Sebastian the Alchemist and His Captive [Medieval Captives 1] (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Lindsay Townsend

  Three rather breathless stories later Melissa was leaning comfortably against him and Artos had taken advantage of his inattention to creep up upon the bed. Too content to scold, Sebastian studied the sleepy maid in his lap. She had snaked an arm about his middle and was clutching him. As he watched, counting the faded freckles scattered across her chin and forehead, she stirred.

  “Wha…?” she mumbled, blinking and rubbing her eyes. “Did I finish the last tale?”

  “You did, and excellent it was. Whenever I see a blackbird and a partridge together I shall think of it.” And of sitting by the fire with my girl in my lap, feeling aroused and hard but not wanting to disturb her.

  She nibbled her lower lip. “It was not too simple?”

  “Not for a story told aloud.” I want to savor this and everything about her. The difference, I suppose, from being three and thirty rather than eighteen.

  “Artos, shift yourself,” he snapped. The wolf slouched away off the bed and lay down again closer to the door. Sebastian stood with Melissa and set her lightly on her feet. “Nightshirt under your pillow. Go on. I must speak to Henry and John.”

  “Robert’s Henry?” she sounded curious, not alarmed at either the question or going to bed with him.

  “The same.”

  “And John?”

  Why did she want to know? Suppressing a brief flare of jealousy, Sebastian answered, “John is another seeking refuge. He has a withered leg.” He did not add that the young man, as well as having a sickly limb, seemed to have a small soul. Sebastian had seen him lurking round couples with an expression of malicious irritation on his drawn, young-old face. John did not want a relationship for himself. Rather he seemed to resent others having any. But Sebastian did not tell her all this. In the tower everyone got their new chance, including John, but it would not be easy for him. Still, others in the tower had withered limbs and they thrived and were happy. John had come at the same time as Melissa, so there was time. He just needs space to heal. Look at how Melissa is blossoming.

  On that very pleasing final thought, Sebastian turned away from her and stalked to the door. Would she pretend to be asleep when he returned? He smiled to himself. It was going to be interesting to find out.

  Chapter 5

  Melissa was still crouching on top of the bedding when Sebastian returned. Dressed in an off-white nightshirt of his that trailed past her fingers and toes and dangled down her narrow shoulders, she made him laugh.

  He could not resist a tease. “Do you not remember your side of the bed, little Felix?”

  Her head bobbed up like an apple on a string. “Of course, but I wanted to wear…The shirts are the same, are they not?”

  He did not answer, too startled by the fact that she had actively engineered it to wear something of his, something he had worn when he had last slept beneath the covers of this bed. And she looks adorable doing it.

  “Oh.” Now she was diving under the covers, smothering her blushes and embarrassment with the sheets. “Sorry. I will swap these back.” She wriggled beneath the heavy blankets, trying to act on her words. Sebastian stopped her with a long stare.

  “Well?” he demanded, unsure if he was making a statement or issuing a challenge.

  “Would you like to kiss me, sir?”

  Her impudent question struck him like a hammer, low in his stomach and groin. More harshly than he intended he snapped, “I do not want obligation, Mistress Felix, or payment in kind.” He wanted different, deeper things from Melissa, he realized. In the month she had been with him she had become more than a prize. “I do not care to be the recipient of your gratitude—oof!”

  Melissa launched herself at him, clattering their teeth and lips together in a clumsy kiss. He snatched her snugly to him before she tumbled in the tangle of sheets, coiling his arms about her.

  “Well, by Lucifer, are we trying for a chaste kiss, little Felix?”

  Sebastian sounded amused, but at least he had stopped glaring and he was no longer calling her Mistress Felix. She did not mind “little Felix.” She savored it like a jewel—it was hers and hers alone—but she wanted more, she wanted Sebastian to say her name. She liked hearing him speak her name.

  “Melissa,” she whispered, sucking on his top lip, her breasts throbbing as she was crushed even tighter against him, her lord of the tower.

