Draycott Everlasting: Christmas KnightMoonrise

by Christina Skye

  “It’s my responsibility, not yours.”

  He lifted her wrist, studied the track of scars, and then kissed the skin very gently.

  Sara closed her eyes at the touch of his lips. The air seemed full, almost dense with energy. “I don’t believe any of this.” She shook her head. “Magic is for children.”

  “Only because there is no wonder left in your world. A true pity, Sara.”

  She stiffened. “Oh, really? We have trains and airplanes and fax machines. Why would we need wonder?”

  “Everyone needs wonder. If you believe anything, believe in this.” Adrian Draycott turned from the fireplace, studying the two of them. “I am not needed here, but one piece of advice I will give you. Time has shifted in ways of great possibility this night. Do not waste the precious gift you have been given, because gifts may be taken in the passing of a moment.”

  The door closed softly.

  “I’m going, too,” Sara said stiffly. “I’ve shared my nightmares. What more is left?”

  Navarre felt her anger, her confusion. He could not let her leave with so much unsaid and undone. “There is more to be faced.”

  “You mean the shadows that move like oil? Things that confound every law of science? No more. I’ve had enough for one night.”

  His fingers curled over her hand, a restraint for all that his touch was gentle. “You did not flee from the storm. You did not flinch from an attacker. Do not run now.”

  He felt her pulse begin to pound.

  “Remember.” He whispered the word, slipping over the link between them.

  “No.”

  Gabriel felt the force of her resistance, tempered by fear and old pain. He felt every struggle her mind made.

  “No more talk, Gabriel. No more magic spells and memories. I’m too tired.”

  He shifted, his fingers curving over her cheek. “I could change that,” he said softly.

  She made a broken sound and shoved him away.

  The force of her indecision was like the cry of the wind and Navarre heard every note. “I know, Sara.” His breath touched her cheek. “I can feel all of it.”

  She closed her eyes. “Are we always going to have this…awareness between us?”

  “Once the link is forged, there is no way to sever it.” He spoke slowly. “It was the cost of protecting you and your world.”

  “I don’t want it.” She spun, her forehead against the wall. “I don’t want to feel you like this. Make it stop.”

  “I cannot. What has been freely given in the circling cannot be taken back.” It hurt Gabriel to continue, but honesty demanded no less. “Yet I do have the skill of forgetting. If you truly wish, I can wipe all the memories away. A still, quiet pool, as if it never happened.”

  She didn’t turn, her body taut as a drawn bowstring. “You could do that, make me forget everything that’s happened here?”

  “I could. If you truly wish it.”

  She wavered, turning her face toward the dancing fire. Such beauty and strength, the Crusader thought, caught by awe and something deeper that he had not yet put a name to.

  “Everything gone,” she whispered. “Good along with bad.” Then she shook her head. “I won’t choose forgetting. Just tell me how to accept what I can’t believe in.”

  His fingers slid to anchor her waist. Navarre felt her shifting awareness of his body so close to hers. With his touch, images spilled into her mind, part new and part memories. In the newness of their contact, she had not yet understood how to separate the two.

  “From moment to single moment, Sara. Feel us, skin to skin. From there we will knit the past together and knot it to the future. This we can do, I promise.”

  His hand traced her neck.

  The bond between them snapped tight, dancing and shimmering with energy forged of old joys and older pain. Sara’s breath caught. Navarre saw heat spill into her face.

  She tasted the passion that had slept for almost eight centuries.

  “This is insane. How can I believe any of it?”

  “Believe,” Gabriel whispered.

  She started to pull away.

  And then with a broken sigh she turned. Very carefully she set one palm against his chest.

  The simple gesture was like the blow of a sword. Navarre flinched at the force of it, and she missed none of his response, her hand sliding up his chest. He read her emotion in her eyes and through the dancing thread between them.

  Her eyes widened, dark with wonder. “So much is here. So much that feels real to me.” Her fingers traced his locked jaw. Her heat was already seducing him.

  She drew a low sigh and pulled him closer. “I want you touching me.” Her mouth brushed his, loosing a wave of raw hunger. Time seemed to bend and the room seemed to stretch, vast with energy, rich with memories.

  Navarre forced his muscles not to move, kept his hands at his sides so he would not take. Taking would have been easy, and he did not want the easy way. Not with this woman.

  He drew his thoughts back, hiding the force of his temptation.

  “I can see now.” She moved closer. “You’re afraid you will hurt me. That we will somehow be betrayed as we were in the past.”

  She shivered with sudden memories of heat and terror. “I remember he had ropes to tie me and a drug. He put me inside some kind of trunk.”

  Navarre’s hands gripped her shoulders. “You remember this?”

  She nodded blindly. “I fought, but he had two other men to help him.”

  “You see—and yet I cannot? You are certain?”

  “The images are too real to doubt. It was stifling, Gabriel.”

  His body was rigid with tension. “Not Adrian? He did not take you?”

  “No, another. The name Philip is all I remember.”

  Navarre whispered a graphic oath. “I should have known. What happened to you then?”

  “My nails broke and my fingers bled from my fight to escape. How much I prayed for you to come—”

  Her words broke Gabriel’s heart. “And I should have, my love. I was a fool of the worst sort.”

