by Grace Draven
Imogen refused to cry in front of Dradus, but she sobbed alone in her room until the tears ran dry. That night she dreamed of Cededa and his wraith wife Gruah. Gruah held out a nebulous hand, wispy fingers curling around Imogen’s. In the dream, she spoke and her voice chimed like tiny bells in a summer garden. “Yours is a great heart, Imogen. Can you forgive?”
The next morning she woke, a lightness and renewed sense of purpose filling her. Now, she sat on her bed, dressed in castoffs with her journey sack near her feet. She’d forgone gloves as being too distinctive. Instead, she buried her hands in her pockets and prayed none would put her in a position that she’d accidently touch them. A linen kerchief covered her hair, and she practiced slouching so as to appear shorter than she was. With any luck, those still awake in the castle were either too drunk on wine or too sleepy to recognize her.
The night sky was slowly paling as she sneaked out of her room and tiptoed down the hall toward the back staircase used by the servants. Only the head cook and a scullery maid were awake, and they remained in the kitchen.
Imogen’s luck held as she navigated a path through Castagher to her fortified walls and finally past the gates to the post stables where the horses for hire were kept. The stable master leered at her but didn’t question where a laundress had gotten the funds to rent a horse. Within the hour, she was galloping toward the borders shared by Castagher and Berberi. If her luck stayed with her, she would reach the gorge in three days’ time.
The miles flew by as the horse galloped steadily toward Tineroth. Imogen measured the distance and counted the hours. Solstice was almost here. Desperation grew within her. Reaching the gorge was the easy part. Reaching Tineroth before it vanished from the world, another thing altogether.
She left the horse at a stable in a village bordering the forest. The wood welcomed her, a shelter of dappled shade and relief from the hot sun. Imogen traveled south on foot through thick underbrush and reach the gorge at twilight. Across the gorge’s empty space concealing mist parted briefly to reveal the flickering, shadowy outlines of buildings. Home.
Unfortunately, she no longer had a key to unlock the door or summon the bridge that would carry her across the divide.
A far off sound drifted to her ears. The voices of men calling, the unmistakable resonant baying of dogs tracking their quarry.
“No,” she breathed. Surely, Hayden hadn’t noticed her gone or tracked her so soon! Dradus’s vulpine features rose in her mind, and she growled. “You rat bastard. You set a spy on me.”
Imogen paced along the cliff’s edge. She had nowhere to run. Besides, she had only one place in mind she wanted to be, and at the moment it was out of reach. She picked up a rock and threw it over the cliff’s edge in frustration. “Cededa!” She shouted, uncaring if the hunting pack heard her.
The dogs’ baying grew louder with renewed excitement. Imogen threw another rock. “Cededa!” This time her bellow carried far across the divide. Still nothing from the other side. A terrible fear nearly consumed her. What if the immortal king had not survived the fall into the river? What if Tineroth no longer held her last living son captive?
More shouts behind her, this time close enough she expected to see horses and dogs burst from the forest understory at any moment.
“Cededa!” She shrieked his name a third time. There’d be no fourth time. Dradus’s hunters were almost on top of her.
Tears blurred her vision, an impotent fury born of frustration and despair threatening to consume her. Suddenly the air in front of her wavered, rolling and shimmering. The Yinde bridge took shape, vague but solid enough. At the other end a pale figure waited, and Imogen cried out, exultant.
Her euphoria died a quick death when a shaggy-haired hound broke from the trees and loped toward her. Dradus’s command of “Catch her!” urged it to a faster pace.
“Run, Imogen.”
Cededa’s cool voice carried on the wind, and Imogen’s feet grew wings. She dashed across the bridge, feeling it dissolve almost immediately under her feet. If she stumbled, she’d plummet to her death. Behind her, a cacophony of howls and curses rent the air. Imogen took a running leap, landing hard enough in Cededa’s arms that he grunted and staggered backwards, almost losing his balance.
Imogen wrapped her arms and legs around his body, uncaring that she nearly knocked him to the ground. He lived. Still bound, still trapped but here, waiting for her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cededa ignored the hue and cry of Imogen’s pursuers and carried her into the shelter of Tineroth’s forest. She clutched him as if she were drowning, her legs around his waist, her face buried in his shoulder.
The shock of seeing her, throwing rocks and shrieking his name, hadn’t left him. When he collapsed the bridge and fell into the chasm, he thought his last memory of her would be the horror in her expression at watching him fall. Half drowned and beaten, with Tineroth’s voice screaming in his head, he’d returned to the city. The familiar hush enveloped him at the gates, along with the ghostly mist that helped him into the palace to Imogen’s chambers. He collapsed in her bed, where he healed and tried to forget her.
Now, the improbable had happened. She was in Tineroth once more, in his arms where she belonged. Neither spoke as he carried her into her palace and to the chambers he now thought of as hers. Clothing was tossed aside to fall in scattered piles near the bed. He was inside her before they even fell back to the mattress.
She was slick and hot and tight, gripping his cock with inner muscles that flexed and drew him deeper inside her. Imogen groaned into his mouth, opening hers wider to receive his tongue and suck his in return.
