Night's Templar: A Vampire Queen Novel (Vampire Queen Series Book 13) (51 page)

Perhaps it was the Ennui that made him that foolish. Maybe he was just tired of always having to be on his guard. Or perhaps it was something else.

He was in love.

He’d always viewed that idea with a certain detachment, his intellectual grasp of immortality saying such feelings would run their course. He now knew that wasn’t the case.

Submitting to another’s dominance was not even the most startling part of it, because if he examined his life with a brutal honesty—and he always did—he’d sought the Templar Order as an attempt to escape the squeezing torment upon his soul from his life with his father. The children, patricide. He’d surrendered what he was to find a way out of that turmoil. He’d desperately sought a sense of purpose for fear he’d be sucked into the blood and death of that time and never escape, becoming like his father. With the Ennui, he faced that possibility. Except he knew he wouldn’t reach the same lows as his father had, because Keldwyn wouldn’t permit it. He could trust Kel to do what needed to be done.

The thought had more than one aspect to it, though. Kel wasn’t simply the object of his desire and love. He was Kel’s, and that gave the thought a problematic dimension. One that transformed this moment into something different as he turned on his knees and faced the Fae Lord. Keldwyn had stood up, but Uthe stayed on his knees, relishing the reactive spark in Kel’s eyes, the set of his jaw that enhanced the thin, precise slash of his mouth, the column of his throat. Uthe tugged the leggings down his thighs, bent to remove his boots. Kel’s fingertips whispered over the curve of his spine as he adjusted his stance.

Then Uthe slid his hands up the outside of his thighs, thumbs on the smoother terrain of his inner thighs. Uthe wanted to lean in and press his mouth against his testicles, the base of his cock. Kel hadn’t given him leave to go down on him, but it wasn’t exactly about that. He wanted to pay homage, try to touch Kel’s soul through a worshipping of his flesh. Try to tell him…

I accept your care of me, even as I want you to know I understand what it has cost you. And what it may cost you in the end. It is that which breaks my heart, even as it overwhelms me.

Kel’s hand fell on the crown of his head. A tremor went through his upper thigh where Uthe’s palm still lay upon the Fae Lord.

Be easy on all of it, Varick. This moment is just us. Do as I bid you. Remove my clothes.

Uthe finished that, then rose. As he moved around Kel, Uthe laid his hands on his Master’s hair. He spread the strands like an ebony cloak over Kel’s shoulders. Sliding his arms under the other male’s, Uthe pressed against his back, heart to heart. His cock pulsed against Kel’s firm ass as Kel closed his hand over Uthe’s clenched fingers.

“Varick, you steal my breath,” he said in a thick voice. “Get back down on your knees for me.”

Uthe placed a kiss on his nape, his shoulder, sliding the hair out of the way to do the same to the pulse in his throat, his heart thudding as Kel tilted his head to the right, giving him more access. “What are you doing?”

“Being offensive, my lord.” Uthe smiled against his flesh. “I respect your rule, but you are far too appealing. Your body and all that you are, it’s impossible not to touch, to kiss, to steal every possible moment to give pleasure and derive joy from it.”

Kel closed his eyes, the thick, dark lashes fanning his high cheekbones. “I am ever glad your courtly language was not leeched away by your years in the modern world. When you speak to me this way, time stops where things are as they should be. It does not have to start again until we wish it.”

“And we can have that back during any moment we make into this.”

Kel’s fingers slipped up to Uthe’s wrist, his answer. He squeezed hard. Uthe was expecting the counter, but it was still breathtaking, how quickly the Fae could move. A twist and slip, and Uthe was on his knees beneath him, Kel leaning over him, pressing Uthe’s wrist against the small of his back, Kel’s knee pressed against Uthe’s buttocks. “On your elbows, vampire. As before.”

