The Last Knight

by Candice Proctor

  He looked at her then, and she saw something flash in his eyes, something wild and dangerous that was there, then hidden beneath the deceptively lazy droop of his lids. “It would hurt you,” he said, his voice low and rough. “What we would do together. It could destroy you.”

  “I know,” she said simply.

  The breeze, restless and cool and scented with ripe grass and damp earth, danced around them to flutter her short hair against her face. He reached out, his battle-hardened hand gently brushing her cheek as he tucked the stray curls behind her ear.

  He stared down at her, and his face took on that intense, heated look she'd come to know. She stood breathless and still beneath his touch, her heart beating so hard and fast, she could feel her pulse thrumming against his fingertips as they lingered at the tender flesh at the side of her neck.

  “I know,” she said again, her voice an aching whisper. “And I don't care.”

  She saw his head jerk, his nostrils flaring wide and proud. “You think you know.” His hand clenched in the hair at the base of her head to draw her closer, until she could feel the heat of his body, enveloping her, see the fire in his eyes, scorching her. “You think you know, and you think you don't care. But you can't begin to imagine what could come of this.”

  “Perhaps not.” She breathed in the scent of him, the scent of woodsmoke and leather and deadly polished steel. “But I know what my life will be like without this. I don't think I could bear it.” She leaned into him, her hands splayed against his strong chest. She could feel the fine trembling going on inside him, feel the battle he fought with himself. The strain of it accentuated the harsh lines of his face, making him look more dangerous and beautiful than ever.

  She saw his jaw tighten, the creases in his cheeks deepening as he held himself rigid beneath her touch. “Attica, please…”

  She pressed her fingertips to his lips, stopping his words, tracing the line of that hard mouth, watching it part on a harshly expelled breath. “Damion,” she whispered, her hands sliding over his beard-stubbled cheeks to bracket his face, her gaze locking with his. She could see her own desire, reflected in the glowing depths of his eyes. See the need.

  And then it was as if something within him tore loose, something that had been holding him back. With a harsh groan, he swept his hands down her spine and crushed her to him, his mouth slamming down on hers. She opened her mouth to his kiss, to him, and heard a low, primitive growl reverberate in the depths of his chest as he moved his lips across hers, deepened the kiss, filled her being with the feel of him, the taste of him, the essence of him.

  And the essence of him was fire. She clung to him, breathed in that fire, so raw and passionate, it swept away all control. His tongue mated with hers, and the kiss became something urgent, something all-consuming. It was as if he entered her blood stream, pounded through her, became part of her.

  With a low, keening moan, she pressed herself against him, her arms twining around his neck, her breasts flattening against his hard chest. She was desperate to get closer to him, hated the clothes that kept them apart. She wanted to slide her naked body against his, to run her fingers over his smooth, hot flesh, to touch him, all of him.

  She knew he had the same need, for his hands were all over her. Through the cloth of her tunic, his fingers found her taut nipples and coaxed from them an exquisite sensation somewhere between pain and ecstasy.

  He tore his mouth from hers, his lips and tongue trailing fire down her throat, sucking, licking, stoking that clenching need deep, deep in her belly. Her breath caught on a small cry, her head falling back, her eyes wide and glazed as she stared at the night sky above them. She thought she would surely die if he didn't do something, something to ease this coiling tension within her.

  “Attica…” His voice was a warm, tortured whisper against the wet flesh of her throat as he suddenly held himself so still, she could feel the tiny, violent shudders ripping through him.

  She clutched him to her, her hands clenching his tunic. “No. Don't stop. Not this time.”

  He raised his head to look down at her, color riding high on the sharp line of his cheekbones, his eyes dark with anguish. “I'm not worth this sacrifice. This risk.” He shook his head from side to side. “You don't really know me. You don't know the things I've done.”

  Her head jerked in denial, her breath as raspy as his. “I know you. I know you've killed. I've seen you kill.”

  He closed his war-scarred hands over hers. “You don't know the worst of it.”

