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Lilith looked at his engorged lance. Slowly, so slowly he thought he might die, she leaned forward, her arse hovering above her heels, and she took him into the hot cavern of her mouth.

  He had not been paying her false flattery. He knew what suffering was, and had some understanding of what could happen to the mind and soul of a person forced to endure torment each day, year after year. She had a courage and strength that he had rarely encountered, in man or woman. And she was not even aware of it.

  He touched her bare shoulder, gripped it in his fingers. He felt the fragile network of bones, traced the light scattering of pale freckles across paler skin. Watched her head move gracefully up and down, her lovely mouth stretched around the length of him, felt the slide of her tongue along the pulsing vein that ran along the bottom length of his shaft. He could have come in her mouth in an instant, but the priestesses had taught him better. He must give her time to experience the pleasure of servicing him, learn his taste, crave the challenge of drawing his seed forth to her and only her.

  She began to suck as well as stroke and he let out a deep, uneven breath. His lady learned quickly and he shuddered as he heard her make a soft noise in the back of her throat, a tentative purr of pleasure to answer his gasp. Her dark eyes flicked up to look at him and he caressed her chin with his hand, light touches that did not interfere with her movement, but which kept her gaze on his face so she could see his joy in her, his absorption with only her.

  He shifted his hips forward to rock in rhythm with her movements, pushing himself deeper into her mouth, a little harder, demanding more of her. She made a surprised noise, gagged a bit and then adjusted. He smelled her scent and knew the friction of her cunt moving against her calves was adding to her arousal, but he thought there might be more than frustrated desire from Zorac’s curse coursing through her veins. Her expression reflected the change in his, the growing tension in his features.

  His touch on her shoulder became a convulsive clutch that moved up to her neck, then he gave up on a caress entirely and his fist tightened ruthlessly in her hair. She made a growling sound deep in her throat, a challenge and invitation. Some of his milky substance slid out from beneath her lips and started down his shaft. It escaped only a moment before she slid back down, using it to oil him further.

  Thomas could tell she was feeling it, something she had not had for so long, like the first touch of precious sugar on a child’s tongue. Control. Self-direction. A sense of self. A sense of choice. What started out in her mind as serving his pleasure, had brought him under her dominion. When pleasure became excruciating like this, the dominant became the slave of the servant. At this moment he was more certain than ever that he would do anything for her.

  “Soon, my lady, when the spell is broken,” he managed in a ragged voice, “you will do this to prepare me, and I will thrust in you, a hard sword impaling you, and fill you with pleasure.”

  She moaned, and he pushed her speed with his hand tangled in her hair, taxing her strength and the limits of her delicate jaw. He watched the soft flesh of her throat work as he strove to penetrate her as deeply as he could.

  “Be ready, my lady,” he rasped. He held her firm and his cock contracted. The room got hazy, narrowing to just her and that glorious mouth sucking on him, stroking furiously as he exploded, jetting hot streams of seed into the back of her throat, demanding she take him, accept him.

  He held nothing back. He let her see the snarl of feral pleasure on his lips, in his eyes, hear the deep male groan of release, see his buttocks tighten up like drawn bows against the seat of the chair, his skin glowing with sweat from his movements in and out of her mouth.

  She was choking, but holding her own. His seed came from the corners of her mouth, but she quickly swallowed and dove down another blessed stroke on painfully sensitive skin to collect every drop. It made desire sharpen in his belly again to see his lady attend him so well. He shoved down the sudden fear that he might fail in his task and not win her from this place.

  When at last he was done, his grip did not immediately ease. “You are my lady,” he said it out loud, giving power to the words, as if stating it could make it so. “I will not leave here without you.”

  She pressed her forehead to his inner thigh, and he felt her wet lashes against him, anointed by eyes that had teared from the strain of holding him.

  “I cannot be yours, my lord, I have already told you so. I am Lord Zorac’s.”

  “And I told you not to refer to him thus.” He caught her face in gentle but firm fingers to show her his resolve. He saw hope fight with the desire raging through her and wanted it all to be for him. “You are eager for me to make your cunt weep again, are you not, milady?”

