Lord of the Dark Page 7

  “Women! Curse of the gods!”

  Gideon smiled. “You only say that because you have not found your soul mate,” he said.

  “Perhaps so,” the centaur conceded, “but I know one thing, my horny friend, if I ever do, I will not let her go for any price, least of all conscience.”

  7

  Rhiannon had bathed all traces of her outing away. She had folded the mulberry homespun kirtle neatly and placed it on a curved bench in her appointed chamber. It had grown late, and Gideon hadn’t returned. She saw no reason to sleep in the fine kirtle with so many other garments at her disposal. She chose instead a gossamer gauze night shift she’d unearthed from the wardrobe, so fine it looked as if silkworms had spun it, and crawled beneath the feather comforters on the fine raised bed.

  It wasn’t long before she drifted off to sleep. At first, it was deep and untroubled, but it wasn’t long before her guilt at having disobeyed Gideon’s condition bled into her slumber, bringing dreams. They were fearsome, frightening visions. Oddly, she could not make out what was happening in them, only the nagging splinter of ill boding and unease that always comes with guilt. That it had bled into her dreams was telling.

  Rush lights in their hanging lanterns were suspended from chains beside the bed. She hadn’t extinguished them. The flickering, fat-soaked rushes gave off a glow that colored the darkness behind her closed eyes a rich golden hue. It was comforting somehow, until a shadow fell across her dulling the warmth to dusk.

  Rhiannon’s eyes snapped open to Gideon standing over her and gazing down, his wings half unfurled. How handsome he was in the soft golden light, with it playing upon his silver-white feathers and slick eel skin. It picked out warmer lights in the dark hair combed by the wind, waving about his broad brow and earlobes.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said. “I see you’ve bathed again….”

  Rhiannon stretched like a cat and sat upright. There was nothing in his demeanor that suggested anger, though she took no comfort in it. Her enigmatic host was as changeable as the wind, and could, no doubt, be just as deadly. She would not draw an easy breath until she’d observed him longer. He was aroused, but that had never prompted anger. He was always aroused.

  “What hour is it?” she asked him.

  “Nearly dusk,” he said. “I’ve prepared us some food in my chamber. As I’ve said, I do not entertain here, and my own rooms are more…comfortable for me. Will you join me?”

  Rhiannon climbed out of the bed and reached for her kirtle, meaning to slip it on over what she was wearing, since the gauze shift was as thin as a moonbeam.

  His quick hand arrested her. “Leave it,” he said. “That frock will neither spare you nor deter me. I already know what lies beneath.” Rhiannon hesitated. “Come,” he urged. “We need to talk.”

  Rhiannon’s heart was thumping in her breast. Could he see it moving the gossamer gauze that barely covered her charms? He must be able. The shift was trembling visibly, and his eyes were feasting upon her upturned breasts and tawny nipples straining against the gauze.

  She feared the lecture to come. Was it a good sign that he hadn’t come charging into her chamber roaring like a lion because he’d caught her out? Or did he have some other punishment in mind? She couldn’t tell by looking at him. His dark, silvery eyes were hooded with desire gazing down at her, and arousal had heightened his male essence. It ghosted all around her in the close confines of the cave. She could feel—almost see—his body heat rippling through the air around her, and in the guiding pressure of his massive hand against the small of her back as they turned the corner that led to his chamber.

  Yes. Her suppositions were correct. She recognized the room at once, with its strangely carved alcove. Now she could see how well it was designed to accommodate his massive wings. And then there was the elevated chair, like the one in the anteroom next to the pool chamber. These things almost didn’t need an explanation now, though she would ask him just the same.

  He had dressed a table with an exquisite cloth of linen embroidered in white work, and set it with fine china and silver. The fare was hearty, but simple, consisting of a marvelously fragrant soup, poached fish, and cucumber chutney, and an aromatic green vegetable unfamiliar to her that resembled seaweed. There was also a bowl of roasted beach plums and a crock of honey mead that had a sweet nutty flavor. He motioned her to sit, then served them both and took his own seat in the elevated chair, setting his plate upon a tall pedestal table beside it.

  “Forgive my distance,” he said. “My wings make sitting in an ordinary chair most uncomfortable—impossible, really, without cramping.”

  Rhiannon tasted the fish. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until her taste buds reacted to the delicious food, and a soft moan escaped her lips.

  Gideon smiled. “Simeon, Lord of the Deep, keeps me well supplied with fish,” he said around a mouthful.

  Rhiannon ate in silence, wishing he would get to the lecture and have done. She was uneasy, not knowing how to handle the situation. Each moment that passed was a lost opportunity for her to confess what she had done and would count against her when he got around to the real reason for their little talk here in his sleeping chamber.

  She nodded toward the hollowed-out niche in the rocky wall. “This is where you sleep?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Considering their…sensitivity, I cannot lie upon my back, and I can only lie face down for very short intervals. The weight of the wings would smother me otherwise, not to mention the weight they would impose upon my body. The alcove was a viable solution. The one I had in my keep was much grander, but this one suffices quite well. I have been sleeping thus since my ‘fall,’ as it were.”

