WindBeliever (39 page)

“You are as beautiful as I have imagined you,” he said.

“But too fat,” she said, remembering all too well his baiting words of a few years earlier.

He had shrugged. “There’s more of you to love.”

She flung a pillow at him, laughing too loud and too freely before he had quieted her with his hand.

“Shush!” he whispered, his eyes glowing. “Do you want to bring your father and brothers in here to geld me?”

She reached for him, surprising the both of them, and took his flaccid flesh in her hand. As he promised, his shaft did not remain disinterested for long. Once she had him nestled in her palm, he stunned her with his immediate interest.

“Milord!” she whispered, feeling him leap in her hand.

“Let me show you,” he said huskily and moved his hand down to hers to show her the rhythm. Whatever Catherine had been expecting, it had not been the surge of power that coalesced in her palm.

Conar had groaned at her gentle stroking and had pushed her hand away, warning her with a grunt that such careful scrutiny to that part of him might well be his undoing. He had lain still atop her, letting her enjoy the weight of him, the press of his flesh to hers.

“Give me a moment, Cat,” he pleaded and she instinctively knew that if she moved or touched him or even spoke, he would not enjoy the moment as well as he might if she should heed his warning.

When at last she felt the stab of his manhood diminish against her thigh, he lifted his head and gave her breasts every ounce of his attention.

The feel of his tongue spiraling around her flesh, his teeth nipping at her nipples, set her body to shivering with desire, yet she kept her hands away from him, gripping the sheets instead of him with fingers aching to touch him. As he moved lower, his lips following in the wake of his body, she squeezed her eyes shut and gave herself up to the heat of him, the feel of him.

“Put your hands in my hair, Cat,” he ordered as he settled between her spread thighs. His breath was soft against her lower belly.

“Why?’ she asked, lifting her head to look down at him.

“Just do it.”

Her fingers had tangled in the lush golden mane and he had dipped his head, his tongue flicking out to touch the very core of her.

“OH!” Her cry had been cut off as his tongue delved gently inside her. Her fingers had tightened on his hair and she heard a faint grunt of what might have been pain or could have been pleasure come from him. As his tongue moved again, she didn’t care, couldn’t have cared if her soul had depended on it.

What are you doing, she remembered thinking, feeling such a tangle of unsettling emotions roiling around inside her that it made her arch her hips from the bed, pressing herself tightly to his face. He worked his magic on her body and she worked her hips in an unconscious rhythm she had never heard before.

When her body began to tense, her hips to move faster, he had moved away from her, sliding up her in one lithe motion that made both of them stop breathing.

“NO!” she begged, squirming beneath him.

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“I’m going to take you, now, Catherine,” he said huskily.

She brought her legs up, not even knowing that she did or understanding her action, and wrapped them around his hips.

“No,” he told her, making her put her legs down. “I will hurt you,” he warned her in a voice that said it was sorry, but could do nothing about it. “If we do it like that this time, it will cause you more pain.”

“I don’t care,” she answered as she tried to grip him to her once more, but he had been adamant.

“I do,” he told her sternly and shifted against her, threatening to roll off her if she did not lay still. “I will hurt you and I want the pain to be as little as possible.”

But he hadn’t hurt her at all. When, after a long time of touching her, kissing her, stroking her body, he put his hands under her rump and lifted her off the bed, had pressed the hard strength of him inside her, slowly, inch by inch, there had only been a moment’s tug of feeling, nothing more.

And that, she knew from hearing all the tales of all the women who had ever lain with a man, came from his expertise, his caring for her, his gentle nature, and his desire to give her as much pleasure as he could without the accompanying pain that might well make her find his lovemaking distasteful.

And the fact that his expert hands had made of her womanhood an overflowing vessel that fairly oozed around him when he had penetrated her maidenhead.

His fingers had dug lightly into her buttocks, molding her to him as he began to stroke her with the velvety length of his shaft. His own rhythm over took hers and she was soon moving in counter-time to his thrusts, her hips slamming against his with increasing speed. She was unaware that her nails were digging into the scarred flesh of his back. Neither noticed, for the desire was building to a crescendo that both of them were beginning to feel.

