Carnal Sacrifice (23 page)

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Lacey Alexander

Chapter Nine

The next day, as Laela somberly ate lunch in the great hall with her mother, father and many of the fortresses employees, a messenger came bounding in the huge main door of the fort. “Enrick, I come with news.”

Her father lowered his goblet to the table and said, “Share it then.”

“A rider tells us Ogran’s caravan has been spotted in the hills directly to the west, and estimates they will arrive sometime tomorrow.”

The words sent a shiver down Laela’s spine. Last night with Garon had been so all-consumingly wonderful that she’d somehow managed not to let herself think about the ugly reality of Ogran much since then. But tomorrow would come quickly.

In that moment, she wished she
 
had
 
left with Garon—perhaps if they’d departed as soon as he’d awakened her, they could have indeed escaped without being seen.  Especially if Donnell was willing to help.

However, another ugly reality loomed, too—the opposite outcome. Leaving this place with Garon would mean risking his very life, and how could she possibly do that?  She loved him, and she’d rather live a hideous existence with Ogran than see her lover put to death. And maybe Aris was right—maybe Ogran would die soon, and then she and Garon could be together. Yet…that hardly seemed a good answer to such an impossible dilemma.

“Very well,” Enrick said, then shifted his gaze to his daughter. “Tomorrow you will be given to Ogran. Do not disappoint me as you did before.”

“How could I? You have me locked in my room.”

Her father’s brow narrowed in anger. “I meant that I expect you to treat Ogran with fitting respect when he arrives.”

Despite her better judgment, she couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. “An old man who takes a young girl for a wife against her will deserves little respect in my opinion.”

Enrick slammed his fist down on the table, making all the plates and goblets flinch against the wood. Everyone froze in place. “Go to your bedchamber, now,” he commanded her. “I thought perhaps you could behave in a civilized enough manner to be out among us today. I had hoped perhaps we could put your recent bad decisions behind us. But I see my hopes were misplaced. You shall remain in your room until the  Giving Ceremony.”

Laela glanced at her mother. Jalal’s eyes brimmed with distress, but she didn’t intercede. Which meant once again, Laela was on her own to save herself. Unless…there
was
 
someone who might be able to help her. She glanced toward her old teacher and  Orienter, Aris, seated further down the table. “Might Aris come with me, Father?”

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“What for?” he boomed.

She answered just as sharply, refusing to cower beneath his tone. “I am to be given over for marriage tomorrow and I did not get to finish my Orientation—
 
that’s
 
what for.”

Enrick waved his hand absently through the air. “Fine then. Fine. Aris, you may go.  Just see that she gets to the room, and see that she is properly locked in when you leave.”

“Of course,” Aris answered, keeping her voice quiet, her eyes down.

However, as soon as the two women had exited the great hall for the privacy of a

stone corridor, Laela stopped and grabbed onto Aris’ wrist. “Aris, I need your help.”

* * * * *

Late that night, Aris enclosed Laela in a warm embrace, lowering a soft kiss on her lips that spoke of encouragement, bravery and maybe even goodbye. Then the teacher slipped out the door and conveniently forgot to latch it.

Laela had not yet decided if she was going to attempt an escape with Garon, for she remained torn, unsure she could live without him, but also knowing she couldn’t live with
 
herself
 
if she caused his death. If he were to be found on the grounds by himself, well, then he was an intruder of some sort, a thief, and would be punished accordingly—but probably not severely. Yet if he were to be found with
 
her
…it was unthinkable.

The one thing she
 
did
 
know, however, was that she could not leave him in the breezeway at midnight, wondering where she was and why she hadn’t come. She also couldn’t let him put himself at further risk by sneaking deeper into the fortress as he had last night.

As evidence of just how undecided she remained, when she left her chamber, she carried a sack containing a skirt, tunic and a few other belongings—yet she went to meet him still in the same white sleeping gown she’d put on hours earlier. Stay or go?  She simply didn’t know the answer.

Just as she stepped free from the enclosed stone corridor to the covered walkway supported by thick whitewashed columns, a light wind cooled her face and lifted her tresses—and she saw Garon.

A lock of warm blond hair fell waywardly over his forehead. His dark leather vest revealed the tanned, well-muscled arms of a hardworking man. His blue eyes spoke of grim determination…and passion. It struck her how different he looked than the first time she’d seen him—when his expression had been easy, light, uncaring—and she couldn’t help but think she had changed him. She had made him into the passionate man who stood before her now. Her breasts ached and her cunt spasmed softly at the mere knowledge.

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Lacey Alexander

Yet it was in that moment she knew the answer to her dilemma. He was too

beautiful to risk—no matter how great the gain. “I…cannot go with you,” she said  softly, padding toward him. The night breeze wafting in from the coast lifted her hair  once more and left the fabric of her gown fluttering in soft waves behind her.

His expression darkened accordingly. “Laela, you must.”

Upon reaching him, she lifted her hands to his broad chest, bare beneath the vest  and sprinkled with light curls. “Garon, I simply cannot risk you. I love you too much.”

As he folded her in his arms, he leaned in close to whisper near her ear. “That’s  sweet, princess, but I’m not afraid.”

She let out a sigh, pulling back. “Yet
 
I
 
am, don’t you see? I could never forgive  myself if I caused your death.”

His firm grip closed around her elbows. “And I would never forgive
 
myself
 
if I let  you be taken off by some crusty old man who will mistreat you.” Then he lowered his  gaze, looking almost ashamed. “Yet…maybe I am just as guilty of that.”

