Lords Of The Dark Fall - Fabian (9 page)

Each touch, each movement, increased his need until he was almost begging her to take him inside. He hardly noticed her rolling on the protection that would stop him getting her with child. When she rose up and sank down on him, he growled out his relief and arched into her welcoming warmth. He wanted to come again, hard and fast, but Tig rode him like a courtesan skilled in keeping a man on the edge until he was in danger of exploding. Each time he reached his peak, she slowed her rhythm, almost as if she didn’t want it to end. Or perhaps she had believed his hype about lasting an hour? He was so aroused, he didn’t think another minute would be possible.

“Tig,” he said, part plea, part question. She gave a soft cry when he touched her intimately and met her gentle undulations with deeper thrusts of his own. His mortal flesh was too weak to hold back the wave threatening to engulf them both.

“Fabian.” Tig let go of her control, his name on her lips, and he followed her, helpless to do otherwise.

His hips stopped moving as the last spasms died down. For a long moment they simply breathed and rode out the last pleasurable aftershocks.

“Are you all right, Fabian?” Tig’s voice filtered through the sensual fog surrounding him, bringing him back to her room, her world.

“Yes.” He heaved in a breath and remembered. “More than all right. But you?”

Tig flopped down beside him. He felt the glow of heat from her skin. She flung an arm behind her head and let out a long breath.

“It was good. Very good.”

“No, I gave a poor performance.”

Tig patted his thigh. “You were wonderful. Please don’t think otherwise.”

She sounded so pathetically grateful, he covered her hand with his own, stroking the work-roughened skin with his thumb. So different from the milk-and-honey complexions of his pampered wives.

“We will do this again, without the barrier of this sheath. Then I will show you what I am capable of.”

“I can’t risk a pregnancy, Fabian. Not now.”

“I’ve never had to worry about such things.”

“Then you have children?”

“Many, over the years.” He stared at a dirty patch on the ceiling and tried to remember their names, their faces. “An immortal cannot get too attached.”

Tig rolled onto her side, hair falling over her breasts, trailing over his chest. She leaned on an elbow and gazed down at him. “You mean you have to watch them grow old and die?”

“Essentially, yes. What use is an heir, to someone who will never die?”

“How were you immortal and not them?”

Fabian twisted and indicated the white bands on his arm. “The bracelets of An Mur. My father was the greatest warrior ever to take human form. He killed the demon, Hadri, Scourge of the Night, and took from it the bracelets of An Mur. The bracelets of immortality. He gifted them to the most loved of his sons. My mother was his favourite wife.”

“He didn’t want them for himself?”

“He was past the age of the ritual. I was one of two chosen for the honour.”

“Generous dad. How old are you?”

“Two thousand and eighty of our years. I do not know how that translates into yours.”

Her slow appraising glance swept the length of him. He felt himself stirring to life, his body desperate to make up for lost time.

“Looking good for such an old man.”

“You don’t believe me? You think I’m spinning tales?”

“Forgive me.” Tig held up a placating palm. “I’m having a bit of a struggle with the concept. You can’t blame me for that.” She shook her head. “Would you believe it’s not actually the strangest thing I’ve heard from a man? I would have pegged you at thirty, thirty-five. What? Do you just get to a certain age, then stop growing?”

“The ageing process slows and then stops altogether. That is the gift of the bracelets. Without them, I am just like you.”

Tig gave a small laugh, wincing as she stretched her cut lip. “Then I can see why you’re so angry.”

“I’m angry because I humiliated myself. In over two thousand years, I have never failed to pleasure a woman.”

Tig sat up, arms hugging her bent knees. “You’re regretting this already?”

Fabian traced the line of her spine with his smallest finger. Her shiver went right through him. “See how we respond to each other? It is not always so.”

“Tell me about it. Answer my question.”

“Yes. I am regretting this, but only because I want to do it again. I wish to know you. To hear you moan beneath me. But I think with you that would take more time than we have.”

“It was just sex, Fabian. Don’t over-think it.”

