Chapter Fourteen
Magic Man captured one of her hands and brought it to his mouth. She actually kind of loved how he did that. It seemed so old-fashioned and courtly.
Curling her fingers along his lean cheek, she felt the short stubble along the strong, clean line of his jaw. He must have shaved some time earlier that day. What an intimate thing to sense about someone she didn’t know.
But that statement was ringing less true the more she repeated it.
She did know him. She didn’t know certain details, but she knew the ring of sincerity in his voice when he promised to support, respect, and defend her.
She knew the private hell he was living. She knew he had an innate decency and sensitivity. He appreciated music, he mourned deeply for something in his past, and he was stronger than she could ever hope to be.
“So honey,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Tell me about your day.”
She tilted her head as she considered how to answer that. “You know, for being caught in a bigoted, racist, sadistic kind of hell, today wasn’t quite as nightmarishly awful as the past couple of weeks have been. You said the battle spell would fade away completely, but when I went to the music hall to practice, I remembered quite a bit of how to play the lute. On my own, I still wouldn’t be ready to perform tomorrow night, but there’s more there than I thought there would be. I’m encouraged.”
“That’s because you’re an accomplished musician already in your own right,” he told her. His voice was pure pleasure to listen to, deep, warm, and steady. “Your skills are adapting.”
“Thank you.” She sighed. “I miss my Vuillaume something awful though.”
“Your violin?”
She didn’t know why she was surprised he knew what a Vuillaume was. “Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry about that,” he murmured as he played with her fingers.
“I just have to believe that I’ll either see it again, or have another beautiful violin I love just as much,” she said huskily. Then, eager to change the subject, she asked, “How was your day?”
“It was not quite as hectic as my recent days have been,” he replied wryly. “I was able to get back to researching the geas.”
“Oh?” She perked up. “How did that go?”
“It went nowhere. But I have a lot more to read.” He hesitated, then added, “There’s the possibility I might need to make a trip to Earth soon.”
“What? No!” The words burst out of her before she could stop them. Then she caught herself. How selfish she sounded. Biting her lip, she added reluctantly, “I mean I suppose if you have to go, you have to.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone, not here, not in this place,” he told her. “But there’s a book in the Louvre I should consult about the geas, and I need a few other essentials from Earth if I’m going to keep sneaking around here without getting caught. The Queen’s Hounds have highly sensitive noses, and the only way I can disguise my scent is by using a scent-blocking spray sold on Earth. I’m running low on my supply.”
Agh! Near to tears, she realized just how much she had grown to rely on him. The thought of facing the daily challenges in Avalon without him was almost crippling. “I understand.”
He gripped her hand so tightly it neared the point of pain. She felt the strength in his hand and the tension running through his long body.
“Sidonie,” he said deeply. “I really don’t want to go. I’ll try not to, but I may not have a choice.”
He had done so much for her, all while coping with his own injury, and here she was being a needy whiner. Swallowing hard, she injected strength into her voice. “It will be okay. I promise. But I’ll miss you.”
I’ll miss you so terribly. She clamped down on the words and didn’t say them.
He was silent for a long moment. Then he whispered, “Lie down with me.”
I would love to.
Her internal reaction had been so thunderously loud, for a moment, she didn’t know if she had said it aloud, if she had telepathized it, or if she had managed to keep it private. He didn’t react, so she must have kept it to herself.
Slowly, she eased down beside him, and he opened his arms to draw her closer. The bed was narrow enough, and he was so big she had to mold her body close to his in order for them both to fit. As she settled against him carefully to avoid jostling his injury, he let out a long sigh and guided her head onto his shoulder.
She slipped one leg over his, so the bowl of her pelvis fit closely next to his hip. The heavy weight of his muscled arms provided a sense of shelter and an anchoring that she couldn’t remember ever experiencing before.
All his warnings had trickled out of her mind. He had become her single point of safety, warmth, and security. Resting against him felt like she had come home for the first time in her life. She could not imagine how they could continue as they were, yet at the same time, she could not imagine not having him in her life.
Tucking one hand underneath the nape of his neck, she turned her face into his shirt. The comfort of lying beside him was staggering. She felt tension she’d had no idea she was carrying melt away, until her muscles felt loose and relaxed.
“God, this feels good,” he murmured.
Unable to verbalize the overwhelming strength of her emotions, she simply nodded. As she shifted to settle more comfortably against him, she felt again the bulk of bandage underneath his shirt.
Resting one hand lightly on it, she asked, “What happened here? I don’t think you ever told me.”
