Pride of Lions (25 page)

Hesitantly, she reached to let her fingertips just brush his. Her fingers were warm and real. His hand closed over them, drawing her closer to him.

When she lowered her eyes her long lashes swept her cheeks.

"Have you been following me?" Donough asked in a choked voice.

She would not look up. "Why would I do that?"

"Was it you that day, in my fort?"

"What fort?" Still she kept her eyes down.

He tightened his grip on her hand. "Not far from Drumcullaun Lough. Surely you knew I built one there."

"Did I? What possible interest would I take in the building of a fort, Prince Donough?"

Now she raised her eyes to his and he saw laughter in them.

"You know my name but I don't know yours."

"I am called Cera." She pronounced it with a soft, west-of-Ireland accent. Karra.

"I was named for one of the wives of Nemed."

Donough told her, "I named myself."

She did not ask how this could be. She simply accepted, as she accepted his arm passing around her shoulders and drawing her closer.

When Donough knelt on the earth, Cera knelt with him. Their faces were so close he could smell the sweetness of her breath. He felt there was something he should say but she read the thought in his eyes and laid her fingertips across his lips.

Then she replaced her fingers with her mouth.

Her body from the knees up pressed against the length of his. He curved over her, striving to draw even closer. At first his mounting desire did not even seem sexual, but rather an overwhelming need for completion, for drawing her into him to fill a great aching hollow at the center of his being.

But when she moved against him and he felt the softness of her belly, he became aware of an erection so huge and hard it was painful. With a groan, he thrust blindly against her.

She responded by cupping her hands around his buttocks and trying to pull him yet closer.

"What do you want?" he whispered hoarsely.

"Y."

"How?"

"In me."

Her words brought him to the brink of orgasm.

Fighting for control, he turned his body so he could lie down and pull her down beside him. He dare not lie on top of her; he would surely spend himself then, before he could enter her.

He held her in his arms and studied her face with wonderment.

She was pagan, and he had only lain with a Christian woman, reproaches and whimperings and subtle refusals that must be overcome. Cera did not engage in such subterfuge. She astonished him by the openness of her response and the frankness of her caress. She celebrated his body as she celebrated the life force in the trees and the birds and the earth, with a joy that enfolded Donough in golden heat.

"I want to touch you," she said, her hands busy beneath his tunic. Her fingers closed around the swollen penis with infinite tenderness.

He gasped. If he felt so much as the pulse in her flesh he would come, but she realized this and kept still. Incredibly still.

He throbbed in her hand.

"You are beautiful," she said.

Never in his life had Donough exerted such an effort of will. He held the orgasm like a sun waiting to explode, while his eyes searched her face; his ears attuned themselves to the surrounding sounds; his skin felt the warm sun and the damp grass and the soft wind blowing. He was more intensely alive and aware than he had ever been, and he wanted the moment to last forever.

She knew. She smiled at him.

"Gently," she said. "Slowly," she said.

The urgency that had been cresting receded. He was able to run his hand over her body, freeing her from her clothing. Suddenly the idea of fabric separating them was obscene to him. But when bare flesh touched bare flesh he almost came again.

"The feel of you!" he exclaimed.

Cera made a sound in her throat, a soft little hum that vibrated through her skin and into his body.

He could not hold back any longer. Rolling over on top of her, he felt her

thighs open to him as he sank down and in to a luscious wet welcoming. The muscles of her body gripped him and drew him deeper with no effort on his part.

She was very small, he realized tardily, and for a brief moment he was afraid of hurting her.

Neassa had often complained that he hurt her. But even as the thought crossed his mind Cera's hands clutched his hips and pulled him even harder against her, demanding his full strength and passion.

He plunged and the sun exploded.

Some time after, he became aware that he was lying with her legs wrapped around him. It must be uncomfortable for her; he tried gently to disengage.

But she moaned as if in pain and held him tighter. "Don't go."