  “Yes, my lord. It does so now.”

  “Is it me, or anyone who will do?” His fingers tightened, a warning to her tongue.

  Lilith’s dark eyes were a force of divine energy, so expressive and mysterious they were. “It is both, my lord. I cannot deny the need Zorac forces up in me, but I know, at this moment, if I have a choice, it is your touch alone I desire.”

  “Good.” He rose, adjusting his clothes and controlling his dizziness from the force of his climax. She slid back awkwardly, giving him room, but remained on her knees, watching him with that tension in her face that told him she was again in the full grip of Zorac’s pleasure-pain.

  He squatted and lifted her in his arms. He carried her close, so he could feel her substance against his skin.

  “You are too thin,” he said softly. He brought her to the bed. When he had removed the damp brocade coverlet, he had exposed a pile of furs beneath. He saw bear, lion and wolf, all the predators, and a sheepskin. The lamb and the lion lay together in this bed. He saw a pelt he did not recognize, a pale soft fur, like a horse’s winter coat, the color of glimmering moonlight and pale sun melting together. One edge was tasseled with a long silken mane, nearly a man’s arm in length. It was as thick as Lilith’s hair, but the threads were so fine it fell smooth like water and did not tangle where it lay on the bed.

  He sat her upon that skin and gathered it on her shoulders. The long mane fell over her breasts, mixing with her own red locks, so she looked a creature of fire and moonlight. He went to the table to retrieve the bread, cheese and wine left for them.

  “What is the animal that created such a coat?” He asked.

  “It is a unicorn.”

  Thomas stopped in mid-motion, turned. “You are not jesting,” he said.

  She shook her head. She looked down at the skin, touched the soft fur. “Zorac used the horn to make a rare powder to protect the innocence of those he safeguards. It is how a man is pained if he touches Asneth wrongly, and how Elias never comes to harm, walking around in blindness.”

  He would sink to such vile behavior as to murder—”

  “No, my lord,” she spoke hastily. “I cannot allow you to believe that. My lord Zorac came upon the male unicorn, dying from a hunter’s arrow. He had been lured by the touch of the hunter’s virgin daughter. At the last minute the girl betrayed her father, overwhelmed by the good of the unicorn. She tried to warn the beast, to make him run from her, but an instant too late. The man wounded him mortally, but the unicorn fled into the woods, denying him his prize, and that is when Zorac found him.”

  Lilith stroked the fur curved around her hip. “Zorac stayed at the unicorn’s side until he died, and told him he would take the horn and pelt to his home so no one else would take advantage of the creature’s power. Their language is different from men, but the unicorn understood him, and Zorac could hear the beast’s language in his heart.

  “So you see,” she said, “there is no evil in Zorac, except that which my actions have inspired.”

  It was as if the whole castle was a shrine to lost innocence, with his Great Whore trapped amid it all, taunted by what she could no longer be. Thomas swallowed his heated reaction to the sorrow in her voice and brought the bread and cheese to the bed. He put the wine on the floor and sat n
ext to her.

  She shrugged, attempting to wrest the coat off of her, and Thomas reached out and held it around her white shoulders, pressing it so that her arms pushed against her bare breasts, curving them together and lifting them for his appreciative gaze.

  “Pure innocence is a lovely thing, my lady,” he said. “But in men it only exists in untested form. And in that guise it is close kin to ignorance, and unintentional cruelty.”

  Something moved in her expression. Shock. Perhaps fear. Helene had taught him the virtues of patience. So rather than pressing the advantage, Thomas said simply, “Far safer for the unicorn to come lay its head in the lap of the man or woman who has learned the nature of suffering and regret. To my way of thinking, that is the more pure soul, even if less innocent.”

  “You will despise me in the end, my lord, and ride away as Zorac said.”

  She raised her face, her nostrils flaring as if she were taking in the scent of his heated skin, and her lips parted. It was an odd sensation, watching her body react so strongly to his, while so many thoughts, disconnected from the desire, apparently swirled in her mind.

