by Zoë Archer
“I want you in my mouth,” she said between tonguings around him.
“Yes, in.”
She went slowly, adjusting to the feel of his cock in her mouth, first the head and then, when she grew more bold, further. When he felt himself engulfed in the heat of her, her tongue wrapped against his shaft, Gabriel’s hips bucked. “Fucking hell!”
He felt her smile around him. “Such language.”
“I can’t—ah, sweet Jesus—stop.” He gritted his teeth as she sucked, pulling at him, giving him an incredible pleasure he’d never experienced. Gabriel propped himself on his elbows, needing to see her, desperate for the sight of her lips wrapped around him. He swore again as he saw her thighs rubbing against each other while she sucked his cock. She wanted touching there.
“I’ll do that,” he growled.
Thalia lifted her head, dazed, but understood readily when Gabriel pulled her up and turned her around. He lay on his back and she straddled him, her thighs on either side of his head. She faced his legs. With shaking hands, he gripped her thighs and lowered her closer to his mouth. At the feel of his tongue against her folds, Thalia gasped, then sank down, taking his penis back into her mouth.
God, he was so close. So close. He tried to concentrate, licking, suckling, drawing on her clit, her pussy so unfathomably wet, so beyond delicious. He’d never heard a sound so wonderful as Thalia screaming her climax around his cock. But he wasn’t satisfied. Not until she screamed again, and again, panting around him. When the last tremor subsided, Gabriel flipped her onto her back, placed himself between her legs, and plunged into her with one, fierce thrust. She bowed up from the blanket, moaning.
He showed no mercy, not to her nor to himself, as he fucked her with hard, deep strokes. Thalia writhed and clawed, wrapping her legs around his waist, unable to form words except long trills of sound. Gabriel pounded into her, giving her everything. “So good,” he rumbled. “Goddamn it.”
Wrapping one arm around her waist, the other hand braced against the ground, raised up on his knees, Gabriel held Thalia tight and let his body speak what he never could articulate with enough satisfaction. Inside her. Forever. That’s all he wanted. That’s where he belonged.
Thalia screamed once more, clenching around him. Then his climax hit him, so hard he almost lost consciousness. Anyone within miles could hear him, but he didn’t bloody care. He cared for only one thing, one person, and she was beneath him, singing out her own pleasure.
“Thalia,” he gasped. “I love you. I love you so goddamn much.”
He kept himself from collapsing on top of her, but only barely. She sighed when they rolled onto their sides, facing each other, with him still inside of her.
The sun had long since set, but she glowed, as brilliant as her soul. She trailed her fingers through his damp hair. “Gabriel, my warrior,” she murmured. “I never knew I could love anyone the way I love you.”
“And how is that?” he asked, languorous but exhilarated by their declarations.
She pressed kisses against his jaw and snuggled close. “Without fear.”
But as they drifted in a dream bliss, Gabriel could not say the same. He loved her. She loved him. And that scared the hell out of him.
Neither Thalia nor Gabriel were quite ready to return to the encampment, so they wrapped themselves in the blanket, body pressed to body, warm and alive in the shelter of the rocks. Full night had fallen. She wasn’t sure how long they had been at the oasis—time seemed to lose its weight. Minutes, or years. It didn’t matter to her.
“Why did you join the army?” she asked. He was snug against her back, cupped, with his arms around her waist, his wonderful rough hands stroking the curve of her belly. Thalia felt such peace, such rightness, being with him this way.
She felt his breath in her hair as he spoke. “Not much choice in Brumby. Work in the mines, or don’t work at all. I was lucky to go to school most days instead of working in the pit, like other children.”
“I don’t know much about coal mining,” Thalia admitted. “Sounds…dark.”
“And dangerous, and filthy. There were floods, collapses, explosions. The chokedamp and afterdamp that could kill if you breathed it.” His voice sounded flat, as if he was used to such horror. “So I enlisted after my da died. He was my last family.”