"Just to be more comfortable ..."

"Don't go!" she cried.

He relaxed into her embrace. And slowly, subtly, the rhythm began again, her interior muscles pulsing until they set up a matching pulse in himself. The sense of heightened awareness returned; he was aware of the flattened softness of her breasts against him and the contradictory firmness of her small nipples.

When he thought of her breasts she rotated smoothly on his impaling penis and sat up, riding him as he lay on his back. He gazed up at her breasts in fascination and she, looking down, laughed with delight at the expression in his eyes. Her pelvis thrust forward and back, simulating the motion of a rider on a galloping horse.

The sensation was overwhelming. They were free and naked together, galloping, galloping ...

The second explosion was almost as intense as the first but different, a fresh discovery for nerve and muscle. He was instantly greedy for more and sat up, pulling her against him, twisting to find a new position, a new way of exploring the wonder that had befallen him.

She laughed--or he laughed--the sound bubbled up from their shared body and the source did not matter, they were one and the same.

He murmured a name into her hair--it did not sound like Cera.

She responded with a name for him as she buried her face in the hollow of his neck. The name was not Donough. They spoke older names in a forgotten language but they understood one another.

All was remembered and resumed, the sweet happiness coming to them again, and they celebrated its return in the sunlight, laughing.

Padraic heard the door creak open, felt the wind blow in on him. Fecund summer wind.

He raised his head.

"Cera?"

"I am here, Father."

"Where were you?"

"In the next valley, collecting herbs."

"Is it herbs I smell?"

She did not answer.

"The next valley," Padraic mused. "The lake of the arbutus?"

Silence.

"The lake with the drowned city that only appears every hundred years?" he asking teasingly.

Uncharacteristically she snapped, "Don't make fun of an enchantment."

He was instantly contrite. "I learned that much from your mother. Is it there, then--the lost city? Have you seen it?"

But she had spoken all she could. She needed silence. She built up the fire and pounded his cushions and left him to go and stand in the open doorway, gazing out across her memories.

She had spent the entire afternoon with Donough, the two of them as free and thoughtless as mating deer on a meadow. No questions had been asked nor answers demanded. Being together was so natural, she somehow assumed it would be permanent. She expected him to lift her up before him on the horse and take her to ... to wherever he was going.

It was as if a door had opened for Cera.

Without hesitation she would step out of one life and into another. He had only to take her hand.

But when the sun began to sink and the shadows grew long on the lake, she felt a change in him.

Some vital part withdrew. He wrapped her in a fine woolen cloak from the pack tied behind his saddle. He caressed her face and stared into her eyes and brushed her mouth with his, but he did not say, "Come with me."

He did not say, "Now you are mine," though she strained with every fiber of her being to hear the words.

She who had been free all her life had given herself totally to him, and longed for the acknowledgment of that gift.

Instead he stroked her hair.

When he caught his horse by the mane and vaulted aboard, he did not hold down a hand to her.

"Where are you going?"

"To the land of the Scots--Alba," he replied. The word tasted strange in his mouth. He had almost forgotten about Alba and Malcolm during the long afternoon.

"Can I come with you?" She hated herself for asking; she should not have to ask.

He gazed down at her. Her eyes were so clear they sparkled, her mouth looked soft and bruised. For all the passion of the day, she seemed innocent in a way Donough could never remember being. He felt a sudden impulse to sweep her up into his arms and ...

Be calm, he warned himself. Think this through.

Make no hasty decision you may regret later.

He was obliged to be shrewd and pragmatic if he would imitate his father. Brian had been many things, but never, so far as Donough knew, impulsive.

Gazing down at Cera, he fought back his emotions and tried to assess the situation objectively. What could such a girl understand of political expedience? Could he make clear to her the importance of establishing a relationship with the King of Alba, who was surely as far outside her sphere as the stars? How could he clarify in a few words the complex machination his mother had taken a lifetime to learn, and by which kingdoms were achieved? Cera was a daughter of sun and wind; she had no need of such knowledge.

