Prue glanced around the company, gathering murmurs of assent, brisk nods. “Walker’s right,” she said. “Mehcredi’s one of us.”
“Yah,” said Florien, then blushed.
Mehcredi’s jaw dropped.
“Now, Prue,” said the wizard, “let’s not be hasty.”
Prue raised her chin and walked slowly toward him, her hips swaying.
“All right!” Deiter scuttled backward, behind Yachi. “All right, have it your way.”
“Baron.” With an extravagant bow, Gray said, “Allow me to introduce myself. The Duke of Ombra, at your service. I think what Mistress McGuire is trying to say is that Mehcredi’s safety is our price.” Lounging against the wall, his shadow nodded its dark head in agreement.
A heated sensation bubbled up behind Mehcredi’s breastbone and spread hot happy fingers through her whole body.
“P-price?” spluttered the baron. He turned to Yachi. “Captain, you cannot allow this rabble to dictate—”
“She’s earned her place.” Yachi fingered the hilt of her sword in a thoughtful kind of way. “Got guts and skills. We need people like that. So do you, noblelord.”
The baron looked frankly appalled.
Mehcredi burst into laughter, the bubble of joy rushing out of her in great gasping peals. She barely noticed when Walker pushed her out of the hall and into a dark passageway. Snorting, she laughed on and on, clinging to the swordmaster’s shoulders, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Mehcredi?” He patted her face. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes.” She threw her arms around him. “Gods, I love you.”
Every muscle in his body went rigid.
Ah, what the hell did it matter? It was too late now, way too late. She stared into eyes the color of richest Concordian chocolat, too giddy with life and love and sheer relief to care what he read in her face. “No one’s ever—” She swallowed. “Thank you.”
The corners of Walker’s mouth quirked up in the sweet serious smile she’d grown to crave. “The man’s a pompous fool. I enjoyed it.”
Her heart caroled. One of us, it sang. Mehcredi’s one of us. She fit. Oh gods, she belonged.
When she raised her chin, he bent his dark head and their lips met. Sweet Sister, how she loved the way Walker kissed, as if he had all the time in the world. Strong fingers held her head at the perfect angle. No rush, no slobber, just a mind-numbing combination of tenderness and strength that sent a long sweet pull directly to her sex. Dizzily, she thought he’d been right all along—it was like the nea-kata, a kind of a dance. But, oh gods, there was no way for her to ruin it, no possibility of a misstep. Whatever she did was right and good and gave him pleasure, she knew it right down to her bones. The power of it, the delight, was heady.
I belong, she thought dazedly. I have a place in this world. With you.
Pressing her hips against his, she opened to him, soaring on sensation. Walker slid a hand over her breast, flicking the nipple with his thumb. The kiss segued from carnal to intoxicating. Moaning, Mehcredi tilted her pelvis and rubbed against the rigid column of his cock. She belonged. With the swordmaster, she could be as wild and wanton as she wished. He wouldn’t let her fall.
“Please,” she gasped into his mouth, not even sure what she begged for, but trusting him to give it to her. “Please.”
With a muttered curse in Shar, Walker ripped his mouth away. “Where—?” he growled, biting the side of her neck.
Mehcredi fumbled one hand across the wall. There should be a small robing chamber . . . A lifetime ago, it had been the most comfortable of her hidey-holes.
There! She fell back into the sweet-scented dark, Walker’s hard body crowding her in a space not much bigger than a wardrobe. Light filtered in through a pair of high narrow windows, the standing mirror reflecting the swaying rack of rich garments and the spindly chair. Her heart sank. There wasn’t room to lie down.
Walker jammed the chair under the door latch and turned to face her, his eyes glittering in the dim light. “No screaming,” he whispered. “Not a sound.” The rumble of voices from the great hall carried clearly through the wall.
He swooped, drowning her so thoroughly in another dark velvet kiss, that she wasn’t aware of her trews and underthings pooling around her ankles until cooler air hit her bare bottom. Walker picked her up as though she weighed nothing and spun her around. His deep voice vibrated in her ear. “Bend over the chair and hold on.”
