The Irish Warrior Part 32

"Wh.o.r.e, traitor, I do not care," snapped their leader. "Rardove wants to pay twenty French livres livres to anyone who brings them in before battle? I bring them in." to anyone who brings them in before battle? I bring them in."

Finian heard the word battle, battle, but he didn't need words at all to understand what he was seeing. This was not a scouting party, not a group of loosely aligned riders on a treasure hunt for outlaws. This was the contingent of an army on the muster, and there was only one man powerful enough to summon it: Rardove. but he didn't need words at all to understand what he was seeing. This was not a scouting party, not a group of loosely aligned riders on a treasure hunt for outlaws. This was the contingent of an army on the muster, and there was only one man powerful enough to summon it: Rardove.

He was also fairly certain Senna would not be unaware of any of this.

The riders reined their horses away. The sounds of a small army were louder now, bootheels and muttering. The scouts met up with someone halfway down the hill.

"The river," Senna chanted against his mouth, willing them to choose away.

"Here in the clearing," the chestnut rider called out.

"Mother Mary," she exhaled.

Within fifteen minutes, the small army had tromped up the hill and encamped themselves on a meadowlike clearing just outside the treeline, eighty feet from where Senna and Finian sat frozen, mid-coitus.

She pulled back an inch and stared into his eyes. Hers were terrified.

"They'll be gone with the dawn, Senna," he said quietly, "and never even think to look up. We're safe up here."

"I know," she replied, and the sadness in her voice came from the kind of deep reservoir only very old women should have had the time to dig. "Up here, I am safe."

He tightened his hold on the knot of hair in his fist. "With me, ye are safe."

Her thighs were trembling. "With you, I am safe."

He dipped his head. Their foreheads touched. Just outside the line of trees, the army camped, coa.r.s.e voices and weapons everywhere, like a foul river murmuring. The moon rose.

She finally moved, lowering her body, which of course she had to do. She could not hold herself up all night.

She slid her hips forward and back, rocking on him. That, she did not have to do.

His fingers tightened on her hips to stop her. "Senna-"

"I'm afraid." Her voice was so low it was almost breath.

"I know," he whispered back, running his hands over her cheeks, cupping her face.

"I do not like being afraid."

Her hips rocked again and slowly, Finian became aware tears were slipping over his fingers, down her cheeks.

"s.h.i.+te," he rasped, and pulled her to him.

Slow and almost motionless, they rocked together, very slow. For a long time she just rested her forehead on his, and he kept his hands on her spine, and they moved, not wanting anything more than to just hold and be held.

But as the length of him was deep inside her, sliding over slippery, sensitive flesh, she started pressing down in harder thrusts, pus.h.i.+ng for more. She didn't move faster-they dare not-just harder, more desperately, pus.h.i.+ng with more force. She spread her legs as far as she could, pressed down as hard as she could, and it was not enough.

He lifted his hips ever so slightly, trying to meet her obvious, desperate need, but they couldn't risk any more movement than that.

"More," she whimpered.

He gave a ragged, whispered laugh. "Jesu, Senna, my hands are tied here." A tiny but vicious pump of his hip only made her writhe more.

"More." She bent to his ear and begged, "I need more."

His wide palm suddenly pushed her back a few inches. Dark and moonlit, his face looked dangerous as he met her eyes, his gaze predatory and appraising. He grabbed both her wrists and pulled them behind her back, held them locked in his grip.

The other hand he closed around her throat very gently but very powerfully, exerting just enough pressure for her to feel his restraint. Dangerous and erotic. Then he leaned forward and sucked her breast into his hot mouth.

She dropped her head back and moaned silently. Her hips slid on him, and with another small, violent shove up, he jammed himself farther up inside.

It was like he knew her body from the inside out, because the changed angle increased the feel of him, touching her high inside. He was pus.h.i.+ng against shuddering, trembling flesh, a slow, torturous slide. Each small plunge tightened some silken cord that ran from her womb to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, down the back of her legs and up her spine. It connected her to his pleasure.

He tightened his hold on her wrists and on her throat, his eyes never looking away, pressuring her, pus.h.i.+ng her. Hot, flat jolts of energy shot though her. She whimpered and arched her back. He closed his teeth around her nipple and flicked his tongue, hard touches just shy of pain.

She leapt in his arms, quivering.

"Is this good to ye?" he growled.

"Aye," she whispered. "More."

