“I will not let him go for the same reason.”
“That leaves us little choice,” she said sadly.
“Should we execute him here?”
“No! Wait! I-I-I can be of use to you!” Vinqua insisted. “I-I-I can help you take control of the city! I-i-if you let me be your mage, I can work in your favor. All I have ever wanted was a safe, comfortable position. I could just as easily work for you as anyone. I have very valuable skills. You’ve seen my talents. Think of the things I could help an invading army accomplish!”
Dethan looked at his brother. “He makes a good argument,” he said, a smile touching the corners of his lips.
“You can’t be serious!” Garreth said. He looked at his brother as if Dethan had lost his mind.
“Of course I’m not serious,” Dethan said with a roll of his eyes. “Clearly there’s no choice to be made here. There can never be any trust between us and a man like him.”
“Too bad there isn’t a way to bind his magic permanently,” Garreth said.
“I’m sure there is,” Sarielle said with confidence. But then she quieted. “But I don’t know how to do something like that.”
“Then it’s decided,” Garreth said, drawing his sword.
Garreth walked up to Vinqua and, grabbing his arm, dragged him around the back of the wagon. Sarielle hastened to follow him. She did not want to see the man meet his demise, but she couldn’t risk Vinqua using his magic to trick Garreth into believing he had killed him when he had not. In the end, it was a quick affair. Garreth cut Vinqua’s throat and let the man drop to the ground without getting so much as a drop of blood on him. He cleaned off his sword and put it back into his scabbard. Then he walked up to Sarielle.
“I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“It’s all right,” she assured him. “Vinqua had his chance to change loyalties early on. He proved himself time and again to be untrustworthy. And since I am the only one who could not be manipulated … there really was no way to take him prisoner. I understand all of this, I assure you.”
“Good.” It was clear by his expression that he would have happily preferred to not have her watch him kill. She found the attitude endearing. The truth was that he was a killer. A man of war. But she accepted that about him. Understood that about him. It seemed he was afraid that understanding would somehow turn her away from him.
She leaned her body into his and reached for his kiss. He accepted it with slow amusement. She said nothing, merely smiled at him, then turned and walked back to her sisters.
Garreth instructed the men. “The girls can ride inside and Sarielle will ride with me.”
“Sarielle! We don’t want to be alone in there!” Jona cried.
Sarielle looked at Garreth, her eyes begging for his understanding. “Don’t worry, girls. I’ll ride with you.”
Garreth smiled softly at her, touching his fingertips to her cheek. “Whatever makes you happy, fira.”
“Thank you,” she mouthed to him before returning quickly to the wagon.
Dethan mounted his horse and looked down at his brother. “Are you happy now?” he asked with a grin.
“Endlessly,” Garreth said. He reached for his own horse and mounted. “Sarielle, keep that tarp pulled back. I want my eyes on you the whole time.”
His words made her smile, her amusement shining in her pale blue eyes. “As you wish, Sor Garreth,” she said, sketching him a low bow that, as she bent forward, gave him a fine perspective down the front of her dress.
When she looked up at him slyly, he knew she had done it on purpose and just for that reason. He chuckled. Oh, he couldn’t wait until they got back to the keep. He would see her sisters safely ensconced with a new and better governess and then he would take the wench to bed, and this time she wouldn’t be leaving it without his knowing about it! He was going to keep his eyes on her at all times after this.
They were not going to make it back to the keep before nightfall, so Garreth had them stop and make camp shortly before dusk. Once he had organized where everyone should be, he excused himself from Sarielle’s presence and rode off into the wild field grasses. He rode like the demons of the eight hells were on his heels and soon he was completely gone from her sight.
She turned to his brother. “Where does he go?” she asked Dethan without preamble.
“That is not for me to say. It is something he must decide to tell you himself.”
“But you do know where he goes?”
“He goes away. But he always returns and that is all that should matter to you.”
He didn’t have to say it, but she could tell from his tone that he didn’t consider her to be a part of their inner circle and she was owed no explanations. For some reason that stung her.
Why? It wasn’t as though there was some kind of romantic understanding between them. She had no ties to Garreth, and the reverse was also true. So why did she feel this way?
She pushed the feelings aside. It was probably some nonsense she felt because they had become lovers. But having sex did not make him beholden to her or answerable to her. It was just sex. And she didn’t know if it would ever happen again. He might decide that once was enough for him. Once was all he wanted. Had ever wanted. He had made no promises to her. In fact, he had tried to warn her about becoming too attached to him.
But she was not attached, she told herself as she walked back to the wagon and the children. She was free. Free of everything. She could do anything. She could choose any lover. Anyone at all. She could choose one without secrets. One who would stay with her. One who did not go off to fight wars in the name of a vindictive goddess.
Anyone at all.
Except … she didn’t really want anyone. She wanted Garreth. Oh, she was a foolish girl, she realized. A silly, stupid girl. But it didn’t change the way she felt. She wanted him. For what and for how long was not known to her yet, but she would like the opportunity to find out.
