Shadow Keepers: Midnight Page 3

  Soon his fingers touched the skin that his breath had tickled, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. She clutched her skirt tighter, and he slid his hands down, cupping her at the waist as his tongue traced kisses up her legs to the apex of her thighs. He laved her, the tip of his tongue touching her in the most intimate of places. It was a naughty, erotic sensation, and one that she wanted never to end. This was the feeling she’d longed for, the pleasure she knew would never be hers, and dear Lord she wanted it now—all of it, everything he was willing to give her, and more.

  She shifted her hands, using only one to hold her skirt and the other to cling to him, to clutch tightly to his shoulder as the power of his intimate kisses ripped through her. He was driving her mad with pleasure, the sweetness almost unbearable, and she feared that if he didn’t stop she would explode, and yet if he did stop she would weep.

  Something built inside her, like the heavens coursing through her, spinning faster, glowing hotter, until she could do nothing—nothing—except cry out and tremble as her body was ripped apart from within.

  He caught her as her knees gave out, his arms tight around her waist, holding her upright. His lips on hers, letting her taste the sweetness of her sex. “More,” she whispered, her hands already working to push off the cloak he wore and to unfasten the laces on his white linen shirt. She wanted to speak, to tell him what his touch meant to her, how it swelled within her, but she couldn’t find the words. So instead she told him with her fingers. Exploring and caressing, touching and discovering.

  Tentatively, she pressed her lips to his chest, breathing in the musky scent of him. He tasted of earth and desire, and when she tilted her head back to look at him, the expression on his face—on that warrior’s face, now soft with need and desire—almost made her come undone.

  “I must have you,” he said, his voice a low growl.

  She tried to answer but had forgotten how to speak. Instead she merely nodded, then took his hand in her own and cupped his palm roughly between her legs. He made a rough noise in his throat and pulled her closer, and suddenly his breeches were down and she felt the hard length of him pressed against her. “My cloak,” he whispered, nodding toward where it lay now on the ground. “Not as soft as a bed, but—”

  “I don’t care. I only want you.”

  She lay down, tugging him down with her, not wanting to lose the contact between them. “I cannot wait,” he said, and she almost laughed, her relief was so great. She wanted him right then, that moment, that instant, filling her up and taking her higher.

  She spread her legs, drawing him down. With fingers eager to know every inch of him, she reached out, stroking the velvet steel that was the length of him. She saw him tremble at her touch, and understood her power as a woman. “Now,” she whispered. “Please, please, now.”

  He was both gentle and demanding, thrusting slowly at first until she could bear it no longer and grabbed his hips, forcing him harder and deeper. It hurt—dear Lord, it hurt, but only for a moment. Then the pain shifted, erased by a pleasure like no other she’d known. It ripped through her, so sweet and yet so tumultuous, and she never wanted it to end, and when he collapsed, spent, beside her, she sighed with the deepest of pleasure and curled up next to him, soft and satisfied.

  They lay like that as time ticked past them, her fingers tracing idle designs on his skin, her body reveling in the joy that he had given her.

  Then he shifted so that he was facing her, and he pressed a kiss to her lips so gentle it was like a whisper. “I will get your brother back, Carissa,” he murmured. “About that, I give you my word.”

  “Someone comes,” he said.

  Carissa sat up abruptly, her head cocked. “I hear no one.”

  His face was firm; the softness she’d seen after he’d brought her to the brink of heaven had vanished. “Trust me.” His eyes met hers. “I must go.”

  She nodded, straightening her clothes as she climbed to her feet. She was adjusting her laces when his hand took hers, and he tugged her to him. “Goodbye, Carissa.” His kiss was hard, and needful, and full of things unspoken.

  “Wait,” she said after he released her. He’d stepped away from her with such speed that he was already all the way across the stable, his horse untied. How had he moved so fast?

  He stopped, then looked at her in silence.

