Passion Light (20 page)

She loved the deepest penetration she had ever experienced. She held onto the table and gladly took all he could give her.

He held her waist and occasionally touched her nipples as he gave her all she wanted. She felt connected to him emotionally as well as physically in a way few couples ever experience.

He seemed to answer her, but not verbally. “I am yours and you are mine.” She sensed his satisfaction and his arousal and his happiness.

The driving rhythm was working on them both. Isabelle tried to tighten her sheath around him to see how it would feel. Evan groaned and said, “Do it again.”

She did it in synchronization with his thrusts.

He ran a finger under her to her clit and she broke and came screaming. She felt on fire and warmed with golden light and passion. He followed her immediately, pounding out the perfection of their sexual union by filling her up with his cum which was dripping out of her as he eased his cock out. When they were spent he picked her up and carried her to bed.

Chapter 22

Sex did help them rest, but Isabelle woke in just a few hours. Her mind was racing, going round and round with disjointed thoughts. It overwhelmed her thinking that her uncle, her own blood relative planned to burn her…kill her…make her suffer unimagined pain. She couldn’t deal with it.

Evan reached for her and urged her out of bed. He could sense her unease and her hurt feelings and her confusion. They dressed even though it was night. Isabelle knew she could not get back to sleep. She was too upset and frustrated by her inability to reason with her relative and his cronies.

“I’m not going to try to tell you not to worry,” Evan said. “I know it’s impossible under the circumstances. Ana and the others are slipping into the castle,” he told her. “They plan to hide in the tunnels until the spectacle begins and then things will change.”

“You mean they are going to cut things that close?” Isabelle asked.

“There will be no doubt of his guilt if he actually starts the process of doing what he has said he plans to do,” Evan told her. “Of course it means that you will go through a terrible ordeal. Can you trust us to help you before it becomes an actual execution?”

“I trust you more than anyone I have ever known,” Isabelle said. “The way things have been going here I know I would have died without knowing the things you have taught me about how things can be between men and women. I never would have known that a man could read my mind and understand how I feel about things. I trust you like I trust my friends. That’s a valuable thing to me, something I didn’t even believe was possible between men and women. But this is hard what Uncle plans to do to me. I am afraid. I can’t seem to feel any sense of calm except just after you make love to me.”

“Ana is a priestess in our world,” Evan said. “She has great powers. I have a few skills myself. All the people who came with me have both talents and experience. You will not be hurt. I want you to believe me.”

She didn’t say anything else. She just stepped into his embrace.

Chapter 23

The castle was filling with a crowd of people, more than they had ever entertained. Albert and the guards were stretched to the limit trying to keep things under control and making sure all the guests had been sufficiently disarmed, their money collected and their needs and wants fulfilled.

Albert was also in a very bad mood. It was impossible for him to tolerate what Uncle was planning and he was short tempered and looking for a fight with just about anyone, even Doris. His normal composure was cracking and he was quickly forgetting his usual iron willed control.

“That damned perverted asshole is going to kill the woman who keeps this place in food and relative comfort,” he snarled at his wife, apparently completely unconcerned that Olaf, Uncle’s new guard captain was standing right next to him.

Doris was crying and she couldn’t seem to stop, either. She was still managing to do a fair job of directing the food and drink service but she was struggling with both the various tasks and her emotions.

Albert dragged her into his arms but he felt helpless to comfort her and wished he could cry, too. He looked at Olaf and noticed he didn’t look all that happy either.

“You know there is not another reasonably safe and comfortable place to live within 500 miles,” he growled at the other man. Olaf was different than Luther. He was smarter and he was also decent, unlike many of Uncle’s men. “Isabelle made this place the only place for miles around where we could live through all the unrest after the wars in reasonable safety and fed us all, too. So that uncle of hers just moves in here where he can be pretty safe, too and has us all running a whore house after he kills her father. I should have strangled him long ago. I still could do it and no one would miss him at all.”

