by Dora Machado
“But mistress—”
“I’ll take it from here.” Bren stepped out of the shadows, startling Lusielle. “If the mistress doesn’t mind, I’ll keep her company so you can get some rest.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Severo’s appreciation seemed strangely genuine as he took his leave.
“I’ll have to keep an eye on him,” Lusielle said. “I’m sure he’s coming down with something.”
Bren laughed, and although Lusielle didn’t understand what was so funny, she smiled, if only because she liked the sound of his laughter. He took her arm and led her over to the gunwales where the dark Nerpes murmured a seductive whisper as it carried the barge away. Lusielle shivered and hugged her cloak when a chilly breeze arose. She was surprised when Bren came up behind her and, wrapping his arms around her, gathered her body into the folds of his heavier mantle.
“Is this better?” he said. “Do you mind?”
Yes, she minded a lot. “It’s fine,” she said instead. “Although it’s probably reckless.”
“Well, as long as we’re being reckless …” He swooped down and kissed her, a kiss that drew the strength from her knees. If her mind ever had the urge to refuse him, the charge was never relayed to her body. She went into his arms like a routed army, molding her back to his body like the river to the land.
It was astonishing. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like an object trapped in her husband’s suffocating grip, like a broom grabbed and shaken for some purely utilitarian purpose. In Bren’s arms, she felt cherished and free, prized, savored and craved.
How long the kiss lasted, she never knew, because when his mouth withdrew from hers she was as lost, confused and disoriented as a toddler abandoned in the woods.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said.
“I know.”
“Lusielle, I—”
“Hush,” she said, turning around and facing him. “I’ve known all along that you weren’t meant to kill me.”
He winced. When he spoke, it was in utter defeat, the final words of a crushed man. “I tried, I swear, I was determined, but I just … can’t. You have my word. You’re safe with me.”
His words should have caused her joy, because she had learned that this man was true to his oaths. But the defeat on his face was hard to stomach. Instead of finding peace and reassurance, her belly churned with an increasing sense of dread.
“Bren,” she said. “I want to help.”
“You already have.”
“If only—”
“You can’t.”
“There’s always something one can do.”
“Stay out of trouble.” He kissed the top of her head. “Find your happiness.”
“And what about your happiness?”
He looked at her as if she were speaking a different language. “It’s not relevant.”
Maybe it wasn’t important to him. But when had it become important to her? The time and the circumstances didn’t seem to matter at the moment.
She stared into his dark gaze and ran her fingers over the scar on his cheek. He closed his eyes, then stole her hand and pressed it to his lips. Lusielle stood on her toes and kissed him, the first kiss she had ever given of her own accord, a tentative, shy contact that tested her courage and his willingness.
“Lusielle,” he whispered. “I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Then don’t say anything.”
“This is… dangerous.”
“It is rather inconvenient.”
“I wish ….”
“What, my lord?” Lusielle needed to know. “What is it that you wish?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“What if I do?”
“There’s no future for us.”
“That’s true,” she said, “but there’s this moment, and the moment that might come next, if one was willing to fight for it.”
“And if we committed to this moment,” he said, “would you ever trust yourself to me?”
She had known all along she couldn’t refuse him, yet she had tried and failed. Despite her well laid plans, despite her steadfast intentions, there was no force in the world that could prevent her from giving him whatever he needed from her.
“The gods willing, my lord, I think I would.”
Chapter Forty-eight
BREN’S HEART STOPPED TO MARK THE moment in which his life acquired meaning. Then his heartbeat broke out into a wild gallop that couldn’t keep up with his spinning mind. She had said yes.
Of her own accord, she had said yes. To him.
He held her face between his hands and kissed her forehead, her brows, her eyes, her nose, her cheeks and lastly, her mouth. There was no reticence on the plush lips, no misgivings, no regret. They opened willingly, eagerly, lovingly. He knew this would be the defining moment that would bridge him between life and death. He knew now that he could die a good death.
“Come.” He led her back to the cabin, where the single beam of silver moonlight streaming through the porthole imbued the little chamber with a magical quality. The gods were at it again. Bren wasn’t about to sit out the game.
She went about undressing as she had done every night during their trip. She took off her cloak and her boots and hung them on the peg. With methodical efficiency, she folded her skirt, her blouse and her stockings, making a neat pile atop the stool. When she was done, she lay down on the bed, wearing only her shift.
The door’s hard edges dug into Bren’s stiff back. A rush of fear knotted his parched throat. He couldn’t take his eyes off the woman on the bed.
Perhaps this was a bad idea after all. Perhaps he couldn’t keep his promise to her. What if he ended up harming her? What if he made a mistake? What if he—
“Are you cold, my lord?” she asked.
“No.” He was burning like a roaring hearth inside.
She eyed his cloak.
“Oh.” He took it off.
She was very still, looking up at him, waiting.
He fumbled with his boots, which seemed to be clinging stubbornly to his feet, refusing to come off without a fight.
