Lost in the Dawn (Erythleh Chronicles Book 1)

by Catherine Johnson

  She almost reconsidered when she felt the burning heat of his cock as it pressed for entrance at her body.

  "Jor...?"

  "Trust me, Serry," Jorrell whispered before he claimed her lips again in a fierce kiss. She lost the ability to think, or to fear, as he pressed inside her.

  Slowly, so slowly, he filled her body with his. She had been right to trust him. There was no pain. She felt stretched, but in a way that made her want more, made her want to move. When he was buried as deeply as he could be, when he could fill her no further, he halted and dropped his head until it was cradled between her neck and her shoulder. Needing to feel something, anything, but knowing that she needed to give Jorrell a chance to gather his composure, Serwren did not move, except to allow her fingers to traces the ridges of muscle over his back.

  She felt ridges and pits of scars, too many scars, too much pain, but she was distracted from the tales of woe etched onto Jorrell's body by the heat of his breath against her neck as he struggled for control. The stubble of his beard was harsh, a thousand pinpricks, it almost hid the moisture of his tears.

  Jorrell did not lift his head when he began to move, not at first, but when he had mastered his emotions he raised himself up on straightened arms, covering her, caging her with his body. His sheer mass made her feel fragile, but she did not feel vulnerable, not with him, never with him. Serwren gripped his shoulders, heedlessly digging her short nails into his skin. She only realised she was causing him pain when he grunted, but he did not ask her to relinquish her hold.

  His thrusts were slow, a bittersweet torment, at once intense and yet tender. Each one caused Serwren to gasp as he filled her to the fullest point. She lost herself in his eyes, and her heart exploded with the sorrow that she saw there for the years they had missed, for all that they could have been if fate had not wedged itself between them. The light in Jorrell's eyes changed, it was no less passionate, but the sorrow was engulfed by flames of need. She could not look away, could not deny him that glimpse of her soul.

  The slick slide of his body increased in speed and force and Serwren let go of the past and concentrated on the sensations of the present. Her body was writhing against Jorrell's as if possessed, beyond her control. Language was an alien concept. Her lungs forgot the rhythm of breathing, her heart was trying to beat out of her chest. And then she lost power over herself completely and the world disintegrated and she was pierced by a thousand shards of ecstasy. Serwren cried out, unable to contain everything that filled her. On the edges of her bliss, she heard Jorrell's gruff yell. She felt his body stutter and throb in release before his arms gave way and he dropped heavily onto her.

  Although she was comforted by his weight, rather than crushed, Jorrell moved immediately so that his weight was no longer squashing her. Serwren rolled onto her side, facing him. For moment, as he rested on his stomach before turning to mirror her pose, she glimpsed the latticework of scars across his back that her fingertips had discovered.

  Jorrell was lying with his cheek cupped in his palm, his elbow resting on the covers. He watched Serwren with amused interest as she traced more scars over his shoulders, arms and stomach. These were other marks on his skin that she had ignored in the heat of the moment. Some were the white lines of minor wounds, others were ridged and rough and spoke of long healing and grievous pain.

  "No longer the pretty lad you remember?"

  Serwren ignored his jest. "So much pain," she whispered as she traced what must have been a vicious slice over his bicep.

  Jorrell shifted then; he reached over and laid his palm over her heart. The heat of it warmed her breast and made her body think of other things, but the look in his eyes as they held hers was earnest. "You have your own scars."

  His hand drifted lower, he traced the backs of his fingers over the stretch marks that crossed her belly, the reminders of having carried Ulli in her body.

  "Jor, there's something else you should know..." Serwren knew that there could be no secrets between them now.

  "Really?" He was amused. She couldn't think why he would think whatever she had next to tell him would be any less awful or of any less magnitude than the last secret she'd tried to reveal.

  "Ulli..."

  "Is my son," Jorrell gently interrupted her.

  Serwren was briefly shocked into silence. "How do you know?"

  "Really, Serry, the resemblance is clear."

  "I know it is, but I took great care that everyone should have no room to doubt that Bornsig was his sire."

  Something hard and unpleasant crossed behind Jorrell's eyes, but it was gone in an instant. "And I'm sure he wished that such a clever lad had been his offspring."

  "You've spoken to him? To Ulli?" Serwren very much wanted to tell Ulli the truth of his heritage, but she wasn't yet convinced that he would understand the intricacies of the tale. She was worried that Jorrell had let the secret slip.

  "Not as much as I'd like to. He's asked me to help him with some schoolwork. With your permission, I'd like to spend more time with him."

  A concern that she hadn't known existed eased within her. She hadn't recognised a latent apprehension that Jorrell would not want to claim his son. "Yes, I'd like that. Very much. I don't know what.. how... to tell him the truth. But I would like for you to know him as I do."

  "We'll find a way through this, Serry." Jorrell reached out and slipped his arm around her to pull her close against his body again. He wrapped her in the comforting warmth of his strength. When he spoke, his lips moved a hair's breadth from hers. "We'll find a way to be safe, to be happy, to be a family."

