He cursed and ran into the room, crossing to the window. He caught only a glimpse of Cristoforo running full speed before the lad disappeared around the corner down the block. The little whore from the brothel was with him! They were fleeing, hand in hand. Carmen must have followed them from the brothel and helped him escape.
Snarling, Orlando leaped over the windowsill and dropped effortlessly to the soft ground below. He slid his knife out of its sheath and raced after them with long swift strides.
The boy dodged the nightwatchmen rather than seeking their protection. He must have realized that the guardsmen would merely hand him over to Orlando. The young lovers left the main thoroughfare, ducking into a maze of dark, narrow alleys. Orlando plunged into the squalid backstreets after them.
The only sound was their pounding footsteps reverberating off the close, high walls, and the roaring of his pulse in his ears, the quick, hot want of blood. He needed the boy more or less alive, but he knew what he wanted to do to the girl.
Ahead, they separated, Cris darting to the right, Carmen to the left where the alley split. Hot on their heels, Orlando veered to the right, going after Cris.
He was a bit out of breath from the chase, but he laughed in spite of himself to see that Cris had just flung himself into a dead-end alley.
The lad stood staring at the brick wall straight ahead, then whirled around to face Orlando.
Orlando bent over, resting briefly with his hands on his thighs, then he straightened up, his chest still heaving, and stalked slowly toward the chef. Cristoforo backed away. He cast panicked glances about him at the garbage piled along the sides of the alley, no doubt seeking a weapon of some kind.
“Time to go back, Cris,” Orlando panted.
“No! I won’t do it!” he shrieked. “I don’t want to!”
“But you shall. You will tell Don Arturo everything, just as we discussed.”
“Shall I tell him you’re the one who wanted the king dead, you evil bastard?” he shouted, starting to cry.
“Poor little boy,” Orlando said, snickering.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone. You forced me!”
“We made a deal, Cris. A simple business transaction. You sold me your soul, don’t you remember?”
“The deal is off. I won’t do it. It’s bad enough what you made me do to the king. I won’t send his son to the hangman!”
“Rafael is a fool. He deserves to die.”
“Well, he’s not evil and mad! He’s not you!” Cristoforo screamed out. “Why are you doing this to them?” Weeping copiously, he backed away into a garbage heap.
Orlando was staring at him with dark, gathering anger as he realized that, with the boy’s escape attempt and his hysterics, Cristoforo really could not be trusted any further. He had driven the boy to the breaking point, beyond his own ability to control him. If he brought Cris back to tell his tale to Don Arturo in this state, he might well blurt out the real truth.
He knows too much.
Orlando was suddenly furious with the wasted effort. He loathed inefficiency. He took another slow step toward the lad, tightening his grip on the knife’s hilt. Cris stared at the knife, mesmerized. His unmanly bawling stopped abruptly.
“You disappoint me, Cris. You really do.”
“No. Please. I am unarmed,” he whispered.
Orlando moved closer. Suddenly something hit him in the side of his face, stunning him momentarily. He jerked away from the hard blow as the broken bit of brick bounced off him to the ground and rolled. He knew without looking that the girl had thrown it at him, but instantly Cris bolted.
Orlando ignored the pain and leaped after him, blood running into his left eye from the gash on the side of his forehead. He reached out and grasped the back of Cris’s coat and put his foot out, tripping him from behind. Cris fell with a sob.
Orlando bent over him and cut his throat, then leaped over his still-convulsing body to chase after the girl.
Because he had been preoccupied with Cris, she had a head start, and on her own, Carmen moved faster and more covertly. Orlando chased her down a series of blind alleys until he realized he no longer heard her footsteps ahead of him.
The streetwise little whore was obviously used to fending for herself, he thought. But he’d get her. She didn’t have a prayer.
A flicker of motion above made him look up to see her hastily climbing an old rickety peristyle, from which she jumped onto an outer balcony and scrambled onto the roof. He leaped up onto the peristyle, beginning to climb it, but the wood snapped under his greater weight and he tumbled down to the alley again with a vicious curse as Carmen scampered away into the darkness.
