Dark Magic (5 page)

Bright sunlight woke Devon. Sitting up, she ran a shaky hand through her tangled hair, the little darts of pain, souvenirs from her escape the day before, helping to ground her.

As she looked around the hut, she remembered everything that had happened since she’d left the castle. It was like a dream. Too much for one day. But it was all true, and now she must continue her journey.

Or did she have choices she had never imagined?

She was free of her father’s power now. She could make her own decisions. And what if she was making the wrong one? She had read the book and thought she could seek help from the dragon. That was before she had met Galladar. What if she called him to her? Would he come back?

Then again, if he took her away she might be safe, but what about her people?

Devon leaned against the wall, trembling, her heart racing in her chest. Pressing her face into her hands, she struggled to cope with her roiling emotions.

She had felt so alone. So different from the daughter her father wanted. From all other women that she knew. The girls in town who had been her friends had never been her equal. Because she was the princess, she had always been a little apart from them and from the women of the court. Some of them envied her. But Lady Ellena and the other mature women treated her like a child too ignorant to know her place or learn her duties.

Trying to focus on physical necessities, she ate the porridge she found in the kettle at the fireplace, then drank water from a gourd hanging on the wall. Finally she searched through the clothing in the hut and took a loose shirt and britches that looked as if they belonged to a young man.

Outside, she checked the position of the sun before starting off, making her way through the forest. She encountered no living people, but the first time she walked into a hut and almost tripped over rotting bodies, she gagged and went running in the other direction.

She was more cautious after that, sniffing the air before she approached any dwellings. All of them were empty of living people. In some she found food. More porridge. Stale bread. Cheese. And deer meat that had been preserved.

She took some of the meat and cheese with her. When she found a water skin, she took that along, too.

The country grew rougher, more rocky, the slopes more pronounced. In the distance, she could see the northern mountains.

She continued on, keeping up her spirits by remembering the songs of her people. She didn’t sing them aloud, but she ran them through her head. Songs of love. Of battles. Of death. Of courage. And of the gods.

They comforted her and kept her mind occupied—except when she thought of Galladar. He had taught her the secrets of her womanhood. If anything could turn her from her purpose, it was him, but she struggled to put him out of her mind.

She traveled for three days, meeting no one, eating the food she had found in several huts and also a few sweet mountain berries that she found. She drank from clear mountain streams where the water was cold and pure. Sometimes she wished Galladar would appear and stop her. But he never came, and she pressed onward.

Other times she let her mind turn back to her parents and her brother. Grantland was no scholar, but if he survived, perhaps he would make a better king than her father.

When she let herself think about the monster, she almost lost her nerve, but somehow she kept walking into the mountains.

Gradually the trees grew shorter and more scraggly and the low vegetation more compact. The sun was dipping behind a tall peak when she came to a place where the ground was scorched and rocky. Beyond that was the mouth of a cave.

This must be the place she had read about.

Now she must make herself acceptable to the dragon.

She retraced her steps to a fast running stream she had crossed. Waiting until twilight, she pulled off her travel clothing and washed her body in the cold water, using a bit of soap she had brought along. Then she dried herself with the shirt.

When she was clean, she opened her bag again. With trembling hands, she took out the garment she had hidden in the lining. A thin white gown that Brinna had sewed for her wedding night.

She pulled it over her head, feeling the silky fabric cup her breasts. The waist was snug, with the skirt flaring out over her hips. She had seen herself in this gown. She knew her nipples showed indecently through the cups of the bodice. And the skirt did nothing to hide the golden triangle of hair at the top of her legs. Only her husband and her serving women should see her like this, but here she was, out in the open air.

She reminded herself that Galladar had seen her with less. He had seen her naked. Although she squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to banish him from her mind, she couldn’t forget him. He had brought her pleasure beyond her imagining, and she had given that up—because she must.

Next she took out the gold chain with the Arandal crest of a laurel branch and a sword worked onto a flat disk. Quickly she slipped the token around her neck, so that the crest lay flat against her chest.

Would she please the monster?

Would he accept her as a sacrifice?

She wasn’t going to cut her own flesh with a knife. But she knew how to do something similar.

Her heart pounding wildly inside her chest, she went back to the scorched earth and continued on to an open field where the rocks were small and sharply pointed, covering the ground like a treacherous carpet.

Her hands were trembling as she unbuckled the straps of her sandals and tossed them away.

Teeth clenched, she took a tentative step onto the shifting surface.

A sharp rock dug into her sole, but she took another step, and another, ignoring the pain. She was halfway across the terrible field when a voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Who dares approach this place?”

She looked up and saw a man standing rigidly at the opposite side of the rocks, about twenty yards away, his back to a mountain cliff.

