Enlightenment dawned, but Rhiannon was still confused. “You mean when you used the staff to bring forth an image of Gerard and his men in the woods?”
“Precisely.”
Rhiannon considered that, trying to figure out what he was getting at. She sensed that this was what the silent condemnation was about, but turn it though she would, she couldn’t figure out what it had to do with her, at least not directly. It occurred to her that it might be merely accusation by way of extension--she was Gerard’s niece and he blamed her because Gerard was not handy to blame. Somehow, though, she did not think the answer was as simple, or petty, as that. “Do you think, perhaps, the wizard has conjured some spell to prevent it?” she asked a little fearfully as that possibility occurred to her.
He shifted, twisting his head to meet her gaze for several long moments. “No,” he said finally. “The link grew too weak to be of use long since--well before any possibility that Climaus might have had a hand in it. At first I believed that it was my own doing, that I had allowed too much distance between myself and the link.”
“But you do not believe that now?” Rhiannon asked slowly. “What is the link? Perhaps if I understood that, I would have a clearer understanding of what you are asking me.”
This time when he swiveled toward her, Daigon removed the cloth from her hand and caught her arm, drawing her around to the side of the tub so that he could study her face. Unnerved, but more curious than afraid, Rhiannon made no attempt to resist.
“You.”
Rhiannon felt her heart jerk painfully. Blood flooded her cheeks and washed away again so rapidly and drastically that she felt a wave of dizziness. “Me?” she asked a little weakly.
“Even with magic, there must be a chain,” he said coolly. “My link to use is--should be--weakest, by no more than--touch, your proximity--even desire. The one that has vanished altogether is the link between you and--your uncle. Why is that, do you think?”
Rhiannon found that she could not maintain eye contact when it struck her like a tone of stone what he was hinting at. She swallowed with an effort, feeling sick. “Because--because I had no affection for him?” she asked shakily.
He caught her jaw in the palm of his hand, forcing her to look up at him. “Is that what you believe?”
Rhiannon stared at him while a dozen thoughts collided in her mind all at once, making it nigh impossible to sort through them. One thing emerged with crystal clarity, however, the reason Daigon had kept her close, and she didn’t know whether she was more devastated by that realization or fearful because of it. Lying seemed pointless. To her horror, she felt tears filling her eyes so that his image wavered before her. “I was afraid to tell you he was not truly my uncle,” she said with an effort because her lips felt strangely stiff and awkward in trying to form the words.
“Because you were afraid of me?”
“Yes! You said that--that you had come to avenge your parents’ murder and that you would take the seed of your enemy since you could not have him. If I had tried to tell you then, you would not have believed me. Later, when I saw you did not mean to kill me, I thought that you kept me here to barter me with my unc--Gerard, and I was afraid of what you might do if you learned that I was of no use to you.”
She blinked the tears from her eyes to see him, to see if she could discover any chink in his expression that would tell her she need not fear now that he knew. His expression was hard and uncompromising, however, giving nothing away save the anger he felt because she had lied to him by maintaining his belief that he held a pawn within his grasp.
“When did you learn this?”
It took several tries to dislodge the knot in her throat so that she could answer. “When he left. I followed him … hoping to reason with him, I suppose. I just couldn’t believe that he was abandoning us all to die, fleeing to save himself instead of trying to lead those who were fighting to preserve his kingdom for him. He said that it would help more to keep his life and fight another day. I pleaded with him to take me, but he refused. He said that you would certainly come after him for you had demanded me in his stead.” She paused, trying to remember the whole of the conversation, but it was no use. She’d been too upset at the time to recall the episode with any clarity. “I think I asked him if there was any truth to what you had said about my father. He said that it was true, that Nordain had done just as you had claimed, but that Nordain was not my father. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but I knew my life would certainly be forfeit if I was of no use to you.”
He released her chin after a moment. He was frowning, she saw, but more thoughtful than angry. “It didn’t occur to you that it might be safer if I had believed you weren’t the daughter of my enemy?”
Rhiannon sniffed. “Of course it did! I wanted to tell you, but then I realized that you would only think I was lying to protect myself.”
Agonizing minutes passed while Rhiannon waited to see what he would do, or say, now that he knew. When he said nothing at all, she got to her feet hesitantly. He caught her wrist just above her hand before she could move away from him. To her surprise and consternation, he pulled on her arm so that she toppled into the tub on top of him with a resounding splash that sent a wave of water cascading over the side and across the floor.
Chapter Thirteen
Before Rhiannon could do much more than gape at him in stunned surprise, Daigon captured her face between his palms, studying her piercingly. He shook his head finally. “I can not tell if you are lying to me still, or telling the truth. I find I don’t particularly care at the moment,” he murmured, slowly closing the distance between them. “But you are wrong in one respect. I can certainly think of a very good use for you.”
