Embers

by Helen Kirkman

  She touched him. Her hand found the richly taut curve of his bent thigh, the hot flesh, then the dark springing hair and the smooth living hardness she had touched once before., His skin was damp. His heat scorched. Her hand slid round, feeling the first beading of his seed, slippery and hot between their joined skins.

  The jolt that went through him might as well have hit her own heart. She heard the rough sharpness of his breath and then his body pulled away, beyond her reach. The small sound of desperation on her lips was something she could not stop.

  "Nay, wait." His voice was harsh, night-black. But she felt no fear. Her own voice, locked in the tightness of her throat, might have sounded as harsh if she could have formed words, and the dark was not deadly, but something shared. Lovers' night.

  She felt the faint tantalizing brush of his hair as his head bent over her, the warmth of his breath on the pulsing dampness of her skin. Her hands sought his arms, the glistening width of his shoulders, holding him harder than she meant.

  "Hush, I will not leave you." The words were in her language, like music, like clear running water.

  "That is what I want." Her voice was no more than a whisper of breath in the darkness and they might have been back on that first night, flying through the dark from this very place. Together. But this time she could not bear restraint because of an uncertain future. She would not.

  "I want all. For us. Now."

  "And so you shall have all you wish. But let me show you as I will. There will be some hurt for you the first time. I cannot help that. But also what pleasure there will be, you know."

  "Because you showed me that."

  "Not all. Not yet."

  The heat and the promise and the feel of him so close made her head dizzy and her body ache with the need of him. Her hands tightened, her fingers digging into his flesh so that she must have hurt him, but he did not move.

  His eyes watched her face as though they sought something there, and she wanted to blurt out with all her soul that she loved him. But she did not, because she did not know if her love would be peace for him after this, or another burden. She only knew that what they had now encompassed all, in a single moment.

  "Then—" Her voice choked.

  "Then tell me whether you want this."

  "I do." Her mind sought for the words that would break the last of the ice and the lightless dark for him. "I trust what you do. I have always done so."

  He was not quite swift enough to mask his eyes and what she saw brought a rush of feeling that the needs of the body were not enough to express. Yet she had nothing else, and then it was all right, because his head was bent over her heat-flushed skin and he could not see the tears that spilled out of her eyes.

  Her hands slid over the thick flesh of his arms and his shoulders with all the tenderness and all the possessiveness and the terrible desire she could not speak.

  But he knew her need. His hands caressed her shivering skin, mounding her breast to the wild hunger of his mouth, moving, his strong fingers finding the aching source of her desire. He touched that wet aching heat at her core until her body twisted fiercely, out of control and the cry she made sliced through the dark.

  Her whole body shook as though it would break except that he held her, so close, against the wild beating of his heart and that was what she wanted, to be so close to him. Only one thing could be closer. If he could feel as she did. Even if it was only now, just the moment that was her eternity.

  She moved against him, with the kind of courage that comes only when all other choices are gone. The magic was there. She could feel it in the instant response of the tight harshly-controlled mass of his body, the sharpened gasp of his breath. She pushed herself closer, still trying to hold the pressure of her body lightly, because of the damage hidden by the thick strips of linen. But not letting him go, touching him, his legs, his hips, swaying her body over hot thickened flesh until the ragged breathing became a harsh cry.

  He rolled out of her reach, breaking her grip with not a quarter of his strength, but he did not leave her. His mouth sought hers in a kiss that burned her senses, then moved away, carrying the trail of that remorseless fire across her throat, her breasts, her belly, until that moist heat touched her where he had before so that she writhed.

  She was caught in the snare she had wanted to use to hold him. And yet she could tell how harshly won his control was this time, even as his mouth and his tongue found what they sought, touched her so softly she made small sounds of desperation.

  She felt the sliding thrust of his fingers as she had before but she did not draw back. The only sensation in her mind was of her need, her desperate, graceless, heartfelt need for him. It gathered and shattered, the fierce limitless pleasure of it leaving her gasping. Wild.

  So that when his body covered hers, her hands sought the dark moonlit shadows of him, fastened on the heavy living warmth, the sweat-damp skin, the thick muscle that had fought to save her life and her family's.

  She hoped he would not see her tears in the dark as her body pressed against his, wanting him so much it would kill her heart. She let his body, all the heat and the power of him, show her as he would all that love could mean.

  His mouth sought hers as he leaned above her, the heat and the broad hardness of him pressing against her moist skin, sliding inside her, slowly, until her body arched, controlless.

  "Brand…"

  She was moving as he thrust. She felt the sharp pain at the greater fullness of him deep inside. The last barrier broke. Her body curved round his and he held her as though the moment of bright fire could hold the endless future.

  And then there was only him, so close it was impossible to be closer. All the passion and the hunger in his heart was hers. It wiped out everything, all consciousness, leaving only the fierce joy that had been theirs the first moment they met.

