Redemption, page 15
Strong hands seized Davyd’s shoulders.
“We’d best make haste,” Marc said.
“Aye,” James agreed. When Davyd looked up at him, he had gashes across both cheeks.
“Lygnel—” Davyd managed to sputter, but this only brought snorts and grunts from his helpers.
It was Marc who made the final comment. “In case you’ve failed to notice, that one can well take care of herself.”
Protests rose and fell in Davyd’s mind, but the waves also rose and fell—and began to broil. Out of the depths, on either side of the swimming, kicking, and gasping figures of Arthur’s Men, marched two huge white dragons. Straight out of myth were these creatures, horned and winged and bigger than ships, alabaster scales reflecting the surf in rainbows and shimmers. Oddly, they seemed to have a few feathers, and instead of roars, they offered chittering cries not unlike the legendary white herons of Avalon.
On the shore, Grakor’s whines and wheezes transformed into a shrill shriek. Horses snorted and trumpeted, and the sounds of disorderly retreat became unmistakable.
“She can take care of herself. Aye.” Davyd coughed as his battle-bloodied vision dimmed. He held onto consciousness just long enough to see the dragon on his right open its maw and spit out a stream of smaller palm-sized white dragons. The tiny beasts swarmed Grakor and his men, pecking and clawing worse than a thousand wronged women.
“Goddess grant I never wind up on her surly side,” he murmured, then saw nothing but darkness.
Chapter 12
When Davyd next woke, he felt the unmistakable rhythm of the open sea. He knew he was on a large vessel, and that the vessel was moving faster than reason would allow. The room he was in was large and dim, lit only by two candles in wall sconces, bracketing the cabin door on his left. The bed, it was of fair size, and middling-comfortable, no doubt of accursed Saxon design.
His body ached with even the slightest movement, but in truth, he felt less sore than he expected. He had been bathed spotless, and his wounds had been cleaned and dressed. A few were bound with cloth strips, and the aroma of healing herbs filled his senses.
With a grunt, he made to sit up, but gentle hands restrained him from his right.
“Be easy, my love,” Lygnel whispered. “There’s no fighting to do, at least for now.”
“Ah, Gods, woman, the sound of your voice—like music.” He turned to her, biting back a groan of pain from the movement. In the dancing candlelight, she seemed a vision, free of her previous soot and soil, her blonde hair like the sea itself, spilling about pillows and the sheet.
Beneath the sheet, if he didn’t miss his guess, she was as bare as nature made her. He thought he saw her nipples jutting against the coarse fabric. Already his cock was responding, though he couldn’t fathom how he would relieve the ache and pleasure his woman without dying in the process.
“Morning or night?” he managed, his voice husky with desire.
“Night. Everyone’s sleeping but us.” Lygnel’s voice rasped like his own, betraying her excitement. “Those not making merry, that is.”
Davyd ran his only unblemished knuckle across her forehead. “How long have I slept?
“Hours only, but you need days.”
“What of the men—and the children, the rest of your band? How did they fare?”
“My group suffered no casualties.” Lygnel caressed his cheek, causing his gut to contract. He grinned instead of shouting as the muscles ached and burned. “You lost two old ones, name of Thames and Garund. Their kin carried them aboard, and we buried them as befits warriors at sea.”
“Only two.” Davyd felt amazed and deeply saddened. Two lives, when it could have been twenty—and yet, two good men dead at Grakor’s hands.
Lygnel leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. “You fought brilliantly, my husband.”
He closed his eyes as their lips met again, savoring her soft mouth against his own. She smelled of herbs and ocean breezes, and like everything pure and clean. His love, his wife, his life—his sorceress of Avalon.
“Tell me, dearest,” he murmured against her neck as she wrapped him in a tender embrace. “Were those dragons I saw attacking Dore’s heathens?”
“In theory only.” Lygnel kissed his ear and settled her warmth against him, comfort and torture all at once. “I’m afraid they ended up hybrid dragon, heron, and sea serpent. Instead of fire, they spawned a thousand smaller beasts, then evaporated. Magik requires…practice, and admittedly, I’ve had little these last decades.”
