Knight of Pentacles (Knights of the Tarot Book 3) (3 page)

Avalon’s climate, as always, was perfect—assuming one’s idea of perfection was an endless stretch of sunny days. Personally, he preferred the unpredictability of Scotland’s weather. Variety, it was said, was the spice of life, and he agreed wholeheartedly.

An existence without seasoning was as bland and unexciting as the steady diet of oatmeal he was raised upon in the Highlands back in the fourteenth century. Or the life he now lived in the glen. But at least he had sunsets, starry nights, inclement weather, and seasonal changes to add a bit of flavor to the drudgery.

Axel followed the page out of the grove to the towering iron gates of Castle Le Fay, where two sentries in vintage English uniforms stood guard. They were part of the army of mercenary vampires Queen Morgan had hired. He had learned about them the day he undertook Sir Leith’s errand.

The thought brought on a spasm of guilt. Perhaps, if Her Majesty was feeling generous after he serviced her, she would allow him to drop by the dungeon to say his final good-byes to his ill-fated friend before returning to his post.

After the guards let them pass, the page led the way across the rickety rope bridge to the tidal island upon which the castle stood. At the entrance, the lad handed him off to a golden-haired faery in a gossamer tunic so sheer she needn’t have bothered covering herself.

“I am Lady Lilac, my good knight.” She dipped into a curtsey. “The new Mistress of the Bedchamber. Her Majesty has asked that I see you the rest of the way.”

Axel did his best not to leer as she took him through the gem-encrusted, relic-strewn corridor leading to the royal bedchamber. If the protocols played out as usual, he would soon be afforded the opportunity to ogle her attractions to his heart’s content. For Queen Morgan, who considered foreplay a chore, generally staffed out the priming of her knights to her ladies-in-waiting.

Inside the royal bedchamber, the queen, clad in a diaphanous dressing gown, reclined on the tufted silk chaise at the foot of her canopy bed. Her womb, as usual, was heavy with child. Even as Axel’s chest tightened with dread, his groin tingled with onrushing arousal.

She might be wicked, vain, and selfish, but she was still the most seductive creature he had ever beheld. Her skin was polished alabaster, her lips were ripe strawberries, and her eyes were as crystalline and perfect as the emerald into which he had carved
Teiwaz
. Only one thing would have made her more beguiling: if her long, thick hair were flaming red instead of jet black.

His perfect woman was a shieldmaiden with hair all the colors of autumn—an ideal that no longer existed in the world of today.

He looked around him. The elegant chamber, decorated in rich shades of gold, always made him think of a beehive. Though it was light out, the drapes had been drawn to shut out the sun. Candles burned atop every surface, filling the room with warm amber light and the scent of melting wax.

In the beginning, he had loved her, owing to her beauty and his naïve delusions about love. With the brush of youthful romanticism, he had painted her as Isolde, the queen whose love he was destined to share. Time and awareness removed the clouds from his eyes. What a blind fool he had been. But then, when first he came to Avalon, he’d had little experience with women.

Though he had bedded quite a few and had worshipped one or two from afar, never had he experienced anything he could call a genuine relationship.

Now, Queen Morgan would never allow him a wife. Even if she did, what lass worth having would want to bind herself to an enslaved shade confined to a small patch of land?

As the protocol demanded, he got down on his knees, joined his hands, and bowed his head. “Your Majesty.”

“My knight,” she returned with frost on the words. “How good of you to respond so promptly to my summons. But then, you have always served me with the utmost devotion and obedience, have you not?”

He kept his focus on the floor. “I flatter myself that I have, my queen.”

“Do you know the reason I have requested your presence this day?”

Surprised by the question, he lifted his gaze to find hers searing into his face. “I assumed it was for the usual reason, Your Majesty.”

“Well, you assumed incorrectly, my knight.” The fire in her eyes threatened to set him ablaze. “For I have called you here to account for your betrayal.”

“My betrayal? I know not what you mean.”

“Then let me be more explicit,” she said. “I granted Sir Leith an audience at your behest. And now he has made off with my magic chalice—and deprived me of my tithe. Do I not have good reason to hold you culpable?”

Fear’s icy fingers curled around Axel’s cods. She did barbarous things to punish the knights who betrayed her. Crucifixion, castration, curses, and impalement, among other unspeakable cruelties. Bitterness flooded his heart and fisted his hands. How could he ever have loved such a cold-blooded creature?

“I swear to you on everything I hold sacred that I had no inkling of what he meant to do. Until this moment, I believed him to be chained in your dungeon waiting to be tithed.”

She rose from the chaise, walked over to him, and stroked his head like a dog’s. “I want to believe you.” Sliding her hand down the side of his face, she entangled her fingers in his beard before jerking his gaze to hers. “But I still must have the Cup of Truth back. And my revenge. A task I shall entrust to you, my
allegedly
faithful knight. And if you fail me, know that it will be you I offer to Lord Morfryn come Samhain. Do you understand all that I tell you?”

“Yes, my queen. You desire that I should retrieve your stolen grail and also bring back Sir Leith to serve as the tithe—or be sacrificed myself in his stead.”

“Exactly. And, to punish his betrayal, you shall slay his new wife, who my spies tell me carries his child.” Her eyes turned to green ice. “Do it in some gruesome way—and see that he watches her die.”

Her directive split Axel’s heart like a hunk of brittle wood. On the one hand, killing an innocent woman violated the canons he lived by. On the other, he was a knight. And a faithful knight did not question the orders of his queen, however repellant he might find the assignment.

Swallowing his indignation, he looked at the floor. “As you wish, my queen.”

By nature, he had always been a man of few words. In the presence of the queen, who could turn from purring kitten to hissing wildcat over the slightest slip of the tongue, he said even less than usual.

