VirtualDesire

by Ann Lawrence

  She washed her face and hands.

  “I bathed you that day in the Selaw cottage,” he said, coming up behind her. She froze, conscious of their closeness, the memories of that day, his nakedness, her wet shirt plastered to her hips and bottom. “I bathed your hurts with the hypnoflora soap. Are you still marked as you were then?” He didn’t wait for a reply. His hands encircled her waist, turned her to face him, and drew her off the steps into the water.

  “I’m fine,” she managed. No, I’m not. I’m lost.

  His hands were gentle as he turned her chin, inspected her cheeks. “I am responsible for all your hurts.”

  “Shhhh,” she said.

  Every feature of his face was familiar to her now, memorized. His gaze was beguiling. Somehow she felt as if he could see inside her and feel every sensation she felt. Without hesitation, she touched her fingertips to his lips. A shudder of need ran through her.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  His hands flexed on her waist. Without hesitation, she went into his embrace. Strength and heat—from the water, from his body—suffused her.

  “Vad…” She skimmed his lips with hers. She ran her hands up his arms, along his water-beaded shoulders, into his thick hair. In return, his hands gently stroked her back, up and down, up and down, as mesmerizing as the most potent hypnoflora. “Each time we touch, this heat, it…it runs through me. Can you feel it?” she asked.

  “Aye,” he said against her lips, drawing her lower one between his teeth and biting gently. “It runs through me like a river of flames.” He kissed down her chin, her throat, her shoulder, to her breast.

  “Please, Vad, make love to me,” she said in a gasp.

  “So sweet,” he murmured against her heated flesh. He tongued her through the cloth, dragging his teeth back and forth, back and forth, with agonizing slowness.

  Every bone in his body felt molten-metal hot. Weak. Able to be bent, molded…

  Her fingers slipped into his hair and held him. “I want everything, all the heat, all the flames, all of it,” she whispered, giving voice to what his body craved.

  He met her gaze and held it. Answering flashes of desire followed her touch, like lightning flickering within his body.

  Deprivation, he thought, it is only the deprivation of three conjunctions of celibacy.

  She touched her lips to his chest. He felt the stroke of her tongue.

  And knew he was lost.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “We cannot,” he said, and gently disentangled himself from her arms. Clumsily, with his body intent on passion, not flight, he climbed from the pool. Wanting to deal honestly with her, he dried himself off and pulled on his tunic to conceal from her his continued arousal. “I cannot grant your request.”

  Finally dressed, he turned to her. Her eyes were huge and luminous, just visible over the stone lip of the pool.

  Nilrem’s throat, he swore silently. She was going to weep. He had always had trouble resisting a woman’s tears. He went down on one knee by her. Her garment billowed about her hips in shimmering white. “One night, three conjunctions ago, I realized—or Kered helped me realize, for he was as much teacher to me as brother—that the women who so craved a night of my attentions cared not for what was in here.” He thumped his chest with a fist. “If I wanted to share what was on my mind, my troubles, my dreams, there were no listeners. Save Kered. He suggested that I had merely to choose my next partner more carefully, someone worthy, a woman who was an equal, someone willing to see beyond my face. Kered’s words kept me awake throughout a very long night of soul searching. Do you ever search your soul in the dark?”

  A tear ran down her cheek, but she bobbed her head in agreement. Good, she might understand then. He clenched his fist to prevent himself from wiping her tears away. “That night I vowed my next partner would be a Tolemac woman worthy of an honorable lifemating. A virgin. One of a lineage of pride.”

  “Well,” she said with a hitch in her voice, “I’m certainly not a virgin.”

  “Aye. Nor a woman of my place.”

  Should he continue? Aye. He must. He owed her that, at least. To begin seduction and then pull away even once was unworthy of him, even if that once was from the hypnoflora. He did not consider that an adequate excuse. She needed to hear it all. “I must ask your forgiveness for misleading you…arousing you to no purpose.”

