Chapter 14 #3
“You really shouldn’t struggle.” The end of her finger came away wet and scarlet.
She held it up, studying it. “It would be a shame to waste even a drop of this precious, divine blood.” Holding his glassy gaze, Aife’s pink tongue flicked out to lick the scarlet tip of her finger and as she stared at Cuchulainn she drew the finger into her mouth, sucking it.
Cuchulainn’s body responded to her, even though he did not ask it to. Did not want it to. But it was as if he’d left his body and become an observer. He could not control the throbbing hardness between his legs any more than he could control his blurred vision or his muddled mind.
Aife’s gaze slid down his naked body. She licked the last of the blood from her lips and smiled hungrily. “Yes, that is better. You’re becoming ready for me.”
Cuchulainn shook his head again. His mind wouldn’t clear. His vision had turned Aife into a sprite—an ethereal, beguiling creature who shifted and changed and beckoned. “What do you want of me?”
“Oh, Cuchulainn, isn’t it obvious?” Aife bent and traced her finger from his chest slowly down his body.
When she reached the hardness between his legs, she grasped him, stroking languidly as she spoke.
“I want your seed, son of Lugh of the Long Arm, so that my child—my son—will enjoy the fruits of your divine blood, as well as my guidance. I will show him how to create his own power. And I have a gift for you in return.” She released him and walked languidly to the hearthfire.
The flames cast shadows that caressed her body.
She turned her back to him so that she faced the fire and spoke again in the same alluring voice.
“The gift I give is the one you desire the most. I am she. She is me. I am she. She is me. I am she. She is me.”
Cuchulainn’s mind couldn’t keep up. He was confused. He was inflamed. And then she turned to face him, and suddenly everything changed. Aife was gone. In her place stood Scáthach, naked, silhouetted by firelight.
“I am she.” Scáthach’s voice held Cuchulainn mesmerized. “She is me.” She walked toward him, slowly, seductively. “I am she. She is me.” Her voice was a caress. She reached the bed.
His breath came in great gulps as he strained against his bonds, trying to reach for her, trying to touch her. “Scáthach!” He called her name.
Her smile flashed. “Yes, Cuchulainn, I am she and she is me.” She bent and kissed him, and he moaned against her lips.
She knelt on the bed, exploring the hard planes and ridges of his body until his body was slick with sweat, his wrists and ankles bled freely, and his muscles trembled from pulling against the unmovable bonds.
“I am she. She is me.” She purred the words as she straddled him and, with a triumphant shout, impaled herself on his hardness.
“Scáthach!” He cried her name as she rode him.
He longed to take her hips in his hands, to guide her movements and prolong their pleasure, but he could not free his wrists, and when the pain his struggles caused began to burn through the fog in his brain, he closed his eyes and turned his face away, trying to concentrate on the wrongness that waited so close, just on the other side of the foggy confusion that held his mind captive.
“No!” Her voice sharpened. “You must look at me!” She took his chin in her hand and forced his gaze to her. “I am she and she is me.”
Scáthach filled his vision. How could this be wrong? He’d wanted her since the moment he saw her. “Yes . . . yes, my queen.” Cuchulainn forgot his bound wrists and ankles, forgot he was a prisoner, forgot everything except Scáthach.
“I am she. She is me.” She kept up the litany as she used his body.
“Scáthach!” he shouted when his seed spilled into her.
Then she was gone. He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t feel her. He didn’t know where he was. Didn’t know who he was. Sentanta. He was Sentanta. Wasn’t he?
His head was in that merciless grip again. His nose was held closed. His mouth was forced open and more sweetly bitter liquid poured down his throat. He gasped and choked, but had to swallow and swallow and swallow . . .
The room swam around him. The firelight called living shadows that danced and laughed and seduced.
“Scáthach?” Surely that wasn’t his voice. He’d never sounded so weak, so pleading, so lost. Was his queen somewhere in those shadows? “Queen of Shadow? Are you there?”
“I have not left you, Cuchulainn my love. I am she and she is me.” The mesmerizing words echoed around him again as Scáthach returned, coaxing his body with her hands and mouth to hardness.
“I am she and she is me.” The words filled him as he filled her.
“I am she and she is me.” Over and over and over until he was so drained he ceased to know anything except the taste of the bitter liquid she kept pouring down his throat, the sound of her voice, and the feel of her body.
“I am she and she is me.” She awakened his body again and again and again.
Finally, all Cuchulainn knew was the painful pleasure she continued to demand of him and her scarlet-tinged words.