This time, Keldwyn added some lubricant to ease his passage, yet Uthe still felt the demand of it. The stretch made him groan, his lips stretched in a grimace of need and desire as the Fae pushed in to the hilt. “You will hold out for me,” Kel said. “First your Master takes his pleasure.”

Uthe had distanced himself from it, the games between vampires and servants. Intense games, yes, ones that could have serious political underpinnings, yet games all the same. Though when he’d seen the devotion in Mariela’s eyes, had watched the whole, vibrant language between Jacob and Lyssa spoken without any words, he’d known there was a deeper level to all of it that superseded whatever base machinations came from it at vampire gatherings, or the structured roles of vampire and servant. He felt it now, as Keldwyn spoke the words.

In his breast, a desire rose, strong and irresistible, to pleasure the Fae Lord in ways Keldwyn might never have experienced before Uthe. He didn’t mean some type of carnal acrobatics or skills learned through sexual experience. He meant whatever would match the ecstasy of surrender Uthe felt under Keldwyn’s touch. A way to slip away from all the grief and pain, to find the wonder in all of it again, through love. Through this give and take, through offering all he was to the Fae Lord.

“Varick…” Keldwyn was in his head, could hear any of that he chose. Kneeling over Uthe, he banded his arm around his chest to the point it was good that Uthe didn’t need to breathe, though the integrity of his ribs might be compromised.
You overwhelm me as well.

His hips rose and fell, offering Uthe a sweet, prolonged promise that built into a churning in his testicles, a painful rigidity in his cock. Yet when Keldwyn covered him again, pressing mouth and teeth to his nape and the taut skin between his shoulders, Uthe embraced the agony of denial.

In his pretty clothes, with his ethereal masculine beauty and the magical power that emanated from him, Kel had seemed reassuringly unattainable. Then had come the casual interactions that turned into chess games, debates over morals and history over wine. At some point, the Fae Lord had become part of his daily schedule, in ways large and small. Yet it was now, feeling the press of his damp skin, the heat of his breath on his shoulder, the passion and urgency of his lust pounding into Uthe, that he was blissfully real, as much in need and in love as Uthe himself.

He moved his body in rhythm with Keldwyn’s, lifting his hips to give him a deeper penetration, though it tested his own restraint unmercifully. Kel plunged and thrust; Uthe grunted and made feral noises of encouragement. When he started constricting all his muscles on that thick shaft invading him again and again, Kel’s breath left him in a ragged moan. He climaxed, flooding Uthe with his heated response, a charge that Uthe felt from brain to genitals, that surged through his chest, his loins, even the palms of his hand upon the earth.

“Now, Varick,” Kel demanded. Uthe’s hips jerked, convulsed, and his come spewed forth into the grass beneath him, drops splashing against the blades. They splattered against his wrists, his belly. Kel’s hold around his chest was still there, secure, holding him together. When Uthe finished, his cheek was pressed to the ground between his elbows. Kel adjusted him so they were both on their right sides. He was still inside Uthe and they were spooned together on the soft ground. A firefly Fae landed on Uthe’s limp hand. Several more landed on his thigh.

The one on his hand crawled up his arm to the bend of his elbow, sat down and started to chirp on a tiny lute.

“They have no manners at all,” Keldwyn said, his voice hoarse. “They tempt one to get a flyswatter.”

Uthe chuckled. Closing his fingers around the Fae’s on his chest, Uthe dipped his head to press his lips against his knuckles. Kel let out an incoherent but pleased sound, shifting his hips to shoot a tingling aftershock through Uthe’s testicles and spent cock.

They dozed for a time together. Nothing to do, no battles left to fight. It was a unique feeling. Uthe opened his eyes at times to watch the firefly Fae, who had congregated around his elbow and had turned it into a stage, all of them playing wind instruments. It was a quiet, soothing noise, like distant birds. He didn’t want to disturb it in any way, but there was something he needed to say. He said it in his head so if Keldwyn was asleep, he could practice it a few times. If he wasn’t, well…it needed to be said.