He was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes fixed on her like a hawk watching a rabbit. He wore black leggings and a black shirt open at the neck.

It was Galladar.

Shock rolled over her, but she managed to ask, “What are you doing here? Where is Cragor, the dragon?”

“I killed him,” he said in a flat voice.

“No,” she gasped.

Galladar’s gaze drilled into her. “
Princess Devon,
you should not be here—dressed like that.”

A wave of anger rolled over her. “I came here in good faith. And you have ruined everything.”

“In good faith? Following an old legend.”

“You
talked about the dragon.”

“In a moment of weakness.”

“And…and you told me that perhaps the dragon could save my people, as in the legend.”

“The dragon is dead.”

She balled her hands into fists.

She
would not
simply turn around and go home. Not after all this. And not to be raped by the barbarian leader, who planned to take her and take her father’s kingdom as well.

Defiantly, she took another step forward, then another.

“I can smell your blood. Leave this place,” he said in a harsh voice.

At any time on her journey, Galladar could have checked her progress. He knew she was making her way north into the jagged hills and then into the forbidden mountains, but he had kept to himself, waiting and wondering what he would do next.

He cursed himself for his desires and for the circumstances he had set in motion by talking of the old legends. He was a fool to reach for what he could never have.

As he watched her, he saw questions blazing behind her eyes.

She looked down at her feet, then back at the bloody footprints she had left on the rocks.

“You say you killed the dragon. And the book said the dragon was attracted to blood. Who are you, really?”

His only answer was, “Go back.”

But her determination was firm. The pain on her face grew, every time she took a step, making his stomach clench.

Still, she kept walking toward him until she wavered on unsteady legs.

When she swayed to the side and looked like she was going to land on the sharp rocks, he couldn’t stay where he was.

He sprinted forward, his boots crunching on the rocks. Swiftly, he caught her before she fell and gathered her into his arms.

He felt her trembling. What if he carried her back to the other side of no man’s land? Would she just cross the sharp rocks again?

His senses whirled as he smelled the sweetness of her blood where her flesh was cut. The scent tore at him as nothing else could.

Clenching his teeth, he turned and carried her the rest of the way across the rocks and into an opening in the side of the mountain.

Beyond the doorway was a cave, but like no cave Devon had ever seen. The rock walls were squared off so that she might have been in a room inside the castle. Tapers flickered in candelabra set about a huge room with beautifully carved furniture, and marble statues on low pedestals. The rugs were richly patterned, and the walls were lined with tall shelves full of more books and scrolls than she had ever seen in her life.

Galladar laid her on a couch, looking down at her feet.

“Your blood…” he said in a thick voice.

“Take it. I have come to make the sacrifice demanded for the dragon’s help.”

“I am not Cragor.”

“But you are like him,” she said, watching his face with unnerving intensity.

She saw his nostrils flare as his hot gaze swept over her, traveling from her face, to her breasts, her hips, and down to her bleeding feet.

She tried to lie still. Tried to keep her body from shaking. But despite her bravado, she was frightened. More frightened than she had ever been in her life. This man had made love to her. Well, he hadn’t put his cock inside her. But it had been lovemaking.

Now he knelt on the rug beside the couch, taking one of her feet in his hand, lifting it to his lips.

In a kind of haze, she watched his tongue flick out and stroke over the sole of her foot in a luxurious caress, taking the blood with it.

The sweep of his tongue sent a tingling feeling over her foot where he laved her.

But it did more than affect that one spot. Other parts of her body responded. She felt an ache kindled high up between her legs. The ache he had stoked and then satisfied with his fingers once before.

He turned her foot to the side and found a place where the sharp rocks had cut her deeply. He sucked at the wound, drawing more blood from her, increasing the frisson traveling through her.

As he laid her foot back on the couch, she made a sound low in her throat. He raised his head and looked up at her, then clasped his hand around her opposite ankle before stroking upward with his long, delicate fingers to her calf, then her inner thigh, leaving a trail of heat.

Once again, she watched him lick at her wounds. When he found a deep puncture and sucked strongly, the pull increased the fire in her body.

He drew on her for a long moment before lifting his head.

She looked down, seeing that blood no longer flowed from her cuts. In fact, her skin felt whole—as though she had never been injured.

He raised his head, his eyes bright as he stared down at her. When he started to stand, she reached out and grabbed his hand, holding him where he was.

“I must leave you,” he said in a thick voice.

“No,” she answered, as she gathered the courage to hold him beside her, to make him finish this.

“You wanted to make love to me. You wanted to take my virginity. Do that now.”

Lifting his hand, she brought it to her breast, rubbing his fingers against her through the delicate fabric of her gown. As she felt a dart of sensation, she heard his indrawn breath.

