Captive Heart

by Phoenix Sullivan

  What I didn’t trust was that we’d find Lyn alive.

  I saw her then, half out of the water, sprawled on the rocky ledge.

  Sliding from the saddle, I splashed the last few lengths to her. On the bank above, Marrok reached her just as I did.

  She lifted her head at our approach.

  Relief washed over me. She was alive. Exhausted but alive.

  “Take my hand.” Marrok braced himself on the ledge above her. As he pulled from above, I had the pleasure of pushing from below.

  Once safe, she clung to Marrok as I scrambled up beside them. Then she reached out to hug me close as well.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  “Bumps and bruises is all. I just need a moment to catch my breath.”

  We found a clearing nearby to set up an early camp. I gathered deadwood while Marrok retrieved the packs that had spilled in the headlong rush and then led the pack horse across the water.

  “You’ll ride her from here on,” he told Lyn.

  “She’s sound and sensible,” I added. “She carried me from Orkney to Camelot.”

  Marrok and Lyn both eyed me sharply.

  I took a deep breath. Trust, I realized, sometimes had to be extended to be reciprocated. “Orkney is my home, Ravenscrag is my House, King Lot my father. My brother knights are Gawain, Uwain and Gaheris.” Already they were looking at me differently. And yet I was the same Beau that they had known. But I had come this far. If I could trust them with my legacy, I could entrust them with the last piece of me I most wanted them to know. Not because of who I was, but because of what they’d come to mean to me. “My name is Gareth.”

  Chapter 19

  Lyn

  My trust, of course should have started with Arthur. Outside of the three champions of the world, the lineage of King Lot held most renown.

  “Lot’s son,” I murmured—with wonder, gratitude, perhaps a little awe. Certainly with shame as I recalled the way I’d treated him, however necessary it had seemed.

  I felt a need to touch him, to make his words—Gareth’s words—real. Except Marrok was there before me, laying a hand to Gareth’s cheek with a look of reverence in his demon eyes that went beyond the pale of Gareth’s confession. After a too-long moment, he double-patted Gareth’s cheek and dropped his hand. His expression, however, didn’t change. Not until I took Gareth’s hand—my champion’s hand—in mine and bade him sit. Then I saw a flash of—anger? jealousy?—rise up in Marrok’s eyes.

  Though quickly quelled it confirmed for me where his true affections lay. What looks might have passed between him and I were in my imagination alone. While suggestive they may have been, with me they were naught but a game he played.

  Disappointment opened a chasm in me, deep and dark. I looked to Gareth for his reaction. Had I lost him too? He, however, only looked abashed, apologetic—either for being who he was or not disclosing earlier.

  He sat as I bade, his hand, strong and warm, embraced still in mine. I took Marrok’s hand, hard and hot, in my other, and he folded himself beside Gareth.

  Knee-to-knee, hand-in-hand, I sat in front of them.

  “I have been a fool,” I told them. “On two counts. Marrok chastised me earlier for the way I’ve treated you, Gareth.” And now that I understood why Marrok had come so readily to Gareth’s defense, my scornful words still deserved apology. “For what shame you’ve endured, I’m truly sorry. Not because I know you now for Lot’s son, but because you’ve proven you’re above my scorn. And because…” I took a deep breath “…because I’m no longer afraid to tell you why I said such vile and hurtful things.” That last still held a lie, although I was trying to make it true. I still feared what Nimue might do.

  Gareth shrugged it off as he’d done from the first, treating me always with a courtesy my behavior didn’t deserve. “My lady had greater concerns than what words she chose for me.”

  At some point Marrok’s free hand had found Gareth’s—and Gareth had not pulled away. I found my eyes drawn to the gesture, the large and deadly hands curled protectively about each other. A gesture they would never dare in public, meant for private eyes alone. Eyes they could trust.

  My heart sank, the joy it should have felt at that show of faith in me overwhelmed by the certainty that what flares of passion and desire that might have coursed through me in their presence would be forever denied.

  But just because my heart was breaking didn’t mean I couldn’t still trust them with it. And with Nessie’s.

  “No, there’s more,” I said at last, clenching my own hands about theirs for strength. “Ironside has a powerful accomplice. Merlin knows her, knows what she’s done.”

