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  Zorac chuckled and beckoned a servant forward to offer his guest wine. “Go from here, Asneth, and take supper with the servant women.”

  She curtsied, smiled again at Thomas, and took her leave.

  At another table, several of the guardsmen ate their meal and spoke quietly amongst themselves, though now and then they cast an interested eye upon Thomas. The stable lad was there, and an older man, perhaps the gardener Zorac spoke about. The knight and the wizard were alone at the large table.

  “You do not keep a large company here, my lord.”

  “I share my home with those humans whose company I can tolerate. That number is few.”

  “Your reputation beyond your borders is far more sinister than within them, sir,” Thomas observed, taking a seat to Zorac’s right at his gesture of invitation. “Your people seem well content with your rule.”

  “You and I both know that a man with powers that seem beyond a normal man’s grasp is often feared, Sir Thomas.”

  Thomas held the wizard’s keen gaze. “I know that often there is reason to fear a man with such power, for a man is still a man.”

  “Perhaps. How came you to be so serious of eye, Sir Thomas, with so few years upon you? You are not thirty, I’ll wager. And yet I have heard of some of your courageous exploits.”

  “I was charged with the duties of a knight at a young age,” Thomas replied.

  “There is a legend,” Zorac considered him with that same penetrating gaze, “that Arthur knighted a child, a mere peasant lad, before he went into the battle of Camlann.”

  “I have heard that legend as well, my lord.”

  “It was long ago, of course. Centuries. The legends say that this last knighting was special. The boy was blessed by that deed, and he aged more slowly than most, in order that he could make sure the tale of Arthur was known and never forgotten, that he could live his life as an enduring example of Arthur’s dream.”

  “All power comes from God, my lord.”

  “Mmm. If the story is true, I suspect that would be a lonely life.”

  “To spread the word of a dream can compensate for many things, my lord.”

  “Not as the years continue to pass and men grow deaf. Then there is just loneliness.”

  Thomas took a casual swallow of wine. “Indeed, my lord. Do you find yourself lonely in the path you have chosen, that you would dwell on the loneliness of a legend?”

  The wizard’s power was a wash of heat, even without a flash of annoyance spiking it. Thomas held his posture, the wine to his lips, even as the table beyond them stilled, the men sensing the irritation of their master.

  Zorac’s gaze shifted from Thomas. “Enough of word games,” he said abruptly. “Lady Lilith. Do not stand at the door like a shy maiden, for you are far from that. Come in and meet your guest.”

  Thomas’s breath caught in his throat. He placed the goblet back on the table and turned, straddling the bench, so his face was averted from Zorac’s scrutiny.

  She was his dream. He knew she was more than his imagination, but to see her in the flesh, confirmation that his visions had been true, knocked his senses down, and rolled over them. The soul and body he craved were here before him now, within a few strides. He felt as if the air for his lungs would from this moment on be dependent on her very presence.

  He smelled that sweet scent to the air, the scent from the dream, but in this reality, there was more to it. It had a woman’s sexual secrets beneath it, her secrets. The fist holding his heart squeezed mercilessly.

  She had auburn hair, the browns and reds glinting in the torchlight as she moved across the room. It was piled on her head, rather than free on her shoulders in the way of unmarried women. He wondered the weight of it did not bow that slender pale nape. She was one of those women with such fair skin that a faint freckling sprinkled her throat and the curve of her shoulders he could see. Rather than marring her, it added to the tapestry of her beauty.

  She was small to have dominated so much of his dreams. All delicate bones, her wrists like works of porcelain. Her breasts were firm apples pressing against her bodice. Even the soft glide of her slippered feet on the fresh rushes aroused his senses.

  The dress she wore was like nothing he had seen before. Her gown was black lace over an undergarment of sheer white fabric that showed the pale color of her skin through it. Her nipples were clearly visible to him, the deep blush aureoles drawing the eye as much as the prominent points sculpted by the fabric.