  “Melissa,” he agreed, in that dark, dungeon voice, a voice she heard nightly in her dreams, suggesting such wicked, sinful, delightful things, acts she could never quite remember by dawn but which made her yearn and ache. So surely they must be wicked?

  “Should I respond the same, to honor and treasure your young, untried self?” Sebastian butterflied tiny, dizzying kisses across her mouth, cheeks and neck, kisses lighter and more tender, more searching, than a bee inside a flower. “To cherish all that you are, my Melissa? Shall I worship you as you deserve, my eighteen-year-old darling?”

  My Melissa. She was melting even before he laid her down on the bed, surging against her, a sweeping wave of dark heat. Worship. I worship you. “Yes,” she hissed. “Please.” Darling.

  “You are to be savored, my Melissa. Slowly, exquisitely, inch by inch.” He was kissing down her neck and lower, at the pulse points of her throat, and lower, tonguing her through the rough, hot cloth of her nightshirt, and lower, across her breasts. When he sucked on her nipple she arched into his mouth, her sight gone blind with heady need.

  “Steady, little one. There is no need for haste or fear,” his sultry voice promised as that clever mouth teased and touched anew. “I am here now. I shall tend to all your wants.”

  “Yes!” she moaned and opened her eyes, finding him watching intensely, his stark face still pale, his eyes blazing.

  “I see you, m–my lord,” she stammered, trying for sophistication, a Roman learning, to prove she was no longer a youth. His gaze was like fire and spices, sending hot tendrils of warmth all over her body. She felt more than desired, she felt beloved.

  “And I you, Melissa, so much.”

  Thank Lucifer I am three and thirty and have some control. Sebastian had never made a fetish of virginity. To him it was the whole, the whole woman, who mattered. Melissa, with her ardent trust, mattered the most of all. By her kisses, by her shy smiles and brief, fleeting touches of his arms and back and shoulders, she offered herself. He wished to respect her trust, to make her first time thrilling and complete, as different from his own clumsy, hasty first experience—he could not even call it coupling—as possible. Something she will recall with a tender smile, not sharp regret. For that she needed time. Thank Lucifer I am three and thirty.

  Sebastian needed that reminder of his age. As Melissa shivered beneath his kisses, her heartfelt response turned him back into a youngster. He lay on the bed with her, bewitched into a changeling by way of his own passion. She transported him to a time before his being mocked or betrayed. When she looked at him she made him handsome.

  “You are,” she murmured, sucking on his little finger as he cradled her head for another fluttering kiss. “Handsome. Sensual.”

  I must have spoken my thought aloud, Sebastian realized, as his blood sizzled from his toes to his belly. She means it. Thank Lucifer I am three and thirty.

  She was flying and falling, flying and falling, and Sebastian enveloped her, catching, holding, keeping her safe. His arms were locked about her and his long, strong legs twisted through hers so they writhed together like snakes in a mating dance, hot and slippery. He was aroused—she knew that even in her innocence, as their hips clashed and she slammed against his jutting penis, feeling it easily through her nightshirt and his clothes, long and big as the rest of him.

  “Your robes.” She tugged at the dark mantle, longing to see him, hoping to explore, skin to skin.

  “Not yet.” The pupils of his eyes were huge, black, and he was taut beneath her hesitant fingers, sinewy and tough and at the same time yielding, molding to her lightest touch. She was the potter and he was…not clay, far
from clay, rather the furnace in which they were created. She licked his ear and he groaned, his rising chest stopping, bursting with an unreleased breath.

  “Sorry,” she said quickly, and he breathed out and smiled, quicksilver bright in the shadowy cave of their bed.

  “Hush, that word has no place here.” He hovered over her, crook-nosed—which no longer mattered—and bow-backed, his long hands caressing. And now he was in her, his tongue beguiling her mouth, sucking and teasing beneath her fingernails and the ticklish arch of her foot.

  She hiccupped in pleased surprise and he chuckled against her navel. “So needful. I love the way you are undone.”

  “For you, just you, always you,” she answered, and she yanked on his fine black hair, uncaring if she hurt or made him angry. “No others.” She meant for him, too, but wanted him to say that.

