looking for all the world as if she was about kiss him again. God help him, he felt himself swelling beneath his covering.

“
Ailinn,” he rasped. “I have warned you. I am no eunuch.”

She remained silent, her eyes fixed on him, huge and dark. Her gaze drew to his lips, her own lips parting as if half in yearning, half in invitation. At the same time she shifted against him, unaware that her hand had dropped slightly, taking with it the sheet.

Lyting sucked his breath as he looked on the ample curve of her breasts, the cloth scarce covering their tips. A river of fire surged through his veins. Groaning aloud, he rolled Ailinn beneath him.

“
God above, I am no eunuch,” he said raggedly. “Nor am I a saint.”

Lyting
’s mouth crushed down on hers, his long pent desire overtaking him. He kissed her hard and deep. Reaching for the sheet, he yanked it free of her hand and bared her breasts.

Ailinn gasped as flesh
met flesh, and he pressed her into the mattress. He invaded her mouth at once, hungrily ravaging its depths and coupling her tongue with his in an erotic dance. His hand moved to capture her breast, his thumb caressing her nipple till it pebbled, hard and erect. Waves of passion crested through Ailinn, and she clutched at him, glorying in his possession of her.

His mouth left hers to trail a path of hot kisses over her throat and collarbone. Ailinn arched against him as she felt the warmth of his mouth close upon her breast. He swirled his tongue over her nipple, tormenting her
to a fine madness. She sank her hands into his hair and held his head there as a burst of sensations radiated from her breast downward to between her thighs, setting her afire.

Lyting abandoned her one breast to
savor the other, bathing her nipple with his tongue before taking it in his mouth and suckling it. Ailinn moaned at the delicious sensation and thought she would melt beneath him. Sliding her hands over the hard muscles of his back, she pulled at the cloth that enveloped him, impatient to be rid of its barrier.

Lyting rolled slightly, dragging the cloth free. He then s
wept away the sheet that yet covered Ailinn’s hips and legs. His eyes grazed her full, naked length. Heat, white hot, coursed through him. Moving over her once more, he captured her mouth and plundered it thoroughly.

Aili
nn met his urgency with her own and pressed against him, instantly aware of his manhood, hard against her abdomen. Abruptly his lips left hers, and his mouth, tongue, and hands were everywhere and all at once. He lavished a blanket of kisses over her breasts and stomach, then covered her inner thighs with more and continued downward to her knees, calves, and ankles and back up again. Just when she thought he would devour her whole, he returned to possess her mouth.

Her lips parted, then widened further in shock as his hand slipped between her thighs and
he caressed her intimately. Ailinn bolted against him as he found the sensitive core of her womanhood and began stroking her there. The sensation spread wildfire through her, growing almost unbearable in its intensity. Still he caressed her, unrelenting, but she’d no desire for him to stop.

Lyting
gave his attention to Ailinn’s breasts, relishing their taut, waiting nipples. He found her wondrously responsive, already hot and moist and ready to receive him.

He clung tenuously to his control. It had been so very
long since he had known a woman, and though he wished for this moment to be perfect for Ailinn, he knew he could not master himself much longer.

Lyting urged Ailinn
’s legs apart and settled between her thighs. He hated to bring her pain, but there was no help for it at her first joining.

Positioning himself, he
entered her and began to push slowly in. He quickly met the dread obstruction and decided on a swift thrust to be done with the pain. Claiming her mouth in a deep, distracting kiss, he drove forward. Ailinn cried out as he breached her maidenhead and sheathed himself fully inside her.

Lyting quieted her with kisses and gentled her with words. She was incredibly hot and tight. His every instinct cl
amored that he begin thrusting, but he remained still, striving to maintain his control, hoping to last just a little longer so he might bring Ailinn to fulfillment.

He began kissing and caressing her anew. She responded as passion eclipsed pain and
she moaned beneath his touch. Perceiving her to be ready, he began thrusting slowly against her, guiding her hips with his hands. Abruptly he stilled, his control slipping.

Ailinn looked to Lyting, her senses i
n upheaval. Why did he cease? Did he think he hurt her? But she ached with such urgent need she began moving against him, maintaining the exquisite contact he’d begun. Tension mounted sharply in Ailinn as her pleasure heightened.

Lyting
gasped as Ailinn rocked her hips against him, stealing the last of his restraint and hurtling him beyond the brink of control.

“
Ailinn, forgive . . . can’t wait,” he grit out, then released a primal groan as he exploded in an shattering release. He surged against her, thrusting long and deep, triggering her own response and taking her with him to spiral ever upward.

