Feeling a headache brewing, she set the needlework aside after a time and summoned her ladies. She did not allow them to linger, but sent them on their way as soon as they’d helped her change and combed out her hair.
She was tired, but not sleepy and found it difficult to compose herself for sleep after she’d settled, despite her determination to avoid any uncomfortable conversation with Daigon by being conveniently asleep when he returned to his apartments. After tossing and turning for a time, she finally abandoned the hard pallet again, crossed the room, and went out onto the balcony once more.
She thought perhaps that she had been listening unconsciously for his return, for she knew the moment Daigon appeared in the doorway behind her and felt none of the surprise she generally felt when he simply appeared without a whisper of warning.
“I would think it is far too chill outside to have much appeal.”
Rhiannon turned at the sound of his voice. “How are the men?”
His dark brows rose. After studying her for a moment, he merely shrugged. “I have done what I can.”
Rhiannon nodded, wrapping her arms around herself and rubbing the chill from her shoulders. “You seem--unsurprised by the news Captain Bryon brought.”
“Because I wasn’t.”
Rhiannon frowned. “You had foreseen this?”
“Not in the sense that you mean, no.”
She thought that over for several moments. “Then, why did you allow him to leave? If you knew that he would return with an army, why did you not simply settle it then, when you first came?”
He eyed her thoughtfully. “I can not quite figure you out.”
Rhiannon looked at him in surprise at the comment, trying to decide whether he had simply changed the subject or if the comment was leading somewhere. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
“You have asked your enemy why he did not kill your uncle, but allowed him the chance to live, and you can’t understand what I meant by the comment?”
That question threw her into complete disorder and she realized that she hadn’t considered that her remarks might be interpreted as a suggestion that he should have slain her uncle. She hadn’t intended that at all. She disliked Gerard. There had been times when she had felt she hated him, particularly when he had abandoned her, but she had never wished him dead.
Or maybe she was saying exactly that? Because her uncle was a threat now that he had not been before and that, of the two men, she preferred if one would die that it be her uncle?
She rubbed her temple as her headache intensified. “I am--grateful, naturally, that you showed mercy. It’s only--if you expected that it would come to this, it seems that you would have finished your enemy before he could cause you more grief. Many more will die now, if Gerard brings an army into Aradan and you are forced to meet him.”
Daigon’s face hardened with anger. “And I could have prevented the death and suffering of many if I had used better judgment to begin with?”
“I am worried for yo….” Rhiannon broke off her impulse outburst abruptly, staring at him in distress. “I didn’t mean it that way. I didn’t--I wasn’t accusing. I am only trying to understand you. And I am afraid--of what will happen now.”
“Worried for …?” he prompted, tilting his head questioningly.
Rhiannon shook her head, glad for the darkness that concealed the blush that rose in her cheeks, and the chill breeze that cooled them.
“You were waiting for me. Why?”
Rhiannon stared at him in dismay, wondering how she’d managed to work herself into such a corner. “I was concerned about the men who were wounded,” she said finally. It wasn’t a lie. She was concerned.
“But that isn’t the reason.”
Abruptly she remembered her decision before Captain Bryon had arrived and so disordered her thoughts. Under the circumstances, it seemed poor timing for an apology, but she thought any distraction better than allowing him to pursue the course he was on. She knew him well enough to know by now that he wasn’t easily distracted. “I wanted to apologize--for what I implied this afternoon. I didn’t mean it. I only said it because I felt I had been tricked--not that you had used magic to win,” she added hastily.
“Tricked?”
“Not--not that--exactly.” She sighed. “It was not at all sporting of me to evade the forfeit.”
He smiled faintly. “No, it wasn’t. But then it wasn’t at all sporting of me to manipulate you into agreeing to it.”
“All the same,” Rhiannon said, trying to gather her nerve, “I don’t feel right that I didn’t … uh … pay when you won the contest.”
He held out his arms at his sides in a gesture of surrender. “So--pay.”
Chapter Eleven
Rhiannon felt as if she’d suddenly found herself standing on the edge of a precipice--breathless, fearful, giddy, as if only a single step more would take her world out from under her. Her body felt heavy and at the same time weak.
Breathless with anticipation, she waited. At last it dawned upon her that he was waiting, as well, that the bargain had been ‘freely given’ and he expected her to fulfill every nuance of the wager.
It took a tremendous effort to move, to close the distance between the two of them. When at last she found herself toe to toe with him, she felt as if a giant hand were squeezing the air from her lungs. Unable, at first, to lift her head to gauge his reaction, she stared at his upper chest, watching the rise and fall as he, too, struggled for breath. A pulse beat rapidly in his throat, she saw as she lifted her hands, palm outward, like a sleepwalker and gingerly placed them over the hard mound of his male breasts.
His heat filtered through his shirt almost at once, penetrating the cold that had turned her hands icy, traveling along her arms and evoking a shiver that made her belly quiver and tighten. Dragging in a difficult breath, she slid her palms upward to steady herself on his shoulders, curling her fingers around the hard ridge of muscle, tendon, and bone. Almost as slowly, she lifted her gaze to look up at him.
