Destined for a King (9 page)

In some sense, Calista realized she wasn't in her own body. Her thighs burned from the saddle, the mail shirt weighed heavily on her shoulders, and her helm was slightly too large. It had rubbed the skin of her forehead raw, the wound stinging when runnels of sweat ran into the spot. When she breathed in, the salty smell combined with the metallic scent of her gear and her own blood.

The cold length of a concealed dagger chafed inside her right boot. A full quiver of arrows rode just behind her left thigh, and a bow was slung across her back. Not a crossbow, but a longbow. She had no idea if she possessed the strength to draw it, but she'd find out soon enough.

Still, she advanced, her mount's brisk trot jarring and making her helm abrade already raw skin. She had no choice when horsemen pressed around her on all sides. Forward, ever forward. She focused on the banner just ahead. Tattered, it bore a black bird on a blue field. A Black Kerrick. Torch's device. But Torch wasn't leading them toward battle. Her brother was.

Somehow she knew this without thinking about it, even when Calista knew she didn't have a brother. Her mother had given birth to several babes after her, but none of them had survived past their first year. But the body she inhabited had a brother—a twin brother. And he was bearing the banner, inciting his troops to move on, to attack.

Impersonating Torch, with a naked blade in his hand.

No one would believe he was Torch, though. His sword didn't flame so much as it blinded, white and hot like a streak of lightning. Calista had never seen the like; the sister took it for granted.

At the thought, a wave of irritation overpowered the discomfort of the saddle, the burden of her arms, and her outsized helmet. They'd argued over this so-called disguise. He thought he'd won the argument. She knew this as well as she knew her twin was leading them into a possible ambush.

As well as she knew Magnus would not fall for the ruse, not completely. While he wanted Torch, he'd settle for Griffin. Griffin would make the perfect hostage to draw his enemy out. What Magnus couldn't know was that he might also take the sister as well.

Jerrah. That was the name, although the Brotherhood referred to her as Swift. Calista called up the information, even if Torch had told her nothing of his siblings. She hadn't known about the sister until she came to inhabit the body.

I'm dreaming,
her real self said.
I'm dreaming, but at the same time this is actually happening.
Or it had happened. Or would. Somehow, despite attempting to share a mattress with a man who took up more than his fair share, a man she'd kissed that very day, a man who aroused feelings in her that she very much wanted to explore, despite his identity, she'd managed to drift off to sleep.

But if she was dreaming, and still this was all real, that meant something else. The Stone was working. And if the Stone was working, that meant something further. Something she'd rather not think about at this particular moment. The thought intruded nonetheless.

Destined.
Her mother had always claimed she was destined for the king, and now Torch's claims came into play. Had the Stone's powers increased? That she could not say, but Torch certainly could. Which meant she was
his
destined bride, after all.

In her mind she struggled toward wakefulness, against the truth of what was happening, but the dream had taken hold. It held her captive. And she needed all her focus, for the column had come to a halt.

Shouted orders assaulted her ears. Their leader—Griffin—had turned his courser to parade up and down in front of his line, arraying his troops. She stared at the face, bared by his raised visor. It was at once familiar and strange. Familiar because of the body she inhabited, familiar due to his resemblance to Torch, but strange because of slight differences. His jaw was not quite as square, his eyes were a stark gray, and a thin, jagged scar streaked across one cheek.

He met her gaze, his eyes widening for a moment, then narrowing. And with that change in expression, she understood something else. She was not supposed to be here. Yet, she hadn't looked away. She met her brother's gaze head-on.
Where you go, I go.
The thought originated with Jerrah, not Calista, but Calista felt the defiance rise within her as if it were her own.

Griffin's eyes blazed, but he could do nothing about the situation now. Not when he had a battle to conduct. But the magnitude of his anger and fear hit her with all the force of a gale at the top of a mountain. If not for the mount beneath her, she might have fallen.

“Stay behind the banner,” was his terse command, and then he was off, galloping down the line, barking more orders.

