Though her words were a dagger to my heart, for I could not imagine a world without her in it, I was there when they took her away—the only one who dared accompany them from the safety of the Haven’s protective stone walls into the forest-without-end.
Aerten rode with only a small saddle covering my back and a plain, single rein bit. Nothing fancy for her, she always said, shooing away the stable lads who thought a princess’s mount should be fitted with a royal caparison and a gold bit decorated with fancy bosses.
Today the knights had seen to it anything of value was left behind. They had not even allowed her a cloak. Her slippered feet curved against the warmth of my ribs, giving my sides a slow caress.
“You are a fine beast, Taran.” Her hair had come undone. The long glossy tendrils wound through my mane as her voice tickled my ear.
One of the Scarlet Knights laughed. “Look at ’er, whispering to tha’ courser like the horse is going to talk right back!”
“Mayhap she thinks it will sprout wings and fly her over the forest-without-end, to a land far, far away,” the other knight said.
“Or grow a unicorn’s horn to stab the beastie to death before it can devour her!”
Only the Princess knew how close their jests were to my reality, for only she knew my secrets, and even she did not know them all.
Aerten did not answer them, though her fingers tangled tighter in my mane, her weight shifting subtly with the rising of her back and the tightening of her thighs. My Princess—proud to the last.
Listening to the knights’ taunts, thinking ahead to what waited, I had few regrets, though I felt remorse for my parents’ hurt when they discovered I had stacked the lottery to make up for all the years my name had not been entered.
Taran nickered, as if reading my troubled thoughts.
“Settle. We will be there soon, and all is well in my heart.” I repeated the words like a spell meant to soothe us both, “All is well. All is well.”
The Scarlet Knights picked up our pace. As the sun sank behind the Mystic Mountains, we reached a clearing where tall stones curved around the mouth of a ravine, each one carved with ancient symbols that meant nothing to me. Bones of those who had come before, the remains of the dragon’s yearly feast, littered the forest floor.
In the center of it all stood a huge statue, rust and moss covered, almost hidden by vines and brambles. Still the shape of some sort of hound could be made out. From its neck hung chains and manacles. How odd, I thought, to find such a thing here, so far from the Haven. Had it been another occasion, I might have asked the knights what they knew of it, but I had other worries this night.
Before the knights could dismount, I slid from Taran’s back. “I would meet the dragon unchained.”
“You will be the beast’s meal either way.” The older of the two knights spoke with a confidence belied by the darting of his gaze to the fast-sinking sun.
From within the mountain could be heard a deep rumble. The air was acrid and bitter on my tongue. Tendrils of smoke lapped at my feet and flirted with my skirt.
“We canna’ leave her thus. She is sure to run,” the other knight said, though he too remained atop his mount.
“Even if I could make it to the Haven before full night falls, I would not be welcome. Running would mean death. Dinner for the wolven.”
“Stand in the circle, by the statue, and I will consider my duty ended. ’Tis the least we can do, but be quick about it. Night comes.” His gaze darted to the fast-darkening, twilight-blue sky.
I saved myself further torment, avoiding Taran’s expressive equine eyes as I passed his reins to the knight. “Thank you.”
Pungent smoke seeped from the fissure in the mountainside. A skull stared blindly up at me from the forest floor. Terror drove me to my knees. Despite my previous intention to go nowhere near the thing, I reached for the statue that had held so many before me as offering for the dragon. Its thorns bit my fingers, sending me to my haunches sucking pinpricks of pain from their tips.
Gloom had overtaken the forest, and creatures crept with skittering claws over dry, fallen leaves in the darkness all around me. I struggled, barely able to resist the urge to run. I knew what terrible things wolven could do. The dragon was a thing of mystery, for no one who ever met it returned to tell any tales. Mayhap a death at its whim would not be as dreadful.
“Come out, come out…wherever you are.” A hysterical giggle erupted.
“Only you would offer yourself up to a demon and then goad it with laughter,” Taran said, stepping into the clearing.
No matter how many times I saw him first in one form, then the other, it still gave me a jolt. As a stallion, he was midnight black with rippling muscles. As a man, he was tall and just as powerfully built. Both guises shared the same animated brown eyes and black, silky hair. He wore no clothing, and could not have been more beautiful. My heart and my body reacted to him, flooding with warmth and emotions.
“You came back!” I rushed into his arms wishing I could feel his bare flesh through my gown. I had only seen him naked once before, on a day that now seemed so far away. I had kissed him then, long and slow. Touched him and loved him. Ached for more ever since.
“Of course.” He pressed his lips to my forehead.
“Foolish.” Burying my nose in the curve of his shoulder, I inhaled his familiar smell—leather, horse, sandalwood soap. Man or beast, I loved him all the same.
“That remains to be seen.” He set me gently away from him.
“The dragon will come, and I will die. If you have any sense, you will go now before he comes for me.” I entwined my fingers with his to keep myself from giving in to the temptation of his naked body, my lust almost more than I could bear.
“Are you prepared to die?” His voice was gruff.