  “And how did you sleep before you fell from grace?” Rhiannon asked.

  He smiled sadly. “You put it so…diplomatically,” he said. “I was flung out of the Paradise of the gods, exiled to the Arcan Archipelago, and given this slag heap of desolation and death to tend for all eternity. My wings used to retract when I did not have need of them, sometimes partially and sometimes completely. Then, I was like any other man in the eyes of others. It was this gift that allowed me to walk among humans as one of them on occasion. On one of these outings, I met a human woman. We fell in love. This is my punishment.”

  “These clothes I’m wearing, and the rest, they were hers?”

  “No,” he said. “The clothing—everything you see here, furniture, carpet, even the plate you eat from—were washed ashore after storms not unlike the one that has just passed. It is so with all the isles.”

  Rhiannon hesitated. He had become thoughtful suddenly. She was reluctant to probe him deeper, but she might not get another opportunity. After a moment, she spoke on an audible breath.

  “How is it that you are not with her?” she finally asked him.

  “If we had wed, I would have been cast out and become mortal as she was. I would have lived with her and died when my time came just as all mortals die. I would no longer be…immortal, as I am now.”

  “What happened?”

  “She died,” he said. “You mortals are fragile…susceptible to all manner of disease that we are not. A fever took her, and the gods punished me for erring, with immortality and a constant state of arousal that rarely reaches climax without emptiness and pain. They took away all privileges of my wings and made them a constant reminder of my error, and a perpetual torture, for the slightest touch wreaks havoc in my loins….”

  There was more, Rhiannon was certain, but she did not probe him further. It was clearly a subject that pained him, and she was anxious to get to the real issue of this invitation.

  “You said we needed to talk,” she said warily, glad that she still had food on her plate to focus upon. Fearing the lecture, she did not want to make eye contact with him.

  He clouded suddenly. “I was not altogether honest with you earlier,” he said.

  What was this? She stared at him, her fork suspended.

  “Dur
ing the storm, I helped Marius, Lord of the Green, save a seaman who had washed up upon his Forest Isle. When you spoke of the crewman Rolf, he fit the description of that seaman. I wanted to be certain before discussing it further with you, so I went there straightaway this morning….”

  So that was why he didn’t want her to leave the cave, in case Rolf should find her in his absence. “So that is why you—”

  “Let me finish,” he interrupted her. “I was right. It was Rolf, but I was too late. He had left the Forest Isle on the morning ferry. I was…detained there a while, and when I reached the mainland, the ferryman had already gone out again. I wasn’t able to find your crewman anywhere in the immediate area. The ferry will not arrive here again for a sennight. I will go again in the morning and speak with the ferryman before he makes his rounds. If it is safe, I will take you to the mainland, or wherever you wish to go. If it is not, I will see you to somewhere that you will be safe until I can sort this out. You cannot stay here, Rhiannon. It is not safe for either of us if you do.”

  “But why?” she persisted. “Who is to know? I don’t understand.” This was not at all what she expected. Could it be that he didn’t see her outside earlier after all? Had she been steeled against a lecture that wasn’t coming? If so, she would have rather had a lecture than this. An ache had started inside at the mere thought of leaving him. By the look on his face, he felt it too. There was a mutual attraction between them that went beyond mere lust; there had been from the start. Was he trying to deny it?

  “You do not need to know why,” he said. “You do not have to understand. You just need to do as I ask…for both our sakes.”

  Exasperating female wouldn’t let it go. Suppose she was right. Suppose they both could live together on the isle. Suppose the watchers couldn’t reach him in the cave. They had never done it before, but he had never hidden a woman there before either. It would require a test.

  He climbed down from the elevated chair, and returned his empty plate to the table. Rhiannon had finished eating also, and Gideon took a succulent roasted plum from the bowl and raised it to her lips.

  “Taste,” he said. “I have removed the pits.”

  He watched Rhiannon’s sensuous lips close around the skin of the plum and suck out some of the pulp. Raising what remained to his mouth, he finished it, licking the sticky juice from his fingers. Some traces remained on Rhiannon’s lips, and he wiped them away with his fingers and licked them clean.

  “More?” he said, taking another plum from the bowl.

  Rhiannon nodded, and he offered a second plum. Juice squirted out, when she bit into the shiny black skin of the fruit and began sucking on the translucent pulp inside. In one swift motion, he raised her to her feet, seized her in his arms, and covered her mouth with his own, sucking the sweet juice from her lips, drawing them into his mouth. Pulling back, he gazed deep into her eyes; they were glazed with arousal.

  “You know what will happen if you stay,” he murmured.

  Rhiannon nodded. “I don’t want to go. I don’t know where to go. I don’t want to leave here…to leave you.”

  Gideon stared. “You see the life I must lead. You cannot hope to remain here indefinitely. There are dangers…”

  “So you keep saying,” she said as his words trailed off. “But you won’t tell me what dangers, Gideon.”