“Yes. You are right. Merely sexual gratification. It means nothing.” He watched her leave the bed. Find her clothes. So many women had walked in and out of his life over the ages. Some with tears, others without looking back. He’d learned early on to show them his indifferent face. To let his wives know he bestowed the privilege only for reasons of state and diplomacy. Love and attachment brought only heartbreak.

Tig touched his hand briefly, understanding more than she let on. She left the room without looking back, leaving Fabian wondering whether he’d satisfied her, or she’d merely been polite. Why did it matter? She’d more than taken care of him. What more did he need?

He did not know why he cared. Only that he did.

“Damn!” Tig opened the chicken house. The birds filed out, crooning and searching for the scattered grain. “Big mistake,” she told the hen pecking at her boot. “What was I thinking?” Far from satisfied, the encounter had left her skin prickling and her mind in turmoil. Fabian, lying naked and glowing on her bed, was not an easy man to walk away from.

How would she look him in the eye after writhing above him with such abandon? Could she have appeared more desperate?

The dogs followed her across the yard, whining for attention. Cafino grunted irritably when she finally arrived to turn him out into the meadow. She fed him the carrot she’d stuffed into her jacket pocket. “Sorry old boy. I know I’m late. Been dallying, I’m afraid. Spending the morning with a hot man who fell out of the sky.”

Cafino remained unimpressed, more intent with the carrot than her dilemma. He crunched noisily. It wasn’t exactly shame. More a feeling she’d opened a door that should have remained firmly closed. Fabian was leaving at the first opportunity and possibly rushing headlong to a gory death in a futile leadership challenge. She didn’t want to care beyond getting him away from the farm. What he did next, was his business.

Fabian was in the workshop when she entered, studying the pattern on one of her hand-painted wall-plates.

“It’s a story-plate,” she said, feeling a blush rising at the sight of him. A commanding presence in such a confined space. She reached for her apron and tied it about her waist. “Songs, sagas and myths. It’s traditional to have sets of them on the wall. That’s the saga of Cathin Al Ra. One of our ancient kings.”

“You’re very talented.” Fabian replaced the plate and picked up a bowl, staring into it as if it held the key to his future. His broken arm he held bent to his chest, the hand slipped between the shirt buttons.

“My mother, she was the talented one. I’m a pale shadow compared to her. Would you like me to fashion you a sling for that arm?”

“Your mother is also dead?”

“She took ill last year. Died early winter.”

“I am sorry for your loss.”

“Me too. Fabian, you really should stay indoors. If you’re found, the consequences for both of us will be dire.”

“How do you do this?” The question held more than a hint of despair. “Lose people you love, and yet dismiss them in a word.”

“All right. Stay and help me here. But keep away from the window. We remember the dearly departed, but we remember to live too. Does that answer your question?”

“In a way. I lost my true-brother, one of the only people I’ve ever been close to. I do not know how to grieve for him.”

Tig whistled to the dogs. Ordered them to guard the door. “They’ll warn us if anyone comes. Did he suffer the same fate as you?”

“Yes, which means I may never see him again.”

“Remember him with pride. It’s all you can do.”

Fabian frowned. “Yes, I can do that for him. I suppose things will be awkward between us now that we have been intimate?”

“Have to admit to a bit of embarrassment,” she said opening the lid of the clay-bin. She slapped a sticky lump onto the table. “There. I know you’ve only got one hand, but it gets rid of the frustration like nothing else.”

“You wish me to make something?”

She couldn’t help laughing at his incredulous tone. And at his refreshing candour. “If you want to, but kneading it will be enough.” She stooped for another lump of clay. “Bash it around. Get rid of as much air as possible. Makes the skin of your hands smooth like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I did notice your hands were rough with work.” Fabian poked the clay experimentally. “A woman like you should have hands like the breasts of a dove.”

“In my next life, maybe.” Tig smiled at the thought and rolled the clay into a ball, falling into a well-practiced rhythm as she prepared it for shaping into a drinking vessel, or a dish. “Fabian, I’m good with what happened earlier. We’re two healthy people who enjoyed a bit of morning delight. You’re not still having performance anxiety, are you?”

“There is too much to worry about in this world. Life here is uncertain. I do not like uncertainty.”

