WindSeeker (5 page)

His eyes widened with sheer terror. Her words were doing things to his body that should not be

happening. He felt hot, he felt such sexual tension mounting in his body, he feared he would unman

himself before her. There was actual physical pain between his legs, a desire building that brought with it

a wicked craving that made his blood boil and his manhood ooze with excitement.

"Leave me alone," he pleaded, his voice no longer sure, no longer firm. He was on fire with a yearning he

neither wanted nor could ignore. "Go away!"

"I think not, sweet Prince." She licked her lip again, letting the slick flesh move slowly, enticingly, wetly

over her mouth. "I want you."

"Keep away from me!" he gasped, his knees weakening.

"No," she answered, her lips coming together in a moue of denial. "You want me, too, McGregor. Admit

it."

"I want no such thing!"

"You want me. Your manhood throbs with the need to plunge deep within this body."

"No!"

She smiled and his entire being melted, his very flesh so hot he imagined he could feel the snow sizzling

on his bare shoulders as it lit upon him. His need grew so great he could barely move. He ached. He hurt.

He needed.

"I am yours for the taking, Conar McGregor," she cooed. "To do with as you will. To use as you

desire."

He had to force his gaze from her shiny lips. He backed away as she took a step closer. His heart

hammered in his chest and he felt the bulge straining between his legs. It was a sharp, unbearable need,

overpowering and insistent. He hovered between heat and icy chill as his body struggled with his honor

and his heart.

"I want you gone," he managed to say, his breath coming in shallow spurts. He backed up until he felt the

cold stab of the fountain’s rim behind his knees.

"Are you so sure you would rather not have me stay?" She advanced, gliding toward him on silent feet,

and reached out a slim hand to touch his cheek.

Conar groaned, low in his throat, deep in his soul. Her touch was like velvet, like the warm kiss of the

sun’s rays of a spring day after a harsh, dark winter. He shivered, savoring the touch, marveling in the

deep, sensual need running rampant through his quivering body. As her fingers moved, caressed his

chilled flesh, he stared into eyes as black as onyx.

"Would you have me go and never know the feel of my lips on yours?" she asked and moved so that her

body touched his.

Conar gasped, sucking in his breath at the sensation of her lush curves easing along the hard length of his

body. He couldn’t breathe; couldn’t speak; couldn’t seem to move. He was drowning in her gaze, his

blood boiling.

"Would you not wonder what my mouth would taste like?" Her thumb eased over his mouth and

smoothed the flesh along his upper lip, parting the full flesh and stroking his lips so tenderly he wanted to

cry with the pain of it. The silk of her thumb slipped slowly into his mouth, pulled down the lower lip and

slid across its length. Her fingernail grazed his teeth.

His knees wanted to buckle. He whimpered, his ache building to the point of release. He wondered that

he could stand there, trembling as he was, without sliding to the ground in a mangled heap.

"Would you not forever wonder what it would have been like to return my kiss, Conar McGregor?" She

took her thumb from his lip, brought her hand to her mouth, slipped her index finger between the scarlet

lips, and sucked on it. She wet it before putting the tip to Conar’s mouth, circling his lips with her

moistened finger, tracing his flesh with her own saliva.

An animalistic groan came from him, the sound of a creature in the throes of some great exacting torture.

His eyes flared with shock, with intense desire, and it was all he could do not to crush her to him, to

ravage her like the rutting beast he felt he was becoming.

"You want me as you have never wanted another woman. Don’t you, McGregor?"

For a moment he couldn’t speak. His need was too great, his agony too intense. He held her gaze,

feeling her index finger slip between his lips. Without thinking, without conscious awareness that he was

doing so, he sucked it deep into his mouth, wetting it, circling it with his tongue, drawing on it as though it

were her nipple, until she withdrew it and brought the moist tip to her own lips.

"Do you want me, McGregor?"

"Aye," he forced out between parted, gasping lips. "I do want you!"

Again, her smile grew evil. Her fingers came to him, threaded through the gold of his hair to bring his

face forward, toward hers. She lifted her head and covered his mouth with her own, drawing on his lips

as though she would drain every ounce of resistance from his body. Her kiss was mind numbing, as

intoxicating as an expensive vintage wine. When she pulled back to look at him, he felt a hunger such as

he had never known.

"I want you," he said gruffly.

"I want you, as well."

With their gazes locked, she put her arms around his neck, pressed herself to him, and molded her body

as tightly to his as their clothing would allow. She rubbed against him and a light laugh came from her

seductive lips as his needful groan came barreling up from his soul. As her lips again took his, the heady

sweetness of the touch was nearly his undoing.

Of their own volition, his arms went around her, drawing her to him, tightly clasping her body, his lips

moving beneath hers until his mouth became the captor; he, the ravisher. He deeply thrust his tongue into

the sweetness of her mouth and growled, feeling her own slip around his as she suckled him.

He lifted her free of the ground and slid her rump onto the rim of the fountain behind him. He slipped

between her legs, pushed up her gown, his hands fumbling at his own clothing, his fingers groping for the

buttons that kept his breeches closed.

"Aye, McGregor," he dimly heard her whisper. "Aye."

He saw the spark of satisfaction in her eyes as they kissed, as he found the top button of his cords and

popped the pearl stud through its opening. He strained against her, felt her hand slide down his shoulder,

around his arm, over his thigh and go to the bulge in his breeches. Her fingers found him and molded their

delicate flesh around him.

"Um," she moaned against his lips and her tongue pushed his aside to probe deep within the recesses of

his mouth.

This is wrong, he thought. Horribly, evilly wrong! Yet even as the thought pricked at his conscience, he

pressed her tighter to him in a fevered embrace that brought sweat to his underarms.

