De Wolfe Pack 05 - Walls of Babylon (40 page)

The three of them nodded solemnly. They had heard parts of the conversation between Kenton and their mother but they were still a bit too young to understand what was happening; at least, the younger boys were. Tab was coming to comprehend more than his brothers were.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

Kenton gazed into the little face of Nicola’s eldest son, the boy who would become his own when he married the mother.
My son
, he thought. It seemed like the most natural of things when it came to Tab.
A son I am already proud of
.

“My liege has need of me,” he said as simply as he could. “I must go to help him for a while but I will return. While I am gone, I will trust you to take care of your mother. Protect her and make sure she does not come to harm.”

Tab nodded and the twins to a lesser degree. “But I am growing big,” Tab insisted. “I can go with you and help you fight.”

Kenton smiled, putting a big hand on Tab’s head. “You are indeed growing big and I would be honored to have your help,” he said. “But your mother needs you more. There will be no one to oversee Babylon when I go so you must assume that role. I am trusting you to ensure all remains well. I know you can do this, Tab. You will make an excellent knight.”

Tab’s eyes widened. “I will?”

“You will.”

Feeling prideful, Tab fought off a grin, looking at his little brothers, who still weren’t entirely aware of what the conversation meant.

“Will you teach me when you come back?” Tab asked. “I want to fight with you.”

Kenton patted his head. “We will speak of your training when I return,” he assured the boy. “Now, do as your mother said. Take your brothers upstairs.”

Tab did as he was told because all future knights did as they were told. He pulled the twins from the room, herding them away, leaving Nicola and Kenton alone. As the fire in the hearth crackled softly, Kenton returned his attention to Nicola.

“When we have sons,” he said softly, “I expect them to be just as fine as those three. You will not fail me.”

Nicola laughed softly. “I will do my best.”

“See that you do.”

Her smile faded, sensing his attempt at humor was a cover for the seriousness of what they now had to face.

“Now what?” she asked softly.

Kenton reached out, pulling her against him. “Conor has sent for a priest,” he said. “I will have the priest marry us as soon as he arrives but I do not know when that will be, so you may want to try and sleep for a time. I do not want you exhausted, waiting up all night for the priest to come.”

Nicola shook her head firmly. “I will stay with you,” she said. “We have so little time left, Kenton. Would you truly deny me that time together?”

He squeezed her. “Nay, of course not,” he said. “But I did not want to sound greedy about it and I do not want you to be exhausted from staying awake all night.”

“I do not care,” she said. “I want to spend these last hours with you. Let us sit in the solar and speak of the dozen children we will have and of other things that will be in our future. Can I assume that I am allowed to have a daughter or two?”

Kenton grinned as he pulled her up from the seat, holding her hand as they made their way across the hall and towards the entry where the solar was situated. “One or two,” he said, feigning seriousness. “I am sure you would like daughters to comfort you and I will not deny you your wishes to that regard.”

Holding his hand, Nicola laid her cheek against his big bicep as they walked. “I am sure they will be just like me.”

“God help me.”

She laughed. “I am well enough to marry,” she pointed out. “Why would you not want daughters in my image?”

He cleared his throat softly. “You did not let me finish,” he said. “I meant that I will need God’s help to keep away the thousands of suitors that will come calling for my daughters when they become of age. If they are in your image, then they will be the most beautiful maidens in all the land.”

He was flattering her now, trying to pretend as if he had not just mildly insulted her. She shook her head reproachfully at him. “I am very eager to see you chase off your daughters’ suitors,” she said. “It will be quite entertaining to watch.”

“You are a cruel woman.”

“That is true, but you already knew that.”

They had reached the solar door and Kenton paused, pulling her into his arms again. He gazed down at her, thinking so many things at that moment. Here was a woman who fought him, antagonized him, showed him no fear, yet he ended up falling in love with her. She was also the bravest and most intelligent woman he had ever known. He adored her.

“Aye, I already knew that,” he said softly. “I also know that I am the most fortunate man alive. The day I breached Babylon was the best day of my life, although I did not know it at the time.”

