by G. A. Aiken
Annwyl really did have herself to blame for this. Throwing out “If you can take me, you can have me” before their swords clashed was, in retrospect, probably a bad idea. She really should stop challenging the man but she had to admit that she did enjoy a good fight.
Her father always accused her of making everything difficult. Perhaps he was right. If she wanted the knight, she could have easily taken him. From the time she walked up to him that morning, he had been more than ready. She knew it and he never said a word to her. But she realized now that she liked the challenge. She liked making him work for it. And work he did.
He knocked one of her swords out of her hand, so she backhanded him, causing the big ox to stagger away from her. She tried to charge past him, but he reached out that long arm and grabbed her. She struggled to get away from him, but his ironlike grip held fast. He pulled her struggling body into his chest with one arm. With the other he twisted her wrist until she dropped her sword.
“Seems, my lady, that I’ve got you.”
“Bastard!”
“Now I guess I can have you.”
“Let me go!”
“You made a bargain, my lady.”
Annwyl growled in frustration, loving the feel of his arm around her, his hard body pushing into her back.
He forced her up against a tree, her back still to him. He leaned in close and whispered in her ear, “I’d hate to think the future ruler of Dark Plains would not keep her promises.”
Then he ripped her leggings off.
Hours he spent creating the spell that would drag Annwyl from her protective cocoon with the dragons right to his lair. Days he spent gathering all the necessary ingredients. He even had to sacrifice one of his favorite acolytes who, tragically for him, was a virgin.
But the virgin blood opened the doorway between space and time. And that’s when he saw her. Stark naked and astride some male. She rode him as if he were a favored stallion, her hips grinding against the man’s body. Hefaidd-Hen’s view took in her back and he could see her muscles flexing as she came closer and closer to release. He could see the sheen of sweat on her tanned skin, the sweat drenched hair draping across her rippling muscles. He could hear her moans and cries of pleasure. Hefaidd-Hen’s fingers neared her, about to touch her flesh. She was nearly his. But Lorcan burst in. Stormed in, actually. Pushing about his acolytes, demanding Hefaidd-Hen’s immediate response to his presence.
With his concentration broken, the doorway slammed shut and the girl slipped his grasp. He roared in anger.
And Hefaidd-Hen turned all his fury toward the Butcher of Garbhán Isle.
* * *
Fearghus snatched Annwyl’s naked, sweaty body protectively to him and sat up.
“Wait. Don’t stop.” He’d never gotten the stubborn, demanding, insatiable wench that close to begging before, but he had to ignore her. Something wasn’t right.
The energy surrounded him. A presence. Not quite human. He looked around him and sniffed the air.
“What? What is it?” She reached for her sword, but he stopped her.
They were alone in his glen again. But a dark sense of foreboding invaded his very soul at that moment. Things were about to change. Forever.
He looked at Annwyl. She stared at him, a small smile on her lips. “Everything all right, knight?”
He didn’t answer her. Instead he kissed her collarbone and stretched back out, his hard, demanding cock still inside her. “Finish what you started, woman.”
Her smile grew wide. “My pleasure, knight.”
Lorcan slowly opened his eyes. The brutal pain in his head made him wish for death. Just the dim light from a close-by pit fire caused a moan to escape. He couldn’t remember what happened. Not clearly. But he knew from the sound of loud breathing in the room that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
“Ah, my lord. I am so glad to see that you are finally coming around.” The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. He tried to push himself up with his arms, but something powerful and large slapped flat across his back, forcing him back to the ground.
“No. No. Stay down. I want you to rest before you try getting up.” The voice sighed heavily. “I am so sorry, my lord, that it was necessary to be so harsh with you. But I think that it is time we made some things clear, mhmm?”
Lorcan didn’t try to rise again. Whatever pushed him down still rested against his back, holding him in place. But he slowly swiveled his head around to see what spoke to him.
On sight of it he immediately tried to pull away, but it wouldn’t let him go. “Now. Now. There is no reason to fear me. I am your ally. Just like I have always been.” Lorcan retched and his meal from several hours ago burst across the floor.
“Well, that is lovely. You humans. So quick to panic. It amazes me that any of you still live.”
Lorcan closed his eyes tight and refused to look at it anymore. He couldn’t. Not if he hoped to keep his sanity.
“This can be a very profitable relationship for us both, Lorcan. As long as you understand that you belong to me. Body. Soul. And what little bit there is of a mind. I will give you your sister, but, in return, you will give me what I want as well. As long as you agree to that, you will live a very long time. But if you do not . . .” It pushed against his back and he knew that at any moment his ribs would break. But it stopped itself before going that far. “Do you understand, Lorcan?”
For the first time since his father died, Lorcan shook in fear. “Yes. Yes. I understand.” Tears slid down his face and he realized he hadn’t done that either since the death of his father.
“Good. Good. I do like when things are clear and concise. It’s just in my nature.” It patted his back almost lovingly. “We have so many plans to make. There will be much bloodshed soon. But you just rest now, my pet. You will have your sister soon enough.”
