by Lisa Hendrix
“You take far too much on yourself, my lady,” said Torvald.
“Aye. You could just as well lay the blame on my shoulders,” offered Gunnar. “I was the one who set all this in motion when I rode into Raby for tourney and cheated to win your token.”
“The tourney.” She met his eyes with a pained apology. “You remind me. One of those in my company was John Penson, from the Castle of Love.”
“The squire I helped?”
“Aye. Grown into knighthood, and now lying unburied and unshriven a half-day’s ride south of here.” Because of me. It hung there unsaid at the end of her words.
Sadness and anger tinged the silence that settled over the four of them.
The weight was broken by Brand rising. He whistled, and the raven sailed over from his perch and landed on his shoulder. “You have courage, my lady, more than many men. But I think you two have more to talk through. We will go now.”
Torvald lit a rush, grabbed the ale skin, and gave Eleanor a little bow. “My lady.”
“God’s rest, messires.”
They returned her blessing and made their way off to their other camp, leaving Gunnar and Eleanor staring at each other, questions and expectations swirling up around them like the sparks from the fire.
“I should never have left you that night in the forest,” he said at last. “I put you right into your father’s hands.”
“You thought to keep me safe.”
“I made things worse for you. And then I believed his lies and made them worse yet. I could have ridden after you. I could have stolen you back before you wed. Even afterward, I could have saved you the years of Richard …” He closed his eyes against the image that must surely be there. “Why did you not let me carry you away from Burwash?”
“The archers …”
“Arrows do not frighten me. We could have done it, Torvald and Ari and I. We would have, somehow, if you hadn’t told me to go. I should have taken you anyway. I was supposed to be your champion.”
“You were. You are.”
“No, I have failed you in so many ways. All these terrible things you say lay at your feet should properly be at mine. It should all come back to me.”
“Instead, I have come back to you,” she said softly. “Dragging along all my sorrows and all my sins. The question is, now that you know what I have done, do you still want me?”
CHAPTER 20
THE QUESTION DRAGGED Gunnar to his knees before Eleanor. He cupped her face in both hands and met those silvery, fire-lit eyes. They reflected back his own pain and shame, but also his hope.
Richard and his ghost be damned. She was his now.
“Foolish woman.” He feathered kisses over her brow and cheeks, then covered her mouth. There was a moment of hesitancy and then she melted into him, her soft moan warming his mouth. A deep need welled up, and he rose and held out his hand. “Come lie with me, and I will show you how much I want you.”
She let him lead her away from the dying fire to the bed, where they took their time undressing each other, each revealed bit of skin earning long, exploring kisses. Finally they stood clad only in shift and braies, but when Gunnar reached to remove her last garment, she stopped him with a hand to the center of his chest. “Do you have a candle? Or perhaps a lamp?”
He nodded.
“Would you light it? The fire already grows dim.”
He raised an eyebrow, but nodded again and turned to find the lamp and the flask of oil. It took him a moment to fill it and trim the wick properly. “When did you become afraid of the dark?”
“I’m not. I just want to be able to see you.”
He fished a brand from the fire and touched it to the wick. The flame flared and smoked, then settled into a good, steady light that flickered slightly in the evening air. “Your lamp, m’lady. Where—”
He stopped mid-turn, brought to silence by the sight of her pulling the riband from her hair. She dropped it on the pile of clothes and began unraveling her plait. Gunnar held the lamp high to let the light spill down over her and just watched, wondering if she knew what she was doing to him, letting down her hair before him.
Not that it made the least difference whether she taunted him innocently or a-purpose. He hardened, his tarse raising the front of his braies like a tent. His tongue went clumsy, and he had to work it over his teeth before he could re-form his question. “Where would you like this?”
“There, if you please.” She indicated a rock ledge not far from the head of the bed. He stepped past her to wedge the lamp in place and turned back just as she pulled out the last of the plait and raked her fingers up through her hair from underneath, shaking the strands free to spill down past her waist. It was all Gunnar could do not to groan aloud.
Or maybe he did groan aloud, because she gave him a slanted look that made him think that maybe she did know what she was doing, then quietly turned her back to him, presenting that fall of dark silk like a gift. Gunnar stepped up behind her and filled his hands with it, scooping it up to bury his face in the lustrous mass. Faint traces of her musk and spice perfume still clung deep in the tresses, and he inhaled the sweetness as the heavy locks streamed through his fingers.
He regathered her hair, this time into one thick hank that he coiled around his fist and tugged to one side so he could kiss her from ear to edge of chemise and back again. The tender curve where her shoulder met her neck tempted him, and he bit down and sucked. She whimpered, but he didn’t stop until he’d marked her.
“You are mine,” he whispered, soothing the spot with a kiss.
Eleanor brought her fingers up to the darkening bruise. “I am yours.” She turned to look up at him, and her eyes held a glow that made his heart stutter. “I have always been yours, Gunnar.”
He almost asked her then if she loved him, but her hands went to the cord at his waist and lust clouded his mind and thickened his tongue. Loosened, his braies slipped over his hips and fell to the ground, and his cock sprang free, swaying as he kicked them aside. He reached for her.
