Devil's Dominion (48 page)

“I could not sleep last night for thoughts of you,” he murmured. “No matter what this day brings, Allaston, please know that I love you deeply. I always will. I have never loved anything in my life as I have loved you.”

She wanted so badly to believe him but she knew it wasn’t true. She pulled her fingers away from him.

“You do not love me more than you love your sense of vengeance,” she said. “I wish it was true that you loved me more than anything, but it is not.”

“I am sorry you feel that way.”

“So am I.”

They simply stood there and stared at each other, thoughts and emotions as tangible as rain filling the air between them. It was a painful moment, one that perhaps made them realize that they were two individuals with two destinies rather than two individuals with one destiny, a destiny of marriage and love and a future. Allaston couldn’t stand the tension or the agony and eventually lowered her gaze.

“Will you please let me speak to my father?” she asked. “If you are going to kill him, then at least let me say what I will to him. Do not deny me what my father denied you. Let me speak to my father one last time.”

He couldn’t refuse her. “Very well,” he said, sounding dull and defeated. “When it is over, I would expect to turn you over to de Lohr. He will ensure that you are returned to your mother.”

Allaston was so full of anguish that it was difficult for her to think straight. To face losing her father, and losing Bretton, was more than she could appropriately deal with.

“If… if you kill my father, then I will be taking his body with me,” she said, her throat tight with tears. “I will not return home without him.”

“Agreed.”

“But if you should die, Bretton,” she turned to look at him, tears in her eyes, “I will not leave here without you, either. I will make sure you have a proper burial, someplace that I can visit, if only in my dreams. I will make sure that, at the end of your life, you are treated with the dignity and respect you were denied while you were living.”

Her words stunned him, touched him, as he had never been touched before. He’d never heard anything more gracious. “Why would you do this?” he asked, perplexed. “I have killed people and left them to rot. I have not treated the dead with any dignity whatsoever. Why would you treat me with dignity after death when it is not deserved?”

Her tears spilled over. “Because I love you,” she said. “That is reason enough.”

Bretton didn’t think it was possible for him to feel worse than he already did, but he was wrong. Peering into Allaston’s beautiful eyes, he felt cruel and shallow, wicked and shattered… all of those things he had felt when he realized she deserved someone better than him, he was feeling them again, more strongly than before.

“This will more than likely be the last time you and I will have the opportunity to speak to one another, privately,” he said softly. “I want you to know that… that the day I abducted you from Alberbury was the day my life changed forever, only I did not know it at the time. You have shown me life and love and beauty, Allaston, such things as I had forgotten to exist. I pray that, in the future, no matter how this day turns out, that when you think of me, there is a measure of kindness in your heart towards me. Forgive me for not being the strong, virtuous knight you deserve. If I could be that man for you, please know that I would be. But my path is set and my world is dark. As I told you before, I do not want to pull you into that world. I love you enough to know that I must set you free.”

Allaston listened to him, tears trickling from the corners of her eyes. She flicked them away. “I have pain in my heart such as I cannot comprehend,” she replied. “I fear that no matter what happens here today, I will love you until I die, regardless of the outcome.”

Bretton was feeling the same pain in his heart that she was. “Do you still plan to kill yourself if I kill your father?” he asked.

“I do.”

“I will do all in my power to prevent it, you know.”

She shook her head. “You will not be fast enough.”

He grunted. “I will lock you in the vault for your own safety, then.”

“I can still kill myself in the vault,” she whispered. “Do not think to presume you can stop me. If you kill my father… my life is over. I will have nothing left to live for because you will have proven to me that your love for vengeance is greater than your love for me.”

He sighed sadly. “Please,” he pleaded softly. “Please…do not do anything rash or foolish. Allaston, I beg you.”

She wouldn’t answer him. She simply hung her head and Bretton stood there, staring at her. He knew there was no way to prevent her from killing herself if she was truly serious. He could only pray she wasn’t, that somehow, someway, some bit of reason in her mind would stop her from doing it. He wasn’t a praying man but, at that moment, he found himself saying a prayer for divine intervention. If she, in fact, killed herself, then he would have nothing to live for, either. At the moment, he was coming to hate himself for his sense of duty, his sense of revenge. But he could not stop that which was already in motion.

With nothing more to say, he impulsively reached out, again taking her warm fingers in his, but this time she did not pull away. He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing the flesh softly and feeling her tremble at his touch. Her hand, at his lips, moved to his face and she wedged herself closer to him, both hands on his face as she hung her head. It was as if she couldn’t bear to look at him but she had to touch him one last time. Bretton moved to put his arms around her but she pulled away, abruptly, and shook her head. However, she did grasp his fingers again, pulling him with her as she moved, unsteadily, towards the keep. Bretton followed blindly, even when she let go of his fingers and ran up the stairs as if the Devil himself was chasing her.

The Devil, in fact, was. Bretton raced up the stairs after her, sensing that she wanted him to follow her and being unable to resist. Once he entered the keep, he slammed the door only to find her standing in the shadows of the keep entry. Before he could speak, she ran at him, her mouth fusing to his and her arms around his neck. Bretton responded wildly and instantly, his arms around her, his lips on hers, kissing her so hard that she was gasping for air. Still, he kissed her harder. There was finality in his touch, knowing this would be the last time he ever tasted her. It would be the last, and only, time he would ever touch a woman he loved. Emotion fed his passion to a frenzied level.

