Iloria (2 page)

Prior to their arrival, it had not occurred to Iloria to do anything but dine with her husband every evening. Now, the idea made her want to shrink into the cold stone floor. “Thank you, Magda. I believe I will do that. If my husband is amenable, that is.”

Sympathy filled Magda’s dark eyes. “My lord is a difficult man to know. There are things...” She shook her head. “But it is not my place to say, if you do not know the legend.”

“I have heard of no legend.”

Magda pressed her lips together. “I’ve already said too much.”

“No, please—” Iloria reached out, then snatched back her hand. “Please tell me.”

“It—” The woman stepped closer and lowered her voice. “The First Warlord of the Forest always comes from this family. The men are fierce and skilled soldiers, because they carry violence in their blood. An ancient curse.”

A curse. Violence. Iloria had feared for her contentment, but never for her safety, not even in idle, passing fancy. Not until now. “Are you saying he’s dangerous?”

“Our traditions are set in place to minimize danger. Lord Farran has never harmed one of his vassals.”

It sounded more like a confirmation than a denial, and Iloria wanted to hear no more. She couldn’t, not if she planned to stay. After a moment’s hesitation, she took a deep breath. “Would you deliver a note to my husband, please? I’d like to extend that dinner invitation.”

Magda curtsied again, more deeply this time, and respect stood plain in her eyes. “As my lady commands.”

Iloria sat at the wide desk by the window, where a supply of stationery had already been laid in. She wrote quickly, all the while formulating her plan.

She’d packed her marriage robes for her journey to the capital. They still lay folded in one of her trunks, waiting. The ceremonial silks were meant to be worn on her wedding night, and there was no faster way than wearing them to demonstrate her commitment—or to test Farran’s.

Magda delivered the note with a chilly disapproval Farran remembered all too well from youth. Only eight years his senior, she nonetheless knew how to look at him as if he were a misbehaving boy who deserved his father’s belt and a week without desserts.

It made him feel so guilty that he sent his reply at once, then spent two hours running the grounds as a wolf. The leaves under his paws and the burn in his muscles helped ease some brittle tension, but he knew it wouldn’t help for long.

A simple dinner with his wife, and it terrified him more than any battle.

With Magda’s anger fresh in his mind, Farran bathed and even trimmed his beard. Then he dug deep into his endless wardrobe for his ceremonial best, grays and blues his seamstress had delivered the last time Ciar had commanded him to attend a court function as the First Warlord.

He arrived at Iloria’s door at the precise time she’d invited him and braced himself before knocking.

She answered in gauzy white robes, a simple gold chain encircling her throat. “Come in, please. Dinner is ready.”

Farran felt rooted to the spot. The three robes were ceremonial. Traditional. Each one nearly transparent on its own and, all together, an invitation no man could ignore. “Iloria—”

“Come in,” she said again, swinging wide the door. Only the blush climbing up her cheeks betrayed her awareness of him.

He would be damned to the darkest corners of hell for what he’d do to her. Nothing she didn’t desire, nothing she wouldn’t crave—but she could hardly understand a grown man’s needs. A
wolf’s
needs.

Especially not a wolf like him.

He had to turn around. He had to leave.

Somehow, his boot stepped over the threshold and took him with it.

Iloria said nothing, simply poured a goblet of wine, handed it to him, and reached for the top clasp of her outermost robe.

The cup slipped through his fingers as he let out a helpless growl. “Iloria, you needn’t—this is not required of you, not until you desire it. I intended to give you time to come to know me.”

She froze with her fingers on the clasp. “I know who you are. You’re my husband.”

“I’m not—”
What are you not, Farran? Her husband?
The High Lord himself had witnessed their handfastening. “You know who I am. You do not understand
what
I am.”

The hot blood in her cheeks had deepened into a mortified flush. “Excuse me for a moment.” She practically flew into the bedroom.

His self-control shattered. Protecting her was foolish if he had to crush her pride to do it. Farran pushed through the bedroom door and caught her arm before she could pick up an embroidered robe to cover herself.

With another helpless growl, he spun her around and captured her mouth with his. She opened her lips with a shocked noise, small hands clutching at his shirt.

Too rough. Too
much
. The woman trembling against him was a well-bred virgin. He should coax, not take. Please, not demand.

So he licked her parted lips, the pleasure of taking her shooting straight to his cock. Her clenched fists relaxed, and she met the next advance of his tongue with her own. Another surprised noise, this one followed by a shaky moan of pleasure.

It woke something inside him. The beast, the monster that answered to the full moon. He tore his mouth from hers and sucked in an unsteady breath. Her arousal scented the air, and it sharpened everything, made it hard not to spill her to the floor. “Iloria.”

“Farran.” Her chest heaved against his. “That—that’s very enjoyable.”

Enjoyable. A pathetic word that would have bruised his ego if only he hadn’t been able to hear her heart pounding. “Yes. It is enjoyable.”

She stared up at him for a few of those quick heartbeats, then framed his face with her hands and kissed him clumsily.

It was madness to let her. Bedding a new bride was necessary—if she didn’t enjoy sex, she’d be horrified by mating—but he wasn’t a simple wolf. The curse in his blood wouldn’t allow him to gently and patiently tutor her in the arts of passion. The beast already stirred, hungry for her tentative touch, her sweet tongue seeking out his.

If he gave in, he wouldn’t be able to separate sex from mating. But her kiss was so nervous, her entire body braced for rejection—and that he could not deliver, either.

So he kissed her and eased away, drawing his lips along the smooth slope of her cheek as he laid his hands on her waist. “I find you desirable, Iloria. Never doubt it. But I ask you to trust me to set the pace. Nothing in your lessons will have prepared you for me.”