  One-handed, he pressed her shifting hips to the mattress and surged back up to snatch a hot, possessive kiss. “I never share.”

  Then he returned to her body, licking beneath her breasts, sucking down her flanks, tickling. Somehow her nightshirt was off, or rather hanging off one arm and she was naked for the rest, luxuriating in his attention.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered. Before she could respond or reach for him, he pinned her arms on either side of her body with his and trailed his lips across her intimate curls.

  He cannot kiss me there! But he did, flicking his tongue in her most secret places, humming and whispering that she was soft, silk, lovely, darling, that he could live here forever, for a thousand years. Helpless in his human manacles she writhed, wanting to touch, to taste herself, but soon no thought was possible. His mouth devoured and she was arching up to meet the busy, eager lips, her loins bursting with heat, building, yearning, flowering to a single, high, pulsing note.

  She screamed and the note within her soared higher, fiercer, sweeter, impossible to endure. A darkness blacker than Sebastian’s hair fell across her eyes, gathered her into nothingness. Blissful with pleasure, she knew no more.

  The little wench had blacked out on him. He had not known his Melissa would be a fainter but now that he did…it was gratifying. A single hard thrust against the mattress had him rocking to completion and a kind of relief, no more than that, as his hands clenched her hair. Swiftly, before she stirred and could be embarrassed—the time for teasing about such ardent responses was later, when they were more settled—Sebastian flung off his clothes and gathered her back into his arms. She snuffled and rolled against him, her head pillowed on his chest. Truly asleep now, she glowed in the firelight, one hand splayed across his heart. He softly bit down on her thumb and she whimpered in response, shuffling closer, more generous and warm than Rosemond ever was.

  Tomorrow we shall do more, he thought, and could not stop the smug smile from creasing his mouth.

  Chapter 6

  She plummeted awake, the dread of falling screaming from her dry mouth. Thrashing, she wallowed up in the bed—where she was alone.

  Embarrassment warred with anger and both were defeated by misery. I did nothing to please him last night. He has gone. Why should he stay?

  Artos yipped a warning, and an instant later Melissa heard a hesitant knock.

  “My lady?” Robert called through the wood. “Lord Sebastian sends his good wishes and apologies to you. He had to leave early, long before dawn.”

  “Another Viking raid?” Melissa croaked, raking her fingers anxiously along her arms.

  Robert cleared his throat. “A summons to the king, my lady, one my lord had to obey. He should return tonight.”

  Melissa sank back into the pillows, telling herself to stop worrying. He has not cast you off. He is not risking his life fighting blood-thirsty pirates. He will be back by nightfall.

  “What should I do?” she whispered aloud.

  Behind the door Robert gave a low cough. “My mother is brewing today. She would welcome your company.”

  Had Sebastian told Robert to say that? Did it matter if he had?

  “I will be glad to join her,” Melissa said quickly, shivering as she quitted the rumpled, Sebastian-scented sheets.

  The day dragged. Melissa lingered in the tower armory, ears pricked for the sounds of riders and the familiar striding gait of the lord of the tower. Stirring and weighing for Robert’s mother, she imagined Sebastian standing behind her, guiding her arm. Sent out to gather rue, she ran from the snowy gardens to the gatehouse, shielding her eyes against the sparkling winter sun, praying to catch a glimpse of a tall, dark figure.

  Chestnut-haired Robert came to fetch her inside, Robert and another youth, not sturdy, patient Henry, but a dark young man who limped on a withered leg.

  “John the wainwright at your service,” the young man grunted, the petulant expression on his large-jawed face revealing clearly that he resented admitting even that.

  “Thank you, John. I am Melissa.” She smiled, refusing to be disconcerted by his continuing surliness. “Have you been here long, at the tower?” She almost said “home” and realized the tower had indeed become home, or at least anywhere where Sebastian lived was “home.”

  John shrugged, his large jaw clenching as if he wanted to spit. At me? At Robert? “For the same time as you,” he said finally, and limped off, clumsily and deliberately kicking great plumes of snow in his wake.