Laela shook her head vehemently. “No, never. I
 
wanted
 
the things you wanted. I  wanted them because it pleased me to please you. It pleased me more than I knew was  possible.” She reached up to touch his stubbled cheek and he raised his gaze back to  hers. She looked deeply into his eyes and prayed to Ares that he could feel her next  words as profoundly as she did. “Garon, being your slave set me free.”

After a long moment of silence, when only their eyes spoke of all they had shared,  he said softly, “I
 
could
 
remind you that you
 
are
 
my slave. I could demand that you leave  with me.”

Her words sounded just as calm and certain. “But you won’t. Because you never made me do anything that felt wrong to me, and I know you won’t start now.”

He let out a sigh, his gaze going weary. “So I am supposed to just leave you here, just let your father marry you to an old man who will take you far, far away. I am supposed to let you be forced into a terrible life you don’t desire and do nothing to stop it?”

His determination to save her was no less than breathtaking, yet… “We
 
tried
 
to stop it. You tried to help me. You
 
did
 
help me—more than you know. Because of you, I will always have wonderful, thrilling,
 
loving
 
memories. It’s…more than I could have hoped or dreamed.”

Garon’s hands rose to bracket her face just before he melded his mouth to hers in a powerful kiss that moved through her like bottled lightning. Drawing near, she couldn’t ignore the pleasure of his erection, pressing hot and hard into her most tender, hungry place. She moved against him, almost involuntarily, needing more—he was impossible to resist.

Oh, how she longed to have him inside her—the thick need pulsed through her, something she couldn’t even begin to push down. She eased her hand between them, pressing her palm against the solid rock between his thighs, needing to touch him there.

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Without planning it, her other hand came between them, too, her fingers pulling at the lacings that stretched over his powerful shaft. Pulling, clawing—she had to get them undone.

“What are you doing?” he asked on a heavy breath between kisses.

Her own voice came labored. “I won’t send you away like this.” Finally, she was  able to spread the leather, to reach between and wrap her hand full around his  wonderful hardness. “One last time,” she said.

She watched as he drew in his breath, his look a familiar one of fire—yet… “It isn’t safe,” he said, flicking his glance briefly into the darkness around them on both sides of the breezeway.

Stark fear and realization shot through her like an arrow to her heart. “Oh Ares, you’re right. What am I thinking?” This man literally stole her good sense away.

Pulling back, she looked into those heated eyes that had thrilled her, comforted her, loved her—and had never once frightened her. She lifted a soft kiss to his mouth with lips left swollen from a more brutal meeting just a moment ago, then squeezed his hand and turned to leave her love behind.

But just as quickly, he grabbed onto her wrist and hauled her back against him, hard. “What you’re thinking, princess,” he said, his voice as dark as their desire, “is what
 
I’m
 
thinking. That the danger is worth it.”

Laela sucked in her breath at the truth in his words, then did what she couldn’t
 
not
do, what her body led her to do, what her soul insisted upon. She dropped to her knees.

His eyes, above her, were fraught with too many emotions to name. And as she ran both palms up his majestic cock, finally cradling the head gently in her hands, she realized that the danger with him had
 
always
 
been worth it.
 
Always
 
.

And especially now.

If we are to part forever, let us have this.

Taking him in her hand, she lowered her mouth firmly onto the hot column of flesh that jutted so prominently toward her. She could tell he tried to hold his groan inside, but he failed, and she couldn’t push down the hint of feminine satisfaction that flickered through her.

He was so big in her mouth, filling it so well. She wanted to pleasure him as she’d never wanted before. She wanted to feel the power of him this way one last time, wanted to remind herself that she was his oh-so-willing slave, serving him, exciting him, taking him to heaven on earth.

His fingers threaded through her hair, held it back from her face, massaged her scalp. She felt his eyes burning into her from above, studying her every move, watching her worship him, and the knowledge sent ripples of sensation through her pussy.

“You suck me so good, princess,” he whispered, low and raspy. “Nothing feels better on me than your mouth…sucking, sucking. Except maybe…”

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Lacey Alexander

Still sliding her widely stretched lips up and down his sturdy length, she gazed up

at him.

He cast his classic wicked grin. “Except maybe your sweet, tight little cunt.”

With that, he reached for her shoulders, urging her off his cock, to her feet. Her mouth felt pleasantly swollen yet empty upon releasing him, and she hoped he could somehow see how stretched and widened her lips were because of him filling them so well.

“Turn around,” he said when their eyes met.

She didn’t argue, lost to him now, lost to their sex.

“Brace your arms against the column,” he said as she faced away from him, so she  pressed her palms flush against the wooden support, and when she felt her gown  whisper quickly up her thighs, his hands following, skimming lightly up her skin until  they curved over her ass, she instinctively arched toward him.

His hands kneaded her softness there, massaging hard and deep in a way that  reached to the core of her desire, and then he kneeled to kiss the soft flesh of her ass,  and lower, lower. She arched more, parted her legs—her pussy felt engorged beyond  recognition, like it must be the biggest part of her. It pulsed with a need she’d never  known as her panting breath filtered into the night air.

She gasped when Garon’s mouth sank home at her cunt and she spread her legs  even wider, wider, wanting to give her whole self to him there in the breezeway. Licks,  kisses, teeth, tongue—she practically clawed at the column that supported her, moaning  from the attention at her pussy. Pressure, glorious pressure from both hands and  mouth, prodding, invading, pushing into her, parting her folds, making her wide and  open for him, for all he wanted to give.