  “I am not permitted a…consort. It is not allowed,” he said. Now was not the moment to tell all and have her run screaming from the cave before he’d had a chance to test his theory. What had already happened between them was no criteria. The gods always let him suffer—for that is what it was—foreplay before meting out their justice. If he could have actual sex with her here without a lightning strike from the watchers, there might just be hope. It was consensual, that was obvious from the start, and he had told her the truth…just not the truth entire. “There will be reprisals that may extend to you,” he said.

  “What kind of ‘reprisals’”?” she asked him. Would she never leave things lie?

  “The gods do not like being disobeyed, Rhiannon. Look what they’ve done to me already! Their retribution is far reaching. I would hate to have their wrath visited upon you over a moment’s pleasure. I never should have taken advantage of you in that pool. I meant what happened to warn you away. It would be best if you go.”

  “You didn’t take advantage of me, Gideon. I believe the gods led me here apurpose. And what if they didn’t? It isn’t as if they will strike us dead.”

  Gideon’s breath caught at that. She was so beautiful. Why did she have to gaze at him like that? If the test worked, could he keep her? It wasn’t as though anyone knew she was there. No one but Marius knew, and the Lord of the Forest would never betray him.

  Scooping her up in his arms, he strode out of the chamber and down the corridor. “Trust me,” he said. “There will be less pain in the water…”

  He set her down on the edge of the pool and stripped off his eel skin, while she discarded the night shift. How golden she was in the nimbus of torchlight flickering over the chamber. He stood transfixed watching her dive into the misty water, watching her surface, rivulets running over her body, over her firm, up-tilted breasts and tawny nipples, over her narrow waist and belly before she disappeared beneath the surface again.

  Gideon laid a lemongrass towel at the edge of the pool, then sliding into the water, he reached her in seconds and seized her much as he had the first time, skin to naked skin. She was like silk in his arms as he molded her to the contours of his body, his hard cock leaning heavily against her belly. The touch of her tiny hands caressing his body was sheer ecstasy without the feel of them caressing his wings, for she avoided them.

  Raising her out of the water, he laid her on the towel he’d set there earlier, slid her hips to the edge, and spread her legs. Rhiannon groaned as he lowered his mouth to the soft, swollen nether lips and sought her hard, erect bud with his tongue. Her primal sound, guttural and rich, resonated through his body, as he laved the little erection as hard as steel, tasting her honey-sweet juices.

  His tongue probed deeper, gliding over the length of her virgin skin, the barrier he must penetrate. She shuddered with pleasure at his touch, and his fingers quickly replaced his tongue. Gently at first, he stroked the barred entrance to her sex, long, languid strokes that made her groan in involuntary spasms. He was holding back to prolong her pleasure, while finding the most painless way to open her to his anxious cock. Desire starred his vision and quickened his breath. Grazing her hard, erect bud, the rhythm of his fingers working the barrier skin grew faster—deeper—more urgent until the friction heated his fingertips. She sucked in her breath as the skin gave, admitting one finger, then two. They came away smeared with the blood of her virtue, and Gideon pulled her back into the water and wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing the hot, hard tip of his cock against her broken virgin flesh, until the mushroom head entered her.

  Rhiannon’s pleasure moans heightened his need. Lying back in the water, his wings became a flotation device that buoyed them as she straddled him, taking him deeper and deeper in slow, tantalizing increments until he filled her. The water laving his wings as he floated there had brought him to the brink. His need was so great the pain of holding back was nearly more than he could bear. White pinpoints of blinding light starred his vision again as her vulva gripped his cock. He could feel every vein in his engorged sex boring into her virgin silkiness as he raised and lowered her on his shaft, feel the ridged head strike her womb again and again. She was his, and there was no lightning bolt, no watcher to torment and deny him. Could it be? It was too good to be true.

  Gripping the firm, round globes of her buttocks, he held her fast as he righted himself in the water. Climax would no longer be denied. Every inch of him—every pore—every cell in his skin had a pulse of its own beating to the same meter throbbing through every feather in his silvery wings.

  “Hold on to me,” he said huskily, leading her beneath the waterfall
.

  He had reached the point of no return. Backing her against the moss-covered wall beneath the cascade, he took her lips in a ravenous kiss as he undulated against her in an unstoppable frenzy, thrusting into her again and again to the rhythm of the pounding in his blood. Deep, spiraling thrusts wrenched a troop of moans from Rhiannon’s throat and shot hot blood through his temples the more he pistoned into her.

  Holding her beneath the fall, he let the water pour down over them, over their bodies, over his sexually sensitive wings, and groaned into her mouth as he came inside her. Gripping his pulsating shaft with her vagina, she milked him dry until he’d filled her with his hot, thick seed, until it overflowed her body and mixed with the great, diaphanous clouds of spindrift sifting down over them.

  Gideon groaned again. He could feel her release. It heightened his own. Her hands fisted in his hair unleashed sensations he’d never felt before, and her sweet mouth taking his tongue deeply tasted of her own essence and the honey mead she’d drunk at dinner. Yes, she was his. How could he ever let her go, but how could he keep her?

  His heart was hammering against her, as he held his breath through the final orgasmic ripples coursing through his shuddering body. At the last vibration of drenching fire, his enormous wings bent forward and wrapped around them, cocooning Rhiannon against him as he withdrew himself and crushed her close against him.