by Claudia Dain
And now there was only one more preparation to make, only one more deed before the final deed: she must get Wulfred alone and on his back and ready for the knife.
She left the womblike dark of her chamber almost reluctantly and entered the relative brightness of the portico. She could see him with his men at the table, her table. They blended together, those yellow heads bent over their cups, all except Wulfred. He watched the doorway, almost as if he could see her in the darkness. Almost as if he expected her to come. Almost as if he waited for her. But that was impossible.
Melania edged into the room. It was quite unlike any entry she had ever made into a room, and she was instantly furious with herself for behaving so out of character. Why not just wear a sign proclaiming herself a skulking assassin?
Swallowing the fear that threatened to drown her, Melania raised her hand and beckoned Wulfred to come to her. This was the Melania he would expect. This was the Melania whom he would not beware.
This was the Melania whom he ignored.
Her anger rose and enveloped her, and it was a welcome friend indeed. Fear fled, and she motioned toward him again, this time her movements jerky and abrupt and edged with violence.
Wulfred watched her, raised his cup to his lips, and took a casual sip. His disregarding of her wishes was completely intentional and completely predictable. Oaf. Could he not do one simple thing? Could he not walk calmly and in an orderly and timely manner to his own execution?
"Saxon!" she barked.
He raised his brows in silent inquiry, the lamps behind his head throwing the hollows of his face into deep shadow. She could not read the expression in his eyes.
"If you have finished," she said stiffly, "come to me."
"And if I have not finished?" he said pleasantly, taking another sip.
"Come anyway," Cenred said to a burst of general laughter.
If she had had any doubts, any twinges of guilt, that barbaric laughter burned it to cold ash. It would be with laughter—her own—that she plunged the knife into him. If he would only come and present himself.
In a softer tone, she said, "I would like to speak with you."
"I can hear you very well."
"Privately."
The moaning catcalls and lewd remarks of his men bounced against the plastered ceiling of the triclinium and off the marble tile floor and out to where she stood with her back to the portico. Given the chance, she would kill them all. But she would begin with Wulfred, who now rose grinning and, winking at Balduff, walked toward her.
At last.
His stride was long as he moved through the room, closing the distance between them. The flickering lamplight lit strands of his hair to molten gold that moved around his face as he walked. Of course, he was naked from the waist up. With all the pillaging the Saxons did, shouldn't they have found at least one tunic? He was a powerful man, this Wulfred of the Saxons; killing him would not be easy. Pray God that it was quick, because she would never be able to best him in a struggle.
He was almost upon her now; it was foolish to have thoughts of killing him on the surface of her mind, where he might be able to read them in her eyes. It was an aura of seduction that she wished to exude, not an aura of death. For no matter that he was a Saxon, he had proven to be intelligent.
She backed toward the broad portico as he approached, not giving ground, merely leading him where she wanted him to be. He followed her, the darkness of that late-summer night almost swallowing them both. She could see nothing of his face, only the sheer size of him and the dull yellow halo of his hair. It hardly seemed possible, but he looked even bigger in the dark, and he kept closing the distance between them.
The moon was hidden by thick clouds, and the wind gushed down to swirl within the confines of the courtyard. It was a cool wind and heavy with water. That sharp pulse of wind pressed against the long drape of her stola for just a moment, but it chilled her and she shivered.
"Why do you shiver, Melania?" he said in a soft rumble. "It is only a summer wind. The winter is far off." When she said nothing, he said, "Or do you tremble in anticipation?"
She turned to face him at the door to her chamber, thankful that there was no light to show her face, thankful that the moon was hidden so completely in the night. "Anticipation? What is there to anticipate? Other than our nuptials."
"Is that what you wish to discuss with me in such privacy?"
He was so close to her now that she could feel his breath on her hair. He smelled of smoke and beer and cool night air. And her soap. Yes, he was close—close enough for the knife, but all she could see were the knots of muscle encasing his chest and the ridges of muscle lined up upon his abdomen. She swallowed hard. He was a massive man, bounded by muscle and golden skin. He seemed too huge to fit into her tiny room; she couldn't get enough air into her lungs with him so close. He was a fire, stealing air and leaving only heat.
Her father's stern voice sounded in her head, scolding her for her wild and uncontrolled thinking and the intensity of her emotions. She was Roman and must behave as such. Wulfred was a man and vulnerable. Mortal. She needed him prone and relaxed so that she could reach his throat or his eye—soft targets and fatal.
"There is little to discuss," she said, backing into the room, silently urging him to follow her. She could still easily hear the noise of conversation in the triclinium. Across the courtyard someone clanged a pot in the kitchen. She needed more privacy— and more secrecy—for her act of justice. "You are making whatever arrangements there are to be made, isn't that right?"
"You are right," he said, accepting her silent invitation and entering fully the small space of her chamber. He had not been here since he had carried her in kicking every step of the way. "But you are unnaturally calm in your response, isn't that right?"
She felt the hair rise on the back of her neck at that too casual and too pointed observation. He was right. She was too polite and too calm; she had never been so with him before and it was a mistake to act that way now. But it was difficult to summon anger when fear and caution had their fingers around her throat.