  She raised their entwined hands to her lips and kissed his clenched knuckles, her eyes locked with his. “Don't you see? It doesn't matter. None of it matters.”

  He tightened his grip on her until it almost hurt, then let her go. “It matters to me.”

  “Why?” She felt a rush of panic squeeze her. She wanted to pound her fists against his broad, fighting-man's chest. She wanted to take his head in her arms and cradle him against her breast like a hurt and needy child. She wanted to do something—anything to stop him from turning away from her like this. “Why?” she said again. “Because you think it your duty to protect me? From you?”

  He stood with his body held taut, his features lost to her sight by distance and the shadows of the night. “Yes.”

  A ragged laugh tore out of her, a laugh that twisted and caught on the pain in her chest so that it came out sounding almost like a sob. “Behold my black knight.” She hugged herself to keep from shaking. “My dark horseman, who claims to scorn the conventions of chivalry, when in reality he is all that is good and noble and honorable—”

  His head jerked. “Don't try to make me into something I'm not.”

  “No. Listen to me. You think that whatever you did to your brother changes all that, makes it meaningless. But it doesn't. It doesn't.”

  In the sudden silence that followed her words, she could hear the gentle gurgle of the stream running broad and quiet with barely enough current here to send the water lapping against the sandy banks beside them. She saw his chest lift on an indrawn breath, saw his throat work as he swallowed hard. He swung abruptly away from her to go stand at the edge of the water. The air stirred around them, cool and sweet with dew. She stood very still, waiting.

  “When my mother was fourteen,” he said after a moment, his deep, rich voice floating to her on a waft of breeze, “her family betrothed her to a man she'd never met. A man she'd never even seen before.”

  He fell silent again, the night filling with tension, with the strain it took for him to say the things he was saying. “Your father?” she asked quietly.

  He pushed his breath out through his teeth in a painful sigh. “Hugh de Jarnac. He was practically old enough to be her grandfather, but the alliance was considered valuable to her family, and because she believed in honor and duty, she did not object.”

  “What was he like?”

  He lifted his hand, as if reaching for something, then let it fall. “I don't remember him much. To me, he was always a distant, imposing figure, gruff-voiced, mean-tempered. I stayed out of his way. He was killed on a hunt when I was nine. I think I was relieved.”

  She thought about her own father, the laughing, indulgent Robert d'Alérion. It was her mother Attica had stayed away from—and still did. “And your brother?” she asked.

  The wind died suddenly, leaving the atmosphere oddly calm and hushed. “My mother was Hugh's second wife. He had a son already, by his first wife, a son who was a year older than my mother. His name was Simon.”

  She went to stand beside him at the water's edge, close, but not touching him, not even looking at him. “So your father already had an heir.”

  “Two, actually. Simon had been married, young, to a woman from Poitiers. She died in childbirth, giving him a son. Simon never remarried.”

  She looked at him then, and the fading starlight revealed to her a face almost frighteningly cold and remote. “Did he love his dead wife so much?”

  A fierce smile curled
de Jarnac's lips, showing his teeth. “Hardly. He never remarried because he was in love with my mother. His father's wife. And she loved him.”

  Attica sucked in a quick, shocked breath. “Oh, how awful for her,” she whispered, her voice grating painfully in her tight throat. “How awful for them both.” She knew well that such a love was doomed; for a woman to marry her dead husband's son was forbidden. In the eyes of the church, such a union was considered incestuous, and punishable by death.

  She couldn't seem to stop herself from reaching out to him. She was afraid he'd scorn her attempt to touch him, but he took her hand, his fingers entwining with hers to draw her closer. “What did they do?” she asked.

  His hand still linked with hers, he brought his arms around her from behind, holding her back to his chest so that she could not see his face. “After Hugh's death, my mother's family wanted her to return to them, with her dower portion, but she refused. She claimed she stayed to help raise her son and her husband's grandson. But it wasn't long before there were … rumors.”

  She tipped her head back against his shoulder, her hands clutching at his wrists. “Did you know? Did you know how they felt about each other?”

