Lord of the Dark Read online

  Her mulberry kirtle was neatly folded on the bench alongside, and he raised it to his nose and inhaled her deeply…sweet clover and her own natural essence, sultry and mysterious, yet innocent, just as she was. He held it for some time, staring down at her nestled in the feather quilts, and it wasn’t until he started to fold it up again that something rolled from the pocket; something round and iridescent that had once been shimmering blue caught his eye and held it.

  He recognized it at once, one of the medallions from the stained glass windows that used to adorn the keep before the watchers destroyed it. “Mica’s beard!” he seethed. She had left the cave.

  Gideon began to pace, his mind was racing. Should he wake her? No, not yet. Raking his hair back damp with the evening mist, he groaned in spite of himself. He should have known the rune caster hadn’t been mistaken; Lavilia, keeper of the Gateway to Outer Darkness, was never mistaken.

  Folding the kirtle as he’d found it, he stalked out into the corridor and went to the pool chamber, where he struggled into the eel skin he’d left there. Then returning to Rhiannon, he waited, pacing again, until a shift in the rhythm of her breathing called him to her bedside. The sight of her alone aroused him. It must be love, if he could stand there bulging at the seam, meanwhile roiling in anger that she had disobeyed one of the conditions—very possibly the most important one. He should have told her why, but he feared frightening her. Evidently, that is just what was needed. It didn’t matter now. Mesmerized by the look of her, he couldn’t help but reach out and stroke the silken length of plaited hair tumbling over the counterpane.

  Her tremulous breathing drew his eyes. Could she be dreaming? Were the dreams that moved her so of him? The rapid rise and fall of her upturned breasts stretched the gauze tightly over them, showing him the tall, tawny nipples beneath. The wide areola had puckered, bringing one hardened bud dangerously close to escaping the neck of the night shift with each deep, shuddering breath she drew. The tall, hard nipple teased him unmercifully, catching on the lace that edged the shift as those exquisite breasts rose and fell, almost, but not quite, exposing it to his eyes, hooded with desire.

  Gideon licked his lips in anticipation, fighting a primeval instinct to swoop down and take that nipple in his mouth, to lave it with his tongue until she arched herself against his sucking, tugging lips. His wings began to unfurl, the pain in his cock pressed so tightly against the eel skin called his hand to relieve it. He tore open the crotch and exposed himself, gazing down at the hard, veined shaft and ridged, slick mushroom tip, and stifled a groan. What had the gods done to him? A moment ago, he was ready to throttle her, and now…

  Evidently, the lace scraping her nipple had aroused her, for she writhed there momentarily, but it still wasn’t enough to free the tawny bud. Gideon could bear no more. He had to feast his eyes upon it naked in the golden lamplight. Deftly, he flicked the fabric as she moved and freed the trapped nipple to his hungry eyes. It was enough. Sight of the dark, hard puckered bud, which he fantasized had come to life because of dreams of him, sent waves of drenching fire coursing through his loins.

  Wave upon wave washed over him, they would not stop. No matter how he prayed to stay the lava flow of his seed, it came still. He seized his shaft and turned away as the orgasm struck him like cannon fire, spewing his thick, hot come over the hard-packed dirt floor with each involuntary jerk of his pelvis.

  Staring down, he watched his life spew from him, seed of his body spurting out of the ridged mushroom tip of his cock from the look of her alone. It wasn’t the gods. Not this time. It was this breathtaking creature so innocently asleep in the bed alongside. What had she done to him? Even in her sleep she had the power to seduce him. No one touched his damnable wings this time. They fluttered on their own at the mere sight of her laying thus, her breast half exposed to torment him.

  Enough! He must stop trying to make sense of it, or it would happen again! Seizing a towel from the nightstand, he cleaned his penis and stuffed it back inside his eel skin none too gently. Maybe that would curtail his passions. Such a notion was myth! He would be hard against the seam as long as Rhiannon was in sight.

  Anger was returning now, at the gods, for he truly believed they were enjoying his punishment; at himself, for the blame because the damnable curse always came back to haunt him; and at Rhiannon, for breaking their bargain and making him angry in the first place! He was going mad. He had to be, and when she moved and he called her name in a voice he scarcely recognized as his own, he was certain of it.