Kel, I cannot third mark you. And I need your promise that, if the Ennui gets too advanced, you will take my life before I become a burden.

No. Because there is no scenario in which you would ever become a burden, Lord Uthe. To me or any who care for you.

Keldwyn gripped Uthe’s wrist, manacling it against his chest, against his thudding heart. Uthe closed his eyes, sighed.

“If it was just pride, my lord, I could bear it. Becoming no better than a child, with no sense of who I am or how to care for my own needs or how to protect myself, is terrible enough to me. But if the aggression takes me, where I would hurt another, an innocent…” Uthe pressed his body into the curve of Keldwyn’s. “I will not take my life preemptively, before God has done with it, but if I reach the point that I might harm another vampire if they tried to do the task…that I could not bear. You have the ability to destroy me without even touching me. You are the only one I trust for it, Kel. Please. If you care for me, swear you will do as I ask.”

Kel let out a quiet curse, but then he nodded against the back of Uthe’s neck, one quick jerk. “You have my word. But it changes nothing about my demand that you make me your third mark.”

“Nor will it change my refusal. I will not bind my life to yours if it could mean the certain end of it. I will do anything else.”

“Hush. I will not speak further about this right now. You are ruining it. Enjoy the afterglow of a good fucking and we will fight about this later. At which time, I will win.”

Uthe closed his eyes with a light smile on his lips, though a weight on his heart. But he agreed with Kel, that he didn’t want to lose the pleasure of this moment. Like it or not, the subject would come up again. They would deal with it then.

“
Anything
else? Including grow out your hair?” Kel scraped his teeth against the back of Uthe’s neck and then bit his shoulder, which sent a jolt straight to Uthe’s cock. The Fae was getting too good at playing Uthe’s body to his desires. His smile deepened.

“It could never compete with yours, my lord. There are female vampires who want to chop yours off while you sleep and weave it into theirs.”

“I’ve seen Helga eying it covetously. I will stay on guard.” He stroked long fingers over Uthe’s scalp, sending a pleasurable ripple through him. “I merely want yours long enough I can tug on it when I’m inside you, remind you of my claim.”

“That might be sufficient incentive.”

“Might?” Keldwyn’s voice was sleepy again, but with a touch of affront. “Do you need more?”

I have lived an ascetic’s life, my lord. It has brought me comfort and guidance. But it doesn’t seem to apply to this. Whenever I think of you, all I want is more.

“Your way of speaking from the heart is more potent than any level of charm, Varick.” Keldwyn pressed closer to him, releasing Uthe’s wrist to wrap his arm around his chest once more. The Fae spoke against his ear.

“Before we leave my world, would you like to ride a dragon?”

“I’d love it.”

Then they slept some more, letting the world’s machinations turn without them. For once.

“
K
el
…
Kel
… Help!”

Keldwyn came out of the sound sleep with the alertness of long training. Uthe was a little slower to rise. He was still feeling the effects of his near-death experience. Kel’s assessing look seemed to be considering the same thing, but Uthe waved off his concerns. The owner of the voice was getting closer, coming swiftly. It was Della.

Using Fae swiftness, Kel was quickly dressed. Since Uthe only had the thin robe, crumpled and discarded inside the cave, Kel conjured him a suitable tunic and leggings in a blink.
An easy enough magic to do with cotton fibers,
the Fae told him. When Della reached the clearing where they were, they were dressed. While modesty wasn’t a big issue for either of their species, Della might have been startled to confront two adult naked men.

“Della, calm down.” Kel came to her. “What is it?”

The girl’s face was tracked with tears. Her jeans and pink T-shirt were dirt-stained, as if she’d tripped and fallen several times on her way to find them. “I didn’t know where you were, but the trees told me where to go. They said you would help.”

“I will. What’s happened?”

“Cat…she said the Queen is going to send you away. Everyone is talking about it. She went to yell at the Queen.”