Thalia shuddered to think of Gabriel, who radiated light and life, shut down into sunless mines where every moment was peril. She knew that in the army he faced danger nearly every day, but there was something so relentless and futile about clawing fuel from the depths of the earth, where the enemy wasn’t another country’s soldiers, but the work itself.
Whatever darkness took him, she wanted to chase it back. “You must have liked the army, to stay for so long.”
“Well enough. Fine days and bad, like anything. Sometimes, I do miss it. I didn’t like killing, but I liked being on missions, having a purpose. And the day-to-day life could be good. I remember,” he said, growing a bit more relaxed, “think it was in Nagpur, and the rains had come. Months and months of it. Hard to imagine in a place like this.”
“I like being wet with you.”
Gabriel’s eyes glittered with hunger. “This won’t be the last time, sweetheart.”
Her body, much as she wanted him again, was spent. She tried to turn the conversation back. “So, the rains in India?”
He understood her tiredness. “Months of this, constant rain, and we were ready to lose our taffy. One day, me and Lieutenant Carlyle start thinking of everything we’re going to do once the rain stops. Things outside. Paint a picture. Write a letter. Tune a piano.”
“Do you know how to tune a piano?”
“I’d learn, just so I could do it outside.”
He puzzled her, after all this time, but in a way that delighted her. “So, did you learn?”
“No. But this went on a while, Carlyle and me trying to top each other with our after-the-monsoon plans, until somebody, Reynolds, I think, told us to either get off our arses and do something, or shut our gobs. So we went out and played football. After a bit, some more men came out and joined us. Sepoys, too.”
“In the rain?”
“In the rain. The pitch was muddy.”
“Who won?”
“My team. Made Carlyle polish my boots every evening for a month.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“With his pillowcase.”
Thalia heard herself actually giggle, for the first time in years. “I hope you got them good and grimy.”
“Always walked through the stables before coming back to my quarters.”
Now she shook with laughter, and Gabriel joined her. It felt so good, to share this with him. When he’d first come into her father’s ger in Urga, Thalia never would have suspected he could be this light, this playful, yet the more she learned about him, the more she felt right in giving him her love. She felt light, too, having at last spoken of her feelings to him. And he loved her. Loved her. Such a blessing.
“I can’t believe I can get a laugh out of you, talking about muddy football and horseshit,” Gabriel chuckled.
“Doesn’t speak very highly of me,” Thalia said wryly. She felt herself turned so that she faced Gabriel, and, even in the dark of night, his eyes burned golden and serious.
“I’m a bloody lucky bugger,” he said with a guttural rasp. “A rough soldier who’s known little of softness or niceness. Never thought I’d find a woman I could talk to without making a complete ass of myself. But you don’t expect me to have dainty manners, and you even like being with me, just as I am.” He sounded genuinely surprised, and he was not a man to devalue himself.
“Just as you are,” she repeated solemnly, then kissed him, her hands on the archangel sculpture of his cheekbones. “I never thought I would find the same, either.”
“Any man would be daft not to want you.”
Her laugh was low and rueful. “Wanting and loving are very different. I know that me
n can want quite easily.”
Gabriel muttered something about Russian bastards that needed castrating.
“Yes, him,” Thalia said, rather appallingly pleased with his desire for vengeance on her behalf, “but most others, too.”
“Your father is so honest with you?”
“Oh, no. He never wanted to remarry after my mother died, and he had plenty of opportunity. And when it came time to discuss…family matters…” She grimaced. “I think he was more embarrassed than I. But most of my friends are male, and they’ve been good enough to be candid about themselves. And their appetites. Which almost never include things beyond the most basic and physical. Whenever I see Bennett—”
“Who?” Gabriel demanded.