  Her small shoulders rose and fell in a negligent shrug, but her eyes still looked wounded.

  “I am an orphan, found with Kered on Nilrem’s mountain when we were but children. Kered was adopted by the old high councilor, Leoh, and I was fostered with Kered, but only because we were found together. Nilrem stated that ‘twas an ill omen to cast me off. And I was near death, unable to speak, eat, do the simplest of things. But Kered took on the task of encouraging me, forcing me to see my surroundings, eat. Nilrem said ‘twas only that connection to Kered that helped me live.

  “With Nilrem’s encouragement and Leoh’s kindness, I learned at Kered’s side, was made a warrior to serve under him. It was been my whole life, that service.”

  She reached out and touched his fist. With great difficulty, he opened his fingers and allowed a moment’s touch with hers—just the tips.

  “I remember nothing of my childhood save the lessons at Nilrem’s knee, by Kered’s side.”

  “But Kered told you who you are. He said your name is Nicholas San—”

  “Enough! Kered must be lying. He is seduced, has lost his honor.” He shot to his feet in agitated fury.

  “Then how do you explain how we got here? One moment in my shop, the next here? What of the family Kered said you had?”

  “All dead? How convenient.” The creeping doubts must be held at bay. Kered had lost his honor, lost his way. He, Vad, would not be mesmerized, turned from his goals as his friend had been.

  “And the rest? You know a song from my place. Wanted pepperoni on your pizza. How do you explain that?”

  “Magic.” He knelt at her side again. She touched the back of his hand where it lay clenched on his knee.

  “You told me warriors don’t believe in magic.” Her voice was low and insistent, seductive, each word sending a shiver of sensation to his belly.

  He shrugged. “This is all I know—my life here.” That uncanny heat still pulsed between them, tempted him to lock his hand on hers and bend his lips to her palm. To experience the beat of her heart against her breast.

  Gently he put her hand away. “I am a warrior—here, in this place. That is all I am. But a warrior with no family has nothing beyond life in the barracks. And I want more. I want a living family—not a dead one. And what kind of life would my children lead with a man of no lineage to guide them? For their sake, I need illustrious ancestors. And for ancestors, I need to lifemate with a woman who is well connected. I might be able to serve as an honorable model, but my mate must provide the ancient pride, the breeding I do not have.”

  “Would a woman with such qualifications want a man who has no background?”

  He rose and went to the map of the fortress, unrolled it, and studied Ardra’s marks. “Just as the maidens will come to me, so, I expect, a woman of worth will as well.”

  “And that’s it?” She climbed out of the pool. Her garment clung to her, tempted him with hints of high breasts and rounded hips. “You’ll just beckon and this illustriously ancestored woman will meekly accept you? Aren’t there going to be a few men in her life who will think an orphaned warrior less than perfect? Don’t forget your face is scarred now.”

  He forced a smile of amusement he did not feel and turned his unblemished cheek to her. Her expression changed subtly, softening. When he turned full face, her rapt attention did not falter. “Until this accusation against Kered, there was nothing to be said against me. Only a councilor is above me in rank, and there are few councilors of mating age. Thus, my worth, scarred face or not, is great to a father who would barter his daughter’s fate.”

  “I see.�
�� And he knew she did. “So much for widows from Ocean City,” she said.

  “Hold yourself separate from me,” he warned. “If I had you, I would leave you.” His voice sounded rough. It was his second warning, made as much for himself as for her. He had meant it the first time, and still he had embraced her, returned her kisses.

  “I understand,” she said, and wrapped a cloak around her shoulders. She began to shiver. “Don’t let it concern you. I’m okay with it.”

  He knew she was lying. Her face had flushed into ugly red blotches.

  “You have to understand that I’m no different from any other woman. I just wanted you for your body, too.”

  Although he knew she was lying to save her pride, her words touched his composure. “Then ‘tis best I have put you in your place—alongside the other shallow women of my acquaintance.”

  “The non-virgin, shallow women of your acquaintance,” she corrected softly.

