Twenty-one

This time Cathal wasn’t gentle: couldn’t be, not with recent danger still setting his blood afire in ways he hadn’t felt in months, nor with Sophia’s rounded body suddenly flush against his, impelled there with a speed and force that had surprised even him. Her breasts rose and fell against his chest, and their steady movement was a delight both to his quickening body and to the mind that remembered how still she’d been when he’d rushed into the room. His arms closed around her almost at once, and he was kissing her only a moment afterward.

He shouldn’t do this, Cathal knew. Oh, he knew it was unwise, and he knew it was probably unchivalrous, even for the very flawed version of those rules that he’d ever bothered to follow, and he knew she might pull away and slap his face in the next instant, but he held her close and took her mouth, his tongue urging it open with very little effort. The last thing on his mind was regret; the next-to-last was stopping.

And she wasn’t stopping him, this beautiful girl in his arms. No, she was wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him down and herself upward so that she could kiss him back, her lips sweet and soft beneath his. At first there was a slight clumsiness about her motions, whether from inexperience or because she was still disoriented from her struggle, but that vanished quickly, and she seemed eager to pick up where they’d left off in the grove.

Cathal had will enough to remember that she had been in a fight, that she might have injuries other than the bruises on her neck. When he slid his hand down her back, he kept his touch light, ready to stop if she flinched or made any sound of pain. She did gasp, when he cupped her arse and pressed her against the swollen length of him, but there was no discomfort there. No, she circled her hips against him and then made a—sound.

It was low in her throat. It was curious and eager at the same time. And it made Cathal’s whole body clench with lust. If he heard nothing else in his life, if he went deaf the second afterward, he needed to hear her make that noise again.

He left her mouth for her neck, that long golden column he’d admired across the table on too many nights. He brushed over it with his lips, felt Sophia shiver, heard her catch her breath, then returned to kiss with more strength, to suck and then nibble, careful always of the bruises. Her buttocks were firm beneath his hand, muscles tensed as she pressed herself to him. She was continuing her earlier motions too, little jerks of her hips that brought her sex against his thigh, her stomach against his cock, and then away, driving him mad, and he didn’t know whether she knew it.

Another swift motion and his hand cupped the curve of one breast, feeling its shape and weight through the wool of her gown. Cathal circled his thumb lightly upward, rubbing over Sophia’s nipple. He longed to feel it better, would have sold his soul for magic to banish her layers of clothing in an instant, but there was still no mistaking the stiffness there, nor the way Sophia thrust her breasts forward at his touch, nor yet the whimper that came from her throat this time. He hadn’t known it was possible for her to make a more arousing sound than the last one, and yet there it was.

He bucked against her, feeling her soft and yielding against his aching cock. The drag of fabric and the imperfect angle were a sweet kind of torture, the motion a desperate, almost unthinking attempt at his true goal. The wool beneath his caressing hands became a more frustrating barrier with every second, every sensation, every desperate little wriggle the lady gave. If it had been summer, Cathal thought, if she’d been less respectable—more practically, if there’d been a bed anywhere to hand… There was a table, but even for his lust he couldn’t destroy its contents.

He, or what remained of his mind, was seriously considering the floor when Sophia pulled back.

For a second Cathal thought that he’d offended her, or that she’d remembered her virtue, but no. She only stepped back a little, enough to put her hands on his shoulders and, by coincidence, to give him a look at her face, all reddened lips and cheeks, dark eyes dazed with sensation. Her wimple was crooked, half off, and dark curls straggled out and wound down around her face and her neck.

“Yes?” Cathal murmured.

“I should… I want to touch you,” she said, and her hands were sliding down over his chest, twin flames through his shirt. Her tongue crept out of her mouth and circled her lips. “You’re very hard,” she said, and then laughed and blushed, not too innocent for the innuendo. “Not… I didn’t mean like that.”

“Like that,” he said and shifted forward to brush himself against her again, teasing them both. “Too. But not as constant as the other, no.”

“It cannot be comfortable,” she said and then glanced down at herself, her breasts heaving. “But then, desire never is.” Guessing well, despite his clothing, she traced her fingers over his nipples, and smiled at his indrawn breath. “Similar, then.”

“Aye. Come here.”

She stepped forward, though only a little this time, unwilling to lift her hands from his chest. Cathal couldn’t say he objected. Her fingers were brushing lower now, down and then back up again, and his body felt every inch of their journey. Less graceful than he would have liked to be, he plucked the pins from her hair and brushed the wimple onto the floor.

Then he stopped. Lust, strong as it was, stepped aside for a different and far less pleasant sensation.

The white cloth was spotted with crimson.

Sophia had gone still when he had. Now, frowning, she followed his gaze to the bloodstained cloth. “Oh,” she said faintly, and stepping back, she put a hand up to the back of her head. “I didn’t realize… It hurt when I hit the floor, but I didn’t know.”

“And now?”

“A little.” She flushed. “I hadn’t noticed, which I think bodes well. I think a serious injury would hurt more.”

“Likely,” said Cathal, whose experience with mortals and head wounds was cursedly scarce. Men went into battle with him, were injured when he couldn’t prevent it, and whether they lived or died afterward was the realm of God and physicians. He wished he’d paid more attention.

He could hear footsteps on the stairs. His first thought was anger, that the men should be so late, but then he realized that far less time had passed than he’d thought, common enough when both battle and lust clouded his mind.

