Master of Craving (32 page)

“Nay, Stefan, you could never hurt me.”

He pushed further into her and she took him. He broke past her virgin shield, and though she felt a twinge of pain, her body was ready for him. Gently, almost hesitantly, he moved deeper into her, giving her body time to accept him. Arian held her breath until he was fully sheathed. Stefan kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, and her lips. “When you are ready, Arian,” he breathed.

She looked up into his brilliant eyes and his love for her shone through like the brightest star in a black sky. Emotion rushed through her. Never had she felt so cherished, nor so safe as she did at that moment in his arms. And with it, a profound sadness filled her, that this one night would have to carry her through the rest of her life.

His lips captured hers in a rough passionate kiss. His body swelled and she felt his muscles tighten. She moved beneath him, wanting his mark upon her.

He thrust into her and she caught her breath. He lifted his hips, pulling from her, then thrust again, and again, and again, until in perfectly synchronized undulation their bodies came together as one in the primal ebb and flow of two lovers mating. His fingers dug into her hair, his lips captured hers, his tongue swirled against hers. He carried her away up into the clouds, into the sun and beyond.

Sensation engulfed every part of her body. Her skin flushed warm and moist, her blood ran hot and swift in her veins. The wave of desire rose with each thrust of his hips, raising her higher and higher until it crashed inside of her with a soul-shattering inferno. Arian cried out as hot shards of fire burned her insides, causing a cataclysmic release that shook her very soul. Gasping for breath, she clung to him, riding out the sensation knowing she would never be the same again. Stefan gathered her closer in his arms. She felt the shift in his body, and knew he too would experience in his way what she just had.

Still reeling, Arian brought her legs up, locking them around his thighs. “Arian!” he cried just as his body crashed into hers. He strained against her, his body spasming against hers as his seed filled her. When his body slowed, his breath was as hard and forced as hers.

She held him tight against her, their bodies slick with sweat. He collapsed beside her, drawing her close into his arms. She laid her head upon his shoulder, and there they lay until their breaths returned to a more regular pace.

Wild terrible thoughts raced through Stefan’s mind. He tried to force them from his head, but they would not relent. Like a ravaged beast, he could not help what his primal instinct charged him to do: remove the man who stood between him and the woman he loved. He gathered Arian tightly in his arms. She cried out in protest. He loosened his hold. “Arian, where do we go now?”

“Nowhere. We have until morn, Stefan,” she said softly.

 

He rose up on an elbow and looked hard at her. “I want eternity.”

 

Fear clouded her smooth features. “What are you saying?”

 

“I am saying I want you for eternity. I will do whatever is necessary.”

She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Nay, Stefan, do not say such things. ’Tis not only against man’s law but God’s. I am married, and Magnus is very much alive. I could never live with myself or look upon you again knowing we were responsible for his death.”

“Accidents happen …”

 

“Nay! Stefan, you speak the unspeakable! Do not say these things!”

Fury raged within him that he would even think of murder! He rolled from her and grabbed a candle from the side table near the bed. He brought it to the sheets and smiled grimly. “Your virgin stains he insisted upon. If he truly cared for you, the blood would be unimportant.”

“Our marriage is, as most are, an alliance of two great houses. Love is never a part of the arrangement, but for some an unexpected gift.”

He set the candle back upon the table. For a long moment, he stood unwilling to accept that this woman whom he loved above all others would leave him at the crow of the cock and go to another man, never to be seen again. Fury, frustration, and longing for her before he lost her wrangled in his heart, and though he knew what he was willing to do would ultimately drive her from him forever, he could only visualize Magnus dead, his sword buried in his gut.

His gaze rose to hers. “I cannot stand the thought of him touching you as I have.” He dropped onto the bed, reaching out to caress her breast. His thumb rubbed across her nipple. He smiled when it puckered. “Your skin is softer than silk,” he said, as his lips replaced his finger. She arched into him. She tasted of milk and honey. Her breasts were full and plump, made for a man, but the image of her suckling his son tore at his heart. His lips tightened.

