Carnal Sacrifice (24 page)

“Fuck me,” she heard herself whisper without planning. For his hands and mouth  were delectable, but she needed something deeper—and harder, too. She needed his  stiff cock inside her.

He rose behind her, his leather leggings pressing warm into her bare skin, his erection nestling hard in the valley of her ass. His hands dug into the flesh of her hips and she thrust back against him, silently begging for what she needed.

“Sweet princess,” he murmured just before she felt his hot shaft nudging at her pussy, and then the hard, deep plunge that drew a cry from her throat as overwhelming pleasure spread through her every limb.

“Oh! Oh, you’re in me!” she sobbed heatedly over her shoulder.

“Deep inside your hot little cunt,” he murmured raspily near her ear.

“Fuck me, Garon. Hard.”

He growled at the demand and wasted no time in delivering hard, pummeling strokes that jolted her body and sent hot pleasure flaring through her entire being.  Nothing else existed but his cock inside her pussy, connecting their bodies, connecting

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their souls. Time stood still as she clutched at the wide beam in front of her, so happily  taking each punishing drive he delivered.

“So wet,” he murmured, his breath warm in her ear. “So wet and hot for me,  princess.”

“Just for you,” she sighed. “Only for you.”

His hand slid smoothly around the front of her thigh, sinking between, his fingers  quickly finding her clit. The moan that left her was deep, coming from someplace low  and buried inside her. “Yes,” she whispered.

Two roughened fingers rubbed delicious circles over the needy, distended nub as  he continued his hard strokes from behind. Now Laela practically hugged the column,  weak from the heated delight but determined to see it through to the end. “Oh Ares,”  she moaned softly. “Oh Ares, yes.”

She took his pleasure from both sides, stunned, amazed, lost, eyes peering up  beyond the wooden awning over the breezeway to the brilliant stars dotting the black  sky. She drank in each of Garon’s hot thrusts, moved against his generous, skilled  fingers, and almost as quickly as she knew she was going to come, it was happening— she was still staring heavenward, but now soaring through the night sky as if her body  had been shot up, up, up, and she sobbed, high and soft, at each delicious pulsation.

Then she found herself back in his arms and they were sinking, toward the ground,  because her knees were giving way. But Garon was there with her for every inch of the  soft descent, his arms anchored at her waist, and the next thing she knew, they were on  their knees on the cool, smooth stone, still fucking, hard slow strokes, hard, hard, each  echoing through her like a reminder of his love, until he breathed, “Ares, yes,”  emptying his hot fluids deep inside her accepting body.

They stayed that way, him hunched low over her back, for a long silent moment of  recovery. Silent, but Laela’s mind began to spin.

What she’d just experienced with him was the most incredible experience of her  life. The danger
 
was
 
always worth it.
 
Maybe he’s right, maybe I should leave with him.

As if reading her thoughts, he said, “Come with me.”

It seemed simple at moments, like this, like there was no other choice. But what  if…what if they were caught? What if he died?

“Your friend Donnell will help us. He let me in again tonight. He will help us leave  the grounds undetected.”

Laela’s breath grew thick, her chest heaving, as she turned toward him, both of  them kneeling, and took his hands. There
 
was
 
no other choice. They
 
could
 
escape.  Donnell would help them and Ares would guide them, and they could have it
 
all
. All  happiness, more happiness than she could even fathom.

She was just about to say yes when a gruff voice cut into her thoughts. “Over there!  Shine the torch!”

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Laela and Garon both looked up as firelight lit their faces in shock. Everything inside Laela froze in pure terror as her father’s men closed in on them, the guards seeming to come from every direction.

“Summon Enrick from his bed!” someone yelled.

“He is on his way already,” another voice answered.

Laela clutched helplessly at Garon, who pulled her into a hard, desperate embrace, warm against his strong chest. She caught a glimpse of Donnell standing behind some other men, his expression one of sorrow and apology, and she knew this had not been his fault—she and Garon had simply taken too big of a risk.

It occurred to her, though, that maybe since she had
 
his
 
sympathy, perhaps she could earn it from others, too. Not the men who’d dragged her from the beach—for she saw their faces among those around her—but there were so many others, probably fifteen or twenty men now made a circle around them.

“Let him go,” she beseeched them. “He’s done no wrong but to care for me. Please let him go before my father comes—please save his life.”

Some of the men’s faces around her did fill with pity then, maybe indecision, but no one made a move or said a word in favor of setting Garon free.

“Please,” she begged again, turning from his arms and folding her hands together as if in prayer. “Please let him live.”

Still, no one moved, even as eyes darkened in regret around her.

Tears rolled down her cheeks by the time her father’s imposing figure appeared, towering above the guards. “What in Ares’ name…” he began, ire shining in his eyes as he glared down to where she knelt. Then his gaze drifted behind her, to Garon.

“We heard noises coming from this direction, Enrick.” The voice, brutal and familiar, drew her eyes to the man from the beach who’d refused to let her dress, and who’d been the most eager to see her suffer. “Noises of fucking,” he said bluntly, his expression filled with disdain as he looked on her as if she were a bit of dirt on his boot.

“Father, please,” she begged, still in a position of prayer, tears streaming down both her cheeks now, “please don’t hurt him. His only crime is to care for me.”

Yet her father’s face—once filled with such love and compassion for her—had already turned to stone. He didn’t look at her when he said, “This man shall be put to death tomorrow. Chain him in the stables and stand guard over him until such time as I arrange for his execution.”

Stark panic shot through Laela like a blow to the stomach and she lunged into  Garon’s arms, desperate to protect him. They closed around her, so tight she couldn’t be sure who was protecting whom—but soon the two of them were being pulled apart, even as she cried, “No! Please, no! I beg of you! Please don’t hurt him!”

