Mad for Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 2 (26 page)

Chapter Fourteen

In their bedroom, she broached her topic. “I’m going with you.”

He was standing at the dressing table, taking out the jewelled pin holding his neckcloth’s creases, but at her words he spun around and the pin fell to the floor.

Now she knew what a pin dropping sounded like.

He stared at her. “No, you’re not. You can’t.”

“I can. I’ll be your carer. Don’t the mad have carers?”

“Not in the Incurables ward at Bedlam, and that’s where I’m going.”

She shrugged. “They could. Or I could feign madness.”

“That’s easy enough. But after they’ve chained you and made you lie in your own filth for a month, you’ll be mad in truth. Then they throw water over everyone. Usually out of the river or leftover from washing linen. You get grit to eat. They call it bread, but it can break your teeth, there’s so much gravel in it. And sour beer or water to drink. Don’t drink the water.” His mouth settled into a firm line. “Still want to do it?”

Without hesitation, she nodded. “If you’re doing it, so am I.”

He came to her then, and placed his hands on her upper arms. “My love, my love, I don’t want to see you in that place, seeing me as I am at these times. I want to keep you away from that.”

“No. For better or for worse, remember? In sickness and in health. I meant it, even if you did not.” Determination filled her mind; she wouldn’t allow anything else. If this was their last time when pure love took them, then she wanted to be there when it happened. Wanted to see that light of love leave his eyes. Then she’d know what to do.

“I need you here, to wait for me. I need to know you’re safe.”

“I’m safer with you.”

“Not when I’m mad.” He gazed down at her, his eyes lakes of sorrow, the grey the colour of rainclouds. “I could hurt you. Can you imagine how that would make me feel?”

“And me, waiting at home like a good, obedient little wife. Is that what you want?” Aurelia wouldn’t stand for it. She knew her role in his life now, and it was that. “I can’t.”

“Then you’ll leave me?”

She turned away. “No.” She couldn’t do that. But she’d not stand by and let him take all the risks. This mess was partly her fault, but it was that consideration that forced her into making her stand. “You can trample me down, surround me with gauze until I can’t breathe. I won’t be me then, and our love will die. That’s not a promise or a threat, it’s a prediction. You want me. Well, you have me. All that I am, good and bad.”

He touched her again, and she shuddered, resisting the yearning to turn around, go into his arms and let him have his way. But she would not. Could not. “I want to be more than the woman you protect. You won’t hurt me, Blaize, but perhaps you need to prove that to yourself as much as to me. You’re not sure, are you? When you’re mad and in full possession of your powers, when you’re not drugged.”

His hands shook before he firmed his hold on her. In a low voice, he confessed, “I couldn’t bear it.”

“Then be brave.” Having mastered her emotions enough to show him a bold face, she turned around, but didn’t move closer. “You won’t, Blaize. You attacked me in the maze because you were crazed and under the influence of drugs, perhaps enchantment. I’ve been reading. Bacchus’s madness isn’t like that. It’s not unreasoning and unthinking.”

Gazing at her in silence, she could almost see him thinking, sense that clever mind working behind the darkened eyes until traces of silver-grey returned. And finally he spoke. “I spread my senses and take in anyone within a short distance. That can be a lot of people. I persuade them
en masse
and remove all the denials, all the things that tell them not to do what I want them to. In return I give them ecstatic frenzy. I can achieve great things in that state. Removing reason ensures actions and thoughts not normally undertaken. It gives sense to the nonsensical. But removing those natural barriers comes at a cost.”

“In your natural state of madness you won’t hurt me.”

Did he remember trying to throttle her, or was he relying on what she and d’Argento had told him? If he couldn’t remember, she had a better chance, because his emotions weren’t engaged at the time. “I can’t be sure of that.”

“You’ve made me like you.” She moved closer, let him take her in his arms. “I’m strong, I can fight back.”

“Not against me in the full power of my gift.” He cupped the back of her head. “I’m stronger, I’m more cunning than almost anyone alive today. I can destroy anyone I want to.”

Despite the quiet words, she believed him. “I don’t care. With you, and your followers—”

“Bacchantes,” he corrected her.