Thalia kissed him again. “Bless you for your jealousy. But I’ve known Bennett Day since I was fourteen. He’s a Blade. He could have very easily been recruited to the Heirs. Extraordinary with maps and codes, and from a good family, too. And, to my father’s unending disappointment, but vicarious thrill, the worst libertine. By ‘worst,’ I mean successful and unrepentant. God, the stories Bennett tells over pipes late into the night. My father always sends me to bed so my delicate ears aren’t harmed, but I listen outside.”
“Burgess should keep you locked up whenever that Day is around,” Gabriel grumbled.
“To Bennett, I’m more of a younger sister than potential seduction,” she said. “And, though I admit to a small childish infatuation with him when I was around sixteen, I’ve not once been tempted, nor has he tried. He’s perfectly happy moving from one conquest to another. I wish I could say that, underneath it all, he’s desperately lonely, but that isn’t the case.”
Gabriel rolled onto his back, pulling Thalia with him so she lay partially atop him. He ran his hands up and down her back, and she shivered with pleasure at his touch. “Not every man is like this Day bloke.”
“Thank God for that. Or we would be faced with a population explosion.” She let her hands drift over the healthy brawn of his chest, feeling the dusting of hair, the puckered flesh of scars. The body of a man who’d lived with energy and purpose, and would continue to do so. At least, as long as circumstances kept him alive. It was horrible that, possibly within a day, the Heirs would do everything in their power to crush out Gabriel’s life, and hers. Horrible for so many reasons.
“Thalia,” Gabriel said, “I’m not the sort of man who’s ever had to think of anybody but himself.”
“You’re not selfish, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Maybe not. But what I mean is”—he turned his head to look at her—“what I mean is, I don’t mind the battle that’s ahead, but the thought of your being hurt or worse—”
“That’s not going to happen,” she said immediately.
He shook his head. “Years of combat taught me. I can fight and fight, but that might not be enough.” His voice rusted and caught, but he cleared his throat. “Now that I’ve found you, it scares me witless to think of anything happening. To you. I’m not used to being…afraid.”
A sudden realization came to her. “So this is love,” she said quietly. “The daily prospect of joy or disaster.”
For a long time, neither of them spoke as they considered this, touching each other with gentle caresses. Then touch warmed, grew heated. Her tired body revived itself. Gabriel’s hands moved from her back to cup the curves of her bottom while her hands also moved down, from his chest to lower, where she wrapped her fingers around his stiffening erection. He stroked her breast and between her legs, and soon they were both gasping. Wordlessly, Thalia mounted him, thrusting him deep inside of her, wanting to take him as far into her as she could, as if there was a place, protected by the intimate bond of their joining, where they could take shelter and know with conviction that they would share tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and all the days that followed.
There was no certainty to be found, but as their bodies and hearts moved together, pleasure overtaking them both, Thalia hoped that even this small moment of rapture caught the dispassionate gaze of the world’s magic, and that, somehow, there might be just enough enchantment to keep her and Gabriel safe.
Chapter 17
A Good Place to Stand and Fight
The rider approached, and his face looked grim. As he neared the waiting group, he shook his head.
“They are no more than a day behind us,” he said. “And their numbers are growing.”
“Is your friend sure?” Gabriel asked.
The rider looked over his shoulder, to where another man on camelback rode away. “He saw them himself, and his cousin did, as well. There are over a hundred men now. Impossible to miss on these gravel-covered plains.”
Yes, the huge stretches of barren expanse would do little to hide an advancing army. And there was no way for Gabriel to hide the tracks of his party. Everything stirred up dust, making their trail blaze like lightning. If they could outrun the Heirs, it would only lead them straight to a battle. He glanced at the assembled group. Two dozen brigands, four tribesmen, himself and Thalia. Against over a hundred. Possibly the monks at the monastery might fight, but Gabriel couldn’t count on that. He’d faced tough odds before. But he’d never gone up against an enemy that not only outnumbered his own forces, but had magic as a weapon.
“And the monastery?”