Ailinn cried out, meeting his thrusts with her own, their bodies mating in an ancient rhythm. Ailinn thought she might die of the intensity of the fe
eling that suddenly erupted in a starburst of fire, so acute in its pleasure ‘twas near indistinguishable from pain.

Driving against her, Lyting emptied himself into Ailinn, spending himself fully, then collapsed breathless atop her.

As Lyting’s sanity returned, he plummeted from the soaring joy of ecstasy to a chasm of repentance.

“
Elskan mín
. Ailinn,” he panted above her. “My God. What have I done?”

Seeing the look of astonish
ment on Ailinn’s face, he rebuked himself thoroughly and dragged himself from the bed. He covered her with the sheets, then searched for his clothes, devastated that he had violated her.

Breathless, Ailinn watched Lyting, her heart pounding in her breast, her body trembling with exhilaration. She
gazed on his powerful, sleek body, his manhood still erect. She had no idea that lovemaking could be so cataclysmic.

Dressed, Lyting came to stand before her.
“I am sorry,
elskan mín
. I protected you from everyone save myself.”

She started to
deny his guilt, for ‘twas she who had initiated the passion, but again he spoke.

“
Upon my vow, I shall return you to your people as I have promised. No one will hold the blame to you for being ravished by a Norseman.”

With that, Lyting turned on his heel and quit the chamber.

Ailinn stared at the door, her heart compressing that he should talk of parting. She rose from the bed, her body still alive and tingling with the memory of Lyting’s touch and all they’d just shared. Slipping into her robe, she felt heartsick of a sudden for the pain and guilt she caused him. Yet, she treasured his total possession of her and regretted it not at all.

Her emotions in turmoil, Ailinn wandered out onto the balcony and stood looking over the Boucelon Harbor
. Her heart burned with love for Lyting. Yet, ‘twas a love she would ever be denied.

Behind, Ailinn heard servants enter the chamber. She turned and glimpsed the chamber maid stripping the sheets from the bed.

The woman stopped, seeing the virginal blood upon the cloth. She shook her head in dismay as she plodded from the room, obviously baffled that a maid could be twice a virgin.

Lyting knelt before the column of the
stylite
, seeking the holy man’s direction and thoroughly revolted with himself for having violated Ailinn. Yet, a part of him remained unrepentant. For at least once in his lifetime, he had known intimacy and ecstasy with Ailinn. The remembrance made him hot with desire to return to her at once and bury himself in her again.

He bowed his head.

“I have lost my direction, Father,” he prayed aloud in Greek. “I thought I knew well the way the Lord set before me, and yet I find myself lost in the wood.”

The holy man
peered down from his perch atop the column and contemplated Lyting, his sharp eyes piercing him, as though seeing straight to his heart.

“
Why do you torture yourself, my son? You will know peace in your soul only when you take up the true path God has chosen for you. Only then can you serve Him with your whole heart. Look for that path. Look where He leads you.”

“
But I have looked and there are paths aplenty to lead me amiss. I am hard-pressed to choose the right one.”

“
Look again, my son. The way is not so obscure as you believe.”

“
But how will I know which is the right way?” Lyting’s voice held his bewilderment.

“
Look for our Lord. Already He stands there in the midst, showing you the way,” the holy man said cryptically and fell silent.

“
In the
midst
?” Lyting repeated, puzzled, tumbling the word in his mind.

He closed his eyes and bent his head once more. Pondering
the word, he balled one hand into the other, then raised them and pressed his lips against the back of his fingers. He felt the cool metal of his wedding ring.

Drawing
back, Lyting gazed on the ring’s coin-shaped bezel. It displayed a miniature of the bridal couple, so detailed it could be considered a likeness of himself and Ailinn. Standing in their midst, Christ joined their hands.

Lyting thought to feel the earth move beneath him. He rose unsteadily to his feet, his eyes locked upon his ring.

“God means me to be married? But . . . .”

His thoughts vaulted back in time to when he lay at the brink of death, decimated by Hastein
’s treachery. Day by day he had crawled a little further back to life, until he was whole again. ‘Twas later, while helping rebuild Saint Wandrille’s abbey, that he had been inspired by sermons of the sagacious Wilibrod of Corbie and believed he had been spared for a greater purpose — serving God within His cloistered walls.

But
he
had chosen that path, he realized now. He had assumed ‘twas God’s will he take the cowl of the Benedictines. Though he believed it to be a blessed calling, he also believed ‘twas the Divine hand that had diverted him onto a much different path, sending him on the journey to Byzantium to rescue Ailinn and aid the Imperials.