She probed gingerly through her hair, then winced. “There’s a great lump back here, yes, and I think it’s bleeding, but…it doesn’t feel as though I broke my skull. Although I’m not at all certain how that would feel.” Drawing back her hand, she inspected the reddened fingertips. “But I’m awake, and I’m sensible.” Here she stopped and bit her lip, then went on without saying whatever had come to her mind. “So I believe that to be a good sign too.”

“Better than otherwise.”

Footsteps reached the landing door, and Cathal swung around to meet the new arrivals. Munro and Edan, two of the most experienced of the remaining men, were there, blades in hand, and a square young man named Roger. All slowed as they came within sight of the doorway and presumably saw both people within whole and in no visible distress.

“Sir?” Munro asked, flushed from the long run up the narrow stairway, “Lady? There was screaming, and—”

He fell silent, mouth opening. Clearly he’d caught sight of the demon’s corpse, lying in a corner of the room where Cathal had flung both it and its severed head in the seconds after its death. Nobody could have mistaken it for human, even for a second.

The men crossed themselves. Edan swore.

“Aye,” said Cathal. “The wizard who cursed Fergus has other tricks up his sleeves, it seems.”

In truth, it was almost better to have them staring at the demon. He hadn’t been able to get either himself or Sophia into any truly compromising state of undress, and alarm had greatly diminished his own excitement to a state easily hidden by clothing. Nonetheless, they were a man and a woman alone in a room, and clearly both disheveled.

“What is it?” Roger asked. “How did it get here? Are there more?”

They were all speaking in Gaelic, and Cathal only noticed it when Sophia stepped back, taking herself out of a conversation too quick and too worried to follow in a foreign tongue. He switched to French, trusting the men to follow his lead.

“’Tis a demon, as I understand such things. Likely if he could send more, he would have, but I’ll post guards throughout the castle tonight, and I’ll take other measures as well.” There were wards. His knowledge of them was academic, another memory of childhood training for which he’d cared little at the time, damned young idiot that he’d been. He thought he could make them stronger. “We’ll have Father Lachlann bless weapons. How did it get here?” he asked, turning to Sophia.

“There was a”—she waved her hands in the air, making a circle of varying size—“space that grew larger. It came from that. I smelled rot before then, and sweetness.” Sophia’s eyes held Cathal’s for a breath longer. There was something she wasn’t saying, that she didn’t want to speak of in front of the guards.

“A bad sign. But as you see”—he gestured to the demon’s corpse—“they die like anything else. Munro, gather the men. I’ll talk to them soon, let them know the plan. Then two of you can come back here and get rid of the body.”

Whatever skills Cathal lacked in running a castle, he’d been commanding men long enough to know how to put dismissal into a tone of voice. The three guards left, Roger crossing himself again before he turned.

Cathal waited for their footsteps to fade before turning to Sophia. She stood farther away from him now, arms wrapped around her stomach. In the light of greater concerns and the eyes of others, their earlier madness had cooled for her too, perhaps. He still hungered to look at her, but it was a fainter urge now, and he could displace it, as he knew he must.

“I think,” she said, “that I’m the reason it could get here.”

“Ah,” Cathal said and wished he could argue the point. But the demon had appeared in her laboratory, and… “The connection again?”

Sophia nodded, hair brushing against her cheek. “I doubt it could appear where I’m not. And I’m not certain what to do about that. If I leave, I’ll be abandoning your friend, but if I stay, I will perhaps put you all in great danger.”

There was no confusion on Cathal’s part, whatever there might be for Sophia. “Then we will put a guard on your chambers and on this room. If need be, I’ll stand the watch myself.” He glanced down at his waist, at the silver-chased and sapphire-set hilt of his sword. “I had this from my mother’s kin. It’s not the only weapon of its kind, nor the only one in the castle. And,” he added, glimpsing the pouch at his belt and remembering the letter within for the first time in an hour or two, “I have news.”

Only after Sophia looked up from the letter with a face of embarrassed regret did Cathal remember that she likely couldn’t read Gaelic. Only after he’d skimmed over the first few paragraphs did he realize that he hadn’t thought twice before giving her his family correspondence. That was a notion he was sure he’d turn over in his mind later, on an early morning or a sleepless night. For the moment, he repeated Moiread’s information without embellishment.

Listening, Sophia stood very still, her hands twined in her skirt. At the news of Valerius’s crimes, she swallowed, a quick movement of her slim, bruised throat, and again at Moiread’s conclusions.

“And so we can guess where he obtained the demon’s services,” she said. “I’ve told you before that I know little about such creatures, great or small, but fratricide seems a sure way to attract darkness, if you seek it.” Her voice was quick as usual when discussing theory, but quieter, smaller. “This may help. I can’t be certain. I wish I could promise more.”

“These things die like anything else,” Cathal repeated. “And you held it off long enough this time.”

“Barely. And… Oh!” Unlikely joy dawned on her face. “It worked. My experiment, that is. It has certain limitations, but it’s entirely promising. The demon couldn’t break my skin, and that alone was a great protection. I’m sure it saved my life… Well, that and you arriving when you did, and having the right sort of weapon. I did stab the demon, but it didn’t seem to take.”

“Steel often doesn’t, I hear,” said Cathal. “I’ll find out more as I can. As for the potion, I’m glad of it. While this lasts, you should make more. Drink them every time one wears off.” He reached out and took her chin in his hand, turning her face up to his. “You’ll have anything of mine that you need.”

Then he left. He had tasks at hand and limits on his self-control—limits that were, it seemed, growing shorter by the day.