He stood rigidly straight, unbending, refusing even to meet her halfway. After a moment, she leaned closer, pushing upward on her toes until her mouth hovered a mere inch from his.
She hesitated there for a handful of heartbeats, gathering her nerve as she felt her resolve waver, unnerved by the welter of chaotic sensations and emotions creating havoc within her. Curiosity and the desire to discover more finally impelled her to move closer still. Her eyelids slid closed of their own accord as she brushed her lips lightly against his to test the texture and firmness of his mouth.
His lips were as hard and unyielding as the rest of him and delight fluttered through her as she explored his lips with her own. He sucked in a sharp breath as she plucked at his lower lip with her own, running her tongue smoothly over the surface she held between her lips, sucking lightly.
As if he could no longer keep still, or feared she might take flight and end her tentative exploration, he caught her upper arms in a tight grip, drawing her closer as he dipped his head to give her better access. Her heartbeat trebled, but with a thrill of excitement. Any anxiety she’d felt had vanished almost the moment she touched her lips to his.
Her thoughts, her entire being was centered on the wondrous sensations pelting her from everywhere at once from Daigon’s touch. Blood engorged her nipples as his hard chest brushed teasingly against her breasts with each shaky breath of need they dragged into their lungs. Each brush touched off a wave of stinging sensation that cinched around her lungs a little tighter and made breathing more difficult, surrounding her in waves of vacillating darkness. The feel of his lips against hers seemed to magnify the other sensations so that the muscles low in her belly clenched, as well. Heat and moisture gathered there as she molded her lips at last against his, matching surface to surface, drawing his breath into her mouth to mingle with her own scent and taste until they were entwined and inseparable, as one.
Dragging in a shaky breath, she allowed her
lips at last to part from his, slowly, regretful at the loss of contact, the loss of his heat and touch. He refused to allow the retreat. As she drifted away, he moved a hand upward to spear his fingers through her hair, curling his long fingers against her scalp.
Sluggishly, as if waking from deep sleep, she lifted her lids, gazing up at him. The night cast his face in shadows. Light spilling from the room behind him and the stars above them glinted in his dark eyes and brightened slashes of flesh along the narrow blade of his nose, his high cheekbones, and his aggressive chin. The effect of light and shadow emphasized his dangerous allure and sent a shiver of nervous anticipation through her as he moved imperceptibly closer.
Rhiannon sucked in a shaky breath as his lips brushed hers again, allowing her eyes to drift closed in tacit surrender. Her heart jolted almost painfully in her chest when after the briefest of explorations his mouth opened over hers. His heat scorched her. His essence invaded her even before she felt the aggressive assault of his tongue along the seam where her lips met. Without a whimper of protest, she yielded to the demand, parting her lips and allowing the invasion to overwhelm her shaky defenses.
For a multitude of frantic heartbeats, she held perfectly still, so enraptured by the faint roughness of his tongue as it stroked ravenously along hers, exploring the cavity of her mouth with a thoroughness that seemed to leach the last ounce of strength from her body, that she could only feel, not react. His retreat touched off a wave of anxiety, however, that he would withdraw altogether.
She closed her mouth around his tongue, sucking, coaxing him to explore more, to give her more of the delight. A tremor went through him. His fingers tightened against her scalp. Exhaling a groan of need, he thrust again, touching off new waves of pleasure.
Mindless, she entwined her tongue with his, offering pleasure for pleasure, touch for touch. With each thrust and retreat of his tongue, she felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into a quagmire of sensation she had no desire to escape.
She was so deeply under the spell of his touch and taste that she scarcely registered the first sounds that erupted in the room beyond the balcony. It seemed doubtful that she would have noticed at all except that, imperceptibly at first, with obvious reluctance, he withdrew. She would have followed when he lifted his lips from hers save for the fact that he held her so tightly she couldn’t move.
“Sire?”
The voice penetrated her mind as if from a great distance.
“What is it?” Daigon demanded, his voice harsh, sounding strangely hoarse.
“You asked to be informed when the men were ready to leave.”
That comment from the disembodied voice beyond the door of the balcony punctured Rhiannon’s euphoria at last and she opened her eyes to look up at Daigon. He was staring down at her, his face taut. When their gazes met, some of the tension seemed to leave him. “You have done so. Await me below.”
Confusion filled her. “You are leaving?”
His gaze flickered over her face. “I must check the defenses of the castles that guard Aradan’s borders myself.” He lifted a hand that shook slightly, caressing her cheek. “It is--tempting to ignore my duties when I want nothing so much as to bury myself so deeply inside of you that no thought but me exists in your mind.”
Rhiannon swallowed with an effort, fighting the wave of need that rushed through her at his words as the image filled her mind of his body entwined with her own, the hard flesh of his manhood thrusting into her as his tongue had claimed her mouth.
Daigon smiled wryly, without humor. “It’s the strength of that desire that concerns me.” He released her, setting her slightly away from him, but captured her face in one large hand. “Know this, I will redeem the promise your body made to me when I return.”