  “Rhiannon!” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “Wake! We need to talk.”

  She woke with a start, then lurched erect covering her naked breast. Dazed, she sought him with sleep-glazed eyes. For a moment, he thought he saw fear in them, but mercifully that passed. He could have borne anything but her terror of him.

  He whipped the glass medallion from an inside pocket in the eel skin and brandished it. “What is this?” he seethed. “Where did you get it—when? Answer me, Rhiannon.”

  She paled as gray as a ghost before his eyes, and his heart sank like a lead weight in his breast. She had been out of the cave. He’d been hoping against hope that she’d unearthed it from some hidden crevice he’d overlooked in the cave itself, since the explosion the gods performed on the keep so long ago had scattered debris for miles in all directions. It had killed what foliage still lived back then, blackened heather and tree, creature and grass to petrified char, slag, and death, and had given the Isle of Darkness its name.

  “You left the cave?” he said to her silence.

  “O-only for a little,” she murmured. “It was such a beautiful day, and there was no harm done. You were worried that I would do myself a mischief, but I could see the pitfalls, and—”

  “There were conditions!” he interrupted. “We struck a bargain. I told you I have valid reasons for my directives!”

  “But you didn’t say what reasons, Gideon. Your ‘directive’ made no sense to me.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to make sense. It was supposed to be honored. There are dangers here for both of us. This wretched place has been my home for eons. I ought to know where dangers lie. I trusted you to keep the bargain!”

  Rhiannon swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood to face him. “Why are you just getting around to chastising me for it now?” she asked him. “I would have thought you would have done it the minute you returned. Why wake me out of a sound sleep now to rail at me over it?”

  “I didn’t know about it until this!” he said, brandishing the glass medallion again.

  “What do you mean you didn’t know about it? You saw me out there. I know you did. You couldn’t possibly have missed seeing me in the open as I was.”

  “Saw you? What are you talking about?” he asked her, nonplussed.

  “I walked to the ruins, where I found that bauble. It is a pretty thing, and I saw no harm in keeping it…as a relic of this place…and of you…”

  “Go on,” he murmured, his voice like gravel.

  “Walking over the open hills returning, I saw you circling overhead, very high in the clouds. For a moment, I thought you were about to swoop down and confront me then and there, but you soared off instead, and I came back here straightaway…”

  “Ye gods! You don’t know what you’ve done!” he thundered. His wings snapped open wide, as they always did when he was in the throes of any form of passion. Anger moved him now, and he took a step toward her, fists clenched at his sides. “You foolish, foolish child!” he groaned. “That wasn’t me!”

  “What do you mean?” she shrilled, padding down from the platform. “Of course it was you. There are no other ‘fallen’ on the isle. You told me so yourself! Maybe you didn’t see me after all, but I know what I saw, and it was you!”

  “I never should have trusted you!” he raved. “I should have told you, but I didn’t want to frighten you away, and now you’ve damned us both!”

  Her eyes were wild and wide-flun
g at his outburst. His words reverberated from the vaulted ceiling, ringing back in his ears as if they were coming from an echo chamber. He hadn’t meant to frighten her, but he had. She stood staring up at him, like a startled doe caught in a hunter’s sights. He could not think beyond that he had put that terrible look in those haunting eyes that had always viewed him with such awe and adoration.

  Bolting like that very doe, she ran then, into the corridor and out through the double doors at the end of it, leaving them flung wide behind her, the diaphanous night shift billowed about her like a ship’s sail in the starry darkness before dawn. There were pitfalls now, and all he could think of was having her back before she hurt herself running barefoot over the slag and rock and sharp black heather carpeting the hills.

  “Rhiannon, wait!” he called after her, running over the uneven ground on long, sturdy legs. There was no need of wings. Those legs would carry him well enough, or so he thought until she missed a rut and tumbled down a little incline into the belly of a hillock. That took him aloft, for the wind to seduce ruffling his feathers unmercifully until he touched down alongside her and gathered her into his arms. But it was too late. He was aroused, and she was prostrate beneath him, the hem of her night shift hiked up about her waist caught on a stalk of petrified heathe.

