Why did I torment myself spying on their private pleasures? Why was I drawn back again and again? Why could I not turn away from the sound of their moans or the intoxicating scent of their passion? Why was I helpless to watch every exquisite moment, every lavish of their tongues, every deep-throated kiss, every tender thrust that was theirs between them?
Otherwise, our days in exile passed much the same. Using my dagger, Tris fashioned a yew bow that he named Failnaught, chipping arrowheads from the flint in the cliffs. Yseult collected flowers and herbs to dry and test in various potions, learning the properties of native plants she’d not seen on the Irish shore.
Yseult was hunting scented Evening Stock plants in the early twilight and Tris was hunting deer by a creek that flowed to the sea. It was summer’s end and only a handful of weeks since we’d come here to our secret world.
Like Tris, my hound was hunting too, only smaller game. I’d just heard the rustle of a sleepy grouse when Yseult cried out.
In a wood in summer with plenty of food about, it is rare for wolves to stalk men unless the wolves are sickened by disease that maddens them. Whether the two that stalked Yseult were sick or simply bored, I didn’t know, didn’t care.
The first sprang upon her, teeth bared and snarling. It didn’t sense me coming, didn’t know I was there until I dove beneath it and grabbed its throat between my jaws. With a violent shake, I ripped open its life-vein, showering blood over us all.
I didn’t let go till Yseult had scrambled out of the way and the wolf in my jaws went still.
“Des!” Yseult cried, and the second, smaller wolf approached. Yseult ran as I lunged, tackling the dead wolf’s mate. The wolf bitch had no stomach for a fight, though, and fled into the forest. I ran after Yseult, a breathspace behind her as we neared the safety of the grotto.
Then a blinding pain shivered through my left hip. I stumbled one, two, three more steps, before collapsing with a whimper.
“No!” There was more terror in Yseult’s cry just then than when the wolves had been upon her.
Through the darkness that was falling faster than the twilight, I strained to see what Yseult saw.
It was Tris, running up the hill, Failnaught drawn and another arrow set to fly.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
TRISTAN
“Yseult, run!” I cried.
Yet she did not.
Instead, she leaped in front of the animal I aimed at and shielded it with her own bloodied body.
I pounded up the hill.
She met me with outstretched arms that gripped my own in supplication even as I dropped my bow and drew my sword, brushing off her hands.
“No!” she cried. “”Don’t kill him!”
The blood on her face and shift resolved me otherwise. My gut twisted when I got a clean look at the beast. The Gabriel Hound that had been skulking the woods, stalking us. A demon dog, not to be trusted. Its white coat covered in blood. Yseult’s blood. So much blood on both of them.
She grabbed my sword arm, her weight dragging it down. Fighting me.
More, fighting me with strength she should not own if all the blood was hers. I hesitated.
“Please,” she begged. “It-it’s Des.”
“What did you say?”
“The hound—it’s Des.”
Her utter conviction stayed my hand cold where her fighting me had not. I looked from hound to her and back again. Trying to comprehend.
“There,” she pointed to a gray shape a hundred yards away. “That’s the wolf that attacked me.”
Attacked. Concern drove out all else. “You’re hurt then! Where?” I searched her closely with my eyes, unable to find even a rip in her shift.
“Des got to him first. I’m unmarked.”
“Des?” I repeated even as relief washed over me.
Shock worn off, the hound began to stir.
“Help me get him to the cave,” Yseult insisted. “We need to get the arrow out before…” She choked back a sob.
“Before he dies.” I finished for her. Her fear was understandable, of course. “But it’s not a mortal wound.”
She shook her head.
“What then?”
“Before he’s Des again. Hurry. We haven’t much time.”
This time I responded to her plea, still trying to piece together the puzzle before me. I sheathed my sword and Yseult helped shift the hound into my arms. It was heavier than I thought it would be, but I managed to haul it to the cave . Hurrying ahead in the failing light, Failnaught in her hands, Yseult reached the cave first and struck flint to relight the fire we kept laid at its mouth.
Kneeling, I laid the beast down, Yseult cradling its head so it wouldn’t strike the ground. She probed the wound, then threw me a half smile in relief.
“The bone stopped the point from burying too deep. I think we can pull the arrow rather than cut it out.”
That I understood. “What can I do?”
“Be ready to staunch the wound if it bleeds.”
I pulled off my tunic. We had precious little cloth between us not being used.
Surprisingly the wound, in hard and compact muscle, hardly bled. It had not been one of my better shots. I hadn’t even been sure the beast was in range, and it was running. I’d counted it fortune I’d hit it at all. As I counted it fortune now that I hadn’t hit it well.
Despite my fear that it might fight, the hound merely whimpered as Yseult pulled the arrow out. After, she took my hand and pulled me down to sit beside her as she held the hound’s head in her lap.
“Watch,” she instructed.
“For what?”
“A miracle.”
I scoffed, getting rather tired of miracles, but she was right. She had told me it was Des. I had understood the words she used but I had not grasped their meaning. Not until I saw the hound… melt… and … flow… a trick of the eye in the early night. And then it was Des’ head held so tenderly on Yseult’s thighs. Des’ glorious body so naked on the ground.
