Loveweaver (24 page)

Iron-muscled limbs trapped her, a blissful cage, warm and secure. She drew in the scent of mint, welcomed too, the taint of male sweat and the blood of battle she sought to help him forget.  He was
man
, a confounding wonder and delicious heartbreaker.

They all fled too soon, these fleeting bits of heaven when Llyrica found herself in his arms. Each ended with the sleepwalker being led away or StoneHeart’s cold rejection. Pray this time the man would linger, continue to idly trace a circle on her bare back, inciting an ecstasy of shivers. He heaved hot sighs into her hair as the frenzy of their passion waned.

Things had changed between them. She had heard it in Slayde’s admission of his need for her, had seen it in his bowed back and weary, twitching eye. The StoneHeart had crumbled, had come to her for what he knew she could give him. He masked it in a guise of anger and hard lust, but she had seen through it.
Please stay. I can teach you to accept affection with a calm touch, a gentle embrace.

  No sooner had the thought come, than Slayde rolled away to his back, covering himself. He threw a bent arm over his eyes, and Llyrica saw his throat working, but he did not speak. A hasty pull on a drawstring closed the neck of her cemes to clothe her breasts. She smoothed down her rumpled skirt. Her cyrtel lay in a wad elsewhere. Rising to her knees over Slayde, she gently pulled his arm away though he meant to keep it there. The flickering light inside of the tent made it hard to see, but she was not mistaken about this. A single tear ran back from each of his closed eyes. Here lay the little boy Slayde, deprived of a mother’s love and inflicted with the upbringing of a harsh father.

Framing his face in her hands, she used her thumbs to wipe the salty trails, and bent to kiss his convulsing eye, his forehead, his lips. She smoothed back his thick unruly hair, discovered it needed washing

“Do not,” Slayde said, turning his head with a jerk. “I must take my leave and see to my men.”

Llyrica held him back when he tried to sit up. “They know where you are and will call if they need you.” This prompted them both to listen to the sounds outside of the tented OnyxFox where hundreds of warriors stirred at restful occupation. Tents thrummed in the nightfall breeze. A sentry called an
all is well
, was echoed around the perimeter of camp. Water lapped at the hulls of StoneHeart’s fleet, a lonely accompaniment to a haunting melody of a pipe tune.

Slayde made another effort to rise, taking Llyrica by the shoulders to set her aside. “I cannot remain here.”

Llyrica persisted, straddling his lap to push him to his back. “The damage is done, StoneHeart. Another half an hour will be of no consequence.”

Thighs hard beneath her, his face yet strained in reluctant protest, Slayde seemed to wage an inner battle. Finally, Llyrica felt the flex of his muscles drain. He lay back with a heavy sigh.

“Stay put. Rest after your long day,” she said. With the deftness of hand she used to weave detailed braids, she untied the lacings at his tunica’s neck and pulled the garment over his head. She heard his shallow breath and allowed herself only the briefest glance at his face. Eyes squeezed shut, his jaw quivered and he swallowed hard, revealing he yet fought a rise of tears. It gripped her heart to see him so vulnerable, yet trusting her with this emotion he had never been allowed to express. She began to hum an ancient song of Mother’s, low and sweet, a reassurance. It must also hide a surge of pity he would not want from her.

She climbed from him to remove his muddy scohs. Turning her attention to the winnigas that wound around his calves, she unwrapped the soft leather strips. His red braccas followed in a soft heap, leaving him bared to his brecs. Even these she banished. She let the notes of her song wash over him, listened to his ragged breathing.

Unclothed, his beauty bade Llyrica sit back in awe. Male perfection, the stunning ideal of power and potency in a body, he lay outlined by the torch’s glow. Intriguing shadows and capricious highlights drew her attention to a pulse beat in his abdomen, a twitch of a finger, a ripple of a thigh muscle. An instrument of mystery and key to the only physical consolation he could endure, Slayde’s manpart rested in its dark nest, no less formidable prone than upright. Holy Lord, there was so much of him, from head to foot, past to present, she was suddenly struck overwhelmed and unprepared. He was more man than she could manage, and she had undertaken too much. Yet here he lay, ready for her ministrations, a man defeated, now awaiting a reprieve.

