Bride by Command (11 page)

At the corner she bravely looked back—and saw that it was an unfamiliar man who was walking behind her, not the heathens she had been so sure she’d spotted at the tavern. He did not look at all menacing.

Morgana leaned against the wall and relaxed, but for some reason the chill at her heart did not abate. She was lost, she was afraid . . . she was very possibly on the verge of losing control and killing everything and everyone in her path. If someone startled her, if she became more afraid than she already was, would the burst of cold blue death come again? Where was Jahn when she needed him so desperately?

Reaching for a calmness she very much needed, Morgana looked up at the palace rising at the western edge of the city. Suddenly she realized where she was. From the tavern she’d had a particular view of the palace, and she remembered well how close the plain building had been to the tallest, most magnificent edifice in the city.

Again she ran, this time with a destination in mind. Two turns, and she found herself on a street she remembered. The tavern was straight ahead. She lifted her skirt and increased her pace, longing for any sort of familiarity—longing, most of all, for Jahn Devlyn.

Morgana ran into the tavern and bolted for the stairs. The iciness in her heart grew. She was so afraid, so alone, so scared that it did not go away even now, when she knew she was not being followed. She was in no danger, and yet the curse continued to grow. What would happen when it burst? What if she did not find control and calm?

She glanced at the people in the tavern, roughly dressed men who watched her run but did not move from their tables. They were merely curious. Did they deserve to die for their curiosity? Of course not.

Morgana threw open the door to Jahn’s room, and found the sentinel lying across the bed in a casual pose. His expression revealed a touch of annoyance and concern, but not much. “Where have you been?” he asked. “I told you to stay here until I returned.”

Just looking at him made the chill start to fade, and she breathed deeply in relief. She remembered the heat of the kiss, the warmth he had sometimes roused just by smiling at her. Her gift of destruction was cold; Jahn was heat. She did not entirely understand, but she could not deny that he had a way of stopping the curse.

“Warm me,” she commanded as she walked to the bed.

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What’s this?”

“I’m cold,” she said, not hesitating as she lay beside him on the bed. He had put the clean sheets over the mattress of this bed which had terrified her so. She knew now that there were much worse things in her world to be terrified of. “I’m cold to my very bones. Make me warm, please.”

Almost grudgingly, Jahn wrapped his arms around her. She breathed deeply and rested her head against his shoulder. He ran one strong hand up and down her back in a comforting manner that made the ice in her heart melt away. “It is not a cold day, Ana,” he said softly. “What has you so chilled?”

She could not tell him. She could never tell anyone! “I went for a walk and I got lost, and I was so afraid.”

“You should’ve stayed here,” he said, “as I told you.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” she admitted. “Men were following me.”

Jahn’s body stiffened. “Truly?”

“I think so,” she confessed, no longer certain that her imagination hadn’t been playing tricks on her.

The chill she’d experienced on that horrible night she would never forget had been out of control and powerful and terrifying. The warmth Jahn roused was just the opposite. It calmed her. The heat was a slow and familiar and pleasant sensation. She snuggled close to his warm chest and listened to his steady and strong heartbeat. She clutched at his shirt with chilly hands. Yes, she was getting warmer, but she was not warm enough. She wanted more heat; she wanted the ice at her core gone, once and for all, and only he could chase it away.

“Kiss me,” she said, lifting her head to bring her lips close to Jahn’s.

The surprise in his blue eyes was genuine. “What?”

Morgana smiled. “Kiss me. When you kiss me, I feel warm all over. I like that. I need it. My life is falling apart, and even though you are the cause of the turmoil, you are also the solution to my dilemma.”

“What dilemma?”

She did not want to explain, not now, not ever. “Just kiss me.”

He did, tentatively at first, then with passion. It was the unexpected passion that fed her heat, the fervor that chased away her curse. This warmth was marvelous. She drank it in; she savored it.

