Black Moon Draw (24 page)

“Have you no sense of rhythm!” I shout at him.

“Mayhap you can show me rhythm when we are through this,” he responds.

“Not without your man parts falling off!” I twist to glare up at him. I can’t see him beyond the roof and brace myself for another jarring. It comes and I grit my teeth.
Please hold! I’m not ready to die!
I will the sheet.

“You will not die, Naia,” the Shadow Knight calls, his voice firm. “I will not let that happen.”

“If you want to do me a favor, stop reading my mind,” I retort.

“You believe . . . me capable?” he returns, grunting as he begins swinging me in concert with the swaying tower.

“You’ve done it more than once!”

“’
Tis a good sign.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Since you are my battle-witch, then ‘tis a fair sign indeed. You may have some use yet.”

In bed, god willing. I hope he doesn’t hear what I think about his body.

“I do,” he responds.

Oh, god.

I struggle to twist enough to see his face but can’t. I’m swinging in rhythm with the tower. Dread settles into my stomach for a reason other than the fact I’m dangling several hundred feet above the ocean.

If I live through this tower incident, I’m renewing my determination to do no more than save his world and go home. I’m not falling for him more than I have, not about to risk any chance at happiness by diving down that rabbit hole.

I swing like a rag doll. The tower is moving. I’m not sure how much effort it’ll take to reach the next one but am hopeful. I’m proud and starting to think that I’m getting better at this life thing. Not even Jason could find fault with my plan.

This is a bad plan.
The Shadow Knight shifted his weight and observed as the battle-witch swung farther this time than last. He eyeballed the distance between them and the next tower, wanting his calculations to be incorrect.

If they were able to generate the momentum needed, which he highly doubted, they’d smash into the next tower. He had no way of judging how much damage that would cause or if they would survive. Adding to his concern was the groan of a link above, one that had begun to pull apart with the strain of the swinging weight of the homemade pendulum.

The tower dropped a foot, a sign the chain was starting to give. He shifted to his knees and began hauling up the witch.

His plan, aside from climbing into the gray mists, was to push his witch until she snapped, and the magic emerged. He’d felt it when she fell off the fortress of the Red Knight. She had used it against
him
in an attempt to save his life, which was an improvement over the trap where she had not channeled it any direction at all and her bizarre use of power against Green Dawn Cave.

There was a theme to when she used her magic: when either she or he was in danger. He was relying on provoking that instinct to get them out of this mess once more. All he had to do was put them both in mortal danger, and they would be back on land.

As he steadily drew her up, hand over hand, his mind went once more to the sight of her dying at the Red Knight’s hold. He had witnessed many men – and quite a few battle-witches – die in battle. None of those deaths hit him the way hers did. Beautiful, witty yet an absolute coward in battle, she was not the kind of woman he ever would have considered for his army, had they not been thrust together.

Her act of self-sacrifice meant more to him than it should, along with the spike of fear that pierced him watching her plummet to her death. What struck him more strongly: her death had the same impact on him as that of the loyal master-at-arms who had died in his arms, slain by the troll. How did the death of a lifelong friend compete with one of a battle-witch he had only just met?

The urge to protect her – nay, to possess every inch of her – returned, more powerful than before. The woman foretold to end the curse, who bore the name of the greatest queen of Black Moon Draw, whose touch stopped his racing thoughts and whose body tempted him to stop marching to battle so he could spend time running his hands, tongue, lips over every inch . . .

“What’re you doing?” she called, interrupting the image he had stored of her body in the moonlight.

“Go inside,” he directed her.

“But, why? We were doing so good!”

There were times when he found her innocence and ignorance of his world fetching, a reminder of why he was slaughtering men left and right to save those who deserved it.

This, however, was not one of those times. “Keep quiet and obey me, witch!” he returned.

With a look at the link yawning open three dozen feet above his head, he suspected they were about to embark on a very uncomfortable journey into the bay.

The sheet went lax, and he risked a look over the edge of the roof to ensure she was inside before releasing it.

The Shadow Knight balanced himself, allowing his body to sway with the movement of the tower, and gripped the beam under the roof with his wide hands. He did a slow-motion somersault over the edge, instincts and awareness on high alert to ensure he not only maintained his balance but didn’t miss the window below him.

A moment later, he dropped into the tower and steadied himself against the wall. Trunks and loose items pitched back and forth with the tower’s movement. The battle-witch was sitting on the bed, the sole piece of furniture heavy enough not to be flung across the tower.

He waited for a pitcher of water and several other loose items to rattle by him before leaping atop a trunk and onto the bed.

“Why did we stop?” she asked, gazing at him with eyes the color of the sea’s shallows.

“’
Twould not have worked.”

Her frown was sad. “I guess I’m not surprised.”

“My plan will kill us.” He waited for the words to sink in. Too shocked to speak, she was staring at him. “The chain is about to snap and send us into the bay. Unless you can save us.”

“But . . . I . . . how?”

The Shadow Knight wrapped his arms around her, pulling her soft body into his hard frame. She pushed at him in protest, and he hauled her into his lap in response. If his plan worked, he was not about to be left behind. Her hair smelled good, and he breathed in her scent deeply, ignoring the sensations of rocking.

“What the hell are you thinking?” she managed at last. Wriggling loose, she shoved him until she was able to see his face. Fear and confusion were on her pretty features.

“I am thinking you do not want me dead. The last time my life was threatened, you used magic to protect me,” he replied steadily.

“What is wrong with you? I . . . you just . . . are you insane?”

“I have been called much worse.”

“But if it doesn’t work, you die and I get to watch your world implode in two days!”

“Then so be it.” He refrained from saying what he wanted, that his world was going to implode anyway if she did not unlock her magic. His kingdom died today with him, or it died in three days without her power.