How extraordinary. Mehcredi lifted her head to ask what the hell he thought he was doing when a questing forefinger trailed from her clitoris all the way to the pucker of her anus and back. She gurgled, quivering.
“You’re dripping,” murmured that barely-there voice. The finger slipped inside her. Very gently, Walker twisted it, rubbing, massaging. “So ready for me.”
The delicate flesh was engorged with blood, the demanding throb driving her insane. Gods, he could see everything, the most private part of her body offered up to him like a gift. Mehcredi made a guttural noise of sheer desperation. A glance over her shoulder revealed Walker poised to surge forward, every tendon in his neck taut, his eyes glittering with passion. Slick, hot and hard, he sank into her body, stretching succulent flesh to its limits.
“Tight,” he gritted, working his way forward inch by inch, until the smooth heat of his balls was jammed up right against her, the fabric of his trews brushing the backs of her thighs.
In the hidden valley, she’d loved how different, how delightful, it was to sit astride and fuck him, but this! The angle was shallow, his bulk and length pressing on something inside so excruciatingly nerve-rich that her clitoris swelled hard in immediate response. In this position, she was virtually helpless, impaled and trapped. At his mercy. Gods!
Reaching out, she grabbed a sleeve at random and stuffed it into her mouth.
Walker pulled out, a delicious drag that made her head swim. “Yes,” he whispered, setting up a smooth deliberate stroke, nudging her clit from behind every time he hilted.
A warm hand skated up under her shirt, tracing the knobs of her spine, sliding around over her ribs to cradle a throbbing breast. As he increased the pace, he came down over her, his breath a hot rasp in her ear. “Come for me, sweetheart.”
Diabolical fingers skimmed over her fluttering belly and parted her sparse curls. Walker thrust ferociously, the chair creaking with the power of his passion. Every stroke shoved her aching clitoris against the heel of his hand.
Whimpering into her makeshift gag, she tried to prolong the sensation, wanting to ride the silvery edge of pleasure forever. Walker shifted his hips, changing the angle. With a muffled howl into the baron’s judgment-day jacket, Mehcredi shattered. Everything stopped, breath, sense, the world itself, while she shook with the erotic snap and release of tension. Every muscle in her pelvis bore down hard in a cramping, ecstatic grip.
Dimly, she heard a muffled groan, Walker’s breath gusting hot against the nape of her neck. The skin there stung, a small delicious ache. Gods, had he bitten her?
She spat out the sleeve, sucking in great gulping breaths. If it hadn’t been for Walker’s iron grip on her hips, she might have floated away. When she wriggled, he hissed, still hard and huge inside her, his pulse throbbing insistently against the close walls of her sheath. Gods! She turned her head and their eyes locked.
Plates clinked and footsteps pattered past the door. The servants, clearing the table in the great hall. On the other side of the wall, voices rose in argument, the baron cutting them off with a snarled phrase.
The sobbing rasp of Walker’s breath filled the close space. He cupped her cheek, pushing her head to the side, toward the mirror. “Watch,” he said, no louder than leaves whispering in the wind.
Mehcredi choked. She’d never seen anything so lewd in her life. Walker hadn’t removed his trews, only unlacing them enough to free himself, while the curves of her ass glimmered like cream satin in the half-light. As he withdrew, his shaft glistened, wet
with her juices. He paused a moment at the top of the stroke, then shoved forward and she could see how he spread the small sucking entrance to her body, her flesh struggling to accommodate his girth.
Sister save her, she felt . . . complete. Filled and fucked and real. She watched Walker’s buttocks hollow with power as he increased the depth and speed of his thrusts. A hand reached past her and snagged the maroon sleeve.
Mehcredi shook her head. Not necessary. She was still drifting on the warm wash of her climax, unstrung with pleasure.
Walker pressed his chest against her spine, enveloping her completely. Lowering his head, he set his teeth where her neck met her shoulder. “Take it,” he groaned into her flesh. “Take me.”
His hips drew back and he thundered into her, plunging so deep it hurt—and it didn’t—or not in a bad way. She bit her lip, her eyes wide. Godsdammit, it wasn’t possible, but the aching tension was ramping up again, not as fast as before, but deeper, sweeter. Shuddering, Mehcredi sank her teeth into maroon fabric, fighting the scream building in her throat.