Nicola was still smiling at him, feeling the warmth and gratitude and adoration that seemed to be flowing from him and into her. “Did you ever imagine you would have to conquer fortresses in order to find a woman to marry?”

He shook his head, a jesting twinkle to his eye. “I should have avoided Babylon at all costs.”

“Are you sorry, then?”

His smile faded, the twinkle in his eye turning into something far more deep and emotional. “Never,” he murmured. “It has been the greatest adventure of my life.
You
have been the greatest adventure of my life.”

He bent down, kissing Nicola sweetly, but it was a kiss that quickly turned deep and lusty. There was no one to interrupt them and no reason for him to stop. The priest was on his way and they had nothing but time and privacy at the moment. Kenton had no way of knowing if that moment would ever come again.

Picking Nicola up, he carried her into the solar that used to belong to Gaylord, the one that had now become his more than it had ever been Gaylord’s.

The door shut softly behind him as the real discovery began.

There was no proper bed or any comfort, but Nicola hardly cared as she wrapped herself around Kenton and kissed the man as she’d never kissed anyone in her life. It was as if the moment he touched her, a fire was sparked and it was a blaze that was growing more intense by the moment. She didn’t want to let him go; she
couldn’t
let him go. As Kenton carried her into Gaylord’s former solar, there was one thing on Nicola’s mind – to feel Kenton’s naked flesh against hers.

It was all she could think about.

Kenton didn’t give her any argument. In fact, he seemed just as intent on separating her from her clothing as she was on separating him from his. He wasn’t wearing any armor, fortunately, but he was wearing heavy tunics, two of them, breeches, and boots. Nicola was simply wearing layers of fabric, a lamb’s wool shift and a heavy brocaded surcoat over that. But somehow, things came off, were tossed aside, and in the dark coldness of the room, Nicola and Kenton’s naked flesh came together. She heard him groan, softly, when it did.

Kenton had her in his arms, aloft, and she instinctively parted her legs, wrapping them around his slender waist and holding him fast as they shared heated kisses in the darkness. Kenton could feel her wet heat against his belly, resting above his full erection, and the sensation nearly drove him mad. It was like a target he was seeking, and seeking it with a deep and instinctive need, and he shifted her so that she sank lower against him until her wet heat was nearly on the tip of his shaft.

But not quite; he was too tall for him to comfortably take her that way so he carried her over to what used to be Gaylord’s table and swept a big hand over the surface, sending parchment and quill and anything else on the tabletop crashing to the floor. Carefully, he set her down on the table, making sure not to drive splinters into her tender bottom, and laying her back on the table, he mounted her.

His swollen staff thrust into her wet and waiting body, and Nicola cried out softly as he possessed her. He was quite enormous, as proportionate with his height and the size of his body, and she wrapped her legs around him, drawing him deep inside of her as he repeatedly thrust into her. His hands were on her buttocks, between her and the splintering table, protecting her skin as he drove into her, but he bent over her as he thrust, suckling her breasts, nursing against them, tasting the sweetness of her flesh as if he were gorging upon it.

His thrusts were so powerful that Nicola had to put her hands over her head, bracing herself so that he wouldn’t push her right off of the table, and she lifted her hips to him, begging for every sensation, every hard thrust he could deliver. He answered her silent demands with all of the long, hard, and deep thrusts he could deliver and when he was finished suckling her nipples, he suckled on her neck, her chin, and her shoulders. He tasted everything his mouth could come into contact with.

But the truth was that her soft, supple body had driven him beyond the point of madness and when he finally climaxed, it was such a powerful moment that his weakened knees pitched him forward and he nearly collapsed onto the table. He imagined his seed finding its mark this night, taking root in her womb. He found himself praying for it, praying that he would leave her something of himself come the morning. He could feel her tremors beginning, her climax throbbing around him, telling him that she found as much satisfaction from their coupling as he had. Then he lifted her up into his arms, her legs still around his lips and his male member still partially buried in her body, and held her close.

“I long for you already,” he murmured into the top of her head. “I have not even left this fortress yet and, already, I long for you.”

