Temptress Unbound Read online

  “One kiss, on a night when rules are upended,” he said, his voice rough and deep, and not wholly sober.

  “Only one?”

  “I swore it was all I would allow myself, until you are mine.” He bent his head to the side of my neck, his warm breath sending delicious shivers up over my scalp. He sucked the lobe of my ear into his mouth, released it slowly, and whispered, “I have word that Mordred spends the solstice at Calleva, the invited guest of Horsa.”

  I drew in a breath. “So Horsa may have chosen him for Wynnetha’s hand.”

  “May have. Or may do so shortly.”

  I slid my arms around his neck and felt a bubble of joy rising in my chest. It frightened me; it was so fragile, so tremulous, and yet so beautifully bright. “Then you are free.”

  He gently drew my hands from him, kissed their backs, and then held them pressed against his chest. “Not yet. But gods willing, I soon will be.” He cupped my cheek in one hand, his thumb brushing over my brow. “And when that happens, Nimia—when that happens, you shall be mine.”

  2

  “I still think he’s using it as an excuse to get between your thighs,” Terix said, riding beside me.

  “Maerlin doesn’t think about sex that way. It’s a means to an end, nothing more.”

  Terix snorted. “He’s more clever than I thought, if he’s got you convinced of that.”

  We were riding together—along with the ever-present Bone—to the forge, where my father, Brenn, waited along with apprentice blacksmiths and several men to handle the sails, and where Maerlin had set up a private shelter for us to call the storm. Or, more accurately, to increase the storm. We’d waited for the signs of approaching bad weather, knowing that it would be far easier to whip the winds of an existing storm up to the power of a hurricane than to start from nothing on a calm day. And right now, a brisk breeze was setting the tree branches swaying, and dark, swiftly moving clouds spoke of our approaching weather.

  “You think Maerlin cold-hearted, so why wouldn’t it make sense to you that he approaches sex the same way?” I asked.

  “He’s male. When he thinks of having you naked under him, neither heart nor head has anything to do with how he’s making his choices. And he knows Arthur cares for you. How could he do this to his own brother?”

  “He’s doing this for his brother,” I said.

  “Don’t you hear how crazy that sounds? I almost think you’re doing this because you’d secretly rather be with Maerlin than Arthur.”

  “Now who sounds crazy?”

  “Maybe you don’t want either of them.”

  “You think I still want Clovis,” I said.

  “He’s who you’ve tried hardest to reach out to with your mental powers, isn’t he?”

  “I thought he’d be easier, since he was my first, and we were together so long.” Since my aborted training on Mona, I’d been trying to learn on my own how to reach out with my mind, across distance, to men I’d slept with. Their seed had become part of me, as happened with all Phanne women, and it formed a psychic tie I should be able to follow back to each man. I’d managed it once, with the young man I’d deflowered on Mona, but had yet to achieve more than a flickering of contact with anyone else. And the flickers might have been more my imagination than true contact.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier with me?” Terix glared at me with hurt in the line of his mouth.

  I drew in a breath of surprise, my lips parting. I hadn’t imagined that he would think my lack of trying on him a slight. Once, long ago, we had lain together; once, I had even drunk his blood. There was no one I knew better, or who knew me so well in return, and so it should have been easiest of all to recognize his essence inside me. I leaned over and laid my hand on his arm. “Terix, I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t invade your innermost privacy like that.”

  He moved his arm until he could grasp my hand in his own, his expression softening to sheepishness. “I didn’t want you to, when first you told me about it. Who would? I have thoughts so darkly twisted, I can barely stand to see them myself.” He squeezed my hand and let go.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “I realized that I’m not such a very special person, so different from anyone else. If I—cheerful, horny Terix—have such a wild herd of runaway wants and hates and pettiness inside me, then so does everyone else. Probably more so. I am, after all, a more likable fellow than your average man.”

  I laughed. “The Summer Maiden certainly thought so.”