Jahn parted her lips with his and slipped the tip of his tongue into her mouth. It was as if a stream of fire whipped through her body, chasing away the last of the chill, the last of the fear. There was only warmth in this place, warmth and peace. She should tell him to stop now. He had done all that was necessary, after all. There was no longer any danger of her turning everything in her path to fragile crystal with a burst of cold she could not control.

And yet, she was no longer entirely in control, she recognized that very well. She was out of control in an entirely new way, but there was no danger here. There was simply desire and warmth and a longing for something more.

Jahn Devlyn was a husband she did not want. He had claimed her as if she were a horse up for auction, a lucky and convenient find. He did not know her; she did not know him. The life he offered was not what she’d dreamed of—it was more the stuff of nightmares. And yet, he had been the one to end the chill that was her curse. He was the one who had taken her from a home where she’d felt as if she were on the verge of being discovered as a monster. Would she trade the life of a pampered lady which was filled with terror and uncertainty for the simple life of a sentinel’s wife where there was always someone to take away the curse? Would she trade ice and death for heat and life?

She loved Jahn’s kiss. It was heartfelt and filled with promise. There was such heat in his mouth, in his body close to hers, and she felt like she was falling and melting and flying. She squirmed a bit, making herself more comfortable against him, pressing her body closer to his. So close, she could not help but feel his response to the kiss. That response pressed insistently against her.

Without a hint of a chill in her body, Morgana took her mouth from Jahn’s. All her reservations were gone, wiped away by a kiss. “Make me your wife,” she commanded, her voice husky and soft.

Jahn’s eyes widened in surprise, she saw in the fading light. “What was that you said?”

“I have decided,” she said, running her fingers through a strand of his oddly streaked hair. She wondered if their children would have his remarkable hair.

“You have decided what?” he asked numbly.

How specific did she have to be? Her husband had not struck her as dense until this moment. “I will be your wife; I will have your children. I choose to live in this room rather than to seek a place in the palace with the emperor.”

“This is an important decision, Ana,” he said, strangely uncooperative. “It should not be made while you are recovering from a frightening experience. We should wait awhile longer.”

Jahn had no idea how frightening her experience had been. He didn’t know that she had come close to destroying a portion of this city with her fear, or that he had been the one to save her.

Though Morgana had never lain with a man, she was not ignorant. She reached down and touched Jahn’s straining trousers. “You cannot say that you do not want me.”

“No, I cannot.”

And she wanted him. She knew that now, as a flood of desire washed through her. She would not call it love, but if they were physically compatible, as they appeared to be, then was that not a fine start to a lifetime of marriage? She took his hand and led it to a breast which seemed oddly hungry for his touch. He did not pull his hand away, but caressed her through the fabric of her once lovely gown, a gown which was now travel-weary and faded.

She leaned into Jahn and placed her mouth on his neck, where he tasted warm and salty and male on her tongue. She’d never known anything like it, could not have imagined that she’d enjoy the taste of a man’s skin so much. He moaned, and she was glad of it. Perhaps he felt as she did, that this was a good beginning to a strangely begun marriage. “Please,” she whispered, “make me a wife. Warm my heart and soul. Take me, Jahn.”

Jahn did not argue with her again, but instead slipped his hand along her leg and up her skirt. He spread her legs, and she allowed him to do so. She trembled, as much with desire as with uncertainty, and when his fingers found her most intimate place, she gasped and lurched. What a magnificent feeling, and how unexpected. This must be the pleasure married women sometimes spoke of. This warmth must be the fulfillment of which they spoke. Why had she waited so long to claim it as her own?

Morgana had made her mother a promise that she would wait for love before marriage. But what was love, really? Intense wanting? Warmth to the pit of a soul? Safety? All this time, had she been waiting for Jahn? No other man had ever made her feel safe, or secure, or warm. Was he the man she had been longing for in the depths of her soul? Was he the promise Morgana had made to her mother?