He sprang to his feet on the ground with a large splinter in his fisted hand and looked up the side of the building where she had gone. Just before she dashed out of sight, eluding him over the rooftops, Orlando hurled his knife at her by the hilt with a mighty heave of his arm.
The blow missed. The knife bit into the clay stucco of the house and stuck there, vibrating with the impact.
“You little bitch!”
he roared.
“You can’t escape me! I’ll find you! I’ll drink your blood!”
His deep scream reverberated off the alley maze like a demon’s curse.
Glaring, his eyes nearly red with rage, he looked up at his knife sticking out of the side of the house up by the eaves. He did not attempt to retrieve it.
It was a murder weapon, after all.
Raking a hand through his hair, his body shaking with exertion and fury, he turned around and began walking back slowly the way he had come. He hated that little whore and when he caught her, she would not have an easy death, he vowed.
He tried to assure himself that Carmen would be too petrified to go to the authorities, for who would believe a whore against a duke of the royal blood? But just in case, he decided to make the Royal Guardsmen and the city police aware of her and the lies they could expect from her if she tried to contact them. For his part, he knew he had to go back to the prime minister’s house and tell him
something
. He had left the man standing there in his dressing gown when he had gone tearing off after Cristoforo.
He searched his mind for what to say as he trudged through the waking city back toward the west end. He had to proceed carefully, for above all, he needed Don Arturo behind him in order to gain power. How could he account for his vanished witness?
But he’ll believe of his own accord because you’re giving him what he wants most in the whole world,
he mused after a moment’s consideration:
the head of Prince Charming on a silver platter. Yes,
he thought with an icy smile. The prime minister was all too willing to believe.
Dani was having the most splendid, wicked dream. It seemed as though the door had clicked and a wedge of light had angled in. Another click as it closed, and she sank back into deeper layers of sleep, only to feel the mattress bow under a new, graceful weight, as though someone large and strong were sliding into her bed with her; then the dream changed. Her breathing deepened. She felt large, warm, gentle hands slide up under her scoop-necked night rail and begin moving slowly over her body as she lay on her stomach, one arm tucked beneath her pillow.
Rafael.
Her body softened; pleasure washed in a warm wave down the length of her. She felt kisses down her spine, a clean-shaved face brushing against the rising curve of her backside. Then the warm, tickling delight of his fine mouth, dusting more kisses down the backs of her legs, which seemed to part with a will of their own at the teasing sweetness of his play, but she came fully awake only when he gently spread her bottom cheeks with his deft, warm hands and plunged his tongue into her, stroking her with a kiss.
Thrills of shocked bliss zoomed and spiraled through her body. She sucked in her breath and arched up onto all fours. Without pausing, he curled his hand around the front of her thigh and caressed her ultra-sensitive jewel with his fingertips while he explored her sex with his tongue.
She reached down behind her and ran her fingers through his dark gold hair. His powerful arms and chest were bare. At her caress, he glanced up and sent her a smoldering look, his enticing mouth against her pale skin. Then his gold-tipped lashes lowered again and he bent his head and continued pleasuring her.
She was soon beyond shame, barely able to hold a coherent thought but for the realization that, with his bag of wicked tricks, he could have had her anytime he had wanted. Then reason fled. Sensation was all.
He continued seducing her.
When she moaned loudly with desire, he began kissing his way up her spine again, holding her firmly by her hips. He worked her night rail up over her head and pulled it off her, then covered her with his body, pressing her into the mattress under his weight. His chest was hard and hot against her bare back.
His muscled body was so large he seemed to surround her on all sides, dominating her; kissing her ear, he was a firm but gentle master. She could hear him breathing heavily, felt the soft, chafing broadcloth of his breeches against the bare skin of her backside and the massive evidence of his need as he ground his throbbing groin against her.
She arched her head back as his fingertips lightly caressed her throat, moving down to tease her nipples. She moaned with want, her body undulating under him. In that moment, he ruled her utterly.
“Ask me nicely,” he breathed.
