He paused when he’d finally conquered her channel, trying to catch his breath, thinking if he only stayed as he was the muscles of her passage that were kneading his flesh would bring him off without any further effort on his part.
She needed to come, though.
He’d forgotten why.
Yes! Because she fucking came for Drake and she was going to scream for him, by the gods! Levering himself upward enough to watch her face, he began to thrust into her, fast, then slow, deep then shallow, trying to find a rhythm that would please her.
He was damned if he could tell, gods damn it! She moaned every time, regardless. Fuck it! He couldn’t hold on to his seed forever! He felt as if she’d squeezed his balls up into his throat and he was strangling on them.
He settled a little lower and began to search for the rhythm he needed—any rhythm. Gods! He couldn’t remember if it had felt this good the first time or not.
Insects were crawling all over him, spreading fire. His brain was on fire. He began to thrust into her feverishly to put out the fire before it consumed him.
She gasped, arched her back, uttered the keening cry he’d been waiting for and the moment she did his seed exploded from him so hard he nearly blacked out. It forced a choked grunt from him and then another as his body continued to convulse, forcing his seed through his cock like acid.
Relief filled him when it finally stopped. A mellow warmth flowed through him and took every ounce of strength with it. He sagged against her, thankful his heart had finally slowed instead of exploding and he could drag in a decent breath of air.
It took sheer determination to push himself up onto his knees. He settled on his heels, staring down at her. Slowly, his gaze traveled her length and settled on her cleft.
He could see his seed dripping from the mouth of her sex. Panting, he glanced around a little dazedly and finally grabbed his tunic, shoving it under her hips.
“You could always stand her on her head,” Drake said dryly. “It’s certain she wouldn’t lose any of your seed that way. She might gargle it, but it could not drip out.”
Chapter Nine
Caelin felt his face heat with a mixture of discomfort and anger. He discovered when he glanced at Gwyneth, however, that she was struggling to keep from laughing and the humor of the situation struck him. Grinning reluctantly, if somewhat sheepishly, he moved away from her to dress himself.
With a resurgence of his previous pique, he noted Faine, for all his breast beating about the ‘wrongness’ of it, had no trouble performing his ‘duty’. Drake, of course, made no pretense of coupling with her for the sake of the group. He enjoyed her with lusty enthusiasm.
It didn’t escape Caelin that she enjoyed him with equal enthusiasm or please him in the least, particularly when he realized Drake had outmaneuvered them all by suggesting she lie down on his pallet. He didn’t actually think about until it occurred to him that he wouldn’t mind sharing his own with her.
Drake’s eyes were gleaming with triumphant amusement when he sent him an accusing look. “She is sleeping now anyway, poor little dove,” he murmured.
Caelin frowned, wrestling with the desire to couple with her again and an equal certainty that his desire to do so was evidence enough that he was in deep trouble. “You are certain that it was enough?”
“I believe there is enough seed in her to float her eyeballs,” Drake retorted dryly. “If something does not take root, then it cannot be done.”
“We have made a mess of your pallet. You may take mine, if you like.”
Drake’s eyes gleamed. “Thank you, youngling, but I believe I will sleep well enough with my little pet curled against me. She is delightfully cuddly even when she is sticky.”
Caelin swallowed the angry retort that rose to his tongue. In truth, he knew Drake had done him a favor, regardless of whether he’d meant to or not. It was becoming abundantly clear to him that he could not maintain the distance of strangers that would have given him some comfort. It wasn’t that it hadn’t bothered him at all to think of sacrificing a stranger to save his mother’s soul. It had, and yet the woman who had given him life meant far more to him than any stranger possibly could.
Except Gwyneth was no longer a stranger. She was no faceless, soulless being that meant nothing to him and he could not put her back into the nothing that she had been.
The thought plagued him more each day.
He could not abandon his mother to her suffering. He could not!
And he’d begun to realize that his own life would be a torment to him forever more if he gave Gwyneth over to Artimus.
* * * *
It was harder work balancing on the back of a horse, Gwyneth reflected, than she would ever have thought. Not that Faine was a horse, of course. Unicorns were far more noble than mere horses, but she thought riding one was much the same for she could not tell a great deal of difference in the ache of her buttocks and legs.
Or her back.
Or her shoulders and arms.
She didn’t think she had been as weary after a day of working in the kitchens at the castle as she was from doing nothing more than riding the livelong day, from sunrise until it was nearing sunset.
They had been riding for nigh a week. She would’ve thought that she would grow accustomed in that length of time, or least begin to grow accustomed. Then again, she thought with a touch of amusement, she supposed it might be because she was not accustomed to being ridden hard every night and then riding hard the next day.
She didn’t feel inclined to object, even if she hadn’t known that objecting was never a good idea and generally useless besides. They gave her pleasure. She had never known a time in her life when she had felt such pleasure, and it wasn’t entirely the coupling. She enjoyed that—far more than she would ever have thought possible, but she also enjoyed cuddling, and she had no lack of partners to cuddle her now.