  “I don’t even know your name,” she said, suddenly overwhelmed with an inexplicable sadness. He’d delighted her with a sensual feast, but now she understood fully what she would never again have with a man. She would be married and well cared for, true. But this moment—this feeling—was gone forever.

  “Tiberius,” he said. Then he leapt upon the horse’s back, kicked the beast’s flanks, and was gone.

  Carissa stood, staring into the suddenly empty darkness.

  She heard the swift crunch of feet upon the ground. “Carissa?” Agnes’s voice echoed through the yard. “Are you out here?”

  “Here,” she called back, as Agnes shuffled into the structure, huffing under the effort of moving her ample form.

  “Whatever have you been doing, girl? I’ve been looking everywhere for you, and—” She cut herself off quickly, those perceptive eyes narrowing as she peered hard at Carissa’s face, then dragged her eyes down to Carissa’s chest.

  Carissa forced herself to keep her chin upright, but she feared she knew exactly what Agnes was seeing—bits of straw in her hair and décolletage. Whether or not she could see any evidence of Tiberius’s lips upon her neck and breasts, Carissa didn’t know. Certainly she still held the memory of him there, and it took all her willpower not to lift her hand and stroke the spot where last he’d kissed her.

  “What have you been doing, child?” Agnes repeated, only this time her words held a much sterner tone.

  “Nothing that need concern you,” Carissa said, adjusting her skirt as she prepared to hurry past Agnes and back to her own quiet apartment in the palazzo.

  Agnes’s firm hand stopped her.

  “Nurse!”

  “Don’t ‘Nurse’ me. Do you think you are too old for my switch?” She plucked a piece of straw from Carissa’s cleavage and wagged it in her face. “You are not!”

  “I have done nothing for which I must be ashamed.”

  “Then you have done something?”

  Carissa said nothing. With Agnes, it was often better to hold one’s tongue.

  “Nay, girl. I’ll not get the silent treatment from the likes of you. Speak to me now, or we’ll go inside and you can speak to your father.”

  Carissa scowled. “Very well, then. I’ve set the matter straight.”

  “What matter?”

  “The stranger came here intending to rescue Antonio, but Father flatly refused him.”

  “No!”

  “Yes,” Carissa said, spurred on by the vehemence of Agnes’s response.

  “But why?” Agnes asked.

  “I don’t know.” Carissa frowned, remembering the invectives her father had fired at Tiberius, calling him a devil and suggesting that he would never trust a man such as him. “It makes no sense.”

  “Well, go on, girl. What happened?” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Or shall I guess?”

  Carissa lifted her chin. “I persuaded him to ignore Father’s directive. He will rescue Antonio. He gave me his word.”

  “Hmmph.” Agnes looked her up and down, her scowl growing deeper by the moment. “Persuaded him, did you? I can tell by looking at you how you managed that.”

  Carissa wanted to shrink from the reprobation in her nurse’s voice, but she held her ground. “Think what you will, but I’ll not apologize for my actions. Antonio’s life is at stake. There is no sacrifice too great.”

  Agnes snorted. “Sacrifice! By the Blessed Virgin, I saw the lad when he came into the palazzo. You made no sacrifice there, girl!”

  “Agnes!”

  “Come now, don’t be coy. We’re both women.” Her tone darkened. “But I kno
w the way of things a sight better than you, I think.”

  Carissa frowned, her amusement fading in light of the change in Agnes’s tone. “What are you talking about?”

  “So he said he would help you? Said he would go out into the world and bring your brother back to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And all he needed was a good, solid send-off. A woman’s warmth before he rode off, risking his life on our behalf.”

  Carissa shook her head slowly. “It wasn’t like that. I—”

  “You think it was your idea? That your feminine wiles persuaded him?”

  “He swore,” she said, though her words sounded hollow.

  “I do not doubt that he did. A man who would use a woman thus would have no moral code that would keep him from breaking his word.”