Arian gasped. Anger flared in his heart. Anger at the fates for placing her in his path only to snatch her away. Grasping her face between his hands, he pressed his forehead to hers. “You are mine, Arian! Mine!” He pushed her back into the pillows, and in one swift stroke, he entered her. A primal possession overcame him with such a force he wanted to throw his head back and howl at the moon, to let all who heard it know that he had claimed his life mate and would fight any man or beast who tried to take her from him.

Entwining his fingers through hers, Stefan raised her arms above her head as his hips rose and fell, marking her with each thrust as if a call to any man she was his. And he would not relinquish her. The fury burned deep in his loins, like a lash stroke each time he thrust into her. Their bodies strained one against the other, and like the lash he came uncoiled in one great crack of the whip. “Arian!” he cried, as he wildly undulated against her, filling her with his seed for the second time that night.

And just as he had, in a furious wave of passion her body heated to overflowing and she came in a hard wave of release, clutching his hands in hers as her body arched into him, holding there motionless for one sublime moment before crashing back to earth.

Arian fell into exhausted sleep mere moments later. Stefan pulled her closer to him, where he lay on his back staring at the beamed ceiling, his mind a raucous cacophony of plots. He could slip down the hall and slit the Viking’s throat and no one would be the wiser. He could challenge him to a duel, and before the entire population of Yorkshire he could slay him without so much as a second thought. He could pay a pack of thieves to slay him on the road to Norway, or hire an assassin to stealthily strangle him.

But with each plot Stefan concocted in his mind, he knew Arian would never forgive him for murder. She valued all life, even that of those who would cause her harm. Should he kill her husband, he could not bear the recrimination in her eyes each time she looked up at him. But nor could he stomach the thought of another man’s, even her husband’s, hands upon her!
“Stefan,” Arian murmured, pressing her lips to his chest.

His anger dissolved. Replacing it was a heartbreak so debilitating he could scarce breathe.

Arian sat fully clothed in the dark room. Only Stefan’s deep even breaths disrupted the quiet, and only the sputtering candle illuminated his powerful body sprawled upon the rumpled sheets. Their time together was near an end.

Emotion clogged her throat. She would promise her soul to any deity for the power to change fate. But ’twas not to be. If he still wanted her, her husband eagerly awaited the crow of the cock to claim his wife, and she would be here for him. She refused to think of life without Stefan. She refused to allow tears of sorrow to stain her cheeks. She refused to allow her heart to guide her back into the bed with him and savor one more kiss. ’Twould be torture, and she could bear no more. She was filled to capacity and greatly feared that, if pushed any farther, she would break.

Visions of her father wandering aimlessly in the dark corridors of the castle, calling for her mother, gripped her heart. She saw herself doing the same, dressed in rags, her hair a mess, the tracks of tears permanently stained upon her cheeks. And there in the shadows her husband and child, looking upon her with great sorrow.

Nay! She would not do it!

As the first gray fingers of dawn peeked through the high window, Stefan stirred. Arian caught her heart in her throat. Like a great wild beast he stretched his mighty muscles. A smile softened his face. His sleepy eyes opened quietly, searching the room for her; he smiled a slow satisfied smile. Her body trembled. It took every bit of strength she possessed not to go to him.

When he realized she was clothed and not coming to him, his smile faded. He looked up beyond her to the window. Raising on one arm in the bed, he said softly, “Do not leave me, Arian.”

She stood. “ ’Tis too late for us.”

 

He rolled from the bed and grabbed his clothes from the floor and dressed. As he strapped on his sword belt, he looked to her, as if he wished to say more.

 

“Please, Stefan, do not make this any harder than it has to be. Go. Now.”

 

He nodded, but before he turned to leave he yanked the bloody sheet from the bed. “For your husband.”

 

Arian bit her bottom lip. As Stefan opened the door, Magnus’s large body filled the space. Stefan shoved the sheet at him. “Your proof.” Then strode past him.

 

Arian raised her eyes to him, unsure where she stood with him. “Milord?”

 

He turned to Father John, who stood behind him, and handed him the sheets. “Hang them from the tallest spire for the entire shire to bear witness.”