His gaze bore into her. “You have grown bold, Princess Devon.”

“Because it seems I must.”

“And I am a monster who has just drunk some of your blood. What do you say to that?”

“That you are also a man, and I know what kind of pleasure you can give me. And I can give you.”

Defiantly, she dropped her gaze to the front of his leggings, seeing the telltale bulge.

She had touched him there before. And not through a layer of fabric.

When she reached out a trembling hand toward him, he jerked away from her and moved back until he was standing a few feet away.

His voice was harsh. “If we go any further with this, no man will have you for his wife.”

“I know. I gave up that idea when I came here.”

“And you had no knowledge of what you would find.”

As she watched, he suddenly changed—from a man to a creature with horns, a long thin face, claws instead of hands, and a forked tail that whipped back and forth across the rug.

A demon. From the legends. And from the nightmares of her childhood.

Devon gasped and pressed back against the sofa cushions, her heart pounding as she fought to catch her breath. She knew that he was trying to frighten her into fleeing, but she wasn’t going to do it. Not when she had come this far.

Gathering her courage, she sprang off the couch. With her eyes closed, she reached for him, clasping him in her arms, holding tight.

He roared his anger, but she stayed where she was. She felt him changing again, to a creature with skin that was rough and scaly. Again, she kept her eyes squeezed closed.

This time, when he roared, his face was inches from hers. And she felt his breath turn hot, burning her cheek.

Still, she held on to him.

And then he changed a third time. From the shape of his body, she could tell he was a man again.

“I knew you were brave,” he said, a hard edge in his voice.

He stepped back, staring at her. She thought she had won, but she saw from his face that he still wasn’t going to give in.

“You want to make love with me?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“Even if I can’t save your people?”

She had passed beyond rationality. She had told herself she had come here to save Arandal. What if her reasons were more selfish? There was nothing for her back at the castle. Her father had proved that over and over. Then he had made plans for the final betrayal—to give her to the barbarian leader. Maybe, in the end, that was why she had been willing to sacrifice her life.

“I want you to make love with me.”

“Then prove it.”

“How?”

“Do what you did the night in the hut after I left.”

She felt her face heat. “You saw me?”

“Yes.”

“That was immoral. Spying on me like that!”

“I never claimed to be moral.”

Outrage bubbled inside her. But something else had taken over her mind. It was as though she was another woman, too reckless to think before she acted.

“All right.” Before she could change her mind, she stepped back, pulled the white gown over her head and tossed it onto the rug, standing before him wearing only the gold chain and pendant that she had put on.

She might have lost her nerve then except that she saw the heat in his eyes. He wanted her, and she hoped she could push him over the edge.

Keeping her gaze on him, she lifted her breasts in her hands, weighing and shaping them. Determined not to turn back, she stroked her fingers over her nipples, making them harden. Despite her embarrassment, she felt wetness gather between her legs.

Several seconds passed before he spoke. “I want to see you circle your nipples with your fingers. Start with a wide circle, making it smaller and smaller until you brush the edges.”

Her throat was too dry to speak as she obeyed, her arousal surging as her fingers brushed the edges of those swollen peaks.

“Now take the nipples between your thumbs and fingers. Pull on them. Twist them.”

And he was going to watch her do it?

Beyond mortification, she followed his instruction, swaying on unsteady legs as she aroused herself.

Aroused him, because she saw her own need mirrored in his eyes.

But how far would he make her go with this?

His voice was husky as he said, “Do you need to lie down?”

“Yes,” she managed.

He walked stiffly to the sofa, pulling off pillows and tossing them onto the thick rug.

She sank to the rug and lay with her head on the pillows, looking up at him as he moved to stand near her feet.

His voice was deep and thick as he asked, “Did you think of me when you pleasured yourself?”

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it. “No.”

“Who then? Someone from the court?”

“My tutor. He was a young, vital man, and he wanted me.”

“You made love with him?” he demanded. “As we did?”

“No. But I wanted to.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I knew my father would kill him if he found out. And…and I didn’t know the things to do.”

“You had better not think of him now. Open your legs.”

She spread them a little, unable to look him in the eye.

“Wider.”

Again she followed his directions, trying not to think about the view she was giving him. Her woman’s parts were hot and swollen and wet, telling him of her arousal.

“Now stick one finger inside your vagina. At the entrance. Turn it in a circle.”

She whimpered as she complied, caught between tears and need.

“Did you do that when you were giving yourself pleasure?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like the way it feels?”

“Yes,” she answered in a trembling voice.

“Stroke your finger up to your clit. And play with one of your nipples while you do it. Show me what will bring you to climax.”

She might have protested that he already knew very well. But she understood that this was about power not pleasure.

Was he going to make her follow this through to the end?