  He was moving over her again, moving against her. She felt his cock requesting entry. She opened to him with a sigh of pleasure. She could grant him that momentary happiness, that brief contentment borne of wishing. Serwren only wished that she could promise him the future he'd described, that she wanted as much as he did, but experience had taught her not to set her hopes so loftily.

  For now, they would enjoy each other's bodies and hope that the dawn would bring the answers that they wanted, that they so badly needed. She tried to push away the terror that someone would steal this thing that they might be able to find.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jorrell was sickened by the realisation that he had been away from the city for too long. There had been a time when he'd known every nook and cranny, but no more. He'd once walked through the streets with a reasonable amount of impunity as a young man, had known the places where a person could go to have a conversation without being overheard, even if he didn't always frequent such locales. Once, he would have been the one to choose the meeting place, but it was Cael - who had a knack for ingratiating himself with any group of people - who had swiftly discovered the streets where the everyone was so busy trying to keep their own business private that they had no time or inclination to pry into anyone else's.

  It hadn't been easy to convene at the brothel. The three men were hardly inconspicuous. They were all tall, broad shouldered, assertive and evidently not peasants, and there was very little that they could do to disguise all that. Jorrell and Hitaal had settled for wearing cloaks with the cowls raised to shroud their faces. Cael, ever the dramatic joker, had shown up in a cloak covered with horse dung, hunching his weight over a long staff.

  They had elected, in the hushed conversations that they'd managed to hold so far, not to invite Makesh. They simply did not trust their colleague's allegiances . They had discussed the prospects of reaching out to Seddrill, but their opportunities for doing so were limited. For the present, they were not including any of the consuls in their discussions. They had the deep-seated natural suspicion of anyone not of their ilk, whose blood had not been spilt, side by side, in defence of each other. Perhaps, in time, they would decide to offer their trust to someone outside the military, but today was not that day.

  Jorrell and Hitaal had gained entry to the inn and had waited for Cael in a dark, stinking corner of the ugly room in which custo
mers gathered to select the prostitutes they wished to spend time with. Despite the relatively early hour of the day, there was some stilted activity in the place. When Cael arrived, he was greeted with an eyebrow raising amount of enthusiasm by the owner of the establishment. The landlord could best be described as rotund, but Jorrell noted muscle in the thick arms and legs, and even in the chest above the prodigious gut. That the man appeared to wear all his hair on his chin and not one strand on his head was as unfortunate as it was amusing.

  The proprietor showed the three men to a small room. Three men being led to a single room as a group raised not one eyebrow in the place; that told Jorrell much about the type of business that was conducted in the dingy building. Once the door had been closed behind them, Jorrell took stock of the confined space. The only furniture was a rickety bed strewn with stained sheets. There wasn't even a table on which to place a glass of water. There was no carpet or rug of any sort to cover the bare floorboards.

  Having glanced around the room, Cael disappeared, and then reappeared moments later with a chair, one chair.

  "Sorry, sirs, you'll have to share." Cael grinned as he put the chair down and seated himself on it.

  "You're enjoying this far too much," Jorrell muttered as he looked about the room.

  "You could have found a different meeting place, one more in accord with your exacting standards." Cael reclined in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest, but his grin gave away the mirth behind his words.

  "There's no need to gloat." Hitaal also seemed at a loss as to where to sit. "You've done well. No one would be seen dead here."

  Cael sobered. "It's not the people who don't want to be seen here that I'm worried about, it's the people who are seen here who swap information for money that I worry about, but I don't think we'll be overheard."

  As if to punctuate Cael's statement, the couple in the adjoining room reached a noisy climax which involved some shouting, some screaming and a lot of banging of the bed frame against the wall.

  Jorrell looked at the mattress on the frail bed and looked at Hitaal. Hitaal looked at the mattress and looked at Jorrell. Without speaking they both bent, slipped their fingers under the ends of the sagging padding, lifted it and propped it against the wall. They perched on the sparse bed frame. Secrecy be damned, the room was rank and Jorrell did not intend to spend a moment longer than he had to within it. Moving the mattress had release an unfortunate sour melange of acrid scents, a combination of sweat, sex and urine. Jorrell tried not to scratch at his skin, but the depravity of the room was making him itch.

  Hitaal voiced the reason for their meeting. "We need to dispose of Erkas."

  "Hey," Cael exclaimed. "I found the most discreet place I could, but there's no harm in being a little circumspect about our plans."

  Impotence and impatience made Jorrell irritable. "The time for circumspect is past. We need to find a way to rid Felthiss of him. He's starting a war we can't win, an unwinnable war that could well decimate the male population of the country. Not to mention that he's trying to kill me, or goad me into killing him, which is the same end. He's an evil bastard, he doesn't deserve to draw air. It's long since past time he was killed."

  "So...you don't like him then?" Cael laughed.

  Jorrell loved his friend, but sometimes he could quiet merrily strangle him. "Don't be facetious."

  Hitaal was about to speak, probably to remind them of the serious reason for their meeting, but Cael held him off with a raised finger as he directed his words to Jorrell.