  “This man had great power. A very twisted man. I can see his face now. He wanted—” Her fingers closed to fists.

  Gabriel didn’t need her to finish. The image of her captor was blindingly clear in his mind. “Philip, bastard son of the king. The craven blackguard. If only I had known.”

  He held her while she shuddered, his hand in her hair.

  And then she pulled away. Her face turned up to his. “I want your skin against me, Gabriel. I want to feel heat, not cold fear.” She bit her lip, uncertain. Her hand closed on the smooth wool of his cloak.

  She took another slow step toward him. Their bodies met.

  Dizzy with hunger, Navarre summoned the willpower not to grip and seize, drinking from the well of memories.

  “You won’t make this easy, will you?”

  His hands clenched. “I think not.”

  “For a man who believes he is evil, you are full of goodness.”

  “What goodness?” The knight closed away the thought of her body, the scent of her hair. When her tongue brushed his mouth, he closed away that sweet heat, too.

  The pressure of her breasts was beyond even his control to resist. Blinded by hunger, his hands speared into her soft hair.

  Sara bit his lip gently and slid her body against his with a sigh. “I loved you then, Gabriel. I see it clearly, even if you can’t.” She pushed him back against the wall. “Now be quiet and I’ll make us both remember.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  HE WAS A MAN well versed in dealing out death but Sara had never felt safer in her life.

  Through the link so much was clear now. The scattered images of horses and the smell of spices on a hot wind made perfect sense. They had been betrayed in an age of peril and war. Now they were given a second chance, even if it lasted only an hour or a night.

  He didn’t answer. His eyes were still haunted by what she had just told him. />
  She touched his jaw, forcing his gaze to hers. “I don’t know if this is love, Gabriel. I don’t know how we came to be here after centuries have passed or what the future holds. But I’m not going to play fair tonight.” She let her desire spill between them as she explored the heat of his mouth. She found the taut muscles of his waist and slid her body closer, hearing his low oath. Her hunger became his, prowling and goading.

  No going back.

  She felt her buttons slide free, felt the tartan fall. Her damp clothes slid away without any help, tossed across the thick rug.

  Her startled question faded into a laugh. “Magic? Will I ever get used to this?”

  “I hope not. I hope it will always be a wonder to you,” Navarre said roughly.

  But it was not a magic of his working that bound them. It was an older magic, cast up by desire worked in the truth of love.

  Their love had been lost, blown through their fingers like sand. Now a new chance was given to them when least expected.

  Though she didn’t understand the forces at work, Sara wouldn’t risk losing him again. She tugged at his clothes, unfamiliar with the ties and bindings of his age.

  He spared them both, shrugging free of wool and linen with a muttered phrase of power.

  Her breath caught when she looked upon him, hard chest and lean muscle. He was all planes and shadows in the glow of phantom firelight. Stirred by the sight, she leaned down to explore with mouth and fingers.

  He whispered her name. His fingers opened, twisting in her hair. He pulled her mouth to his for a kiss that held an edge of violence. “You steal my breath.”

  She closed her eyes when his tongue found her tight, aching nipples. His hand moved over her stomach, tracing dark curls slick from desire. He pressed slowly inside and Sara felt the world blur.

  Moving deeper, he lifted her, met her with his fingers. Her breath caught at a wave of sharp pleasure and a hot sense of remembering.

  Coming home, she thought.

  Finding his arms after so many years.

  He bit the curve of her shoulder and Sara felt her body bow, nerves stretched to breaking beneath the certain fingers that slipped and teased. He watched her as his fingers slid deep. He whispered her name as he slid inside her again. Dizzy, she felt the hammer of his heart in response. And then he stroked her, fully sheathed inside her.

  She felt his heartbeat as she came apart, locked in a breathless climax. He drove her up again, blood racing, skin hot. She gasped his name and drove her nails into his shoulders as he shifted to one knee before her, then leaned to taste her, slowly and well.

  No more, she thought.

  Far more, he answered, showing her a new heat beneath his lips and hot tongue, the world gone white and blind. He pulled her against his mouth, gripping her hips with his hands while she shuddered at the tracing of his tongue, sensing he would not be denied.

  Trust me, Sara.

  Strangely she did.

  Feel this joining.

  With every grain of her being, she did.

  Come apart for me now.

  That she did, too, shaken even as she was protected, caught against his body when she might have fallen. Her arms wrapped around his neck as she felt him lift her.

  Soft carpet at her back. Skin to hot skin, naked on the thick wool.

  And then Gabriel’s body above her, tight with control.

  The low whisper of her name. His heat at her thighs as he spread her. The first giddy shock of his slow, powerful entry.

  His body rose above her. His rigid length pressed to fill her. Sara shot to another effortless climax, matched by every stroke he made inside her. She called his name.

  Falling, falling.

  There was no hurry in his taking, only certain familiarity, pulling the thread of thought between them so tight that it quivered. Over the hammer of her desire, she felt logic slowly return.

  “Gabriel?”

  His eyes were dark, his body rigid in the force of his control.

