She could only nod.
“Where were you going?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Just taking a break. Figured I’d walk around and stretch.”
He nodded. “I do that sometimes, too. It gets kinda boring some nights.”
She suspected “boring” translated to “lonely,” but she didn’t want to go there. He didn’t seem like a morose person. Not like she could be when she started thinking too much. No reason to drag him down.
“Say,” he said, “do you have a couple of minutes?”
“I guess so, why?”
He almost blushed.
“What?” the princess asked as she tugged her boot back on. “What is it?”
“I just…Nah. You wouldn’t want to.”
“What?” Drusilla asked as she slipped her foot back into her flat.
“Well,” Miles said, “I write, and I’m stuck on where to go in this scene. I was wondering if you could read it over and tell me what you think?”
Drusilla gaped at him. They’d passed hardly two dozen words for the first time tonight, yet he was asking her to look at his art. She couldn’t believe he was so brave.
Then she realized her hesitation was giving him the wrong idea. She could see the tentative hope on his face closing down.
“I’d love to see your writing,” Drusilla said.
“It’s not very good,” he warned. Why was he doing this? She was going to hate it, and promptly hate him. She’d already made fun of love stories. Why did he think his work would be special? “You don’t have to.”
“I’d be honored,” the princess said, touching his hand. This time, an electric thrill ran through her as her fingertips grazed his skin. Oh, no, she didn’t need this, not in fantasy, not in real life.
But the fantasy was dragging her along, and her feet began to climb again as Miles led the way.
“It’s up on the mountain,” he said. “You can read it if we have a minute before we find the Behemoth.”
“A minute? You haven’t written very much?”
“Well…I thought you wouldn’t want to see anything except the last little part where I’m having trouble.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or hurt. “How can I give you any ideas if I don’t know what’s come before?”
He sighed. “Well, that is a problem. But there isn’t time.”
“Time,” she agreed. It was running out.
Her heel felt better, though, thanks to his ministration. But as they climbed Mount Ayth, she noted he was growing more and more cautious. She looked around at the trees that grew on the craggy mountainside and wondered what was making him nervous.
“What’s wrong?” she asked when his hand strayed to his sword hilt.
He didn’t answer immediately. Behind them, following with equal caution, came their horses, stepping carefully over loose talus.
“There’s always a chance,” he said finally, “that we could run into a guardian.”
Drusilla stopped suddenly. “Guardian? What guardian?”
He stopped, too, and turned to face her. “The mountain has guardians. Protectors. Sometimes they let me pass, sometimes they hassle me.”
She bit her lower lip. “How much hassle?”
“Once they kept me prisoner until I fought my way free.”
She sighed and looked up toward the mountaintop, realizing that it was no longer visible. At least not from where they were perched. She had no idea how much farther they might have to climb, or how long it would take even if they met with no impediments.
“Look,” she said. “My father’s ill.”
“I know, Drusie.”
“He’s okay for the moment, but I don’t know when…I mean…he can’t be cured. ”
He reached out, clearly on instinct, and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Princess.”
“So I don’t have much time….” Suddenly feeling desolate, she perched on a boulder. Her mount took the opportunity to graze on the thin growth at their feet.
Miles sat on the rock beside her. “Time for what?”
“Time to…time to succeed.”
“Ah.” He nodded, and deep in his blue eyes she was certain she saw understanding. “That’s hard. Very hard.” He slipped his arm around her shoulder, a comforting hug that was somehow far more than comforting. She had to fight the most unwarrior-like urge to turn her face into his shoulder and bawl her eyes out.
Stiff upper lip, she reminded herself. Her dad would expect no less. “I guess it’s silly,” she said, her voice cracking. “I can always succeed…later. All that matters is that sooner or later I save Morgania. But…”
“But you’d like him to be here when you succeed.”
She nodded, feeling her eyes burn, and looked at him, thinking he was amazingly understanding for a Behemoth dweeb. “It’s crazy.”
“I don’t think it’s crazy at all.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “No. Our victories in life have a whole lot more meaning when we can share them with people we love, people who love us.”
“Do you have someone to share yours?”
He shrugged, his mouth tightening. “A Behemoth.”
“Oh, that’s not enough!”
“Right now it’s all I’ve got, and it’s missing. Although I’m pretty sure it’s hiding out in the cave up there. It goes into a funk every so often, you know. Wants to be reassured that I’m still around and still care enough to come straighten it out.”
