Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
A s he came into the workroom to collect his medical bag before he headed downstairs, Benedict found Ulf pacing back and forth, as if impatiently waiting for him to appear.
“What are you doing up here, Alfie?” he asked. “Farlan wants us all down in the great hall.”
“I couldn’t find you.” His assistant strode over and wrapped his arms around him. “I reckoned you’d been taken as well.”
He’d never had any physical contact with the fair-haired man, as he knew only too well that certain sexual orientations had been punishable by death in Ulf’s time. He also assumed that his crush was straight, as all of them had been in his past. He didn’t know why other gay men didn’t attract him, only that he seemed doomed to fall for the most masculine hetero guys. Finding one who would accept him and the fact that he also liked women seemed a lost cause in his time; he’d never find someone here.
Was his assistant kissing his neck now? No, he was probably overreacting. It was the kind of close hug that buddies gave each other. They were buddies, weren’t they?
“Come here and sit for a minute.” He guided Ulf over to the cot where he sometimes napped, only to trip over one of his works in progress. Just before he fell onto the cot, which would have smashed it to pieces, a strong arm caught him from behind. “Oh, thanks.”
“Dinnae thank me, you eejit.” Ulf moved his hand down his belly and covered the stiff bulge Ben’s erection made in his trousers. “So, ’tis true, what the maids claim. You desire me. You fack men, then?”
“Sometimes.” That wasn’t a lie; Ben had always been bisexual. He wouldn’t tell him his lifelong fantasy to have a threesome; Ulf would probably call him a beast. “I like women, too.”
“Yet you’ve taken no lover since you came into the trap.” His hand unfastened the buttons of his fly and tugged down his underwear to take hold of his cock. “What do you imagine you’d do with me, then? Have me as you’d take a woman?”
The grip of his assistant’s hand on his rigid shaft made him flush so hard he thought his face might start smoldering. How could he grab him like this? Did he want him?
“I’m a bottom with men.” Realizing he wouldn’t understand that, he added, “I’d want you to take me the way you would a woman.”
“Then I may be on top, aye?” Ulf yanked down Ben’s trousers and pushed him onto the cot. “Shall I take you now, Healer?”
“Please.” It had been so long since he’d had sex with anyone he’d even take him dry, and lifted his hips to entice him. “Do what you want.”
“Wake up, Healer,” a sweet voice said from behind him.
Ben fell off the cot, his blanket tangled around him, and looked up at Elspeth. “What? What happened?”
“I heard you cry out from the passage.” She glanced down and then averted her gaze. “I’m sorry for waking you, only Farlan wishes us all gather in the hall now.”
Although he’d been completely embarrassed in his dream, now Ben cringed as he pulled the blanket over the big bulge in his pants. “Sorry, El. I had one of those dreams.”
“Ever we all do, Ben.” She gave him a quick, odd look before she hurried out of the workroom.
He managed to get his lust under control as he grabbed his medical case and went to follow the maid. He’d always liked Elspeth, who seemed just as much an outsider as he was here. As far as he knew she also had never taken a lover in all the years she’d been here, and for the first time he wondered why. Was she gay? Did she have a crush on one of the other maids?
So hopeless, Ben thought. She’s like Ulf; you’ll never have a chance with her.
Out in the passage he saw the maid standing at the corner and trotted to catch up with her. “What’s wrong? Are you–” He fell silent when he saw the thing that was spitting strands of white webbing all over the front of her.
It had to be eight feet tall and weigh a ton, Ben thought as he stared up at the colossal caterpillar. His whole head could fit in the creature’s enormous mouth, too. The horror of what he was seeing finally rammed through his shock and he grabbed Elspeth, slinging her over his shoulder and whirling around as he ran for the back stairs.
Everywhere the white webbing touched Ben his skin went instantly numb.
He could hear the monster caterpillar slithering behind him but didn’t stop to look back. He’d just keep running until he found someone with weapons. When he reached the steps he took them two and three at a time, nearly falling as he rushed down to the first floor, where he sprinted for the hall.
When he reached the barricade he nearly wept with relief.
“One of those things is coming after me,” he shouted to the guards standing on the other side. “Let me in.”
Once inside the hall he went to the nearest table to lay the maid on her back. Tearing off his sleeves and using them to wrap his hands, he began pulling the long, white strands of webbing from her face and torso.