  “You are my lady. I embrace your darkness as well as your light. You belong to me, Lady Lilith,” he tucked a hair behind her ear, smoothing over the shell shape. “Now, I want you on your stomach.”

  “You are commanding again, my lord.”

  “I am, and if you are wise, you will obey.” There was a hint of a smile in his voice that seemed to startle her, and he managed to keep it there, though it angered him deeply that she had been denied an understanding of such a simple thing as intimate, teasing loveplay.

  She turned onto one hip, and his hand came under her to help her with the turn where her own hands could not. Her dexterity without their balance spoke of how often Zorac kept her thus, but some maneuvers would require even more than the lean leg and stomach muscles she had developed.

  He stopped her and slid the five bed pillows under her. They were overstuffed, so he had to raise her up, then lower her. He adjusted her forward, so that her thighs were forced open by the back width of the top pillow. Her breasts hung over the front edge, loose and wobbling. Her knees did not quite reach the mattress now, and she trembled, awkward and helpless, her cheek pressed against the mattress, her neck at an uncomfortable angle while her arse was tilted high in the air.

  He brought a small stool from by the fire and placed it at her head, so she could lay her cheek against it to support her neck. Her head and neck now sloped down only a handspan lower than her shoulders. It was a vulnerable position, but no longer physically uncomfortable.

  He sat back on the bed and extended a bite of the bread and cheese in his fingers. “Eat from my hand, my lady, and I will strengthen you for what lies ahead.”

  “I am content to go forward, my lord. My body fair screams it is so.”

  “But your body must be nourished by more than my seed, lady,” he said. “The desire for simple sustenance has been drowned out by the cries of your mind for lustful excess. You need to ground your body with the nourishment of food, to know what your body truly desires. Eat.”

  She took it from his fingers, her lips as gentle and tentative as a foal, and she chewed. “You keep speaking as if I have a choice, my lord, to simply walk away from Zorac.”

  “Your body may not be able to resist his spell, my lady, for flesh responds to the strongest influence. However, your mind, properly reinforced, may be able to assert its own desires.”

  “You make it sound as if I can transform these carnal pleasures into a sacred ritual.”

  “Indeed, lady. Another.” Her tongue touched his fingertips this time and he thought he might never let her take a bite of food again unless it came from his hand, to feel the caress of those lips. “Your mind is still strong. I see it in the way you look at Zorac, and at me. True pleasure is still possible for you, even amongst the pain and the lust he forces upon you.”

  “Your voice is as arousing to me as your hands, my lord,” she whispered, drawing one of his fingers all the way into her mouth with the bread. “Please…”

  Food could fuel the strength of the spell, he knew, and it appeared to be doing so, rapidly.

  “My lord…” she breathed.

  “Yes, Lilith?”

  “This…it feels…I am so roused for you, but it is not as before. I feel Zorac’s hand upon me, but these things you do to me, it is as if more than my…than the place between my legs is roused. It is as if you are catching my mind and soul on fire as well. I cannot bear it if you do not put your lance in me. I do not dread it. I need to be full of you, joined with you. I can bear the torture if you at least fill the empty part of me.”

  Her eyes raised to his, hungry and confused. “How is it I feel this way? Is this part of your spell?”

  Thomas laid his palm on her temple. “I cannot yet, my lady. But it pleasures me deeply to hear your words. You begin to see me as your Master, instead of Zorac.”

  “But is not being your slave the same as being Zorac’s, my lord?” Denied, her eyes flashed. “Why must I have a Master to free myself?”

  “You mistake my meaning, lady, but perhaps soon you will understand it. I told you, a knight is purposeless without a liege lord to whom to pledge his sword. However, a knight sure of what he believes will choose his liege lord carefully. He chooses his master, and that is very important.”

  “But I am no knight. Why do I need a liege lord at all?”

  He lifted the bread board by its thick wooden handle, brushing crumbs to the floor. “Because, my lady, you are mine. It is a simple truth, and you deny it only out of fear.”