  The black lace molded her bosom and waist, but was cut in ribbons at the skirt so it fluttered away from her as she walked. She wore no hose or undergarments, and so her dress exposed the body beneath, giving it only the modesty afforded by shadows of the hall’s torchlight. With each step, he saw a length of thigh and calf, and the gates of paradise, the burnished curls over the opening of her tight cunt. For he knew from his dreams she would be the tightest of gloves, into which he would eagerly ease his fingers to test its warmth and fit. She had wide, generous hips that swayed as she moved, the pendulum swing enhanced by the fact her upper body seemed curiously immobile. Her walk was an undulation of sensual movement, as if she felt the stroke of a man’s stiff cock with every step.

  “No man can look at her and not want to bugger her arse,” Zorac said flatly.

  Thomas’s gaze snapped to him, the crudity out of character with the demeanor of his host. The comment produced a coarse bark of laughter from the table of guardsmen. From their openly appreciative glances at Lilith, it was obvious they had been given that privilege often.

  Thomas fought for calm, and watched as his lady’s lips curved in the practiced suggestiveness of a whore, mocking their response. He knew as if it was his own reaction that she raised this shield against them, a challenging taunt to the wizard that held her captive. Thomas wondered if he were the only one who could see the cold and desperate quality to it, like the wounded soldier who thrust up from the ground for one more engagement, even as his life’s strength waned from him.

  He wanted her out of here. Away from them. Now. He forced himself to sit still, and impassive, and simply watch her, but he could not remember any challenge that had been harder for him.

  “Come to me, first,” Zorac commanded.

  She passed the table of guardsmen. One reached out, stroked her breast, another her thigh, a quick fingering of her cunt through the clothes. She stopped at that touch, her facial features tightening in rigid reaction, and a soft gasp escaped her. The man chuckled, pushed her on her way with a sharp slap to her arse.

  As difficult as it was for him to do so, Thomas turned his gaze from her to study his adversary. Zorac’s face had gone flat and hard, not as if he saw a beautiful woman moving toward him, but something he detested with all his being, its very presence to be loathed.

  As for Lilith, as she drew closer, Thomas saw her lips and jaw were taut and her dark eyes glassy, as if polished by a daily wash of tears. The skin stretched thin over her prominent cheekbones was like white stone polished to a soft satin luster by the constant flow of a waterfall.

  Thomas noticed her fingers twitched in agitation at her sides. She wet her lips, and her eyes darted to Thomas and away, at least a dozen times as she crossed the hall. Her throat worked in nervous swallows. By the time she reached Zorac’s side, her breath was coming in shallow pants.

  “Ah, you like that we have a guest tonight, don’t you, my lady Lilith?”

  She shook her head, and Zorac chuckled, but Thomas saw nothing he would have called humor in the man’s expression. “Sir Thomas, this is the Lady Lilith, who is, in fact, very pleased by your presence among us tonight. Let me show you.”

  The wizard reached out and drew back the lace cover. The threads of the sheer underdress that had rubbed between her thighs as she walked now shimmered with her honey.

  Lilith made a soft noise of protest, frantic eyes shifting to Thomas’s face.

  “My lord, she is in pain,” Thomas said.

  “If she
was, she would deserve it, but she is not, good sir, you may believe me, or believe the evidence of your nostrils. She is in pleasure.”

  “But her arms,” Thomas gestured. Lilith’s arms had not risen from her sides during her walk across the room, nor now, when Zorac held her dress up, exposing her honeyed thatch to the view of Sir Thomas and the other interested men.

  “They are capable of movement, at my command,” Zorac explained. “Lilith does nothing except at my command. Is that not right, my little whore?”

  Lilith’s lips drew back from teeth wet with saliva. “Yes, my lord.” Her voice was like air glinting with the soft gold of early morning. Her gaze was full of hate and lust at once.

  “My lord,” Thomas sat back, though his hands itched to do creative forms of violence. “You are making me very uncomfortable with your unkind treatment of this woman. I believe in courtly behavior toward women of all classes.”

  “Women like this make victims out of men like you,” Zorac said, his eyes suddenly dangerous fire. Lilith made an abrupt noise of protest.

