by Nina Mason
“I knew when I met you that you were a powerful witch,” he said against her mouth. “And I was right. Because you have bewitched me. Utterly and completely.”
She was spellbound by him, too, and prayed the magic they made together would prove powerful enough to protect them from Queen Morgan’s wrath if she ever discovered their secret.
He threw the soft blanket over her. The night was growing cold, but snuggled close as they were, Jenna had never felt warmer, inside and out. Being with him like this—in the open air and moonlight with the woods all around—felt…well, enchanting.
“Translate for me the vow we exchanged, my knight.”
He shivered under her. “I will tell you if you promise never to call me that bedeviling name again.”
She blinked down at him, perplexed. “Why?”
“That is what she calls me.” He bit out the words through clenched teeth. “And to hear it from your lips makes my blood run cold.”
“What endearments am I allowed?”
“What’s wrong with Axel?”
“Nothing.” She kissed him. “Axel is a lovely name. But wouldn’t you like me to call you something less…well, formal at times?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Like when?”
“Like during pillow talk—or in the throes of passion.”
“What would you need to say to me in the throes of passion?”
“I don’t know…” A blush warmed her cheeks. She felt awkward talking about this, but wasn’t about to stop now. “Something like, ‘You feel amazing,’ ‘Please don’t stop,’ or ‘Give it to me harder.’”
“Well, let me see…” A teasing smile bowed his lips. “Maybe you had better say them all again, but using my name this time—to be certain I understand exactly what you mean.”
Happy to play along, she rubbed against his budding erection and said, as throatily as she could manage, “You feel amazing, Axel. Please don’t stop, Axel. Give it to me harder, Axel.”
With a wicked smile, he pushed his now fully erect cock into her. “As you can clearly see, my own name accomplishes your purpose perfectly well.”
It did indeed, and she liked it this way—on top where she had control and could watch his changing expressions as she drove him to the heights of ecstasy. It made her feel bold and powerful; it made her feel wicked and vampy without being ashamed of her sexuality.
“Tell me what we said when we handfasted.”
He smiled up at her. “We said:
Heart to thee, hand to thee,
Body to thee, ever faithful;
Ours shall be a joining of souls,
Ours shall be a marriage of equals;
This is the promise I make to thee,
And hereafter swear to uphold.”
Her throat tightened as her eyes welled with tears. “That’s beautiful. And perfect.”
“As are you, Jenna.” He touched her face with a tenderness that made her ache. “Beautiful and perfect.”
PART TWO
The Red-Haired Lass
Chapter 12
Jenna was pulled from a deep, satisfying sleep by the hooting of an owl, which, as she opened her eyes, struck her as odd. The sun was up and owls were nocturnal hunters. Stranger yet, she was in the woods, stark naked under a rabbit-fur blanket and not alone. Axel was still there, spooned against her with his arm around her and his face in her hair.
She closed her eyelids, taking a moment to savor the intimacy and closeness of his embrace. When he pressed his erection in the small of her back, she rolled over to face him.
“Good morning. Why are you still here?”
“Would you rather I was elsewhere?”
“No.” She pushed back his hair. “I just thought you were supposed to return to your post by dawn.”
“Hush.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Do not tell anyone. I am breaking the rules.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And, before I forget to tell you, you look more beautiful than ever this morning.”
She felt beautiful, too. Was it the handfasting or his obvious love for her that made her feel this good? She couldn’t be sure. She only knew the whole world looked different. More alive and vibrant somehow. Like she’d been looking through smudged lenses all this time without realizing how dirty they were.
Needing to touch him, she skimmed her hand down the length of his arm as her gaze skimmed along his rippled abdomen. A trail of golden-brown hair ran from the patch across his chest to the thicket between his thighs. She couldn’t keep her fingers from walking that trail down his powerful ribcage and flat belly. She’d never experienced this kind of lazy intimacy before and enjoyed it enormously.
“I like having you here—to touch and explore in the daylight—but won’t you get in trouble?”
His mouth cocked into a lopsided smile. “Not if I avoid getting caught.”
She pressed her lips to his and moved her hand to the side of his face. His skin was smooth and his whiskers bristly. He captured her hand and held it against his cheek as he returned her kiss. Longing leaped to the fore. She wanted him again, even though they’d made love multiple times throughout the night. Surprisingly, she wasn’t sore down there, just swollen and aching with the need to have him inside her again.
Would she ever get enough of him?
As their tongues collided, he rolled onto her and parted her legs with his knees. He groaned into her mouth as he took possession of her. Their joining felt so meant to be, as if he was the only key in the whole wide world that fit the lock to the cell where she had kept her true self imprisoned all these years.
When he began to move inside her, she wrapped her legs around his hips and locked her ankles in the small of his back. Lifting her pelvis, she met him thrust for thrust, taking him into her as far as he would go. Just as they both reached the breaking point, the owl hooted again.
Axel went stiff and pushed up on his arms. Worry etched his features as his gaze darted around the clearing, then back to her. “Was that an owl I just heard?”
“Yes.” She was puzzled by his reaction. “It’s probably the same one I’ve seen watching me.”