Shame, and the love I saw in his expressive eyes, prodded me into confessing, “I did it because I was angry. Angry with my parents for continuing the lottery, though surely they could have found a way to stop it. Angry they tried to spare me. Trapped, like all of us, only waiting for the wolven or the dragon to grow strong enough to kill us all. Angry with you for tempting me with things I cannot have. Things you refuse to give me.” I closed my eyes, unable to bear the bitter resentment in my heart when I looked at him.
Once, and only once, Taran had held me close, made love to me and told me his secrets. They were many, and they were shocking, but the only one that truly mattered was his ability to leave the Haven and return to a safe, beautiful place far, far away, occupied by gods like himself. Many times since, I had asked him to take me there. Many times, he had refused.
“Will you do it now?” I asked, though the question in my heart was, “Do you love me enough?”
“Do you love me?” Aerten had asked, on a day that now seemed so far away.
Above us the sky was robin’s-egg blue. Atop lush, green grass, on a blanket upon the meadow, warmed by the sun, danger seemed impossible. “As much as I have ever loved, I love you,” My fingers played in her unbound hair.
“Always the riddles. You must have loved many. You are very old.”
I teased the tip of her nose with the fuzzy end of a stalk of grass. “You would know no peace if you knew.”
She gasped, laughing, and punched my arm as she rolled onto her stomach. “That many?”
“Is it not enough that I am here, that I choose to be here with you?” Though I should not have done it, I placed a kiss upon the dimple of her chin.
She sighed, her breath sweet upon my mouth. So innocent, my Princess, so full of youthful yearning for things she thought she lacked. In truth, I had never loved another the way I loved her. She had made many long years of suffering in exile worth the price paid.
“I want…more,” she said, sliding her fingers under my tunic, cupping her palm over my heart, smoothing the flat of her hand over my belly and under the waist of my trousers. “More,” she whispered, her lips moving over mine, her fingers dancing on my skin.
Now, after all that has happened, I have to ask myself if things would have been different had I not given in that day. But those are worries for another time. My choices have been made, and there is no turning back.
I let lust consume me as I taught her the pleasure to be had with our mouths and our hands, skin touching skin. She was an eager pupil, swollen and wet under my fingers and tongue with her own desire.
Under the summer afternoon sky, I made love to her and found a peace unlike any I had felt since being sent to the Haven. I forgot everything but her and I fell in love, deep and true.
Drunk on lust, I let down my guard. Though stories were coming more frequently of wolven striking people in full daylight, I was not prepared. Rubbing myself between the squeeze of her slippery thighs, arm wrapped around her curvy hip, fingers buried in her sex, I did not see them coming until they were upon us. Snarling teeth snapped at empty clothing. Their confusion over finding only cloth in their muzzles is what saved us. As the enraged wolven shredded our clothes, I changed from man to horse to save her. I did it without thought, breaking one of the only rules the gods had given me, leading me into telling her afterward almost all of my secrets, giving her my trust as well as my heart.
“Will you do it now?” she asked, the question in her eyes, Do you love me enough?
“I should never have told you I can leave the Haven.”
She came to where I sat, kneeling on the ground at my feet, clasping my tightly tucked fingers in her own. “Take me to your true home. Save me from the dragon!”
“They’ve never failed to give him his due. If you leave now, what then?” The bitter taste of shame twisted my mouth. Until now I had given no thought to my duty to the Haven’s inhabitants.
“Maybe they will not realize we have gone, and no one will have to die at all this year.”
I shook my head. “I must remain.”
“You said you could go!”
“Not at my will or yours.”
“More riddles. If you do not leave, we both shall die.” She rose from her knees, brushing the dirt from her gown.
“I will do anything possible to save you, but I cannot take you away.” My duty was to watch over her people, but my heart ached at my failure to give her that which she desired most. Even if I prevented her death now, I knew not where I could keep her safe. I could not take her to my home or hers. She had nowhere to go.
“If you cannot save me, then love me, Taran. Love me before I die. Just once. Give in to it. Just once.”
I held out my hand to her and, may the gods help us all, there was no going back.
I ran to him before he changed his mind. Into his arms I came, standing between the spread of his thighs as his fingers worked the tiny buttons of my dress. I dared not speak, lifting my arms to help him pull each piece of cloth from my trembling body.
My emotions were beaches, like the ones he had described, with opposing shores. The moon of my desire fought with my innocence for the water’s caress.
“Still, calm,” Taran said.
My fingers trembled, but his were sure as he rolled me to rest like the sacrifice I was, prone upon the slab of stone. All around us, smoke swirled, but even the fear faded when we touched.
Lying beside me, he traced my skin with gentle fingers, kissing me until I spread my legs eagerly when he parted my thighs and ruffled the hair covering my most sensitive place.
Against my hip, I felt the press of him, long and hard. I had only seen horses mating. Hiding behind the stable, thrilled by the forbidden sights and sounds as the grooms had led an eager stallion to a mare, I had been horrified and excited. The great male horse had reared and pranced, snorting as his mate turned her rump to him, tossing her black mane. Out of the sheath under the steed’s belly shot a tube of flesh, easily as long as my arm and as thick as a small tree. This he plunged into his mate, pawing the air above her head, biting at her neck in his frenzy. When he was finished, though the grooms tried to prevent it, his glistening appendage slid from the mare and sent his seed gushing over the hay in a torrent.