  “Don’t ever run from me again!” he said huskily, crushing her close.

  Her arms flew around him then and he was undone, as intoxicated by her closeness, by the very feel of her satiny skin, as a drunkard in his cups. In that moment, there was no one in the world but the two of them, nothing mattered but filling her with his hard shaft and coming inside her just as he had in the pool. Raising her hips, he thrust into her, feeding upon her throaty moan as he filled her, spiraling deep. He swallowed the sound with a hungry mouth, tasting her deeply, his skilled tongue dancing with hers, releasing her honey-sweet essence, until his lips came away from hers trembling.

  “Never…run…from…me…again,” he panted against her eager mouth. “Touch my wings, Rhiannon. If I must bear them being touched, let it be your touch—no other. Stroke them…do it…Make me come.”

  The words were scarcely out, when the lightning bolt struck him hard, wrenching him out of her, pitching him into the sharp black heather, where he doubled over and rolled as a second bolt drove him down again.

  Rhiannon screamed. The sound ran him through like a javelin, but it kept him from losing consciousness. He was grateful for that, for he feared what might happen to her if he did. Dazed, he saw and heard through a haze. His singed wings were smoking. The smell of burnt feathers rushed up his nose, and the pain in his cock was almost more than he could bear.

  “What is happening?” Rhiannon shrilled, crawling to his side, but another lightning strike snaked down between them, stopping her.

  “No, stay back!” he charged. “Come no closer. Run! Get back to the cave. Do not stop until you are safely inside.”

  “But what is this?” she pleaded. “What is happening?”

  “This, my love, is the reason for the third ‘condition’ of our bargain…that you not leave the cave. It is my curse. I told you…what you saw in the sky on your outing…was not me! Go!”

  Screaming uncontrollably, Rhiannon scrambled to her feet and started to run back toward the cave, when the watchers hurled down lightning bolts in her path preventing her. She screamed again. The sound nearly stopped Gideon’s heart. All at once a rumbling in the ground beneath them shook the hills and caused a split that stretched before them to the cave.

  Clutching his groin in pain, Gideon staggered to his feet and seized Rhiannon as the fissure widened underneath their feet. “Hold on to me!” he commanded. “We cannot stay here. The cave is gone, and I cannot fight the three of them as I am.”

  “Gone? How, gone?” Rhiannon shrilled. “Who are these creatures? What is happening here?”

  She was terrified, and he couldn’t still her fears while great flashing bolts of lightning streaked across their path. The watchers seemed to be sparing her their missiles, unlike what they hurled at him. Instead, their volleys aimed at her seemed cast down more to warn than strike her, but he dared not place his trust in supposition, since this had never happened before.

  More lightning bolts widened the fissure as they danced about trying not to become caught in the cracks and swallowed up by the gaping holes forming around them. More lightning bolts touched down, and the crack in the ground rushed straight for the cave, widening as it went as if it were alive. As if it were a ravenous monster with a will of its own, it gobbled up all the black heather, rock, and dead scrub in its path.

  Rhiannon clung to him, her tiny hands digging into the rock-hard muscles of his biceps, as before their very eyes the ground opened up and swallowed the cave, as if the hungry beast had gulped it down until all that remained was a crater and choking clouds of thick rock dust. It rose in great profusion, blotting out the stars and the watchers as well. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

  “Do you trust me?” Gideon asked her, though he couldn’t imagine how she could in such a circumstance.

  “Y-yes, I…y-yes…” she sobbed, trembling against him.

  “Good, then hold on to me,” he charged, ignoring her hesitation. “We cannot remain here. I know a place, but we must go now, while dust and debris cloak our escape.”

  “Go…how?”

  “Put your arms ’round my neck and hold fast!” he said, as he spread his wings and lifted off through the dust and smoke and flames that now shot up where the cave had been. Gas pockets having exploded deep underground sent great columns of flame belching skyward, turning the dust cloud they soared through an eerie shade of pink.