Holding her gaze, he waited. Emotions flew through her eyes. She sat between his legs, thighs pressed together and palms on his chest. His hands remained on her arms, in case they started to fall, and he studied her feminine features.

“I wish you hadn’t told me any of this,” she said in a hushed, mournful tone.

“Because you could walk away if you didn’t know.”

She nodded. “You aren’t the person I thought you were.”

“Good. Now get us out of here.”

“I can’t.” Her eyes watered. She lifted the medallion at her chest.

The Shadow Knight cupped one cheek in his large hand, marveling at how smooth her skin was. “What do you know of it?”

“We don’t have time for –”

“Think, witch,” he growled. “What do you know of the Heart?”

She blinked back tears. A hot drop hit his thumb and he wiped it from her face. Strands of brown hair tickled the back of his hand, and he waited. His battle-witch had an intelligence in her eyes that told him he was merely scratching the surface of who she was. It had taken some reflection for him to accept that not only was there another world, but she was from it.

Since accepting it, though, he had found her oddities much easier to tolerate and found her more intriguing than was wise. She needed time they did not have, and he used patience he rarely entertained out of necessity. They were both out of their element and almost out of time.

“It has a thousand years of magic. The warrior queen Naia used it to curse Brown Sun Lake and everyone else after her husband was killed. She seems to think . . .” She trailed off, nibbling on her lower lip. “She kind of left that part out when we talked in my dream.”

“’
Tis an extension of you, a tool, the way a sword is for a warrior,” he replied. “It wants naught that you do not wish it to want. You can control it.”

The tower jolted and dropped once more, thrusting her into his arms. This time, the groan of the chain was loud, a grating last breath as it struggled to hold the tower.

The Shadow Knight circled her body with his thick arms, ready to protect her when they fell. “Quickly,” he urged her. “Devise some spell.”

“I don’t know how.”

This was not going quite as planned. He had hoped she would figure it out – before they started to fall. His mind worked fast, and he evaluated the other times the medallion flared to life. The only link: danger and . . .

. . . emotion.
Her
emotion. Strong enough to break whatever bonds were preventing her from using the medallion at will.

Without a word, he lifted her chin from his chest, looking deeply into her pretty eyes. Her face was inches away, and he traced the line of her jaw with one finger before resting his hand behind her neck.

She had stiffened and was still, her eyes dropping to his lips. A faint flush of pink spread across her cheeks, yet another sign she was aware of him the way he was her.

For a moment, they were no longer dangling from the skies, moments from their own deaths, with the rattle and smash of things rolling around them. Together, they were safe, wrapped in one another’s arms in their own world, breathing each other’s breath.

“You have a betrothed,” she whispered uncertainly.

The Shadow Knight claimed her warm, soft lips with his. To his surprise and satisfaction, she responded the way she had the night she passed out: with hunger and passion. He did not hesitate to deepen the kiss and slid his tongue between her plump lips into the velvety, wet depths of her mouth. She opened to him, her body pressing against his. Her distinct flavor was faint but present, and it spurred the fire in his blood, made him want to conquer something other than his world.

The spark of need was overpowering, stronger than he thought possible, a reminder she was not a normal woman, a physical acknowledgment he had begun to understand ran much deeper than desire.

Her arms went around his neck, and he maneuvered her body, lowering her back onto the bed and sliding his knee between her thighs. He rested half his body on hers.

Another jolt, and their kiss broke off. She held him tightly. The Shadow Knight looked up at the ceiling that would like smash into him soon, once they began falling. He covered her body with his, one arm beneath her to keep them pressed together while the other looped beneath her neck as he prepared to shield her head from hitting anything.

“I will protect you,” he reminded her.

She pressed her soft, smooth cheek to his roughened one, and he dipped his face into the nape of her neck to smell her sweet scent. The pulse in her neck was racing, her breathing shallow.

“Did your man parts fall off?” she whispered.

“Nay,” he replied, briefly amused by the question at such a time. “Are you thinking of sweet cakes?”

“Not this time. I’ thinking . . . I can’t imagine a better way to go than in your arms,” she breathed.

The words thawed a piece of him he was not prepared to acknowledge. “You will not die, Naia. But I will.”

The arms around his body tightened in response. “Would you tell me your name then?”

His breath caught. His
name
? She dared ask such a sacred question at a time like this? Even his betrothed did not know his name. The odd stirring was back, the instinct that prevented him from being affronted by the request and instead, seemed to confirm an idea he had barely formed.

His battle-witch could become like the great battle-witch whose name she bore: a warrior queen meant to be at the side of the warrior Knight that united the kingdoms under one rule.

Rarely did he allow himself to consider what came after he conquered the remaining two kingdoms, especially not when he had a queen in waiting. War and battle required all his concentration, and with time running out, he dared not spare his focus for such fanciful thoughts.

With her perfect body beneath him and her warm breath in his ear, he began to regard what happened after the fighting ceased as possible, that they defeated the curse and entered into a time of peace. There was no use for a battle-witch once war stopped – and the idea of bonding her off to another man to ensure an alliance sent a streak of anger through him. He experienced no possessiveness at all for the woman promised him and forbidden need for the one loaned to him by another world.

“If your magic manifests, and we do not die, I will tell you,” he whispered. He kissed her neck lightly and then buried his face in her hair and waited.

“Prepare to be disappointed like everyone else in my life,” she replied.

The chain groaned loudly – then snapped. For a horrifying moment, they were suspended in midair, at the height of the pendulum’s swing.

The Shadow Knight closed his eyes, not yet ready to lose faith in the woman beneath him. He had come too far, risked too much, lost too many, for this to be his end. He was destined to conquer the realm and defeat the curse.

“I am Atreyu Casamir, the last Shadow Knight of Black Moon Draw,” he said softly.