Maybe this wasn’t the time or the moment. Maybe he was tempting fate. Maybe he was just too clumsy these days to do anything right ….
The boots were finally off. Perhaps he should wrestle them back on and walk out of the cabin. But one glance at the woman on the bed was all he needed to know that he wasn’t leaving. His legs would never carry him away from her. His mind might have doubts, but his body was sure.
She reached out for him, guiding him out of the panic, leading his hands to her shift’s laces.
He inhaled a strengthening breath and pulled on the cords. With a soft rustle, the laces unraveled. The fabric retreated from her body. Then it was just her.
He might have sobbed if he’d had the breath to do so. He might have cried if his sight hadn’t been entirely committed to her beauty’s spectacle. He had seen her before when he had tended to her wounds, but back then she had been battered and senseless and he had been numb from the hunt.
This was different. She was healthy, awake and willing.
He sat there, just looking at her, emboldened by the sight, entrusting to his memory every detail her body offered. All that time, she didn’t shrink from him, she didn’t try to shy away from his eyes or hide herself. It was as if she was there just for his enjoyment, as if she were a painting, or a statue, or a most delicate tapestry, displayed for his exclusive view.
When she finally moved, it was to make space for him on the berth next to her.
He lay down on his side, facing her. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do. Perhaps he had forgotten all the things that he had once learned about pleasing women. Perhaps he would botch the job. Perhaps his long neglected senses would only support the callous and selfish being he had become.
She didn’t hesitate. She ran her fingers through his hair and kissed him, then traced the length of his throat with her lips until
his hands finally gained the assurance to land on her body.
Her skin was soft beneath his fingers. Her body was warm and flushed. Her breasts he left for last, wanting to meet them with his lips. There was no morsel as satisfying to his mouth as her flesh, no texture as delicate to his tongue as her nipples. She held his head against her breast as the kindest of nurses, murmuring something sweet and loving while he gnawed on her like the famished creature he was.
He didn’t give her a lot of berth. When she tugged at his trousers, he kicked off his socks. When she tried to pull his shirt over his head, he clung to it as if his life depended on it.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit unfair?” she whispered. “You, with all your clothes on; me, without a stitch on?”
“Fairness be damned,” he whispered back. “I like this injustice fine.”
He allowed her to plant a line of kisses down his neck and along his clavicle, but he wouldn’t allow her more. A man could only stand so much. He distracted her by running his hands down her back, learning the flexible road of her spine, following her body’s dividing lines.
Engrossed in the myriad of choices her body offered to his mouth, he wandered freely, kissing her breast bone, her belly, her belly button. He kissed her thighs and her knees too, the long bone of her leg, her foot and each one of her toes. He encountered a bit more reluctance when he worked his way back up towards her body’s north.
“My lord!”
A shocked frown met his advances. She wasn’t familiar with his plan. She wouldn’t be, married to a beast like Aponte. The discovery was a gift, a first they could share.
The taunting gods had to be in an extraordinarily indulgent mood, because she yielded to his coaxing and her body accepted his best caresses. It was more power than any man should be given, more torture than any man should be able to stand.
He took her in the journey for as long as he dared, back and forth from the edge of madness, up and down desire’s steep hills, until her body was beyond restraint and shock widened her eyes. She cried out his name, not “lord,” not “my lord,” not “Lord Brennus,” but Bren. Just Bren.
When she collapsed on the berth, she gleamed with a silvery sheen like a defeated goddess. He wanted to worship her. He wanted to place an offering at her feet and thank her for every touch, taste, kiss and gasp, for every single blessing that had ever befallen him in the course of his cursed existence. But she was crying.
“Dear gods, Lusielle, did I harm you? Are you hurt?”
“What was that?” she said.
“What?”
“What you gave me. What I felt.”
“Pleasure?”
“Pleasure.” She sighed in his arms. “You almost killed me.”
Chapter Forty-nine
LUSIELLE STIRRED IN BREN’S ARMS, DRIFTING in and out of a blissful state of satisfied languor, cradled in the wings of an astonishing flight. Something entirely new had happened to her, something she couldn’t understand, or explain, something that entailed her body mostly, but also her mind, because her body had just challenged her mind’s assumptions and won.
Bren drew her closer. She had the same need to be close to him, the same craving for his arms that he had for her. He kissed the top of her head and closed his eyes. Lusielle couldn’t believe he wanted to sleep.
“Bren?”
“Mmm.”
“Are you tired?”
“Some.”
“Too tired?”
One of his eyes opened to look at her. “Would you like some more?”
“No. Yes. No.”
“Which one is it?”
“The one that gives you whatever you gave me.”
Both his eyes were wide open now.
“Bren?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
It was hardly a fair way of looking at things. She lifted herself up on one elbow and stared at him. He tried to look away from her, but she drew his face toward her and kissed him.
Oh, yes, the hunger was still there, the need was roaring in his body. She kissed his ear and caressed his neck, and then slipped her hand under his shirt and ran it over his back’s strong muscles, tripping over his latest scar, the one she had helped make.