  “It gets worse when I’m angered, doesn’t it?” Zorac murmured. He took his hands away from her. She continued to stand beside him, shivering, but the wizard shifted his gaze to Thomas, ignoring her.

  “There is a whimsical spell, Sir Thomas. It involves the resilient thread of the spider’s web, which can hold its prey immobile until the spider decides to feed its hunger. And a strand of the lady’s hair in question.” His palm pressed the side of Lilith’s fair cheek, his fingers caressing. She made an inconsolable noise, like a bereft soul faced with the hopelessness of hell, and turned her face into the wizard’s hand. She bit him with passion, sucking on his skin. Her cheeks were flushed and she made a desperate noise of protest when he withdrew his hand and wiped it distastefully on his napkin. She looked away from Thomas’s intent regard, her eyes filled with shame and uncontrolled hunger.

  “Then, regretfully,” Zorac continued, as if he had been interrupted by a dog begging for scraps at his elbow, “the spider, too, must go into the spell. For a true and strong binding always requires blood. What comes from this potion is a fabric, transparent like that web, so you cannot see it. That means you do not obscure from view that which you bind. My lady Lilith wears this spell on her arms, from elbows to wrists, binding their movement to her sides in the way you see. You can remove her clothes without disturbing it,” Zorac leaned forward. With a sharp jerk, he pulled the soft fabric of her dress, from where it rested on the points of her shoulders, down to her waist. “So you need not be denied in any way.”

  Her breasts would be perfect in his palms, like fresh oranges. Thomas could well imagine the firm flesh giving way beneath his touch, quivering as she gasped, a bit breathless from his gentle kneading, the brush of his thumbs over those incredibly plump nipples. He had seen grapes in Italy like them, a deep burgundy color, begging to be taken into the mouth for the juices to come forth and fill every sense, not just stroke the taste buds.

  She stood there, helpless to do anything but be exposed to the appreciative glance of every man in the room, including himself.

  Thomas was shamed that even in this moment he felt such desire for her. Aye, he was hard as the stone bench on which he sat. However, unlike the other men, he desired to plunge himself into the hot wetness of her soul, penetrate and fuck that, until it shuddered around him and surrendered.

  “The spell has many advantages, as you can imagine,” Zorac took a sip of wine, never glancing at those perfect breasts, “but some drawbacks. While she wears the binding, Lilith is dependent on my hand for food and water, lest she cares to drink and eat from the floor with the dogs.

  “At first, she spurned my hand, until she was so hungry she did scrounge for scraps with the dogs. The depths of her pride surprised me. She relented when I decreed that, if she would act like a dog, then she’d be fucked like one. It is something you do not often see,” the wizard’s impassive gaze shifted to Lilith, whose expression revealed nothing but her hunger. “A woman desperate to fulfil two needs at once, gulping down food from the floor as fast as she can, choking out moans between bites because a man is hammering her cunt from behind.”

  Thomas rose, his face hard. Zorac remained motionless, watching him. Lilith’s dark, hopeless eyes studied the knight.

  “What crime has this woman committed, my lord, that you feel she deserves to be shamed in this fashion?” the knight asked.

  “This is not the public square, my lord Thomas, where sentences must be read aloud. Suffice it to say she has committed a sin for which this punishment is not nearly severe enough.”

  “You are God, then, to judge her so?”

  Zorac leaned forward, his pale blue eyes glittering like ice in the longest days of winter. His lips curled back in a snarl. “In all things concerning her, I am. Hell’s justice is slow, Sir Thomas. At time, Lucifer needs a hand to carry out God’s sentences. And since I am God in this place, I think we shall now find out more about what brings you to us.”

  Thomas turned quickly as a guard came forward and dropped his saddlebags before the wizard.

  “You usually go through your guest’s belongings, sir?” Thomas asked coldly.

  “I protect my interests, Sir Thomas.” The wizard opened the flap of the saddlebag and peered in at the contents, but did not remove them. After a moment, he replaced the flap and sat back, considering the knight. “So your challenge is for the Lady Lilith, as I suspected,” he said.