  He tightened his arms around her waist, rested his cheek against her hair. “Not at first. I was young, and they were discreet. Eventually, I was sent as page to the house of my uncle, and somehow he managed to keep me from hearing about it. For a time. But then, the spring after I turned thirteen, some of the older squires cornered me in the stables and taunted me with it. I half killed them.”

  He fell silent for a moment. She felt his breath warm against the side of her face, felt the quiver that ran through him. “I almost killed those squires for what they said, yet I think that even then, deep down in my gut, I knew it for the truth. And I knew that I couldn't rest until I looked into my mother's face and watched her reaction to what I'd heard.

  “My uncle tried to stop me. I simply knocked him out of my way. I took one of his horses and rode for home.”

  She knew now what he was going to say, and she had to clench her teeth together to keep from begging him not to say it.

  “There was a terrible storm that night. Rain poured in sheets out of the sky, but the lightning was so fierce and continuous, it lit up the countryside almost as if it were daylight. I reached the castle just before dawn. I pounded on the postern gate until the guard opened up for me, but the way the thunder was rumbling, no one else heard me arrive.

  “I couldn't wait until morning to confront her. I ran up the stairs and threw open the doors to the hall. It woke up the men sleeping around the hearth, but I didn't care. I stormed into her chamber and … found them.”

  Wordlessly, she turned in his arms so she could look into his drawn, pale face with its glittering, haunted eyes. He threaded his fingers through the hair at her temples, stroking her, stroking, although he kept his gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the western hills.

  “I was only thirteen, Attica. I was too young to understand what they meant to each other. All I knew was that my mother had betrayed the memory of her husband, while my brother had betrayed his father, and me, and defiled my mother.”

  Unable to continue looking at him, Attica buried her face against his chest, her throat so raw it ached. “Oh, God. Oh, God, no.”

  She felt the pounding of his heart reverberating against her cheek. “I drew my sword and challenged him to fight me right there, in my mother's chamber. He refused, of course. But I was determined to make him fight me. I kept chasing him around the room, swinging my sword at him. He was naked. He grabbed stools, cloaks, anything he could—to use as a shield. But he refused to pick up his own sword and fight back. My mother was crying—screaming— begging me to stop.”

  Attica closed her eyes, her imagination conjuring up for her the crash of thunder, the flickering firelight glittering on Damion's rain-soaked cloak and gleaming along naked steel; the beautiful woman, wide-eyed and wild with fear for the two men she loved most.

  “She finally quit trying to reason with me and struck me on the shoulder with a water ewer. I think she was hoping to knock the sword out of my hand, but all she did was make me stagger … at exactly the same moment as Simon lunged at me to try to wrest the sword from my grip.” His hands were at her back now, moving in slow, relentless circles, holding her pressed blindly to him. She felt his chest lift as he breathed. “The sword drove straight into his chest.”

  She tipped her head back, her throat tight, her words coming out in a hoarse whisper. “You didn't kill him deliberately.”

  He gazed down at her, his face drawn and fierce. “Yes I did. I wanted to kill him.”

  She shook her head. “Not like that.”

  “No. But he was still dead.” She watched the muscles in his taut neck work as he swallowed. “He was only twenty-nine years old, Attica. Two years older than I am now.”

  “What happened to your mother?” she asked quietly.

  His face suddenly went cold, remote. “She retired to a convent.”

  She let her hand creep around his neck to touch him there, at the nape of his neck, with gentle fingers. “And you took the Cross?”

  He nodded. “I left my uncle's house and joined Sir Rauve.”

  “Have you seen her since? Your mother, I mean.”

  “No.”

  The pain she felt for him was suddenly too much to bear. A rush of tears swelled her throat, spilled from beneath her hastily lowered lashes. “Oh, Damion …”

  He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “Don't weep for me, Attica. It's their tragedy, not mine. I was too young then to understand the forces of hopeless passion and irresistible longing that drove them. But I understand it now. God help me, I understand it now.”