Pulling out of her, he sat back on his haunches. He looked genuinely discomfited, which unsettled her to the point of panic.
“What is it, Axel? What does it mean? Is an owl hooting when it’s light out some sort of bad omen?”
“Aye. Under normal circumstances, seeing or hearing an owl in the daylight portends the death of a loved one.”
The fierce look in his eyes gave her chills. At last, she’d caught a glimpse of his Viking side. She almost didn’t want to ask, but she had to know. “What does it mean in this case?”
He narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together. “I fear it means we’ve been found out.”
Dread tightened her stomach and tingled in her extremities. “I don’t understand. How does it mean that?”
He clambered to his feet. Cold morning air rushed in to fill the void. Shivering, she pulled the blanket around her shoulders. Axel was searching the trees—for the owl, presumably.
“Answer me,” she demanded. “Why do you think it means we’ve been found out?”
He turned his troubled gaze on her. “Because it’s not a real owl. It’s a shifter. One of Queen Morgan’s vampires.”
“How do you know that for sure?”
“I am not absolutely certain, but a real owl with any sense would steer clear of a falcon’s territory—especially during the day.”
Before she could probe further, his whole body began to pixelate. She watched, unsure what was happening, as his dissipating silhouette changed in form and size. Within moments, a huge white falcon with speckled wings took shape. Hopping onto a low-hanging branch, the bird pivoted its head to look at her. The eyes that met hers unmistakably belonged to Axel.
“Go back to the cottage, lock the door, and let no one in,” the bird said through its hooked beak. “I have placed runic poles around the cottage to keep them from enteri
ng without an invitation.”
She bit her lip to stop it from trembling. “What are you going to do?”
“Find the owl and kill it—before it can report what it’s seen to Morgan.”
Fear tightened her throat. “What if she already knows?”
“Let us hope she does not.”
At that, the gyrfalcon spread its enormous speckled wings and flew away.
* * * *
Axel kicked himself in the tailfeathers as he circled the glen in search of the owl. Had he not left his post unattended, the spy never could have slipped through the portal unnoticed. Now, due to his negligence, the risk of Morgan finding out about his relationship with Jenna was much higher.
Dread filled his wee falcon heart. Luckily, his bird brain was incapable of processing the range of potential punishments. He only knew the queen would make him pay for his disloyalty in some dreadful way.
But, to fracture the old saying, what she did not know could not hurt him.
He scanned the landscape below for the feathered spy. Spotting the owl would not be easy, as they were proficient at hiding themselves from the sharp-eyed diurnal birds of prey with which they competed for choice hunting grounds.
Flying lower, he circled again, fighting to stem the ink of hatred that threatened to blacken his heart. He had worked for so long to free himself from that toxic emotion—the bait the ego used to trap humans in fear. For love could not enter where fear already dwelled, and inner peace was only possible when love was present.
The secret to finding serenity was both simple and nearly impossible: Love everyone and everything at all times without fail.
And yet, in spite of knowing this golden truth, he could not stop himself from hating vampires—especially when they wore English uniforms. Why they dressed this way had mystified him until Sir Malcolm, one of his fellow knights, explained how these mercenaries came into being.
“To beef up his forces, the Emperor of Sangpagne had their bodies collected from the battlefields of France during the Napoleonic wars,” Malcolm told him one evening over a glass of mead in the main hall of the knight’s quarters. “Their commander, however, has a different story to tell. Rather than meet his end on the field of valor, the corpulent duke struck a devil’s bargain with Constantine. Eternal life in exchange for the duke’s military expertise.”
Upon hearing this, Axel had stroked his beard in wonder. As far as he knew, there was no form of magic capable of bringing the dead back to life. “Can you tell me by what magic he manages these resurrections?”
Malcolm nodded as he tilted the bottle to refill their glasses. “Have you ever heard tell of the Cauldron of the Dagda?”
Too dumbfounded to answer, Axel had just stared at his fellow knight. The cauldron, one of the four treasures brought to Ireland by the forerunners of the faery race, had been missing for centuries. According to legend, the cauldron had the power to fulfill every wish and to restore the dead to life—only the process deprived the resurrected of one of their attributes: speech, sight, hearing, taste, smell, virtue, or empathy, for instance.
Emperor Constantine having an object of such power at his disposal was a terrifying prospect; it also explained why there were so many Sangpagnese soldiers of fortune on the market of late. Obviously, the emperor must be manufacturing these fighting forces as a profit-making enterprise—the same way Queen Morgan generated daughters to sell as sex slaves to the elves, goblins, vampires, and anyone else willing to meet her price.
A flash of white brought Axel back to the moment. The owl had broken from its hiding place among the trees and was gliding toward the cave on silent wings. It was a great gray—big, but not big enough to daunt Axel. He dove, talons extended, and caught the owl directly between the wings. Stunned by the attack, the vampire plummeted toward the ground with Axel’s claws still embedded.
In the wild, great grays and gyrfalcons were evenly matched. Full-grown males of both species weighed in the neighborhood of four pounds and boasted wingspans of up to five feet. As shifters, both were considerably larger than their natural countertypes.