He turned his head so that his mouth rested on her forehead. “It’s a knife wound.”
“What?!” She jerked up her head. Despite her own growing acquaintance with violence over the past few weeks, she still hadn’t become accustomed to it. “That’s terrible. What happened?”
Chuckling slightly, he stroked the back of her head. “It’s okay. It’s self-inflicted. Sort of. I paid someone in London to stab me. Originally it was an arrow wound.”
Blinking several times, she muttered, “I-I just don’t know what to say.”
“It all goes back to the geas. I was wounded in battle earlier this summer.” His stroking hand wandered down to the tense spot between her shoulder blades. Gently, he massaged the area. “Isabeau was furious at the outcome, and she said she didn’t want to see me again until I was fully healed. The nature of the geas is such that I could take that literally. I disappeared before she could realize what she’d done and issue another order contradicting it. I couldn’t let the wound from the arrow heal completely. While I can’t harm myself, the geas didn’t stop me when I hired someone to stab me.”
He had been badly injured for weeks, yet he had still returned to Avalon to help her. Overcome, for a moment she wasn’t able to say anything. When she could, she whispered huskily, “I don’t like the idea of you being in so much pain.”
He touched her lips with his fingertips, in a featherlight caress. “This is the most freedom I’ve known in centuries,” he said. “I’m reveling in it. But in order to stay free, I can’t hear someone tell me if Isabeau has changed her mind and wants me back. Do you understand? Be very careful what you say to me of what you may overhear.”
What a deadly situation, when even words became as dangerous as weapons. She captured his wandering hand and gripped it tightly.
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “I swear it.”
“I know you will, now that you know what’s at stake.” He squeezed her fingers.
“I’m surprised you told me about it.” A touch of wryness entered her voice. “It’s more information about you.”
“You needed to know. If I don’t find some way to break free of the geas, I’ll need to return to Isabeau in a few weeks, unless…”
“Unless, what?” she pressed, when he hesitated.
“Unless I can talk you into stabbing me next,” he said.
Hollow dismay spread through her middle. It had, unfortunately, become a familiar emotion. How would it feel to press a knife into someone she had grown to care for so deeply?
Someone she… loved? It was no use telling herself it would help keep him free, because trying to imagine the visceral reality of it turned her stomach.
“I-I don’t know if I could do it,” she whispered. “I’ve never hurt anyone in my life, not even in a good cause.”
“I understand,” he told her gently. “But, Sidonie, you may be the only one I trust enough to do it. Someone else could try to hurt me worse than necessary, or even try to kill me.”
He trusted her? That should give her a warm and fuzzy feeling, except for the reason they were discussing it in the first place.
As she tried to imagine someone else stabbing him, a horrified protectiveness surged up so strongly she said, “If you need it, I’ll do it. I don’t want you going to someone else for something so dangerous.”
She hadn’t realized he had tensed until he relaxed again. “Thank you.” He kissed her forehead. “I know that couldn’t have been easy for you. Maybe I won’t need it. I’ve still got a couple of weeks of healing left. I’m hoping to have made headway on learning more about the geas by then.”
“God, I hope so,” she said fervently. The closer she drew to him emotionally, the more terrible his entrapment felt. “How did she trap you in the first place?”
“She struck me with a Powerful magic item. She calls it Azrael’s Athame, or sometimes Death’s Knife. It’s a knife she wears on a gold chain around her waist. I don’t know where she got it, or where it’s from, but when she struck me with it, it transformed me into … well, into the creature I am now. Once, I was human like you.”
Creature, he said. And she had noted his hesitation.
He didn’t want to tell her what he was. That meant it was important, either another important piece of information that could help her identify him, or …
Or it was something so terrible, he didn’t want to share it.
But, what creature could be so terrible?
Pushing away, she sat up. What was he? Before, he was just a man with extraordinary magical abilities. Now, she didn’t know what lay beside her in the dark.
Was she really going to push him on this? Was she ready to know whatever it was he didn’t want to tell her?
Steadily, she said, “I think you’d better tell me all of it.”
He flattened a hand at the small of her back. “I don’t want to.”
Warmth from his palm spread through her muscles. Even now, his touch gave her a solid sense of comfort. “I know you don’t, but I think you’d better anyway.”
The bed creaked as he sat too. “I’m a lycanthrope, Sidonie. I’m one of the Queen’s Hounds.”
Lycanthrope. She mulled it over. Where had she heard that word before? She had read about it recently, in one of the London daily newspapers.
Tilting her head at the large shadow of the man beside her, she asked, “You’re a werewolf?”
