Lord of the Dark Read online

  He almost laughed. He had never brought a woman there for lustful purpose. Not after what had happened what seemed a lifetime ago when he’d tried to secret one into the keep. He’d never brought a woman to the cave at all, except for Simeon’s Megaleen once, when she was in need of refuge, while he fetched the Lord of the Deep to her. The watchers never let him get that far. They’d always hurled their lightning bolts well before any courtship he might have instigated came to bed sport.

  All at once he broke out in a cold sweat. What would happen if one did get in and he could keep her? Could he cheat the gods of their harsh punishment and live in the arms of a woman at last? Suppose one did wash up on the shore below and sought refuge from the storm in the cave. The watchers wouldn’t have been watching her, they would be watching him, and he was nowhere about. He was off with the other guardians, trying to salvage something of the ravages his lust had caused, bringing the sirens’ wrath to bear.

  It was a pleasant fantasy, but not very probable. Still, in all the eons he’d been outcast, nothing like it had ever occurred before…and there was that shift on the table calling his eyes, proof positive that someone had been there…. If only she still remained. Impossible! He would have found her. He’d searched every inch of the cave—every inch. Hadn’t he?

  Wearily, Gideon stepped into the sleeping alcove, folded his arms across his hard, muscled chest, his taut abdomen beneath corded as if steel bands roped it. He shut his eyes in a desperate attempt to beat back the arousal finding that shift had caused. But he would not sleep the sleep of the dead his sore, tired body demanded, not while the scent of sweet clover drifted past his nostrils and his mind was racing with possibilities. What dreams may come would be dreamed with one eye open until he’s solved the mystery.

  As he drifted off, from somewhere on the periphery of consciousness, hushed voices echoed in his mind. He’d heard celestial murmurings before, but they had never become so clear that he could understand them. He had always thought them to be long forgotten imprints upon his soul from that other life before the fall. As ever, they were strange whispers, like pieces of dreams that made no sense, but still he listened….

  Shall we wake him? one voice said. There is one place he has overlooked…

  No, another voice replied. It is too low and narrow for him to enter in. Leave him.

  But what if…The first voice trailed off, then said, Shouldn’t we warn him—tell him?

  Leave him, I say! said the other. We may not have to…

  On the verge of sleep, Gideon could make out no more though the disembodied voices droned on and on as he drifted off to the meter of their mumblings.

  Rhiannon had no idea what time it was when she yawned and stretched awake in her little niche behind the waterfall. Peeking through the lacy cascade that barred the entrance, there was no way to tell if it was day or still night, with no window to show it to her.

  Attempting to rise, she groaned. Every muscle in her body ached from her ordeal in the bay. The warm, steamy water beckoned. How good it would feel to soothe the pain that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. She gazed through the falling water with narrowed eyes. Everything seemed as she’d left it. Without a second thought, she struggled out of the mulberry homespun kirtle, stepped out on the ledge, and dove into the water. It was just as warm and soothing as she remembered, and she let the steamy spindrift caress and titillate every pore.

  The sea sponge had floated to the far side of the cascade, but the soap had vanished. It had sunk like a stone the minute she dropped it when arousal called her to the pulsating flow of the waterfall. Hoping it was hard milled and that the warm water hadn’t melted it, she ducked her head beneath the surface. An eerie phosphorescence caused by the miniscule organisms living in the water showed her the soap, in better condition than she’d supposed, on the bottom. The pool was shallow there, and though she would have never attempted it in deep water, she swam below and snatched it only to drop it again when she broke the surface. Her breath caught in her throat and a strangled gasp escaped her when she came face-to-face with the towering figure of a naked man, with massive silver-white wings. He was standing on the marble edge of the pool staring down, arms akimbo, his dark eyes all but hidden beneath the ledge of his brow. The stiff muscles in his handsome jaw were ticking an angry rhythm, and his sensuous mouth had formed a hard, lipless line above the shadowy cleft in his chin. He was aroused, and like everything else about him, his erection was gargantuan.

