A Thread in the Tangle (68 page)

“But you can’t use a weapon.”
 
Tears shimmered down her cheeks.

“Can’t I?”

“The only weapon I’ve seen you use is that little knife you eat with.”

“My dear, as I am fond of saying—curse the future.
 
I try to live in the moment as fully as possible, for it might not come around again for some time, so push aside your worries and let us see what enjoyment we can conjure for you this evening.”

Marsais brushed her eyelids with his lips, as gentle as a snowflake settling on her lashes, cooling her fear.
 
He helped her to her feet and they retired to his bedchamber where she left to do whatever females did before such matters, which in his experience, seemed virtually instinctive.

The fire flickering in the hearth brought to mind a sobering thought.
 
If a sneeze caused a burst of flame, what would result from a complete loss of control?

Marsais wisely decided to take precautions.
 
After stripping down to his smallclothes, he placed a Ward of Protection around the hearth and bed.
 
Although the ward offered some protection against fire, he certainly was not going to leave it at that.

As he rummaged through a cabinet of vials, suspiciously sniffing each, Isiilde returned, having exchanged her clothes for a robe.
 
She hurried across the room towards him, hand straying to her neck.

“Pick one.”
 
He held two rooster stamped vials before her, letting her sniff each in turn.
 
When she had chosen, he upended the one she had pointed to and gagged, fighting to swallow what tasted like a mouthful of ash.

“Was that the wrong one?”

“Hmm, no this was the correct one, thank you.”
 
The potion took a few moments to work its way through his veins before the frisson of frozen needles subsided.
 
Oenghus could never be bothered to rid his potions of unpleasant side effects.
 
Of course, Oenghus had the constitution of a rock golem so in all likelihood the Nuthaanian hadn’t noticed any.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“I don’t feel like it.”
 
And indeed, the thought appeared to unsettle her, so much so, that Marsais gently took her by the hand and led her to the bed, folding back the feather filled blankets.

Isiilde hesitated over the ties of her robe, and then came to a decision, shrugging off her garment and letting it slide to the floor with a rustle of cloth.

At the sight of her sleek, ethereal body, his heart quickened.
 
She slid onto the bed—his bed.
 
And although he felt as if he had never gazed upon a woman before this night, Marsais forced his mind to clear when he noticed her trembling.

She crossed her arms over her pale breasts, which still showed signs of the previous night’s abuse, and he slipped onto the bed, gathering her close, in an embrace more protective than amorous.

The world fell away.
 
Slowly, her slender muscles relaxed against his warmth.
 
Shielded by a pair of long, wiry arms and reassuring shoulders, the nymph melted against his chest, shutting her senses to all else save the beat of his heart and the breath of his lungs.
 
But her peace was shattered by a voice swimming up from the dark, cold depths of her mind, clawing himself insistently towards the surface of her thoughts.

Get away from the thief!
 
How can you lie with a man who has injured me so?
 
Come to me now and I will forgive you.

“Please take me,” she whimpered.
 
“Stievin is calling.”

“In time,” he soothed, stroking the waterfall of fire cascading down her back.
 
If he had not loved her so deeply, then he would have gladly done as she asked.

Desire burned in his veins and clawed at his insides like an animal.
 
If she asked him to leave, he doubted his will would be strong enough.
 
The sensation of her trembling body made him recall his youth, as a vigorous young man who had never known a woman’s touch.
 
Small wonder the gods craved their kind.

Her slender stomach brushed his own and she tensed like a skittish filly.

“Are you frightened?” he asked.

“Yes,” came her whispered reply.

“Of me?”

Isiilde hesitated before answering.
 
“Of the pain.”
 
His heart lurched.

“Have I ever hurt you?”

“You stepped on my foot once,” she pointed out, meeting his gaze, and he smiled like a love struck fool.

“My dear, lovemaking is an act of gentleness, not brutality.
 
I assure you, there will be no pain.”
 
The creature in his arms was like a delicate vase of frail beauty.
 
He trailed his fingertips down the curve of her neck, caressing the intricacies of her spine with a feather light touch.
 
“It is a thing of soft caresses and gentle kisses,” he whispered, brushing his lips against her forehead, breathing in the scent of her—ripe and blooming, skin as soft as a rose petal.
 
He felt a clumsy beast who aspired to soar in the heavens with a graceful bird.

“I have never kissed a man,” she admitted with a blush.

“O, come now, not even that young swordsmith?”
 
His eyes strayed to her ear, tracing its sweeping curve.

“Oen forbid me to go near him and I do try to listen.”

“Yes, my dear, you do at that.
 
I know it hasn’t been easy for you here.”

“I had you.”
 
She untangled her arm from between their bodies, and slid a tentative hand along the raw scar cutting across his chest.

Marsais sucked in a sharp breath.
 
The searing pain that he had endured for most of his life vanished beneath her fingertips, bringing a flood of lost memories surging to the surface of his mind.
 
He stared at her with wide, wondrous eyes, trying to absorb a wash of new insights.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked in alarm, snatching her hand away.

“No—not at all,” he breathed, pressing her hand against his chest again, savoring the absence of a burdening ache.
 
Her touch was a balm to his shattered mind.
 
“On the contrary, I lapsed into one of my more whimsical musings.”
 
This was no time to forge into the tale of that foul wound and no time to meditate upon new revelations.
 
