Chapter Five

Faine and Drake exchanged a look. Irritated, Caelin got up, signaled for them to join him and walked a little distance away after Caelin had ordered Gwyneth not to move from the spot.

“What is the problem?” Drake growled. “I do not believe for a moment that you have no notion of how to warm a woman up! I know, and I am a dragon!”

“Well, I’m damned if I know what that has to do with it!” Caelin said testily.

“Dragon women do not need to be warmed up because they are ready to mate or they will not let a male near them. She is human, but even I have been with a few. You must cuddle her a little and give her a few kisses and when she relaxes, then you can sheathe your sword!”

Caelin glared at him, annoyed that they would question his knowledge and experience of women. Did he look so green behind the ears as to have no knowledge of women?

He had found the entire business repugnant from the very beginning, before he had ever set eyes on the girl. Nothing short of what Artimus had used would have convinced him to have any part of it—but there was the rub. He had no choice except to turn his back on the woman who had given him life, and he could not do that. He had convinced himself that there was enough hate in his heart for her father to carry him through what he had to do, or that, at the very least, he could simply close his mind to her.

He had begun to have problems with that from the moment he had met her, though. It was bad enough that he must be intimate with her to see this through. He thought he could manage that. He had certainly had no trouble feeling desire for her. He knew, though, that he could not afford to behave as a lover—in any way—or he was lost. It was not a battle he could win. “I know that! I do not want to cuddle and kiss her, gods damn it,” he growled. “It is bad enough to fuck her when she is to be sacrificed in no time at all. I would rather not think of her as anything else, thank you very much!”

Drake glanced at Faine.

Faine shrugged. “He has a point. It was easy enough to consider what Artimus had in mind when we had no one to think of but ourselves and our problems. She is a pretty little thing. It would not be hard at all to grow fond of her, and then where will we be? Worse off than before!”

Drake glared at Caelin. “I will warm her up. I am a dragon. It will not bother me at all.”

“Just do not forget yourself!” Caelin said tightly. “I go first and then Faine and then, if she is to be ruined by you, it will not be of any consequence to our plan.”

Gwyneth’s eyes nearly bugged from their sockets when Drake stalked toward her and dropped to his knees. He caught her by her ankles when she tried to scramble up and run, tipping her onto her back and falling over before she could sit up again. She tried to swim backwards using her feet and elbows, but he outmaneuvered her. Grasping her arms, he pushed them above her head and manacled them with one hand. He settled his belly against her pelvis to finish pinning her to the ground.

The fight went out of her abruptly. She stared at him wide-eyed, panting for breath. She swallowed convulsively. “I thought you were going to be last?” she croaked.

Drake frowned as he listened to the wild, frightened tattoo of her heart in her chest. “I am. I am only going to be first to kiss you,” he murmured in a rumbling voice. “That is nothing to be frightened of, is it?”

She stared at him warily, but her heart began to slow. He shifted upward a little, supporting the bulk of his weight off of her chest with his arms and lowering his face slowly toward hers to allow her a few moments to accept. She turned her face away when he leaned close enough to brush his lips to hers. Impatience flickered through him, but he ignored her effort to elude him and brushed his lips along her cheek instead, lightly. Beyond being pleasing to his eyes, she had a pleasing scent, he decided, breathing her essence into his lungs, tasting her as he nibbled the smooth skin of her cheek only with his lips. He lingered there, waiting until her curiosity stirred and then he slowly made his way back toward her lips. That time, she turned ever so slightly to meet him.

Triumph wafted through him. He explored her lips with the same leisure that he had her cheek, waiting for them to part on a breath before he slipped his tongue inside. He felt a jolt run through her, felt an echo within his own body and a flash of heat. She was sweet, he thought, savoring the taste of her as much as he enjoyed the soft slick walls of her mouth and the friction of rubbing his tongue along hers.

Slowly, he felt the tension melt from her, felt the muscles straining against him relax and still he kissed her, enjoying it far too much to stop right away. It occurred to him after a time that there was a good deal more of her to explore.

Deciding he might as well, he took one last savoring sweep of her mouth and pulled away, sucking lightly at the softness of her throat before he moved lower to explore the soft mounds of flesh below that. The tips puckered for his mouth. He plucked at them lightly. The tiny little buds that had never been suckled fascinated him.