  “It is.” Thomas gauged in his mind the position of the guards in the room, and what he might have to do to defend himself or his lady. “And I would have told you that honestly, in our conversation tonight. I bring no intention of subterfuge, my lord. I am here for Lilith. I do not intend to leave without her.”

  Lilith’s attention darted between the two of them, confusion altering her tense features.

  “I see. You have brought tools to perform the ritual of awakening,” Zorac said thoughtfully. “The High Priestess Helene has given some thought to what might overturn my spell, without offending me.” He chuckled, startling Thomas with his sudden affability. “It is clever, I give her that. However, Helene overlooked one thing.” The wizard’s lips pulled back into a smile that enhanced the cruelty Thomas had suspected there. “There is no way this worthless whore can survive the ritual of awakening. There is nothing in her soul to awaken. It will destroy her hollow mind and you will leave here with less than the hope with which you came. Knowing that, I can afford to be a gracious host, and offer you something for your trouble. Show him your wiles, Lilith. Take off the dress.”

  “I do not require—”

  “Do not make it worse on her,” Zorac said, his voice sharp. Lilith’s breath caught in her throat and her body shuddered. Her head dropped back on her shoulders and her fingers closed into fists. “Let me proceed, Sir Thomas, unless you enjoy seeing her torment heightened.”

  The muscles in Thomas’s jaw flexed and he gave a bare nod. It was obvious the task of taking off the dress would not be an easy one for a woman with her arms bound. Thomas supposed that was the point, to humiliate her further by making her do the crude maneuvers before them all.

  With a steel glance at the wizard, he stepped upon the table, and down to stand before her. Now he was within touching distance, nothing between them but air. Despite his objection to their surroundings for their first face-to-face meeting, he felt as though his emotions would burst from him like his seed. She was so small, the top of her head just at his collarbone. Her breasts swayed with her uneven breaths.

  “I will help you, my lady,” he said.

  She looked up at him, her eyes like the depths of a man’s soul. Thomas was conscious of Zorac watching them, but the wizard made no protest, which was fortunate for him. This close to her, feeling her pain, smelling the scent of her arousal, Thomas would have cheerfully drawn his sword and gutted him for defiling what was his.

  For she was his. He had known it in his dreams, but now
, here, this close to her, it was as plain and miraculous a fact as the color of her hair. She was his, whatever her imperfections or mysteries. She was his heart. He could feel it beat faster in his breast as it recognized her.

  He went to one knee and set his hands to her bare rib cage. Heat. Her skin was so warm to be so fair. At his touch, her lips parted and moistened, a flush spreading across her throat and fair shoulders. Thomas reached around her, bringing her a step closer to him inside the span of his arms, in order to ease the back lacing of the gown and take the full ensemble down over her hips. Her breasts were no more than a finger width from his face, and he saw the blue veins just below the milky skin.

  The bare curves of her buttocks molded into his palms as he brought the fabric down over them. As he guided the dress to her ankles, his thumbs curved over her thighs and he touched wetness. He slid his fingers forward and found that there was a track of moisture trickling from her. He smelled her arousal like an exotic musk wafting from an infidel’s tent, offering forbidden pleasures. The visible area of her cunt was a red full rose, slick with a dew that only the heat of a man’s lips, like the sun, could absorb.

  “You see, my lord,” Zorac spoke. “I told you true. She is not in pain, but frozen in pleasure. She cannot go forward, or back. I have perfected the spell which keeps a woman on the cusp of that petite morte, never quite there, but not able to withdraw from its heights, so she is always off balance, teetering on the edge of a cliff from which she can neither leap nor retreat.”

  “Pleasure meets pain, and—”

  “The two never separate. It is the reality which most of us choose not to face. Lilith bears the lesson every day. Let me show you how pleasure can bring agony.” Zorac motioned to one of his guardsmen.

  “I need no such demonstration,” Thomas said, though he knew his words to be cursedly untrue. Helene had counseled him.

  It will be difficult, my lord, to see her thus, but that is why I have taught you to discipline your most primitive of instincts, including aggression. Before you begin the ritual, you must be sure you understand fully the type of spell she is under.