“Bacchantes. With them, I’ll be safer against my mother. The centre of the whirlwind—the eye of the storm is the safest place.”

He barked a laugh, and because he never closed his mind to her, not completely, she felt his anger rising. Nothing for her to fear. In fact, she could welcome it. “A fallacy. Do you want to know what it’s like when I don’t hold back? Do you?” His voice rose.

“More than anything in the world.” She meant every word. She wouldn’t live a half-life, being constantly protected and sheltered. She knew she wouldn’t get in his way, and as strong as she was, she could fight for herself. Like many young ladies, she’d had some basic instruction on shooting and fencing. Fencing for balance and grace, shooting for country pursuits. It meant she knew the basics of fighting, the principles of defence. She would use that.

“You don’t.”

He groaned as if finding it hard to fight her. Good, she was glad. Dragging her close so she could scarcely breathe, he brought his mouth down on to hers. His lips crushed hers, pressing them hard against her teeth, and when he thrust his tongue into her mouth, she took it, sucked it and stroked it, ravenous for him.

But he drew away, and when she tried to follow, eyes half-closed, he held her off. She snapped her eyes fully open. “Blaize, I want you.”

“A bargain.” His face flamed with new purpose. “I had planned to send you away tonight. Stay with me. I won’t be fully open in the morning. I’ll be insane enough for d’Argento to get me into Bedlam with little effort, but still with some control over myself. See me then. You’ll change your mind.”

“I won’t.” But she’d accept his bargain. “Make love to me, Blaize. Let me make love to you.”

“You think you can cope with me in my other state? Free from reason, without civilisation?”

She stared into eyes gone dark and wild. Lightness sparked from the edges, otherworldly, as if he’d already lost his mind. But she wasn’t afraid. She gazed into the eyes of her husband. At last, she’d know him as he really was. “Yes.”

Only that word, but it was enough.

He dragged her robe from her shoulders and tore at his, heedless of the fine silk. Fabric ripped and she was naked, her robe in ragged strips. She let the pieces fall where they would, reached for him. He shook off the remnants of his robe and picked her up as if she weighed nothing, slammed her against the nearest wall. She called out.

But not for help. She cried his name.

That one screamed “Blaize!” roused him, and he lifted her, pressed his erection against her, demanding entry.

Aurelia opened her thighs, hooked them around his legs and let him support her. Tucking his hands under her backside, he dragged her up, level with him, and he thrust.

She closed her eyes on the sheer ecstasy of his body filling hers, and she opened her mind. Deliberately let him take everything he wanted. He could destroy her, she knew, wipe her mind, but he would not. “I trust you, I love you.”

Each word was jarred by his hard, punishing thrusts, driving her against the wall in a series of dull thuds. He didn’t stop, offered her no mercy. But that was fine, because she didn’t want any.

“Show me.” Opening her eyes wide, she sent him the mental message.
I want to see into you. Let me see.

Some called the eyes the window of the soul, she couldn’t remember who. Not knowing didn’t make it any less true. Blinking, he opened his eyes.

They looked normal, pale grey, warmly meeting hers. She looked deeper. “This is me,” he said. “All of it. Whenever you see me differently, remember this. You can bring me back this way, but only you.”

Then she understood. He’d always given her the truth, told her who he was and what it meant to him to have her in his life. No different now. This was Blaize and it always would be. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” he replied. Gritting his teeth, he pounded into her, driving her to a level of insanity that had nothing to do with wine or the lack of it. Something they shared, a heat, part of them both. Their own special kind of madness.

Repeating, “Love you,
love
you,” he thrust until he became a part of her, until she couldn’t think of anything but him.

Jagged spears of pleasure shot from where they joined, up her spine, through her mind and her heart, taking every part of her. If she died now, she’d have accomplished something because here and now she was linking the two parts of the man she loved.

Wildness took him, and then her, pushing her higher, and still she didn’t come, or she did and this was part of one long orgasm. She couldn’t decide whether the spasms wracking her were part of that or of her opening up, accepting him, every part. If he wanted to kill her now, then it was his right. Not because he was her husband, but because she gave him the right.

“Everything I am is yours. Everything.”