Jerrah, however, was not about to obey that order. The moment he was gone, she spurred her steed to the front of the line off to one side, massed in a group of other mounted archers.

Across the field, at the top of a crest, the enemy appeared, a solid wall of steel and banners. Jerrah looped the reins about her saddle, plucked an arrow from her quiver, and nocked it. The range was long, and the other bowmen waited, while Magnus's men formed behind the crown stuck through with an arrow that emblazoned his standard. To the left, Calista noted her own father's troops, grouped about the thorn of Blackbriar Keep. By the Three Gods, she might well inhabit another body, a person who saw these men as the enemy, but to her they were friends. Her father's loyal men, merely following orders.

Such is the way of war.
She'd do well to remember it, but she was not fit for this sort of duty.

A chorus of shouts echoed across the field. Magnus had sounded the charge. At an order from the lead bowman, Jerrah pointed her arrow toward the sky and pulled back the bowstring. Her arm ached with the draw as she held the position, waiting for the call to release.

“Volley!”

She loosed her dart into the wall of horsemen who charged Griffin's line. She didn't even bother to follow her arrow's course. Already she was reaching for her next shaft, nocking, drawing, waiting.

Trying not to panic as Magnus's cavaliers charged into their pikemen. Trying to block the screams, the shrieking metal, the scent of blood, and the terror that threatened to engulf her. Just her. Jerrah sat tall in the saddle, faced with the horrors of pitched battle.

The enemy surged like an incoming steel tide. Arrows found their marks, but still the cavaliers came on. So many. Her ammunition spent, Jerrah took the reins in one hand while drawing a blade with the other—a light, curved weapon whose edge reflected a fitful sun along its lethal sharpness. Not the one in her boot. That one was secret. With a cry, she spurred her mount.

Heart pounding in her throat, she tightened her grip on both the hilt and the reins. The onrush of galloping steeds overwhelmed their line, and they were plunged into an existence of moments, a world of screams, shrieking metal, grunts, moans, and red. So much red. A world where thought became impossible. She existed on sheer instinct. Parry. Thrust. Stab. Evade. Blocking the sound when her blade hit its mark. Trying to shut out the feeling of metal piercing flesh and muscle and bowel. The force required to shear through mail and bone. She must forge ahead or be engulfed. There was no other choice, just as there was no direction but ahead, always ahead to the next enemy and the next and the next.

A horse wearing blinders must feel this way, for she could no longer sense the men about her. Only the inexorable rush of the enemy. Time ceased, and burning filled her entire awareness—the burning of aching muscle, both her sword arm and her thighs. Sweat poured down her forehead, and she blinked.

When her vision cleared, a rider lunged ahead of her into a space. One of their own, swinging a blinding white sword in a wide arc. Recognition or instinct struck. Griffin.

His mount angled in front of her. The Faceless One take it, he was trying to block her. To protect her from the enemy assault. Her teeth gritting, she spurred to the right, but he anticipated the move and remained ahead of her.

“Damn you!” The clangor of battle engulfed her cry. She could take care of herself. She'd proven it thus far. And Griffin, damn it all, needed to take heed for himself.

His blade flashed skyward once more, meeting the mad thrust of a battle-axe. But whoever wielded that weapon was not alone. A second blade came screaming from nowhere. Thrust. And to her complete and utter horror pierced armor and mail and flesh and bone. It erupted from her brother's back in a spout of blood.

Her scream could not prevent him from falling, any more than it could prevent the arms that grappled her waist, and dragged her from the saddle.

Calista awoke, her heart pounding, a scream in her throat, and a grisly memory stamped on her brain forever. For a long moment, she listened to the blessed peace of her darkened chamber, the only sound her breathing.

No, not just hers. Another rhythm, ragged, not quite matching, echoed hers.

Torch.

Had he been caught in the same dream? Had he sat by, a prisoner of the vision and seen his own brother cut down? She lay still, hardly daring to move, hoping she'd been alone in that nightmare. But it hardly seemed possible she'd be the only one to experience that dream. His siblings had nothing to do with her. The vision had to come from his Stone, which only meant one thing.