He wrapped an arm around her waist, let it slide in sudden weakness till it draped intimately across her hips.
Watching the transformation was startling enough. That Yseult had known and I had not more startling still. That she held to him and he to her even in pain as though they had done this often before… How many times had she held him naked in her lap?
I should have been joyed I’d not killed Des. Des who had taught me the far reaches of passion where Yseult and I simply could not go. Des who had saved Yseult from the fire and now from wolves.
Something in my soul snapped. My sanity, perhaps. It was as though my true self flew outside my body, and I watched as some other self took over—actions, words and feelings all.
And all I could feel was rage and jealousy. The secret kept between them. The ease with which they clung one to the other. The intimate way Yseult bent across his body as he lay on his side to examine his naked thigh. She had only to spread her hand to cover the distance to the rest of him there on flagrant display.
I flung my tunic at them. “Cover him,” I commanded, my voice sharp in the gathering night.
Yseult stared at me as she obediently spread the cloth over Des’ loins. Just before the length of him disappeared beneath, a flash of an image rocked me, reminding me just what pleasure it could incite.
What pleasure had it already incited in Yseult?
Des blinked and ran a hand across his brow, awake and aware now.
“Why have you exiled yourself here with us in Morois Wood?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice calm. He lifted his hand to better see me. “When your kin came, with Yseult safe, why didn’t you run off with them? Why follow us here?”
“You know why. You’ve always known why. I’ve made no secret of my love for Yseult.”
“But you’ve kept secrets enough, haven’t you? Secrets only Yseult knew. Secrets only for a lover’s ear.”
Des levered himself to his elbow and the tunic slid low along his hips. “
What are you accusing us of? Infidelity?” He snorted.
“You two have never—?”
“Between you and Mark, when has there been time?” Yseult asked, clearly exasperated at the turn the night had taken.
But Jealousy had me full in her grip now.
“The hours I was occupied with Tintagel’s affairs. When I’ve gone off hunting here. What more time do you need? You’ve proved yourself unfaithful to your husband. Why should I believe you’re faithful to me?”
“Do you hear yourself? You speak as though I’m a harlot who flits from man to man.”
“And yet he is here. Swearing his love for you.”
“Swearing too,” Des broke in, “that we’ve not lain together in Tintagel nor since coming here. You believe one but not the other?”
“I believed you a man, and you’re not. I believed you a friend, and you’re not.”
“I am cursed to be a man twenty-three hours of the day. And I have never stopped being your friend. Do I think of you two together in the moonlight? Yes. Do I dream of being with her, pleasuring in her so freely as you? Yes. I covet her with all that is in my cursed heart. Day after wretched day. Night after lonely night. The unbearable pain of being so close eclipsed only by the excruciating pain of being apart. And even though my heart breaks each day to know she loves you more, and even though I am driven mad to know she lays with you, I remain your friend.”
Impossible. “How can you?”
“How can I hold you to blame for her choices, for the spell that ensnares you both? How can I blame her for the song her heart sings? How—?”
He broke off, suddenly gasping—whether for words, for breath, for pain, I couldn’t tell. Until his face collapsed in sorrow and he groaned.
Yseult’s hand flew to his cheek, exasperation toward me forgotten completely in her concern for him. “What is it, Des?” she asked gently.
“Brinn. I blamed Brinn for exactly that. Blamed her for being spelled to the mortal world, blamed her for the song her heart sang, blamed her for abandoning me to follow that song. Blamed her that I loved her so much I would fight for her, die for her, yet she could not love me so in return. How could I have done that to her? To me?”
He took a shuddering breath and faced me, those inhuman eyes of his full of all-too human pain—heartpain, soulpain. “You are me as I was then,” he said to me in wonderment and empathy. “Consumed beyond sense by jealousy. You are your uncle, only too ready to burn away your pain. Truth for you is only that which you find in your shattered heart, whether the rest of the world holds it true or not.”
Under the sympathy in Yseult’s eyes, he cringed.
But whatever self inhabited me now had no sympathy.
“What would you do?” Yseult asked of me. “How would you feel if the woman you loved did not return the affection? How would you deal with the torment? Des has only done honor to us both. Would you—could you—have been so gracious?”
“No man—nor beast—” I thundered, “could have been as gracious as me. I allowed you to lay with my uncle only for the sake of peace. And only because I knew you loved him not. That you lay with him out of duty alone, and for every night you lay with him you would lay with me for six.”
“Allow?” Yseult rose up and in a fit of pique snatched the tunic from off of Des and threw it back at me. “I am no chattel to possess. I am not pawn to your knight to move as you please. I am queen. The game is mine to win or lose.”
“You are wrong, Your Grace. The game is God’s to decide.”
“And how will God choose between you? A knight pure in heart but not in deed spelled by witchery to love me, or a knight pure in deed but not in heart cursed by Fate to win me?”
“By challenge. Trial by combat.” A demon had spoken those absurd words, surely not me. And surely not of a knight lying naked and wounded on the same cold cave floor where I’d professed my love to him more than once and where Yseult and I worshiped each other in the night.