Behind her, buried in the fur floor, Llyrica found her discarded brooches and accessories. Retrieving her silver vial, she pulled the cork, pooled a few drops of oil into her palm and worked it into her hands. 

“Be still, my love,” she said, inching closer on her knees. Tentatively, lest he start and bolt, she pressed her fingers to his temples, circling, anointing him with touch. His eyes opened, glazed with odd fear and his hands flew to her wrists to stay her massage. The grip was hesitant, a protest she would ignore, and overcome with persistence.

Not until his grasp loosened and his arms fell away to his sides, did she move and speak. “Now turn to lay on your front. It will not hurt, I promise.”

Slayde rolled over. He flinched at first touch, but she continued to rub him, determined to soothe him with her quiet song and a few drops of almond oil. Muscles flexed, then gave way beneath her sweeping massage. Her loving strokes encompassed vast shoulders and the thick columns that flanked his spine, then narrowed to waist and hip. She worked each arm to his fingers, finally felt him begin to relax, his low moan rumbling deep. Intimate, prolonged, this contact with his body made Llyrica’s heart race, her pulse quicken. 

Slayde’s head was turned to the side, showed sweat beading his brow. Cool and damp, his skin felt as if a fever had just broken. Llyrica cooed words of comfort, urging him to rest and let troubles fall away. He twitched again when Llyrica kneaded her way down his buttocks, then moved to massive thighs and calves. His power and size took her breath, made her hands feel inadequate. Swift and aching, the stunning response to his body vibrated at her intimate core and tingled in her breasts. Compassion transformed to passion.

Her mounting desire to pleasure him thickened her voice. She gulped and took a deep breath. “Now roll to your back.”

Piece by piece, it will grow afresh: your heart, which has crumbled away.

Stone is gone, replaced by flesh, with room for me, I pray.
 

He had never known before, the power of a woman’s loving caress.
Llyrica’s caress.
An exorcism of a thousand hurts, her touch burned him, threatened to reduce him to a crying child. The healing effects of her affections, unsought and undeserved were given in abundance, confirmed his need for them. But his starvation for them was daunting. Slayde felt like a man who had fasted for decades, whose body, accustomed to lack, could withstand only the barest sustenance. He was filled with her, gorged, and could endure no more of her doting lest he lose the last of his male dignity.

Aided by Llyrica’s hands, he turned over to face her, but desperately summoned his familiar methods to self-control. An abrupt defense, he sat up.
Father in Heaven
. If he had not nearly been unmanned by her tender massage, he was now by the sheen of her skin and hair in torchlight. She stared at him with expectant eyes, kneeling beside him in her cemes, a disarray.

He knew his voice would betray the trembling in his limbs, the panic in his gut. “I am more composed, Llyrica. Now I must go out to my men and make plans for tomorrow. You and I need to discuss your brother and father. I will send a messenger to the fortress gate and arrange a meeting.”

She laid her hands on his chest. “And so it will be done. But stay a while longer. I want to give you everything. I-I love you.”

His heart froze. Staggering profession, the truth of it shone in her eyes. Wonder and fear allied and lured him to the brink of his undoing. “God, Llyrica, you do not know what you say. I pray you must not. For your sake and m ...”

Stifling his protest with a kiss, she pushed against him, her massage changing from wholesome to erotic. Her fingers plucked at his nipples. “Let me love you, Slayde. I know how. I know what you need.”

Resolve weakened, his body ignored the shouting of his rational mind. He fell to his back. “Please leave me in peace. Ale and sleep are what I need. Solitude is what I need.” 

Llyrica acted as if she did not hear him, pulled her cemes over her head and tossed it in a silken slither on his pile of clothes. “You have been alone long enough.”

Her gaze lingered on his face, then shifted lower. Torchlight cast a telltale shadow, evidence of his arousal. She stretched out nearly atop him and kissed his mouth, the underside of his jaw, his neck.

“
Christ, Llyrica.
I beg you do not.” But he was too late to stop her. She had already taken a firm hold of his sex and caressed it with long strokes. It put him at her mercy, a hated notion after showing her his tears. He grabbed Llyrica’s wrist. “Cease this at once.”