She’d feared that Drake and Caelin might come to blows over it the first time Caelin had insisted that she share his pallet, but he’d only complained, glared at Caelin, and then shrugged as if it didn’t matter at all.
She’d been torn then, more than she would’ve thought possible when she’d first joined them. It had hurt that Drake didn’t seem to care when he’d seemed so affectionate, and yet she’d desperately wanted to know what it was like to sleep in Caelin’s arms.
Heaven! He’d loved her as Drake had, kissed her until she was so dizzy from his kisses it had felt as if the world was spinning, and then he’d coupled with her and afterwards he’d held her in his arms.
She hungered for those moments almost more than the coupling, as much as she enjoyed that. It made her feel loved and protected and that was all that kept her sane when she knew what she must face.
“Why do you not run along to the lake, my precious, and bathe?” Drake suggested, giving Gwyneth a swat on her bottom to send her on her way. “I can see that you are weary. The water will ease your misery from the ride.”
She glanced worriedly from him to Caelin and Faine, knowing that they wanted her out of the way to discuss their journey, or perhaps their plans. Finally, she nodded, glancing back a time or two as she headed to the lake Drake had pointed out.
Drake settled on the ground to watch her, propping himself up on one elbow. “Be certain to scrub the smell of horse off, my pet. I mean to smother you with kisses all over tonight and I do not want to be thinking of Faine when I do.”
Faine glared at him, but since the sun had yet to set and the change had not come upon him, and unlike Drake, he couldn’t talk when he was in his natural form, he could do nothing more.
Caelin was fairly certain that that had prompted Drake to make the comment more than an interest in whether or not Gwyneth bathed thoroughly, regardless of his intentions. He seemed to take a great deal of delight in baiting Faine when he was in no position to defend himself verbally.
His amusement waned when he saw that Drake was completely focused on watching Gwyneth undres
s. With the best will in the world, he discovered he couldn’t resist following the direction of Drake’s gaze and, once he had, he was too focused on watching her himself to turn his mind away.
“You are convinced that that mark on her hip is not the fleur de lis?” he murmured thoughtfully.
“I have begun to think there is a good possibility that it is,” Drake drawled.
Caelin sent him a quick look. “Then you think that she is not Artimus’ daughter?”
Drake sent him glance of amusement. “Why would you think that one would preclude the other? He was the royal wizard. It would be child’s play to him. It would take nothing more than a glamour to pose as the king and plant his own seed.”
Caelin frowned, returning his attention to Gwyneth. “In which case, she would not truly be a princess, even if she was the daughter of the queen.”
Drake studied him assessingly. “We have only conjecture and a claim from a vile bastard who is not known for his honor or his integrity. King John may well have sired her. We do not know that he did not. What I do know and should have seen right off is that she is every inch a princess royal. She has her mother’s quiet strength. They did not break her, though it is clear they tried. She has been sorely used, but she needed only a little kindness to blossom. She is a swan among lowly sparrows,” Drake murmured meditatively, lifting his head to look up as a lamentation of swans passed overhead. Heading directly toward the lake, the flock settled in the water around her, looking her over curiously but with no indication that they beheld her as anything but one of them.
Surprise flickered through Caelin and the abrupt certainty that her magic was far stronger than it had been before. “I’ll be damned.”
“It is entirely possible that we all will.”
* * * *
Caelin glanced back to see how much distance was between him and Faine, who was carrying Gwyneth and then nudged Darkness until he’d come alongside Drake. “Any thoughts on how we are going to play this game that Artimus has set us upon?”
“Many. I am still working on the puzzle.”
Frustration rose in Caelin, but he tamped it. He could hardly rail at Drake for not producing a solution when he could not himself. “I have heard it said that Artimus was a seer.”
“I have heard this also,” Drake replied.
“It if is true, then that complicates things even more—especially if he foresaw this day.”
Drake frowned. “I have known a few seers in my time. I asked one once upon a time what it was that he saw when he looked into the future.”
“And?” Caelin prompted a little impatiently.
“Flickering images of things that might be.”
Caelin frowned. “Something like a dream, you think?”
“I had the impression that it was dream-like, but he said that it was more like trying to look across a lake on a foggy day. The mists would part and he would see something and then they would close again and mayhap he would see something else. And then he would study over what he’d seen and he would try to decide what it was and what it meant.”
“Mayhap he was not a very good seer,” Caelin said dryly.
“It was Merlin.”
Caelin sent him a sharp look. There were few who hadn’t heard of the great seer, Merlin. “You knew him?” Caelin asked blankly.
Drake chuckled. “I am a dragon, youngling,” he said chidingly.
Caelin dismissed the effort to calculate the dragon’s age. “And he saw no more than that? Or do you think that he only told you that?”
“I think he spoke the truth. I do not think that he could see better than anyone else. I believe that he devoted more time to looking and I also believe that it was his understanding of human nature that ultimately helped him the most.”
“In what way?” Caelin asked curiously.
Drake shrugged. “If there is famine, there is war and so if he saw famine he knew that war would follow because that is the nature of man—the instinct for survival.”