  Robert raised his ginger eyebrows and nodded at the young man’s stamping limp, and she gave him a quick grin, trying not to bite her thumb. Robert is right. John must be in pain because of his leg, poor man. She began to walk along the path she had cleared two weeks earlier, Robert laughing and striding ahead as Henry put his head out of the tower doorway, and the young squire hurried to join his lover. He was running when he passed John’s lame, limping figure, skidding and slipping on the snow and careless about falling, a simple happiness that was a joy to see. John scowled but Melissa told herself it was simply because the young wainwright was cold. I must fetch him some new ale when we are inside.

  The day drew on. Melissa encouraged John to sit on the bench where she had helped Sebastian to check his chainmail, and brought the scowling young man a tall cup of ale. She found a cracked merril board and a bowl of counters on the trestle where weapons and tools were stacked or left to be recovered by their owners—pliers, plumb lines and small knives were often being lost and found—but John refused to play the game. “I am weary…my leg…”

  “Of course.” Melissa stepped away and wandered to the entrance archway. Artos joined her and together they stared out into the snow.

  After a while, Melissa crouched and buried her nose in the wolf’s fur. “How long is this waiting,” she whispered against the black, hairy neck, and Artos clicked his claws restively on the flagstones as if in agreement.

  “Riders!” bawled a watchman from the roof of the tower. “He comes! Our lord is here!”

  Melissa jumped to her feet and darted to the other end of the trestle, where cups and covered jugs of ale and baskets of bread awaited Sebastian and his men. She snatched a cup and a jug full of ale and returned to the entrance, ready to offer refreshment when Sebastian stormed into the tower. Her heart thumped in her chest and she tingled all over her body but she was not afraid. Soon I shall see him again, face to face. Will he embrace me? Shall we kiss?

  Behind her she heard others hurrying, making ready, and spotted Robert straightening his collar and smoothing down his tunic. She fixed on the tallest and straightest of the riders blurring into view, dark against the snow. Close, now, so very close—

  “Melissa? I do not feel good.”

  She tore her eyes from watching Sebastian and turned, wondering how John had come so near to her without her noticing. Artos whined, quivering, his attention still clamped on his approaching master. John slumped against her and she quickly placed cup and jug on the flagstones and wound an arm about his sagging middle.

  “John?” He looked to be sweating and flushed.

  “Help me,” he pleaded, and she tried to call
Robert, any of the milling people, but John lurched, stumbling afresh. Swiftly, Melissa brought her other hand around him.

  “You will not fall,” she gasped, panting with the effort of keeping both on their feet. The young man was surprisingly heavy, certainly a tugging, dead weight, making little effort for himself. “I have you.”

  “So it would appear,” snarled a familiar, dark voice.

  Sebastian, tall, commanding and unsmiling, stood before her, glowering and harsh.

  What does he think is happening?

  Someone, anyone, got the boy away, but Sebastian did not care about him, scarcely noticing the peculiar smirk on John’s reddening, triumphant face. Sebastian lunged for Melissa. She was the one he wanted. I trusted you and this is how you repay!

  “This is what you do when I am away,” he ground out, dragging her to him as she tried to squirm back.

  “No, no,” she was saying, gabbling more, but he refused to listen.

  He was twelve again and Baldwin and Rosemond were laughing at him. He was one and twenty and his lover had just left him, calling him possessive. He was almost thirty, reading the letter his second lover had tucked beneath his pillow. I love you, Sebastian, but your jealousy is destroying us. I refuse to stay and begin to hate.

  “Mine,” he spat. “No one but me.”

  He shook Melissa in his arms and flung her over his shoulder, climbing the stairs to the highest room in the tower. He kicked the chamber door open so hard it splintered and cracked, shuddering in its huge hinges.

  Melissa had been gabbling and struggling and he hurled her onto the bed. The hot rage and icy, slithering jealousy pounded through him, making his head ache. A slither of conscience that sounded like Melissa again was begging him to stop, to remember that lame John was devious, unkind, certainly unjust. For an instant he recalled that smug, triumphant smirk in the younger man’s face before fear and anger reclaimed him.