The Penwyth Curse (23 page)

He pressed her down upon her back and jerked her gown up. He saw a stretch of white legs, shoved her shift
out of the way and saw the red curls that covered her woman's mound. Oh, God. He nearly swallowed his tongue.

“You're mine,” he said, freed himself of his trousers and came over her.

“Bishop?”

Her voice was a thread of a sound. He heard uncertainty in her voice. He forced his eyes away from her belly and looked into her eyes. “I don't want you to be afraid. I'll try to slow down, but I think it's too late, Merryn. I'm sorry.” He bent her legs, spread them wide. He was hard and ready and he wanted his sex shoving inside her.

He sucked in his breath when suddenly she hit his elbows with the sides of her hands and he collapsed on top of her. He was too stunned to move. Then she grabbed his head, fisting her hands in his hair, and brought him down to her. She kissed any part of him she could reach—his ear, his jaw, the tip of his nose, his chin. “I'm not afraid now. Do you hear me?” He felt her naked against him, felt her heat or maybe it was his or both of theirs, and he wanted to explode, it was that close. No, he had to get inside of her first, then he could die. He had to—

“You're not afraid?”

“No,” she whispered in his ear.

“Naked,” he said into her mouth. “You're naked and I want to come inside you, Merryn. Now. I must.”

He tried to rear up again between her legs so he could come into her, but she came up with him, her arms wound around his neck, holding as tightly as she could. He couldn't free himself. She was kissing him again, all over his face.

When his tongue was in her mouth, he was saying, “Your hair is as red as the hair on your head. I can feel you against me, and it's making me—I've got to touch you, taste you—”

She was whimpering, not understanding, but she knew what she wanted—his tongue in her mouth, his warm breath fanning her hot flesh. And his heat—she wanted
all that wondrous heat on her, covering her, inside her. His hands, they seemed to be everywhere and what parts of her they touched made her frantic. She wasn't about to let him go. She couldn't get enough of his mouth, of his breath warming her to the soles of her leather slippers, one falling off her foot.

He was panting into her mouth. “I've got to come inside you now, I've got to. Don't you understand, Merryn? Now. I've got to or I'll spill my seed.”

She felt him shoving frantically against her, but he couldn't come inside her unless she let him go. She wasn't about to do that, there was too much pleasure having him just where he was. His tongue, by all the gods' astounding miracles, his tongue, wet, probing, was the biggest miracle of all, and she didn't want it to stop.

“Kiss me, Bishop. Don't stop kissing me. That's what I want. Don't stop.”

“I want to kiss your damned belly.” He was shuddering, nipping at her bottom lip. “I want your breasts, I want—”

“All right, but if I don't like it will you kiss my mouth again?”

“You will like it, I swear.” She let him go. He came up on his hands and knees over her, panting, looking down at her face, seeing how wild she was feeling, knowing she wanted him, but—

His hands pulled her thighs apart, and he was staring at her, and he couldn't help himself, it was just too late. He couldn't take the time to kiss her belly, to rub his cheek against her red hair. “Merryn,” he said, “try to like this, all right?”

He clutched her legs, pulling her up, and yelled as he went into her, hard and fast. He heard her scream, felt her fists hitting his chest, his shoulders, but nothing mattered. He tore through her maidenhead, felt the wonder of it even as he pressed against her womb. Oh, God, her womb. He drew back, went into her again and again. He heard her shouting his name, trying to shove at him, but he didn't care. He felt himself explode, fly apart, felt
himself scattered and free, and he was held there in her, part of her, as he found his release. He would have accepted death in that moment, because that was what it felt like. He'd been freed, released, and now he was floating, and he couldn't breathe because his heart was pounding out of his chest. His strength was gone. He fell on top of her, his head beside hers. And he felt a wonderful peace come over him. He felt immensely tired.

He didn't think she'd liked it. Damn.

Next time—next time he would make sure she yelled until she was hoarse.

In the next moment he was asleep.

25

Sometime Else

H
IS BRAIN BEGAN TO CLEAR
. The pain was nothing now, just a heaviness in his chest, as if someone had punched him there with his fist, but Brecia—she was sprawled on top of him, not moving.

He felt a shock of fear so great he nearly yelled. No, she had to be all right. The fear scored his gut, his heart began to pound. He lifted his arms and wrapped them around her, squeezed her. She didn't move.

“Brecia.”

He began stroking her back, up and down, and he wondered how she'd managed to save him. It had been a mortal wound, delivered by a mortal into the chest of a wizard who had foolishly made himself mortal, and it had nearly killed him. Because he'd been arrogant, because he'd wanted to show Brecia how strong he was, how powerful, how the number of his enemies wouldn't matter. Mortal or wizard, it wouldn't matter. But it had. By all the powers that watched over stupid wizards, he should be dead, but he wasn't, and all because of a witch.

