Braving Fate (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 1) (23 page)

She’d never imagined such words would flow so easily from her mouth, but he made it easy. The sounds he made, hot and desperate, made power streak through her veins.

Soon they were both sweating, slick and hot as she writhed on top of him. The feel of his shaft between the lips of her sex had her on the verge of orgasm. She wanted so badly to come with him between her legs, wanted to feel his orgasm splash upon her.
 

But if she was close, likely so was he.
 

She tore herself away from him, once again over his stomach but kneeling so that she didn’t touch him. When she looked down at his face, she realized that she’d done the right thing. His breath was short and hard; he strained at the bindings until his muscles stood out in powerful relief.
 

Wild warrior.
My
wild warrior.
 

“Tell me,” she demanded. “And I will untie you. You can do whatever you want with me.”
 

“Nay.” He groaned. “I will no’ bend in this.”
 

Damn it!
She wanted to scream with frustration. She’d used up all her best tricks and he hadn’t broken. “Tell me who I was. I need you, Cadan.”
 

He jerked his head.

She made a wordless noise of frustration. She’d never been so turned on before, and literally, right between her legs, was the sexiest man she’d ever seen and she couldn’t do a thing about it. She hadn’t expected this night to be as torturous for her as it was for him.

She glared down at him. “Damn you, Cadan.”
 

She’d have to regroup and rethink, and to do so, she’d have to take care of some of this dreadful desire.

Every inch of Cadan’s body ached with lust, his cock a rod of agony and pleasure. Diana’s body rose above him, her pale skin shining in the candlelight. Her honey red hair was wild around her head, her lips swollen from kisses and her eyes heavy with lust. She was like nothing he’d ever seen. A pagan goddess intent on pleasure, her only thought to achieve her ends by any means necessary.
 

He’d never felt such desire before; it was almost pain. He strained against the bonds, desperate to reach her, to feel her skin on his again.
 

He wanted to sink into her soft flesh. To hold her hips and pound into her until he felt her pussy clenching around his shaft. He wanted to tie her up and kiss her and lick her until she came on his tongue over and over and she begged him to stop.
 

Thoughts of duty slipped further from his mind, and when she drifted a hand between her legs, he had to bite his tongue to keep from asking her to let him have a taste. She began to rub slow circles on the glistening pink flesh. What he wouldn’t give to have his mouth there.
 

She circled her fingers faster, her breath coming more quickly as her breasts rose and fell. He glanced at her face, the look of pained concentration indicating that she was close. Gods, she was going to make herself come right above him so that he could watch every expression on her face, every motion of her hand.

“Put two fingers inside yourself.”
Do it. So that I can imagine it’s me.
 

She obeyed, slipping two fingers inside her pussy. She reached down with her other hand to rub her clitoris. He looked up at her face to find her watching him, eyes locked on his.
 

“Pretend they’re me.”

At his words, she gasped and her head dropped back. Diana collapsed on top of him, still sitting upright but no longer on her knees. Her fingers began moving faster on her clit. Her back arched and she clenched her shaking thighs around his chest as her orgasm hit. She was silent as she came, as though consumed in a vacuum of pleasure that allowed for nothing but feeling.
 

“I will fuck you one day, Diana, so hard that this orgasm will feel like nothing in comparison. I will make you come so long and so hard that you won’t remember any that came before me.”
 

She cried out then, quietly as another orgasm wracked her body and she arched above him in the candlelight, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Finally, she collapsed on top of him, resting her head against his chest. She hummed happily, but when she began to toy with the chain about his neck, he stiffened.

“I’m not finished with you yet,” she said as she ran the chain between her fingers. “What’s this?”

Her words made his heart stutter. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew she was inspecting the key he kept strung on the chain.
 

“I didn’t realize there was anything on this chain,” she said. “It slipped behind your neck.”

“It’s nothing.”

She leaned up and searched his eyes. “It’s not nothing. Why would you wear something that is nothing?”

“Because I like it.” But he could hear the half-truth in his voice.

And so could she.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Diana stumbled down the hallway to her room several hours later. She was exhausted and sweaty and sore and it had been the best night of her life.
 

But he hadn’t said a word about her past. Damn, he was determined. She sighed and stared at the key in her hand. He’d acted nonchalant as she’d unclasped the chain, but his eyes had told a different story. This key wasn’t nothing.

He might not have talked, but her seduction hadn’t been useless. She now had a key that might lead to clues. And an angry, painfully aroused male tied up across the hall. That part made her nervous. She’d have to free him eventually, but he was royally pissed off now so it would be best to wait.

She forced him out of her mind and stared hard at the key, willing it to reveal its secrets. Considering that signs pointed to his being the man from her dreams, it could be important to her. But what did it fit? The doors in the house didn’t have locks. A chest or armoire, perhaps?

She mulled over possible hiding places while she showered and quickly dressed, then began her search. The two main floors of the house revealed no matches for the key. But then she found a door that led to an attic at the end of the hall. It would be up there. It had to be.
 