A
small smile lifted one corner of Lyting’s lips. ‘Twould appear, when he was too thickheaded to yield to God’s intentions, the Almighty had directed circumstances that saw him twice wed to Ailinn. He thought of the Pantocrator looking down on their marriage, His hand raised in blessing. Not long ago, this same holy man bade him to remove the block from his eyes. How could he have been so blind? Lyting wondered.

The call to priesthood was sacred, certainly. But so also was the call to marriage. And the vows that bound them united them in
“one mind” and wed them into “one flesh” — “unto the ages.”

Lyting felt as though the last shards fell from his eyes and he could see clearly.
‘Twas not for Corbie he had been saved, but for Ailinn — to save her, to free her, and to take her to wife.

Ailinn was indeed his wife in every meaning of the
word — their vows sealed, their union consummated. A new concern welled in his chest. Though she responded to him in passion, she may never be able to accept marriage to him, a Norseman. There was also his promise of annulment and of returning her to her people. They need talk. At once.

Overcome with a fierce joy of being free to claim Ailinn as his wife, and a naked fear of her rejection, he raced back toward the Sacred Palace, his energy unbounded.

»«

As Lyting approached the
Mesê, he caught sight of a figure moving through the crowd. Recognition shot through him and stopped him midpace. ‘Twas the silver-haired man from the cemetery.

Lyting
loathed to delay returning to Ailinn’s side, but he could not let the man slip away.

Lyting followed at a discree
t distance, turning along various streets and heeling after him up one of the city’s steeper hills to a mansion overlooking the Golden Horn.

The man slowed as they approached the dwelling. People stood clustered in the street, gaping toward the edifice, listening to the commotion that thundered within. Voices
clamored and steel rang out. Soldiers suddenly spilled out the doors dragging their iron-bound prisoners.

The silver-haired man reeled at the sight and started to flee. Lyting bolted for
ward. Seizing him by the shoulder, he spun the man around and gripped him by the neck of his tunic.

“
In a rush?” Lyting smiled grimly, lifting the man off his toes. The man’s eyes widened with shock, and he struggled to tear free.

Meanwhile, more troops emerged from the mansion. Lyting saw now they were a mixture of Imperial troops and Varangian Guards. Among them came the Domesticus, Leo Phocas, dragging the Strategos, Andronicus Styliane. Thord appeared behind the two, further surprising Lyting.

Seeing Lyting, Thord hastened forward.

“‘
Twas no time to find you, my friend.” He panted for breath. “We found the link you sought since your coming — the identity, or rather the significance, of the name `Stephanites Cerularius.”Tis that of the distant maternal grandsire of none other than the Strategos, Andronicus Styliane. We also loosed the tongues of several followers, seized during the wedding attack. One of the wharf rats we caught decided to talk and confirmed what we suspected. The Strategos is our ‘scorpion.’ He almost slipped away again.”

“
What of Leonites?” Lyting asked, still gripping the silver-haired man but having returned his feet to the ground.

“
Leonites was an underling. When he discovered Andronicus had deceived him — that there was no support or help to flee after the assassination, as promised — he went for Andronicus. Andronicus killed him so he couldn’t talk.”

“
Andronicus must have also dropped the pouch containing the rings while beneath the canopy,” Lyting observed.

“
Satt
. True. But there are two other matters you need know.” Thord’s face darkened. “‘Tis known Andronicus recently took a new man into his employ. Hakon. We are searching for him and suspect he was charged to murder those apprehended during the attack. We do not know how.”

“
And the second?”

“
The woman Xenia. She has long been known to be Andronicus’s lover. We’ve been looking for a woman connected to the ‘scorpion.’ Though ‘tis only a suspicion that she might have been involved in the deaths of the Varangians, she does operate a perfumery in the women’s quarters. ‘Tis likely she is the ‘spider’ we seek. Xenia was observed with Hakon this morning but she has also disappeared.”

“
Ailinn.” Her name tumbled from Lyting’s lips, his gut clenching.

He
thrust the silver-haired man into Thord’s hands. “Here is another of the ‘scorpion’s’ scum.”

With that, Lyting
bolted back down the hill.

»«

Ailinn paced the chamber restlessly, having sent Ariana to locate Lyting. The slave Comita had been found a short time ago, dead, the stolen vial of perfume lying empty on the floor beside her. Its oil, Ariana revealed when she came with the news, contained a deadly poison.