“No one does. Here, do it like this.” Tig covered his large hand with both of hers and pushed at the clay, rotating it at the same time. Hip to thigh, she worked the clay with him, remembering the feel of his skin flush with hers. Without realising, she found herself leaning into the comfort of his warmth and strength. Oh to have a man such as this watching her back, warming her bed.

Could a man like this ever reform and learn to live a simple life. Hearth and home, wife and child. The power beneath her hands was only a fraction of what he kept inside.

Fabian stilled, almost in response to her silent question. His hand lay under hers, a smattering of dark hair on the back, long squared-off fingers. Neatly clipped nails, she noticed. Not ragged and broken, like hers. Every time he exhaled, she tingled and relived the delicious slide of his finger down her spine.

“What is the weapon you keep in the attic?”

“You mean the rifle?” She moved back to her own clay and resumed her kneading. “Sniping got out of hand so the local magistrates declared them illegal. We were supposed to hand them in, but everyone knew they would be sold on to the war-bands. Most folks just hid them. Why do you ask?”

“What does it do?”

Tig glanced sideways at him, frowning at the question. “You’ve lived two thousand years and never seen a gun?”

“We had no need of them. Magic was my most powerful weapon. I commanded the most powerful mages in the kingdom. Until someone betrayed me.”

“You’ll have to tell me that story sometime. Fabian, don’t get ideas about the gun. They’re tolerated as long as we don’t go walking around brandishing them.”

Fabian’s fingers closed about her arm, leaving a dirty smear on her sleeve. A man like him would have a command-voice. One that invited no arguments. He used it now.

“Does it have the ability to kill from a distance?”

“Yes.”

“You will teach me to use it.”

“I will not. Let go of me, Fabian. You fire that thing in public, you might as well shoot me in the head with it first.”

He let her go, mumbling an apology. The door slammed behind him, rattling the few pots left on the shelves.

Tig recovered her breath. Thank god she followed protocol and kept the bullets in a separate hiding place. Anxiously, she watched him cross the yard, the dogs at his heels, ducking away from the window when he turned back to glare at the workshop. The gun needed hiding, and fast or they’d have a turf-war of epic proportions on their hands. She should go and do it now.

Finish the piece, first
. A warrior like Fabian would plan his moves. Act only when certain of victory.

She sucked at her aching lip. Damned fool just wanted to recover his pride as he had in the bedroom. The whole region would run red with blood because Fabian needed to prove he had bigger balls than the next man.

As long as he didn’t drag her into it, what did she care?

She took the clay to the wheel and started the treadle. When she’d built the momentum, she slapped the clay into the centre and cupped her hands around the spinning ball. Fabian was the stuff of legends, to be sure. People would sing his saga for years to come.

With her thumbs, she pressed a dip into the clay and pulled it flat. When she’d fashioned the plate, she cut it free with a cheese-wire and placed it on the drying rack.

Might as well cash in on the inevitable. She wiped her clay-softened hands and then reached for her sketch-book and pencil. Dreams of a large reward from Fabian’s family were crumbling before her eyes. The pencil flew over the paper. A man, dropping from the heavens. Herself, the unlikely saviour.

Around the rim, she inscribed – Plate one.
The warrior who fell from the sky.

What she really wanted to write was –
and they lived happily ever after
. Damn the man for getting under her skin so fast. But she had no idea how this story would end. Only that in victory or defeat, Fabian’s story was shaping up to be nothing less than a tragedy.

* * * *

Time confused him. Stuck in the house to avoid Tig’s sharp reprimand every time he poked his nose past the door, he found it moved with the speed of a man wading through wet sand. On the occasions when he had sneaked out and ventured further afield, to the barns, the fields and the desert beyond, it moved swifter than an arrow from the strongest bow.

After ten days of hiding and healing, and planning his glorious return, Fabian stood at Tig’s kitchen window and noticed that trees, which had been bare on his arrival, were now bursting with buds and blossom. The light of the sun lingered longer into the evenings and Tig no longer asked him to lay a fire to ward off the chill.

“My arm is healed,” he announced. “You may remove the splint.”