“Yes, or at least a certain type of one.” His reply was calm, which somehow made the outlandish words easier to hear. “The Hounds don’t lose control when there’s a full moon, and when we change, we retain our intelligence. We have vastly expanded lifespans, and we don’t go into a mindless frenzy. And we can telepathize. I think that might have something to do with the fact that we’re made from the Athame—or at least I was made from the Athame. When she orders me to, I make the others.”
Without his body radiating heat against hers, the world felt cold and less vital. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself. “You make other lycanthropes. The other Hounds.”
“Yes.”
She heard the stress in her breathing and tried to correct it. “You make them by … how? Do you bite them?”
“When I’m in my lycanthrope form, yes,” he said again. His hand withdrew from her back.
Then it clicked. That was what she had read—the article in the newspaper had focused on treating lycanthropy the disease. A peculiarly British problem, there were other lycanthrope clans scattered throughout the world, but most of the population lived in the UK.
Like vampirism, lycanthropy was incurable. Unlike vampirism, if a person who had been bitten got treatment quickly enough, they didn’t have to turn.
She rubbed her face. “We’ve kissed?”
Rather deeply. Erotically, even.
She didn’t want to feel betrayal. She believed he would not do anything to hurt her. But still, she needed to hear the words.
“Kissing or having sex isn’t an issue, as long as there isn’t any bloodplay,” he said gently. “Childbirth is risky. Conception isn’t a problem, but often the mother passes on the disease to her baby anyway if she gives birth naturally. Most lycanthropes who want to be mothers choose in vitro fertilization and a surrogate. I would never expose you to this disease. Lycanthropy is only passed to humans through a blood wound. If you had to stab me, I would insist you wear protective gear so there was no chance of you risking infection. But make no mistake about this, Sidonie. I am a monster, not a man.”
No. No.
She had already started shaking her head before those last words had fully sunk in. “Don’t denigrate yourself like that,” she said. “The two things are not mutually exclusive. You might be a lycanthrope, but you are also a man.”
After a moment, he said softly, “Many people don’t see us that way.”
“I see you that way.”
Reaching out, she took his hand and sat cradling it in her lap. A fine, almost undetectable tremor was running through him. This was hard for him. She stroked his fingers as they sat quietly. The silence gave them both a chance to recover from what he had told her.
“Thank you for telling me,” she murmured. “I’m glad you did. Now, is this it? Is this the worst of what you’ve got to tell me?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell me about it now?”
“No.”
He said it so calmly. How could he say that so calmly?
She wasn’t calm, at least not inside. She was rattled again, and she worked hard to hide it.
She had fully expected him to say yes. Because what could be worse than telling someone you were a werewolf? Everything else should have gone downhill at that point.
What could be that bad?
“You know we’re fucked if Isabeau chooses to interrogate me again,” she said in a conversational tone. Look at me! she thought. I sound so calm and rational. Those acting classes really paid off!
“I know,” he said. “I’ve told you enough that she can identify me from what you know.”
She gripped his fingers hard. So, the reason why he wasn’t telling her the rest wasn’t because of Isabeau. It was because of her. It was something else he didn’t want her to know. Could it possibly have something to do with why Robin was so afraid of him?
“Just when I was coping with the idea that I’d necked with a werewolf,” she muttered. “Just when I was beginning to flirt with the idea of possibly … possibly inviting sex with a werewolf. I’m trying to imagine how I would tell this story to my best friend. I think it would go something like this: See, I’ve never seen him in daylight. He’s just this werewolf guy, I don’t know his name. Damn, he’s got some really heavy-duty layers. And do you know what she would say? She would say, Run, Sid. Run very fast and far.”
Beside her, he had stiffened. Very quietly, he said, “Sex?”
Emphatically, she took his hand and deposited it in his lap. “I appreciate you, and I care about you—probably too much for my own good. I have a huge amount of sympathy for your situation, and I will gratefully take your help with one more battle spell tomorrow evening. But other than that, either show me your face and tell me your name, or get the fuck out of my room.”
He laughed under his breath. It sounded angry. “You don’t pull any punches when you get going, do you?”
“No, I don’t.” Wanting to get some distance, she slid to sit at the head of the bed, as far from him as she could get.
He was going to leave. She knew it. His secrets mattered too much to him. It made her heart hurt.
Then the room flared to golden light as the candle’s wick burst into flame. She stared at it for a split second. The flame burned unnaturally high, a good foot in length.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tall, broad-shouldered man beside her rise off the bed. He came around to go down on one knee in front of her, and braced his hands on the bed on either side of her thighs.