“Put that in here,” Farlan said, dropping an empty wood bucket beside Elspeth’s rigid body. “By the gods. What did thus to the lass?”
“A giant caterpillar. It was light green, seven feet tall, and could have eaten my head with one bite.” He glanced at the seneschal, who was pressing his lips together. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”
“Others who came down saw the same, Healer,” Farlan said, his gaze taking on a decided glimmer as it shifted to the maid. “I hate to see our lasses suffer. ’Twill make me swear if I dinnae bite my tongue.”
It took several minutes to free the maid from the webbing, and then Ben had one of the maids heat a kettle of water for him to wash the residue from her skin, which had grown cold to the touch. As soon as he did she took a deeper breath, blinked, and then regarded him and Farlan as if confused.
“Healer, what… Oh, Gods.” The remembrance of the creature that had attacked her showed in the horror in her eyes. “I couldnae move, nor cry out. If you hadnae saved me–”
“Someone else would have, I promise you.” He grabbed the plaid that Farlan handed him and wrapped it around her trembling body before helping her down from the table. “Can someone give the lady a warm drink and a chair by the fire, please?”
“Permit me, Ben. Come, my dear.” Inga guided Elspeth toward the hearth.
He gestured to the seneschal, and led him out of earshot before he said, “She was paralyzed and hypothermic, and that made her helpless. If there is more than one of those giant caterpillars, then they’ve probably been attacking and cocooning all the people who have gone missing.”
The seneschal looked disgusted. “Do you reckon they’d try to eat them?”
“I don’t know. Once the webbing is removed, the victims may revive just like Elspeth did.” His face felt stiff, and he grimaced as he pulled a piece of webbing from his own cheek. “We can’t kill these things, either, so how do we stop them?”
“Unlike us and the animals, they’re insects and unnatural to the spell trap, so ’tis possible they may die if we attempt to slay them.” Farlan thought for a moment. “The mouth of the creature, ’twas on its head, then?” When he nodded the seneschal made a cutting gesture across his own throat. “Mayhap we can behead one and burn both parts.”
“And tomorrow another one will show up to take its place,” Ben predicted gloomily, only to find himself yanked around to face a bare-chested Ulf. “Where have you been? What happened to your tunic?”
“I lost it looking for you, you great fool.” The shorter man took a step closer, and then let go of his arm and regarded Farlan. “I saw dozens in the passages, all covered with webbing and no’ moving. I barely escaped one of the worms myself.”
“For God’s sake.” Ben looked down to see the remnants of webbing all over Ulf’s left hand, and seized him by the wrist to lead him over to the table where he’d left the kettle of warm water. “Why didn’t you come down here first? I can take care of myself.”
“Aye, so you can.” His assistant tugged a bit of webbing from his hair and dropped it in the wood bucket. “We need our healer now more than ever.”
“I’m useless as a doctor here, and you know it.” He met the other man’s amused gaze. “It’s not funny. You should never have taken such a risk. These monsters could be eating the people they’ve attacked.”
His blond hair flared out as he shook his head. “I saw two of them drag a huge cocoon into one of the storage chambers and pile it atop a dozen others. They didnae take even a nibble. Dare I hope that you truly worry for me, Benedict?”
The teasing note in his voice made Ben stiffen. The Viking had figured out that he had a crush on him and wanted to mock him for it. He wasn’t going to let the smartass do that, not when it could end up getting him ostracized or worse.
“Not at all. I never asked you to be my bodyguard, and we both know how well you can look after yourself.” He took pride in how dispassionate he sounded when he added, “After this is over you can stop coming to my workroom. I’ve never needed your help, so find something else to do.”
He went to check on Elspeth and pretended not to sense Ulf’s gaze following him. His crush was over; it was time he stopped acting like a kid and got on with the rest of his possibly immortal life. If they survived this, maybe he’d give the binding ceremony a go next month.
“Hello, pretty lady,” Ben said to the chambermaid as he checked her eyes. “You’re looking better.”
B odach flitted about the spell trap, noting with pleasure the absence of the watchers on the walls and the towers, as well as the vassals who toiled out of doors. By now his children would be making their way through the stronghold, corralling, and paralyzing the clan and their vassals, leaving the whole place for him to search. It would take some time to do so, of course, but he could visit as often as he wished while everyone lay helpless in their cocoons.