  Lilith’s eyes widened at the sight of the board, clutched like a weapon in his palm.

  “My lord,” her lips moistened as she pressed them together. “Surely you do not intend to beat me?”

  “I do, my lady.” He bent and gathered her hair in his hand, pushing its weight off her pale back and hips so the mass of it lay in a fiery tangle to the left of her shoulder. He felt her shiver beneath his touch. “What is more, you are going to like it.”

  He slid his hand down her back, over the smooth skin, the shallow channel of her spine.

  “But, I…did I do something to displease you?”

  “Not a thing, my lady. It is amazing, how a firm spanking focuses the mind on your Master, and brings forth the pleasure in you to serve him.”

  “You did not strike me as the type of man who enjoys abusing women,” she said bitterly, turning her face away.

  He knelt, turned her face back to him with an unrelenting hand. Their eyes were only inches apart, and his were steady and hot, certain that he was causing her breath to quicken for more reasons than Zorac’s spell. “If you feel abused, lady,” he said quietly, “when this is done, tell me so. I will allow you to do the same to me, on any part of my body you choose.”

  “I am afraid you will hurt me, my lord. You are a large man, and a strong one.”

  “Trust is what this is about, lady. There is a power to trust that can clarify your feelings more quickly than you expect.” He stroked the broad end of the board against her rump and watched her fingers close into nervous fetal shapes. “You will feel pain, but the pleasure will be greater, I promise.”

  Lilith studied him from beneath her dark lashes. Her lips were pale pink and swollen from worrying them with her teeth, drawing the blood to them, the way he intended his words to draw the blood to the slick passages of her cunt.

  “I trust you, my lord,” she said at last. “But would you…” she stopped, her jaw tightening. Her eyes flashed with something like chagrin, mixed with embarrassment.

  “What, my lady?” Thomas laid his hand along her neck, stretched out between the pillow and the stool. He could break it with a hard clasp of his hand, but he had learned that breaking precious things was terrifyingly easy. Creating, building and protecting were the things that took true strength. Of course, Zorac had not found it so easy to destroy Lilith. He had not rec
koned on her resilience, which Thomas was counting on to save her.

  “Will you…kiss me?”

  He smiled. He bent forward, bracing the board on one luscious buttock. The kiss was an act of deep intimacy, much different from the most carnal act, and his lady had requested it from him. That made it, to him, their first true kiss. He stroked his fingers beneath her chin, fanned them out to frame her jaw and cheek, the tips just brushing the opening to her ear. She murmured, a soft whimper of pleasure. He went under the line of her hair, and it tickled his knuckles.

  His lips touched hers and sensation shot through him, from mouth to chest to groin to feet and back again, a wild spiral so fast it shuddered across his skin like the wind upon a lake.

  He parted her lips gently with his, touched her tongue with his own, traced her teeth, let the moisture from their two mouths join and excite. His grip slid to her throat and tightened there so he felt her pulse against his hand, as if he held a bird. A bird who could soar far above man and yet be crushed in a careless fist. Her helplessness was a deep pull in his stomach, the knowledge that she must simply experience what he could do to pleasure her.

  He pulled back just a breath and stared into her eyes, his knuckles rubbing up and down the cord of her throat.

  “One day, my lady, I will spend a full day doing just this, from your first sight of sunrise, to when your eyes fall shut against the onset of night.” He rubbed his cheek against the flushed heat of hers. “I will wake you in the morning with kisses and I will kiss you all day. In our bed, at breakfast, in your garden, in your bath. Short, gentle kisses, just bare touches of your mouth with mine. Long, deep ones that will loosen your thighs because you will unconsciously desire to be fucked as deeply there as I am penetrating your mouth.

  “But I will do naught but kiss you, even as you beg me to do more. I will make love only to your mouth in all the ways you wish me to make love to your body.”

  “My lord,” she murmured, unable to stop her body from performing sinuous rolls at his words. He wanted to slake his thirst with the perspiration that covered her skin, rather than take another drink of water again. “Please.”