  "I'm not being facetious. I'm making a point. I think your personal hatred of the man is clouding your ability to see the situation clearly. We can't just kill him."

  "We can," Jorrell interrupted. "We just have to be extremely careful how we go about it."

  "And there's always the poisoner," Hitaal added. Someone is trying to do our dirty work for us."

  "Many hands make light work, and all that." Cael grinned. Jorrell was not amused.

  "What about Serwren?" Hitaal asked. "Surely she has a vested interest in all this?"

  "Of course she does," Jorrell replied. "But we must keep her ignorant of any plans we make. She has the support and the respect of the people. She can wield the power of their influence, but that is only true if she can truly be blameless in this affair. She cannot be part of this. She has to be free of the taint of her brother's murder. Not only would it weaken her authority, but people would ask why they could be so estranged, and under no circumstances should she have to tell that story."

  "Look, we're talking in circles," Cael said. "Erkas is a danger, not just to Jorrell individually and to Serwren, but to us, to the people of Felthiss. The fact that he has to die is undisputed. It's the how of the thing that we need to figure out."

  "I would say it's already been proven that poison cannot be relied upon," Hitaal sighed.

  "I need to see the light die from his eyes, to be sure that he's dead," Jorrell stated. "The gods know that he deserves to die by Serry's hand, but she can't kill him. I can, and I want him to know without doubt that it was I who struck the blow."

  Hitaal raised an eyebrow at Jorrell. "There's more to this situation than I'm aware of?"

  "There is, but I won't share those details. Rest assured that they only add to the case for Erkas' demise."

  Cael sighed with resignation and gave Jorrell a censorious look. "I suppose I should be grateful that you don't want to impale his body on a fucking pike and hang him over the city walls."

  Jorrell gave a sharp, grim nod. "That would be the least of my preferences."

  Cael was all seriousness now. "You're talking about risking your life to end him. You risk being branded a traitor, an assassin. You risk execution. You risk everything you have, everything you could have with Serwren."

  Jorrell leant forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. "I can't have what I want with Serry if I die in Vuthron. Should I make it back alive, in that unlikely event, we would always have his shadow looming over us."

  Hitaal huffed out a breath. "So, we're back to the how of it."

  Cael was still staring at Jorrell as he spoke. "Erkas doesn't leave the palace often enough to make it look like a street robbery gone wrong, which would be my preference."

  "A staged suicide?" Hitaal asked.

  Jorrell shook his head. "No one would believe that. We have to make it look like he brought this on himself, we have to make him challenge me."

  "Not necessarily," Hitaal countered. "We have the army. We could simply march on the city."

  Jorrell shook his head again. "It is not so simple. Erkas bought an alliance with Dorvek. My sister was the payment. If we stage a coup, we may be inviting war with Dorvek."

  "We may be able to negotiate our way out of that," Cael suggested. "And what about Vuthron? If we are the reason that they are no longer facing war with Felthiss, would they not stand as our allies?"

  Jorrell shook his head again. "I think after Erkas' declaration, we cannot guarantee that they would have enough trust for any Felthissian to countenance that. And besides, we would simply be building conflict between all three countries. Our problem would be solved, but at too great a cost."

  "But why should Erkas challenge you?" Hitaal asked. "Before the next moon you'll be marching off to Vuthron, where we'll all surely die. All he has to do is bide his time."

  "Erkas would challenge me if he simply couldn't wait to see me dead..." Jorrell tailed off as a thought took hold. It was an interesting notion. Perhaps, maybe... if this burgeoning plan worked, it would be away to grasp everything that he wanted. Everything.

  "Oh, gods, he's thought of something," Cael muttered.

  Jorrell let the plan take shape in his mind. He turned it over, and over, until he was sure that it was worth voicing. "Erkas' temper has always been his greatest weakness."

  "And how do you propose to rouse his temper without goading him openly?" Hitaal was also leaning forward now. Their voices had all dropped to a lower regi
ster, as if by mutual agreement.

  "By taking something he covets," Jorrell answered. "If I can persuade Serry to marry me before the moon is over, I can guarantee that Erkas will move against me. Most likely without any hesitation."

  "You're sure?" Hitaal did not look convinced.

  "Absolutely," Jorrell nodded.

  Cael's peal of laughter rolled through the room, surprising Jorrell and Hitaal. "You're a sly bastard, Jor. You persuade Serwren to wed you, as a means to guarantee her safety. Erkas challenges you in a fit of jealous rage. You kill him, war is avoided, your enemy is dead, and at the end of it all you have Serwren as your wife whether she likes it or not."

  "You think she would be unhappy with such an outcome?" Jorrell asked archly.

  Cael looked to be about to reply, and from the glint in his eye Jorrell suspected that his teasing comment would have something to do with anything he might have overheard the day before as he'd stood guard outside Serwren's room. It would be a shame if Cael spoke the words that were so obviously at the tip of his tongue, because then Jorrell would have to beat him, and he really didn't want to come to blows with his friend. Jorrell made sure that his resolve was evident in his glare.