“Ah, bollocks,” Keldwyn muttered. He lifted a hand to the sky and spoke a sharp word, punctuating it with a shrill whistle between his teeth. Energy vibrated off him like a shock wave.

“This wasn’t the way I intended to do this,” Kel said shortly to Uthe. “You don’t get air sick, do you?”

“You really think that matters right now?” Uthe asked dryly.

A shriek cut off anything else he might have said. The sight that accompanied the sound took his words away, anyhow. He’d seen the smaller dragon playing with Della, and he had a vague recollection of one in the Shattered World—he needed to have Kel verify that at some point—but this was the first time since he’d been in the Fae world he’d had the chance to see one up close. While the sea serpents might be a related family, the circumstances of their encounter hadn’t given Uthe time to appreciate them.

Purple gleaming scales, lavender eyes, green and purple wings. The creature was as large as a private charter plane, and Uthe assumed he was intended to serve the same purpose now.

“Yes and no,” Kel corrected him. “They don’t lend themselves out for transportation unless they owe a favor, or they’re particularly fond of you.”

Stepping onto the creature’s front leg, Kel used the rough staggering of the scales and a firm grip on the curved wing to swing up on his back. He offered Uthe a hand. “Come. Quickly.”

Uthe followed his lead, sliding on behind him. He was sitting on a dragon. Despite the seriousness of the situation, it flooded him with an unexpected sense of optimism about everything. He gripped Kel’s hips as the Fae Lord spoke to Della. “Go back to your mother’s garden, Della. I’ll take care of Catriona. I promise.”

“Okay.” Della looked at him hopefully. Only then did Uthe notice she was clutching a brown lunch bag bulging with its contents. “I brought her tomatoes from Momma’s garden. I thought she’d like them.”

“Why don’t you hold onto them until tomorrow, and then you can give them to her yourself. All right? She’ll like them even better that way.”

“Okay. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Kel afforded her a short nod, then said a quick word to the dragon. “Hold fast to me,” he told Uthe. “We will be making haste.”

Uthe complied, wrapping both arms around Kel’s chest. Looking down, he saw straps winding around him and Kel, holding him even tighter. “Just in case,” Kel said.

The dragon launched itself like a rocket. They shot up into the air like a space shuttle leaving earth. Gravity pushed Keldwyn against him, and Uthe hung on even tighter, glad the Fae Lord had taken the precautions he had. It was exhilarating, the world rushing by beneath them, a landscape of vibrant color. From this height, he had a view of all the castles, though savoring the experience was hampered by the speed they were going. It underscored the urgency the Fae Lord was feeling.

Catriona had been locked in a tree for twenty years for defying the Queen. What would she do to her for challenging her on Keldwyn’s behalf?

The Fae have as many rules about defying authority as the vampires do
, Kel said grimly in his head.
Only they can be far less merciful. Particularly the Unseelie side.

“
Y
ou never learn
,” Rhoswen said icily. “Is that what you want, dryad? Do you miss your tree prison? Do you want to stay there a century this time? Is that what it takes for you to learn your lesson?”

Catriona was shaking, and the Queen’s threat only made it worse. Her chin was firm though, her gray-green eyes bright with unshed tears. “I will do it if you will let him stay here. You can’t banish him. No one deserves that. Have you ever felt it, Queen Rhoswen? Have you ever suffered the fate you find it so easy to inflict on others? I hate you. I don’t care what you do to me. I’d rather tell you that you’re wrong, and mean and evil, than to cower and pretend all those things aren’t true just because I’m afraid. I’m sick of being afraid of you.”

Rhoswen lifted a hand and Keldwyn skidded to a halt in front of his ward, sword drawn and charged with enough energy to cut a swath of orange and red light before both of them. “No,” he said. “Whatever punishment she has incurred, I will take it.”