And so she sat up that night and waited for juquil’s hour.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Garreth returned to camp as soon as he was able, his body still shivering and cold. He tied his horse to the rear of Vinqua’s wagon and moved toward the bedroll he had laid out next to his brother. But as he moved a hand came out of the darkness and closed around his biceps.
He started in surprise and turned to look down into pale blue eyes that were lit by the moon. As was her fair lavender skin. She looked almost white in the moonlight, as white as he was … as if they weren’t from different worlds.
“You’re cold,” she said with a gasp, her hand tightening on his arm.
“I was riding in the wind,” he lied.
“Riding should warm you, and there is not that much wind. Why are you so cold?”
He shrugged her off and turned away. “Shouldn’t you be asleep with the girls?”
“I was waiting for you,” she said, and he could hear the note of pained confusion in her voice.
“What for?” he asked, knowing he was being a prick to her but unable to control himself. She was getting too close. Far too close. He had fought so hard to bring her back to him, but now that she was there, she was asking for answers he just wasn’t willing to give her. About things he would much sooner have her live without the knowledge of.
“To be close to you,” she said to him softly. “I … I thought you would want that.”
He did. He wanted it so badly he could taste it. But the same problems remained. He couldn’t really keep her. Not like he might have wanted to. Maybe it would be better if he ended it all now. She had her sisters back. She didn’t need him. He would hand her the city and she wouldn’t need anyone after that.
So why did that thought make him feel so desolate inside? So alone? He had been alone for decades, but right then he felt it more so than he had while frozen to the Airidara mountainside.
In spite of himself, he turned back to her, lifted his hand to her face, traced the line of her jaw wi
th his fingertips.
“I do want it. More than I should. More than I have a right to,” he said passionately.
She exhaled a relieved sigh, her warm breath skimming over his cold hand. “I thought … I thought you might have grown weary of me already. Or perhaps I was not very good as a lover.”
“What?” he said sharply. “You are an outstanding lover, Sarielle, and do not let anything I do or say change your perception of that!”
“Then why haven’t you kissed me by now?”
He wanted to. He could see her full, dark mouth in the moonlight and he wanted to kiss her so badly it just about killed him.
“The girls …” he hedged.
“They are asleep. Everyone is asleep.” She moved closer to him. Close enough that he could feel her warmth seeping into him. “It is as though we are alone,” she said.
“But we are not alone,” he said.
“We are,” she argued. “There is no one of any importance here save you and me.” She rested the front of her body along the length of his and he felt her shiver a little. It made him frown. He lifted a hand to push her away, but his fingers accidentally brushed the rigid point of a nipple, the tip puckered from the chill she had gotten. Instead of putting her away from himself, he let his knuckles brush over that pointed tip once again, listened to the way her breath caught in her throat on the softest little gasp.
Before he knew what he was doing, he turned the full expanse of his palm toward her breast, his free hand going to her waist and drawing her in tight to his body. His fingers found her nipple again, pulling at it … tugging at it. It made his mouth water to think of it on his tongue.
That was all it took. The next instant he was kissing her, drinking deeply from her mouth, tasting her on his tongue. He pushed their bodies into the side of the wagon, the wooden wall of it behind her back. His thigh slid between her legs.
He had not worn full metal armor, but he was wearing leather braces and a hard leather vest. Both were suddenly irritating to him, since they interfered with his touching of her. In the next instant he was stripping them away until he was in only a tunic and breeches, the slenderest of fabrics between their bodies. But then there were her skirts, full and voluminous. Thank the gods she didn’t wear one of those ridiculous corsets, with its metal boning and constricting ways. It was one of the inventions he had woken up to that utterly baffled him. He would much rather be able to see and feel a woman’s natural breasts, ripe and full and soft like hers were. There for the taking at any instant.
He broke from her mouth, his breath coming hard, his body taut with want. It had taken all of an instant for him to go from not wanting to get close to her to this ravaging need assailing him at that very instant. He grabbed for the front of her dress, pulling it down hard at the neckline, exposing the soft slope of her breast to his mouth. His fingers dipped inside her bodice, pushing her nipple upward until it came free of the fabric and was jutting out into the cool night air. But it did not stay cool for long, because he closed his hot mouth over it, sucked it in deep, almost punishingly so. Punishing her for making him want her so damn much he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t act the way he should.
She gasped, a sultry, excited sound that sought out his spine and made it tighten the way her nipple tightened against his teeth. He felt her knee, padded in skirts, rising up between his thighs until she was in full contact with him. Had she been able to feel him through all of those skirts, she would have found him hard.
But then she was exploring him with her hands, her fingers shaping him through the soft fabric of his breeches. She molded her hand to him, pressing into him just like he needed her to. It was uncanny, as though she could read his mind. As if it were she and not Vinqua who could manipulate the magic of the mind.
He came back to her mouth, searing her with kisses, savoring the taste and fire of her on his tongue. He forgot they were out in the open. Forgot his brother lay sleeping not five yards away. He began to frantically unlace her top until it sagged open and displayed the bounty of her breasts to his famished eyes. He put his hands to her, kneading her and shaping her, all the while feeling her hand against his cock through the fabric of his breeches. He grew harder and harder, more and more frantic with want of her.