  He moved his hand, tracing her features with the tips of battle-scarred fingers that slid gently over her eyelids, down the curve of her cheek, to linger at her lips. She watched a kind of tautness come over his face, a lean, hungry look that she recognized as the hunger of a man for a woman. He stared at her, his eyes glowing as fierce as lightning. Then he sucked in a ragged sigh that shuddered his chest, his eyes squeezing shut as his hand fell limply to his side. “You need to go back now.”

  She stood unmoving before him, her heart pounding, her body trembling with yearning and love and a strange, determined boldness. Slowly, she reached up her hand to undo the clasp at her throat and let her cloak fall in a whisper to her feet. Her girdle followed, landing with a soft thump in the thick grass.

  The sky was black above them, the stars fading with the coming of dawn. The wind stirred the dying night around them. She watched the white cloth of his ruined shirt flutter against the darkness of his bare neck, saw the pulse beating there wildly at the base of his throat.

  She loosed the laces of her tunic and jerked it over her head.

  “Attica,” he said, his voice low and breathy as she untied the points of her chausses. “Please don't do this.”

  She lifted her head, her gaze locking with his as she worked methodically, stripping off boots, hose, braies, and shirt, until only the white swath of cloth that bound her breasts remained. Slowly, she unwound the binding, let it flutter to her feet like a wide, pale ribbon.

  She stood naked before him. The night air skimmed over her bare flesh, raising the fine hairs, filling her with a wild sense of freedom, of excitement. He held himself utterly still. But his eyes … his eyes burned.

  She reached out to him. She took his hand in hers and put it on her breast so that his palm cupped her fullness. “Feel my breasts,” she whispered, “heavy and ripe for you.”

  His hand jerked in hers, and she tightened her fingers around him, eased his hand lower, skimming down over the bare flesh of her quivering belly, down between her thighs to where she burned. “Feel my body,” she said hoarsely, “open for you.”

  The pale glimmer of starshine showed her the beloved planes of his face, sharp and fierce with need. She could feel the hard trembling goin
g on inside of him as he fought to hold himself away from her. Felt, too, the moment when he lost that fight.

  A groan tore out of him as he hauled her into his arms, his mouth slamming down on hers. His kiss was rough, hungry, consuming, a swirling onslaught of tongue and need and blind, hot passion. “Oh, God, Attica,” he said, his lips moving against hers, his breath coming in rough gasps, his hands sweeping urgently over her naked body. “I don't think I can be gentle.”

  She clung to him, her fingers digging into the tight muscles of his shoulders, her teeth nipping at his lower lip. “I don't need you to be gentle.” She wrapped her arms around his neck to pull his head down to her. “I simply need you.”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  He bore her down into the tumbled pile of clothing at their feet, his hard man's body settling between her sprawled thighs. Stars sparkled at her from out of a graying sky. Then he loomed over her to fill her view of the world, a dark knight with a harsh face and eyes that glowed with passion and love, so much love.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist, her hands reveling in the feel of the taut muscles of his back beneath the cloth of his tunic as she drew him down to her. He laid his palm against her cheek, his thumb brushing back and forth beneath her chin, his mouth hovering just above hers. She could feel the need trembling inside him, feel his chest expanding against hers with each ragged breath.

  “I've wanted you so very badly,” he said, his breath washing warm over her face.

  She stared up at him, her heart pounding, her body aching with need. “I'm not afraid.”

  He bent and covered her mouth with his, his lips soft but urgent as he turned his head back and forth, slanting his mouth against hers. She felt his fingers tangling in the hair at the side of her head, holding her steady as he deepened the kiss, filling her with his tongue, tracing the line of her lips, making love to her mouth with a kind of wild desperation.

  The wind eddied around them, sweet with the scent of meadow grass and stream-lapped sand and fresh with the promise of dawn. With a harsh murmur, he shifted his weight to one braced forearm, his lips still fastened to hers even as his hand swept down her body to close over her breast.