She stepped back, just out of his grasp. “I want to see you first. I need to see you.”
She saw him all right: rigid and throbbing so hard his tarse bounced with each beat of his heart. She stood there a long time, just watching it bob, her expression as serious as if she were gazing at some holy relic. It was unnerving, having a woman just stare at his cock like that, unnerving, that is, right up to the point where her tongue flickered out to moisten her lips.
Oh, yes.
She slowly lifted her eyes, raking them over belly, chest, neck, and finally up to meet his, and then, as she held his gaze, she stepped close and silently dropped to her knees.
He groaned as she took the tip, her mouth every bit as hot and silky as he’d known it would be. She lingered, and it quickly became clear he wasn’t going to be able to stand this long. It took all his will not to grab her head and force himself deep into her throat. But he gritted his teeth and let her explore at her own pace, and she did, inch by glorious inch, until she took him all and his knees buckled and he swayed, moaning. Her name came out in a strangled plea for release. “Eleanor.”
She abandoned him at the last instant, but, no, not really, for her hand curved around him, the pressure different enough to bring him back from the edge. She came gracefully to her feet but he caught her up and lifted her high to let her slide down his chest. When her feet touched earth, she wrapped her arms around his waist, and laid her head against his chest with a sigh. “Your heart is as strong as your arms.”
“Why did you stop?” he asked when he could speak.
“Because I want you in me.” She said it so matter-offactly that he almost laughed.
“ ‘I want a lamp.’ ‘I want to see you.’ ‘I want you in me.’” He cupped her bottom and ground against her, craving the pressure. “You seem very clear about what you want, my lady.”
“I am.” She thrust back at him, writhing a little as she did, and Gunnar nearly tipped
her onto the bed then. “I have put much thought on it. Haven’t you?”
“I have,” he admitted. “But my wants are simpler than yours, I think.”
“And what are they?”
“You naked and spread out before me.”
She arched back and looked up at him. “How odd. That is part of my wants, as well.”
Was she teasing? He considered her through narrowed eyes and decided she wasn’t. “I am already naked, vixen. But I see one impediment to us both having our will.”
She looked down and plucked at the laces of her chemise. “This? Then it should go the way of your braies.”
“Are you certain? It is cooler tonight than it was last night. I think there will be fog.”
“You will keep me warm.”
“Aye. I will that.”
He gathered the cloth and stripped her, and when he had her naked, he lay down on the bed and pulled her down atop him and dragged the blanket up to cover them.
Where last night had been fire and urgent possession, tonight was honeyed seduction. They went back to the beginning, trading slow kisses and slower touches, enjoying the feel and taste as they gradually built toward each other, until at long last the time was right and he pushed her upright and guided her into position.
He was suddenly very glad she’d made him put the lamp near the head of the bed, for it showed him how beautiful she was, poised above him like that, her skin flushed, her legs wide, her quaint slick and ready.
“Naked and spread before one another,” he said, and grabbed her waist and slowly pulled her down.
“Gunnar.” She gasped his name and threw her head back as he filled her, but even then she kept her eyes open. He didn’t understand this need of hers to see everything, but the hunger building on her face left him half crazed with the need to make her yield. He reached for her breasts, teasing the peaks hard, then shifted one hand down to that spot he knew would make her shudder.
Her breath caught in her throat. She pushed at his circling thumb, hips swirling, searching until she found what she liked and settled on it. He smiled as she moved faster, driving toward release, pleasuring both herself and him in one beguiling dance. Her eyes lost their intensity and slowly drifted shut.
“Gunnar,” she whispered, almost to herself, and then she arched back and she was there, tightening around him until he thought her strength, her need, would break him.
When it was over she collapsed, and he caught her and pulled her down. As she settled upon him, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, breast to breast, he knew that if there were a way keep her there forever, he would do it, even if it meant spending eternity aching with unslaked need like this. And for a while she granted him his wish, keeping him within her as she slowly came back to herself.
But after a time, she began to move again, unhurried at first, then more insistently, pushing him toward release the way he’d pushed her. He held back as long as he could, hoping she would find release again with him, but in the end she rose up a little, just enough to be able to touch him freely. Her hands, smooth and cool, traced over his chest, and when her nails flicked across his nipples, the near agony of the pleasure arched him off the bed and he came.
She stayed with him, riding him as he spilled into her, his mind emptying with his body, and by the time she’d finished with him, there was little left of him but a deep sense of peace.
But the peace faded quickly after he reached to pinch the lamp out. Memories crept out of the dark and wavered past his vision: Eleanor clinging to Richard in the alley behind Burghersh Hall. Eleanor reaching over to lay a hand on Richard’s knee as they rode past at Alnwick.
And behind those, memories of Eleanor touching him, taunting him, dropping a perfume-laden kerchief that drove him half mad with desire.