The attic was a museum. The old armor, paintings, sculptures, and trinkets made her fingertips itch to explore. But no chest.
 

Then she spied a crumpled tapestry that looked like it was draped over something, and with nowhere else to look, she pulled at it. Dust billowed. Her coughing turned to a gasp.
 

There it was. The chest was big and old, made of dark and beautifully carved wood. It was much older than the lock that had been fitted to it. She knelt reverently next to the chest, goose bumps pricking on her arms as she laid her hands on the cool wood that covered the top.
 

A low buzz sounded in her head. What was in here could change everything. It could be nothing more than an illegal collection of antiquities or his family’s old hunting rifles, but she doubted it. Her hand shook as she fitted the key to the lock. It caught slightly, but finally opened with a
snick
.

Her breath came short and hard, dragging into her lungs but not filling them as she lifted the lid. With sweaty palms, she reached in and clasped the hilt of a sword. The moment she gripped the smooth handle, an unseen force punched her in the chest.
 

She tumbled onto her back, and the little air she had rushed out of her lungs as she hit the floor. The vacuum that stole her breath took her vision and hearing as well. The real world faded away.

Memories assailed her, one after another jumbling into her mind and fighting for supremacy. A woman clothed in a plain brown dress stood over a fire built into the middle of a roundhouse, smiling at her and beckoning her closer.
Mother
.
 

Warmth billowed from the fire and the smoke stung her eyes. A baby wailed in a crib near the wall and the woman turned from her to hurry over.
I had a brother
.

Diana lay helpless as the scene changed. She stood outside in a glen, dressed in a fine wool cloak fastened with a straight bronze pin, looking up at the man who would be her husband. He smiled down at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners and mist gathering in his hair as he encouraged her to step forward. She didn’t love him, was too young to love such an old man, but he would make her queen of her people. And she wanted to lead. Oh, how her young heart yearned to be a good queen to her people, the Iceni.
 

She was Boudica.

Time shifted forward and she sat on a grassy knoll, watching two girls of perhaps twelve playing in a stream. Her
daughters.
The bright sun warmed her face, but she and her husband, now a truly old man, spoke furtively of the future as their daughters splashed in the water. The world was closing in on them.
 

“It will never succeed, Prasutagus,” she hissed to her husband. “We must fight them! The Romans will never honor your will.”

“No, my queen.” He shook his head slowly, white hair flowing around his shoulders. “You are brave and wise, but in this you are wrong. My daughters will succeed me on the throne. The Roman emperor will be satisfied to be co-heir. They are so far away.”

“No! Rome encroaches farther every year. We agreed to their terms when they came to our borders the first time, as did the neighboring kingdoms. Our line shall hold only until your death, then our kingdom is Rome’s. By law, the emperor becomes your heir. They will not accept this move and will come down upon our heads.” She shook him to make her point, glancing at her daughters to see if they noticed. “We must attack first, and drive them from Britain. It is our only hope. Or remove our daughters as co-heir to the throne so that Rome will not atta—”

Diana realized that the scene had moved forward when a shadow of pain lashed across her back. Roman legionnaires held her by the arms, pinned to the ground in front of her people, as their leader swung a whip at her back. Her husband was dead of old age, and the Romans were at their doorstep intent on collecting on her husband’s debt.
 

She heard her daughters’ screams, and strain as she might, all she could see were the feet of the bastards who held her to the ground. Though the pain burned through her, she fought to hear her daughters, to know they were alive. But when their screams stopped abruptly and the Roman legion cheered, she knew.
 

Dead.
 

Diana curled onto her side in the dusty attic and vomited. Dry heaves wracked her body and tried to pull her soul from her. She’d never felt such pain. It was as if her heart were a glass bottle smashed to bits.

She lay, curled on her side in the attic, tears streaking down her face and into her hair, as memories continued to flash in front of her near-comatose eyes. The Romans departed, retreated after making an example of the Iceni by killing her daughters, the illegal heirs to the throne, and left her in the mud with the bodies of her children and the ruins of her tribe.
 

But they had erred. Diana’s hand tightened unconsciously around the hilt of the sword. Oh, how they had erred.
 

She’d risen that day, with nothing
left to lose and the burn of rage in her soul, to exact her vengeance upon the dogs who had dared trespass upon what was hers. Had
taken
what was hers.
 

The woman she had been—mother, wife—was no more. That woman had burned to ash in Rome’s fires, but had not risen as a phoenix. Instead, she had risen as destruction, bent on vengeance. The man responsible would die by her hand alone. Rome’s efforts in Britain would be crushed. Her people would have their freedom back. She rallied the neighboring Celtic kingdoms and, with her army, cut a swath of destruction through the Roman cities and legions of southern Britain.
 

It was then, during the months of the deadly and mobile revolt, that she had met Cadan of the Trinovantes, the son of the king of a southern tribe and a general in his army. A general in her army.