Brecia had saved him.

She didn't move. No, she couldn't have given her life for his. He wouldn't accept it. He held her tight against him and slowly turned until they were on their sides, their faces close. He eased his hand between them and pressed it against her breast. “Damn you, you brave witch, let your heart beat. Do you hear me, Brecia? I am tired of this. Let your heart beat!” He began pressing the heel of his palm against her heart, rhythmically, then stroking her and kissing her still mouth. “Open your eyes. You're supposed to want to survive, to fight to survive, you know that? To do something so stupid, it beleaguers a wizard's brain. Brecia, open your witch's eyes or I'll thrash you.”

He felt her heart pound against his hand, and smiled. “All I had to do was threaten you and you obeyed me.”

Her eyes opened. She was nearly cross-eyed, she was lying so close to him. “Get your hand off my breast, you dim-witted wizard.”

“Why? Dim-witted, am I? Well, you have a point there. No, my hand stays here. You feel very good to me. Just a moment.” He eased his hand inside her gown. His fingers touched her breast.

They also touched wetness.

He frowned, then shoved her onto her back and came over her. “What is wrong here? Why are you wet?” He jerked open the wool gown and saw that there was blood streaking over her white breasts, over her heart. Oh, God, she'd taken his wound into her. He'd known that, but seeing the blood, his blood and hers, mixed together on her white flesh, knowing the pain she must have endured, knowing she could have died and had been willing to, to save him, he couldn't bear it.

“You healed me.” He pressed his palm against her breast. Her blood was drying even as his fingers pressed down hard. “Is there pain, Brecia?”

“Not so much now. Just a slight ache.”

He pulled away from her and sat up. The blood had dried on her chest. As he looked at her, the blood began
to fade, then it was gone and her flesh was white and pure again.

He said, “I'm alive. My blood is pulsing through me. I'm strong again, invulnerable. Never will I make myself mortal again.”

“That was a smart thing you just said, prince.”

He managed a smile. “I have never before heard of a witch saving a wizard.”

“I haven't either.” Her fingers closed around his wrist. “How do you feel, truly?”

“I am strong again. I am myself. Why?”

She sighed, dropped her fingers from his wrist. “I have always believed that a man or a wizard should die when he harms another, but not when he is arrogant, because he believes all the way to his big feet that he can overcome all odds. No, that is not such a bad thing. And your arrogance, prince, it is such a deep part of you. It pleases me.”

He liked hearing that. “What did you do to those assassins?”

“I tangled them all together, arms around legs and legs around necks, all crisscrossed and wound through and about. As for that man, Branneck, I left him in the air, unable to fall to the ground, and he was howling. I don't know how long the spell will last. Perhaps if they free themselves, they'll be able to pull him down.”

“They were from Mawdoor.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I believe he was testing for weakness. He didn't care about any of them. He probably believed you would simply kill them, but the way in which you did it, aye, he would have learned more about you, and perhaps he would have seen a weakness.”

He started to say that he didn't have any weaknesses, and instead he sighed. “He found it.”

“Aye, this time he did.”

“If Mawdoor was watching what happened, then he saw that I was also a fool to challenge them as a mortal. Mayhap he believes me dead. It is very possible, you know.
A wizard cannot follow you in here, can he? With his mind?”

Slowly she shook her head. “You came into my forest at great risk. I believe the sacred oaks flatten a wizard's powers, I suppose you could say, since they are my oaks, since they are filled with my own power. I am very well protected.”

“Then I was smart to have Callas lead me to you.”

“Aye, you were.” She smiled at him, lightly touched her fingertips to his chest. “We both survived.”

“Aye, through no skill of mine. I wanted to make you laugh, Brecia, to make you admire me. I wanted you to see how I could reduce those miserable sots to wallowing pigs, but I failed. Damn you, you saved my life.”

“Touch me again,” she said. “My breast.”

If there was a wizard's heaven, he knew he was there. He couldn't believe what she'd just said. He looked down. Her breast was white, all the blood gone. He kissed her, took her nipple into his mouth. Ah, so warm, her warmth filled him. He raised his face, breathed in her flesh. She brought him back down to her. He said against her warm flesh, “No one has kissed you, Brecia?”

He'd said something, she knew that, but what it was couldn't matter as the wild feelings crashed through her. She felt as though she could fly—she could even carry him whilst she flew. She wanted to shout, wanted him to kiss her until she was unconscious.

What was happening to her?

She'd never felt anything like this in her life.

Whatever they were, these feelings were pounding and digging at her, bringing near pain in her belly and her breasts, aching, making her want to gasp and laugh, and yell, all at the same time. And here he was, at his ease, stroking her so gently it could have been the wings of a hummingbird, not a wizard's fingers. What was wrong with him? Didn't he feel anything that she was feeling? Was he a block of oak?

