Medieval Master Warlords (14 page)

“I do not want you to go, my pet,” she whispered.

He heard her.
My pet.
  His kisses against her breasts slowed and he gradually looked up, his great dual-colored eyes riveted to her face. 

“I must go,” he replied quietly.

Her eyes filled with tears and she struggled for her composure. “But you go to do to another castle what you have done to Pelinom,” a finger came up, delicately tracing his lower lip. “You go to murder people.  Women, children.  How can I love a man who kills the weak and helpless?  How can you behave so tenderly and sweetly with me, yet walk out this door and kill a man who was only defending what belongs to him? I do not understand how you can do this.”

She blinked and her tears splattered onto his cheek.  For the first time in his life, Jax suddenly felt a twinge of guilt at what he did.  The tears on her face caused him to feel such confusion as he had never known. When she suddenly leaned forward and began tenderly kissing his face, he knew he was a dead man.  He couldn’t have pulled away from her if he tried.

“Kelli,” he muttered, his eyes closing as her sweet kisses rained over his chin. “I told you that I have always been an ambitious man.  I will not give up that ambition, even for you.”

Her kisses grew more forceful. “I am not asking you to. But I am asking you to at least behave civilly.  I know you are capable of this. I have seen it in you.”

“What does that mean?”

She abruptly stopped and looked him in the eye. “It means that you will not murder any women or children,” her hands were on his face, touching him with gentleness he had never before experienced.  “Men in battle are different, I suppose.  They are trained for war and death is a part of that. But the women and children… they are innocent, Jax. You must promise me that you will not kill any of them.”

He gazed back at her, feeling her hands on him, so torn that he could hardly comprehend the turmoil in his mind. 

“You do not understand,” he muttered.

“I understand that you have no reason to kill women or children.”  When he tried to pull away from her, she held him fast and made him look her in the eye.   “Tell me what your logic is in doing this horrible deed and I will try to understand. I am willing to listen.”

He was stiffening. “I do not have to explain myself to you.”

“If you want me to marry you, then you most certainly do. I will not marry a murderer, Jax. I told you that once. I meant it.”

His arms were around her still; he let her go.  But Kellington kept a firm grip around his neck and held fast, even as he dropped his arms completely.  He jaw was ticking furiously and he was trying to look away from her, but she would have none of it.

“Tell me why you do such a horrible thing.”

“Because they are threats,” he snapped softly, trying not to look at her but being sucked in by those magnificent eyes. “Every living creature is a threat.  To eliminate the threat is to ensure victory.”

She could see that he was unsettled.  She tightened her arms, laying her forehead against his cheek.  “What can women possibly do against you?” she asked softly. “And children; what threat can they possibly be? For God’s sake, throw them in the vault or take them somewhere far away and release them, but do not kill them. It is not necessary.  Wherever you are going and for whatever you are going to do, please keep that in mind.  Please show mercy, my pet. Someday you may require it yourself.”

She was rubbing her forehead against his scratchy cheek, finally coming up to kiss him again.  Jax closed his eyes against her tender onslaught, his arms finally making their way back around her.  The more she kissed him, the more entrenched he became until it was he who was taking the offensive, smothering her with his hot mouth, kissing her until she could not breathe.

He had backed them into a corner. Kellington’s back was against the wall as Jax feasted on the swell of her breasts. He remembered those breasts from when they had first met, when he had demanded she remove all of her clothing for him in the dank of Pelinom’s vault.  He remembered lusting after her then, but it was nothing compared to now.  There was so much more involved in what he felt for her that simple hunger. She was very quickly embedding herself in his heart as well as his mind, and he had no way of knowing how to slow the progression. 

He pulled her gown off of one shoulder, lapping at the soft skin on her upper arm. Pulling it further, he managed to completely expose one breast.   Gently, he suckled a tender nipple, listening to Kellington’s gasps of surprise and pleasure.  He suckled until he was completely engorged. Cupping her breast with an enormous hand and covering it completely, his lips slanted over her mouth once again and his tongue invaded her honeyed recesses.  

“I would have you now,” he spoke into her mouth.

Kellington realized what he meant and her eyes widened. “But… we’re not…”

“Married?” he punctuated the word by squeezing her breast gently. “We will be. With God as my witness, we will be before this month is over no matter what you father says.  You belong to me, Kelli. I intend to have you. All of you.”

He went back to her breast, nursing hungrily. Kellington was having difficulty thinking as his tongue did wicked things to her.

“Jax,” she tried to pull his head up but he would not budge. “Jax, my pet, please listen to me.”

His head finally came up, the dual-colored eyes glazed with passion. “What is it?”

He kissed her firmly before she could reply and she dislodged the kiss, bobbing her head to avoid his seeking mouth so that she could speak.

“If you want to marry soon, then you must seek my father’s permission right away,” she said. “You must convince him that your intentions are honorable and that you are not simply claiming a spoil of war.”

He sighed against her cheek, disappointed that she was making him focus on something other than her sweet body.  His hand was still over her breast and he began to rub it softly.

“I do not believe your father would be receptive to it today.”

“Then when?”

“When I return.”

“When will that be?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Knowing that you will be here waiting for me, it will seem like an eternity.”

She gazed into his unusual eyes, thinking for the first time how beautiful they were.  She gently touched his cheek. “For me as well.  Jax, please promise me that you will conduct yourself with fairness and mercy.  Do what you must, fulfill your ambitions, but at least do it with decency. Will you at least promise me that?”

A faint smile came to his lips. “Aye,” he finally muttered. “If it means so much to you, then I will do my best to comply.”

“Do you even understand what I mean? Such things do not come naturally to you.”

