CHAPTER SEVEN #3
Royce nodded, panting, and turned to his men.
Now that the brief battle was over, every knight in the garrison had surged into the ward, bearing arms. “There’ll be nay more attacks on Carrick.
Triple the watch. Take care o’the dead.” He looked at Allie harshly, his gaze still overly bright. Abruptly he strode past her.
His pain blinded her.
Allie breathed hard, shallowly, shocked that he was still standing.
Then she ran after him. Royce was still in a savage, warrior mode, but he was feeling the effects of that terrible blow and he was bleeding badly.
Now that she could feel his pain, she was pretty certain his arm was partially severed from his body.
He was just too enraged to feel it completely yet.
He stood by the table, draining the jug of wine.
Ceit and Peigi looked ready to faint.
“There’ll be no more trouble this night,” he told them harshly. “Bring linen, water. Good night.”
Ceit didn’t hesitate. She and Peigi fled.
Allie walked slowly toward Royce, now standing in a puddle of his own blood. That blinding pain went through her again.
Royce looked at her—and then tore his blood-soaked tunic from his body, flinging it to the floor. Allie bit her lip at the sight of his body—muscular, scarred and shockingly, fully aroused. He gave her a heated look.
He was still in the throes of bloodlust, she thought uneasily.
“Come here,” he said. And it was the kind of order he’d give to one of his men.
She had to heal him but she hesitated. Even badly wounded, he was a magnificent sight. And she felt his lust—not around her—in her. It seethed and begged for release.
She was almost afraid of him. But her body was humming and vibrating with an intensity of its own. Her gut was hollow, aching. “You’re bleeding to death.”
He sent her another heavy, hot look. “So heal it.” Then, he spoke in a murmur. “Come an’ heal me, Ailios.”
She trembled and poured her white light over him, into him.
His eyes widened, as if he hadn’t expected it.
But then, had a Healer ever healed him before? She knew her power was warm and that it felt good. She knew the moment he received her white power, his pain would begin to diminish.
He stared at her in surprise, but his gaze remained intently male and predatory. Allie felt the sharp pain going through him, through her, but it wasn’t blinding now.
She poured more light over him, into him, focusing on his shoulder and the deep wound. He grunted. The sound was one of release.
Then he gave her another long look. His gaze was coherent now.
Confident that he was not about to leap on her in a very bestial manner, she walked up to him and laid her hands on the wound, ignoring the blood. More healing power flowed from her hands, surging now because of their proximity.
His gaze held hers, watchful and intent. “It feels good,” he said roughly.
She smiled but didn’t speak. She could not focus while having a conversation. She threw more healing power directly into the wound this time. She became aware of his bulging bicep, just above her eye level, and his bloodstained chest.
He grunted again as more pain was released. He sat down.
Allie was so short it was easier to stand with her hand on his shoulders while he sat. The bleeding had stopped. She felt the flesh inside the wound binding and renewing itself. His pain had dulled to a mere ache. She smiled, pleased, and then her heart lurched.
She had almost been the cause of Royce’s death—again.
“I’m fine,” Royce said thickly.
Allie saw that he was even more fiercely aroused than before. But of course he was. That shocking, savage, murderous frenzy was gone. The barbarian was gone. But she’d stopped the bleeding, meaning his blood supply was going somewhere else. His gaze was on hers, oddly uncertain and searching.
Her heart turned over, hard. “Don’t move,” she said softly. “Let me finish.”
He just sat there, staring at her face.
Allie went to the door and stepped into the hall, hoping to find Ceit for the linens and water. She’d set a basin of water and clean linens next to the door. Allie gathered up the items and returned to the hall.
Her steps slowed. Royce sat naked on the bench, fully aroused, looking exactly like what he was: a supernaturally virile, superpowerful holy warrior with a godly ancestry. He turned and stared at her. His gaze sizzled.
She came forward, her entire body flaming. Was he inviting her to bed, finally? Or was this still about the battle from hell? She cleaned the blood from his shoulder with the wet linen, pleased to see an angry red scar there. By the morning it would be pink, and in another day or so, white.
She wrung out the linen and ran the wet rag down his arm, cleansing the blood there, too.
He breathed deeply and threw his head back. His eyes closed. The pulse in his throat throbbed. His abdomen tensed, the muscles hard and tight.