  “Aye,” he said in a growl. The fortress plan wavered as he turned to examine it. Gwen would not get the better of him. “We must hope Ardra returns quickly.” He needed someone between them, a buffer, a reminder of who and what he was.

  “Your arm,” she finally said after many moments of silence. “We didn’t treat it.”

  Submitting to her gentle care was almost as heady as submitting to her kisses. She was matter-of-fact at her task, but still, she needed to touch him, smooth on the healing paste, wrap a heavy bandage about the wound.

  Finally she completed the treatment and spoke. “Could you do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “Go somewhere. I want to finish my bath and I can’t with you around.”

  With a curt nod, he sheathed the jeweled dagger and took a torch to light his way. Within moments he found his steps leading him to a narrow opening he had found while Gwen had been above in the kitchen. Cold, fresh air bathed his face. He was out of sight and hearing of her ablutions—and temptation.

  How long should he wait for her to regain her tart demeanor? Drawing the jeweled dagger, he twisted the hilt from the blade and slipped out the map that was the key to his honor. He uncurled the treasure map and turned it to the torchlight. What hope had anyone of surviving the perils guarding the treasures?

  A thought had been swirling about in his head since the treasure map’s discovery in Ocean City. Wouldn’t the council expect him to open the dagger? Look inside to ascertain the map was there before returning with it?

  And if they knew about the treasure map wouldn’t they expect him to then know he’d been used and resent it? Perhaps keep the map for himself? Or try to obtain the treasures himself and keep them?

  And therein might lie the true test of his honor. Would he return with the map?

  But if the council was testing him and he failed, never returned, kept the map for himself, would they not also be the greater losers? He put the map into the knife and looked on the icy world outside.

  “Anything going on?” Her words were calm, distant. She was once more in control of herself. She’d garbed herself once again as a Selaw man, concealing her feminine form.

  She peeked under his arm. But there was no concealing her heat. He could smell her, Ardra’s soap, Selaw wool. No Ocean City seductive scents clung to her now.

  What he wouldn’t give to have that little scrap of fabric, what she called a dryer sheet, to remember the scent of her and her shimmery white and glittery silver gown. How it had captivated him.

  Before his world had tipped upside down.

  “Is this a window?” She prodded him in the side with an elbow.

  He stepped away. “In a way. Come see. I noted there was a constant movement of air through here—cold air—so my curiosity led me to explore, thinking there might be another way from this chamber. Where do you think we are?” he asked.

  “Beneath a mountain of evil?”

  He laughed softly, the low sound sending a jolt of desire right to her middle. The “window” was a narrow slit two feet high. It started about three feet from the floor and revealed a small slice of the world outside. Indigo clouds, tinged with dark green, filled the sky. She leaned forward, her head and shoulders fitting comfortably through. With a deep, shuddering breath, she looked down. It was like being in a bird’s nest on the side of a cliff.

  She craned her neck and could just see the fortress overhead. In the distance were flat plains of white, tinged the color of the sky overhead.

  A frisson of evil tickled her spine. This was not her world. “It’s beautiful—in an ominous way,” she said truthfully and sadly.

  Vad was not from her world either.

  “Aye.” He bent down beside her, and she pulled back enough to allow him to share the view. “We are not deep in the bowels of the mountain, but in the outer skin.”

  “What’s happening down there?” She craned forward and he clamped a hand on the back of her tunic. Would the sudden heat between them each time they touched ever go away? Sadly, the answer was yes—when she went away.

  “‘Tis just the death procession.”

  Gwen watched the haunting beauty of the row of torches snaking along through the desolate white world beneath. A low sound, a mournful music of drums and some stringed instrument, reached her.

  He tried and failed to ignore the wriggling of her bottom beneath his hand. “Ardra is late.” He thumped his fist on the stone ledge. “The mourners will have returned, the funeral meats will be eaten, and the wine will have been drunk before she even comes back.”