She reared up and pushed him over onto his back.
“Prince,” she said, and began ripping off his clothes. He lay there, unblinking, wondering what was happening to her. Whatever it was, he wasn't about to do anything that would stop her from this incredible madness. Lust was turning his innards molten. Did a witch feel such lust? Evidently so.

In an instant she was naked, straddling him, and he felt her belly pressing against his sex. She was rubbing her hands down his chest to his belly, and then she was moving down on him, sliding between his legs, and he knew this was going to be a close thing all around.

“Brecia, slow down. You must slow down. I am not like you, I—”

“No,” she said, and closed her mouth around him. He rose six inches off her bed, her on top of him, and stayed there. He sucked the blue smoke close and breathed it in. It tasted like an aphrodisiac. He laid his hands on her.

He hadn't imagined anything like this. Then he didn't have any more time to imagine anything. She was clutching him between her hands now, and he was so hard he could have thrust through time itself. And then she was straddling him again and she was bringing him into her, slowly, and then she cried out and shoved down on him, taking him all the way to her womb.

The pain was something she hadn't known about. It was sharp, deep, and she screamed, but it wasn't just pain that sent her scream through the oak forest, it was mad joy and possession—her act of possession, of him, a wizard of her choice, a wizard whose blood she now shared. She was apart from him, driven by powers that had overwhelmed her.

He'd never before seen such lust, such incredible strength and intensity in either a woman or a witch. She wanted him and she was taking him.

The witch was taking him. The instant he thought it, he moaned deep in his throat. He grabbed her, brought her down to kiss her. She was frantic, kisses not enough, she was moving on him, and moaning, her witch's eyes
wild and vague. She was pressing down on him, but he felt the power of his own lust lifting him even more until he could feel the sweep of sweet air on his naked back and buttocks. And he said, “Brecia, I will give you all that I can.” He eased his fingers between their bodies, and found her. He stroked her, felt the softness of her, the frenzied desire, the explosion of her power, all mixed together and he wanted to weep that she was his and would remain his forever.

His fingers pressed, stroked, and pushed her closer to something she knew was there but didn't yet understand. The heel of his hand was pressing against her, his fingers dancing on her flesh, and his sex, probing deep inside her. She saw it all in her mind, felt every breath he took all the way to her soul. She stiffened over him, threw her head back and yelled to the heavens themselves. He watched her in that instant before he took his own release. By all the gods, it was fine. He held her close, knowing they were together in the madness, and then they both flew upward into the blue smoke, out of the fortress, and took wing into the skies above them.

When Brecia came to herself, she didn't know where they were—she just knew they weren't lying above her bed. She was on top of him, he was still inside her, and she was content.

He was kissing her ear, licking, nibbling at her earlobe. He said, his voice deep, almost an echo, “What you and I do, Brecia, it is only tricks and games. But this”—he squeezed her hard—“this is the magic, the madness.”

“Where are we?”

He said after a moment, surprise in his voice, “I don't know.” But then he did know, and he was pleased with himself, with his instincts.

“It doesn't matter. We can breathe and talk and it's warm. I can feel the warmth on my flesh.”

She was still on top of him, lying flat now just as she had when she'd pressed her heart against his, taking the
wound, the pain, the blood, into her. She leaned down and kissed his mouth.

“You could have died, you stupid witch.”

Since she was kissing him, his words slurred into her mouth, and she bit his tongue. She said to him as she nipped his nose, his chin, “I see. So you would have let me die if I'd been the one hurt? You'd have done nothing?”

“I know spells, I know potions. I would have done something that would have saved you.”

“That is a good thing to know.”

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her very tight against him. They were naked and he felt his seed on her belly and her legs. “You conceived my son,” he said, and squeezed her again. A wizard's squeeze this time, and she yelped.

“Don't break my ribs, you fool.”

“I, a fool? I was not the one who attacked you, Brecia. Actually, I would have gotten around to it, but I was still lying there, wondering if I would live or die and wanting to beat you for what you'd done. Hmmm. I have never known a woman to attack a man before.”

“I don't know what came over me,” she said, but there was pride in her voice and wickedness, and he smiled as he kissed her throat.

“Whatever came over you can come again and again.” He lifted her so he could kiss her breasts. He breathed in deeply, licked her soft flesh, and pulled her tightly to him again. “Attack me, Brecia, whenever it pleases you to do so.”

“All right,” she said, and he felt her smile against his cheek. “There is only one thing that concerns me, prince. It would appear that you don't know much about dealing with mortal men. Just look what happened—one of them managed to stick a knife in your black heart. It just doesn't seem possible.”

He said slowly, “It didn't seem possible to me either,
until I realized that they weren't men, though they were mortals, vicious ones.”