Before he could judge his actions, he had her hips in his hands and was spinning her about, facing her backside toward him, bending her forward as he pulled up her damnable skirts. But then there she was, supple and bare to the night air, her warmth incredible against him as he pushed his hips into hers.
He could hear her breathing quicken, the little gasps and sighs of encouragement she released. She wanted him to unlace the front of his breeches, wanted him to pull himself out into the open air, wanted him to pull her back against him so his stiff rod was running through the wet folds of her core. She gasped again, shifted her hips, caught him at her entrance, and with one easy movement, impaled herself upon him. Garreth groaned from the pleasure of it, from the pristine heat of her core as he punched into her hard. Her skirts were bunched up along her back; her breasts hung loose and full in the open air so he could reach for them and fondle them as he thrust up inside her … so he did. He pulled at her nipples in time to his thrusts, then, after a minute of that, he found he couldn’t get in deep enough, hard enough, fast enough unless he put both hands on her hips and held her still for his punctuating movements.
He thrust into her again and again, faster and faster, listening to her sounds of pleasure as she tried to bite her own lips and keep from crying out. And crying out was what he wanted to do but did not dare. The only thing protecting them was the cover of darkness and the wooden walls of the wagon. As it was, his hard movements into her were radiating through her and into the wagon, making it creak in time to his thrusts.
He was going to climax. He knew it. Felt it. It was raw and unhinged. Completely out of his control. A wild, animalistic thing. A thing she perhaps did not deserve. Perhaps she deserved better. But for now this was all he had for her, all he could offer her. So he came inside her like any beast that ruts with its mate. He didn’t even know if she came with him. Couldn’t tell in the wall of the darkness and in the blinding strength of his culmination. He couldn’t remember ever coming so hard in his life. The sensation was brutal. Draining. Wonderful.
He drew hard for every breath as he slid away from her and pulled her skirts down to protect her from the night air and any possible prying eyes. It was a little late to think about that, but he almost didn’t care. He felt wild and strong, as if he could conquer anything … and he had started by conquering this woman. As she turned around in his arms and offered up her mouth, he was content with his spoils. She was everything he could ever have asked for and more, and for now, he was content to just enjoy her.
For now.
Together they leaned back against the wagon, trying to regain their breath, looking into each other’s faces in the dark.
“Think of that the next time you question whether or not I want you,” he said to her roughly.
“Very well, I will do so,” she said. Then she laughed and he had to laugh with her.
“We should go to bed,” he said as he lifted a hand to her cheek. She nuzzled it against his palm.
“We should. But we will sleep together,” she said firmly.
She would get no arguments from him. All his arguments had vanished in the face of the passion they shared.
“I feel I was ungentle with you,” he said with some regret.
“Don’t worry. I was just as ungentle with you.” She smiled at him.
“That is true. But we will continue this later, when I have a proper bed for you … and when I can see your face. Your face is far too expressive to deny me the pleasure of it.”
“Then I shall not deprive you of it in the least. Although it is a little difficult for you to see my face when you’re … behind me.”
That made him laugh. “A good point. Perhaps I will have a mirror brought into
my rooms.”
She smiled again. “That sounds like a lovely idea. Now come.” She picked up his hand and pulled him behind her. She brought them to his bedroll and lay down upon it, pulling him with her. Before a moment had passed, she was lying beside him, snuggled up against him, sharing the warmth of her body with him. That was when he realized he wanted her again. Right that very instant. Even though he had only just left her. He exhaled a cooling breath. He had to control the urge. There would be better circumstances for taking her come the morrow when they made it back to the keep. He could control himself until then.
At least he thought he could.
He could be wrong.
No. He would resist her charms for the remainder of this night. He would savor his desire for her until the morrow.
And that was exactly what he did.
Dethan was not sleeping when his brother returned after juquil’s hour. He never was. As long as he was within reach of his brother, he could not rest until he knew Garreth was safely delivered back from his curse.
Dethan was beginning to suspect Garreth was in over his head. That he might drown in the pain his liaison with Sarielle could create. This relationship would be like being in the sights of a catapult. The ball was huge and flaming and angry, and there was nowhere you could possibly run to that would keep you from being crushed by it. Garreth was on fire and he didn’t even know it. He was in danger and he didn’t seem to care. But Dethan cared. Dethan feared. He would not stand idly by and let Garreth go back to the cursed existence he had finally been rescued from. Not because of some girl.
Once they got back to the keep he would find a way to stop this from going any further than it already had. He could only hope that whatever he did, it would not be too late.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
The next day Sarielle managed to convince the girls they should run beside the horses for exercise, picking wildflowers as they saw fit, while she rode astride in the front of Garreth’s saddle. Their pace was slow in order to keep even with the children, and neither Sarielle nor Garreth seemed to mind in the least. Dethan minded. The sun was high and he was in armor. That and he was discontented to watch Garreth continually nuzzle and exchange playful smiles with his mistress. His hands were roaming over the girl’s body as if he had no control of them. It made Dethan surly to see it. It made him miss his wife.