And there was the core of the problem. Not her ignorance, but her wisdom. Cera was a druid.

Even Brian Boru, Donough thought, had not dared offend the Church by marrying his druid woman.

The cold, hard facts of the situation shattered the magic as she looked up at him, waiting.

Anything he might say to her now would sound like an excuse, or, worse, a betrayal.

Yet how could he use her body and then just gallop away?

What had taken place between them was more than a sexual act; he knew that already. Had known it before he ever put his arms around her. Yet she belonged to a world that stood aside from his as if separated by a veil. She was--he passionately desired her to be--mystery and magic, ancient sorceries and youthful dreams.

She was more than he could afford.

Something seemed to be tearing inside him, like a piece of cloth being rent down the middle.

He mumbled a few words, claiming pressing obligations. She watched his face in silence.

Her eyes were as limpid as lake water.

"I have to go," he insisted with increasing urgency, afraid if he did not leave now he would never leave. "But I'll come back for you. I will ...

as soon as I can ... when I have accomplished

..." Words failed. He waved one hand in the air, trying to define the indefinable.

He could not explain why he was leaving her behind, not without hurting her, and as he looked into those huge eyes he would rather anything than hurt her.

Baffled, angry with himself, he had finally turned his horse and ridden away.

Now Cera stood in the doorway of her father's house and gazed east, the direction he had taken.

Then she spoke over her shoulder to her father. "How far away is Alba?"

"How far away is Alba?" Gormlaith asked. "Once we reach the coast and arrange for a vessel to carry us, will we be there in a day? Two days?"

Fergal Mac Anluan shrugged. "I'm no seaman. You lived with the Vikings all those years; surely you know more about the duration of voyages than I do."

Gormlaith hated admitting there was something she did not know, but in fact she had never been on the water. No man had been willing to entrust his life to the savage sea with Gormlaith in the boat beside him. In the days when her hair was like living flame, she had been denied on the grounds of superstition: a red-haired woman in a boat meant disaster.

The hair was faded now, but she was perfectly aware that boatmen would still like to refuse her.

Donough would have to be forceful.

"I've been to sea a score of times," she told Fergal airily, trusting her words would get back to Donough. "When I was in the boat there always seemed to be calm weather, in fact.

My first husband, Olaf Cuaran,

called me a good-luck charm. But I just don't recall how long it takes to sail to the land of the Scots."

Her son, since returning from some brief, mysterious journey about which he would not speak, had been worrying Gormlaith. His mood was distracted; he seemed almost uninterested in the trip to Alba, whereas he had been enthusiastic before. Now he acted as if it were some unpleasant task which must be gotten out of the way.

She hammered at him. "If you can make an ally of Malcolm of Alba, you will have extended your reach beyond Ireland. The Dal Cais will be forced to recognize you as their true leader and give you enough support to overthrow Teigue."

"I don't want to overthrow him," Donough told her wearily, knowing she would not listen. "I just want what is rightfully mine. That's all I've ever wanted. That, and to make my father proud of me."

Her temper snapped. "Your father's dead!

What about making me proud of you?"

Donough stared at Gormlaith. "Aren't you?"

Her eyes blazed, but for once she could think of no answer.

Accompanied by two score trusted warriors, including Fergal and Ronan, Donough would journey to the east coast to arrange passage on a boat for Alba. Since before the annals were written down, trading vessels and sea rovers had crisscrossed the Irish Sea, following routes established by leather coracles in the Bronze Age.

During the early centuries of the Christian era, Gaelic chieftains had sailed across those same waters from Ireland to settle permanently in the highlands of Alba. In time their new homeland had transformed the colonists, imbuing them with the characteristics necessary for surviving in a colder, more rugged land. They continued to refer to themselves as Scots, however, a reference to Scotia, one of the ancient names for Ireland.