Her giggle was girlish and more beautiful than songs to the Goddess. Davyd felt grateful there was no trace of the cold, rage-filled laugh she gave before setting her beasts on Grakor. Ignoring lancing stabs of agony, Davyd rolled to his side and took her full into his arms. She felt delicate and small, not at all like the towering presence he’d sensed on the beach. So much power and wit, the beauty and grace of a queen mingled with wiles of the hardest, cagiest soldier—this woman was incredible, and even more incredible, she had chosen him to love.
“Damn the sheet between us,” he grumbled.
“You’re in no shape to do without it,” she returned. Once more, she kissed him, this time hesitantly, as if she wished to spare him discomfort.
Davyd ran his hand over the curve of her hip. “The devyl with that. I need you.”
To his surprise, it was Lygnel who groaned. “And I you.”
She gave herself fully to the next kiss, parting her lips to welcome his tongue. For a long, sweet minute, he forgot his aches and pains, and knew only her softness and the warmth of her mouth.
Beloved, she sighed in his thoughts, then startled and made to withdraw from his mind. We cannot do this now. You need much healing.
As she broke away from their kiss, Davyd imagined holding her thoughts as gently as one might hold an infant. Don’t go. You’re more than welcome here.
After Merlyn’s intrusion—
You’re no intrusion. His chest ached, but not from insult or injury. He cupped Lygnel’s face in his hands and kissed her again, slowly, sampling the contour of her lips. I would join with you in any way fate allows.
Warmth suffused him, and he had a sense of Lygnel sinking into all that he was, becoming one with all that he had been and could be. Heart-deep. Soul-deep. Even into the rivers of blood that gave him life.
This is Avalon’s way, she told him, and her voice resonated through his every inch and ounce.
Something akin to battle fever gripped Davyd, and his discomforts vanished. He moved just enough to pull the sheet out from between them, then felt the heat of her satin skin against his. His cock found temporary sanctuary between her legs, pressed against the damp lips of her quim. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to focus his mental energy and reach out to her mind, delve into her as she had so skillfully entered him.
He had none of her grace, however. With a clumsy thrust, he blundered into her thoughts and felt her catch him as if he were a staggering drunk. With a body-warming sigh of amusement, she directed him like a man might direct a frightened virgin.
Here, not there. No, beloved. Relax. The first time is always most difficult.
His cheeks reddened.
Only Lygnel could reduce him to the state of an inexperienced boy—and only Lygnel could raise his desire to similar levels. Like a buck approaching his first time, he followed her lead, sinking deeper into her, through her—and he was there, suddenly, wonderfully, inside her though his cock remained throbbing and as yet unsheathed.
Intoxicated by her essence, Davyd stroked her nipples. They hardened under his touch, and he had the joy of his own excitement coupled with each bolt of pleasure she experienced.
Yes, she said, at first with gasps and recriminations about his needing to rest, and then like a prayer, matching his strokes and pinches and the gentle rocking of the ship. He lowered his head and took one nub in his mouth, acutely aware of the hot pebbled flesh, the light salt taste, the way his cock bowed and bucked from the contact. Lygnel moaned and pressed his head closer, blending her pleasure with his. Each time he nibbled, she jerked. He felt each ripple and flash, and wanted only to give her more. More. Still more.
Moving to her other breast, he fastened his lips on the nipple, first flicking his tongue, next biting it tenderly as she writhed and sighed in his arms. She threw her head back and thrust her breast farther into his mouth, and it took all of his remaining control not to spill his seed between her legs.
Between…legs…
Their thoughts and desires mingled, and he eased lower, pushing her up as he went, kissing between her breasts, down her belly, over the silky strip above her slit. His lips knew the path, and his mind knew her every whim. A nip here, a taste there, and all the while kneading her back, then her ass, massaging with just the right pressure.
Lygnel lay back and opened her legs, resting them on his shoulders as he continued his descent. Following both her mental urging and the raging heat of his own desire, he buried his face in the soft hair of her quim. She cried out and arched her back as he parted the swollen lips with his tongue, immediately rewarded by the heady flavor of her woman’s juices.