  “She?”

  “Nimue, a Lady of Avalon, a fae.”

  “Why would she—?”

  “Love makes for strange bedfellows.” I only meant Nimue and Ironside. I didn’t think—

  Gareth blushed and Marrok’s lip twisted out a rueful grin as they passed side-long glances to each other.

  Surely they hadn’t—

  The stone that was my heart shifted within my chest, crushing breath. In anguish, I clung tighter still to their hands.

  “What have we to fear from Nimue?” Marrok said. It could as easily have been a statement of defiance as a question.

  “She wields Old Magic.” I forced myself to breathe, to speak. “Only a handful of fae now are as powerful as she. She knows we come. It was she who sent me for a champion. It was she who set the thieves upon Lord Corbin. It will be she who orchestrates what other challenges we’ll face.”

  The pheasant that panicked my horse—was that also of her doing? My own bolt of panic arrowed through me. Surely even Nimue didn’t own such power to waste. Even she couldn’t shape fate. Because if I believed that… I stared again at the joining of Marrok and Gareth’s hands. An unbidden image of them naked and together sprang to my eyes. Fae Sight? How much easier it would be to bear if I could believe Nimue pulled the strings of their hearts.

  “Then we’ll face what comes as it comes,” Marrok said. Clearly irritated, he rose, breaking the circle of our hands. “Unless you know what next she’ll do.”

  “Merlin might. I don’t have his Sight.”

  To my astonishment, Gareth caught my free hand in his, holding them both now, face-to-face and knee-to-knee. “Why would you?” he asked gently. “Merlin’s fae, like Nimue.”

  I shook my head. “Not like her. Nimue’s corrupt, evil. You don’t know what she threatened—or how much she enjoyed it. Fae blood runs through them both…as it does me”—I looked pointedly at Gareth then up to Marrok who’d gone very still—“but Merlin is nothing like her.”

  “You’re fae?” Marrok’s voice was gruff above me.

  “Half-fae. My mother…” I chose to look into Gareth’s sea-washed eyes as he followed my words, gripping my hands harder in support.

  “And your sister?” Gareth prompted.

  “Half-sister. Nessie’s father is my own.”

  Marrok stooped swiftly beside me. His back to Gareth, he whispered fiercely. “Then you can help me.”

  I looked from him to Gareth with his furrowed brow and back again. “Gareth—”

  “Doesn’t know.”

  Apparently all our secrets would not be bared today. I kept my voice gentle when I whispered, “I have no magic to help you. Only Sight. And even that irregular and rare.”

  “But Nimue would.”

  “Perhaps.”

  He charged to his feet then and shouted across the water, “Nimue is mine!” Turning back to Gareth, he added, “the Red Knight I’ll leave to you.” He stalked off then to shake his frustration. I knew the sharp disappointment he must feel, grateful that I didn’t let him carry hope for long that I might have the power to cure him.

  Besides, Merlin had said I might need the wolf. Until Nessie was safe, I wanted Marrok just as he was.

  “You know his secret.” Gareth said.

  It wasn’t a question but I nodded anyway,
trying to follow the emotions that played across Gareth’s face—envy that I knew and he didn’t, hurt that Marrok would not confide in him, joy that whatever the burden was, Marrok wouldn’t have to bear it alone.

  “Take good care of it,” he said. “And of him. Marrok’s a good man.”

  “So are you.”

  He smiled a little at that as if he only half-believed me. That humility only made him more beautiful in my eyes. Still holding my hands, he slid closer to me. His eyes on mine sought permission for the liberty he took as we sat hip-to-hip and he placed our hands in my lap. And for the next liberty when he extracted one hand and placed it on my thigh.

  I breathed faster, my chest lifting up and out with each breath. The image of him naked with Marrok returned, only this time it lingered so I could enjoy each hard curve of him—of them.

  Then Gareth’s thumb began rubbing circles over the still-damp linen that clung to the fold between my thighs.

  I felt a stirring not far from where he was rubbing. How ready was I to be excited by a man such as he. How unready was I to be simply teased. “I thought you and Marrok…”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you and I…”

  “Are you and I.” His circling crept higher.