  “W-who…what are you?” she breathed, for that was the first thought that rushed into her mind. She regretted it the moment the words were out. His posture clenched and seemed to expand, and his wings unfurled halfway. His sex had grown larger, if such a thing could be, and when he took a step closer to the edge of the pool, Rhiannon put more distance between them, treading water to stay afloat, for it was deeper there.

  He flashed a smile that did not reach his eyes. “I will ask the questions,” he said. “You trespass! Where did you come from? How did you get in here?”

  Rhiannon swallowed audibly. “The doors were open,” she defended. “The storm…my ship came apart on the rocks and I washed up on your dreadful beach. I did not think whoever lived here would be so rude as to deny hospitality in such a tempest.”

  “This gives you leave to invade my bath?”

  “How was I to know it was ‘your bath’?” she fired back. “There was no one here. For all I knew this cave was abandoned, like the rest of this godforsaken isle. I was covered with bruises from the rocks and mud splatter from those horrible marshes, and this bath seemed sent by the gods.”

  “Nothing here is a gift of the gods,” he said succinctly.

  “I beg your forgiveness for the intrusion,” she returned. “If you will kindly step outside, I shall try to find the shift I came in and leave. I borrowed one from a wardrobe in one of your chambers. I will return it.”

  “That will not be necessary. You cannot go about in the shift you came in, it is in tatters.”

  “Oh? So you’ve taken it, have you?” Rhiannon cried, her voice echoing, amplified by the water.

  He nodded, turning to go. “Keep what you’ve taken. Leave at your leisure.”

  “Wait!” she called after him bravely. She’d gotten out of it nicely. What possessed her to antagonize him? He was still aroused, and decidedly angry. Would she never learn to hold her tongue?

  He turned from the threshold, his erection even more pronounced in profile. “Yes?” he grunted. The man had no modesty! Had he forgotten he was naked, and erect? It was almost as if it were his natural state.

  “You have not told me who you are,” she reminded him. “One of the fallen angels, I take it? I’ve heard the tales. I thought them myth.”

  “Believe me, I am no myth,” he snarled at her, his handsome face spoiled by a riveting scowl. “I am Gideon, Lord of the Dark, guardian of this isle, prince appointed by the gods.” He thumped his chest with a scathing fist. “And there is only one of me. No other ‘fallen’ reside in this hemisphere.”

  Rhiannon was so taken aback she lost her rhythm and nearly floundered. Recovering herself, her breasts rose above the surface of the water, calling his eyes like lodestones. She quickly hid her nipples in the water.

  “But Gideon was an archangel!” she breathed. “I know the tale. Even in the polar hemisphere they tell it—”

  “Is that where you come from, then?” he interrupted her. “You are a long way from home.”

  “No, it is not!” she snapped. “I have no home.” It was the first time she realized she was homeless. She was completely on her own; saved from being sold to the shamans by another storm, now saved from a dreaded marriage by this maelstrom. The gods were known to possess a warped sense of humor at times. What did Mica, god of all, have in store for her next?

  “Did anyone see you enter here…anyone at all?” Gideon asked her.

  “I saw no one.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  R
hiannon hesitated. It was too bizarre. Here she was without a stitch on her body in a pool of steamy mineral water, staring at what had to be ten inches of erect, hard male flesh, casually discussing the Arcan polar hemisphere and food! She couldn’t help but stare. His thick, veined shaft was so engorged it was nearly blue, and the mushroom tip was slick with pre-come.

  “I…I haven’t been thinking about…food,” she said, swallowing hard.

  “How do you propose to leave the island?”

  “I…I don’t know,” she stammered. “I…I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’ve just been shipwrecked. I thought I might stay here…for a little. Surely you cannot object to that. Aren’t angels supposed to have compassion and offer hospitality to those in distress…?”

  “Not this one,” Gideon pronounced.