The swordmaster’s strokes became choppy. Without warning, he slid an arm around her hips, bracketing her throbbing clit with two fingers. As he let out a strangled groan, jamming himself deep inside, he squeezed—just enough.
Why had she bothered with the gag? Mehcredi thought in a faraway corner of her mind, because when she hit the peak, she couldn’t produce a sound louder than a newborn kitten. Unlike the first time, this felt more like unraveling than climax as if the physical act had stripped away emotional layers to expose something essential, vulnerable and trusting. Every muscle in her body went limp.
You claimed me. I’m yours.
Gently, Walker pulled out. Without a word, he turned her around, gathered her into his arms and buried his face in her hair, breathing hard. Humming with pleasure, Mehcredi put out her tongue to lick at the beads of sweat trickling down the smooth brown column of his neck.
“Here,” he murmured, pressing a fine white handkerchief between her legs. It had a lace trim and the baron’s monogram.
When Mehcredi clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back the giggle, Walker’s lips quirked in one of those gorgeous not-quite smiles. Her insides liquefied. She lifted a shaking hand to his hair.
Immediately, the shutters came down, his face smoothing into the familiar mask, but she refused to let it bother her. She trusted him, didn’t she? With everything she was.
Frowning, Walker tucked himself away. “Give me five minutes,” he murmured. “Then you can go.”
Mehcredi lifted her chin to whisper in his ear. “You meant it, didn’t you?” she breathed. “What you said to the baron?”
Walker stared into her face, grimmer than ever. “Yes.” The pad of his thumb skated across her lower lip. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and turned away to ease the door open. A final, unfathomable glance over his shoulder and he disappeared.
Mehcredi contemplated the soggy mess of the handkerchief in her hand. It wouldn’t do to be caught thieving, would it? With a grin of pure mischief, she tucked it into the right-hand pocket of the baron’s fine coat.
Cautiously, Mehcredi cracked the door open and peered up at the night sky. Nothing but the wind-tossed dark and a sense of something suspended like a smoke stain in the water, pervasive, palpable.
She shivered.
Deiter had weathered the worst of the baron’s fury with amazing patience. After that, it took the rest of the day to check every point of access—to the tower, the great hall and then the whole keep, every door, every window, every cranny, every chink. Accompanied by the baron’s men, Erik and Prue had done it, then Cenda and Gray and Walker. Together, Mehcredi and Rose had walked every passage and chamber, cross-checking. But still she fretted.
Two squads of soldiers were stationed in the tower and the great hall with buckets of hot pitch and their quarterstaves. Just in case. Deiter, Cenda and Erik climbed to the top of the tower, ready to deal with the Necromancer. With his usual calm, Walker pointed out that his brand of Magick wasn’t likely to be of much use up there. Currently, he was balanced on his heels, his back to the wall on the far side of the huge circular chamber, eyes closed. The Sister knew what he was doing.
Shutting the door, Mehcredi glanced over her shoulder at the crowd packed almost shoulder to shoulder, family groups camped on blankets on the floor, children tearing around squealing with excitement. The atmosphere was already fetid, hot and close, the sense of confusion exacerbated by the babble of a hundred different conversations.
She meant nothing to these people—less than nothing—yet their faces were so familiar. The chief laundress with her poor red hands, the stable lads playing a desultory game of dice, Nedward’s kitchen maid sporting a swollen belly, even Taso, skulking in a corner. When their eyes met, he leered and waggled his tongue, but the moment she began to shoulder her way through the press toward him, he scowled and disappeared behind a group of chattering serving women. Coward.
She couldn’t let them die.
When it finally came, the song of the djinns was barely audible. The children heard it first. A toddler screamed once, shrill and sharp, and then fell silent, clutching its mother’s skirts. The chatter trailed off gradually until the quiet was so profound, the only noise was an ear-aching whine entwined with the icy voice of the wind.
One of the baron’s hunting dogs lifted its great shaggy head and bayed a challenge, fur bristling all down its spine. From somewhere unseen, Scrounge barked his defiance, insolence in every syllable. Mehcredi couldn’t help but grin. Where was he? Begging scraps from the children probably.