She slid her hands into his hair, holding him close, as if terrified he might fade in her arms. Theirs was a quick, primal mating of desperate caresses and hard thrusts. Cededa groaned her name, shuddering as his climax surged a shockwave of pleasure through his limbs. His fingers continued to tease and coax Imogen until she followed, arching against him with a thin cry.
Cededa barely gave her time to catch her breath before he rolled onto his back, carrying her with him. He rested inside her, still partially erect. She stroked strands of his pale hair away from his forehead and cheek, her gaze touching on each hollow and line of his features.
“You were a bloody mess when I last saw you,” she said.
“I’m none the worse for it now.”
“Thank the gods,” she whispered and kissed his mouth.
For weeks he had raged at his imprisonment, his inability to hunt down her captors and rescue her. He had lost any hope of seeing her again and feared she suffered a brutal fate from those who’d taken her. All he could do was strengthen the wards that resisted outsider magic and prevented the bridge from taking shape unless he commanded it.
Now, Imogen lay in his arms, content and smiling. Wherever the wizard and soldiers had taken her, she’d been treated well.
“Why are you here, Imogen?”
“Because you’re here.” She planted soft kisses on his cheeks, his hairline. “I want to stay. You are home to me and so is Tineroth.”
Cededa sighed and closed his eyes. Near dead hope rose within him. He shoved it back, wary of her declaration, her youth. He didn’t doubt her sincerity, only her far sight. “Imogen, Tineroth hasn’t been home to anyone except me and a crowd of revenants for four millennia. It’s derelict, isolated and by this time tomorrow, will vanish from the living world until another thieving mage finds a way to drag her back.” He stroked the slope of her shoulder, admiring the feel of her smooth skin under his palm. “You’re very young. You don’t know what you ask.”
His eyes widened when she slapped him lightly on the shoulder and scowled. “Don’t patronize me, Cededa. I am young, but just because it took you a few thousand years to learn and get it right doesn’t mean it will take me so long.”
He grinned, too pleased with her indignant protest to take offense. He turned serious once more. “When Tineroth vanishes, she will be caught b
etween worlds, frozen in time. The stars appearing in the night sky now won’t be there tomorrow night. Days and nights will be nothing more than a fading and brightening of light. No change of seasons. No rain. Do you understand what I’m saying, Imogen? There is a sameness here to drive the strongest person mad. Some would say I’m halfway there already, and they’d be right. You’d face the same thing if you stayed here with me.”
He watched her face as she mulled over his words. “I’m a princess of Castagher,” she said, startling Cededa with that bit of information. “But I’d rather be a queen of Tineroth.”
“And rule beside me over the dead and forgotten?” He refused to soften the reality of his existence in Tineroth. If she stayed with him, she’d share that reality. He wanted no misconceptions between them.
Her eyes darkened. “Fitting, I think. My bane is still with me.”
He sighed, his fear confirmed. “Aye, I thought it might be. Niamh’s belief in my powers was misplaced. I can only lessen the effects, not rid you of them entirely.”
“Then I’d say that’s a reason as good as any for me to stay with you. Maybe by the time you’ve leached enough of this malice out of my blood, we’ll both be old and can die together.”
“Imogen…”
She stopped his protest with a kiss. “Let me stay,” she implored. “Let me love you. I know you love me. Whether it’s for one lifetime or six, give us both that time, that chance.”
He shivered, hardly daring to trust in her declaration. Theirs wouldn’t be a normal life, but neither had led such a life before. This one, with her as his companion, had the potential for being better than most. And she loved him—had told him so in a matter-of-fact way that left no room for doubt. She had abandoned a new life of rank and privilege to return to him. What more proof could he ask of her devotion?
She squealed when he held her tight enough to crush the breath out of her lungs. “Six lifetimes isn’t enough, Imogen,” he teased. “I’m a demanding king. I’d want at least a hundred.” He kissed her softly and stared into her eyes. “I will love you until we are both dust, when even Tineroth is no more and passes from all memory.”
Her eyes grew glossy with tears. “Is that all?” she croaked. She grinned and cleared her throat. “How inconstant of you.”
Cededa laughed and flipped her onto her back, tickling her until Imogen shrieked for him to stop. When they settled amidst a twist of linens, he kissed her slowly, drugging kisses that had her pushing against him, demanding more of him. He complied, raising her hips to accept him. Her contented sigh echoed his as he possessed her once more.
“Welcome home, wife,” he whispered.
~END~
About Grace Draven
Looking for any excuse to delay in doing the laundry, Grace Draven turned to the much more entertaining task of telling stories about fantasy worlds, magic, antiheroes, and the women who love them.
She currently lives in Texas with her husband, kids, and a big doofus dog. Laundry has now been assigned to the kids.
Titles by Grace Draven
~*~*~
THE WRAITH KINGS
Radiance
Eidolon
The Ippos King (2017)
FROM THE MASTER OF CROWS WORLD
Master of Crows
The Brush of Black Wings
The Lightning God’s Wife
The Light Within
OTHER STORIES
Entreat Me
All the Stars Look Down
Beneath a Waning Moon
Connect with me:
website: gracedraven.com
Facebook: facebook.com/grace.draven