“It is known as Sha Chuan Si, and it is fifteen miles from here, so says my kinsman.”
“Can we do it?” Thalia asked. She tried to keep the worry from her voice, but wasn’t completely successful.
He turned to her, and there it was. The sweet, sharp pain of loving her in the midst of madness. “We will,” he answered, and had to believe it or else lose his mind. “But we ride hard.”
“I thought we had been,” she said, her smile weary.
“A Sunday promenade, compared to what we have to do.” When she nodded, he put his heels to his camel. Altan and his men immediately followed.
As they rode, Gabriel’s mind filled with a hundred different scenarios. If the Heirs overtook them en route. If they reached the temple but could not get inside. If they could get inside but the monks conspired against them. If the monks would not fight. If the monks would fight. The permutations were endless. And through it all, Gabriel twisted his insides, trying to figure how he could keep Thalia safe throughout all this. She wouldn’t agree to shutting herself up in some locked room while a battle raged around her. He loved her for her fighting spirit, but that same spirit put her in harm’s way.
No. He had to turn his thoughts to something else. So he reviewed past sieges, trying to find the best possible strategy.
Midday came and went, and they stopped briefly to rest the already tired camels. The sturdy beasts were being pushed to their limits. One of them had already died earlier that morning from the hard pace, and a pack camel had taken its place. After everyone shared a quick meal, it was back into the saddle. Gabriel estimated they’d traveled over ten miles.
“Not too much farther,” he said to Thalia.
“You’re an optimist at heart,” she answered.
“If I was an optimist, then I’d say that not only was the temple close, but that they likely had fifty cannons, two hundred rifles, and a huge canopied bed.”
“A bed won’t do much in a battle.”
“I’m thinking about after.”
She smiled wickedly as her cheeks flushed. “I’m beginning to embrace positive thinking myself.”
As she rode ahead, Altan drew up alongside Gabriel. “Are most white women like her?” the bandit chief asked. “If so, perhaps I should consider moving west. Or go to Russia.”
“You won’t find any other woman like her,” Gabriel said tightly. He didn’t care for the way Altan looked at Thalia, not so much a leer as speculation. If Gabriel had his way, he’d make the whole damn party wear blinders.
“That is too bad,” Altan said. “Is she for sale?”
“You do want to keep your
testicles,” Gabriel replied. “Or maybe you want to wear them as jewelry.”
Altan chuckled. “Fair enough. But if you change your mind—” He broke off when Gabriel stared at him. “Ah. You mean it.”
“And tell your men.”
“Judging by the way you look at her, they already know.”
“Oh, thank Tenger,” Thalia sighed hours later. “We made it.”
Gabriel kept his relief in check as he surveyed their destination. He wasn’t certain that the monks would even let them inside the front gate, let alone let them use their monastery as the location of the upcoming stand against the Heirs. Assuming that the monks did welcome them and were somehow willing to take on the Heirs, the monastery of Sha Chuan Si was formidable and well-situated. All the gilded temples in Urga, even the busy sprawl of Erdene Zuu, couldn’t equal the impressive sight of the desert monastery perched at the summit of a broad, flat-topped rock. Though other large rocky outcroppings rose nearby, the temple on its hill stood alone, the square fist of man in the middle of stark wilderness. Wide, dun-colored walls surrounded the temple, topped by curved red Chinese roofs. A tall, round tower stood just inside the front wall. A single steep escarpment led up the side of the rock to a giant, heavy door. Gabriel saw no windows, either. It seemed impenetrable.
“A good place to stand and fight,” he said to Thalia and Altan.
“Hopefully, our welcome will be a little less fearsome than the building itself,” Thalia answered.
“Do you speak Chinese?” Gabriel asked.
“A little.”
Gabriel turned to Altan. “And you and your men?”
“We can say, ‘Throw down your weapons,’” Altan replied.
“I’ll need you to translate,” Gabriel said to Thalia.