He knew women did that, used their sex to turn men to their will; he understood that Eleanor had done it to wield what little power she had. But he didn’t like thinking she might have used her wiles on him the same way she had on her prick of a husband, and a part of him wondered if she’d lain with him these last two nights to get something from him.
He rejected the idea in the next instant. The only reason the notion was in his head was because she had spoken of Richard, and the only reason she had spoken of Richard was because he’d been fool enough to raise the man’s specter in this very bed.
Eleanor was in his arms because the gods wanted her here. She was his, meant to set him free.
And so he simply held her, pushing aside the whispers of doubt as they traded kisses and drifted in each other’s arms. The lingering fog was already beginning to glow with light when Gunnar slipped out of bed and sorted out his clothes from the jumble on the ground.
“So soon?” She rolled over and sat up, the blanket pulled up around her breasts. “The nights are too short.”
“They will start getting longer in a few days. But perhaps it won’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Midsummer magic,” he said, and though she cocked an eyebrow in question, he left it there and quickly pulled on his clothes and boots. “Now sleep, and I will see you this evening.”
TEARS STREAMING DOWN her cheeks, Eleanor stood in the fog-filtered light of breaking dawn and watched Gunnar being wrenched into the bull’s form. It was every bit as horrible as she remembered, the pain hammering him to the ground as his groans gradually shifted into the beast’s agonized bellows.
She had ignored his instructions to sleep and instead followed him away from the cave to see exactly this, in the process gaining a new respect for the men who spied for her father’s armies. No matter how lightly she trod, every step seemed to crack another twig or rustle another leaf. That Gunnar hadn’t caught her amazed her. He must have been too distracted by the approach of this terrible torture.
And he faced it every dawn and dusk with no more complaint than other men offered over washing their hands and faces before dinner. Such strong metal Gunnar must be forged of—he and his friends. More tears streamed down her cheeks, thinking of their courage. Of what they went through. All of them
The bull, fully formed now, lay in a quivering heap where Gunnar had stood only moments before. Its nostrils flared wide as it sucked at the air, but gradually its breathing eased and its muscles grew less rigid. Not long after, it recovered enough to lurch to its feet. Eleanor froze, suddenly realizing she was alone with a beast that could easily kill her if Gunnar had no control. But to her relief, the bull, still far too disoriented to pay her any mind, staggered off in the other direction and vanished into the mist.
Eleanor wiped her cheeks dry, pulled herself together, and started toward the trail that would take her back to camp. But as careful as she’d been to note her way, the shifting fog and light made things look different now. She missed the trail.
When she realized her error, she cut back and forth a few times, searching for the path, but with no result. After a moment’s consideration, she decided to follow the edge of the dene seaward until she found another way down. Surely the land fell off as it neared the water, so there should be some easier way down, and then she could always follow the stream back up. Working her way east, she eventually found what appeared to be a gentler slope, with a far gentler path, and started down.
“Would you like some help, Lady Eleanor?”
She jumped and squeaked like Lucy before she recognized the man looming out of the fog. “Sir Ari? Oh, thank the saints. Yes, please, I would like your aid.”
“Come this way. There’s an easier path.” He led her back the way she’d come for a dozen yards, then cut through the brush to where a narrow but well-marked deer path angled down through a thick stand of yews.
“How did you know I was up here?”
“I saw you follow Gunnar,” said Ari as he put out a hand to help her down a big step, and she realized he meant he’d seen her as a raven. “You watched him change, didn’t you?”
Eleanor nodded. “I needed to see him go from man t
o bull for myself.”
“Why?”
How to explain? “When I saw him change the other way, from bull to man, I was … It was as if some magic held me, that I was bewitched or dreaming, or at the very least drunk. It did not seem real. I knew here it was.” She touched her heart. “But here …” She touched her head.
“You wanted to see it with your wits about you.” He started off again. “A wise thing.”
She followed him, but continued to explain, as much to herself as to him. “This curse is such a great part of Gunnar, of who he is and why he does what he does. I need to understand it. I need to know what it means when he leaves me each dawn, what he faces—what all of you face, since it seems you are all a part of my life now. It is a cruel thing.”
“Aye.”
“Is it as bad for you and the others?”
Ari shrugged. “Each suffers in his own way, some worse than others. As terrible as it is for Gunnar, it is far worse for Brand, not just the changing but all that goes with it.”
“I don’t know what sort of beast he becomes. Nor Jafri.”
“No.” He came to a fork in the trail and stopped to stare up the track that led toward the head of the dene, then looked the other way, toward the ocean. He ended by looking at her, but his indecision was clear, even in the dimness.
“I know you are the raven on Sir Brand’s shoulder,” she said, hoping to sway his mind in her favor. “And Torvald, I think, is your white stallion.”
Ari shot her a look that was half dismay, half amusement. “Did Gunnar tell you, or are you that quick? Never mind. It matters little how you found out. If you’re going to begin wandering away from camp, you probably need to know all of it.”
“I have known what Gunnar is for nearly three years and even my cousin, who is both waiting woman and dearest friend, has never heard a word of it. And she never will, nor will anyone else. I swear it, monsire.”