She rinsed the rag and laid it on his shoulder, so swollen she couldn’t stand it. Everything had changed in the past few hours—and there was no anger between them tonight.
Aware of what he was asking her for, aware of what she wanted, she moved the moist linen slowly over his chest.
He said, without opening his eyes, “Oh, dinna think I’m nay angry.”
She had to smile, removing more blood. “Hush.” She ran the moist rag lower, over his ribs, removing the blood there.
His gaze opened, hot and heavy, languid with intent. He remained arched backward against the table. “Ye can disobey me anytime,” he said softly, seductively, “but nay in battle.”
Allie hesitated. Her gaze was not on his. He was straining for that moist rag. “I think,” she said, and she slid the wet linen low, all the way down his belly, even though there was no blood there, “I may have learned my lesson.”
He sat still, breathing hard, watching her now.
Allie took the wet cloth and flicked it up his long, thick shaft.
He made a very harsh sound of enjoyment.
Allie met his gaze and smiled at him, her heart hammering with excitement. His gaze flared and he seized her hand.
He took the rag and tossed it aside. Allie sank to her knees, pleasure building wildly now, nuzzling his perfect length. He gasped and she teased him with her cheek. She thought she heard him ask her to hurry. She rained kisses on his hot skin.
Suddenly he seized her hips, lifting her to her feet and anchoring her between his legs. “Let go,” Allie gasped, because she had been about to do something she’d been thinking about for days.
“I’m master here,” he said, and he pulled her hips forward. Suddenly she was on his lap, his turgid erection against her side, and he was clasping her face in his hands. “I’m tired o’ this game.”
“Me, too,” she said, her heart ready to explode from her chest.
He looked at her and their eyes met. She saw wild excitement and hot lust, but also something else, bright and light. Then he lowered his face to hers.
Allie gasped with pleasure, with joy, because he claimed her lips with such hunger, such need and desperation that for one moment, she thought herself back in 2007.
She reached for his shoulders and clung.
He thrust his tongue deep while he kept her face still in his huge, uncompromising hands.
Allie came to her senses and started kissing him back.
He finally grasped her skirt, the gesture brutal. Allie knew he was about to rip her clothes from her body. She seized the zipper and frantically pulled. He never stopped kissing her, but his mouth softened and she felt a smile.
“Yer precious garments,” he murmured.
“Very precious,” she gasped. Somehow she wriggled out of the skirt. He seized it and tossed it to the floor.
And he stopped kissing her.
Allie opened her eyes, breathing hard, her body positively in flames.
He stared down at her thong—and the soaking-wet flesh beneath. Then he gave her a sensual look. He slid his thumb beneath and Allie almost wept from the delicious pressure. Smiling, he rubbed deep, deeper, firmer, knowingly.
“Oh,” she gasped.
“I want to watch ye come, right now.”
Allie didn’t think it was a problem. She was about to crest and break. And then something stopped her—he stopped her, with some kind of force over her mind, her body, her sex.
Just as he’d done that first and only night.
“Except,” he said, his gaze blazing, “I want ye coming the first time with me inside.” He lifted her and laid her on the edge of the table, a knee on each side of his hips as he stood.
Allie began to hyperventilate. “Hurry.”
He smiled and dipped between her thighs and rubbed against her. She couldn’t stand the exquisite pleasure and she writhed. He restrained her.
“Be still,” he murmured. “Let me do the fucking. Lie still an’ enjoy it.”
She looked at him.
He was dead serious. “This one time, ye can obey. Let me pleasure ye, Ailios.”
She nodded—or thought she did. It was really hard to respond because he was starting slowly, with agonizing deliberation, to push inside—only to pause after every single inch.
She lay as still as she could, starting to cry from the pleasure and pressure, and she let him stroke her, bit by bit, until it was long and slow, deep and deeper still.
Madness began. She was blinded by the need for a release.
She didn’t know how she could hold so much pressure inside her—or how he could do so, either.
Because she felt his pleasure, too. It had crested into a tidal wave, one about to crash down on the shore—on her.
And finally, she couldn’t stand it; finally, she wanted to beg.
“Aye,” he said, and he gasped, surging deep.
Allie felt the block being lifted. She felt the huge damn break. She cried out, exploded and flew farther, higher, than she’d remembered, weeping his name, shattering a hundred times, each time more intense than the one before. He came with her, each time, violently, long and endless. “Ailios.”