  She slid her hand between them, feeling the outline of their bodies, and he shuddered at her intimate touch. Some part of her drew on memories, given in the wake of their binding on the roof. She had seen enough to remember how she had touched him long before. He had protected her, defended her and finally lost her through an act of betrayal. This much Sara had seen clearly.

  She bit his shoulder, pulling him with her as energy coiled and snapped.

  His hands tightened. His lips nuzzled her breast, and suddenly she tensed, caught in the sure rush of another climax. This time Sara slid her legs around his waist, drawing him down to her, welcoming his body and his need.

  So much pain in him still.

  She took him just as he was, with all his shadows and regrets. With her love she gave him back the man he’d been before his losses, whole again, perfect in her memory.

  His breath came harshly. She drove against him, gripped him tightly, matched in spirit and flesh. Her legs locked at his waist, and her body opened to him completely as he threw his head back.

  Engulfed in dark pleasure, bodies taut, they felt the shattering heat of their joining, denied them for long centuries. His name was on Sara’s lips as she fell.

  SOMEONE MOVED.

  Someone sighed.

  Dim sounds followed. Not English. She struggled to hear and understand.

  “Dearest love.”

  She tried to move and found it beyond her. With great effort Sara forced open one eye. Their clothes lay scattered across the library’s thick rug while the fire danced. Gabriel had the mark of her nails on his neck and the smile of a man well pleasured. Gorgeous, she thought, with his long hair tangled and his eyes glinting with secrets.

  She caught a sharp breath to feel him harden inside her again. Her eyebrow rose. “That qualifies as impressive.”

  “No more than you, my heart.” Gabriel withdrew and then traced the tight line of her pink nipple. His tongue followed the same slow path, then moved across her stomach and down to her thighs.

  She shuddered. “You’ll kill me,” she whispered breathlessly.

  Sighing when he came inside her again.

  “Then we’ll die together,” he said roughly. The heat spun up, bright like silver, new like dawn, gripping them again.

  MUCH LATER GABRIEL watched her sleep, thinking on the odd ripples of time and the strange, unpredictable network of life. He had thought his ward infatuated, betrayed into an act of wantonness by his oldest friend. Now Gabriel knew that was a lie. His ward had not betrayed him. Nor had his friend.

  Instead a cunning man had taken her against her will. Gabriel suspected that Philip had worked evidence to suggest that Draycott had been involved, though he could not be certain of how it was done.

  He closed his eyes. He had been so quick to hate, to believe the worst of those he should have trusted. Such a fool.

  And yet…

  She was here beside him. Possibilities were given, it seemed.

  Miracles were granted.

  She had been the daughter of a trader long centuries in the past. Before her father’s death she had studied beside him, poring over maps of all the old caravan routes. Even as a girl she had heard legends of the wealthy empire that lay far to the east. Gabriel wondered how much of that knowledge had remained, aiding her search at Draycott.

  Possibilities.

  Miracles.

  He slid a worn metal cross around her neck. “Keep this,” he whispered, hearing her sleepy sigh. He kissed her hand. Wear it and remember me, Sara.

  He felt her sleepy agreement, a warm sigh in his mind as she tumbled back into dreams.

  Happy dreams this time.

  He was content. Far more than content, the warrior of Outremer realized as her thigh slid across his and her fingers eased through his hair.

  Love is here, he thought in wonder.

  And love was a force to rock kingdoms and shift castles. More powerful than any skill of siege or sword.

  After so many
centuries, to feel her again, her breath against his chest, her hand curved over his. When all else ended, love remained.

  He knew the nightingale, or thought that he had. A small, plain bird of little wingspan and power.

  Yet now the mighty warrior knew how perfectly its song could break a man’s heart in two.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SARA WOKE TO FIND HIM dressed, looking out the window, his shoulders tense.

  The wind still shrieked and she shivered beneath the warm blanket that covered her. Her body was sated, her skin flushed from all the ways she had taken—and been taken.

  But she forced away the remnants of sleep. There were questions to ask and a future to explore. And something remained for him to do, something he might resist, even now.

  She walked to his side and slid her arms around his waist, feeling his sigh. “You should have woken me.”

  “There was no need. You must have your rest.”

  “I will. First I have something to ask.”

  She felt him stiffen, picking up the determined thread of her thoughts. “Let him go, Gabriel. I can feel that some part of you resists, but let it be done once and for all. If you won’t do it for him, do it for me. Remember the honor of the friendship you once had.”

  She felt him try to block her out. “Mistakes were made. How can either of us go back now?”

  “Can’t—or won’t?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Of course there is. You are a man of strength, a man who can choose. Use your strength to choose the right thing. Set things fully as they were with your friend.”

  He looked at Sara and smiled a little grimly. “Do you control everyone around you so easily?”

  “It’s a request. Nothing more than that.”

  “Which gives it more weight than any order.” He pointed to the leather chair beside the door. “Your clothes are dry.”

  She saw her folded sweater and on top of that her cell phone. “I will need some things from my room in the gatehouse.”

  He touched her cheek. “You will stay there and rest? No more work?”

  She winced as she pulled on her sweater. “Agreed.”

  He muttered a little. “I will go with you.”