She gasped, shuddered, moving restlessly against him. “It feels strange,” she whispered.

“Does it, my dove?” he murmured. “How does it feel strange?”

She swallowed audibly. “It makes my belly feel strange.”

He smiled against her skin, plucking at the tip and then covering it with his mouth and suckling. “When I do this? Or this?”

“Both.”

He moved to the other breast. “Does it feel as strange here?” he murmured.

“I feel very strange all over,” she whispered shakily.

He sighed and stared down at her breasts, reluctant to yield his prize now that he’d warmed her. He’d agreed to, he reminded himself. One more taste, he decided, nuzzling his face against her delightfully soft little mounds before he kissed each one lingeringly and finally rolled away.

Discontent filled him immediately when Caelin took his place. Frowning, he got up and moved a short distance to wait, watching Caelin keenly as he seated the head of his cock in her and began struggling to claim her sheathe.

It disturbed him that it seemed a very tight fit when Caelin’s staff was not as big as his and doubts began to niggle at him. She was a little thing, but then they all seemed little to him, and he’d plowed a fair number of them.

Caelin wasn’t certain if he was more angry or more randy from watching Drake ready her, but the moment he pressed his flesh only a little inside her, he forgot his pique. She was warm and wet and her depths beckoned—and it was still an uncommonly tight fit, especially for a woman he was certain had vast experience.

Ignoring it, unable to think beyond getting sheathed before he shamed himself and spilled his seed without managing it, he moved in and out of her shallowly until he could feel her moisture coating him, could feel easier movement. Shifting then to give himself a little better leverage, he drove swiftly and … not so smoothly to the hilt.

He felt the pop of the flesh he’d pierced the moment he tore past it. A jolt went through him. His mind erupted into chaos. Gasping for breath, he levered himself up to stare at her ashen face and he knew, he knew he had been duped!

He discovered it didn’t matter, not at the moment. Her body was squeezing his so tightly he could barely breathe. He didn’t think he could’ve ignored his instincts to move if his life had depended upon it.

And it was too late to worry about it in any case.

With a mixture of fiery lust and temper, he withdrew and plunged again, driving into her over and over until he felt his seed erupt from his shaft.

Huffing for breath, he finally levered himself up far enough to stare down at her face accusingly, but it was a wasted effort. She had squeezed her eyes tightly closed.

Pulling out of her, he got to his feet and stalked to the pool to wash himself, his mind in turmoil.

She could not have been a maiden, he told himself! He had seen her couple with that bastard with his own eyes!

But his mind was shouting that she had been and he had only to look as his cock to see her virgin’s blood.

The minx! The deceptive little minx! She was her father’s daughter alright, he thought furiously!

Gods! He should have known that she could not be trusted! Outwitted! She had outwitted them all! Deceitful little witch! He had allowed his lust for the wench to cloud his mind and look where that had gotten him!

He was abruptly fiercely glad that he had not taken the time to warm her himself! He had been tempted—too tempted—and he had resented Drake’s interference. At least he had spared himself that folly! And he was furious enough with her for her conniving, he thought it would be far easier from here on out to dismiss her from his mind. Plunging into the pool abruptly, he focused on working off his anger, swimming back and forth across the water.

Gwyneth refused to open her eyes until Caelin had left, knowing he must have guessed what she’d done, fearful that acknowledging it would set off his temper. She was relieved when he merely stalked away, but she was in far too much pain to truly feel it at the moment.

She opened her eyes when Faine took his place, trying not to wince when she felt him probing her there—where it still burned, felt scoured. He entered her slowly, though, not swiftly as Caelin had and she discovered that much of the pain had eased, that he was right. Caelin had left enough moisture with his seed to make Faine’s claiming less hurtful.

She relaxed a little when he began to move in and out of her, knowing that once he did it would not be long before he had pleasured himself and then she would only have Drake to worry about.

She felt an odd warmth curl through her when she thought about Drake, when she remembered the way it had felt when he’d kissed her mouth and her breasts. She grew warm as Faine moved within her, began to feel a sort of ache, an almost pleasurable tingle from time to time. It was elusive. She couldn’t quite capture it, couldn’t quite hold on to it, even though it continued to grow until he finally stopped, shuddered as he emptied his seed into her, and then rolled away.