  I blinked. That had truly not occurred to me. And I didn’t yet know how I felt about it. But I did know his hand on me was maddening. Tentatively I placed my free hand on his thigh, stretching my arm so it was as near his knee as possible.

  He leaned close and moaned his appreciation. Then the hand holding mine in my lap took yet a further liberty.

  Chapter 20

  Marrok

  My wolf was peeved and in a dangerous mood when I returned to camp. I had only taken the time to relieve myself and check on the horses. To come back to Gareth and Lyn cuddled together, hands on each other…

  The wolf was quick to jealous rage. Gareth was ours, not some half-fae’s with temptress ways. And yet… I breathed in the scent of Gareth, remembering well his subtle hints of arousal. And mingled with his, the sharp, sweet scent of Lyn’s passion, delicate yet but ready to be flamed.

  Hands on thighs, eyes-to-eyes, they paid little heed to my return. The wolf, though, would not be ignored. I circled behind and knelt at their backs, filling my palms with the hot flesh of their necks, their quickening pulses beating at my curled fingers.

  Their tension was palpable, in the air between and in their muscles. I rubbed at their necks and the base of their shoulders to ease that tension, though I daresay I was the most tense of us all. Impatient, the wolf urged more, while the man understood the necessity of slow seduction.

  The hand stealing liberties in Lyn’s lap left off, and Beau covered the rhythm of my hand with his. Not to stop me, for somehow, over the course of the night and the day, we were beyond that now. His was, instead, like mine, a proprietary gesture, an acknowledgment of the bond that had grown between us.

  I exhaled the breath held pent in my chest. Gareth was mine. That had not changed.

  He left off stroking Lyn’s thigh, and for a moment I believed he would turn into my arms and let me recall the taste of his lips. Instead, his too-bold hand found the swell of Lyn’s full breast.

  My breath caught again at the bold move, and the wolf within stirred in warning. What was Gareth doing? Had he not seen me, felt me claim them both?

  Yet there his hand rested, cupped about her breast, waiting for rebuke or permission to stay. Getting no rebuke, his thumb began to rub back and forth over the thin fabric at the peak of the mound he held. Her breath shuddered softly.

  Focused on Gareth’s brazenness, I missed the moment Lyn raised her hand from her lap. Smaller, softer and cooler than Gareth’s, it settled over mine in mirror to his.

  My heart swelled and the wolf gloated. Despite Gareth’s clumsy attempt to woo her, she had chosen.

  As though my touch had given her courage, the hand at Gareth’s knee crept upward. His leggings twitched at her approach, and, with an impish look, she covered his cloth-bound staff.

  My wolf howled its frustration even as Lyn caught at Gareth’s lips and claimed them for her own. The echo of the howl choked in my throat as I fought the beast down.

  Their hands gripped in mine, I leaned in close, my strong arms circling their shoulders in an intimate embrace. Nuzzling between them, I touched first Gareth’s nose, then Lyn’s, with mine.

  The scent of their desire sharpened, crisp and strong now. Gareth tilted his head and captured my lips, his kiss rough. My wolf approved, my own lips grating and insistent. I thought to part his lips with my tongue, but he pulled away, leaving my lips wet, stunned and abandoned.

  Then another pair of lips took their place. Soft and tentative, unsure and inexperienced, waiting to be taught. I shifted Lyn around to a more comfortable angle, acutely aware that Gareth’s hand never left her breast. He folded his free arm tight about me, drawing the three of us breath close, watching intently as I instructed Lyn’s perfect mouth in the subtleties of a perfect kiss.

  When I withdrew my tongue and paused for breath, Gareth moved in. Only it was Lyn’s lips he took this time, not mine. Growling, I bit into his neck, savoring the salty taste of his skin as I sucked it the way I suddenly, desperately wanted—needed—to suck the rest of him.

  I pulled him away from Lyn.

  “Strip,” I begged him.

  Chapter 21

  Lyn

  Gareth shook his head. “This night is for Lyn.”

  The wildness in Marrok’s eyes frightened me. Maybe Gareth didn’t know what he was capable of, how he restrained himself—his wolf—but I did.

