Healing Wounds
“O h,” Karigan said. She found she was not prepared for such a discussion.
“It killed me,” Zachary began, “that my last words to you before you vanished were to send you away. I felt...I felt my words were responsible.”
So often he concealed his thoughts and emotions. He must as king, but now he sat there unmasked, anguish rippling across his features.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I heard you’d been engaged, and that was what my thoughts were.
I wanted, and still want, for you to be free as you choose.
” There was an almost imperceptible quaver in his voice.
“Whatever you choose, you will always be foremost to me. I don’t know how I would cope without you.
But I also could not live with myself if I caused you discontent and deprived you of finding happiness with someone who could give all of himself to you.
As a king, I cannot. As a married man, I cannot, despite my wife’s encouragement.
To keep a secret relationship is not fair and a disservice to who you are and how I regard you.
I will not ask it of you no matter how much I wish. ..”
His unfinished sentence hung between them.
She remembered him walking away from her at the ball after they had danced the last time.
Truly, whatever their relationship had been since the first they had met, it had been a dance, tiptoeing around the fact they were falling for each other, and then admitting they had in fact fallen in love.
For so long she had tried to avoid being in his presence even while desiring it, because it hurt that they could not be together, and also because temptation hovered around all their interactions.
She felt that temptation thrum within her now.
The dance required an outward appearance of platonic respect, to pretend there was nothing between them, while inwardly their mutual yearning blazed.
She admired how much he loved his country and people, how he took care of them as only the best of rulers would, the honorable way in which he governed the realm.
Few leaders could do so without falling prey to greed or malfeasance.
All this, and the courage, too, to stand in battle against the enemies of his people.
For all she admired his attributes as a king and warrior, he was not a god or statue or some figure of legend, but a man like any other who lived and breathed, dreamed and desired.
It was the man she loved. It was how one of his smiles directed her way made her heart leap, the thrill of his touch, and feeling at ease with him despite the fact he was her king.
She recalled his tenderness in the north as she suffered from wounds of physical and mental torture.
He’d been kind, patient, and protective of her, telling her stories of his boyhood to take her mind off her pain, bringing Condor to her tent when she as too ill to go to him, and sitting with her for hours, talking to her and holding her hand as she drifted in and out of the nightmares that tormented her.
Without his love and persistence, she, broken in mind, spirit, and body, would likely have died.
To be “free” to find another love? She wanted no other, and she would seek no other. Hot tears slipped down her cheeks as she imagined life without him.
He moved to sit beside her and produced a handkerchief. “Karigan,” he said so softly, “I did not mean to upset you so. It’s the last thing I wanted. I should not have brought it up when you are just recovering.”
She accepted the handkerchief, dabbed at her tears, and blew her nose. “I didn’t expect to become so emotional,” she said feeling like an idiot. “I’m sorry.”
“Dearheart,” Zachary replied, brushing a tendril of hair out of her face, “there is no shame in it. You are safe with me.”
She heard the truth in his words, felt it deeply, which almost set her off again. Must still be tired. Overtired. As tears dried up, she took in his close proximity, the openness of his body, and how he leaned slightly toward her.
Finder, seated between the two humans and suddenly craving attention, jumped from one to the other demanding belly rubs.
“Off,” Zachary ordered.
At first Finder stubbornly refused, but as his master’s voice grew more stern, he jumped off the sofa to reclaim his place by the hearth and lay down with his head on his front paws. He looked as morose as only a dog could.
The distraction gave Karigan a moment to compose herself.
“I almost wish,” she said, “we could return to an earlier time before we got so deep into this. Although, that wasn’t always fun, either.
I do not know what to say or do. This is tearing us both apart.
I think the only answer is to send me on an errand to the other end of the continent—on foot so it takes a long, long time.
Or send me on a voyage across the sea to the farthest known port.
But I can’t leave, not with Mornhavon rising. ”
“I am willing to abide by your wishes,” he replied. “Even if it is to journey afar. Either that, or we go on as we have, or...”
“Or we toss honor out the window, trust Estora knows best, and go all in. But secretly, of course. There is no single good answer.”
“Succinctly put,” he replied. “In another life, I’d have been just the lord-governor of Hillander Province, freer to an extent to be with whom I desired.”
“In that life, I’d be serving a despotic king,” she reminded him. “We are better off as things are.”
“I suppose.” He scrubbed his beard, then gazed directly at her. “So what will it be?”
“What?”
“You do not wish to travel afar with Mornhavon on the rise, but the other two possibilities remain. Which do we choose?”
“Secrecy or honor...” she mused. Well, she already had a boatload of secrets.
