Captured by the Dark Lord (11 page)

“Be careful.  I love you,”
Adriana whispered.

Bianca turned in the saddled
to see her waving good-bye.  She waved and blew a kiss.  “I love you too,”
Bianca called softly, then turned away and dug her heels into Beast’s flanks.

Helmskeep awaited.

* * * *

Dawn cut through the night
like a razor.  Two nights had passed as she rode, but she’d finally made it to
the valley of Helmskeep.

A thick fog filled the
valley, obscuring her sight of the castle.  She kicked her heels into Beast’s
flanks to rush down the road.  It had taken her longer than she’d thought it
would to reach Helmskeep, and she was eager to see Damian again.

The road flattened out, and
the stone wall came into view.  The fog was higher down here, with only faint
wisps creeping along the ground.

She rode around the perimeter
to the entrance and halted upon finding it.  One side of the gate lay on the
ground, the black bars rusted through.  The other gate clung precariously to
the wall with but a single hinge still in place.

Bianca shivered in the early
morning cold.  Doubts surfaced.  She shook her head and nudged Beast forward,
trotting down the overgrown lane.  But not even a week ago it had been smooth
and well kept, now weeds choked the path, slowing her progress.  Frightened in
a way she had not been before, she pushed onward.

Cresting the gentle swell,
the castle should have been visible to her, even through the rising fog.

It wasn’t there.

With a sharp cry, Bianca
raced down the rise.  She barely waited for the horse to pull to a halt before
she’d leapt off his back and ran to the crumbling steps.  The front entrance
was gone, and now only a broken space remained.

In stunned horror, she
crossed the threshold.  As far as she could see, only scattered stone
remained.  It was scorched, as though a fire had disintegrated everything but
the foundation.

This ... this couldn’t be
real.  Bianca touched the broken doorway, scraped her hand down the rough
edge.  She looked at her hand, saw an angry red line scored down the center of
her palm.

Beast wandered off to graze
on winter grass as she stood there in stunned silence.  She wasn’t mad!  She
hadn’t dreamed everything that had happened, had she?

“Damian!”  Bianca turned in a
circle, calling his name again and again until her voice broke and she
collapsed on the stairs.  His name echoed back from the walls of the valley,
mocking her.

“Where have you gone?” she
whispered.  “I came back for you.  I wanted to tell you ... so much.”  She
dropped her face into her hands.

“Tell me what, my sweet
lady?”

Bianca jerked her head up. 
Damian stood before her, one foot propped on the bottom step, his expression
solemn.

She jumped up and ran to him,
throwing herself into his arms.  He hugged her and whirled her around before
setting her feet on the ground.  Bianca looked up at him, cupping his cheek in
her palm.  “Are you real?”

The blue of his eyes
deepened.  “I am as I have always been.  Why did you come back here, Bianca?”

All the silly reasons she’d
come were excuses hiding her true motives.  She realized that now.  “I’ve come
to stay, if you will have me.”

He pulled back from her, his
face grave.  “You don’t know what you are asking.”

She laid a finger against his
lips, her heart swelling to unbearable proportions.  “Shh.  I do.”

He kissed her fingertip, and
she smiled, knowing that though she’d not healed him, she had released his
spirit from torment.  The necromancer had stolen his life force, but it had
returned.  She could see his vitality shining in his eyes.

He brushed his thumbs across
her eyes, closing her lids as he kissed her.  Air surged around them, and she
gasped in surprise, breaking away from him.

The castle had returned.

Bianca looked at Damian
questioningly.

“Illusion, my sweet.  I
thought it was best if you did not stay, but I cannot carry on my existance
without you.”

“Damian,” she said,
breathless.  Smiling, he bent and scooped her into his arms, carrying her up
the stairs and through the antechamber.

“Where are we going?”

“To bed.”

Her heart skipped a beat, and
she snuggled against his neck.  Before she knew it, they were in her chamber. 
Lights flared, revealing a waiting bath, and the door shut quietly behind them
as he deposited her on the bed.

Damian began unbuckling his
armor as she watched.  Excitement and sadness mingled in a dizzying mix.  She
wanted him to feel her as much as she did him.  “Damian, I....  What of your
own fulfillment?”

He paused only a moment, then
continued stripping off his armor.  “I will enjoy pleasuring you.”

Bianca blushed as he pulled
his mail shirt off and exposed the planes of his chest and belly.  He was so
masculine, so beautiful.  In every sense of the word, he looked the epitome of
what a man should be.  Her belly ached as she drew her eyes down his
well-muscled chest, and she wished he truly be real to her and not just
illusion.

“You said once you could
assume human form every hundred years.”

He stood in only his breeches
now, and stopped unlacing the front.  “You don’t know what you’re asking.”  He
propped on a poster of the bed.  “It will be a torment to us both to pursue
this folly.”

“Were this the last night of
my lifetime, I would wish to spend it with you.  For this night, our first
time, I want it to be as man and woman.  I want you to feel everything I do.” 
Her voice broke on the last, and she swallowed, overcome with emotion.

“May dawn never come,” he
whispered.  He straightened from the bed and closed his eyes.  A golden light
emanated from his skin, growing until it encompassed him entirely.  It rippled
in a shimmering wave, then absorbed back into his skin.