He flew up to the garden solar, where on his earlier foray he had picked up a strong sense of the treasure that had been hidden away from him. It tasted sweet in the air, like spun honey crystals, but also dark, like the depths of shadows. The treasure had been created in Elphyne, and later hidden in the mortal realm for its protection. Once he acquired his prize he would devour it and take into himself that power it possessed from the very beginning of its creation, just as he had the red crystals that had saved him from slow starvation. Once that birth magic saturated him, he would be able to combine his power with it and become the most powerful Fae in existence. Then it would be time to return to the Fae otherworld.
He would see to it that his Dark Fae parents died immediately after the king and queen.
Inside the solar he found his idiot wife. Since it had not been part of the castle before the enchantment, he knew his treasure was not hidden inside. He landed on a broad-leafed herb plant to rest for a moment and watch Marianne pace back and forth while she muttered to herself.
“Stupid, worthless bastard. How am I supposed to get her away from him when they’re all over each other? She’ll probably move into his room tomorrow unless those fucking worms catch them.” She stopped and made a shrill sound as she fisted her hands and stamped her feet. “Why doesn’t anything go my way here?”
Unwilling to allow her to take out her temper on him again, Bodach flew out of the solar and to one of the empty watch towers. He’d search them first, and then begin going through each floor of the keepe. Out by the battlements only barrels of arrows and braziers for tipping them with fire stood, but inside the top chamber the clan kept additional weapons in large trunks and storage cabinets.
Since he couldn’t open anything in his insect form, Bodach dropped his glamor to assume his true form to conduct a swift search. He then disguised himself as a butterfly again before the trap’s enchantment detected him and flitted down to the next chamber. Inside the room, which had racks of bows and the makings for more arrows, he saw a mound of white cocoons including one that appeared to encase a giant. The only McKeran that always interested him had been caught by his children, which gratified him. He lit on that one, opening his mind so he could delve the armorer’s thoughts to learn exactly what he was. Something that came from the big man poured into his thoughts as an unstoppable wave, drowning him in green darkness.
Suddenly the trap’s magic detected and seized him, hurling him out through the boundary so fast he was on the other side before he could blink.
Bodach tumbled out of the spell trap’s entry and pushed himself up before he turned and stared at the shadows of the entry passage. The sound of approaching footsteps forced him to shift into a shadow form and step back into the darkness to conceal himself. Two females from the FBI forensic team who were searching the outside property appeared. They approached the entry to the spell trap, now covered by the illusion of a solid stone wall.
“See, this doesn’t make sense,” the shorter, older one said as she gestured at the entry. “I came down here on the evidence sweep, and I swear this wall wasn’t here. All I saw was a big pile of cobwebbed rubble.”
“I’m sure you did, but it’s easy to get turned around in this place,” the other woman said. “Just yesterday Derek said he went into the greenhouse but came out of the tool shed. But he’s always hungover.”
“This whole place gives me the creeps,” the older woman said. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Did you hear about Agent Grayson’s secretary getting transferred? What’s that all about, anyway? I thought he really liked her.”
When the intruders left, Bodach retrieved more silver from his cache near the spell trap entry, and went to work fashioning from it a new wing.
T asgall opened his eyes to find Ava sleeping on top of him again. They had woken together in the same position earlier, and she’d warmed him with her body and her kisses as she’d gently stroked his cock with her quim until they’d both found their pleasure and fallen back asleep. Even now he lay buried inside her wet softness and knew he could roll her onto her back and fack her again. She’d already given him her permission.
Take me whenever you want, however you want.
As lovers they had been born for each other, it seemed, and yet he knew coming together as such would only create more difficulties for them both. Ava would still wish to return to her world, and while he doubted she ever would, her desire to go back would forever plague her. As for him, he had never taken any woman as his lover for more than a night, and once the clan and their vassals knew he had chosen Ava, all manner of complications would arise.
The worst of it was that during their long, passionate night together, he had given her his heart as well as his body. Time and again he wished to tell her, but Ava had not uttered a word about love to him, so it might prove yet another burden for her to shoulder.
“How can I sleep when you’re thinking so loud?” A slender hand came over his face and stroked at the lines furrowing his brow. “It’ll be all right, Tas. We didn’t make a mistake.”