She stared, eyes wide, hungrily soaking in every detail about him.
He was deeply tanned, and he had chestnut-colored hair, a strong-boned, intelligent face, and brilliant hazel eyes. Slight lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes and bracketed his unsmiling mouth.
He looked like he was thirty-seven. There was no sign of his advanced age, except, perhaps, for the bottomless, disciplined composure in those brilliant eyes.
Her gaze flitted everywhere at once, noticing other details, like taking an instant snapshot of the moment. He wore a plain black shirt and trousers, the sleeves rolled up past muscled forearms sprinkled with the same dark chestnut hair. Although the cut of the cloth was simple and sturdy, rather than stylish, it emphasized the lean, muscular power of his body.
He was gorgeous.
“My name is Morgan,” he told her in his deep, pleasant voice. “I’m called Morgan le Fae, and it’s not meant as a compliment. I abandoned my king and let his courtiers be killed, and caused his kingdom to fall. I’m known as a traitor and a murderer, and I’m an instant pariah in virtually any demesne I choose to enter.”
Tears sprang to her eyes as she listened. Impulsively, she placed both her hands over his mouth. “Stop.”
But he didn’t stop. Instead, he switched to telepathy, and as his steady hazel gaze met hers, he told her in the same pleasant, even voice, There is no such thing as normal in my life. I am eternally at the Queen’s beck and call—I kill for her, I lie for her, I assassinate heads of state and destroy governments.
Stop, she pleaded, stroking his face.
Gently, he folded his hands around hers and kissed each one. If she wants a land scorched, I will do it and seed it with poison so nothing else will grow. If she wants me to sleep at the foot of her bed, to guard her through the night while she dallies with her lovers, I will do it. When she orders me to create more Hounds, I hunt down experienced soldiers to attack. Once they’re transformed, I force them to obey her orders. I built her an army of monsters and command it. If you become the Queen’s enemy, I am your worst nightmare. If she tells me to do a thing, I will not stop, ever, until it is done.
All said in that same steady voice, with that same steady, self-contained gaze, and she realized he believed he was utterly, eternally alone.
He hadn’t wanted to tell her who he was because he didn’t want to lose her. And now he clearly believed he had.
“Please, for the love of God, stop,” she said in a gentle voice. Reaching out, she slid off the bed to kneel on the floor in front of him, put her arms around him, and hug him as tightly as she could.
He was holding himself so rigidly she was afraid he might shatter. That massive composure was coming at a cost, and now her heart hurt for an entirely different reason. Blindly, she rubbed her cheek against his, stroked his hair with both hands. Stop, please stop.
Then his rigidity broke with a suddenness so sharp it was almost audible. He clenched around her, bowing his shoulders as he held her with his entire body. She could feel each one of his fingers pressing along her back and at the nape of her neck.
“You are my friend,” she said softly in his ear. “You are the best friend I have in this wretched place.”
He put his face in her neck, which muffled his voice. “I’m your only friend in this wretched place.”
“True,” she acknowledged. His heartbeat hammered against her breasts. “Even so, I trust, respect, and rely on you.”
“Oh, Sidonie,” he said.
She insisted, “On you, the man, not the geas. I know you will never hurt me. I know you will support, respect, and defend me, and you will never coerce me, and never try to push past any barriers I may erect.” She pulled back just enough so she could look deeply into his eyes as she said, “And I am so glad I get the chance to tell that to you face-to-face, Morgan.”
As she watched, a flood of emotion tightened his face. Huskily, he said, “Your music might be transcendent, but I’m not so sure about your smarts.”
Widening her eyes, she gave him a wry smile as she gestured around the bleak little room. “I know, right? Who else could get herself in such a pickle? I mean, look at these clothes!”
Reluctant laughter flashed across his handsome face. Then, almost as quickly, it vanished, to be replaced by an expression of such vulnerable heat her eyes sparked with wetness.
“Morgan,” she whispered, to savor the taste of his name in her mouth. “Morgan.”
Shadows grew in the room as the unnatural candle flame died down to its normal size, the intense, burning gold replaced with a soft, gentle glow.
Giving her a slow, coaxing smile that turned the heat in the room up by a thousand degrees, he stroked her lips with the balls of his thumbs as he murmured, “Can we get back to talking about possibly inviting that werewolf for sex?”
She was wearing clothes, but they were no barrier to the deep, rich sound of his voice as it caressed her skin. A shiver ran down her back.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. So this was what he looked like.