 

Arian closed her eyes as her stomach rolled in one continuous wave. When she opened them Magnus stood before her. So many emotions clouded his face. Relief, anger, pain.

He stood silent, his pride, his heart, and his emotions hanging plainly from his sleeve. Arian felt a stirring of compassion for him. None of this was his fault. Yet he paid the heftiest price of all. She made a shallow curtsey. “Magnus, from this moment forward, I will give you all that I am capable of giving you.” She touched his chest with her fingertips. “My deepest apologies. ’Twas never my intention for any of this to happen.”

“Did he hurt you, Arian?” he asked softly.

 

She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

 

“If you bear the bastard’s bastard I will cast him from my house.”

Arian’s heart tightened as the vision of a son with Stefan’s brilliant eyes and dark hair sprang into her mind’s eye. At her silence, he continued, “I will not lie with you until your courses have come twice, so that I can be sure you carry no bastard.”

A sudden infusion of anger sprang up inside her.

Bastard or no, no child of hers would be cast away. And while she understood Magnus, he would come to understand she was not a woman who would lie down like a rush mat. But that was a battle she had yet to face, so she kept her silence. “Let us break the fast, husband, and present a united couple to the gossiping nobles and the people of this shire.”

Magnus nodded, and extended his arm.

Stefan strode through the hall, calling to his men, who mingled with the inquisitive nobles up at dawn to witness what they were hoping would be a duel to the death between Stefan and the Jarl. Stefan could only wish that it would be so easy, but they would get no performance from him this morning. Arian had made her choice and it was not he. Anger twisted his innards, while jealousy poisoned his mind and despair pierced his heart.

How was he to look upon her on the arm of her husband? How was he to close his eyes each night and see visions of her beneath the Viking, giving herself as she had just given herself to him this night past? He would leave by midday, and as he had promised what seemed so long ago, he would not look over his shoulder. He would ride west, and forget he had ever met Princess Arianrhod. But even as Stefan tried to convince himself he could forget her, he knew he lied. She was with him always, like his hand or his arm. In his heart and soul, where she would be until he drew his last breath.

As the thoughts settled upon him, he forced himself not to go back and claim her forever as his. He stopped in his tracks, his men catching up to him. Slowly he turned, and looked back at the wood and stone manor house, above which the blue and white standard of the Jarl flew arrogantly in the morning breeze. ’Twas ugly and dark, the house, and though he had spent the greatest night of his life within its dreary walls, he hated to look upon it.

“Riders approach,” Rohan said, stepping past Stefan. Stefan turned and looked down into the wide valley that separated the village from the manor land. “ ’Tis a royal messenger,” Stefan said, squinting. He would recognize the gold and scarlet standard of William anywhere.

“With a full garrison accompaniment,” Wulfson mused.

As a single rider broke through the wide gates into the bailey, the churls scattered. Stefan smiled grimly, recognizing William’s most trusted messenger, Robert fitz Hugh. What business did the king have in Yorkshire?

“Stefan!” Robert called, urging his mount faster.

 

Despite his heartache, Stefan could not hold back a smile for the young man. ’Twas good to see him. “Robert! What brings you here?”

 

He reined his horse to a halt before them and quickly dismounted. When he pulled the helm from his head, his face changed to hard and grave. “Word from William.”

 

“It must be urgent, for you to ride from Rouen. Tell me.”

Robert pulled a scroll from the leather pouch slung across his chest and handed it to Stefan. As he broke the seal, Stefan looked past him to the accompaniment. “Why do you travel with so heavy a guard?”

“ ’Tis no guard, Stefan, but a full garrison, at your disposal. Another fifty ride but a day and half behind me.”

 

“But we prepare to take the road west this day.”

 

“Nay you do not. Read the missive.”

 

Hastily he unrolled the scroll. The Blood Swords crowded around him. William’s bold hand sprang from the paper.

 

“Sir Stefan,

“I pray this missive finds you and your brothers in good health. I have been fully informed of the treachery of Edric, and of his alliance with Rhiwallon and Bleddyn. As you have no doubt witnessed, those people of Yorkshire continue to resist my will and my claim to the English throne. My spies tell me there are even Normans amongst them who plot against Normandy.