"I choose my battles, Saxon, but if you are looking for one, you will find one here."
"I am here for battle?"
She could see his head turn in the darkness in mock bewilderment and his arms spread wide in question. She ran her hands, shockingly moist, down the sides of her stola. The heft and shape of the knife gave her solid comfort.
"What else have you done here?" she answered a bit sharply, thankful that her words could bite and thereby mask her ultimate purpose. "Yes, I have said little on the issue of this marriage that you have announced in godlike fashion, but I will say that I will not be bound to a man who... whom... whom... I do not know more intimately."
There. She had said it. The words tumbled from her mouth like pebbles, and she felt her heart pound convulsively, but she concealed it all. She was truly becoming a master of self-control.
He said nothing. She wiped her hands again and squeezed the knife for reassurance, thankful that the dark hid her from his scrutiny.
"Is that why the lamps are dark?" he said.
By all under heaven, he was too close on the mark to her thoughts.
"Of course. Do Saxons... fondle... with torches blazing?"
"Do Romans... fondle... before being joined?" He said it abruptly, sarcastically.
"I thought only to spend time alone with you," she snapped, turning her back to him. Of course, he would make it all so difficult. He was so predictably obstinate. "Do not try to convince me that Saxons who are to be married do not... know each other to a certain degree, because I won't believe it. One has only to look at Balduff and Cenred to know that for a lie."
"But Balduff and Cenred are not joined. And are not about to be."
She could hear the laughter in his voice. Oh, how she longed for the moment when she could pull loose the knife.
"Fine. Leave. Go back to your beer and your band of murderers and rapists and
arsonists—"
She got no farther. She could feel his hand in her hair. If she hadn't been so nervous, she would have seen it: tell him to come, and he would want to remain; tell him to go, and he would choose to stay. He was the most contrary and irritating man she had ever met.
His hand snagged a looped braid and she winced, moving away from his clumsiness instinctively.
"I told you that I liked your hair down."
"And I told you..." No, she must not forget her purpose. "Fine." She licked her lips and swallowed heavily. There was no way out. She must say it. "Then take it down."
He did not answer her, but turned her within his arms until she could feel his chest almost touching her back. She could physically feel the rise and fall of his breathing just beyond her touch. Surprisingly, he was gentle. He was as gentle with her as he had been after rescuing Flavius from the flying sword; she was just as afraid now as Flavius had been then. Section by section, he released her hair so that it fell down her back. She was glad for the extra layer of something, anything, between his hands and her body. What to do now? She didn't like that he was behind her; it left her feeling vulnerable. But facing him would hardly be better.
He took the choice from her.
Her hair swung free, the waved ends just above the curve of her bottom. His hands cupped her there, one firm hand on each globe.
She jumped, jerked, whirled to face him, drew a fast breath to scream at him, and found herself choking on her own spittle.
"Did you not say that you sought fondling from your future husband?"
He said it calmly but even with her coughing fit, she could hear his suspicion.
"You—" she started to shout, and then breathed deeply to control her ire. "You do not have to grab. I am not a joint of pork."
Had he laughed? Was that choked laughter from the darkness?
"Then come to me, Melania, and I will not need to grab," he said softly, the humor still evident in his voice.
Yes, she should go to him. There would be no relaxed intimacy, there would be no relaxed Saxon lying helpless beneath her knife if she did not go to him. Yes, she would need to touch him. Touch the bulging muscle that had assaulted her eyes all summer. Touch the golden hair that hung down his back in rippling waves. Touch the throbbing column of his throat. Touch the hard planes of his face. Touch his mouth.
Kiss his mouth.
"Come to me, Melania," he said in warm command.
The space between them was not great, not in so small a room and not with him so close. He rose up, a darker mass against the dark of night, huge and immovable. She could not see his eyes. She could not read him in this darkness. Yet that was why it was so purposefully dark: so that he could not read her. She would control her body and make it go to him, but she could never control the thoughts that would besiege her as she did so. She did not want him to see her eyes.
She felt movement in the air and saw his hand stretch out to her, palm up. He was giving her this last measure of control. Somehow she had known he would never force her. Allowing herself to think no more, she placed her hand resolutely in his... and allowed him to pull her gently to him. Strange that he could be so gentle.
The oddly pleasing combined smell of soap and smoke came to her. And the heat of him. His body heat washed her like a bath.
"Touch me, Melania. Know the man who claims you as wife."
"You're always telling me what to do," she blurted out without thinking. She couldn't think. She felt sick to her stomach.
How much worse it would have been if she could have clearly seen him as she had seen him all summer: blue eyes heating the air between them as he stood unmoved by her taunts and dares, hands sometimes clenched in anger but never striking, shoulders that could carry laughing boys, and the light sweep of yellow hair—all before her eyes. Her father's face was fading and Wulfred's had taken its place.
"I only remind you of what you told me. Is this not to be a session of fondling?"
Her stomach heaved and her breath came out in a sickly rattle. Could she not have picked a better word?
"Fondling is not groping," she answered.