"Conar, you should not be doing this," another voice broke through, louder than the pulsing of his heart

pushing hot blood through his veins. "This is wrong, son."

"Is this
really
what you want, my child?" a deep, grandfatherly voice sadly inquired. "What of your

lady-wife?"

From the mists of fever in his brain, he heard another voice, Liza’s, as clearly as though she was standing

before him. "Will she take Conar away from me?"

It was as though lightning had speared him.

He jerked, stumbling away from the mysterious woman. He knocked her hands from him, put the width

of the fountain between them and stood trembling, his breath ragged in his throat.

"What’s wrong, my Prince?" she cooed, sliding off the fountain and moving toward him.

He put up a hand and backed away. "I…I am taken."

The woman turned her delicate head and looked at him from the sweep of her lashes. "Do you love

her?"

"With all my heart." He strove to get his racing pulse under control.

"And yet your body aches for mine. Why is that, Conar McGregor?" Her gaze lingered on his crotch,

where the evidence of his hot desire still leapt. She drifted toward him and he became aware for the first

time that, where she walked, no footprint was left in the swirling snow.

He locked his gaze with hers. "I don’t know who you are or what you are, woman, and I don’t care."

As she glided toward him, a seductive smile on her lips, he shook his head in violent denial and put up a

restraining hand. "Stay where you are! Don’t come any closer!"

"You don’t trust yourself with me, do you?" she asked, her eyes flashing with triumph. "If I were to touch

you again, my sweet Prince, you would be mine. Forever."

He vehemently shook his head. "No. I would not!"

"Are you willing to test what I tell you?" She moved closer and smiled when his back came up against

the stone wall of the tool shed. "How can you be sure you do not want what I am offering?"

Conar stumbled along the wall, tripped over dead shrubs, and crashed into a trellis before putting himself

out of the woman’s reach. "I don’t want anything from you!"

"Not even knowing I can pleasure you like no woman ever has or can again?" she whispered. Her gaze

went to the still-lingering bulge at the junction of his thighs. "I can see you want me."

"What you see belongs to Liza McGregor and Liza’s it will stay!" he shouted.

Her smile vanished. "Not always, my Prince."

"Aye, always!"

Her delicate shoulders rose in a shrug. "As you will, but before I leave, if that is truly what you want me

to do—"

"Aye, I want no part of you!" His fear oozed in waves down his sides.

"Then listen well, for the time of reckoning is closer than you know." She looked at the window above

his head and smiled, then returned her gaze to his. "I will give you a riddle to solve."

"I don’t want to hear any gods-be-damned riddle!"

"Perhaps not, but remember it, for your life may well depend on it one day: Flesh of my flesh, blood of

my blood, thrice the blow will come. Torn the flesh, shed the blood. Beware the source, my son."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He felt a sudden terrible aching in his heart, a flash of pain rip

through his side, his arm, and his hand. A soul-wrenching despair shot through him hard enough to leave

him shaking.

"You will know when the time comes. You will remember my words. You will hear them even though

your powers will be at the lowest ebb in your life."

"I am no sorcerer—"

"Oh, but you are, sweet Prince of the Wind." She laughed. "One of the very best. And well you know

it."

"You’re wrong."

Her laughter chimed and then, with a suddenness that blinded him as though all light went out, her glow

vanished and a piercing cold went through him. He reached out, wanting her back, needing her back,

aching for her, but his hand encountered snow.

Gone without a trace.

He stood for a long time, his flesh turning blue with the cold, his brow furrowed in confusion. He finally

became aware of the damp, chilling wind and turned his face toward the heavens, feeling a great sorrow

welling up in him, a sorrow he could not understand.

His eyes went to the window of his room, the window that faced the garden. He saw Liza framed in the

casement. The moon had cleared the sweeping clouds and a bright beam of light lit her as she stared

down at him.

"Liza," he whispered, wondering how much she had seen.

A shiver went through him as he turned and raced back to their chamber.

Liza did not turn to him as he entered. She still stood by the window, her hand on the thick drape she

had pulled to one side. She was staring intently into the garden as though she could see what he could

not.

"I woke to find you gone," he told her, feeling as though he had done something very, very wrong, and

knowing deep in his heart that he had. "I went to look for you."

"She let you see her." It was not a question; it was an accusation.

"Who was she?" he asked, afraid of his wife’s answer.

She turned to face him. In the glow from the fireplace, he saw her hand sweep before her in a sign of

denial. "Never, never follow me when I am about the Multitude’s business. If you wake to find me gone,

Conar, know this: I will always return. Even through the Maelstrom itself, I will return to you. Never

believe me gone from your side for long. My running days are over, as you once told me." Her voice was

hard and brittle. "I may leave you for a while, but I
will
return!"

Her words confused him. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the feeling that he was losing her.

"Who was that woman, Liza? What is she to you?"

She stared at him. "I don’t think you truly want to know, Milord."

He took a step toward her, but when she stiffened, he stopped. "Is she a sorceress? One of your

goddesses? I must know."

Liza shook her head. "It is not something you need to know. I can not imagine why she would show

herself to you."

"At least tell me her name. Let me know who my enemy is."

Liza frowned. "She is not your enemy, Conar. Mine, perhaps, but never yours."

"I don’t want anything to ever come between us, Liza," he protested, not really hearing her. "I need to

know who she is. She…she…"

"She aroused you," Liza finished for him. "She tried to seduce you." A sad smile touched her lips. "She

has that effect on every man who sees her."

"For one moment I…" He looked away.

"You wanted her so badly that you ached." When his stricken eyes leapt to hers, she nodded. "But you

resisted, or else you would not be here now."

"I am in love with my wife, Liza. No woman could make me turn away from you." He held out his hand.

"I will never leave you!"

She looked away, a sob catching in her throat. Her gaze went to the corner of the room where a small