Her release had come with his and she clung to him, their joined bodies slick with combined sweat. He had not tried to stop her from wrapping her legs around him, in an attempt to pull his slowly shrinking flesh deeper inside her still. As his final shudder echoed through her, she gripped him so hard he stiffened with the pain of his ribs being so tightly compressed, but he did not tell her to let him go.

After it was over, when he lay pillowed on her breast, his left arm draped over her waist, she felt his tears against her.

“Why are you crying?” she asked, concerned that he had found her lacking. That he had not enjoyed the miracle she found so wonderful.

“Because I’m so damned happy,” he’d answered.

She held him, smiling in the darkness, wishing the morning would never come, that she could hold him like this forever.

He had fallen asleep that way, his body pressed so close to her own. He had barely even moved when she eased herself out from under him a few hours later and left him, asleep and smiling, in the bed where he had made her his woman.

Conar looked away from the Captain’s smiling face and found Catherine watching him. Her look told him she was remembering their night together and he drew in a long, slow breath, exhaling just as slowly.

“Conar, get that look off your face before everyone here knows what you did last evening,”

Sajin warned, eying the both of them with a stern expression. He flung his hand at Catherine who WINDBELIEVER

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was standing twenty feet away. “Go find Sybelle, Cat! You two can talk or something!”

Captain Hajib’s brows drew together. What had the Prince done? Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to concern the Tzarevna too much. The lady was smiling as though she ....

Hajib blushed. He looked at the Serenian’s grinning face, staring back with non-repentant glee at Prince Sajin, and knew. And it was something he didn’t care to know. He quickly bid the two Princes farewell and went about his business.

“Now, see what you’ve done!” Sajin growled. “You’ve offended Abdul.”

“Me?” Conar smirked. “If you’d kept your big mouth shut, the man might not have ever known.”

Sajin lowered his voice. “If this gets out, Conar, you’ll have to marry her before we even reach land! Do you want her reputation ruined?”

He hadn’t thought of that. His frown said as much. “Can your Captain perform a wedding ceremony?”

“Oh, be quiet, Conar!” Sajin snapped. “I’ll go talk to Abdul and make sure he doesn’t repeat any of this.”

Watching the Kensetti prince stalk off, himself offended by whatever had offended him, Conar thought of what well might have already happened with him loving Catherine too well.

“You’re a potent man, Conar McGregor,” Meggie had once told him when he’d come to tell her Amber-lea was with child. “Don’t you ever think, lad?”

Conar’s face drained of its normal coloring.

What if he had gotten Catherine pregnant?

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Captain Abdul Hajib didn’t like the position in which he had been placed. He wasn’t even sure if such a thing as he was doing was legal, but one did not deny the man known throughout the world as the Raven.

“This will have to be re-done once you reach Kensett.” Abdul had scowled heavily. “If you can find one of Her Majesty’s priests.”

“Will you just marry us?” the Serenian grumbled. He was tightly clutching the Tzarevna’s hand like a green boy afraid she would bolt and run. “And be quick about it!”

“Conar, shush!” Catherine said. “Do you want the entire ship to hear?”

No, he thought with acute anxiety, he did not. Especially not Sajin Ben-Alkazar. “Just get on with it!” he whispered to Abdul, none-too quietly.

Throughout the ceremony, the reading from the Prophetess’ words, Abdul was sure he was doing the wrong thing. Marriages made in such haste, even those meant to undo a wrong committed by two over-eager lovers, never seemed to work out.

“Man and wife,” he finally said, unhappy with the whole thing. He slammed the Book of the Prophetess shut with a snap. “May you be happy from this day forward.”

“We will,” Conar declared and swept his woman into his arms to seal their vows with a heady kiss that made the good Captain blush with shock.

“Go,” he told the two young people. “Go before His Grace finds out what you’ve made me do and has me keelhauled!”