“For you see, in all my two thousand and some odd years, I have never kissed a man either.
 
I can only imagine how dreadfully frightening it must be.”

A smile touched her eyes and she stole a timid kiss.

“Hmm, and I have never kissed a nymph before—until now,” he uttered softly, dazed from the brush of her lips.

Heat blossomed to the tips of her ears.
 
She settled firmly against him, sliding a leg between his own and draping an arm around his waist, tracing the scars that decorated his back with wistful fingertips.

“What did Oen mean when he said I’m another notch in your belt?”
 
Although the lilt to her voice was gone, her curiosity was there.
 
She almost sounded like herself again.
 
Did he calm her that much, or were nymphs so easily distracted?

“Oenghus was accusing me of keeping count, although his belt would far surpass mine.”

“Keeping count of what?”

“Women.
 
I’ll be honest with you, my dear, you won’t be my first.”

“I assumed as much,” she grinned, nearly laughing, but not quite.

“However, I have never been with a nymph.”
 
In this lifetime,
he added silently.

“And why are you afraid of boats?”

“Not of boats, but what lies beneath.
 
The ocean doesn’t care for the likes of me.
 
Hmm, I must concede one point to Oenghus—in that I tend to attract a wide variety of womanly creatures.
 
I’m not at all sure what they see in me.
 
Oenghus was referring to a woman who washed up on shore one day.
 
For brevity’s sake, she formed an attachment to me before I discovered that she was the daughter of Nereus.”

“The god of the ocean?” she squeaked.

“I’m afraid so.
 
Nereus wasn’t pleased with me to say the least.”

“What happened?”

“My dear, I am very pleasantly distracted by the present and could not bring myself to dwell in the past.
 
Perhaps another night?”

“Will you promise?
 
Because if you are killed tomorr—” Her voice caught in her throat, and she struggled to continue, eventually saying the next with a ragged breath, “If you are killed tomorrow, then I’ll be left wondering for the rest of my life.”

“I swear it, Isiilde,” he spoke softly in her ear with all the conviction of a Seer uttering prophecy.
 
There was far too much at stake for him to fail.

“Ears,” he said, suddenly.

“What?”

“The afternoon in my study, before Oenghus pelted me with a mug.
 
You inquired as to what arouses me,” he explained with a roguish grin.
 
“I happen to find a woman’s ears particularly alluring.
 
And in all my long years I have never seen a more enticing pair than yours.”

The nymph favored him with a smile that was for no other—a mischievous curve of her lips and a beguiling light in her eye that whispered of the intimacies to come.
 
She wrapped her arms around his neck, and her soft lips followed, pressing fiercely into his.

Past, present, and future faded.
 
The nymph consumed his world, pushing thought and reason from his mind.
 
Her hot breath filled him from head to toe, drinking up his cold breath to replace it with her love.
 
She tasted of innocence and passion; of fire and ice, as potent as a drug, and he responded to her kiss with a ravenous craving.

Marsais longed to hold her close, to fall inside of her, and lose himself completely.
 
But she suddenly withdrew, frightened by the intensity of emotion.
 
It took every ounce of self-control to rein in the mind numbing lust that clawed at him, however, he had only to look at the bruises marring her body to find the strength.

Isiilde trembled, shivering at her own nakedness.
 
He pulled the blanket up to her shoulders, creating a haven of warmth.
 
His lips brushed her ear with soft whispers of beauty while his fingers caressed the length of her back with a gentle, undemanding touch.
 
Long minutes passed, and his patience was rewarded.
 
She pressed herself against him again, more afraid of herself than his calming presence, unsettled by the power stirring in her blood.

This time it was he who kissed her, slow and soft, savoring the dance of tongues and stir of breath.
 
When her eyes glittered with wonder and flashed with hunger, he covered her body with lingering kisses.
 
Her soft moans were music to his ears and he coaxed a symphony of pleasure from her lips.

When her breasts were heaving and toes curling, he eased himself on top of her, careful of his weight, aware of how soft and ripe her body was.
 
Their eyes touched, transfixed—lost in a reflective pool of tenderness.
 
Her silken legs twined around his thigh, and he pressed himself gently against her eager heat.
 
She rubbed her cheek against his, inhaling his scent.
 
And then she trembled faintly.
 
Through the haze of desire, he recognized fear.

“I won’t hurt you, Isiilde,” he reassured, softly.

“He won’t let me.
 
He’s screaming at me to stop.”

“Stievin doesn’t own you.
 
No one will ever own you unless you allow them.”

At the conviction in his voice, Isiilde squeezed her eyes shut and he kissed her tears.
 
With an exhalation that shook her bones, she unwrapped her legs and surrendered herself to him.

Until that blissful moment, Marsais discovered that he had never truly lived.
 
Power as he had never imagined shuddered through his body.
 
He gasped in shock, overwhelmed, pressing his hips against her with more force than intended.
 
The nymph cried out with pain, surprise, but mostly fervor as her neck arched and her lips parted.
 
Through the blur of ecstasy he watched as the serpent of fire unfurled its long body from around her neck, slithering over her shoulder, winding itself up his arm, merging two spirits into one.

All her fear, her pain, love and pleasure, settled in his heart as if it were his own.
 
His breath was hers and her heart thundered inside his chest, one filled the other, losing sense of where one stopped and the other began.