Slowly, he tasted each fold and crease before coming to rest on the sensitive swell at the apex. Lygnel squeezed her thighs against his head, and they sighed together as he teased her clit, flicking it, nibbling it as he had her nipples, then finally sucking it and stroking it at the same time. His tongue alternated with pressure from his lips, and he felt her muscles tighten. Her mind moaned his praises even as she spoke them, moving her hips against his relentless attack.
With a cry, she melted, dissolved—or at least it felt so to him—as if all her sensation had pooled at the point where his mouth met the ring of fire her clit had become. Once, twice, three more times he moved his tongue against the spot, and she screamed out loud.
No sooner had the sensation finished than she wanted more. He felt her ache for his cock as if she were missing some essential piece of her being. She imagined how he would feel, driving into her, pushing past what she thought she could stand.
Davyd felt completely lost in his love for her, in his wish to satisfy whatever she might desire. The future, so unstable and so uncertain, felt distant. All that mattered was the moment, Lygnel’s happiness, the fact she was in his arms wanting him as much as he wanted her.
Surely, in all the world, there was no ecstasy greater than knowing such pleasure, in the giving or the receiving.
My wife, he repeated finding his own prayer. My love. Mine, mine, mine…
Lygnel could barely think, much less react. The man was wounded near to death, and all she wanted was to feel him inside her, so deep he might never extract himself.
Biting her lip hard to keep her wits, she sat up, heart pounding.
From between her legs, he gazed up at her, wild, enraptured. The joining of thought and sensation had claimed his mind as surely as hers, but sweet Goddess the poor man was going to regret this in an hour!
“Come here,” she whispered, and he did so without question.
As he drew even with her, Lygnel urged him onto his back, kissing him as he stretched out his muscled frame. She sat up, rubbing the well-defined ridges of his arms and chest. He was hard as a rock, every inch of him, and bruised and cut over most of his exposed flesh. Running her hands over his scars and new battle wounds, she instinctively knew which cuts would mark him anew, as champion and hero.
Past the sexy taper of his waist, his erection begged for her hands, her mouth. Without further hesitation, Lygnel bent down and kissed the salt-sweet drops of fluid off the tip. She loved the way his cock felt harder than stone, yet soft and pliable.
Davyd groaned, and she caught a forceful wave of his want, his almost drunken need, and felt it surge through her own body.
“Lie still,” she urged. “Let me do the work, my warrior.”
You will be the death of me, woman. Even now, I’m burning to ash!
“That would be quick relief.” She captured his cock in her mouth and lowered her head, taking him deep, to the back of her throat.
He groaned again and pushed himself upward, and she used her leverage to push him back into the straw-stuffed mattress.
Three more times she sucked him as hard as she could, savoring his strong flavor and the drive of his desire. He was on the edge, he couldn’t bear another moment, and neither could she.
Still pressing him down with all her strength, she lifted her head, sat up, and smiled at him.
Killing me…burning…burning…
Goddess, what a once in a lifetime experience. She straddled him slowly, holding herself just above his straining cock. If it weren’t for a thousand injuries, you’d throw me on my back and fuck me ‘til tomorrow.
“Aye,” Davyd growled, gripping her hips fiercely, his gaze, his maddened passion blazing into her. “And I still might!”
Keeping her eyes on his beautifully damaged face, Lygnel brought herself down hard, taking his length in one breath-stealing plunge.
All at once she felt the joined perfection of being filled and filling, of thrusting and receiving. His rigid flesh felt like sun-burnished steel, plumbing her core. The walls of her quim tightened each time she slid herself up and back down, grinding her ass against his thighs.
Not the sort of man to leave control too long in her hands, he gripped her hips harder, lifted her faster, and slammed her back down again and again.
“Yes,” she cried, rocking even as the ship dipped and swayed. Instinctively, she leaned back, taking him deeper still.
Thoughts and sensations still joined just as deeply, they came together, moaning as his seed flowed into her, shouting as her quim gripped his cock and drained it.