“Because of the legend?” she whispered. “Some sort of curse?”

He stiffened, silently cursing his housekeeper to the deepest hell. “Magda speaks out of turn.”

“She didn’t tell me anything.” Iloria bit her lip. “You say I do not understand what you are. The solution, it seems, is for you to explain it to me.”

Such a simple thing to her, and perhaps she was correct. He could tell her the truth now, and she would never need worry that she’d been rejected. She’d pull away, as would any civilized wolf.

Perhaps he was a coward after all, if he could accept her confusion more easily than her revulsion.

Even his mad beast recoiled in horror, shamed by the thought. It did not comprehend gentleness or control, but it knew that hurting a fragile creature to spare oneself was the height of dishonor. So Farran stepped away and cleared his throat. “Lunacy, my lady. Lunacy is my curse.”

She stood, still and ashen. “The tapestries, even over the windows.”

To keep the moonlight out of the fortress. To keep those within safe from the men of the family, who turned wild when the moon touched them. “There are magics which can hold the curse at bay for a time, but they funnel the beast into violence. If there is no war to be fought, it is madness to try.”

Iloria stared at him, studying him, as if she sought some hint of that insanity in him now. “Magda told me you’ve never hurt anyone under your care. Is that true?”

Because he’d never allowed anyone too close. “It is.”

“Farran.” She closed the distance between them and touched his elbow. “I’m sorry. It must be terrifying for you.”

He’d expected many things, but not sympathy. “This has always been my life. I should have given you a choice as to whether you wanted it to be yours.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “you should have. But what’s done is done, and now we are joined. All we can do is move forward.”

Ruthless practicality, so stubborn she might just be the woman to handle him. It made him smile. “And we shall, if you are willing to let me set boundaries to ensure your safety.”

Iloria backed away until her knees hit the side of her bed. She sat. “Tell me what I should and should not do.”

No reason not to give her the truth. “We will have to do things differently from how you’ve been taught. There are ways I can touch you—ways I can show you pleasure without risking madness—but I cannot take you. Not until you are ready to be mated.”

“I understand. You must maintain control.” She tilted her head, her dark hair falling over her shoulder. “But what of
you
? Your pleasure?”

The goddess was truly cruel. He tried not to make his voice too gruff. “I’m not a selfless man. The things I do to you will please me.”

Iloria nodded and lifted her hands again to the clasp at her throat. “Shall I?”

“No.” An order, and it snapped from him with the same harshness he would have used on a battlefield. Cursing his self-control, he softened the word with a smile. “Give me your permission to remove it when I’m ready.”

Her brow furrowed, but she inclined her head again. “Of course, you must do as you will. As you desire.”

A thousand battles won, but tonight would be the truest test of his mettle. “I desire to please you. Trust me, wife.”

Her hands dropped once more to her lap, and there was no hesitation in her dark gaze as she watched him. “I trust you.”

Iloria sat, waiting for Farran’s attentions, and tried to calm the butterflies in the pit of her stomach. If he were beastly, surely he’d have less anxiety. He would take her, and damn her pain and discomfort. Maybe even her terror.

Instead, he seemed determined to move slowly, to ensure her enjoyment, and that made her think she hadn’t gone mad after all. That it would be all right.

She fidgeted with the layers of thin silk that covered her thighs and watched him. He watched her in turn, his gaze hot but restrained.

The moments slipped by, and the tension in his face tightened until he broke with a groan and hit his knees in front of her, his hands on her knees. “You’re beautiful, Iloria.”

She touched him without thought, because running her fingers through his hair felt
right
. “Thank you.”

He didn’t stop her, though his fingertips dug into her legs for the briefest moment. “What have you been told about what happens between a wolf and his mate?”

“Only that the two are bound together.” It had seemed innocuous enough during her lessons, but now, staring down at the strong lines of Farran’s face... Her body heated. “I should like for you to explain it to me.”

He chuckled hoarsely. “How a man comes into a woman? I should explain this?”

“Mating.” She could barely breathe. “I know the rest. My tutor was once a lauded courtesan who served the High Lord. She taught me much about the ways in which women give and receive pleasure.”

“Did she?” Farran began to gather the fabric of her gown, easing it up a handspan at a time, until he held the bulk of her skirts in his large fists. “Did it intrigue you?”

“How could it not?” Her skin was on fire, and a foreign hunger twisted in her belly. “She spoke of ecstasy, an entire world I’ve never touched.”

“Did she speak of what a man might do with his hands and mouth?”

If he hadn’t been kneeling in front of her, she might have slid off the bed. “She did. She said some men enjoy such things.”

He coaxed her knees apart and wedged his body between them. “In time, I will. First, I would have your mouth again. Kiss me.”

Tasting him before had brought an unexpected pleasure, and Iloria didn’t hesitate to renew the sensation now. His tongue was hot and rough, and the gentle rasp of it over hers tugged at something low in her body. She fidgeted on the bed, seeking relief from the ache.

His large, scarred hands left her legs to smooth up her sides, still stroking through the layers of her gown. He touched her breasts, cupping them as he licked her lower lip. “Do you enjoy this?”

An odd word, a weak one, for the way her body flamed at his touch. Iloria dropped her head back and squeezed her eyes shut with a low noise she couldn’t contain. “What will you do if you do not plan to take me?”

“Learn you.” His thumbs worked at her nipples, rubbing in slow, taunting circles that scraped her gown over her rigid flesh.

“No, I—” She would have to speak plainly about matters, whether the words embarrassed her or not. “You said as much. I meant to ask if you will allow me to alleviate your arousal as well.”

He froze, his hoarse groan rasping over her chin. “In time, perhaps, but not tonight. I am capable of alleviating my own arousal.”