It proved a futile effort since she would not let go and now slid her body lower along his. She pursed her lips around his nipple, exploring it with the tip of her tongue. “I
will
love you and will not be stopped,” she murmured against his breast.

He groaned as his shaft, rod hard, throbbed within the deftness of her caress. Mimicking coupling, she slid her lightly oiled fist up and down his length. Mounting pleasure overtook him, attended by the dreamlike sensation of Llyrica’s hair drifting across his chest and abdomen, then pooling between his legs. Her breasts brushed his thighs.

Her intent was clear, and Slayde’s throat constricted with want. “Oh, God. I shall die of it.”

“You will not.” Llyrica’s hot breath fanned him, then the silken interior of her mouth enclosed around him, drew him in deep. It proved a magnificent contrast between hard and soft, iron and silk, male and female. She lavished him until he clung at the edge of climax. This dangerous gift was the ultimate surrender to a woman, to Llyrica and to weakness. In this he would not succumb. Some tests of manhood could not be failed, lest all fragments of his identity scatter asunder.

To the sound of her surprised cry, he disengaged from her oral caress and arose to roll Llyrica to her back. On his elbows, he propped himself over her, lost in the lipid aqua of her eyes and her ripe mouth, which had just favored him so well. He pressed his cheek to hers, and with labored breathing, whispered in her ear.

“Know I will keep you, my lovely silken bride. I value what you have done for me. But the StoneHeart yet remains and will be so until my work is done.”

Llyrica shifted beneath him, raising her hips to meet his hard demand. He entered her easily, found instant release and collapsed, sated once more.

She held him tightly to her. “Yet remain if you will, StoneHeart. Be so until
my
work is done. Until you love me as I love you and become the man you are meant to be.”

Slayde thought of his mother, hurt and disappointed, still waiting for his love. “Guard your heart, lest your faith in me be unrewarded.”

He gave Llyrica a final kiss and pulled himself from her, with haste, lest this magic she wove around him rendered him senseless. Aware of her watchful gaze, he dressed and began the reconstruction of his stone facade. Llyrica had seen the weakness inside him, but his army must not.
It cannot show on my face, or in my voice, that I am a man spellbound by his wife, done in by her mere sigh and the fragrance of ginger. 

Neither would his men know what compelled their ealdorman’s renewed fervor against Haesten. Little would they guess he would pay any price or commit any crime to eliminate the roadblocks to his life with Llyrica.
Cunning irony, this, to finally satisfy Ceolmund’s definition of a man for the attainment of a woman.

“Stay the night on my ship,” he said, adjusting his belt and sword.  “I will post guards for your safety. Of a morning, we will see to this business that brought us each to the fortress on River Lea.”

Llyrica lay to her side, partially covered with a fur, resting her head in the crook of her arm. She was a vision of beguiling innocence, unaware of the mussed and sultry appearance that begged him to stay. “My business is to save my brother and destroy my father. Would that one does not interfere with the other.”

“We will pray that it does not.” StoneHeart turned and left the tent as if he cared not that he would see to a separate bed, this night and all others while on the river Lea.

I will not come to her again until
he
is gone.

Yet again, Llyrica prepared to pluck her brother from disaster, dreading the trouble she would find him in. To discover him alive gave her reason to rejoice, but this was a lifetime’s worth of ill fate and worry, to discover him under Haesten’s roof.
I have kept it from him that father yet lives. What will Broder think of me when he knows the truth, and how will we share the knowledge of who our father is?

By messenger from the fortress, Slayde had received and negotiated terms of a meeting. He and Llyrica now approached the designated field, escorted by a score of Saxon warriors. The remainder of StoneHeart’s force stayed the distance, armed and wary.

“Am I not to see my Broder alone?”

Slayde shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked to the gate. None had yet appeared. “This is the agreement, that you meet at noontide at yon halfway point between our camp and the fortress.” His glance to her at his side betrayed nothing of last night. Deliberately on his part, it seemed, he brushed his arm against hers, skin to skin. “If all goes well, then we will give you a time for privacy.”

“I am bid play the part of witness, Llyrica,” said Byrnstan, a step behind her. “War demands it, lest secrets of military knowledge are exchanged. Do not deem it a personal affront.”

“I shall not, father.”