And Garon’s eyes reached out to her, full of love, as he said, “Don’t worry for me, princess. I have no regrets. No regrets.”

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Guards’ hands encircled her arms, holding her back, as she watched in horror while chains were tightened around Garon’s wrists and ankles, the horrible clanging, clanking sound of them seeming to mock her.

“I love you,” she cried through her tears.

“I love you, too, my princess.” Their eyes met and his seemed to reach out to her.  “Listen to me. Forget about this. Forget about me. Live your life.”

She simply looked at him, knowing it was the most impossible request anyone had ever made of her, and she didn’t answer, for she also knew her gaze spoke her feelings loud and clear.

His relayed emotion, as well. They both knew she would never recover from this.

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Chapter Ten

Laela didn’t sleep that night. She wondered if she would ever sleep again.

Guilt pummeled her as mightily as Garon’s cock had hours before. Oh, how selfish she’d been, how careless, to think that having him one last time would be all right, to think the danger was worth it. Now, because of her and her silly physical desires, he would die. He would be no more. “Oh Garon,” she sobbed into the fur bedcovering as she hugged Midnight to her side. Then she reached up to touch the cat pendant at her throat.

She’d put it back on as soon as he’d departed her bedchamber the previous night.  Her mother had given her the pendant—but Garon had brought it back to her because he knew she cherished it. Now it would always feel like a gift from
 
him
.

She never should have run away. If she’d never run away, if she’d just accepted her fate—no matter how awful—none of this would ever have happened, and Garon would be living a happy, peaceful life at the tavern. She’d taken feminine pride in making him care, in turning him from a harder, rougher man into one with softness and love in his eyes—but what she wouldn’t give now to change all that, to know he was still living his carefree existence in Myrtell, where his biggest problems had been how much ale to stock and which woman to bed.

“I’m so sorry, Garon,” she said helplessly toward the stone ceiling of her room. “I  never meant to hurt you.”

She clutched again at the cat pendant, then departed the bed for the window. The  same stars she’d looked at while they’d fucked still shone above, yet now they seemed  cold and distant. “Oh Ares,” she prayed aloud, “please save him. Please save the man I  love.”

* * * * *

She must have drifted off to sleep, for the sun shone in her window when Nila

woke her.

As soon as the events of the night before entered her mind, she bolted upright, grabbing Nila’s soft old hands in hers. “Tell me he’s not dead yet, Nila! Tell me it’s not too late!”

“Shhh now,” Nila said, running a soothing hand back through Laela’s hair. “He is  yet alive. And now your mother summons you.”

“My mother?” Jalal had been disappointingly silent on all matters concerning her  youngest daughter’s fate since the moment Enrick had announced she was to marry  Ogran, so this news surprised Laela.

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Nila nodded. “She awaits you in the great hall, and I understand she’s summoned your father, too.”

Laela caught her breath and dressed quickly, with Nila’s help, in a pale leather skirt and matching vest.

When she entered the great hall, all lay still and silent, her parents not at their thrones but sitting at the large dining table where they took their meals. A tray of cheeses and fruits had been laid out, but Laela had no appetite. She made eye contact with her mother as she approached, but ignored her father completely. She didn’t know him anymore.

“It would appear we are all here now, Wife,” Enrick said, sounding irritated. “So now you may say why you called us here.”

Jalal pushed to her feet, wearing her usual signature sky blue silk, and looking as strong and powerful as Laela had ever seen her. She addressed her husband pointedly.  “If this man, Garon, loves our daughter enough to risk his life for her, does that not matter to you?”

“In what way did he risk—”

Jalal cut him off soundly. “The man came here knowing full well his fate if he was caught. I can scarcely think of any greater risk a person could take.”

“Even so, he defiled our daughter, taking her bride price and—”

His wife interrupted him once more. “Husband, I have never interfered with your decisions for our daughters, even when I have had to bite my tongue to stay quiet, but now I must. And I beseech you, Enrick. I beseech you to look into your heart and remember love.”

“Jalal, sit down this instant,” he snapped.

She ignored the command, but let her voice soften. “Enrick, do you not remember  when you and I met—the night we spent in your tent, the way you loved me even  though it made no sense, even though there was adversity?”

“What in Ares name does
 
that
 
have to do with
 
this
?”

“It has
 
everything
 
to do with this, husband. For I have been to the stables this  morning.” Enrick’s eyes blazed with anger, but Jalal continued, clearly undaunted, as  Laela watched in shock. “I have visited with Garon, talked with him, and I see that
 
same
 
love in his eyes for our Laela.” She paused, took a deep breath, and perhaps waited for  Enrick to argue, but for once, he stayed quiet. “Let her be happy, Enrick. It is not so  much to ask.”

Her mother’s words delivered the first bit of real hope Laela had felt since being captured on the beach. Although when Jalal finished, a hard tension grew in the room, something Laela could feel gathering around them like a storm—until finally her father pushed to his feet and spewed the ire Laela had grown to expect from him lately. “I have committed her to another. It is that simple!”

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“Fine, I will marry Ogran,” Laela announced, standing up as well. “But in exchange  for that, let Garon go free!”

Her father’s eyes narrowed on her and she knew he was seething with an anger too  great to measure, at being defied by them both. He spoke through clenched teeth.  “Perhaps, before, when you ran away, this Garon didn’t knowingly commit a crime  against this house—but last night, he
 
did
. He came here to take you away when he  knows you are a royal daughter promised to another! He will take his just punishment,  Laela, and nothing you can do will stop it.” With that, Enrick stalked from the table and  out of the hall, Laela and Jalal watching helplessly behind him.