Rhoswen glanced toward the throne room entrance. The two guards there were no longer upright. Uthe stood in the doorway over them. He sketched a bow her way and her lips thinned. Sighing, she continued the motion she’d started, pushing a lock of her pale white hair back up beneath the intricate comb that looked like a bouquet of snowflakes. Glittering frost highlighted the strands.

“They will wish they were dead instead of merely unconscious when Cayden gets hold of them.” Turning her back on the three of them, she moved to her throne. “My lord Keldwyn, if you would sheathe your sword, you might greet Tabor and Lady Lyssa. We were discussing the upcoming Yule festivities when Catriona flitted over the heads of two armed guards like a deranged butterfly and interrupted our discussion.”

Kel’s gaze snapped left. King Tabor stood at a sidebar of prepared foods, pouring himself a glass of wine. Lyssa sat in a nearby chair, nibbling what looked like a sugar frosted flower petal. While there was some amusement in the Seelie King’s leonine face, suggesting the tone of this confrontation was less dire than Kel feared, there was an underlying tension there, too. He knew Rhoswen as Kel did, and knew her mood could turn on a dime. He saw it in Lyssa’s watchful expression also, even as she licked the sugar off her fingers delicately.

“
Dayel coeurose…
” Catriona beseeched him.

It was the Fae phrase for father of my heart. It made him think of Evan, calling Uthe something similar in the language of love they shared. Sheathing his sword, Kel turned and put his hands on Catriona’s shoulders. “I cherish you in more ways than I can express,” he said. “Your foolish championing of me only makes me love you more. But—”

“No.” She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. “I won’t lose you like everyone else. I don’t care. I’ll go to the human world with you. I’ll die there. I’d rather die there tomorrow than stay here a thousand years, where everything is perfect and beautiful, but so heartless. So intolerant of everything that’s not Fae…”

“Ssshh…” Keldwyn laid his head on top of hers. “It’s all right. You should have spoken to me first. It’s all right.”

Still standing by the inert guards, Uthe watched Keldwyn comfort the nearly hysterical young woman. He was sure the Fae Lord hadn’t forgotten they stood before a royal audience, but the look exchanged between Lyssa and Tabor, and Rhoswen’s unexpectedly patient expression, said they understood the dryad was having an emotional breakdown that couldn’t be stemmed by threats or royal wrath, at least not until she calmed down.

Even the day in the meadow, for all her joy and exuberance, Uthe had sensed a fragility to her. She’d been locked in isolation for so long, and the trauma of that was still healing. As they waited on Kel, he glanced toward Lyssa and offered her a deep bow. He saw her assessing his physical and emotional wellbeing, and a faint smile touched her lips, revealing her pleasure at seeing him. The feeling was mutual. He didn’t see Jacob, so he assumed this was a royals-only audience, which suggested more than a simple Christmas party was being discussed. How had Jacob explained his absence? Lyssa didn’t seem out of sorts, so her servant had been returned to her in acceptable condition. Thank God. One angry queen was enough to handle.

Kel rubbed Catriona’s shoulders, then glanced at Uthe.
Would you come stand with her, Varick? Reassure her.

Anything, my lord.
As Uthe drew closer, Kel eased back, gripping Catriona’s shoulder and tipping up her chin to make her look at him. He took away her tears with gentle fingers, but his voice was firm, brooking no more histrionics.

“You will stand with Lord Uthe while I discuss this with Her Majesty. And you will be thinking of the apology you owe her, as well as King Tabor and Lady Lyssa.”

He met her pleading expression with a kind but implacable one, a clear order. Uthe closed a hand on her arm and drew her to the side, though how long she held onto the Fae Lord’s arm and shirt front, until she couldn’t any longer, twisted Uthe’s heart.

“It’s all right,” he said, low. “Let him do what he does so well.”

Catriona cast a look at him full of worry but the humor he’d injected into the words summoned a look of hope. He squeezed her arm, kept her close. When she leaned on him, drawing strength from his steadiness, her trust humbled him. It also gave him an inkling of why Keldwyn loved her so well.