Warm, satisfied, but still very aroused, Nicola gripped his shoulders as she continued to grind herself down onto his manhood, feeling the wetness he had put into her, taking great panting delight when she climaxed again from the sheer stimulation. Kenton, hardly able to stand, sat in the nearest chair as she settled on his lap, legs still parted, his body still joined to hers.

Now, it was her turn to kiss his neck, his chin, and finally his full lips, kissing him even as she continued to move her body on top of his semi-arousal, which was quickly growing hard again with her stimulation. Kenton groaned as she latched her mouth to his again, realizing he was quite ready to resume as least some semblance of making love to her. As she slowly, sensually plunged her body up and down on top of him, now bracing her knees against the chair he was sitting on, Kenton began to move his hips against hers, meeting her thrust for thrust.

The groans of pleasure that filled the solar reverberated softly off the walls. Between Nicola’s panting and Kenton’s grunts, there was quite a chorus going on. Kenton found particular interest in her breasts, which were quite full and beautiful, and his hands moved to them, fondling her tender flesh, feeling her climax around him once more. He slanted his mouth over hers, muffling her pants of pleasure, as he thrust hard into her and released his seed once more, although far less of it this time. The climax was very long although not quite as strong as before, as his body had not yet recovered from the first time, but he was so aroused that his body was responding the best way it could.

In the old leather-cushioned chair that had been made for Gaylord’s very fat father many years ago, Kenton and Nicola finally found total, utter contentment. Seated on his lap, still straddling him with his body still embedded in hers, Nicola collapsed against his chest in complete exhaustion. Kenton, his big arms wrapped around her against the chill of the room, held her tightly against his warm flesh, his cheek against the top of her head, thinking that there were no words in existence yet that were powerful enough to describe what he was feeling.

Still, he wanted to try. He wanted to explain to her just how much she meant to him and why. But the moment he opened his mouth, her soft snores cut him off. She’d fallen asleep against him and he hadn’t even realized it until now. With a grin, Kenton let her sleep.

It was the best night he’d ever spent.

Nicola was awoken at some point before dawn by Kenton, who heard the commotion out in the bailey as Conor and the priest arrived. Groggy and naked, she climbed off Kenton’s lap and stumbled around for her clothing as he hunted around for his. He kept laughing at her because she was quite uncoordinated in her sleepy state and he ended up dressing much more quickly than she did.

Kenton helped her with her surcoat, fastening the laces in the back, the same laces he had nearly ripped free in his quest to remove her from her clothing, but by the time Conor and the priest entered the keep, Kenton was lighting a fire in the hearth of the solar and Nicola was sitting, quite primly, on the same chair they had made love in. Nicola sneezed at one point, thinking the room must have surely smelled like the sex that had so recently taken place there, but if it did, the men were too tactful to make that comment.

Sleepy, and the slightest bit sore from the vigorous sexual activity that she had partaken of only hours earlier, Nicola stood next to Kenton, with Conor and old Hermenia as witnesses, as a slovenly-looking priest from Huddersfield intoned the wedding mass. Normally, a wedding mass was conducted outside of the church doors before the marital party moved inside the church to complete the nuptials, but since there was no church and Nicola did not want to go near the small chapel where Gaylord was buried, for obvious reasons, the priest conducted the uncommon ceremony in front of the door to the keep at Babylon just as the eastern sky began turning shades of purple and pink, signaling the coming sunrise.

Brides normally wore blue to symbolize purity for their wedding but since Nicola had already been married, purity was not an issue and she simply wore the heavy yellow surcoat she had worn the day before. She carried no stones to symbolize other virtues that were expected in brides and there was no ring exchange, so the priest simply conducted a blessing over their heads and pronounced them man and wife. And with that, Lady Nicola Aubrey-Thorne became Lady Nicola Aubrey-le Bec. It was a tradition in her family for the women to retain their maiden name after marriage and Kenton, who didn’t particularly care if she did or didn’t, allowed her to make the choice.