There was no pain to the touch, she saw, relieved, only a satisfied sigh from him, followed by another kiss. She enjoyed the heat of his skin against her fingertips, the shape of him, so new to her touch. But when she ventured beyond his taut stomach, he clutched her wrist.
“What?” she said.
“We’re not doing that.”
His eyes were not in agreement with his words. Longing, need and passion exuded from him like an irresistible scent. He looked very vulnerable to her, but also scared and hesitant, all emotions she seldom associated with him, all emotions she could use for her own devious purpose.
She kissed him some more, thumbing the raised scar on his cheek, undoing his shirt’s cords. There might have been a skirmish of fingers over those cords, but she didn’t care, because she was too far immersed in the feel of his mouth. Skirmish or not, she prevailed, pulling the shirt over his head and leaning her body onto his, pressing the swell of her breasts against his chest, a thrilling meeting of bare skin.
Her body melted into his. Her breath was his breath as well.
With a muted groan, he cradled her in his arms and rolled over her. One moment she was trapped beneath him. The next moment, she lay atop him. All the while they were moving together, swimming in each other’s arms, dancing a most intimate beat. She had never needed anybody like she needed him.
He gasped when she touched him. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
“What if I want to?”
His eyes widened. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying.”
The look he gave her could have an incinerating glower or a declaration of passion. “It can’t be.”
She knew he wanted this. His body told her that he needed this. Yet here he was, denying himself, denying her the satisfaction of pleasing him. She wasn’t about to accept that.
She didn’t allow him time to react, securing him quickly, shocking him with her swiftness. After all, she had learned some things in Aponte’s bed and even her tyrant husband had praised her talents on occasion.
The feel of him was different, hardier, more vital than Aponte had ever been. She didn’t feel coerced, forced or pressured. She wanted to please and be pleased. His body’s reaction was encouragement and reward at the same time. Was this how it was when people were suited to each other? Was this how it should have been all along?
He was still reluctant to come along on the journey, to surrender to her as she had done for him. Lusielle thought perhaps he might have been frightened of the consequences. She looked for ways to appease him.
“I won’t get with child, you know.”
His eyes went as wide as moons.
“We’re both fit and healthy. Be at ease, my lord, you’re safe with me.”
The sound at the bottom of his throat could have been a growl. “Lusielle, please, by the Twins, by the Thousand Gods, for the Triad’s sake, let me be!”
She ignored him.
“You don’t understand—”
She understood perfectly well.
“I can’t—” He gasped. “Stop this!”
She would’ve prevailed. She would’ve brought his journey to a satisfying end if the door hadn’t rattled on its hinges under heavy pounding.
“Trouble, my lord!” Severo shouted. “We’ve got company!”
Lusielle met Bren’s eyes straight on. “This barge better be on fire.”
Was it relief she saw in his eyes? Disappointment? Despair?
She couldn’t tell, because he was up, dressed and out the door before she could blink twice.
She donned her clothing quickly and slung her remedy case over her shoulder, just in case. The night was about to end.
The sky had begun to lighten, revealing the distant horizon. A point of red light gleamed on the horizon and transformed into several beams executing the bloody dawn.
Lusielle watched the sun begin to rise, all too aware that Bren wasn’t interested in the dramatic sunrise. His eyes narrowed, scouring the river. The sound of a mournful horn echoed from the bend.
A commotion ensued on the river bank. A number of horned-tailed gators and web-hoofed river horses scrambled out of the water. A family of winged river otters crammed into their den. A pod of rainbow dolphins raced downriver, arching through the water at amazing speeds. A flock of gulls rioted over the bubbling water, where hundreds—no, thousands—of fish surged with the current in a veritable flight.
Lusielle stammered. “Is it—?”
“The White Tide,” Bren said. “The animals know that it comes. That’s why they’re getting out of the way. The river fast has started. The cycle has begun.”
The dark silhouette of a mast strutting a golden sail broke into the rising sun’s outline, casting a strange shadow over the spectacle of the blazing sun bouncing off the horizon. Two more sails flanked the first in a tight formation. A host of ships trailed the galleys, the beginning of the White Tide procession.
The bulk of the land’s highborn were on the move, answering the call of Teos, sailing their mighty ships down the Nerpes. A large number of baseborn—wealthy and modest alike—joined the procession in smaller crafts in a journey of faith that entailed riding the dangerous, yearling infested, high water currents to the sacred island.
The yearlings’ migration brought hardship to beasts and people alike. The usually abundant fish fled to the sea and up tributaries in a frantic escape. The nets were empty. The water was forbidden. The migration required sacrifice for the length of the passage, to make certain that the yearlings blessed the waters with their passing, ensuring harvest, prosperity, and life. People prepared in advance for the river fast’s hardships, but the first sighting of the White Tide procession was a troubled time for the river lands.
“Three supreme galleys,” Severo announced, targeting the approaching sails with a weathered scope.