"How much more?" he rasped.

"Don't stop. Much more."

She heard a low growl, as if he'd turned animal, then, releasing her wrists, he sat up a little straighter and slid his hand down the sweaty curve of her back, over her bottom. Every movement was slow, torture slow, painful slow, safe, undetectable movements. He slipped his hand between her thighs, between his, to where they were joined. His fingertips circled through the slippery wetness, then he trailed them back and nestled them between the seam of her b.u.t.tocks. Slow, never-stopping.

She whimpered, her forehead rolling on his shoulder. He nuzzled the tip of a finger between her smooth rounded cheeks and pressed up.

"Oh, sweet Lord," she exhaled in a hot rush, so he did it again, slid his finger up a little farther. she exhaled in a hot rush, so he did it again, slid his finger up a little farther.

"Ohh," she whispered in a choked voice, and Finian didn't know if it was pain or pleasure, or both.

"More, Senna?" he grated, and he almost didn't recognize his own voice, it was so clouded with violent pa.s.sion. "Do ye want more?"

Her breath exploded out of her and her teeth closed on his shoulder as her hips slammed against him very, very slowly. His head was spinning now.

She leapt in his arms, quivering. Her knees pushed out, so she was sprawled against his chest. Her b.u.t.tocks, soft and yielding, gripped his finger tightly as her body trembled and rocked.

"Do ye like this?" he growled.

She was sobbing against his shoulder, biting him, quivering, tiny, frantic shoves of her hips, opening her to him.

"Feel all of me inside ye," he rasped.

His finger, slippery with her juices, pressed up a little farther and held there as she threw her head back in a silent scream. He pressed and released, steady, ever-more pressure on the sensitive opening of her, until his finger was inside her and he could feel the o.r.g.a.s.m begin in her womb with his finger and his c.o.c.k.

He locked his mouth over hers as they erupted together, her explosive o.r.g.a.s.m clenching him in hard, rhythmic pulses as he released deep inside her, utterly silent but for her sobs, which he swallowed, and the words she was crying into his mouth, "I love you." "I love you."

Later, when he could, when she was cradled in his arms, limp and sweaty, he lowered them by degrees to the floor of the deer blind and tugged her into the curve of his body. The army was almost silent now. Only a few small fires burned. A guard or two sat around them, desultorily on watch. No one else was awake but Senna and Finian, and an owl perched on the longest branch of their tree, blinking bright green eyes, waiting for unwary creatures to show themselves and become prey.

Some time later, she pushed up slightly and peered over her shoulder at him. Damp tendrils of hair curled beside her face, and her eyes were heavy lidded with pa.s.sion. She looked exhausted and sated and magnificent.

"You heard, did you not?" she whispered. "What I said."

He pulled her back down, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. He wrapped an arm around her belly and pulled her back into his chest. "Sleep if ye can. I'll keep watch. Tomorrow, we find a horse. We'll be at The O'Fail's by nightfall."

As if that would solve a single problem.

Chapter 41.

In the mists of a Dublin dawn, a troop of mercenary soldiers grumbled onto their horses, but every one of them knew things could be worse. The pay was good and the plunder better. There were worse professions than employment with the king's governor in Ireland.

Motionless, the justiciar, Wogan, watched from horseback, supervising the muster as the soldiers mounted up. The sound of heavy boots and creaking leather bounced back off the wall of mist.

Always a march and battle, taking here and giving there, only to have it taken back again. Irish king-making and deposing, releasing men held hostage and rescuing besieged ones, appointing good men and burying dead ones. His face revealed nothing; he was a chiseled sculpture whose craggy presence made his men mount up more quickly when his gray eyes settled on them.

King Edward would follow shortly, but Wogan had orders not to wait. The king had received news that greatly displeased him. Wogan was to begin settling the matter. Soon the Irish would understand the king's terms. They would capitulate, or they would die.

Wogan's fingertips were damp and chilled, and he blew on them absently as he straightened in the saddle. His gelding nickered at the sudden movement and skittered sideways over the wet cobblestones. Wogan spoke a soft word, and the horse quieted.

Turning, his hand in the air, he swept his arm down in an arc, and the retinue headed off into the mists. They would make good time, bound for northern Ireland where the devil-try dwelt.

They wouldn't see him coming for a long time. When they did, it would be too late.

When the sun was midway through its western arc the next afternoon, Finian lifted his hand and pointed into the valley below.