Lorcan cried silently and prayed for oblivion.
Annwyl stared up at the cave ceiling, her hands behind her head. The dragon’s even breathing causing his scales to move gently beneath her. He’d let her climb up his back and lie there. He didn’t complain and she let herself enjoy the moment. His mane of hair spread across his scales and felt silky next to her bare skin. She wore nothing but her recently mended leather leggings and her bindings. She’d spent another day entangled with her knight. They had barely trained in days. Instead choosing to rut around the glen like two dogs in heat. But she couldn’t help herself. The man did things to her body; made her feel things; took her to heights she never thought possible. And every evening, as the shadows darkened, she’d leave him and return to her dragon. Shame she couldn’t live her life in this manner for the next thousand years or so.
“How was your training today?” His low voice rumbled through his body, vibrating against her flesh.
“Fine,” she lied. She hadn’t touched a sword—at least one made of metal—in two days.
“Good.”
“Dragon?”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever had a woman?”
“What?”
“I mean a female. Mate. Whatever your kind calls them?”
“Oh.” His body moved a little beneath her. “No, I’ve had no mate. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“What is it, Annwyl? What’s bothering you?”
Nothing now. In fact, she felt relieved.
“Annwyl?”
She turned over, her head resting on her arms. “I’m fine, Dragon. Just curious.” She closed her eyes. She’d never felt so safe before in her life. So at peace. She realized now there was no man alive who could ever make her feel this way.
She smiled. Only I would fall in love with a dragon.
Fearghus loved the feel of her body against his. Loved the fact she felt safe enough with him to fall asleep while stretched out across his back. He didn’t realize how much that feeling would mean to him. How much this girl would mean to him.
He never realized that his feeli
ngs for Annwyl could get any stronger than they already were, but he was wrong. They were stronger and becoming stronger every day.
By day he lay with her as human, and every night she found him by the lake and they talked for hours. She still confused him, but he wouldn’t give up their time together for all the gold in the world.
But he still feared the day he would have to tell her the truth. Tell her that he’d been lying to her. Would she hate him? Would she ever forgive him? He didn’t know. And he didn’t want to think about it too much. Because his gut would twist up and a sudden sense of panic would set in. He thought only humans could experience panic. It annoyed him to discover he was wrong about that, too.
No, he thought as Annwyl tightened her grip in his mane of hair and sighed softly in her sleep, I’ll not give her up without a fight. Never.
Chapter 12
It had been a hard birth, but both baby and mother survived. Besides, Morfyd had needed to be away. Give her brother and his human some time alone. Of course, Gwenvael refused to leave until he got an answer from Fearghus, but she was able to bribe him to stay out of the lovers’way. She would have thought her baby brother would be too embarrassed to take money from his sister. She quickly discovered how wrong she was on that point.
Dark Glen lay only a few leagues away, but she wasn’t ready to go back yet. She never knew where or when she might stumble across Fearghus and Annwyl “going at it,” as Gwenvael so eloquently put it. The late hour and a brief check around assured her that she was alone.
Morfyd quickly stripped off her robes and dove naked into the lake. She enjoyed the rush of cold water over her human form. She didn’t know why but her kind did love water. She’d envied Fearghus a bit when he found his lair. A cave with its own freshwater lake. Now that was heaven.
“She couldn’t have gotten far. Go that way. I’ll check the lake.” Morfyd froze. She heard male voices and knew they were looking for her. She swam to the edge of the lake and had just pulled herself out when a man stumbled from the bushes. She stood tall, ready to burn him to embers when he straightened up, turning to face her.
“Brastias?”
“Morfyd. Good. We were . . .” Brastias stopped. Apparently he just realized she was naked and he became transfixed. She waited, but he kept staring. His light eyes seemingly unable to look away. With a growling groan, “Damn, woman.”
“Brastias?” She snapped her fingers. “Brastias!”
“Uh . . .” He yanked himself out of his trance and turned away from her. “Sorry. Sorry. I just didn’t . . . I . . . uh . . .”
Morfyd grabbed her robes from off the ground. “What is it? What do you want?”
“I need you to get word to . . . um . . . um . . . uh . . .”
“Annwyl?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
Morfyd wanted to laugh but her sudden awareness of her own naked body trapped the sound in her throat. She pulled on her clothes. “You can,” she cleared her throat, “turn around now.”
Brastias looked over his shoulder at her. “I’m very sorry. I heard you’d just left the village. I didn’t know you’d be here . . . uh . . . bathing.”
Morfyd pushed her wet hair off her face. “No bother. Really. We’ll simply never speak of it again. Ever. Now you said you had a message for Annwyl.”
“Yes.” He slowly turned his body to face her. “We’ve received word that Lorcan will be attacking this village in three days time. We’re going to move the women and children to the Citadel of Ó Donnchadha. We think they’ll be safe there. . . . I never knew your hair was white.”
Morfyd’s head snapped up, her eyes locking with Brastias’s.