This was the man who had healed her, held her, empathized with her pain, driven away the cold and the loneliness. This man with the sun-bronzed skin, strong features, and intelligent eyes had shown her nothing but kindness.
This magic man, this Morgan.
As she paused, he laughed a little. It was a warm, accepting sound. “Too soon?” he asked as a wry, self-deprecating smile twisted his lips.
“Not at all.” She pulled his head down and kissed him.
Immediately, his firm, well-shaped lips molded to hers. Slanting his head, he tilted her back and kissed her with such raw animal hunger, it sent shock jolting through her body.
Coaxing her lips apart, he speared her with his tongue, over and over, while his breathing deepened and turned ragged. Digging her fingers into his shoulders, she held on as she kissed him back.
He was in her mouth. Inside her, in the most intimate imitation of the sexual act.
She felt so much need, too much for her body to take. It ran through her in deep tremors.
Lifting his head, he whispered against her wet, throbbing lips, “Too much?”
Wasn’t that sweet. Considerate, even.
But oh, hell no.
She gasped, “Not enough.”
It was as if she had opened a floodgate. If she had thought he had been intense before, it was nothing compared to the hurricane of male aggression that came at her now. He ate at her ravenously, while with one restless hand he cupped her breast then gripped her by the thigh to pull her flush against him so she felt the hard, thickening length of his cock against her pelvis.
She couldn’t touch him enough, and she needed to get closer. Squirming against him, she tried to unbutton his shirt, but she was hampered by her own actions. Growling with frustration, she yanked at the cloth.
Scooping her up, he laid her on the bed, then paused only long enough to tear his shirt off.
Oh, dear God, just look at him. He was tanned everywhere, his chest covered with a light sprinkle of hair that narrowed down to a strip that arrowed into his pants. In contrast, the bandage winding around the lower part of his ribs was very white.
The black shirt had hidden the real breadth of his chest and shoulders, and every muscle was cut. He had scars too, scattered across his torso. In the dark, she had never really gotten a clear idea of how he moved with such distinct fluidity.
His shape might be human, but he moved like a dangerous animal.
The outline of his erection was clearly visible against the confines of his trousers.
She wanted to lick that narrow sprinkle of hair on his long, muscled abdomen so badly.
Suddenly, she was burning up. Sitting, she pulled her tunic over her head. Her sports bra from Earth was still damp and hanging in the wardrobe, but she was built slightly enough she hadn’t bothered to try to figure out what might pass for a bra in Avalon. The ugly clothes Kallah had given her were made of a cloth that was thick enough her nipples weren’t visible, and that was all that had mattered to her.
As her head came free of her tunic, she found that he had frozen with one knee on the edge of the bed. He stared at her.
She glanced down at herself. She was an A-cup, but at least her nipples were perky.
“Not exactly a wealth of curvature,” she said dryly.
Tenderness softened the hunger that had etched his face. He touched one of her breasts, stroking gently along the underside, then caressing the jut of her nipple so lightly it felt like a passing breeze along her skin.
He said deeply, “Sidonie, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Her lips parted as she drank that in, and she didn’t need to have truthsense as she looked up into his face. She could see the sincerity in his gaze. Suddenly, she felt more beautiful than she ever had before.
It made her feel different in ways she didn’t fully comprehend. Bolder, more confident.
She had always been confident about her music, fueled by the sheer relentlessness of unending practice, testing, and feedback.
But this new feeling had nothing to do with her music. It had everything to do with believing she was a desirable woman in the eyes of her lover.
When his hands moved to the fastening of his trousers, she took hold of his wrists and said huskily, “Here, let me help you with that.”
His torso flexed as he sucked in a breath, and then he let his hands fall to his sides.
Rising to her knees, she undid the fastening. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath, and as she pulled the opening wide, his large erection spilled into her hands.
He was perfect in every way. His cock was thick, the sides corded with veins, the mushroom head broad. As her fingers curled gently around him, discovering the velvety heat, his breathing deepened again. She glanced up.
His gaze had fired with so much passion and emotion, she could not quite believe this was the same self-contained man who had listed all his crimes with such relentless composure. Her eyes prickled with tears.
In a move she had never made before with either of her previous lovers, yet one that felt entirely right, she bent her head just enough to lay his cock against her cheek in a heartfelt gesture of affection.
Whispering her name, he stroked her hair, her temple, the delicate skin at the side of her neck.
The next step seemed as simple and natural as breathing. Pressing a quick kiss to his shaft, she opened her mouth and took him in.