  Their lips on mine, Gareth’s hands on me, touching me in ways I’d not been touched before—my body knew what it wanted this night. Night? When had evening fallen? The light was almost flown. But was I ready yet?

  Gareth wanted me. Marrok wanted him. What did I want?

  Immediately, for Marrok to be tamed. Enabling though that might be, the wolf wasn’t to be trifled away. If it were maddened by jealousy, it would not be Gareth it attacked.

  Interestingly, I would have thought the danger would have dampened my ardor, but my desire flamed at the nearness of Marrok as his own passions shook through him and his wolf sought its escape. As Gareth calmly defied the beast and angered it more.

  And then I knew. I wanted them both. The wild impetuosity of Marrok and his wolf. The calm assertiveness of Gareth, the caretaker of the two.

  There was no choosing.

  “No,” I said. “This night is for us.”

  I stepped in front of Gareth, trusting he who had obeyed me in all else before this would obey me now. Gripping the hem of his tunic I rolled it slowly, deliberately over his head, exposing every hard ripple of muscle not just to my eager eyes but to Marrok’s as well.

  “Yes,” Marrok breathed. “Go on.”

  Emboldened, I traced a nail down Gareth’s chest, across his navel and into the line of hair that disappeared into the bulge of his leggings below, his skin flinching in its wake.

  I tugged at the knot and the bulge twitched.

  I hesitated then. I had seen men undressed before, of course, just never…aroused. Dogs and horses I had seen, so I had a fair idea of the mechanics of it. And while my vision of the two of them had left little to my imagination, the vision was still not the thing I was about to unveil.

  Gareth’s eyes were on me. “Go on,” he encouraged. “If I have no shame of the man I am, then why should you?”

  I blushed. The shame was mine, not his. He—all of him—was in God’s image. My shame was Eve’s, as I understood it—in the wanting.

  He tilted his head close. “Or are you afraid I’ll disappoint?”

  “I can assure you there’s nothing there that will shame or disappoint.” Marrok’s breath was warm in my ear. I hadn’t heard him step closer, but the bulk of him against my back and the hands that wrapped my waist tight with anticipation gave me courage.

  I tugged again at the
knot. The freed leggings would have fallen easily down Gareth’s hard, slim hips but for one thing. I helped the waistband over, and all of God’s image sprang free.

  A sharp ache swept through me centered just below Marrok’s hand. My stomach clenched and I knew Marrok could feel the anticipation in my belly as acutely as I.

  But I had only a moment to admire Gareth’s splendid naked form before he closed the small distance between us, kicking aside the fabric that pooled at his feet. He bent his head and I thought he would kiss me again, but his lips settled on the swell of my breast just above where the gown’s trim cut over it. Then he was lifting my breast up, kneading, rubbing, kissing, worshiping.

  Between ragged breaths it dawned slowly upon me that I was free to return that worship. Sliding my hand around the hard jut of his hip, I roamed over the surprisingly soft skin of his firm flanks, running my fingers along the crease at his leg and daring to span the crevice between one hard-muscled flank and the other.

  He gasped and the hard muscles became rock as he clenched suddenly and forcefully under my touch.

  What had I—?

  Then through the narrow slot between Gareth’s broad and muscled shoulder and the curve of my breast I saw. Marrok’s left hand had left my waist to wrap itself around Gareth’s long shaft. In fascination I watched the play of Marrok’s fist and fingers over it, memorizing the combinations that made it twitch and made Gareth groan.

  Behind me, Marrok pressed close, and even through my heavy skirts I could feel him, hard as steel, against me. He brushed aside my hair with his cheek as he wrapped his arm tight around my stomach just below Gareth’s arm at my breast. He licked my ear, nuzzled my cheek. I turned my head but the angle wasn’t right for a kiss. He dropped his mouth to the tender skin between my neck and shoulder and began to suck. Another wave of desire burned through me.

  Gareth moaned as Marrok squeezed him, and his head rolled back and forth on my chest.

  “Bah!” Marrok grunted. In frustrated haste he pushed away from me, though his grip on Gareth didn’t falter. In a flash he discarded his leggings, giving us no time to admire his glory, save for the moment he took to spit in his hand and then slick himself.