A shiver skated through Rhiannon when he stepped away from her and through the open door into the main room of his apartments once more. Numbly, she followed him, almost like a sleepwalker. It was only as she stared down at her hands that a thought finally surfaced.
“The manacles are gone,” she murmured in surprise.
Daigon halted at the door and turned. “There never were any manacles--except of your own making.”
Rhiannon frowned, staring at him in confusion. “But--I could not break them.”
His eyes gleamed with something akin to triumph. “Because your fear and distrust of me forged them.”
He had been gone for some time when Rhiannon finally became aware of her surroundings once more and looked around the now empty room. Her body still hummed with need, however, and she found her mind as empty of thought as the room was of his presence. Finally, she moved to her pallet and stared down at it. After several moments, she lifted her head to study the bed and then moved toward it, climbing up on the high mattress. His scent lingered, seeming to envelope her in an embrace as she settled her head against his pillows. She gathered one against her belly and pulled the coverlet over herself.
The manacles were gone because her fear had fled, but was the emotion that had taken its place far worse, she wondered?
* * * *
Daigon’s thoughts should have been focused entirely upon the task at hand by the time he passed through the gates of Castle Aradan and into the cool spring night. Instead, they lingered on the balcony with Rhiannon when they did not dwell on the images his mind conjured of her naked and writhing with need beneath him as his hands skated over the silky skin of her thighs and belly and breasts.
Time and again he banished the images, but they returned persistently to plague him until fatigue and the chill of the night wind finally cooled the fire in his blood.
Other thoughts swarmed close to vex him then.
Why had she tormented him with her cool distance until the eve of war? Why choose this time, on this day, above any other to decide to boil his blood in his veins with her yielding body and fevered kisses?
The answer seemed self evident, and yet he distrusted it almost as much as he distrusted his reflexive urge to dismiss it.
Or, perhaps, he didn’t distrust his logical conclusion so much as he desired to dismiss it?
He shook the thought off, but he realized that he had no hope of cool headed logic at the moment. He could not think of Rhiannon at all without his blood heating to the boiling point and frying his brain, and his groin throbbing painfully for the succor he had denied himself.
Or would she have called a halt herself if they had not been interrupted? Would she have teased him to the point of madness with the illusion of her own desire and then refused to allow him more than a taste of the feast so that she could coil him about her finger inch by excruciating inch?
The possibility infuriated him. At the same time, most reluctantly, he admitted to himself that, like mist, she had breached his defenses long since, so long ago he wasn’t even certain when she had done it, perhaps from the very beginning? Perhaps that was why it had taken no more than a glimpse of her upon the wall to instantly redirect the focus of his conquest from her uncle to her? Perhaps even his motives for granting leniency to her uncle were tarnished by a desire to find favor?
He rubbed his aching head, cringing inside at those thoughts. It made him feel like a moonstruck calf to think that he’d been so smitten on first sight that the arrow she’d aimed at his heart had seemed more like cupid’s dart than the lethal missile it was intended to be. And yet, as much as he would have liked to deny it, there was no way to deny that she had so disrupted his concentration that he had allowed her arrow to pierce his palm when he had reached to snatch it from the air.
Fool! The voice in his head carried the ring of Zella’s voice, not his own.
Daigon was startled, for she had not come to speak to him in many years. He recovered quickly from his surprise, however, goaded by her tone as much as the insult itself. To a degree, granted, he growled back at her, but not entirely. She does not know and can not use it against me.
That is a matter of opinion--and a matter of time. Even if she does
not know now, she will find your chink when she sorts through her own feelings.
She is--not certain? He ground his teeth at the note of hopefulness that had invaded the thought.
The powers of darkness preserve me! Zella exclaimed, plainly exasperated. You behave like an untried boy! Did you learn nothing from the women sent to you?
All that they could teach me, he responded, struggling not to sound like the sulking child she’d called him as he strove to tamp his anger.
The voice remained silent for many moments, chastising him. Distance and time will cool your blood and give you a clear head for reason, if you will only use the opportunity fate has granted.
Wry humor welled inside him. Only you, Zella, would consider a call to war an opportunity.
Each turn fate takes opens a door of opportunity and one that leads to failure. You must see clearly in order to know which door to step through.
Unconsciously, he rubbed his throbbing loins. I left her untouched, he pointed out irritably. Is that not proof enough to you that I am still capable of making a rational decision where she is concerned? You know as well as I that I must maintain some tie to have the vision.
And what has your vision shown you lately of the uncle?
Daigon frowned, shaking his head. Nothing.
“Sire? Is there a problem?”
Surprised, Daigon glanced distractedly at his captain. “Nay. I am but speaking with my grandmother,” he muttered.
Captain Martunae’s eyes widened. The hair on the nape of his neck lifted even as the color was leached from his face by fear. It did not abate when he’d glanced quickly around Daigon and seen no sign of the dead woman the warlock conversed with, for he didn’t doubt the presence of the witch, Zella, whether he could see her or not.
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