“I understand.  My men will think I’ve gone mad, but I understand.”

She smiled brightly, both hands on his head affectionately. “I will not stop you from being who you are, but let us add another chapter to Jax de Velt’s legacy.  Let us introduce mercy to the man and his legend and see where that takes us.”

He met her smile, kissing her with such ardor that it made her head swim. Then he kissed her exposed breast tenderly before he covered it back up and straightened the neckline of her gown.  Reluctantly, he lowered her to the ground. Taking both of her hands, he brought them to his lips.

“Did you mean what you said?” he asked, his mouth against her fingers.

She looked puzzled. “About what?”

“You wanted to know how you could love a man who kills the weak and helpless,” he turned her hands over and kissed the palms. “Do you really think you could grow to love me someday?”

She smiled warmly.  “Oh, Jax,” she breathed. “To that man who is kind, gentle, generous, and understanding, I think I can learn to love him. But to the Dark Lord inside you… I do not love what he does.  I hate it.”

“We are one in the same.”

“I know.  Although I will not try to cage the Dark Lord, I will be honest when I say that I intend to civilize him.”

He couldn’t help the grin that creased his lips, snorting softly at her bold declaration. “Then you have a task ahead of you, lady.”

Her smile faded as she gazed up into his unusual eyes. “Will you not tell me where you are going?”

The smile left his lips as well. “Does it matter?”

She shook her head. “Nay, only… only what if you do not return? I will not know where to look for you.”

A flicker of confusion crossed his features. “You would look for me?”

“Of course. I would bury you in Pelinom’s chapel so that I could still talk to you every day.”

“Bury me?”

“If you fall in battle, I mean. Someone must take care of you and remember you in prayer.”

She meant every word sincerely.  Jax stared at her, touched beyond words that she would say such a thing.  He’d never had anyone express such sentiment to him; not even his father from whom he learned everything.  The man was beyond sentiment, a black spawn from a black family line that had culminated with the mightiest warrior of the line in Ajax.  The de Velts were not known as a sentimental family.  Even when his mother had died when he had been six years of age, Jax remembered only that they had taken her body to the nearest church where his father had paid the monks to pray over the woman and bury her in some unmarked grave.  And that had been the end of it.

Did such sentiment really exist? He’d never cared until this moment.  In fact, there were a great many things in his life that he’d never given thought to until he had met Kellington.  Now he cared a great deal. Bending down, he kissed her sweetly on the lips.

“Have no fear, love,” he murmured, kissing her again. “I will return to you, I swear it.”

With a final kiss, he quit the solar, vacating into the sunset skies beyond the keep.  Kellington went back to her bookkeeping, her thoughts lingering on the massive man with the two colored eyes and praying that he would keep his promises; all of them.

***

Keats opened his chamber door to the soft knock and was surprised to see who stood there. “Lavaine,” he said. “So you are still at Pelinom. I had no idea what had become of you.  Are you well?”

Lavaine nodded, pleased to see her husband’s commanding officer.  He had always been very kind to her.  When he ushered her inside his room, he took her hand and kissed it.

“I am well, my lord,” she said. “It is very good to see you returned.”

Keats wriggled his eyebrows. “And it is good to be back, I think,” he led her over to the chairs near the hearth.  He held one out of for her and she sat.  He took the one opposite. “It is a far different place than I left,” he commented.

Lavaine agreed. “At least… at least the army has been cut down and buried.  We may thank Kellington for that.  She demanded that de Velt bury the army, so he did.”

Keats absorbed the words, his seasoned mind working.  He was glad to see her, that was true, but he was mostly interested in what was really going on at Pelinom.  Lavaine had always been something of a gossip so he knew she would tell him. Although he had not wanted to get into it so early in the conversation, since she brought the subject up, he would take her lead.

“Lavaine,” he said slowly, not wanting to upset her. “What is going on with my daughter and de Velt? The Jax de Velt I have heard tale of for nine years is not a man of compassion or kindness.  He had not taken her for a lover, has he?”

Lavaine blanched slightly. “Have you asked her, my lord?”

“I have. She has denied it.”

Lavaine sighed faintly, looking to her hands as she thought carefully on her words. “I do not believe they are lovers in the literal sense, my lord,” she said. “But I would be lying if I said that there was nothing between them.”

Keats closed his eyes to the horrors of that thought.  He suddenly had a very bad headache right between the eyes and he rubbed at his forehead. “Do you know this for certain?”

“I have not seen evidence of it, no. But he keeps her very close to him.  And he will do anything she asks.  When… when she asked him to bury Trevan and our son, he did so without delay.”

Keats was still rubbing his forehead, remembering Trevan’s groans of pain as de Velt impaled him on a sharpened Yew sapling.  It was something he could not block out.

“Then I am thankful for Kelli’s influence over de Velt,” he said. He stopped rubbing and looked at her. “But how far does it go?  Is she fond of him also?”

Lavaine shrugged. “She will not speak of it to me.”  She suddenly looked uncomfortable. “But… but I have heard de Velt’s men speak of his infatuation with her. They are not kind about it.”

“Because they are all demons and murderers,” Keats grumbled. “What is it they say?”

“That Kelli is a witch and has cast a spell on de Velt.  They say she has great control over him.”

Keats could not believe what he was hearing. When he was sent to Foulburn Castle those weeks ago, never had he imagined that the situation at Pelinom would take this course. On the other hand, he was not surprised.  Kellington was a beautiful woman with a beautiful figure and she’d had suitors come and go since a young age.  She had never shown much interest in any of them.  He found it horribly ironic that the one man she apparently gave attention to was one her father would prefer she not.