  “But alas, she was happier to stay a maiden than to become a fruitful earth mother.”

  “Lucky for you, in the long run.”

  “But not the short.”

  We rode in silence for a short while, Bone galumphing through remnants of snow, seeming to take a child’s joy in the crisp strangeness of it under his paws.

  “So will you try to see inside my mind?” Terix said.

  “What, now? Why?”

  “I want to know what it feels like, to have someone else in here with me. No one ever gets to feel that; we’re all stuck alone in our own heads. If there’s anyone I’d want in here with me, it’d be you.”

  “You wouldn’t know I was there, unless I made a point of letting you know.”

  “Then let me know. Come, Nimia, why not? If you can make this tie between us, then you’ll be able to reach me if you need me. That’s worth something, isn’t it?”

  I felt myself wavering. “I don’t want you to ever feel like I might be digging through your mind when you don’t know it.”

  “I trust you not to. Besides, there’s enough filth in here that you won’t want to come back without a good reason.”

  It wasn’t filth I was afraid of seeing. Arthur had once said that Terix was in love with me, and I didn’t want to see such a raw and vulnerable emotion in him, laid bare to my eyes. Pretending that such a possibility didn’t exist was the only way I knew how to continue our closeness.

  If Terix wasn’t afraid of revealing too much, however . . . maybe Arthur was wrong.

  I reined to a halt, and Terix did the same. “All right, I’ll try it. You’re going to have to stir up some lust, though, to help me get into you. Can you do that?”

  “Do you not know me at all?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Tell me when you’re ready.”

  “You’re not going to help? Augustus wouldn’t mind a little hand-holding.”

  “I thought you changed his name to Zeus.”

  “Zeus sounds too much like a sneeze, and no lady wants to think of snot when a man comes.”

  “I’m sorry to tell you this, Terix, but they already do.”

  “Crude, coarse wenches.” He grinned. “The cruder the better.”

  “Yes, well. Close your eyes and think of what you’d have liked to have given the Summer Maiden.”

  “No need.”

  I glanced at his crotch, and even through the layers of warm clothing, I could see a ridge that said Augustus was alert and ready to serve.

  “Give me a moment,” I said. “I have to stir myself up, if I can.”

  “Want help? Penelope hasn’t been getting much attention lately, I’ve noticed.”

  “Penelope?”

  “I considered ‘Pandora,’ but there’s too much ill luck that comes with that name.”

  “This isn’t helping my mood, Terix.”

  “If you’d hike up your leg, I could reach under your skirts and—”

  “Terix.”

  “You know it always feels better when someone else does it.”

  “If it’s the only way to shut you up.” I grabbed the front of his cloak and pulled him toward me, our bodies leaning awkwardly over the space between our mounts, then I pressed my mouth to his.

  He was too surprised at first to do more than keep his balance, our lips mashin
g together too hard, one of the horses shifting her weight and almost breaking us apart. Then he recovered, and with a strength I hadn’t expected he pulled me off my mount and across his lap, one arm around my waist, the other behind my head. His lips parted mine and his tongue delved inside.

  I closed my eyes and let him take control, and coaxed myself to forget whose mouth was on mine and just feel. He knew his way around a kiss, with no timid hesitation, no messiness—only the sure strokes of a tongue displaying that most crucial of all elements for arousing another: hunger.

  Desire stirred inside me, and with its first sparks I opened myself and allowed his desire to flow in. It came like a stream of honey, thick with passion, fragrant and fermented, a heady mead I could drink forever.

  The first shimmer of the golden walls appeared in the corners of my vision, startling me, scaring me enough that I remembered my purpose and closed down the flow to a trickle. I pushed myself upstream against it, through the warm, wet contact of our mouths, and into his mind.

  It was an inferno of lust, blotting out all else.

  Terix, I silently said into the fire.