He'd just witnessed his own brother's death.

Calista's scream pulled him out of the nightmare, but it could not erase the image that had been permanently etched in his mind. Griffin. By all the gods, his younger brother cut down savagely by Magnus's men.

And if he'd fought that day, it was at Torch's own behest. No. No. It wasn't possible. But the Stone wouldn't lie. Not about this.

Pain worse than a sword thrust, worse than fire, worse than anything he'd ever experienced, welled within him like a wave ready to engulf the entire world. When he'd set out on his quest to reclaim his birthright, he'd known there'd be a price. He'd just never expected it to be this high. He'd had plans for his younger brother. Great plans. Griffin was to serve on his council. He was to become his warleader.

No more. No more.

He reached out blindly. He needed to hold something to stop these throes. Anything. The first thing he encountered was soft and smelled of roses. He pulled it close and clung to it, as if it might serve as a shield. For long and longer, those arms tightened about him and rocked him in the dark, while he fought off the storm of emotions that tried to claw its way free of his belly.

He must hold on to this anguish. Hold on to this anger. Hold on to this guilt above all. Keep it within and let it fuel him to vengeance, for he would surely take it. He would make Magnus pay for this loss. He would tear Magnus from his throne and take him apart piece by piece.

“I felt it.” The croak of his own voice surprised him. “I felt the life leave him.”

He'd felt more than that, the truth be told. He'd felt the bite of steel through his body. The agony. He'd experienced the excruciating grip of death's talons. He'd seen the flicker, the face of the Faceless One.

“Hush.” Arms tightened about him, and her body shuddered against him. Her softness offered him comfort, but Faceless One take it, she'd been there, too, behind Griffin. Somewhere in his mind, the picture completed itself, and he knew—through Jerrah's eyes, she'd seen. Beneath all the shock and suffering, a wave of protectiveness rose in him. She'd seen things she never should have, same as he.

“It was my fault he was there.” Gods, what had driven him to confess? “I sent him into that.”

Gentle fingers combed through his hair. “No, you couldn't have known.”

But it was no good. He could not erase that final image from his brain. His mouth found lips, warm and supple and responsive. Full breasts pressed to his chest. Gods, her breasts, her body. Heaven. Need rose in him, inescapable. Life. He needed to feel alive. And Calista returned his kiss, so he gave himself over.

Her hands were still in his hair, stroking. He rolled her beneath him, and matched their kiss to the soothing rhythm of her fingers sifting through the strands. She tasted of sweetness and comfort, better than the strongest of wines to erase what he'd just seen. Not that he could allow himself to forget, but for the next little while he craved the kind of oblivion that only the haven of a female might bring.

And based on her response, she craved the same thing. Her touch might be unschooled, but she voiced no protest. She lay beneath him, her mouth and tongue moving in tandem with his, her body pliant and supple.

He tore away for a moment, to study her face as it was now, still innocent. In the moonlight that filtered through her window, her eyes were huge and dark, and the blush on her face appeared as a shadow, a slightly darker shade of gray against the milky paleness of her complexion. Her hair fanned out over the pillow like a fragrant cloud. Her lips parted, swollen, her breath coming in puffs against his cheek. He raised his hand and traced his thumb across the plumpness of her bottom lip, stung with his kisses.

“You are all that is beautiful, my lady.” The reverence in his voice shocked even him, but after the ugliness they had both just witnessed, he could sound no other way. Such perfection was to be cherished in its rarity.

The tip of her tongue darted out to trace the same path his thumb had taken, and his groin hitched at the sight. With his fingers, he raised her chin, shifted her face to one side, and bared her throat to his kiss. He licked the slender column of her neck, and she whimpered. Not a protest, but encouragement. He leaned in again and nipped, and her hands tightened in his hair. More than encouragement. A demand.

He let himself revel in her taste and her scent, so clean, while his fingers found the laces that bound her bodice. Slowly he plucked at the ribbons until the top of her gown loosened—loose enough to slip his hand beneath the fine linen. The soft upper swells of her breasts were like silk beneath his calloused fingers. Lower he quested, and lower still until his fingers brushed the hardened peak of her nipple. At the touch she closed her eyes and emitted a sigh, her back arching.