Allaston was in his arms as he carried her into the open room and sat her on the scrubbed table, the one he had molested her on those weeks ago. This time, there was so much fever and fire to their touch that it was raging out of control. Allaston began to weep softly as he kissed her, his hands moving to her body, touching her through the dress he had ripped once, feeling her warm flesh beneath the fabric. When he brushed over her right breast, unwilling to spook her, she grabbed his hand and put it squarely over her breast.

“Touch me,” she whispered against his mouth. “I beg of you, take me as your own, Bretton. We will never know this moment again and I want to remember you against me, within me, as the only man who was ever meant to be my husband. In my heart, you
are
my husband. Please do not deny me this memory of you. Let me feel your love as it was meant to be.”

Bretton didn’t need to be told twice. With a growl, he picked her up again and took her to the end of the room that was dark and shadowed. There was more privacy there. He loosened the fastens on the surcoat this time rather than tearing it, easing the shift and dress off her shoulders, enough so that he could get to a warm and tender nipple. When he suckled her furiously, Allaston cried out softly, holding his head to her breast as if he were a starving child nursing against her. As she held him tightly, his hands snaked underneath her skirts, hiking them up, revealing her virgin core beneath.

Pushing her back on the table, Bretton nursed hungrily at her breasts as his hands, far more gently this time, caressed her buttocks and stroked her thighs. When he gently stroked the dark fluff of curls, she leapt with uncertainty but he stilled her with gentle words and soft caresses. Allaston wanted this, after all. She wanted to feel the man within her, just this once. It would be the one and only time she did.

Bretton slipped a finger into her tight, wet sheath, feeling her gasp at the new and strange sensation. She was very moist and he refused to wait. He had been anticipating this moment since nearly the day he met her and he refused to wait any longer. He unfastened his breeches and let them fall to his ankles and as he put the tip of his hard, throbbing phallus at her threshold, he lifted his head and looked her in the eye.

“I love you, Allaston de Velt,” he murmured, gently kissing her chin, her mouth. “What I do now, I do for no other reason than that. You are my heart, my soul, my wife who will never be. I have never loved anyone as I love you and I have never taken a woman who meant something to me. You are the first, in many ways. You are with me forever.”

With that, he thrust into her, listening to her gasp with pain as he breached her maidenhood. She cried out softly as he thrust again and again, seating himself to the hilt, feeling her tight wetness around him. It was beyond pleasure. It was passion and desire such as he had never known. Once fully seated, he held her buttocks against his pelvis and began to thrust into her.

Allaston clung to him, feeling the proof of his passion buried deep inside her, filling her as she could have never imagined. As he pounded into her, she ended up gripping the edge of the table so he wouldn’t push her off of it with the force of his movements. With every thrust, he ground his pelvis against hers and she could feel sparks every time their bodies met. His lips were against her forehead, kissing her softly as he made love to her, and Allaston was overwhelmed with it.

“I want your son,” she breathed, daring to reach down and touch herself where their bodies were joined. She could feel his smooth phallus as he entered her, again and again. “Give me your son, Bretton. Give me your seed so that I may bear your child. If I cannot have you, then at least I can have him. Please… give me your son.”

Bretton gasped heavily as he heard her words, sending lust and desire through him that fed through his loins. It fed him for another reason as well. A woman who was planning on killing herself would not be thinking of bearing a child. Perhaps this was the divine intervention he had been hoping for. He found himself imagining that he would impregnate her, filling her with his son, a child that would bear his good looks and her intelligent mind. He’d barely thought of heirs until he met her and now he could think of nothing else. When her fingers brushed his phallus again, he couldn’t hold back his climax and he released himself deep into her body, feeling her own release as she joined him.

Gasping, sweating, Bretton gathered her up into his arms, holding her tightly, still embedded in her as the last of his arousal died away. He was savoring the feel of her against him, tenderly kissing the side of her head, when the sounds from the bailey grew louder and he knew it was because his men were looking for him. He could hear someone calling for him. An army was approaching, coming closer, and Bretton knew the time had come to leave her. But he didn’t want to let her go, knowing this would be the last time he ever held her in his arms.

“I must go,” he conceded. “If I do not, they will come in here looking for me.”

Allaston pulled her head from the crook of his neck, looking up at him. Her bright green eyes were full of emotion.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“And I love you, forever and always.”

There was nothing more to say. Allaston released him and Bretton stood back, pulling his breeches up and securing them. Allaston slipped off the table, noticing a small amount of blood and bodily fluid on her shift. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t regret anything. Without looking at him, she headed towards the chamber entry.

“If it is your wish that I remain in my chamber, I will do it,” she said quietly. “But I would like to speak to my father before… well, before anything happens. I would consider it a great favor if you would allow it.”

Bretton looked at her, anguish in his eyes. “I will send for you.”

“Thank you.”

She took a few steps but he called out to her. “Allaston?”

She paused to look at him. “Aye?”

Bretton’s gaze never left her as he crossed the floor, taking her into his arms one last time and kissing her with all of the power and anguish he was feeling. Allaston felt it, too. When he let her go, she ran up the stairs. He could hear the chamber door slam on the second floor. He swore he heard her sobbing, too.

With a heavy heart, yet with great determination, he headed out to the bailey to greet the incoming army.

To greet de Velt.

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