“Uh . . . I mean,” he continued in a rush, “we believe Lorcan himself will be attacking. I haven’t seen him in battle for quite some time, but I know Annwyl’s been waiting for this chance. I need you to let her know.”
“I will.”
“No matter what, we will fight to protect this village, so if she’s not ready . . .”
“She’s ready.”
“Tell her we’ll carry on until we hear from her.”
Morfyd nodded. “I’ll let her know.”
“Thank you.” Brastias stared at her for a moment longer, then quickly turned away, slamming into Danelin who had just emerged from the trees. He spun Danelin around and, before the man could say a word, pushed him back into the trees and away from the lake.
Morfyd covered her face with her hands. “Just bloody wonderful.”
Fearghus walked past his treasure room toward his lake. He stopped, taking several steps back. Gwenvael sat on his pile of riches like he owned it.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you. You’ve been avoiding me.”
“As if you are worth avoiding.”
“Well, it was either sit here or go sit on Annwyl. But she’d hurt me. Of course, I’m not sure I’d mind.”
Still drenched in sweat from his last encounter with Annwyl, he could still smell her all over his body, still taste her on his lips. So, he wasn’t about to let his idiot brother upset him. “What do you want?”
“I’m waiting for you to give me a message to take back.”
“There is no message. It’s none of their business.”
“Do you really think it’s that easy? Do you really think you don’t have to live by the same laws the rest of us do?”
Fearghus snorted. “What laws do you live by, little brother?”
Gwenvael grinned. “The ones that keep me alive and healthy.”
“Go back to them. Tell them anything you want. But when Annwyl leaves to fight her brother, I will be by her side.”
Gwenvael sighed. “She could never love you, brother. She’s human. I’d hate to see you give up your family for a girl that as soon as she finds out the truth, will run fast and far from you.”
Fearghus gritted his teeth and tamped down his desire to blast Gwenvael where he sat. He didn’t dare go near him. He might shift and rip the little bastard’s guts out.
“Get from my sight, boy. Before I send your head back to them as a gift.” Fearghus headed toward his lake.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Gwenvael yelled after him.
Annwyl leaned her forehead against the dragon’s snout. “You’ve been very quiet this evening. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She knew he was lying. He’d barely spoken two words in the past hour. “Did I do something?”
“No. Of course not. It’s just family problems. Nothing to concern yourself with.”
“That message Gwenvael brought with him. They don’t want you involved with my war, do they?”
The dragon sighed, heavily. “What they want doesn’t concern me.”
“I won’t come between you and your kin. You saved my life, you owe me nothing more.”
He pulled his majestic head away from her. “This isn’t about owing you anything, Annwyl. I fight by your side because that is what I choose to do.”
He moved away from her. Restless, he didn’t stand still for long this night. She also sensed his anxiety and annoyance. And she knew that somehow she stood at the heart of it, but she didn’t know what she’d done. Unless, of course . . . “Is this about the knight?”
The dragon stopped moving, but he didn’t turn to face her. “If I asked you to stop seeing him, would you?”
Annwyl closed her eyes. Finally, the question she dreaded since this all began. But she only had one answer for the dragon. Only one answer that would not be a lie.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me to. And I am loyal to you and you alone. I’ll always be loyal to you, Fearghus.”
“Because I saved your life?”
“No. I owe you my life for that. If you hit me with a ball of flame I wouldn’t try and stop you. My life is yours to take. But my loyalty is not. That has to be earned. And you have.”
“How?”
“Yo
u’ve made me feel safe. When no other has.”
Annwyl drifted slowly to him. Once in front of him, she rested her hand on his snout. He closed his eyes at her touch. “For that you’ll always have my loyalty.”
She walked around the dragon and wrapped her arms as far around his neck as she could. She hugged him and, as always, he let her. “Good night, my friend.”
“Good night, Annwyl.”
She headed back to her chamber, but couldn’t help but slide her hand across his leathery wings and the scales of his body. Like she did every night.
Fearghus didn’t watch her leave, as he often did. His emotions a jumble in his head. The man that he played by day railed against the fact she could so easily give him up. The dragon agonized in confusion because she was willing to give up for him something that she clearly desired. But not once had she mentioned love. Only loyalty. Of course, he had not mentioned love either.
The little human managed to completely confound him and he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to forgive her for it.
She watched the soldiers quietly flow into the glen. She could smell their fear. They didn’t want to be in Dark Glen, no sane person would. So their other option must have been much worse. And once she recognized their armor, she realized it was. They were Lorcan’s men. He sent them to her brother’s glen. Sent them to find Annwyl.
She let them get farther in, away from any troops that might be waiting in safety outside the glen. She waited and she watched. When the time was right, she moved behind them, clearing her throat. The men stopped. At first, they wouldn’t turn around. Afraid of what they might find. But she waited, knowing their human curiosity would get the best of them. It did. When she saw their eyes, Morfyd let go a stream of fire that scorched them to cinders before they could scream.
Gwenvael appeared beside her, is golden scales glinting brightly in the moonlight. He sniffed the air and looked at the still-smoldering remains of the soldiers.