By all the gods, he needed a taste of her. He craved it. Just one before she stopped him, for surely she would not allow him to keep at her. Not when she was still innocent. Not when he had yet to kneel in front of her at the altar of the Three and make his vows. He tugged the fabric of her bodice aside and dipped his head to take her nipple in his mouth. She tasted as fresh as she smelled, like a tiny bit of heaven on earth. Beneath him, she arched her back and let out a long moan.

Damn, damn, and damn. He ought to stop, but he couldn't bring himself to. Not when his body demanded yet another taste and then another and another. Neither did she call a halt. She lay beneath him, her arms about him, a shield against the world, while her body responded more sweetly than he ever recalled a woman had before.

Her fingers wandered to his nape, and quested beneath his collar, seeking skin the way his tongue sought hers. Gently, she traced an ear, the cord in his neck, down the front of his shirt, her touch light but hot as a brand.

With a groan, he pulled away from her body. Just below, her bodice gaped open, and he wanted it gone, along with his breeks and braies. He wanted nothing between them, not even air. And he needed to stop before he took exactly what he wanted. His body was drawn tight as a bowstring, and the slightest give would make it snap, but he couldn't take her like that, roughly without thought to her pleasure. Not the first time.

Not ever.

“By all the gods, lady, say me nay. Stop me now, while I still can.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, and her chest heaved with every inhalation. Just as breathless as he, and he'd wager her pulse was pounding as fast. Boldly, holding his gaze, she reached up with her fingers once more, trailed them down his neck, still soft, still bloody frustrating, until she flattened her palm over his heart.

“You're alive,” she whispered. “I want to feel alive.”

He knew what was on her then. After the bloodlust came lust, pure and simple. He'd felt it himself after battle. He was feeling it even now, when he hadn't fought. But he'd witnessed. Oh, he'd witnessed.

“Make me live,” she pleaded. “Live with me. Show me.”

He hardly knew what she was saying. She probably didn't know herself. The Stone at his neck throbbed with the beat of his heart, and with the rush of his blood to his cock.

“You would have me buried deep inside you.” He no longer knew if he was asking permission or warning. His head felt empty of everything but her and her warmth and her softness.

Her only reply was her hand slipping lower, a firm caress that sent more blood racing south. She reached the waistband of his breeks and hesitated. She'd never done anything so brazen in her life, he was certain, but gods don't let her stop now. He reared up and yanked the shirttails from his breeks and sent the garment sailing over his head.

She gasped, and the color on her cheeks deepened. He knew what she was seeing—a mass of muscle and hair traced through with the thin veins of scars. Her fingers reached out and touched a ridge that cleaved from his shoulder to his upper arm, and he knew she must be recalling their shared dream.

He lowered his body over hers. “Do not think on it.” He nuzzled her bodice aside and found her nipple. “Now is not the time to think,” he whispered around the bud. “Just feel.”

“Feel.” The word floated to his ear on a desire-drenched rasp.

And then she took him at his word, her hands flattening over the planes of his chest and back. Moving, seeking, exploring. Her nails scraped his skin. Gods, once she'd gained a bit of experience…Once he'd shown her what he liked…But at the moment, he couldn't imagine liking anything more than awakening a maiden—this maiden—to the power that lay within her. The power to bring even a king to his knees.

Her hand drifted lower, across his belly, teasing, tempting. Agony.

With his fingers, he tore at the laces on his breeks. “You're like to drive me mad.”

“I am?” He could hear the widening, sensual smile in her voice. The intrigue. The need.

“You are.” He grasped her wrist, and moved her hand lower. “Touch me.”

Her fingers traced his length, lightly. Too lightly. He gritted his teeth. Gods.

“More. Don't be afraid of it. It's only flesh and blood.”

“Your flesh and blood.” But she slid her hand lower, and her fingers curled about his cock, gripping, testing the girth.