"O'Fail lands."

Senna nodded calmly, belying her fluttering heart. Her entire life had been spent on a remote manor, locked away with profit sheets and a stylus. Exactly as she'd planned it. Finian seemed to feel sad about that, that she'd somehow been injured as a result, that a loss had been suffered. But she'd never seen it that way.

As a widow, she'd made the final decisions about her life. Bought a dying business and made it thrive, raised her brother and, until their father gambled it away, ensured a rich manor remained for the ensuing generations-that would probably never come, she suddenly realized, because neither she nor Will seemed inclined toward unions. Marriages, children, that sort of thing. Being connected.

They'd been ruined for it.

Each of them lived ferociously solitary lives, connected only to each other by steely thin threads of devotion, and to their father by knotted ropes of dismay. Dread. Desolation.

Until now. Senna had let go the rope and gone over the edge of that particular, spectacular cliff with Finian.

She tried frantically to straighten the wild curls of her hair into a semblance of a braid. It helped little to realize now that she was terrified of meeting people. That her self-imposed sequestration had not simply been a preference for numbers or the clarity of a contract. It had been-and was-fear.

She admitted it now: fear had ruled her life. For good reason. There was much to fear, and it was all inside her, flowing like blood. Just like blood.

The same blood that gave her powers to create the most rare, coveted dyes in the West. Dye-witch, indeed. A dye-witch was someone who courted terrible, dangerous things, who let pa.s.sion rule her life. Senna knew now she was no better than her mother.

They were met long before the castle gates by warriors who obviously knew Finian on sight. Solid muscle locked on muscle as the long-lost warriors pounded each other on the back, hooting and hollering.

"Finian O'Melaghlin, ye crooked Irishman," roared one voice above the others.

"Ah, Saint Pat, Finian, we thought ye were dead," said another, and she could hear the despair the thought had conjured.

A burly arm wrapped around his shoulders, and her escort disappeared beneath the hearty welcoming of those who flocked to the gates.

Someone pounded Finian on his shoulder and roared, "'Tis more than good to have ye back. 'Twas grievous when we thought ye were captured and killed with the rest."

"'Tis grievous enough that the others were killed," he replied grimly.

"Aye, that it is," the other man said. "But the king has need of all his n.o.bles, and to lose a great lord and councilor like yerself would be a loss too tremendous to bear."

Finian grunted noncommittally, but Senna's weary eyes were yanked open by the recognizable English words. Great lord? Councilor? Her great, hulking warrior? What, with his irreverent jokes and earthy ways, favored by a king?

Lord Finian. Good Lord. He was n.o.ble.

The rest of the household greeted them just inside the inner bailey gates. Older men, women, and a bevy of children swarmed into the bailey or hung out of windows, waving and calling. Afternoon shadows stretched across portions of the bailey, and a golden glow of firelight formed a backdrop for the silhouetted figures.

Women of the household flitted and fluttered nearby, bright Irish b.u.t.terflies. Senna was quick to note them pinch their cheeks and brighten their smiles when Finian's gaze turned to them. A chill of worry slunk across her breast.

Someone approached. Tall, long-haired, and kilted, he nodded levelly at Finian. "Our king will no' believe me when I tell him you made it out of yet another close call, O'Melaghlin. I was just on my way to save your sorry a.r.s.e."

Finian turned. "The day I need a Scot gallowgla.s.s gallowgla.s.s to save my a.r.s.e 'twill truly be a sorry day." to save my a.r.s.e 'twill truly be a sorry day."

"A regular day," retorted the other, crossing his arms. "A day like any other. I've saved you too many a time to count."

Finian snorted. "Ye've drunk me under the table too many times to count. Saved me? I think not."

"Saved you, indeed. That's why The O'Fail was sending me out, to save you. As usual. I was just leaving."

"Aye, well, ye're too late. As usual."

They stared for another moment, then suddenly embraced with hearty thumps on the back. These men did like to thump. Senna couldn't help smiling, but the smile fled when she heard Finian's low-pitched words. "The O'Fail received word of my capture, then?"

The other man pounded him on the back, replying in a voice just as low, "Aye, we've a word: b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"I've two," Finian said as they released. "Dead man. Where is the king?" Where is the king?"

"Inside. He's been worried like a sick cat, Irish. He'll be glad you're here."

"Maybe," Finian said flatly. "Until he hears my news."