"And keeping your distance is not fondling," he replied easily. How could he be so calm? "Would you prefer me to begin it?"
"No! I'll do it!"
"Then do it. Here I am. Or can't you find me in the dark?"
"Oh, I can find you. My nose will lead me." He could not know that she did not mean it as an insult. This time.
She had meant to seduce him, to flirt with him as she had seen Dorcas flirt with Cenred; instead she found him daring her to touch him. Daring her, as if it were a contest of wills.
Worse, she responded more easily to his challenge and his voice than to the dictates of her own reasoning.
"Lost?" he prodded.
Only my reason, she thought. "Of course not. You're a difficult target to miss."
There was no point in delaying the inevitable any longer than she already had: she would have to touch him. He was only a step away, one step that was both unnaturally large and uncomfortably close. Taking a breath to steady her fraying nerves, she took that step.
Now the smell of soap mingled with another, nameless scent, and the heat she had felt emanating from him intensified. How to begin? What had she seen Dorcas do?
Oh, yes.
Raising a hand that trembled only slightly, Melania ran the fingertips of her right hand down the uneven planes of his chest. Could skin burn? He was so hot to the touch... and smooth. And hard. And bare.
Wulfred said nothing.
Both hands now, from collarbone past chest to ringed abdomen until her hands brushed the leather that bound his hips. He was so hot. No wonder he never wore a tunic. She had wondered how he would feel under her hand. She had wondered if skin could be smooth that sheathed such rippling power. She had wanted to touch him. It truly was better that her father had died; he could not have lived and known that his daughter was touching a Saxon, alone and in the dark.
Wulfred did not move.
Her hands skimmed up his torso, rubbing the muscles she had seen so often. Hard. Smooth. Hot.
His throat was a massive column, with a pulse that seemed very fast and strong. So hot here.
His hair hung down around his shoulders and she brushed it back; it was so very soft and thick. Capping his shoulders with her hands, she felt the muscle knotted there; Flavius and Petras had ridden on these shoulders. His arms were long, the muscle fiber lying in rippled twists and creating hills and valleys on his arms that did not exist on hers.
She ran her fingers over his right hand, noting the calluses, feeling the bulge of muscle at the base of his thumb, touching the hard edge of his fingernails. Lifting his hand, she unknowingly caressed it and mindlessly brought that warrior hand to her mouth.
She kissed the palm.
She felt him jump.
Heard the sharp intake of breath.
Felt him move.
And then his hands were in her hair and her body was in his arms and his hands cupped her bottom and his breath covered her face.
Until his mouth touched hers, and then his breath became a part of her. His breath and hers, breathing together, one.
His hands slid in a firm caress up her body, over round buttocks and slim hip and narrow waist and flaring rib cage to slender neck, and he held her there, one hand at her hip and the other at her throat, holding her against the length of him, the hard, hot length of him, while his mouth learned hers and his breath poured heat into her bones and blood.
Her feet dangled over the tile floor.
Her hands tangled in his thick hair.
Her mouth was hot against his and wet, and there was nothing in her mind but that she wanted to be hotter and wetter still.
More of this.
More of him.
More.
She wanted more.
He let her slide down the length of him, her breasts hot and hard at the friction, her legs weak, her hands c
lutching his hair, pulling him down to her, keeping his mouth on hers. She needed his breath to breathe. She needed his heat to keep her alive. Without this contact, she would grow cold and die.
His tongue was between her teeth, in her mouth. She tasted beer for a moment and then the taste was in her mouth, was on her breath, and there was no distinguishing between his mouth and hers.
His hands spanned her ribs and moved upward. Her breasts were on fire and tingled, each nerve alive and clamoring, wanting his touch, wanting to feel his hands on her. She arched into him with a throaty whimper and wondered where the sound came from. Her nipples were hard and distended, ready for him, ready for whatever he would do. She wanted his hands upon them, upon her, mindless of any other need.
He did not make her wait. His thumbs brushed across the rigid peaks in firm ownership and she almost lost her footing, moaning as she collapsed against him. She wanted more immediately.
More.
His hands slid down. Anger flared at his stupidity—until his fingers brushed the apex of her thighs. Fire scorched her. She throbbed and ached. He traced her there, and if he had not held her around the waist with his other hand she would have fallen at his feet.
She lurched against him, throwing her arms around his neck to hold him to her and continue the hot, wet kiss he had begun an eternity ago.
And as she did so, as she threw herself more firmly against him, she felt the knife shift in her pocket.
The knife.
To kill him.
The knife to kill the Saxon.
Saxon.
Reason fought for life in the blazing heat. She could not think; her brain was on fire. She could not see. What was wrong with her eyes? She could not breathe.
There would be no better time. He was close, he was relaxed, or at least his guard was down, and she had a knife.
Her right arm slid down as her left held him close. The kiss continued, confusing her, distracting her. But he would never be closer. She clumsily found the knife and gripped it. It was hard and cold; it helped to anchor her to her plan. The kiss lightened, changing, and he kissed the corners of her mouth and the spot just below her lower lip. A tingle ran down between her breasts and landed in her belly, where it sparked.