He surged against her hand. He couldn't help himself. And a groan emerged from the back of his throat.

She flattened her palm, pressing, her fingers questing lower still, to the base, and her nails teased at his bollocks. Mindlessly, he moved against her, until she gripped him once more, but that was far worse. His breath hissed through his teeth.

“Is this right?”

“More than right.” He could barely get the words out. “Too right.”

He should let her finish him. In that way he'd pose no danger to taking her before his time. But he also needed to touch her, to taste her. His hand slipped along her thigh until his fingers found the edge of her skirt. The skin of her inner thigh lay smooth and soft beneath his palm. Her breath quickened as he worked his way upward.

When his fingers parted her, she sighed.

“If there's anything you don't like, you must tell me.” Gods only knew how he got the words out, for her hand was still busy on his cock.

Her hand stilled. “I…I hardly know.”

“You'll know when it happens. I swear before the Three, if you tell me to stop, I will.” With his fingertip, he traced the seam between her legs. Dampness and warmth slipped out to greet his touch. Gods, so eager, and yet he'd find the strength to keep his vow if she asked it of him.

Her thighs fell open to accommodate his touch, and he pressed more firmly, seeking the bud at the top of her cleft. Her eyes fluttered closed, and he let himself imagine watching her face as he filled her again and again and again, until her body gripped him in ripples of ecstasy. By all Three Gods he wanted to be inside her when that happened.

And she wasn't telling him to stop.

His finger circled the knot of flesh. She gasped and sighed with the movement.

“Is that what you feel when I touch you?” Her fingers curled tighter about his cock, and the ache in his bollocks tightened with it.

“I can only imagine. Tell me what it feels like.”

“It's like you're twisting me tighter and tighter until I can't stand anymore.” At her words, he paused and searched her face for any sign of discomfort, but her eyes remained closed, her lips parted, her breath coming in shallow puffs.

She canted her hips. “Don't you dare stop.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Your willing servant, my lady.”

And so he teased and tested, watching her response, driving her higher, drawing the most delicious cries from her lips, until her entire body tensed. Her back arched, a shudder passed through, and she keened, oh, she keened. He pushed her through the climax, drawing out the pleasure with lighter touches, until her body fell limp beneath him.

Now was the time to stop. He ought to ease away from her now, and slake his desire with his hands. It wouldn't take much. The memory of her cries still echoed through his brain. He could pleasure himself to the memory of that sound until the end of his days.

But her arms reached up and she clung to him, her lips seeking his. He gave in to the temptation to kiss her, gently, to ease her back to earth, but his lady was demanding. One kiss wasn't enough, and soon it wasn't enough for him, either. But he must pull away before he buried himself inside her.

When he tore his lips from hers, her eyes fluttered open. “I haven't asked you to stop.”

Holy Mother. “I should, before it's too late.”

“It is already too late, and I cannot take all the pleasure for myself and not give any back. The dream was shared.”

Shared, indeed. In more ways than she realized. Not only the nightmare they'd just lived. She'd been part of his dreams ever since he'd discovered his Stone.

But by the Faceless One, how did she know? He reached up and brushed a stray tendril of her hair back from her face. “I would have spared you.”

“You didn't know. How could you?” She raised her lips to his and pressed. A gentle pressure. It shouldn't have fired him.

Shouldn't have, but something burned inside him, and it was more than simple lust. Against his chest, his Stone seemed to throb in time with his heartbeat, rapid and urgent. Her hands slid down his back, mapping planes and muscle, smooth skin and scars.

“That could have just as easily been you,” she murmured against his mouth.

Her touch roamed still farther, dipping beneath his breeks until she gripped his backside. A shudder passed through him. His control balanced on the edge of a knife.

“But it wasn't,” he grated in a last-ditch effort to stop. “I wish it had been. I sent him onto that field. He went there for me.”

“For love of you. You can't stop now.” She kissed him again, this time with more force. By the Three Gods,
she
was seducing
him.
It made no sense, but his mind was beyond puzzling that out.