She felt strangely let down, almost disappointed.

Drake moved to stand over her, looking down at her with an odd expression on his face.

She couldn’t help but notice his rod wasn’t standing any longer.

He met her gaze and forced a smile to his lips. “Rest. I will be back in a moment.”

Stalking down to the pool where Faine and Caelin had gone to bathe, he sat down and glared at the water. “She is torn and bleeding,” he said a little sickly. “I think I should wait a bit.”

Caelin’s face heated. “We agreed that we all would fuck her so that none of us would know who had seeded her,” he said tightly, for he had no intention of confessing that he’d been a complete fool and ruined everything for everyone. It was punishment enough that he would have to live with the knowledge!

Drake glared at him. “Well, my member has lost interest!” he snapped, catching the limp thing in one hand and wagging it at him.

“So wake the dragon up!” Faine said testily. “You were ready enough before, by the gods! This was your idea to start with!”

“Yes, but she is torn and bleeding now! She was not then! And I’m not at all certain that I should try. Does she not seem a bit … more runty than they commonly are?”

“They are all small to you.”

“Yes, but small compared to others, not me, gods damn it!”

“You said it would not bother you!” Caelin reminded him.

“That was the kissing and cuddling, and it did not. And it does not bother me still. I am only thinking of our quest. If I … mortally wound her, we will have nothing!”

“We will have nothing if you do not seed her, gods damn it!” Caelin snapped. “Do you mean to keep your word, or not?”

Drake glared at him. Heaving an explosive breath, he got to his feet and stalked back to the campsite. Gwyneth was still waiting for him and he settled beside her, thinking.

“Is something wrong?” Gwyneth asked uneasily, wondering if Caelin had told him what she’d done.

“My staff had gone down.”

Gwyneth stared at him blankly. “Will it not rise again?”

He sent her a brooding look. “It is not always on command, you know!”

Surprise flickered through her. “Oh.”

Releasing an irritated breath when it occurred to him that the longer he waited the less the fluids inside her were likely to help him, he settled lower. “I will tease you a bit and see if it awakens,” he said decisively. “If it does, then I will also fuck you. If it does not, then clearly the gods disapprove.”

As uneasy as Gwyneth was, she couldn’t help but feel warmth at the suggestion. She’d liked his kisses. She’d never thought that she would like kisses.

She was pretty certain that she would not have if it came to that, not from any who had tried before. She liked the way Drake’s mouth felt upon her flesh, though, liked the way she felt when his mouth covered hers.

“I would like that,” she said when he did nothing more than stare at her. “I liked your kisses.”

He sent her a look she had difficulty interpreting and then moved closer, nuzzling his face against her neck. She felt her flesh pebble as his heated breath rushed from his lungs, felt herself begin to tingle all over with warmth. When he lifted his head at last and sought her lips, she lifted to meet him eagerly. It delighted her that it felt just as pleasurable as it had the first time, perhaps a little more since she wasn’t afraid this time, was eager to experience it.

It seemed the longer he kissed her, in fact, the more she wanted it. She began to feel hot, not just warm. By the time he broke from her lips and moved lower, she was beginning to feel a sense of … need, of want. She knew what she wanted as soon as she felt his mouth pulling at her breast. Her belly clenched and she felt a strange sort of ache, a thirst to be filled.

She was still unnerved by the size of him, still ached from the lost of her maidenhead, but that throbbing had lessened considerably, had begun to be overshadowed by the want to feel him as she’d felt them. She shifted restlessly against him, trying to fight the urge but the ache only grew until she thought she didn’t care if it hurt. She just needed it.

“Drake,” she whispered a little desperately when he seemed content merely to pluck at her nipples and build the fire higher inside of her. “Please.”

He stirred, lifting his head to look at her. He seemed to hesitate. She pulled on him plaintively. “Please?”

He pushed her legs apart and settled between them. “Tell me if I hurt you, little dove,” he murmured huskily.

It did hurt, but it felt strangely satisfying, as well. She was gasping for breath by the time he’d pushed deeply inside her—and still filled with want. “It still … aches,” she said plaintively.

A shudder went through him. He withdrew and slowly pushed inside her again. “And now?”