She whimpered his name, knowing if he left her in unfulfilled torment again, she would die. His signet ring gleamed in the moonlight as he ran his hand over her fevered skin.
He kissed her shoulder. “Ask for it.”
She closed her eyes and gave him her surrender.
“Rafael, Rafael,”
she breathed.
“Take me.”
“Turn over,” he ordered in a ragged whisper. Pushing up off of her, he permitted her to roll onto her back while he finished undressing, staring at her body all the while.
Naked with her a moment later, he cupped her breasts and moved down to kiss them. She cradled his head against her, closing her eyes.
“I love you, Rafael,” she said very softly. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Slowly, he rose over her and looked deeply, solemnly into her eyes, into her very soul. “You will never lose me. ”
“Rafael.” She caressed his chest with both hands, then slipped her arms around his neck. “Make it so they can never part us.”
He closed his eyes, bent his head, and parted her lips with his own. Kissing her all the while, he gently eased her legs wider apart and lay between them.
He murmured to her softly as the time drew near. She grew nervous at the sheer size of him. She watched his face, every nuance of his expression as she lay in his arms, trusting him as she had never trusted another living soul. She gave everything. She let him stoke the fire in her until she was ablaze, and when the time came, she opened herself completely, giving, yielding, as he eased in, whispering to her like a man gentling a wild horse.
He told her, softly, raggedly, when it would hurt, and she cried out as he thrust deeply into the core of her, but there was the ecstasy amid the pain, for she knew he was hers now, hers forever.
And then he began to make the hurt go away.
“My love,” he whispered, pressing fevered kisses to her brow. “My love. I needed you so much. I’ve missed you.” The warm, virile smell of his skin mingled with her faded day’s perfume and with the musky smell of sex that thickened the air. Stroking her arms and shoulders, Rafael caressed her breasts until her nipples strained rigidly under his palms.
Shyly, tentatively, she sought his mouth in the darkness as the pain slowly receded. She opened her mouth wider, consuming his slow, luxurious kisses. He fed her with his kisses, plunging his tongue deeply into her mouth until she caressed it with her own, sucked it hungrily. His hands traveled down her sides, following her curves down to her hips.
“So sweet, so tight,”
he whispered. He stroked her, cupped her backside in both his hands, kneading her flesh, then his hands slid lower, drawing her legs apart even wider.
“W-what are you doing now?” she whispered in sudden alarm, still sounding a bit distraught from his rending her.
“Now I’m going to finish it, my darling,” he murmured, panting. He was trembling with restraint, his passion held in check. He kissed her shoulder while she slid her arms around him, bracing herself, not sure what was to come.
Pulling back gently from the tight sheath of her body, he thrust inside her again, again. He groaned with pleasure as he took her; he moved faster, seemingly unable to stop. It was like being caught in a summer storm; he was hard and steamy-slick, covered in sweat.
Surely she would be split in half, she thought, but she closed her eyes with a grimace, held on to his massive, sculpted arms, bit her lip, and silently endured the ramming of his warriorlike body into hers, forfeiting herself to his rage of love.
Then something peculiar happened. She was not sure exactly when the pain began turning to pleasure, but suddenly a burst of bliss beamed forth like a burning, sweet star in the place where he had once kissed her with the peppermint.
Startled, she dragged her eyes open and stared up at him. His eyes were closed and now he slowed his pace to a deep, languorous rhythm, savoring every moment as he took her in long, slow strokes. A diamond drop of sweat rolled down the side of his face, which was etched with tantalizing bliss.
“Oh, God, yes,”
he groaned, hanging his head. His golden hair fell forward in a silky curtain around her.
She moaned abruptly a moment later, then her rigid body began softening under him. The fullness of having him inside her ceased to be discomfort. Fascinated and amazed, she closed her eyes, relaxed under him, and let passion flow through her veins like wine. She shivered and clutched him to her, gasping with undreamed-of pleasure. She was aware of nothing else but the sensations that were sweeping ever closer, and then they crashed through her body and she cried out against his skin, holding on ever so tightly to him.