Now as I felt the press of his hard flesh on mine and my thoughts brought me back to that memory, excitement coursed through me. Though I was frightened, I knew he was not as large as the horse had been, despite his dual nature. I turned slightly so I could take it in my hand, and knew at once that I had done the right thing for he sighed, his muscular thighs quivering as I ran my hand over the velvet surface. Like steel beneath silk he was. I grew drunk on a power I might never have the chance to use again. Already my mind conjured memories of his taste on my tongue, his hands on my flesh. This time I knew there would be more. I would have it all.
It was as my mother had told me when I had come of age as a maiden. “You will know what to do. Your body will show you the way to your man’s pleasure.” She had not spoken of the delight I might find, but I felt it now.
I thought again of the stallion and mare; the flesh between my legs tingled with want. The buds of my breasts rose to peaks begging for the warm suckle of his mouth. Each pull of his lips, each scrape of his teeth against my sensitive flesh sent me higher, closer and closer to something wondrous. “Show me,” I begged, knowing the wisdom in my mother’s words as my legs parted farther of their own accord and he came between them.
His answer was to slide into me, slowly but firmly. Pain was a dull sword in my belly, soothed by the sweet rubbing of our bodies as he moved within me. Soon I knew only fullness and beauty and once again climbed to that place he had shown me before, that I had longed for since. It was love, I thought as I came undone with the exquisiteness of our joining. True love.
After, he held me close, kissing the sore place between my thighs, wiping away the droplets of blood I had shed with my chemise and virginity.
Had we been able to stay just like that until our heads cleared, maybe we would have had a chance, but just like on the day the wolven attacked, we were enraptured by each other and taken completely by surprise.
A voice rang out, “Virgin blood, upon the sacred stone, taken by one charged with doing the humans no harm!”
Aerten screamed. I pushed her behind me as a giant of a man, clad from head to toe in armor the likes of which I had never seen, appeared in the smoke-filled clearing. Expecting a terrible dragon, my confused mind could not reconcile this man’s presence or his strange words.
Flame shot from the dragon’s lair and the beast slithered into the clearing at last—every bit as fearsome as I had imagined him. Covered in emerald scales like battle shields sharp enough to flay a man alive, with jack-o’-lantern teeth filling a jawbone so full it could not close and orange eyes that burned like the fires of Hades; he was the stuff of nightmares.
Never had I been more stunned when the dragon roared, “Aye, the terms have been met. Be gone!”
“The sacrifice is still mine!” The warrior’s growl sent bats flying from the trees. In the forest, wolven howled.
His metal-gauntleted hand knocked me aside as easily as a man swatting a fly. Catching Aerten’s arm, he lifted her clear from her feet hauling her up to eye level, scowling through the slit in his helm as his gaze met hers just before she fainted. Tossing her over his shoulder, he stepped into the forest’s darkness. They were gone before I could even find my feet.
“You cannot track him down low,” the dragon said. The harshness had gone from his voice and the fire had faded from his eyes.
“Who is he?”
“Lord Wulfgar, ruler of the wolven. Do you know the legend?”
“No.”
“Wulfgar was a man once, a fierce and arrogant warrior. His ego caught the attention of the gods, who sent down their finest fighter, challenging him to a fight, promising eternal life and rule of the wolven if he could best their champion.”
“He lost?”
“No!” the drag
on roared. “He tricked the gods’ champion, defeating him but earning their anger. They gave him eternal life, as promised, but as a statue of iron, alive only once a year unless his spell was broken.”
“For how long?” If he turned back into iron, it was only a matter of waiting, unless he fed Aerten to the wolven before he went.
“You and the sacrifice are responsible for breaking the spell! Now he will bring war to your gods and her people. If he wins, he gains true eternal life.”
For the first time I noticed the statue that had stood in the clearing had vanished.
“Why now? Why Aerten?” Why on my watch, I wanted to scream.
The dragon sighed. Wisps of smoke curled from his snout. “I am old, I am tired, and I am very, very hungry. Go now. They headed for the top of the mountain.”
“Can I defeat him?”
“In truth, you would be best served carrying a warning to her people and to the gods. Sacrificing her to save many is the wise, but more difficult choice.”
The dragon was right. It was all I had waited for, all these years. My one true purpose—to alert the gods should war threaten the humans. I had to go home.
I woke with an aching head and a heart torn asunder. Upside-down, hanging over the warrior’s enormous shoulder, I knew Taran was dead, for he would not have let the beastly man take me without a fight had he lived.
Up and up we climbed, into the rocks and ruts of the mountainside. Was this my penalty for being such a foolish girl, willing to risk everything to taste a bit of life, a morsel of freedom, forbidden things?
When I stacked the lottery stones, I had been prepared to die in the dragon’s valley. Anything to force Taran to take me away with him. Now I would give anything to take it all back, to save Taran, even the pleasure found beneath him. How thoughtless I had been. How selfish.
Thrones of Desire Page 20