“More.”

He moved slowly at first, stirring the heat a little higher each time until she was gasping and pulling at him, lifting to meet him each time. He began to move a little faster. Gwyneth felt a sense of gathering inside of her that grew until it abruptly shattered. Ripples of pleasure flowed through her and then her body would seize, and then erupt with another wave until she was gasping for breath. She felt him stiffen, shudder as she was shuddering and for the first time she understood what it was they found when they joined their body with hers and moved so frantically in and out of her.

A blissful sense of peace descended over her in the aftermath that was almost as wonderful as the pleasure had been. She felt herself drifting, too weary to open her eyes or to struggle to remain awake, and she yielded to it.

* * * *

Caelin settled beside the fire finally, trying to compose himself for a few hours sleep, but found that he was still too angry to find the peace he needed. It didn’t escape him that Gwyneth had had no trouble.

Nor had Drake seemed to have difficulty rutting her, and then dropping to sleep as if he had been knocked unconscious, for all his complaining earlier. It irritated him more that she had curled up next to the great hulking brute as if he was some warm, cuddly thing and not a dragon.

Women! There was no understanding them!

Especially human women!

He managed to doze after a time from sheer determination and woke to find Drake still cuddling the woman, but awake himself as if he had been for some time. His expression was thoughtful.

He sat up and stretched. “Well? Have we done it?”

Drake’s expression closed. He shrugged, disentangled himself from the woman and sat up. “I am hungry. I will go hunting.”

Caelin frowned, although he was also hungry. “We should break camp and move on. The king is not likely to give up his pawn easily, particularly if he thinks he may have to deal directly with Artimus before much longer. Where is Faine?”

Drake nudged his head in the direction of the pool and stood up. “I will see how effective my attack was last eve while I am hunting.” He glanced down at Gwyneth. “It will not hurt to allow her to rest a little.”

“It isn’t wise to cuddle or coddle the wench. You and I both know that she is as good as dead now.”

Drake sent him a cool look. “She will be dead now and not later if we do not coddle her a little, elf! She is not like us. She is not even a man. It would be bad enough if she were just a frail human, but a woman ….”

“They are tougher than one would think,” Caelin said dryly. “They grow in numbers every day while the numbers of our kind shrink.”

Drake shrugged. “My tribe is not threatened. I am only here to protect my mate’s line. This is personal for me.” He sent Caelin a hard look. “It will gain me nothing to present a corpse at the temple … or even a sacrifice nigh dead already.”

“I see your point. I will leave that to you. I do not want to begin to think of her as a pet and I do not trust that I would not.” He did not think he would have near the trouble with that, now, as he had before she had deceived him, but he had no desire to test his willpower. He got up and headed to the pool when Drake had shifted and flown away. There he found Darkness drinking and eyeing the winged unicorn stallion with a mixture of curiosity and animosity. Caelin checked when he saw the unicorn. The unicorn was a magnificent beast, to borrow from Drake, but Caelin had never seen one that wasn’t pure white—few winged, if it came to that. Faine was almost entirely black except for a shock of white gold hair near his face.

His pack was strapped awkwardly to his back, making it clear he’d attached it to himself while he was still in human form. “Drake says we will bide here a while,” he advised the unicorn as he moved to the water’s edge. “He has gone to hunt and to check on King Gerald’s men.”

Faine nodded, lifted his head to look around and finally followed Darkness off in search of grasses to fill his own need for food. Caelin watched him curiously for a few moments and finally shrugged inwardly and focused on bathing and drinking. The girl was still asleep when he returned to the campsite. Ignoring her, he checked the clothing and found that his trousers, such as they were, had dried in the few hours since they had stopped. When he’d pulled them on, he went off to relieve himself and to gather wood, hopeful that Dragon meant to bring back enough food to share.

He was ill prepared for the expedition … now, he thought in disgust, wondering if he should chance circling back to collect his belongings or simply keep going and appropriate what he needed along the way as he came across it. He wasn’t likely to find a bow as fine as his own, or a sword, but then circling back would not gain him those either. No doubt they were tucked safely away in Gerald’s armory now, he thought in disgust. The other things, though, they would not come amiss—his bedroll and hunting knife in particular.