He opened his eyes, and a
look of pain crossed his features.  “Something ... is ... wrong,” he gasped and
dropped to his knees.  A gash opened over his heart, and blood poured from the
wound.

Bianca screamed and leapt
from the bed as he sank to the floor.  She pressed her hands to the wound,
watching in horror as the red blood turned black.  There was so much of it,
everywhere, all around her.  Her vision blurred, and she realized she was
crying.  Tears streamed down her face.  “I can’t heal you, Damian.  My power
isn’t working!”

“The curse ... live ... love
no more,” he whispered, collapsing.

“What is it, Damian?  Tell me
the curse, please!”

He raised a hand as though he
would touch her face, but he had not the strength to lift his arm more than a
few inches from the floor.

“You can’t leave me, Damian,”
she cried, her tears mingling with his blood.  “I love you.”

He smiled, and for a moment,
she had hope.  “I am glad I could hear you say it ... just once.”  He closed
his eyes and sighed for the last time.

“No!” she screamed and
collapsed on his chest, sobbing.  She looked up at his face, smoothing his hair
back as she cried brokenly.  Cried for the last of the Valiants ... for the
centuries of despair ... for the life he’d given up to save countless
innocents.  And she cried for herself and the love she’d wanted to share ...
with him ... for the whole of her life.

Lost now ... all was lost....

She closed her eyes, stroking
his cool chest, willing oblivion to take her.  Her fingertips tingled with the
abrasion of his hair.  She stopped and the feeling persisted.  Bianca cracked
her eyes open and bolted upright.  Her fingers glowed a pale pink, and with
each heartbeat they darkened until they glowed with blinding, crimson light.

Bianca stroked his chest,
stunned, unable to believe the power surging through her veins.  His soul ...
it remained!  It could be nothing else.  He refused to leave her, even in
death.

Heat suffused her as she massaged
his chest, willing life into his body, praying with the essence of her being
for him to breathe.  She squinted against the light, watching in amazement as
the small gash in his chest slowly mended, new flesh growing over the hole.

Bianca placed her palm over
the new, pink skin.  Light flashed with blinding force, throwing her back.  She
blinked rapidly and scrambled to his side, sliding her arm behind his neck. 
His body shook as if seized, and he gasped as his lungs pulled life giving air
into them.

She pulled him into her arms,
cradling him, kissing his face all over.  He was warm, warm with life.  “My
heart, my love, I thought I had lost you.”  She kissed the top of his head and
rubbed his back, unable to stop touching him for fear he’d disappear.

He coughed and pulled back
from her, amazement in his eyes.  He touched her cheek, her hair.  “I can feel
you, the heat of your skin and the silk of your hair.”  He looked down at the
small scar on his chest, touching it gingerly before looking at her once more. 
“The curse was fulfilled, yet you have given me a second chance, a second
life.”

“I don’t care to hear any
more of this curse.”  She reached for him, but he stopped her.

His brows drew down in a
frown.  “You must hear it.  I ... I never understood until now.  ‘For untold
years you will wait upon death’s door.  From the healer’s hand and love’s
demand, you will live and love no more.’  Your love set me free, Bianca, but
when I assumed my human form, so too was the necromancer’s curse fulfilled.  An
ultimate cruelty, to have love but to lose it.”

“Then why do you yet live?”

“He could never have known of
you, nor the power of your spirit.  We were bonded, Bianca, even through
death.”

Bianca hugged him tightly,
kissing his neck.  “I love you so much, Damian.”

They stood, holding each
other.  “I love you too,” he whispered, and gently removed her gown, dropping
it to the floor.

He looked down her body and
felt a fierce ache lift from his soul.  The years of despair had been worth it--for
if he’d not been cursed, he would never have known her.  She’d healed him
completely with her miraculous power, infusing him with life, with love.  He
gathered her in his arms and strode to the bath, placing her inside.

Damian joined her in the steaming
water.  They bathed the hardships from each other, reveling in the feel of wet,
slick skin, in the feel of each other.  He wanted to touch her everywhere, kiss
every part of her body.  He rubbed a soap covered cloth over her breasts, and
her nipples hardened, begging for his mouth.  He rinsed them and kissed her
nipples, groaning as they puckered for him and she dug her fingers into his
hair.  He wanted more, but he had to pace himself or he would lose control
before she reached her own pleasure.

He traveled down the length
of her belly, and she closed her eyes as he rubbed the cloth in her cleft.  He
massaged her clit in short, circling strokes, and she moaned, tilting her head
back to expose her throat for his eager lips.

“Damian, I cannot wait for
you anymore,” she breathed, gasping as he slid a finger into her.

She was so hot, hotter than
the water, like liquid silk.  His cock hardened unbearably, burning with the
need to sink into her depths.  He could take no more.  With a groan, he pulled
her toward him, sloshing water over the sides of the tub.

She came willingly, sliding
her breasts against his chest, rubbing against his nipples with abandon.  The
pleasure was sharp, lancing through his nerves.  She tilted her face to him,
and he crushed his mouth on hers, forcing his tongue between her lips to taste
her, as he’d longed to do upon first seeing her.