  She lay so very still. He watched her face, pale in the dark shadows. Her eyes were closed so that he could read nothing.

  His heart beat against the pulped mass of his ribs. The pain was nothing to what was in his mind. But it still made him move, sliding his shoulders round against the mattress, clamping his jaw shut so that he would not make a sound.

  Her eyes flew open, fastening On his face as though she did not know where she was and then her gaze sharpened. He watched her eyes. Because he had to know. What she thought and what she felt were more to him than his life's breath.

  Her gaze met his without the slightest shadow of fear or regret and that made his heart lurch again in the painful wreckage. Because he had once believed the world could hold miracles just from looking at the night-dark depths of her eyes.

  But even the deepness of her eyes did not tell him the secrets that were locked inside her head. He could not truly know what she felt, whether it was no more than the driving madness between them that had waited half a year for its fulfillment. Whether it was the guilt. Like her trick with the sword.

  It could not be the appalling possessiveness that gripped him, the burning primitive consciousness that she was his and only his at last; with the gift of her blood still on his skin and her hand clasped against his fingers as though she wanted him.

  He did not know what she truly wanted.

  He should move away, ease the vicious pain in his chest that was only half physical. But his body had its own ideas. It moulded itself round hers with all the possessiveness that lived in his heart, like a shield against harm.

  The thought that the harm might come from him still coiled like a viper waiting inside him, with the power to strike through his soul.

  He could not bear how fragile she looked, doubly so with the marks of his loving on the paleness of her body.

  "Alina…"

  She was shivering. The air in the chamber struck like ice shards. How could he not have known that? He reached across to pull the thickness of the bedcovers over her but the movement, stretching muscle over bone, was not quite as controlled as he would have wished.

/>   Her hand caught the heavy wool, then his arm.

  "I am sorry. There must be so much pain."

  Her distress over that caught at him. It seemed one small thing he could make right for her.

  "Aye." He found the teasing grin that never failed in its purpose. "To think I actually wanted to feel such pain. How thick-headed is that?" Her dark eyes snapped in the response that was instant between them, but then the spark faded into the deepness.

  "Did you want to drown in the river water?"

  His breath stopped. The question came out of nowhere. It had nothing to do with now. Yet it did, and she knew that. Because she was Alina. Because the connection was getting deeper than it should. Her eyes held his unwaveringly, but inside they were stricken.

  "No," he said with all the force he could to that stricken look. "That is not so. When you found me, when I heard you out of the blackness, I was already trying to get back to the riverbank. Did you not see that?"

  "Yes…I thought… I told myself so. But I knew how you felt and…such water is very, very powerful. Not everyone understands its power. I think you do. I think you must have felt its power before."

  His heart seemed to stop beating. He did not say a word. But she did.

  "Was it when your parents died?" asked Alina.

  "I know they died in much pain," said her voice across the splintering edge of darkness. "And that you saw it and no one knew whether they were murdered or not. And that you were only twelve."

  She turned over. She was very close.

  "What happened to you?"

  It was only the moon's light that let him see the sheen of tears. Otherwise he would never have told her. But he had taken her maiden's blood and she had suffered exile and aloneness for his sake. He owed her all.

  "I was there when they died." The wide compass of the chamber at Bamburgh, the moving air that spoke of die stars' light and all the sea's wideness, narrowed into the hell of the sickroom at Lindwood. To the ways in which all that was once strong and prideful and fair could be brought down. The screams rang in his ears.

  "I stayed with them all the while. But there was naught I could do. Naught a physician could do. Certainly nothing a child could say. I am not sure that they actually knew I was there."

  "But you were." She said it as though it meant something it could not Her eyes watched him. He did not wish to say any more, but he owed it

  "There was nothing left without them. Just an empty hall like a cavern and…naught. What I remember most was sitting in sudden nothingness. Just me and two small sisters who were too young to understand. There were other people there, but I do not remember them. My brother came back from the school at York. But there was nothing to say, even to him. Poor Wulf, so much was thrust on him because he was the eldest. I can only remember the nothingness."

  Her fingers caught his, her hand clamping over aching skin and bruised knuckles. She should not have done that because it could make him feel that the nothingness could be conquered.

  He set his mind back to the task of telling her.

  "I went out in the boat. The sea was rough, with a storming wind, and I went out too far. I did not have enough care. The boat would have been swamped. It was only small and the planks were old." The tang of salt scored his throat, the coldness of the water paralyzing his limbs.

  "You could have let it be swamped."

  Her words, just that one sentence, exposed all that there was in him. The emptiness that was never assuaged because whatever tried to fill it never stayed.

  "But you chose not to let it." It was a statement, not a question. Her voice again lending a meaning to the words that he could not see.

  "I could not. There would have been no one left to help Wulf. Even though I was only twelve, I was all that there was. I had to go back because of him."

  "Because you loved him. And you loved your home."