He had watched the lovers go, their eyes entirely on one another, and hoped no one saw them slip down below decks where he knew they’d be consummating a marriage he damned well should not have performed.

Conar came up on deck just at the rising of the moon. No one had come looking for him and Cat and he probably had Sajin to thank for that.

Not that Ben-Alkazar approved of the situation. And not just because, as Conar was keenly aware, the man was a bit in love with Cat, himself. It was because he was giving Conar time alone with the lady.

“Familiarity breeds contempt,” Sajin had laughed when Conar had told him he’d gotten Tzar Thomas’ permission to court Catherine. “The more you’re with her, the better I’ll look!”

Conar suspected Sajin already knew he’d lost the wager between them.

His mind was on the lady who was sleeping in her own bed, wishing he dared go sleep with her. After all, she belonged to him now. They had been married on the open seas where neither of their country’s law could touch them and where neither of their religions held rein. There would be hell to pay when they announced it, but there would be nothing either of their families could do since the marriage had been consummated before the vows were even spoken. And well-consummated afterwards.

He smiled, so content. So happy. His loneliness slowly vanishing like the silver wake behind the fast-moving ship. He glanced leeward and saw a low arch of darker color on the horizon and knew they were maybe three miles from land. Maybe a little more. He wondered what country it was and made a mental note to ask the Captain. He knew he wouldn’t be sleeping much that night.

There was a steady southwesterly breeze pushing the ship along at a goodly speed. The sheets were filled and straining and overhead the stars skipped by at a dizzying pace.

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He turned to go to below, to find Sajin and the game of chess the Kensetti had promised him earlier. He looked up, his brows drawing together at the dark shape that rose up to block his way.

“Infidel dog,” Conar heard a man snarl at him as a dagger was thrust into his stomach and the blade was twisted.

Sybelle watched Rasheed and another man lift the body over the high railing and faintly heard the splash as it hit the water far below the ship’s hull. She smiled as Rasheed looked quickly at her and then disappeared below deck once more.

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PART TWO

Chase Montyne snarled at the men who stood laughing at him. He twisted in the grip of the two bastards who held him and cursed them, tried to use his power against them, but all he managed to do was put fresh bruises on his upper arms and wrists where hard hands kept a tight hold on him.

“Poor little Ionarian,” the slave trader said, clucking his tongue. “If you have magic, it is useless in Rysalia. Has no one ever told you that, poor little Ionarian?”

Gathering a mouthful of spit, Chase sprayed the slave trader’s vicious, sneering face, but the man only grinned and it was a grin that made the hair on the back of Montyne’s neck stir.

“Our gelding knives are rather dull this time of year,” the slave trader remarked. “So many slaves to sell and so little time to use the whet stone.” He reached out and took Montyne’s chin in a fierce grip. “It would be a shame to mutilate so handsome a man as you, but if you do not curb your anger, blondie, I will do so without a moment’s hesitation.”

“Go to hell!” Chase shouted, grunting when the slave trader’s hold on his chin tightened to unbearable pressure.

“Speak only when you are spoken to, slave,” the man snarled. His black eyes bored into Chase’s pale blue fury. “Perhaps you need a lesson in who is the master and who is the slave.”

A cold shiver of fear ran down Montyne’s backbone as the slave trader nodded at the men holding him. He heard the one on his left chuckle and the sound abraded his bravery worse than the vicious smile on the slave trader’s thick lips.

“Strip

him.”

Absolute fear shot through Chase Montyne’s body and he threw back his head and howled.

He bucked in the unrelenting hold of the two men, struggled against them, kicking out, striking out, but one particularly vicious hit along the side of his head stunned him and he went down, his ears ringing, spitting blood where he had bitten his tongue.

He felt their hands on him, tearing at his clothing, pulling it away from him, allowing the humid heat of the warehouse to wash over his nakedness in sticky waves. Despite all his efforts, the clothing came away as easily as if he had been a child and he was forced to cower on the cool stone floor, trying to hide himself from their mocking eyes and not succeeding.