Ailinn realized Xenia
had meant the poison for her. The thought chilled her to the bone. Had Helena also died beneath Xenia’s hands? Ailinn did not grasp all the implications but suspected Xenia was part to the conspiracy Lyting sought to uncover.

Ailinn turned, wringing her hands, and crossed the room to where the doors stood open to the balcony. She needed fresh
air to clear her mind. As she approached the portal, a figure suddenly loomed, stepping from concealment at the door’s edge and blocking her path.

Ailinn
gasped and drew back. ‘Twas a Varangian, dressed in the distinctive palace uniform — a scarlet tunic with a sword suspended on a strap that hung from his shoulder and lay across his chest. In his hand he gripped a long-shafted ax. Loosing his helmet with its obscuring noseguard, he dragged it from his head.

“
Hakon!” she hissed.

Gliding silently into vie
w behind him was a veiled woman. Xenia.

Ailinn backed slowly into the room, fear stalking her. Hakon matched her, step for step, uttering something in his Nordic tongue. She understood naught of it but realized his purpose in coming was to steal her away. Every nerve in her being
cried out, the nightmare of her capture in Clonmel replaying itself. He would not have her again!

Ailinn whirled, a
scream tearing from her throat as she ran for the door. But Hakon covered the distance between them in several easy strides. Dropping his helmet and ax, he seized her about the waist and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“
Did you think I would not return?” Hakon hauled the Irish beauty against his chest. “You are mine. And no man or child emperor will say me otherwise. Certainly, no monk,” he hurled derisively, caring not at all that she didn’t understand him. “Has he mated you, my sweet?” His hand slid over her breast, then downward over her abdomen. “Has he claimed your maidenhead? No matter. He’ll not have an opportunity to pleasure himself on you again.”

“
Nor will you!” Lyting’s voice boomed across the room from where he stood, just inside the door. He reached for his sword, and this time it waited in its scabbard. The hilt filled Lyting’s hand, and he drew the blade free. “Let us see this to an end, Hakon, once and for all.”

Hakon
’s grip slackened on Ailinn. He then shoved her toward Xenia.

“
To the end,” Hakon growled and reached to his back. Seizing on the short-hafted ax tucked in his belt, he brought it forth and hurled it at Lyting.

Lyting pitched aside as the ax burred past his head and gashed the marble wall before clattering to the floor.

Hakon snatched up the longer-shafted ax and bolted forward, slicing low for Lyting’s legs. Lyting leapt back. With both hands he brought his broadsword down with solid force and smote the ax’s shaft in two.

Hakon threw down the severed wood and drew on his sword. Lyting met him, stroke for stroke. Steel sang out
on steel, blade biting blade. On they strove, neither yielding. The swords clanged and flashed, some strokes sweeping high and wide, others slicing downward, fracturing tables and shredding precious silk hangings.

Hakon swiped for Lyting
’s head, but Lyting ducked and the sword struck a marble column instead. Before he could recover, Lyting slogged him in the ribs with both fists, still gripping his sword. Hakon stumbled a pace but regained himself and came up, slashing for Lyting’s stomach. Lyting canted and blocked the stroke. Their blades locked, and for a moment they strained, muscle against muscle. Hakon kicked high, of a sudden, catching Lyting in both hip and side and sending him backward to the floor.

Lyting scrambled to his feet, but as he did, Hakon raised his sword and struck downward, opening himself a fraction too long. Lyting thrust forward with his sword, stabbing into Hakon
’s midsection. Hakon doubled over the blade and crumpled to the floor.

Lyting heaved for breath. Retrieving his sword, he pressed his forehead against the flat side of the blade, near the hilt, and mentally uttered his thanks heavenward.
‘Twas done. Hakon lay motionless before him.

Slowly Lyting turned to Ailinn. She started toward him, reaching out her arms. But then she halted, and all color left her face.

Ailinn’s eyes rounded, and she screamed as she saw Hakon come to life, slipping a knife from his boot and rising behind Lyting.

At Ailin
n’s outcry, Lyting began to pivot, bringing up his sword. He caught a blur of movement in the edge of his vision, and next felt fire piercing his shoulder blade as steel lodged in his flesh. Ailinn’s screams resounded in his ears.

Before losing his hold on his sword, Lyting covered his right hand with his left and gripped tight. Reversing the blade, he arced it down and around, sweeping beneath his arm and
driving back. The sword caught Hakon straight on, running him through to the spine.

Hakon
roared in pain, then dropped to his knees, eyes bulging, and pitched forward. Sprawling facedown on the floor, he expelled a long breath and succumbed.