  Once he’d become airborne, Gideon wrapped one strong arm around her, as she buried her face against his broad shoulder, the eel skin stifling her cries. They were hardly safe and away. The minute they cleared the dust cloud the watchers were in pursuit, and Rhiannon cried out as snake lightning streaked past them.

  “Gideon, please!” she sobbed. “Take me back down, I beg you! I fear I’ll fall!”

  “We will both fall if one of those missiles hits us,” he said. “You must trust me. They cannot fire their lightning bolts upward. I must take us higher, out of their range until we reach the Forest Isle. My friend Marius, Lord of the Forest, is the guardian there. He will help us if we can reach him. He gave me refuge once before when they destroyed my keep.”

  “But who are they?” Rhiannon sobbed.

  “They are the watchers of the gods who torment me for finding pleasure in the body of a woman. You know the legend. This is what it means. This is what I am condemned to suffer through all eternity for the lust that they have cursed me with, Rhiannon. Their missiles will do bodily harm, but they will not kill me. They enjoy my torture too much to end my misery. Thus far they have visited none of it upon you, save by way of warning. Please the gods their leniency continues. We are not out of this yet….”

  “But why am I spared? I should think I would share in your punishment.”

  “I cannot presume to get inside their heads, but it may well be that when they saw you, your reaction convinced them that you were unaware…an innocent. I do not know. Hold fast to me now…there is no time for speculation.”

  Mercifully, she said no more. Gideon, being a man of few words, had run out of them, along with breath enough to speak them. He’d spoken more since he’d met Rhiannon than he had in thirty eons. Besides, he didn’t want to tell her that the watchers would be waiting for them when they made their descent, and Marius was already under threat of reprisal for firing upon them when he made his last visit to the Forest Isle.

  His wings were still smoking in places, and his eel skin was torn at the shoulder. Though his groin was still in pain, the wind whistling though his wings was playing havoc with his sex. He longed to soothe it, but he didn’t dare, not while he was carrying such precious cargo. She was so brave. Terrified though he knew she was, she made no protest, nor did she voi
ce a complaint. She held her peace and clung fast with all her strength. If he didn’t know it before, he knew now that he loved her, most ardently, and in a way that he had never loved another, with a passion unknown to him.

  It wasn’t long before they neared the Forest Isle. They had lost the cloud of smoke and dust and ash long ago, and just as he’d suspected, the watchers were circling below, waiting for him to make his descent. There was nothing for it but to do just that. They couldn’t stay aloft forever. Still, he was reluctant. He wouldn’t have been if he didn’t have Rhiannon to worry about. He was not opposed to taking risks. He had taken many over the ages. But this was different. He held the hope of his future in his arms. If anything were to happen to her because of him, he would never be able to live with it, not after all that had gone before.

  He drew her closer, soothing her rigid back, for every muscle in her body was tensed against him. “We must descend,” he said. “It must be swift. The watchers wait.” There was no use to sugarcoat the thing, nothing to be gained in keeping the danger from her. He’d learned his lesson in the folly of that. “If we can reach the isle below we will be safe…at least for now.”

  She stifled a cry. “I…I see them!” she shrilled.

  “Do not look down!” he warned her. “Close your eyes, and hold tight to me. No matter what occurs, do not let go!”

  The last was said with wasted breath, for her arms were strung so tightly around his neck he feared he’d strangle. Pulling his singed wings in close, he plummeted downward, heading straight for the three-winged creatures circling over the Forest Isle below. Down, down, he hurtled through the first wan streamers of a fish-gray dawn at a speed that flayed moisture from his eyes. The dawn breeze mingled with the wind his motion created tearing through his wings literally wrenched the seed from his body. He’d scarcely opened the crotch of his eel skin and freed his sore cock in time to let the wind take him. How he could come in such pain he couldn’t imagine, but this was the nature of the very curse that had put him in such a predicament. He could do naught but give in to the demands it made upon his body, but not his life, he decided. There had to be a way to take back his sexuality, a way to free himself from the curse of libidinous lust. And he made a vow as he streaked through the clouds like an arrow toward the Forest Isle below, that if there was a way to cheat the jealous gods of their delight in his torment, he would find it or die in the attempt.