There was genuine fright in Yseult’s eyes, but her chin was locked in determination. “If you go through with such a fight, I swear by God’s beard I’ll return to Mark and demand trial of him myself.”
I ignored her threat, even knowing she was stubborn enough to follow through. This was between Des and me.
“You’ve betrayed our friendship,” I told him.
“Less so than you’ve betrayed your kin and king,” he shot back. “Fate has driven us here, nor is she done with us yet. But if you press this foolish drama, I will fight. And I’ll not hold back.”
To commiserate together in our cups and attribute all our woes to Fate seemed the better course of action here.
To all but the demon within me.
“To trial,” I said.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
YSEULT
Such foolish temper! Were I not bound to them both by love and circumstance, I would have ordered them away, separately, till their anger cooled and they could think like friends again.
“I will not watch either of you die for misplaced honor,” I said instead. “Only heartbreak has come of our love, and only heartbreak do I see in our future.”
Like with Casandra’s prophecies, they seemed to hear me not and heed me less. Why is it when battledrums thrum in men’s blood they become as different men?
Only a challenge to their honor now would they hear, so I tried another tack, asking Tris, “You would challenge a knight you yourself wounded to combat. Where does your honor hide?”
“I would challenge him now, yes!” Tris thundered at me. Then he scowled at Des with his pierced thigh. “But I will give him a fortnight to heal.”
“It was flint not steal that pricked me,” Des replied. ”It’ll need no more than a week.”
“A ten-day then,” I compromised firmly, taking what opportunity of time I could to heal the greater rift between the two of them. “And Des will remain here where I can care for him. He came to ill protecting me.”
Mad as Tris might be, debt and honor still held meaning. Reluctantly, he agreed, and Des moved into the shelter of the cave with us, eating with us, sleeping with us. Wearing only the short tunic Tris insisted on, which concealed little from my sight.
When he shifted the next evening, I was there for the hound, to calm it and keep it quiet and confined. Tris sat by as well, grumbling when Des stripped the tunic from his shoulders right before he changed. Otherwise, Tris watched the miracle in studied silence, not even protesting when I stroked its silken ears and patted its shoulder. Not even when I moved to its flank to examine the arrow wound in this current form.
“Des’ hound is as beautiful as he, wouldn’t you say?” I asked Tris.
“How long have you known?”
“Since my sabbatical, right before the wedding. He confided to me then.”
“Why?”
“Pardon?”
“Why did he confide such a secret, and why then?”
Did I blush? My flesh was prone to that betrayal, and Tris’ stare seemed to sharpen.
“We meditated together and confessed much during those days.” In other circumstances, to the Tris I knew before, I would have confessed then to him about the cave and Des. I didn’t even have to close my eyes to remember Des’ gentle hands, our urgent needs and the skill he had at pleasuring me.
Those memories held no shame, only delight. The Tris before would have joyed for us, for that small time of happiness I’d found.
This Tris would turn that joy to pain, to hurt us with it, to hurt himself.
It was secrets that would bring us ruin. But it was also secrets that would keep us safe.
“Did you also confess yourselves to God and abbot?”
“God already knew, and we needed no further conduit to His ears.”
I had determined early on to give Tris only truth.
Just, perhaps, not the whole truth.
Like the stories we told of Brangien’s death out of love for her honor and her name.
&
nbsp; “Do you love him?” Tris asked.
“Of course.” I didn’t hesitate in my answer. “As you do.” I couldn’t identify the peculiar expression that twisted his face, part in pain, part in sorrow, part in—?
“You think I love him still?”
“That he lives is proof you do.” I saw his thoughts go elsewhere briefly and the rage that had become his second self mellowed. “Yes, I suppose I still do,” he whispered into the unguarded dark. Then the anger and jealousy settled over him like a storm and he was closed to me once more.
All the while the hound watched us, his emerald eyes unchanging when he became Des again and Tris handed him his tunic.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
PALOMIDES
The second evening, too, my hound remained in the cave. My wound, as I’d foreseen, was healing quickly under Yseult’s care along with something of the fae that still remained within me.
What madness had come over Tris I couldn’t fathom. Nothing of the softness I’d found endearing remained in him. Rage and jealousy and maybe something more visceral had tempered him into cold steel, hard now and unflinching in his regard for me.
On the third evening, my hound trotted carefully from the cave with only the slightest limp, leaving Yseult and Tris alone within. It didn’t go far, though, turning to spy from a hollow in the grotto.
Flamelight illuminated them both, accenting the radiant beauty of each. They embraced in haste, parting only long enough to drop their clothes. Distance cheated me of the passion in their eyes and their soft moans and sighs, but that Tris was risen in worship and Yseult ready to receive him was abundantly clear. They came together as two hands in prayer before sinking slowly to their knees. Soon, Tris rose again, and Yseult praised him with her tongue until he pressed her down and he praised her with his.
She arched her back, and I knew well what cry would come with that. Tris covered her then and, hypnotized, I watched the frantic rise and fall of him until he collapsed atop her while she writhed yet beneath.
Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) Page 18