  I felt his body jerk, his tongue stilling in my mouth, and then the fire of lust lowered. I could feel his confusion now, his surprise. Nimia?! Where are you?

  Right here.

  This is so strange. I felt his wonder, and a sudden rush of panic as he scanned through the more private thoughts he didn’t want to bring up into my view.

  Don’t try to not think about things. It just makes you think about them.

  Confusion, then silent laughter. Is that supposed to make sense?

  I’ll go, I said.

  No! Wait. What’s it like for you?

  Like . . . I’m divided. It’s like when you look through both eyes, but know you’re looking through one more than the other.

  No, I mean . . . You’re in my mind. Can you show me yours? Can you show me what it’s like for you when— His hand went to my breast, then stroked down to my sex and pressed against it through the layers of wool.

  The stream of honeyed desire surged. Unprepared, I drank it in and instinctively sent out an answering trickle, enough that Terix’s thoughts lost coherence, swamped by a lustful appetite that would only grow stronger. The more I took from him, the hungrier he would become. His grip on me tightened, I pulled up my skirts myself, and then his cold fingers were on my folds, and I had knocked his hat off to dig my hands into his hair and hold his mouth against mine.

  Stroke me, I commanded. There, yes, like that . . .

  Only it wasn’t enough. The gold wall flared to life as if hit by sudden sunshine, and in its bricks I felt the caged thrum of my swarm, yearning once again for the completion of the hive.

  I dropped a hand to Terix’s waist, pulling at his clothes, trying to find the fastenings and uncover what I needed, even though I already knew that there wasn’t enough in him. He had only so much to give, and I would drain it all.

  I couldn’t find the fastenings and jammed my hand down the tight front of his breeches, needing to touch him. A shudder of pleasure went through me as I felt the silken thickness of him against the side of my hand.

  Nimia? Uncertainty, disbelief. Joy.

  The joy jolted me. Joy from a wish long desired, finally to be fulfilled. This wasn’t just lust for him. For a precious, crucial moment I broke from the trance and tried to jerk my hand out of his breeches.

  I found myself gripping him instead, my fist moving up and down. Terix, help me stop. We have to stop.

  No, there’s no reason, yes, like that, hold me like that . . .

  Terix, I can’t stop myself.

  No need to . . .

  Yes, need! See how it was for me on Mona, see what will happen to you! I dredged up the ghastly scene and tried to thrust it into his mind, trying to show him the ravening hunger that had consumed me and the helplessness of the pile of men and women below and around me, their pleasures turning to the pain of unfulfillment as they tried and failed to reach their release. And through it all, me, devouring their energy, draining them to the edge of consciousness.

  I wish I’d been there . . . One of his fingers slipped inside me.

  I arched my back, accepting it, wanting more. Wanting everything he could give me, everything inside him.

  With my one shred of thought left, I summoned and pushed at Terix the sensations of having both Druce and his man inside me, cock pressed to cock, thrusting inside my passage.

  His whole body went rigid. His head lifted, his eyes open wide in shock. “Jupiter’s balls,” he said aloud. “What was that?”

  You wanted to know. I took my hand out of his breeches.

  “I wish I hadn’t!”

  Could you take your finger out of me?

  His face flooded red. “Er, sorry about that.”

  “Thank you.”

  Looking flustered and ashamed, he gripped me under my arms and hoisted me back onto my own mount with only a slight grunt of effort. Although we no longer touched, I could sense his shame at having gone too far with me, taking a liberty for which I hadn’t given permission. He was afraid he’d upset me.

  I touched his knee. “It’s all right, Terix. It wasn’t you making choices. It wasn’t even me. It was this power I don’t yet know how to control.”

  He blinked at me. Are you still inside my mind?

  “Yes. Sort of. I can’t talk to you if we’re not touching, though. If there’s a life-or-death crisis, maybe I can.”

  Can you get out now?

  “I warned you it feels like an invasion,” I said, and withdrew.