Technically the Fae Queen hadn’t been directly responsible for the incarceration; the girl’s youthful impulsiveness had been. Yet the twenty years she’d been left in the tree without any one being allowed to retrieve her was Rhoswen’s decision, the spell unbreakable by any other Fae. The Queen had taught the Fae girl and others in her world an indelible lesson about the detrimental effects of the human world on Fae energy, particularly young Fae.

Uthe understood the difficulty of such decisions, making an example of one to dissuade many others from far worse decisions. It didn’t make it easier for the recipient, or the recipient’s family. Kel had been in the difficult position of having to do even more than bear the decision. He’d had to honor the ruling and still serve as an advisor to the monarch responsible for the sentence.

In another audience in this room, I observed that I've always watched over supremely frustrating children. I expect you’ve done the same, my lord.

Uthe managed not to look toward Lyssa, but felt Kel smirk.
I will use that against you later, my lord.
Uthe wanted Kel’s humor to reassure him as much as his own had Catriona, but he knew such sardonic comments were merely Kel’s way of sharpening the blade of his tongue before entering the fray of a political battle. In this case, the fate of someone he loved might hang in the balance.

“Let me bring my guests up to speed, and perhaps Catriona herself, since I don’t know how accurate the rumors are that brought her here so inadvisably.” Rhoswen spoke tartly, standing before her throne. “Lord Keldwyn has been feeding Lord Uthe blood to lessen the effects of his Ennui. He has allowed himself to be second marked and, for all I know, has desires for a full marking. Romantic bonds between Fae and vampire are strongly discouraged. Feeding a vampire with our blood is absolutely forbidden and indeed, considered so repellent by most of us we were not even certain a rule was necessary. Until now.”

Lyssa’s gaze moved from Keldwyn to Uthe and back again. As Uthe had expected, the news he had Ennui was clearly not news at all to her. Gratitude for both her confidence and discretion gripped him. The news Keldwyn was marked produced a flash of surprise, however. She was looking toward the Fae Lord.

“For the contempt you initially showed me as a half-breed, let alone for my vampire blood, I find your decision…curious, Lord Keldwyn.”

“Perhaps you could lay the blame at your own feet, my lady. You have persuaded me to view your kind with a different eye, first with your example and then through my liaison role with Council.”

“I would think sitting in Council meetings would merely have confirmed your low opinion of us,” Lyssa said. “In some of our meetings, I’ve almost agreed with you.”

Rhoswen sent a sharp look her way. “You jest, my sister, but vampires are no less purist than the Fae. Do you think they will accept this match?”

“I think the Council members already have.”

Uthe felt Keldwyn’s surprise match his own. Lyssa met Uthe’s gaze. “We’ve noticed the bond growing between Lord Uthe and Lord Keldwyn for some time. Initially we thought of it as a useful friendship that would benefit our two worlds, and I’m sure it has. Uthe and Keldwyn’s chess games have resulted in some excellent ideas in Council. It is a good match, Your Majesty. I expect they can fight through many ideas in the bedchamber and save us endless debates.”

“Yet this is always the way it starts.” Rhoswen sighed. She moved up the steps to her throne, which was mounted on a domino-like arrangement of small waterfalls. She sat down on her hip, one leg tucked up underneath her, a casual pose that did not dilute the effect of her regal detachment or the coolness of her gaze. “First comes a relationship or two that seems advantageous to us. Then more rules are relaxed. That’s when the infractions start, where the rules are bent more and more. What we deal with on a case-by-case basis becomes an epidemic and then, once again, the gates between our worlds must be sealed for a century or more.”

King Tabor sat down at the table with Lyssa. Unlike most Fae, there was a lined, rugged quality to his face that only added to its strength. His golden hair, plaited back with earth-colored gemstones, added to his lionlike appearance and mannerisms. His expression was pensive, suggesting he was remembering the same issues that Rhoswen was.