  For one terrible moment there was silence. Rhiannon scarcely breathed. He looked as if he was about to spring from the edge of the pool, and she swam farther away.

  “Then I will leave at once,” she said haughtily.

  “Where will you go?”

  “Somewhere that my host is not an ill-mannered cad,” she shot back.

  He laughed outright then, and she got the distinct impression that he didn’t do it often. In a blink, he spread his wings, plunged into the water, and seized her in his arms.

  “Good,” he ground out close to her face, water dripping from his massive wings. They were skin to naked skin, his hardness between them, leaning heavily against her belly; how hot it was, throbbing against her. “It had best be soon,” he panted, “because if you stay, this is what you can expect…”

  Thrusting his hardness between her thighs, he swooped down and took her lips in a hungry mouth, his silken tongue entwining with hers as he deepened the kiss. Paralyzed with a heart-stopping mix of desire and alarm, she trembled against him as he parted her pubic curls with his shaft and undulated against her nether lips.

  Cupping one breast, he took the nipple in his mouth and laved it to hardness with his tongue as he rubbed himself against her vagina. His hot breath puffing against her wet skin silkened by the mineral water sent shockwaves of drenching fire through her loins, and she sucked in her breath as the distended veins in his thick, hard member ground into the swollen nub of her clitoris.

  She should resist, push him away, but she couldn’t. She should strike out with all her strength, but it felt so good to straddle the hard, throbbing penis that seemed to know exactly where to touch her to cause sensations she couldn’t resist.

  She was beyond the point of no return. His scent rushed up her nostrils, his sweet, musky male essence was like a drug taking her under, bringing her to the brink of orgasm. His groans grew rhythmic. His body hardened like steel as it clenched against her, his corded thighs rippling.

  Yes, she’d heard the legend of the handsome archangel of the Arcan gods, who lusted and fell from grace, condemned to live out his eternity as a solitary being, neither creature nor man. She almost gasped aloud. This was his natural state!

  All at once, his gigantic wings began to fully unfurl. Rhiannon did gasp then, for the massive appendages nearly spanned the width of the pool. They seemed to be arching forward, as if to embrace her. Her heart leapt inside. The thought of being cocooned in the embrace of those silver-white feathers was both exhilarating and terrifying. This was the legend himself come to life. She could scarcely believe it, but it was so.

  Self-preservation moved her now, for she feared smothering, and she pressed firm hands against the iridescent feathers, though the fire racing through her belly and thighs betrayed her. She shuddered as his posture clenched again and his deep sensuous voice assailed her ears at close range.

  “Do not touch my…wings,” he groaned, but too late. The gravelly sound reverberated in her very soul as his wings closed around her, and she felt the hot rush of his seed leave his body in hard, shuddering spurts between her thighs.

  Rhiannon tried to forestall it, but it was too late. The friction of his sex grinding her pubic curls into her clitoris brought her to climax, and he groaned again as her contractions riddled him. There was no question that he’d felt her release, and her breath caught as he let her go, spread his wings, and rose out of the water.

  He was still erect when he touched down on the marble rim of the pool, and when he spoke, the acoustics in the bathing chamber made his voice boom like thunder.

  “I will bring food,” he said. “Once you have eaten, I will take you where you wish to go. I cannot help what I am. I am cursed by the gods. I cannot help myself, and you are too great a temptation. You cannot stay here, for if you do, our next…encounter may not be so…external, if you take my meaning.” He stood staring down through the mist, his hooded eyes glazed with unshed tears and the dregs of desire. The look in them turned Rhiannon’s away. “Dress yourself,” he charged her, stalking toward the corridor beyond. “I shan’t be long.”

  “You do not even know my name!” Rhiannon marveled. Again he stiffened, the furled wings stretched across his broad back shuddering. She bit her lower lip. Would she never learn to hold her peace?

  “I do not wish to know it,” Gideon said. “If I have your name, you become real to me…a reminder of what I can never have.”

  Rhiannon’s lips parted to reply, but before she could speak again, he had disappeared.