“So you don’t that that Artimus could have seen enough of this time for it to be a threat to any plans we made?”
“There is always the possibility that he saw enough to be a very dangerous threat.”
Caelin shook his head. “It gives me a headache trying to think of a way to outwit him when I know so little and fear that he knows much more. He would have had a reason to send the three of us. I am certain of that—a reason beyond the fear that Gerald would betray him and refuse to give her up.”
“He has had many years to plot,” Drake agreed.
Caelin’s lips tightened. “But to have placed Gwyneth with Gerald, he would’ve had to have known that it would come to this, that he would be defeated and the only way that he could turn defeat into triumph would be with the girl. I’ve no notion of her age, but he would have had to have sired her before King John drove him into the underworld and chained him there. That suggests that he knew that he would need her. I cannot believe that he merely sired her and then decided to use her.”
“I believe this, also,” Drake agreed. “Which certainly suggests that he saw this time.”
“But?”
“I do not believe that he saw us,” Drake said with emphasis.
Caelin frowned. “I do not follow.”
“If he saw a glimpse of this time and he saw that a dragon, an elf, and a unicorn would bring the girl to him, it is not likely that he saw who the dragon, elf, and unicorn were.”
Caelin considered that carefully. “I do not see how that would make a difference. If he saw three with Gwyneth, then it would have had to have been us, wouldn’t it?”
“Mayhap, and mayhap not. There is always freewill. Say that he saw a dragon, an elf, and a unicorn and he knew that they would be there, that they must be in order for the future he saw to transpire. He would assume that the three he chose were destined to be those he saw, but that is not necessarily the case. And, if we are not the three he saw, we have freewill, and thus the future he saw may not come to pass.”
“You are saying that we have the possibility of changing what he saw,” Caelin said slowly. “So long as we do not simply accept that we cannot change it, but how can we know that every step we take was not predestined and the results will be the same?”
“We cannot know until we try.”
“But you mean to try?”
“Of course,” Drake said, clearly surprised that he would ask.
Caelin felt as if a weight had fallen from his shoulders.
* * * *
Drake pulled his stallion to a halt, folded his arms over the pommel, and studied the canyon they were about to enter.
Feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle, Caelin pulled his own mount to a stop and scanned the walls on either side. “This is an excellent place for an ambush,” he said quietly.
“My thoughts exactly.”
Caelin closed his eyes, feeling with his other senses. They prickled just as the hair on the back of his neck had. “They are waiting.”
Drake nodded. “Mayhap a quarter of a mile.”
Caelin glanced back worriedly at Gwyneth. “How the devil did they get around us?” he muttered.
Drake shrugged. “I chose the most direct route, but we’ve been in no great hurry. I expected them to attack sooner.” He dismounted. Bending, he removed his boots and stuffed them in his saddlebag and then stripped his tunic and breeches off.
Caelin stared at him blankly when he mounted the horse again.
“They do not know you travel with a dragon,” Drake said. “Chances are, if they’ve managed to scout at all, they believe we are two elves and one woman since they know that you are an elf … and it is doubtful they will have seen Faine in human form. So, we will continue on as if we have no notion what they are about and then, when they attack, we will have the opportunity to trim their numbers.”
Caelin frowned. “I like all of that except the part where Gwyneth follows on Faine. I think he should take her up and y
ou and I will do battle and meet him on the other side.”
Drake turned to look at Gwyneth speculatively. “She can barely stay astride him now. She will be smashed on the rocks if he takes her up and then is forced to try to avoid their arrows.”
“She is liable to catch an arrow if he doesn’t!”
“They do not want her dead. They want her back. They will be doing their utmost not to hit her. We will make it easy for them to miss by having her trail us far enough that she is not in the line of fire.”
Caelin dismounted decisively. “I will tie her to Faine. If he thinks it necessary to take flight to protect her, he will not have to worry about her falling off.”
Drake frowned but nodded. “I think that might be for the best. They will not be surprised to see her bound and will think nothing of it.”
Caelin snorted. “I suppose they will think nothing of the fact that you are riding naked either?”
Drake looked irritated. “I do not doubt they will think it strange, but I see no reason to ruin a perfectly good tunic and breeches when I am certain I will need to shift, to say nothing of the boots! They do not give those away, let me tell you! I do not even like to think of the coin I had to lay out to get them!”
“Why did you not simply steal them?” Caelin asked, amused.
Drake glared at him. “Because I am not a thief! In any case, I have not run across anyone with feet as big as mine.”
“Couldn’t we just … go around them?” Gwyneth asked unhappily, watching Caelin anxiously as he bound her wrists together around Faine’s neck with a strip he’d torn from her chemise.
Caelin checked his knot and patted her cheek. “Nay, wench! They would only circle around in front of us again, or attack from behind. Best to take care of it now.”
Gwyneth bit her lip as he returned to Darkness and swung himself astride the great black horse, pulling his short sword.
“Mind you, Faine, keep her well back from the thick of things, but take care they do not cut you off from us.”
A Lamentation of Swans Page 12