When they hit, the owl rolled, throwing Axel off. Recovering his feet, the gyrfalcon shrieked and charged his opponent. The owl hissed, flapped its enormous wings, and flashed its fearsome talons.
Far from intimidated, Axel launched himself at the great gray, being careful to avoid his foe’s razor-sharp claws. A screeching, spinning, feather-flying brawl ensued. Ten minutes later, only one bird emerged from the melee.
Leaving the incapacitated owl where he lay, Axel flew back to his cave to patch his wounds and retrieve his knife. According to Sir Malcolm, the only way to kill a Sangpagnese for good was to lop off its head.
Landing just inside the entrance, he recited the incantation to restore his human form. When the transformation was complete, he moved deeper into the cave with the plan of dressing himself before returning to decapitate the owl.
His heart turned to ice when he saw the page standing there—the same dark-haired lad who’d come to fetch him the last time.
“How long have you been waiting?”
“Since just before dawn,” the young man answered. “Her Majesty sent me to bring you to her.”
Axel’s frozen heart dropped into his stomach. Did the queen already know about Jenna? He could think of no other reason for the summons. The new moon was still a ways off and it was too soon for another, well, romantic rendezvous, for lack of a better phrase.
“How did she seem?”
“Seem, my knight? I do not take your meaning.”
“What sort of mood was she in when she dispatched you?”
With a shrug, the page said, “The same mood as ever.”
This gave Axel reason to hope his circumstances were not as dire as he feared. The queen might well know nothing about Jenna, and merely wished to meet with him to share new intelligence her spies had gathered with regard to his quest. Oh, aye. That was probably all it was, and he would do himself no favors by looking guilty.
“Come, my good knight. Make haste. We must not keep Her Majesty waiting any longer than we already have—unless you wish to inflame her temper. You must know by now how much she detests being kept waiting, especially by one of her drones.”
He did know, and wasted no time putting on his second-best tunic, having left his best one at the cottage. The thought of Jenna crept in, raking his heart. If he did not return by nightfall, she might think he had abandoned her. If only there was some way to get word to her...or something to leave behind that would let her know where he had gone.
Axel threw a glance toward the embedded shelf where he kept his runes. Could he use the stones to leave her a message without arousing the page’s suspicions? Maybe, if he was quick about it. But would Jenna understand what he meant to communicate?
He had not taught her to read the runes as promised, and now regretted that failure immensely. Still, he must try. Jenna was clever. She might figure it out.
“Did the queen give no hint in the slightest about her reasons for wanting to see me?” he asked, stalling for time as he crossed to the altar.
“No, my good knight. As you must know, Her Majesty is not one to be open, especially with one as inconsequential as myself. For I believe she regards her pages as little more than dildos with legs.”
As he spoke, Axel emptied the pouch onto the altar cloth. With trembling fingers, he sorted through the gems, trying to decide which to choose. In the short window of time the Norns had allotted him, he could do little more than assure her of his regard. But at least knowing he had not forsaken her might help her endure his absence with more forbearance. He just hoped, for both their sakes, he would not be away overlong.
There was no rune to specifically signify love, so he chose Ehwaz—the rune of the two horses, whose glyph resembled a capital M. Viewed through the lens of a vitki, Ehwaz depicted two horses facing each other with their noses touching. Two horses harnessed together worked in harmony, as did a
man and woman in an equal partnership. Thus, Ehwaz represented harmonious duality, trust, loyalty, and legal marriage.
The message he desired the rune to convey was: “Trust me. I will keep my promise to you. For my love is true and in my heart, we are as good as married.”
He set the rune in the center of the altar and took up the amulet into which he had carved a chain of runes to protect him from the form of magic known as seidr. While the charm might not repel Queen Morgan’s sorcery, it would dilute the impact of any spell she might attempt to cast over him. He placed the amulet around his neck, over the enchanted torque that kept him enslaved, but hidden beneath his tunic.
He turned back to the page. “I am ready now. Shall we be off?”
As they moved toward the portal, Axel stopped at the chamber that served as Odin’s stall and patted the horse’s rump while chanting the galdr for Ehwaz—sounds he hoped the page would mistake for affectionate gibberish. The incantation should make Jenna more receptive to the rune’s message.
Axel followed the page through the vale and across the rickety bridge spanning the loch surrounding the castle. At the other end, Lady Lilac waited once again to escort him the rest of the way.
Inside the royal bedchamber, he found Morgan outstretched as before on the chaise at the foot of her bed. Clad in a sheer robe that left naught to the imagination, she was second in beauty only to Jenna. He pushed all thought of his beloved from his mind. If Morgan was still in the dark about his infidelity, he did not want to give himself away.
“My queen.” He bowed deeply.
“My knight,” she returned with a smile.
To his enormous relief, there was no trace of hostility in her tone or her expression. She took her time looking him over—so much time that he began to feel like a lamb at a livestock market. He kept his gaze averted, lest it fall upon the dreaded Jewel of Allurement dangling from the diadem encircling her head. She had brought out the heavy artillery for this meeting. Why? He fingered the amulet under his tunic while silently reciting a hexenspeigel—a spell to deflect malicious magic.