Lygnel rode her stallion until there was no buck left, until all she could do was slide free and collapse at his side, draping her arm across his chest to feel the comfort of his steady, even breathing.
* * * * *
At dawn, still exhausted and sore from the battles—and a night of passion—Lygnel stood on the bow of their stolen ship and gazed westward. They would reach the islands many hours before they should, thanks to the steady rush of fey wind in their sails.
Despite knowing she would soon see her Goddess-blessed daughter, Lygnel could muster only meager elation. Her dreams had shown her Grakor. She had seen how he ignored his wounds and how he rallied what was left of his rabble. And the worst of it, something that none of them could have foreseen at the time, she had seen him take that remnant of an army out to the docks. There, they met an incoming ship of hired soldiers, a boat that had clearly been sailing for Dore’s coast even as Grakor took the bulk of the force by land.
The bastard was still a threat and a menace, and he would be coming. Fate and the forces of nature would not make his trip swift, but they would have little time to prepare.
Lygnel felt more than weary of battles, treachery, and despair. Unbidden, a scene from her distant past stole into her thoughts. She saw herself standing in Avalon’s main temple, in the chamber reserved for petitions to the goddess. She was there with her twin Gwenhwyfar and a dozen other young Adepts.
Two men stood before the dais where Morgain and Nimue were seated. One of the men was dark, young and vibrant. The other had fair hair and weathered skin. He was older, yes, but no less formidable and lovely to look at. Mordred and Arthur, as they had presented themselves, petitioning the ancients to bring peace between them.
“You shall wed kin,” Nimue had decreed, with Morgain’s apparently hard-won agreement, judging by the winged fey’s frown. Allad was not present for the pronouncement, and oddly, neither was Merlyn. Nimue held his staff, however, and therefore his proxy. Morgain held the sword of Allad for similar purpose.
“By marrying sisters,” Nimue continued, “you will be joined by a second bond of blood, and by Avalon herself. If not out of respect for each other, then out of respect for your wives will you cease your endless hostilities.”
Both men had stepped back, heads bowed, arms clasped behind them in a gesture of acceptance.
Nimue turned her fathomless blue eyes on the Adepts. “Gwenhwyfar and Lygnel, come forward.”
Lygnel had grasped her sister’s hand. Together they moved to the front of the dais, hearts pounding as one.
Morgain spoke next, in a tone heavy with ceremony. “Will you give yourself in marriage, in the service of the ancients and Avalon, to these men?”
Lygnel felt words desert her, and she knew Gwen had been struck dumb by fear as well. They had been chosen for such an honorable task! And yet so terrifying. These men were warriors, father and son—and bitter enemies. Could such fierce killers be honorable? Could they possibly treat a bride of Avalon with the gentility befitting her station?
“Consider carefully,” Nimue warned. “Once made, this decision cannot be unmade. You will leave Avalon and go into the service of man and the mundane world.”
“You will bring honor to your people and hope to many,” Morgain added, “but the price is high for you.”
It had been Lygnel who found the courage to speak first, all the while wondering at Merlyn’s absence. Merlyn was always present for affairs related to King Arthur. Why now would he desert the temple? She could have used the counsel of his serene expression.
“Will these men…treat us well?” Lygnel managed to speak the old words, squeezing her sister’s hand tightly. “Do they have good hearts, true and befitting the gifts of Avalon?”
At that, Nimue’s eyes had narrowed. Morgain’s expression didn’t change, and she seemed to be awaiting the ritual answer.
With one word, Nimue then betrayed Merlyn, Nimue, Gwenhwyfar, Arthur, Avalon, and the world of man.
“Yes,” said the Lady of the Lake, in tones too firm to argue. “Yes.”
Lygnel drifted back to the present, stung by the old pain. She had given herself up to good cause, as had Gwenhwyfar, neither knowing how Mordred would tear them in two—how he would tear all things asunder. Merlyn had guaranteed the line of King Arthur, but Merlyn had been trapped by Nimue only hours before that fateful temple meeting. Nimue later swore it was for the world’s good, that Merlyn had been blinded by his love of men, of Arthur, losing a grip on the larger picture and the greater good.