“Find out from him why he showed himself in Haesten’s place.” Ailwin kept pace at Slayde’s left. “We all want to know how he so quickly fell in league with the warlord. Yet if he is by some means Haesten’s spokesman, we will deal with him instead, through you.”

Llyrica shook off these opinions that her brother and Haesten had allied. Disaster if it was true. “He is no soldier, has no knowledge of warfare.”

Eadwulf flanked Llyrica’s right. “His appearance proved otherwise. Therefore, point out to him the strength and zeal in our fighting men. Convince him. Let him take a good look.” The thegn prompted the assembly to stop, turn and survey the Saxon camp. Timber structures already took shape, built from cut lumber shipped from London. “Contingents of warriors are stationed there, there and there, lest a number of raiders sneaks out to cross the river and harass nearby hamlets.”

Ailwin puffed out his chest. “Since our arrival, our garrisons are begun on both banks of the Lea ensuring Haesten’s ships can not pass. Within a sennight, by StoneHeart’s plan, we will have constructed two forts. Word has also arrived that King Alfred’s force is nigh, come to patrol all roads and tracks leading into Wessex from Danelaw. We are prepared to stay until Haesten either shows himself a fool and attacks us, or bends his knee, once and for all, and quits.”

Llyrica looked up to the silent StoneHeart, his gaze straight ahead. He started the party walking again, his stride hard to match. “Indeed, I have informed her of all of this and she is agreed to act as intermediary. But remember that first this is a reunion of a parted sister and brother.”

Slayde’s tone was firm, the sentiment, subtle, and all fell into ready agreement. Of course they would, and Llyrica wondered why StoneHeart would ever fear dissention among his men. She had never witnessed other than this bow to his authority, save Ailwin’s occasional insurgence. StoneHeart must not see it himself, the redoubtable image he portrayed, taller than most, voice deeper, words measured to a fault. He owned the trust and admiration of these hundreds of men, and yet ... Llyrica’s next thought reaped understanding. 
He must always stand guard ere the fairygirl within be exposed. Ceolmund had been as cruel a father as my own, destroyed a family.

Llyrica looked ahead to the gate, saw it open. “StoneHeart, look! He comes!”

She flung off the restraint of Slayde’s hand and ran toward her brother. Broder also left his band of twenty youngbloods whose appearance was not unlike those he used to run with in Hedeby. Brother and sister met in the field halfway betwixt opposing camps.

“You are here!” she cried, wrapping her arms around him. His sinewy embrace enfolded her as she laid her head against his chest and felt his stuttered inhalation. “If you cry, Pup, I will not bear it.”

“And why should I not cry?” Broder’s voice broke. Llyrica let him silently weep as he held her under the bright sun of noontide. “I am sore glad to see you. Little else did I think of than you drowning in a barrel or ...” He put her at arms length to look her over. “Or being ill used by the StoneHeart.” His watery eyes rose to look past her, where Slayde led the Saxon gathering at a slow pace toward the meeting. Broder shot him a fierce glance.

Llyrica must put a quick stop Broder’s mistrust. “Ease your mind! Can you not see I am completely well? But what of you?” Her hands in his, she took her turn to appraise him, frowned at the stranger who was her brother. She would not mention he stank or that his motley appearance alarmed her. “Your beard has thickened, I think. They have dressed you in blue linen and given you a sword? Yet it looks as though they have not fed you, for I can feel your ribs.”  A remnant of braid from his old tunica hung loosely sewn at the hem of his garment.

“I have been given more than most. Wait until you hear it all.”

“Oh, my Broder, now we are together, you will come away from this place, and tell me how you came to be here, and all of your adventures.”

She pulled on his hand, but he did not budge. He was changed, his visage serious where it had once been carefree. “Nay, sister. Be assured I will take you from your captor and see that you forget the wrongs done you by the Saxon demon’s hand.”

“You have misunderstood, Broder. StoneHeart saved me from drowning and his priest gave me sanctuary. I have not been wronged in the least.”

The muscle along his jaw flexed as if he restrained an outburst. “My dear, poor sister. I know that as his slave, you have been induced to say this. It is well told the tortures the StoneHeart inflicts.” Deadly solemn, he leaned in, took her by the arm. “This time,
I
have come to save
you
. Prepare to run.”