Rhiannon didn’t have time to consider the nuances of that last remark. He captured her lips beneath his then and all possibility of thought fled as his heat instantly seared through her. A sound of surrender escaped her as his mouth moved over hers hungrily. Dismissing her tumultuous emotions of before, the discomfort of wet clothing, the heat of the water seeping into her clothes and the chill of cool air on damp skin and clothing above the water, Rhiannon looped her arms around his neck, surging closer to the source of heat she most desired. Enraptured by the thrust of his tongue inside her mouth, her senses filled with him, Rhiannon lost all touch with the world around her, focusing completely on Daigon, returning his caresses feverishly with caresses of her own.
Her reaction seemed to surprise him. He stiffened, but only for the briefest of moments. Pulling her more snugly against his chest, he released her when she tightened her arms around him. Dimly, she was aware of the tug of his fingers as he loosened the ties of her clothing, tugging her corset off and tossing it onto the floor, but she could not have cared less if everything she owned was ruined. The only thing that mattered was his mouth on hers, his lips and tongue creating the magic mating dance that she had yearned for so desperately for so many days.
His touch felt far better even than she remembered, whisking her so abruptly from despair to the heights of desire that she felt faint with the swiftness of her ascent, murmuring a sound of complaint when he ceased tugging at her bodice and caught her arms, disentangling himself from them and pushing her slightly away. Stunned by the move, Rhiannon opened her eyes to stare at him blankly, confused.
Frowning in concentration, he struggled with her soggy clothing for several moments and finally managed to push the sleeves of her overgown and undergown from her arms, baring her to the waist. Relief and desire flooded her as he pulled her close once more and settled his mouth over hers, kissing her deeply. Her bare skin against his chest felt delightfully wicked. She wrapped her arms around his neck again, rubbing her skin along his experimentally. The touch of skin to skin combined with the slickness of the water felt indescribably wonderful, touching off waves of sensation that felt like fire as it crawled through her.
He rose from the tub abruptly, taking her with him. Startled, Rhiannon had to force hers
elf to relax her grip on him as he set her on her feet on the floor beside the tub. Climbing out, he tugged her clothing from her waist so that it landed with a soggy splat around her ankles. Her pantelettes followed and then he scooped her up and strode to the bed with her, placing her on the mattress and following her down.
The chill of the sheets on her wet skin caused an eruption of goose flesh, elevating her entire body to a state of excruciating sensitivity. As he sprawled on top of her, the skate of his damp skin against hers swamped her senses. Darkness encroached along the fringes of her consciousness, focusing her entire being on the only source of awareness and sensation, Daigon. The hardness of his flesh, the sharp contrast of silky slick skin and slight abrasiveness of his body hair as it rubbed against her evoked heady delight.
He caught one breast with one hand, massaging it gently even as he covered the tip of her other breast with his mouth. She realized she had forgotten how mind numbingly wonderful his caresses felt on that sensitive bud of flesh. She gasped as the heat of his mouth invaded her, inundated her with fresh waves of aching, torturous pleasure. She held perfectly still as long as she could, fearful that he would stop, holding that pleasure to her, drawing it deeply inside, struggling to draw breath. She quickly found that she could not remain still, though. The fever was upon her. She began to thrash with the building of tension inside of her, moaning incessantly.
When he moved to her other breast to tease that nipple as he had the first, she flinched all over, uncertain that she could bear more, certain that she was going to die if he stopped. Mindlessly, she wrapped her arms tightly around him, arching upward to meet the torment of his mouth.
Within moments her body had reached a point of desperation. The tension had coiled so tightly that she felt she couldn’t bear it if he continued to tease her. “Daigon,” she gasped desperately. “I need. I need.”
What?
She wasn’t entirely certain of what she needed to find relief, but she knew she didn’t want him to stop. He hesitated, lifting his head to look up at her. “Please,” she murmured desperately.
After a moment, he shifted upwards until he could cover her lips once more in a deep kiss. Wedging one knee between her thighs, he grasped her leg. Instinctively, she did as he urged, spreading her thighs wide for him. When he had settled between them, he arched against her. The turgid flesh of his manroot plowed along her cleft, touching off sizzling jolts of desperate need that took her breath for several moments.
Feeling almost ill with yearning, she arched her back to meet him when he thrust against her again. His shaft parted the nether lips of her womanhood, rubbing along the sensitive inner flesh and she tore her lips from his, groaning. “Daigon,” she gasped in acute distress, digging her nails into his shoulders where she gripped him tightly.
He reached between them, aligning his body with hers and burrowing into her.
Her eyes widened in sudden shock and fear at the invasion, but her body clenched around the head of his shaft, demanding more. She caught her breath, held it as he thrust again, sinking more deeply inside her. Despite the resistance of her flesh to his conquest, or perhaps because of it, she was enraptured by the feel of him inside of her. When he thrust again, she met him with more certainty, moaning in delight as she felt him sink almost painfully deeply inside of her.
He captured her mouth once more as he began to move, slowly at first, matching the thrust and retreat of his tongue inside her mouth with the thrust and retreat of his shaft along her passage. Understanding dawned and she began to counter his movements, awkwardly at first, but then with more surety as he groaned in pleasure. Tightening her arms around him she bent her knees, digging her heels into the mattress to give her more leverage, widening her thighs further still to ease his passage so that he could thrust deeper still.