“Pouty?”
He half smiled. “That’s a good word for it. Maybe I’ll name him Pouty.”
“What happens if you can’t straighten him out?”
“I’ll be replaced. Behemoths are totally useless without tamers.” He sighed. “But enough about me. I’m worried about you.”
“Me?” She shook her head. “I’m tough. I’ll be fine.”
“Sure you will. But it’s easier to be fine when you’re not alone.”
Was he saying something? She searched his face but couldn’t be sure. His mouth opened a little, then closed, and his gaze seemed to become fixed on her mouth.
“You have a pretty mouth,” he said.
Somehow that remark didn’t seem to come out of the blue. “Thank you.”
With apparent effort, he looked away, but he didn’t take his arm from her shoulders. “We’ll get that key of yours, Princess,” he promised. “And we’ll get it soon. But I bet your father is proud of you anyway.”
“He is.” Her throat tightened. “All he’s ever wanted is for me to be happy. I could have sat around the castle and spent all my time reading and eating bonbons, and he’d still be proud of me.”
He nodded. “That’s beautiful.”
“What about you? Your parents are proud of you, right?”
“I don’t know.”
Her jaw dropped. “You don’t know?”
“I haven’t seen either one of them since I was fourteen.”
She waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry,” she said finally.
“I’m not. Life got a lot easier after that.” He turned to look at her again, a wry smile on his lips. “There’s a plan in everything, you know. It’s just hard to see it sometimes.”
“Now you sound like my dad.”
He laughed. “Sweetie, I’m not your dad.”
It was as if those simple words changed the entire atmosphere of the mountain around them. His laugh stopped short; their gazes locked.
And all of a sudden Drusilla was finding it hard to breathe. Her heart began to pound heavily, and no matter how deep the breaths she drew, there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air to sustain her. Her eyelids suddenly felt heavy, and between her legs a weight settled, a heaviness that cried out for a touch. Helplessly, she shifted on the rock, trying to ease the growing ache.
Miles kissed her. Without so much as a by-your-leave, something every princess deserved, he took her mouth with his, reminding her that he was a tamer, not a courtier, by nature.
No artful flattery, no gifts, no songs or poems written for her. None of the things she had always imagined would be her due.
Just a kiss. A soul-deep, searing, wrenching kiss that took her entire world and turned it upside down and then welded her to him with a need so strong it struck with all the force of an earthquake.
Then, all too soon, he wrenched his mouth from hers, leaving her feeling dazed.
“Not here,” he said, as if it were a foregone conclusion. “Not here. The guardian…”
He grabbed the horses’ reins and her hand, and drew them all deeper into the forest, so deep that it seemed almost night. He tied the horses to a tree, then faced her.
She could have fled. She should have fled. But with one kiss he had conquered her in a way that no one ever had before. The whisper of the wind in the pines overhead seemed to echo the flow of heat through her veins and the softness that filled her entire being.
“My princess,” he said huskily, and drew her into his embrace, an embrace that seemed to block the rest of the world from her senses and mind.
Miles was all that existed. All. And she wanted to share things with him that she had never before wanted to share.
His mouth took hers again, a deep promise of things to come. She’d had many kisses in her life, but none like this one, which seemed to weld her to him, to make her part and parcel of him.
His chest was hard against the softness of her breasts, a softness she had tried to ignore most of her life because she had to be tough, had to succeed, had to be ready to replace her father.
The softness seemed right for the first time in her life, right and ripe both, as if her breasts had just been waiting for the right time, the right person. When Miles’s hand slipped down her back and tucked her hips against his, she felt his hardness against her softness with a thrill that made her moan.
Even her quest faded into the distance, borne away by the force of the storm rising within her.
7
The bed of pine needles was soft beneath the cloak he had spread for her. Overhead, visible through the trees, the moon had risen, and around it the sky was fading into darkness. They could travel no farther tonight.
But travel was the last thing on her mind. She lay on her back on a bed that seemed softer than any she had lain on, while he propped himself on one elbow beside her and leaned over her.
His head blocked the moon, a dark shadow; then his lips found hers again, this time with a velvety touch. She strained up toward him, wanting a deeper pressure, but he pulled back a little, just enough to keep on teasing her with a gentleness that to her no longer seemed necessary.