She planted her feet on either side of his knees. Her robe was open, revealing long, slender legs and a thick, black triangle of hair. The sweet tang of her sex tortured his nostrils. Even as hatred smoldered in his heart, longing enflamed his loins.

“You will undertake your mission at the new moon.” Sliding down his body to her knees, she danced her long fingers over his chest and throat. “That will give me time enough to gather more intelligence about my betrayer’s whereabouts. When the time comes, I shall summon you for a full briefing. Until then, you will continue to perform your duties as usual—starting with pleasuring your sovereign.”

As she brushed her soft lips against his, the torque he wore around his neck grew warm against his skin. Refusing her was impossible, even if he wished to. And he did not wish to. For pounding her hard and fast would help exorcize the unspiritual sentiments she called from his core.

“My knight,” she whispered. “Do not fail me. For you have always been my favorite.”

The queen reached under his tunic and into his trews. Pleasure pulsed through him as her magical fingers enveloped his engorged phallus. He had not been with a woman in weeks, and his need for sexual release was acute. As was his distrust of her uncharacteristic behavior. Why was she playing with him while Lady Lilac stood by? Intuitively, he knew the answer. Morgan wanted to rule more than his cock. She wanted to own every part of him—heart, mind, body, and soul.

She kissed him, her mouth an opiate. All thought, all resistance, drained from his mind. He knew only that sweet taste on his tongue and the scent of overripe apples in his nostrils. She pulled away, leaving him dizzy, and looked at him with eyes like crystallized honey.

Then, she shifted her gaze to her handmaiden. “Leave us.”

Glancing backward, he caught the merest glimpse of Lady Lilac leaving the room. When the door closed behind her, he turned back to Morgan. Her eyes no longer had irises or whites. They were green-black and segmented, like an insect’s.

“Tell me you love me,” she commanded.

She was the bee, he the pollen. It seemed only right and natural that he should give himself to her, to be carried off to the hive and transformed into honey. Warm, golden syrup that could neither think nor feel but simply be what it was.

He tried to say the words she wanted to hear, but, even under her spell, his voice refused to betray him. Every terrible thing he knew about her raced through his mind. The men she’d enslaved…the newborn sons she killed…the daughters she sold into sexual bondage…the disobedient knights she tortured and mutilated.

Before he could move away, her eyes turned green again. Green, warm, and beseeching.

“Make love to me, my knight.”

Her soft command was as irresistible as Valkyrie mead. He made no effort to resist when she helped him to his feet and led him by the hand to the bed. The massive oak headboard, carved like a honeycomb, reached all the way to the overhanging canopy. Her grip on his wrist was strong and persistent. As he came down beside her on the bed, her lips grazed his torque, making it burn like fire. He pulled off his tunic, exposing his skin to the temperate air. She teased his nipples between her fingers; he would have groaned, but he could make no sound. Something sticky had sealed his lips together.

He tugged off his boots and peeled off his trews. Morgan reclined upon the bed, her hair a smear of ink across the pillows. She was naked except for the pendant she wore on a chain—a solid-gold bee with inlaid diamond wings. In the flickering candlelight, the bee’s wings appeared to move.

“Take me now,” she said.

When he bent to kiss her, his cock grazed the soft nest between her legs. Her thighs parted; damp and warmth greeted his touch as his hand moved down the curve of her pregnant belly to the inside of one leg. Grasping his beard, she turned his face to hers. Opening her legs wider, she raised her head to kiss him, her teeth grazing his lips. She pushed him down until his head was between her thighs. Raising her vulva to his lips, she offered herself to him like a chalice. Her flesh tasted of flowers. When she climaxed, thick, sticky fluid seeped from her like the sap of a sugar maple.

She cried out—a name, but not his, or any other he knew. Moving into position, he kissed her swollen belly, her full breasts, and her lush mouth. He gave her his tongue as he pushed his cock inside her. She was warm, wet, and verdant. Each thrust heightened his pleasure until, unable to hold back any longer, he spilled his seed inside her.

As he fell back on the pillow, spent and sated, she curled against him. For the longest time, he laid there, feeling as if he was drowning in a jar bated with sugar water.

Chapter 3

When Jenna awoke, it took her a few moments to recall where she was. Then, everything flooded back. Her broken engagement, her broken-down car, and the man she’d seen in the glen. She was on the sofa of the cottage she’d booked for her honeymoon, still fully dressed.

Regret bubbled up inside her. This was not how things were supposed to turn out. She was supposed to be waking up after her wedding night with soreness between her legs and a husband by her side.

She was
not
supposed to be alone, single, and still a virgin.

Expelling a sigh, she sat up and looked around. The cottage was small, but cozy. Across from the sage-green couch stood a pair of chintz-covered wingbacks on either side of a stone fireplace. A weathered leather chair and ottoman were nestled in one corner beside a table with a lamp—a perfect nook for reading, something she’d be doing a lot of over the next two weeks. Anticipating as much, she’d brought plenty of books along—mostly bucket-list classics she’d bought from the fundraising sales at the university library, where she’d worked the past three years as a student librarian.

But, first things, first.

Sighting her purse on a table by the door, she went over and fished out her mobile. Her heart sank when she saw the battery was only at five percent.
Buggering hell
. Tired as she was, she should have had the good sense to put it on the charger when she got in last night.

There was a telephone on a small cabinet under the stairs. In the top drawer, she found a local directory. Opening to the back, she skimmed the business listings for a convenient mechanic. There were two nearby. Keeping her finger on the number of the first, she looked around for a clock. She found one on the wall of the tiny kitchen behind her. It was a few minutes past seven. Would a garage be open so early? There was only one way to find out.

Lifting the receiver, she dialed the number above her finger. When a recording informed her the shop was closed until eight, she hung up and tried the second number.