Would one more hurt? And was it truly dishonorable if his wife was pushing them together?
She gazed speculatively at him, his warm brown eyes, the crease of concern across his brow.
It was almost as if a force pulled on her to draw closer to him.
Honor, she told herself, but she could not seem to make herself say it aloud.
Instead, she gave in to the pull and flung herself into his arms just as he reached for her as if they were of one mind.
They kissed long and deep and urgently, propelled by desire so long denied.
There was no thinking, no questioning, only the desperate need to touch, to meld into one another.
They both shook with excitement as heat swelled between them.
Finder whimpered beside the fire, but Karigan and Zachary were aware of only one another in a way they had never permitted themselves before, as if they were the only two beings in the world.
Gone were all their concerns of impending war, of falling endlessly through the heavens.
Gone were any concerns of propriety. Gone were their inhibitions.
Zachary’s hands followed the path of her spine beneath her shirt, his fingers trailing over the ridges and furrows of her scarred skin. She stiffened.
“Karigan?” he asked.
In an instant she was back in the Lone Forest strung up in the “workshop” of Nyssa Starling, helpless as the thongs of the whip flayed the flesh of her back. Nyssa had declared Karigan one of her finest canvases after lashing her to the brink of death.
“Karigan?” Zachary asked more urgently.
She squeezed her eyes shut as the lash fell again.
Months after the torture, she’d finally been able to view the damage for the first time in a mirror. She had not recognized the person with the skin of a monster looking back at her. She had wondered then what she wondered now—how could Zachary want that? How could he want her?
“If you do not wish to—” he began.
“I do,” she whispered, “ but...”
“Yes?”
“My back,” she replied.
“Dear gods. Should I send for a mender?”
“No, no,” she said. “The scars.” She looked away.
“Ah,” he said in understanding. “You believe I would find them repellent.”
She nodded.
He placed his palm, his warm palm, against her cheek, his eyes going soft once more.
“My love, nothing could be further from the truth. I’d have done anything to trade places to spare you the hurt.
” He shook his head. “I saw your wounds when they were fresh, at their worst, and I wished more than anything that I could have taken the pain from you, but I have not that ability. You are a woman of astonishing strength and resilience, and when I say I love you, my brave lady, I mean all of you.”
His words reached her deep within and healed wounds she had not known needed healing.
She leaned into him and he held her, comforting her, asking nothing of her.
Reassured and feeling embraced by a wave of love, she kissed him to show him how she felt, and he eagerly reciprocated.
It was as if their pause only increased the intensity of their need for one another.
He nuzzled her neck and she gave a breathy laugh.
“You are amused?” he asked.
“If I had whiskers,” she said, “you’d laugh, too.”
“Now that’s a vision I never expected.” He combed his fingers through his beard with a mischievous glint in his eye. “So, you are ticklish. This is good to know.”
“Your whiskers tickle, but they are also a little prickly.”
He used the pause to throw off his longcoat. “Not too prickly, I hope.”
“Other things make up for it.”
“Like this?”
He eased her back onto the sofa so that she reclined and reapplied himself to tickling her neck, kissing the spot where her pulse quickened.
The flick of his tongue on her skin brought waves of pleasure.
He warmed her in a way her steaming bath had not.
He chased the chill of the heavens from her very bones, her very soul.
She melted beneath him, wanted to nestle in the strength, safety, and comfort of his arms forever.
She stroked down his wide shoulders and sides to his waist, and fumbled with his belt buckle determined to know every inch of him. When, finally, she released his belt, she moved on to undoing the buttons of his fly.
“Damnation,” she muttered.
“Problem?” he murmured against her cheek in a distracted way.
She managed one button. “And men complain about the stays and corsets of women’s dress.”
“Do we? I rather fancy the challenge, but I can assist you with my trousers if you so desire.”
She managed a second button. “Hah!” she said with triumph. But oh, yes, she desired. She desired very much.
They spoke no more and remained oblivious to Finder’s whining as they focused on one another. He brushed the skin of her midsection with feathery kisses, moving to her breasts and arousing her pleasure and anticipation.
“I don’t want anyone else,” she whispered.
“There is only you,” he murmured.
They engaged once more in touching, exploring, and kissing with increasing intensity.
His hand slipped beneath her skirt and glided up between her legs.
Her pulse drummed in an urgent rhythm and she gasped.
She in turn sensed his readiness. They were both more than ready.
It had always been coming to this point.
Over the years of yearning, desiring, restrained by rank and honor, it had always been their destiny.
Finally, they would unite as one.