“No hurry,” he whispered. “We can’t travel any farther….”
She wanted to agree with him. She knew he was right. But inside her was a pressure of things that needed doing, of things that could go wrong if she didn’t keep going.
“I’ll take care of it all, Princess,” he murmured, as if he could read her mind. “All of it. These moments belong to us. ”
Which was exactly what she wanted. With a deep sigh, she gave herself up to the moment, putting away all the burdens of her life and stealing just this little bit of time for herself.
That meant trusting him, trusting him to take care of the Behemoth for her and to help her get the key back safely to Morgania. And surprisingly enough, she found it easy to trust that he would. Easy to trust that he would take care of everything.
It was a heady feeling to no longer be alone with her burdens, and even headier to feel free to let go of them if only for a short time.
When his lips returned to hers, they remained tender, but now his hand stroked along her side, as if gentling a mare. The touches, light as they were, made her feel as if she were melting inside, softening.
Yielding. Never in her life had she yielded anything to anyone. She had been a scrapper from birth. Now some transformation was happening deep within her, and she was finding she liked it.
Reaching up, she placed her hands on his shoulders, opening herself even more, needing something to cling to as reality spun away.
It was as if Miles picked up the reins of her existence with his touches, moving her past thought and will. When chilly air touched bare skin, it felt right. When his warm fingers followed, it felt even more right.
There was magic in his touch, a wizard’s knowledge of spells, and the spell he cast over her like a gentle net lifted her so completely out of herself that she felt she had moved to a higher plane.
As if to protect her from the chill and the reality that would come with it, he opened her clothes only in a few places. The ties on her tunic came undone, but he parted them only enough to slip his hand inside and to cup her breast as if he held a priceless jewel.
The touch, so fresh and new in her experience, caused her to gasp and arch toward him as spiraling thrills ran through her to the very center of her existence.
With that touch, like the mage he was, he enslaved her, making her wholly his. When his hand began to gently knead her flesh, she was utterly lost in sensation and need.
It was as if he held all the answers she would ever need. As if he held the keys of her existence. She gasped again, and writhed, wanting even more.
“Shh….” His breath was hot on her lips; then he seized her mouth in a deep kiss that plundered her very soul. His fingers found her hardened nipple and pinched, just enough to send the most exquisite pain-pleasure sensations racing through her. Between her legs a strong throbbing began, a heaviness that demanded a response.
But still he held back, teasing her mouth, plundering her warm wet depths, then sliding downward until he took her breast into his mouth.
His suckling caused new waves of pleasure to fill her, and she clutched his head, holding him close and closer still. Overhead, the dark shadows of trees sheltered them, the moonlit sky outlining them in silver. The air grew chillier even as her body grew warmer.
She wanted to share with him some of what she was feeling, but his spell held. He would not let her m
ove except to respond with groans and shivers to his knowing touches.
She throbbed all over now, and felt like a torch aflame with need for him.
And finally, finally, he undid the ties at her waist and tugged. Cold air hit her belly and the apex between her thighs, a stimulating contrast that seemed to tighten her need even more. Then her pants were gone, as were her boots, tugged swiftly away.
But before the cold could penetrate his spell, he covered her with his body, warm and heavy, his clothing opened only that little bit that was needed.
She felt his hardness pressed against her, a promise he didn’t yet exercise. Instead he found her other breast with his mouth and suckled until low moans issued from her, until her hips rocked against him, offering and pleading. Seeking fulfillment.
There was a moment of sharp pain as he breached a barrier never before breached. She cried out, and he stilled, holding her tightly, dropping a rain of kisses on her face and chest.
“Shh,” he whispered. “I didn’t know…”
She didn’t care. She was past caring about anything so paltry. “Please…please…”
He obliged, moving at first slowly, tentatively, within her. The pain slipped away with the rest of reality, and the pressure built within her anew, the need, the hunger.
It was as if a vise tightened inside her, a vise of pleasure that approached pain in its strength. Harder and harder it felt within her as he moved, each stroke winding it tighter.
And then…the heavens exploded and she surmounted the highest of peaks with a cry. Moments later, before her own throbbing had even slowed, she felt him shudder and groan, then collapse against her.
This was a place she never wanted to leave.
Drusilla looked at Miles, realizing they were almost to the eighth floor. And realizing what she had been thinking. Color stained her cheeks with painful heat, and she turned around, starting down the stairs.