Jahn stroked, and the newly found pleasure continued. He was so gentle, so easy . . . and yet this encounter was not easy at all. It was powerful, and she was quickly carried away by his touch. She subtly changed positions often, trying to get comfortable, but at her core Morgana was decidedly prickly—decidedly wanting and restless. If he kissed her deeper, if he touched her there, all would be well. She wanted more, so much more.

Soon enough Jahn would roll on top of her and fill her, but in spite of the fidgetiness, Morgana was in no hurry for that to happen. The sensation of falling and fidgeting was oddly exciting. She had always imagined the act of joining would be somewhat unpleasant and painful, but the more they kissed, the more she squirmed, the less she worried about the actual workings of the end of this encounter. She did not think having Jahn inside her would be unpleasant at all. It would be exciting and inevitable, and she could not wait to be his wife.

He moved. Ah, yes, this was it. He pushed her skirt higher and lifted her leg and placed his mouth on the back of her knee. She shuddered from the top of her head to her toes, the sensation was so great. Her body throbbed, and she wanted the end to this. She wanted him inside her.

He continued to kiss his way up her leg. It was totally unacceptable to have a man, even a husband, kissing her thigh while she trembled at his touch, and yet she did not once think of pushing him away. No, she would not do such a thing, not even when he trailed his tongue along her inner thigh, moving slowly and tasting her as if she were dessert on his personal buffet. Not even when his warm hands reached up to cup her rear end and pull her down the mattress, while his mouth traveled up.

He gently forced her legs farther apart, and then he kissed her there, where she was wet and needful, where she twitched and throbbed. Her breath would hardly come, her body seemed to have a will of its own as it moved in a gentle rhythm against Jahn’s mouth. Something was happening, something was coming. Her hips moved faster and she dug her fingers into the sheets beneath her. Jahn’s tongue flicked against her harder than before and Morgana felt awash in sensations she had never imagined. She moaned. Her back rose off the bed and she shook to the core of her being. The intense pleasure whipped through her body, heat and delight and an unexpected sensation of being a part of someone else, at least for this moment. She gasped as her body lurched and sensations she had never even imagined took control.

What she’d felt earlier, that warm pleasure, had been only a hint of what being a wife offered.

There was no trace of a chill remaining in her body, and hadn’t been for quite some time. She was satisfied and content in a way she had never been before. She was boneless and shaking and happy . . .

And they were not yet done. Jahn had shown her pleasure and release but had not yet entered her body, as he would. Soon. Heaven above, she could not wait. As Jahn rose up, she touched his head. One of these days she would shave off his beard and see if he had a proper chin under there or not. Not that she cared . . .

“I have to go,” he said, leaping from the bed as if he could not escape fast enough.

Much of Morgana’s pleasure faded. “Why?”

“I‘m needed at the palace. I came here only to check on you and tell you that I’ll be working at night for a few days. You were not here, and now I have no time left for pleasurable activities.” He did not sound at all pleased.

“When will you be back?”

“In the morning,” he said.

“You’re leaving me here alone?” she asked, caught between heretofore unknown satisfaction and disappointment.

Jahn sighed. “Not entirely. Some friends of mine will be in the tavern below when I am not here. No one will bother you. Did I not tell you that I would take care of you, that I would keep you safe?”

“You did.” The truth dawned on her. “The men who were following me this afternoon, were they your friends?”

“Most likely,” he mumbled.

And she had almost destroyed them. “You must not keep secrets from me, Jahn,” she said softly. “That is not the way of a real marriage.”

“A real marriage,” he said. “You know, we haven’t yet properly consummated our union. By the time I return you will likely have changed your mind and will be glad there was no time . . .”

“When you return, I will be waiting for you, husband,” she said. She could not tell him why she had come to her decision, not without telling him everything. No secrets, she had said, but in this case she was certainly justified. He did not need to know. She did not want him to know.

Jahn must’ve been running late, because he left as if a demon were at his heels.