  Lindwood. With its high chambers and its paved paths and the wildness of wood and hill. He had not known then that he loved it. It had seemed one more thing that would change and betray him.

  He had not understood.

  "I went back. I made up some story or other about fishing and getting carried out by the tide and that was it. I laughed it off. But Wulf knew."

  Just like you.

  Her hand tightened on his. As though it would stay there.

  "Why? What did your brother say?"

  "Naught. We never do say things." We just know.

  A small streak of light seemed to wash through the darkness, lightening Alina's skin with silver. He kept his gaze on the light, as though he could draw on its strength.

  "But he did nearly break my jaw. I suppose that told me."

  "Saint Dwyn!"

  Alina's favourite saint. The virgin. His hand tightened over hers. The tears had stopped now. Her eyes were wide, wondering. If only it were possible to make her smile, that the light might be inside her. He did not want her haunted by such dark things.

  "It was a lucky blow. And I was not ready for it," he added, in the tone of an aggrieved brawler who had got the worst of it in a fight at the mead bench. "Besides, it was an unfair advantage him being four years older. Ask any brother."

  Her shaking lips curved upwards. He knew what he had to say, even if it meant stripping away all there was of himself.

  "After I had fought with Goadel, I went into the water because I wanted it to wash away what I had done. So that I would feel something, even if it was only the bite of such coldness. That is how it was, nothing otherwise. I wanted to come back."

  She did not speak. Her hand was locked in his, like a point of warmth in the wasteland.

  "I knew that there was so much I still had to do. But what I thought about, what meant more than anything to me, more than wounds or madness or right or wrong, was you."

  Her hand rested in his. The quality of her stillness and the silence was bone deep. Outside, clouds raced across the moon, sending ever-changing shadows. He spoke into the silence.

  "Alina, that is still so. It always will be so for me. But what I would have you do now is what you wish. And before you say a word, I would have you know that the past is accounted for, that it does not have any power for ill anymore. There were never any debts for you to pay. What you do will be your choice. Free."

  He heard the rustle of the mattress as she turned. With night-blind eyes he could not see whether she turned towards him or away. But her hand stayed in his, tentative, equally blind.

  "Then I would go to Lindwood."

  He did not let go of her hand. But that was how he was. Alina looked through the shadows at the small glimpses of tightly drawn flesh. He might have been carved of stone. But that was only what the eyes saw. Her touch and her ravished senses and her heart knew the living warmth and wildness and the power that was strong enough to be able to give.

  It was the giving that could defeat her now, not the stone.

  "If I asked you, would you take me there?"

  "Yes."

  She could feel the warmth of him next to her in the dark. He was so close that if she moved the smallest muscle she would touch him. She knew what that would be like. She knew his body in every last detail.

  She knew how he breathed. She knew if she touched him exactly what he would do.

  He would give all that she wanted.

  She did not move except to draw the pain of breath.

  "If you took me to Lindwood would it be because of what you said before? Because even though I brought ruin down on your head you thought you had not provided for me?"

  The words fell through the silence like stones down , a well, taking an age of time to reach the water.

  "You mean a payment made in honour?"

  "Yes."

  "That is what it should be," said the familiar rough-smooth voice of dreams. "Because of all that I have cost you and all that you have given." There was no smoothness in the voice now. Only the harshness that must come with breath as hard fought for as hers. "It sho
uld be in payment for that."

  Debt payments. So many of them. Inescapable. The cruelty of their weight crushing her. Her heart could not bear them. It would choke and kill her with the graceless desperation of its need. She forced speech.

  "A debt payment—"

  "I cannot say it." His voice cut her off, the rawness of it striking through her. "It is what I should give you in all honour and I cannot. You have asked me for the one thing I cannot do."

  Her body moved, angling round in the tangle of the warm bedcovers. She could not stop it because she was need driven and honourless. She touched him. She saw his face and his eyes. She saw all. Gold held her gaze so that she could not look away.

  "I cannot give you a debt payment."

  Time seemed to stop and with it heart and breath and all that she was.

  "It is not what I want."

  Their bodies touched. His heat scorched her skin. Age-old longing and newly-made memory fired her blood. But he did not move.

  "I do not know whether you can want what I can give. An honour payment could not contain what I feel. What I feel for you is not bound by that."

  His body seemed to vibrate, with the same restlessness as hers. But behind his body's strength she could see all the pain that she had put there.

  "What I feel for you is not bound by anything. It is not…it is not an honourable love. I said that when I took you from Hun there was thought and that is true. Because with you I saw what I had not believed in—a future, not just the moment."

  The sharp edge of his breath must be like a double pain, the physical and that which was not.

  "But the madness was in it, too, the recklessness that does not know limits. That is how I love you. With all that there is in me. But I would not…I would not force that on you, the kind of love that will take everything. I think you have seen too much of that You cannot want that as your life." The pause and the painful breath were something that she felt in her own chest.