The coil of pleasure grew more and more taut with each thrust until, suddenly, it seemed her body could contain it no longer. It shattered. Her muscles clenched, spasmed as purest bliss exploded, spread outward through her body in a hard wave that made her cry out at the intensity of it.
He stiffened. A tremor went through him and then he began to move inside her harder and faster than before until, abruptly, a low growl of satisfaction escaped him and he shuddered as she had and finally went still.
Dazed, so weak she could hardly move, Rhiannon felt as if she were melting into a puddle of supreme satisfaction. With an effort, she stroked his back as he lay gasping for breath on top of her, glorying in the wonder he’d shown her, reveling in the knowledge that she had given him pleasure, as well. She was disappointed when he gathered himself at last and rolled off of her. Briefly, coolness replaced his warmth, but then he slipped an arm beneath her and pulled her close once more. Snuggling contentedly against him, she gave up the effort to fight off the weariness of the expenditure of so much energy and drifted away.
Need of a different kind woke her. Hazily, she lifted her head and glanced around. Daigon had rolled away from her in his sleep. He was sprawled bonelessly on the bed beside her, sleeping the sleep of the truly sated--and the truly exhausted, she mentally added wryly.
She propped her chin on one hand, studying him to her heart’s content as she had not dared to do before. A faint smile curled her lips as it occurred to her that he looked every bit as dark and dangerous in his sleep as he did when awake. It was the eyebrows, she decided, resisting the urge to trace them with her finger with an effort, and his hard, upcompromising mouth.
Just looking at his mouth was enough to evoke memories that made her body clench and her breath grow short.
She settled her head on a pillow once more, trying to ignore the demand of her bladder. She had not had the chance to study him before. She was reluctant to chance waking him.
Something began to tease at her mind as she studied him, though. What was it that he’d said just before he’d kissed her?
He had a use for her.
Rhiannon struggled without success to ignore the meaning that most readily came to mind. It settled in the pit of her stomach like a rock, though, indigestible, painful.
She was not a princess. She was a bastard. What possible use could a man like Daigon, a man of royal bloodlines, have for a woman like her when she was of no use to him as a bargaining tool, or even a link to his enemy?
He had amply demonstrated that, hadn’t he?
It was unreasonable of her, she knew, to feel hurt. She had not discouraged him in any way, quite the contrary. She had behaved as if she was nothing more than a common whore, begging, demanding.
Color flooded her cheeks at the thought. It receded with a vengeance when another thought occurred to her abruptly.
Their coupling had been staggeringly wonderful.
And she had felt no discomfort at all. None.
Even she knew that wasn’t right. She was not experienced--she should have felt discomfort at least, pain at worst. She’d overheard women talk of their first time with a man.
How could she not be a virgin when she knew she had never been with a man?
Sudden, icy fear, clenched painfully around her heart.
More importantly, had Daigon noticed?
He hadn’t seemed to, but perhaps he had been too caught up in the moment to realize that something wasn’t quite as it should have been? Maybe he didn’t know, never having been with anything but prostitutes?
Then again, maybe he did.
And maybe it didn’t matter anyway. If she was nothing to him but a whore, why would he care if he had not been first?
She cared.
She loved him. It mattered.
She was too distressed over the collapse of her girlish dreams to feel like worrying over it until, and unless, she had to, she decided, fighting the urge to burst into tears. Easing her way off the bed with great care, she glanced at Daigon again to make certain he was still deeply asleep and moved as quietly as she could to the wardrobe that held her clothes.
When she was dressed, she tiptoed i
nto the outer room and left the suite. The guards, as usual, escorted her to the guardrobe and waited outside. She was too upset for that to bother her as it generally did, though.
Doubt and anxiety assailed her anew as she left the guardrobe. She did not want to face Daigon in the worst sort of way, but she knew she could not avoid a confrontation indefinitely, whatever she decided to do. Perhaps, she thought, it would be best to get it out of the way at once rather than have to dread it?
Reluctance dragged at her as she headed for the king’s suite, but she did her best not to look like a prisoner headed for the headman’s ax.
The moment the doors to the apartment closed behind her, someone seized her from behind, clapping a hand so tightly over her mouth and nose that she thought for several terrified minutes that she would suffocate. Mindlessly, she clawed at the hand over her face and the arm squeezing the breath from her lungs as the man lifted her clear of the floor and half dragged half carried her across the main room and into the bed chamber.
Chapter Fourteen
“You stupid whore!” Gerard growled, releasing Rhiannon so abruptly that she sprawled on the floor.
Despite the struggle to catch her breath, recognition was almost instantaneous. Rhiannon’s head instinctively swiveled toward the sound of his voice and she stared up at Gerard in absolute stupefaction, unable at first even to accept that he could possibly be standing over her.
He was glaring at her furiously, however, examining the wounds she’d inflicted with her nails and that look was all too familiar to her.
Before she had even completely grasped that Gerard truly was standing before her, her mind leapt toward Daigon and she whipped her head around fearfully to find him. He was standing beside the bed, as if he had only just leapt from it to face his foe, so perfectly still he might have been a statue. Acute pain erupted inside her. Dead? Although she strained, Rhiannon could see no sign that he was breathing.
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