Conor, with a grin on his face, had been permitted to congratulate the bride with a kiss to the cheek but Kenton had quickly chased the man off when he thought he had lingered too much in his congratulations. Nicola had simply laughed as Conor shuttled the priest away, into the hall where a simple meal had been laid out to break their morning fast. Janet and Liesl were awake and had witnessed the tail-end of the ceremony, very happy that their lady had finally married the man she was so entirely in love with. Finally, all seemed well at Babylon; usually a place of discomfort and unhappiness, at least in the days of Gaylord Thorne, it had now become something warm and peaceful with the introduction of Kenton le Bec.

As the sun slowly lifted the veil of night towards the east, a brand new day was dawning over the inhabitants of Babylon Castle and Kenton faced his new wife upon the steps of the keep where they had met, a place that had become the heart and soul for them. He could hear people milling about in the hall inside and the sounds of sleepy boys could be heard on the floors above. He could hear Tab yelling at his brothers from where he stood. Nicola heard it, too, and she simply shook her head, resigned, as Kenton grinned.

“It will always be like this for us, you know,” he said, pointing a finger upwards to the noisy keep. “The joy of the family I never thought to have. I hope to do you all very proud.”

Nicola went to him, putting her arms around his trim torso as he swallowed her up in his embrace. “You needn’t worry over that,” she said, hugging him tightly, knowing it would be her last feel of him before he departed. Already, she found herself fighting off a flood of tears. “You have already done us quite proud, Kenton. Surely you know that.”

Kenton kissed the top of her blond head, sighing heavily as his thoughts mirrored hers. He had to leave very soon but he avoided saying anything. She already knew, so to voice those words, to bring to the forefront that which neither one of them wanted to hear, was something he didn’t want to introduce into their conversation at the moment. He wanted to spend just a few moments with his wife, enjoying their new marriage and enjoying each other.

His wife.

He could hardly believe it even as he thought the words. It seemed like a dream to him, still a dream even though they were legally married in the eyes of God. He’d never known such satisfaction in his life.

“I apologize that I do not have a ring to give you,” he said. “I will make sure I remedy that upon my return. What kind of stone would you like? Garnet? Amethyst? Beryl?”

Upon my return
. He acknowledged the fact that he had to leave, for only a man leaving would be returning. She’d hoped he’d forgotten about it, hoping he would simply remain at Babylon and forget all about Warwick and his promise to the man. But she knew that was a foolish thought. God’s Bones, it hurt already. She felt his loss to her very soul but she wasn’t entirely sure she should let him know. She didn’t want him to think her weak or ridiculous, weeping over something she could not control.

“I have always liked red jasper,” she said, forcing a smile when she looked up at him. “My mother had a ring of red jasper. Mayhap you can find one on your travels back home.”

He nodded. “A fine stone, but not nearly brilliant enough for you,” he said. “Would you like a ruby? That is a beautiful stone and worthy of my wife.”

Nicola laughed. “You make the choice, then,” she said. “Surprise me. Whatever you bring for me, I shall cherish it always.”

He started to reply when the noise from the boys grew louder and suddenly, they were on the massive staircase of Babylon’s vaulted entry. Raven was with them, trying to keep them quiet, but they thundered down the steps, declaring how hungry they were. Teague said something about going out into the kitchen yard to see the lambs again. They didn’t see Kenton or Nicola standing at the entry, running past them and into the hall where there was food and warmth at this early hour.

Outside, Kenton and Nicola watched the boys as they disappeared into the hall to break their fast. Nicola took a step to go inside and follow them when Kenton reached out to stop her.

“Not yet,” he said softly. “I must leave right away and I am not entirely sure we will have any more opportunities for a private farewell, so let us say our farewells here and now. I have never faced a situation like this before, leaving a woman I love, so I fear that I may be somewhat inept at it. I have told you how much I love you and how much you mean to me. I have sworn to return to you and I shall do exactly that. But I have not told you how much I have been dreading this moment, because I have… to lose sight of you, even for a moment, fills me with longing that I cannot even begin to describe. All I know is that I will miss you more with every beat of my heart, a pain that will not be eased until we are together again.”