Growling wordlessly, he shoved his body into hers, as graceless as she’d ever known him, letting go even of that, the elegance she’d thought such a part of him. “Come, damn you!”

“It matters to you?” If he were truly mad, then surely it would not. Cause and causation would have no meaning for him. Or, perhaps, the feelings of others.

“More than anything. I’m close, but I don’t want to go alone.”

Crying his name, she pressed her shoulders against the wall behind her, pushing her body into his, her channel pulsing in hot, tight contractions against him, and with a shout, he came, flooding her so much that liquid trickled out of their joined bodies to dampen her thighs, even though he was still hard inside her.

Clutching him, she held on tightly with arms and legs, and let her forehead sink down so it rested on his chest. The air was sonorous with their ragged breaths. After a minute or so, she found her voice. “If that was madness, can you give up wine entirely?”

Laughter spluttered out of him. “I thought I’d hurt you.”

“I don’t care. In any case, I heal fast these days.”

Helplessly, he laughed, his chest pumping like a bellows. Soft breaths puffed against her ear. Shifting his weight slightly, he firmed his hold under her and lifted her away from the wall. Aurelia was happy for him to take her wherever he wanted to, but it turned out only to be as far as the bed, where he laid her down and followed her, drawing the sheets over them.

“It’s a warm night, but we should spare the maid’s modesty,” Blaize said.

“You’ll let the maid in in the morning? Won’t you be insane?”

He wrapped her warmly in his arms. “It appears not. I’m still me, and I’ll still do what I need to in order to prevent your mother causing any more heartache and deaths, but with you, I can keep in touch.” When she drew her head back to look at his face, she saw a sense of wonder infusing his features.

“I did nothing except trust you. I can’t be the first person to do that.”

“I gave you a taste of what is to come and you still gave yourself to me.” He touched her chin, smiled. “Nobody else has done that before.” Bending his head, he kissed her, as gentle and sweet as he’d been all-consuming before.

“That’s how it should be,” she said, when their lips parted. “I’ve been thinking. Shall I tell you a story?”

Rolling on to his back, he gave a choked laugh and covered his forehead with his arm. “You might as well. After all, what else do we have to do?”

She turned so she rested on him, her upper arm on his chest. Spreading her hand, she let her fingers thread through his silky chest hair. Not enough to appear animalistic, but enough to remind her of his essential maleness. As if she needed reminding.

She smiled down at him. “Once there was a woman who mistakenly thought she loved a man. He was sent to her country to rid it of a monster, but the woman’s father loved the monster and didn’t want him to die. So he imprisoned him in a maze. A labyrinth.”

Blaize’s gaze sharpened, but he said nothing.

“The woman loved this man so much that she helped him kill the monster. She gave him a ball of yarn and told him to unwind it as he passed through the maze. That way he could find his way back after he killed the beast. After the deed was done, he took the woman with him when he sailed for his home in Greece. But he abandoned her on a small island.

“A god was passing. Indeed, it could be said that the man had left her there on purpose, knowing this man with his band of revellers was passing that way. But instead of taking her and driving her to a frenzy, he fell madly in love with her and took her up into his chariot to be his queen.”

“Bacchus and Ariadne,” Blaize said, his voice barely a breath. “Why didn’t I see this?”

“Because we were engrossed in saving our lives and beating my mother. She wasn’t in the story. There are only similarities, not parallels.”

“But I should have realised in the maze.”

“She addled your mind,” she reminded him. “And I always knew the maze as part of Kentmere Castle. I didn’t associate it with the myth. And I haven’t read Ovid more than once. My brother’s tutor thought it too racy.”

“He was right,” Blaize said. He stroked the upper slopes of her breasts softly. “But I should have guessed.”

“It’s only parts of the story, it’s not repeated.”

“Thank God for that. I wouldn’t like to think that the incarnations of Bacchus would live the same life over and over again. How tedious would that be?”

Drawing her close, he urged her to rest her head on his shoulder. “I like you going to sleep there. It gives me the illusion that you’re weak and you need caring for. But if ever I had that idiotic notion, you dispelled it tonight. You’re right, my love. You’re my queen, not a pet. If you insist on sharing my misfortunes, then I won’t stop you. Sane or mad, I’m yours.”