  Terix shook his head, as if trying to be sure I was truly gone. “Yes. Well.” He looked unsettled, his gaze skittering past mine.

  “I knocked your hat off.”

  He grunted, and dismounted to scoop it up. After he remounted, we were on our way. We’d gone no more than a quarter mile when a shudder racked Terix. He risked a sideways glance at me. “Two at once, Nimia? Really?”

  “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “I’ll never get that image out of my head. But you know what’s even worse than seeing it?”

  I shrugged, and waited.

  “Feeling it as you did.” His face filled with the last emotion I would have ever expected: pity. “And knowing it wasn’t enough.”

  3

  “Maerlin, please tell me this is a joke,” I said. “We are not going to ride out a storm up there.”

  “It’s completely safe.”

  “And completely terrifying!”

  “You’ll forget where you are, soon enough.”

  “Because I will have fainted.”

  Maerlin had, with his typically untypical way of thinking, built what he believed to be the best possible place for us to join together and call the storm: a woven rope nest high in an ancient oak tree that projected out from the steep western slope of the hill, below and out of sight of the forge. Mistletoe formed a cloud in its otherwise nude branches, creating a bower of sorts for the spiderweb of rope that would be our bed. A mass of furs lay in our nest’s sagging center. Bone sauntered up to the oak and lifted his leg.

  “You’ll be blown out of it,” Terix said. He was standing beside me, gaping with equal horror at my future.

  “My body is suddenly feeling a deep, abiding love for the solid earth under my feet,” I muttered.

  “There are straps attaching the furs to the net,” Maerlin said. “We’ll bob around and swing some, but as long as the ropes hold we’ll be fine.”

  “ ‘As long as’?” I squeaked. “Is there some question?”

  “Nothing in life is certain,” Maerlin said, going to the base of the tree and testing the footing of the ladder leaning against its trunk. “We could be struck by lightning up there. I do worry a bit about that.”

  A whine sang in my t
hroat.

  “What was wrong with building a hut, firmly on the ground?” Terix asked.

  “I want to watch the storm; I want to be part of it.” He spun back around to face me, with a look of surprised comprehension. “Don’t you? Nimia, this is going to be like nothing we’ve ever experienced.”

  “It was going to be that anyway.”

  Terix put his hand on my shoulder, anchoring me in place. “You don’t have to go up there.”

  But I did have to. At the top of the hill, Brenn and half a dozen others were tending the fires and double-checking the heavy, reinforced sails that would direct the captured wind into the furnace. The metals and mineral powders had been measured and mixed. Everyone both at the forge and at the villa knew that the great druid Maerlin, assisted by the foreign sorceress Nimia, would today be calling up ancient magic to draw the winds. Everyone was waiting. Everyone was expecting this to happen. I couldn’t hold everything off because I didn’t want to climb a tree.

  And I had promised.

  If I’d been smarter I would have stipulated that we do this inside four solid walls, but who thinks such things need to be said?

  The only bright spot was that Maerlin had forbidden anyone from watching the spell-casting; he’d warned that the ancient magic would sense their eyes if they disobeyed, and eat their souls. So at least no one would know what Maerlin and I were up to up there.

  “Nimia,” Maerlin said, coming to me and taking my hands. “Trust me.”

  And then, inside my head, his voice: I’m here with you.

  I nodded. What else could I do?

  Maerlin grinned and pulled me toward the tree, out from under Terix’s hand on my shoulder. I looked back at Terix and shrugged with my eyebrows.

  Terix’s face twisted in concentration.

  I blinked at him, confused.

  He tapped his skull.

  Oh.

  I sought the essence of him inside me, already half-lost in the jumble of my inner world. Found it. Followed it back to him and heard his repeated thought: Call for me if you need me. Call for me if you need me. Call for me if you—

  “I will,” I said, not knowing if I could, and turned to follow Maerlin to the ladder.