Mayhap, he could persuade Faine to give him a ride back to where he’d stashed his travel gear?

What to do with their little sacrifice while he was gone, though? A very little thought produced the conclusion that he would have to wait upon the dragon’s return. He didn’t think that there was much chance that she would try to flee when she had nowhere to go and, he was fairly certain, no knowledge either of surviving in the wild or the countryside. There was always the slim chance that some predator might happen upon her, though—two legged or four legged. None of them could afford to chance that.

The thoughts brought him full circle to the interlude before dawn, which he had been studiously trying to put from his mind. They were no worse off, he told himself, than they had been before when they believed that she was not pure.

He knew that was not true and it angered him that he was still trying to convince himself that he could blame her for the ruination of his plans when, in truth, he had no one to blame but himself. He had jumped to a conclusion and it had cost him—dearly—had cost his mother. He had not really believed that he could trust Artimus to uphold his end of the bargain any of the time, but he’d had no choice but to try.

And he had not even given it his best!

He had wanted an excuse to fuck her. He had tried everything that he could think of to put that thought from his mind from the time the seed had first sprang forth as he had watched that pig rut her—nay, before that even, when he had first caught her scent. When her voice had come to him out of the darkness and skated along his nerve endings like a caress and drawn his cock to attention.

He did not understand it—at all! It seemed clear that both Drake and Faine, especially Drake, had a taste for human women. He did not! He was completely content to take lovers only among his own tribe. He was almost tempted to allow himself to believe that it was that she was exotic to him, but he couldn’t quite accept that. He did not mix with humans very often, but he did walk among them often enough that they were no novelty to him. He had had a mild interest in fucking their women from time to time, but he had never had a great deal of difficulty resisting the urge. He had known it for what it was—simply an itch that was in need of scratching—one that could wait until he had returned to his tribe.

He was tempted to blame it on some sort of spell Artimus had woven round her, but the faint tendrils of magic he detected about her were not strong enough to be a calculated lure. In any case, that defied logic. If Artimus’ need was for a virginal sacrifice, it would make far more sense to place a charm about her that would repel the interest of men, not draw them to her—and clearly he had not done that!

He shook the thought as unanswerable and not one he could afford to allow himself to dwell on. He needed to keep her out of his head. He needed to keep his distance as much as possible. She was not for such a one as he to pluck, however much interest he had in doing so. She was destined to die for Artimus’ machinations, evidently had been from conception. He could think of no other reason Artimus might have a desire to spawn—unless by doing so he benefited.

Drake was a fool to play with that. It was not his business, of course—unless Drake allowed himself to become sentimental over her to the point of putting his own plans at risk. But he did not believe the old dragon was nearly as cold-blooded as he apparently liked to think of himself. If he was not careful, he would have many things to regret about this business! He would be far better off to focus on his own spawn and allow Artimus to deal with his since there was nothing in this world that either of them could do to stop the bastard!

No, nor the unicorn either. He had not heard Faine’s story, but he must have powerful motives to involve himself in anything so vile as the plot that Artimus had hatched in his intentions toward the girl. They were noble, pure hearted creatures by nature and he had seen that Faine was struggling mightily with his nature and his conscience.

Truthfully, he had actually been shocked that Faine had been as eager to mount the wench as he had been. Drake, he was not surprised about. Dragons were rather selfish and inclined toward self-indulgence anyway, but Faine ….

Did that mean that there was some possibility that the girl was a lure after all?

He turned that over a moment and discarded it again. It seemed more likely that Faine had discovered he could not walk among men as a man and remain aloof to their dark urges. In his own way, he was playing with fire just as Drake was—as he was, he thought in disgust.

If he had used more self-control, they would not be in this mess! They would not have to place their hope of success in spawning on the girl! It sickened him to his soul that they had to. It was all very well to say that they would not know which of them had spawned the life that would be sacrificed for the loss of the girl’s maidenhead! They would all know that there was a chance that it was theirs, and he didn’t think that he was going to be able to convince himself that it was theirs and not his!

It made it worse that he meant to use his seed to free his mother’s soul if necessary, and he knew that his mother would never condone such a thing, that she would chose to remain imprisoned between worlds for eternity rather than sacrifice the life of her unborn grandchild.