  “We have something very similar in Ocean City, too. I remember when Bob died, everyone brought me food. I threw it all out. Couldn’t eat for weeks. And the buffet after the funeral just turned my stomach—all that food, and everyone happily eating it. I felt like screaming, ‘How can you eat when Bob’s dead?’”

  She slipped from her precarious perch and dusted off her sleeves.

  Did she still mourn her Bob? In the tiny paintings in her home, one man had figured so often, he had to be her Bob. He did not look to be anything so special, but who better than himself to understand it was what was inside, and not outside, that mattered?

  “Gwen, there is something I must tell you, should something happen to me. I know the key to the labyrinth.”

  “How’d you figure it out?” For the first time since their words at the pool, she met his gaze.

  He scratched his brow. “Honor prevents me from taking credit.”

  “Really? Tell me.”

  “Take a close look at Ardra’s pendant and the design around the amber stone: a maze of lines. It is unlike any engraving I have ever seen. It is also not like the traditional Selaw patterns. When she left this time, she held it to the light.”

  Shadows were etched beneath Gwen’s eyes. Her hair was sleek and wet on her head. He wanted to cup her face and touch his mouth to hers, make a better apology, erase the line between her brows.

  As if he had conjured her, Ardra called to them from the cavern.

  “I’m surprised to see her. Why isn’t she in that procession?” Gwen asked, hurrying ahead of him.

  Ardra moved quickly toward them. “Is the potion ready? We must hurry if we are to use the funeral wine!”

  He nodded. “Everything is in readiness.”

  “How’d you get away?” Gwen poked through the large leather pack Ardra had put on the flat boulder and tried not to stare at the pendant dangling on a long silver chain between her breasts.

  “I slipped away from my father by telling him I was ill, ill from the effects of those traitorous men’s handling of me. It hurt to lie to him.”

  “The potion is ready, Ardra. I will pour it into these bottles. Put one in each cask of wine, no more, or you will cause more harm than good.”

  “Nay! You did not intend that I should do it? I cannot. I am afraid.”

  Gwen and Vad both looked at Ardra, who stood wringing her hands.

  Gwen spoke first. “Afraid or not, there’s a girl’s virtue to think about, not t
o mention lives that are in danger. If you can’t do it, I will. If Vad can trust me, that is.”

  What would he say? She held her breath.

  “You would do it?” Vad asked, his head cocked to the side. “You would risk yourself for women you have never met over a matter not of your world?”

  No mention of trust. The tightness in her chest loosened.

  “Evil’s evil. This Narfrom is a serious threat to those girls. This is no game.”

  No game. Had she really said that?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Vad was not content until they had made minutely detailed plans. He wanted every step gone over, each person��s role choreographed and memorized.

  “And I bring the little girl here as soon as I’ve emptied the potion,” Gwen said.

  “‘Tis likely someone will see you, associate you with the illness, and set up a hue and cry, but it will not matter. We will be long gone by then.”

  “I had thought to go as I am now.” He indicated his Tolemac garb. ‘The maidens will recognize the colors and know someone has come to their aid, but I think I can move about more boldly if I garb myself in Selaw gear.”

  “Your boots will give you away.” Ardra pointed to the high black boots lying by the fire.

  “I will go barefoot and be the quieter for it.”

  “Let me fix your hair before I go.” Gwen placed the heavy satchel on the ground. At Vad’s curious look, she added, “You want to be able to devastate them in one glance, don’t you? Well, shave and let me braid it again; then you’ll knock them dead.”

  He knelt and surrendered himself to her ministrations. “I am understanding you better each day. You do not really wish them dead.” She smiled down at him and winked. “This understanding I am acquiring,” he continued, “it frightens me more than facing a legion of un-mated women.”

  “Shut up,” she said softly, and gave her attention to his hair. It really didn’t need to be braided. Clean and shiny, it was just fine falling down his back. And she regretted the offer the instant she touched him. It was better to appear untouched by his words, his rejection. It was better for her insides, her heart.