“I ken.” All the tension in him melted away as she pushed herself up and looked into his eyes, her lips curving in that slow, lovely smile of hers. “That grease lamp just filled and lit itself again, so ’tis morning. We should dress and find the means to escape the dungeons.”
She made a vague sound of agreement as she rolled and pulled him on top of her. “In a little while, sir. I need more time with you naked. In my world we call this kind of thing Netflix and chill.”
Tasgall smoothed her hair back from her face, his boisterous cock already hardening inside her. “I shall give you all the time naked with me that you desire.”
“You couldn’t be laird, then.” She touched his mouth with her fingertips. “We didn’t make a mistake.”
The fact that she had repeated such made it clear she was talking to herself, not him. “’Tis never wrong to take comfort in the arms of a friend.”
“Is that what we are?” She looked all over his face. “I think it might be more than that now, especially because we know how good this is between us.”
That pleased and dismayed him. Would this one night be the only one they ever shared? “I shallnae ask anything of you, my lady raven.”
“Then I’ll ask.” She wrapped her legs around his, and arched her back to press her chebs into his chest. “Let’s comfort each other until we have to part ways. If that’s what you want.”
“What I want.” He braced himself before he thrust into her, hard and deep, making her moan. “’Tis you, Ava. You at my side, in my arms, in my bed. Closing my eyes after I kiss you fair night, and opening them to kiss you fair morning. I want all of you, every day, every moment we may steal for ourselves. Before you came ’twas no woman I desired as do I you. I ken now why. You’re the dream of joy that my body craved, and my heart desired. My last woman. ’Twill never be another for me.”
Tears welled into her pretty eyes. “You sure about that, Laird?”
“Aye, Agent.” He kissed her brow, and then began stroking in and out of her quim with his cock. “For now, on the morrow, and if the Gods deem us worthy, for all time.”
She kissed him, her soft lips parting and her tongue stroking his in a long, slow, sweet caress.
Tasgall never again had to wonder what loving her should be for him, and still it rushed through him, bright and new and heady, as if they’d never touched before this moment. It would always be like this with her, he suspected, and that thrilled him beyond reckoning. His cock plunged in and out of her with lusty intent, his baws tightening already as her honeyed quim enveloped and gripped him, squeezing and caressing him with every thrust he gave her. She had enslaved him, conquered him, brought him to his knees, and yet he had never experienced such prideful delight. If he had been mortal like her, and lived in her world, he would have facked her until her belly swelled, over and again until they had filled their hearts and home with their children, but that was not to be. All he could give her was his devotion and his passion, so she would know how he loved her.
I love her, aye. I cannae deny my affection for her any longer.
He took hold of her legs, and drew them up over his shoulders, looming above her now. She stretched her arms over her head, gasping as he came into her again, and his cock touched the mouth of her womb. Taking her that way made him slow so they could both enjoy it, and soon he had her trembling wildly.
“You’re the one for me, too, you know,” Ava whispered the words, and pressed her hand over his heart. “I’ll never want another man again, Tas.”
That heaved him over the precipice, and as he pumped his cream into her she cried out, clenching and squeezing him as she took his bliss and made it hers. On and on it went, as if their bodies meant to fill every inch of them with the pleasure they gave each other, and then drifted and smoothed out into an endless sea of warm, peaceful calm.
He gathered her close and turned onto his side, holding her with their legs entwined and their sweat-slick flesh cooling. For a moment he thought he might weep from discovering her to be the end of his loneliness and longing, for he also knew he could not keep her with him. Nor would he try; even now he loved her too much to shackle her to him and his life. Such would never satisfy her. If she couldnae escape the trap, in time she might reconcile herself to such a fate. Yet even then he would not compel her to accept him as husband. She must never know what she had done to him, either.
In his heart Ava Travars would always be his wife.
Stones shifted in the wall on the other side of the chamber, where an arch formed by itself. As he watched small blocks tumbled down and placed themselves as steps, followed by thin streams of mortar, which filled the cracks between them.
“Never in my life have I ever seen anything like this,” Ava murmured to him.
“Mayhap Farlan’s right, and the very castle, ’tis alive,” Tasgall said, and kissed Ava’s brow before they both sat up and reached for their garments.