“Before we came here none of us were getting enough to eat,” Olaf said. “The old man said he knew a safe place we could go to and live in relative comfort and luxury. He was right. It was true, but we didn’t catch on for a while that all the comforts and the food were Isabelle’s talents and work. We just thought all the people here knew how to do those things because they were country people or farmers or good gardeners. I realized pretty soon that it was Isabelle who knew how to do things and most of the rest of the people here were just a bunch of strays she gathered up and allowed to shelter here. She even is kind to the whores. She treats everyone the same. She’s treated me when I did not feel well and she was reserved but kind even though I was her uncle’s man. She had every reason to distrust me, but she was still kind.”

The man shook his head is confusion and distaste for what was happening. “I know what the old man wants me and the others to do, but we don’t want to do it.”

He was a big man, especially for an Earthling at nearly six and a half feet tall, with a tall lean body. He’d had been painfully thin when he arrived at the castle, but he had filled out and gained strength in the four years he had been getting more to eat. His straight blond hair fell around a narrow face and was very long. He tied it back with a piece of leather. His eyes were an icy, pale blue and he had a beard. Like many of the men he avoided shaving because their beards helped keep their faces warmer in the cold weather that was the general rule.

He was more of a thinker than Luther who had relished his role as top guard. He’d been a natural bully, but Olaf was much different. He was more intelligent and a logical thinker and he had military training. He had gained his position from merit.

Uncle had liked Luther because he was easier to manipulate, but no one else in his original company could do what Olaf could. Additionally many of the men who had come with them were getting too old or ill to make good fighting men. They had become ill partly because they had been exposed to radiation in the wars. Since they had come to the castle they lived self-indulgent lives, having sex with too many partners, drinking too much and foregoing physical training.

Olaf was really the only one capable of doing the job. He and Albert had spent the morning on preparations for the planned event.

Albert’s mahogany face was sweating. “I just spent the morning preparing a fucking funeral pyre,” he snarled. “This is not how I want to spend my time. I have followed the last order I will take from Uncle. It’s over.”

Doris continued to cry. “But what can we do?” she asked.

“I think we need to talk with that husband of hers,” Albert said. “He never leaves her side and he looks like he’d be a good man in a fight.”

“He does,” Olaf agreed. “I don’t know if you noticed that Luther just disappeared after he hit him in the neck at the wedding. I think he killed him and somehow disposed of the body without fanfare or even notice. He carried him from the hall and that was the last anyone saw of him. I’ve thought about it but I’ve avoided starting any sort of search because none of us miss that bastard including his girlfriend.”

“Do you really think he killed him?” Albert asked. “He seems like a mild mannered guy to me. He looks grim but he’s never made an aggressive move since he reprimanded the priest, even under duress like he’s experiencing now if he cares for Isabelle. Do you think he cares for her enough to use that big muscled body to help her?”

Olaf looked Albert in the eye and said, “I think he is helping her as we speak. All we may need to do is wait for the right moment and support whatever he does.”

“Do you actually believe that?” Albert asked him. He was eager for anything that would give them a chance to save Isabelle.

“It’s just a feeling I have,” Olaf admitted. “The guy looks like he’s not the sort to just roll over and let things happen. He only has his friend who stays in Glory’s room to help as far as we know, but I still don’t buy it. I think he can do a lot more to change the situation than we might think.”

“We could talk to him and Isabelle,” Doris suggested hesitantly. “I hate the idea of her feeling like she has no supporters among the people here. She deserves our support and our loyalty.”

“You talk to her,” Albert said. “It will attract less attention from the bad guys if you take something to her room and speak with her and her new husband.”

Olaf nodded in agreement but suggested instead, “Maybe I should go, too. People would think I am doing some duty that has to do with the event. Doris could come along because she is helping her get ready. Uncle wants her to wear a costume that will leave her nearly naked.”

Doris nodded in agreement, her face showing considerable distaste. “The seamstresses have been working on it the past couple of days. It certainly will leave her mostly naked.”

“We could simply deliver it to her room and talk with her and Evan then,” Olaf said. “She trusts Doris more than she does me, but I think they will listen to what we have to say.”

“Do it, damn it,” Albert growled angrily. “I can’t stand this shit.”

Chapter 24

Doris and Olaf managed to slip away and go to Isabelle’s room within about an hour. The witch burning was scheduled for the early evening. It was already late afternoon and Isabelle’s costume was ready.

Olaf knocked on the door before turning the lock.

Evan told him to enter. Olaf allowed Doris to precede him and then followed.