  5

  Gideon dragged himself back to his sleeping chamber and put on his eel skin. What had happened in the pool was only meant to be a demonstration, to warn her away. Why didn’t she resist? He could still feel the soft pressure of her breasts flattened against his hard, muscled chest, silk against iron, her nipples, like two acorns, hard and peaked, boring into him.

  Something rumbled in his loins again as the whole bizarre incident came flooding back across his mind. Heat rushed to his temples, and cold sweat beaded on his brow. He relived the touch of her small hands roaming over his steely roped torso, and the excruciating ecstasy of those tiny fingers embracing his wings.

  A soft moan escaped him as he recalled the little V of hair that felt like swan’s down caressing his cock as he slid it between her thighs nestling his hardness against her soft virgin flesh. The sensation was like a lightning strike. A lightning strike. Beguiled, it wasn’t until that instant that he realized that there was no lightning strike!

  Excitement at the thought that he had defeated the watchers overwhelmed him. It hit him like a crashing comber pounding the strand. Had he been right in supposing they were monitoring him, not her, and thus she had come there unseen? Had he finally eluded them?

  His mind was racing with possibilities. Had he finally found a way to escape the watchdogs of the gods, and if he had, could he let her go? Could he live without the ecstasy he’d experienced in this exquisite creature’s arms? He didn’t even know her name, but he knew every inch of her body. Could he bear to let her go? Could he dare to try to keep her?

  He collected bread, wine and cheese, and some dried beef from the larder, and returned to the pool chamber. At sight of his strange houseguest, his breath caught and escaped his throat in a little moan. She was standing beside the waterfall, drying her hair on one of the woven lemongrass towels. He gasped again. He had never seen such hair, the color of honey kissed by the fire of the setting sun. It was so long it nearly challenged the hem of the mulberry homespun kirtle. Stepping into the shadows, he watched her collect the length of it over her shoulder and work several plaits before tossing it back. It fell from a center part, framing her face in soft waves before the plaits tethered it.

  She was fair, though her translucent skin glowed with the blush release had left behind, and her bowed lips were bruised from his kiss. He had never seen a creature so beautiful, and if he had any sense he would stick to his original plan and take her as far away from the Dark Isle as his wings would carry her. But temptation had damned him long ago, and some things never changed, especially since the gods had cursed him with libidinous lust—cursed his wings to cause his cock to ri
se, as it was rising now, straining against the tight eel skin. But his wings weren’t to blame this time. He was hard from the sight of her alone!

  Moving out of the shadows, he approached her. Wary, she stopped ministering to herself and arranging her hair and kirtle, her eyes riveted to him as he approached; they were the color of an angry sea.

  “Come,” he said, gesturing with the tray in his hands. “There is a more comfortable chamber.”

  He led her to a small anteroom off the corridor and set the tray down on a drum table at the edge of the carpet, motioning her to take a seat beside it. Striding to the opposite side of the room, he climbed a dais and sat on a high curved bench that allowed for his wings, for few chairs did.

  “Eat,” he said, in his inimitable brusque manner. It was never more necessary.

  “Will you not eat also?” she asked skeptically.

  “I have not just been…shipwrecked,” he replied. “You must be ravenous. It is simple fare, but satisfying. I do not entertain here.”

  Should he apologize for what happened in the pool chamber earlier? Why? He wasn’t sorry, and neither was she. Best to ignore the whole episode, it wasn’t ever going to happen again, he’d decided. She would eat, he would take her wherever it was she wanted to go, and that would be the end of it. It was the only way. It was best to have it over and done now…before things went any further…before he formed an attachment. It could only end badly otherwise. Yes, he’d decided.

  “This bread is fresh,” she observed. “Have you a cook?”

  “No,” he said. “Supplies are ferried over from the mainland. We are quite alone here.”

  “How is it that the noble archangel Gideon must live in a cave?” she asked, nibbling on the cheese. “Is this part of your punishment, then?”