The keening of the wind had grown to a howl. An enormous force buffeted the stone walls of the keep. Every shutter rattled. Around the perimeter of the hall, the guards stood shoulder to shoulder, whitefaced. More than one strong hand trembled on the staff it held.
“Hold your water!” Yachi bellowed. “Sit tight. It’s just passing through.”
The barking became a fusillade, high and frantic. Mehcredi’s head whipped around and her guts cramped with horror.
Outside!
Gods, no! The only one in all the world of whose love she could be certain.
With a gasp, she jerked her hand back from the bar across the door.
“Mehcredi! ” Walker’s full-throated bellow reverberated off the stone walls. He skewered her with the intensity of his black stare, every ounce of his formidable will focused on pinning her to the wall. “Don’t.” She saw his lips shape the word as he began to work his way toward her through the crowd.
But she couldn’t listen to Scrounge die, she couldn’t.
Holy Sister, Sister of mercy, please. Oh, please. Frantically, she glanced around, avoiding Walker’s furious gaze. Window, the nearest window. I know he’s only a—
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a skinny leg disappear behind a tapestry and her blood turned to iced water. There was an alcove there, if she recalled correctly, and a—Sweet Sister!
Before she knew she was going to do it, she’d shouldered past an elderly couple and shoved the hanging aside, just as Florien’s shabby boots jiggled in a narrow window aperture and vanished into the thrashing darkness. Without hesitation, Mehcredi hurled herself after him, slamming the window shut the moment she gained her feet on the flagged path outside.
34
Crouching, a naked blade in either hand, she peered into the shadows. Nothing. The night was clear, the Sibling Moons blurring every chunk of stone, every blade of grass, with their strange double radiance. “Florien?” she called softly. “You little bastard, wait ’til I get hold of you.”
No answer, but the yapping started up again, the other side of a projecting buttress.
The wind shoved her about like a bully. Mehcredi’s lips peeled back from her teeth. What the fuck. She’d been bullied by the best. Pushing the whipping hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand, she crept forward.
The boy stood with his back pressed to th
e tower wall, staring toward the keep gates, his face stark with terror. Scrounge was clasped in his arms, still shouting canine threats at the stream of brown black fur pouring out of the stables. Rats. They scuttled across the bailey to dive into a grate over the kitchen.
Mehcredi barely flinched. Her heart thudding with foreboding, she turned to track Florien’s gaze.
A heaving turbulence boiled through Blay Pass, a thousand whirlwinds jostling, jockeying for position. The choir of the djinns swelled to a hellish chorus as they swept through the gates of Lonefell.
Using her whole body, Mehcredi shoved boy and dog into the corner provided by the buttress. Her legs weak with terror, she placed herself in front of them. The air roiled. Lifting her chin, she snarled her defiance.
The bolt of fear was so intense, Walker stood frozen for vital seconds. The great doors boomed as though a huge ghostly fist hammered, demanding admittance.
Snapping out of his paralysis, he grabbed the nearest lantern, his brain spinning, calculating the odds. It would take him too long to work through the press of bodies to Mehcredi’s window. Whirling about, he pulled a shutter from the window behind him. As he thrust a leg over the sill, a voice growled, “What the fuck—?”
The baron’s sergeant lunged forward to pull him back. Walker clipped the man neatly on the jaw, yanked the quarterstaff out of his hand and tumbled backward into the moonslit bailey. The keening of the djinns had become a concerted howl. They darted and swooped, thickening the air in dizzying patterns that twisted the mind.
Walker opened the lantern, shoving the pitch-covered end of his staff into the flame until it caught. Torch blazing, he ran flat out, stretching into his stride like a direwolf, circling the tower. A thunderclap split the air, accompanied by the vicious roar of a hungry flame. Walker risked a glance upward. On the top of the tower, three small figures were silhouetted against the moons-wracked clouds. The light surrounding them glowed a strange acrid green. Deiter’s robes billowed as he staggered back into Erik’s arms. The green intensified and the flames resumed.
The Lone Warrior Page 36