  Carissa stood rigid, her mind in turmoil. He had sworn, true, but Agnes was right—she had no way of knowing if his word was good. Her father didn’t trust him, and yet she’d given him her body in exchange for a promise.

  Flames of anger rose up within her, but the anger was directed as much against herself as it was against him. She’d wanted what he could offer so badly that she’d accepted his word without question, then reveled in her own satisfaction. But this wasn’t about her—it was about Antonio—and hot shame burned her cheeks as she realized how little thought she’d paid her brother under the guise of acting only for him.

  “He only wanted in your skirts, girl.”

  Carissa closed her eyes. Perhaps Agnes spoke the truth. Perhaps she did not. But the truth was that she had no way of knowing if Tiberius had been truly sincere. She’d lain with him for her own pleasure, and yet Antonio could very well still be in danger.

  Agnes went to her, drawing Carissa into her arms the way she had when she was a child. “Do you truly think a stranger to our house would risk his own life against your father’s wishes, and with no men to battle at his side?” Agnes spoke kindly, but her words were firm and full of certainty. “No, dear girl. The man you lay with was many things, but he was not sincere.”

  She wanted to believe Tiberius—every instinct within her told her that Agnes was mistaken. Carissa had felt the truth of his words and seen the integrity of his heart. But there was no denying that she could be wrong, and if she waited to find out the truth of it, her brother could well be dead.

  “I am a fool,” Carissa said.

  “You’re not the first woman to have succumbed to a man’s treachery.”

  Carissa frowned, shoving Agnes’s words to the side. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was finding Antonio. “If Tiberius won’t go after Antonio, I must find someone else. Someone I am certain will accomplish the task.”

  “Have you not heard what I’ve said? Your father’s men are engaged, your brothers several weeks’ ride from this place. Even if you could find the coin to hire a mercenary—”

  “They’d only run at the first sign of trouble.” Carissa sighed. “I know.” She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. There had to be a way—some way in which she could bring her brother home. It wasn’t as if Baloch could be reasoned with. For that matter, even approaching him would be a challenge. Any man who presented himself at his gate would surely be turned away and—

  She stopped pacing.

  “What?” Agnes said. “You’ve thought of something?”

  “Someone,” Carissa said. “Someone who can infiltrate Baloch’s palazzo.” She met Agnes’s confused eyes. “The mission is more than simply breaking Antonio out, you see. If we do that, Baloch will certainly seek retribution.”

  “Of course.”

  “So Baloch must be killed.”

  Agnes said nothing. She just looked at Carissa in the same intent way that Carissa remembered from when she was a child.

  “I will kill him,” Carissa said, before she could talk herself out of it. “I will kill Baloch, and I will bring my brother home.”

  She left immediately, dressed in Antonio’s old clothes, her long hair hidden under a cap. She smeared ash from the grate on her face, hoping to disguise the fact that she had no beard, and planned to ride hard, fast, and meet as few people as possible.

  Her plan was simple. She would ride as fast as she could the twenty miles to Baloch’s palazzo outside Lariano. It would be hard—on her body and on the horse—but she was cognizant of time ticking away. She’d heard her father and Tiberius speak of the full moon, and she knew the stories about Baloch and the occult. She could only assume that he intended to do something horrible to Antonio when the moon hung full in the sky. She planned to have her brother free and long gone before that happened.

  She’d never ridden to Baloch’s palazzo, of course, but from the stories her brothers had told her, she expected to arrive close to dawn, and she planned to take a room at a nearby inn. She’d bathe and rest and when she woke, she’d dress in the silken garments she’d rolled up and shoved into her saddlebag. She’d adorn herself with the jewels she’d sewn into the lining of Antonio’s cloak. And she would scent herself with the oils that Agnes had packed for her, however reluctantly.

  Even now, as she stopped at a stream so that Valiant could get his fill of water, she could picture with perfect clarity the expression on Agnes’s face as Carissa rode away from the gates of Velletri. “I understand why you must go,” she’d said before they parted. “But still my fear overwhelms me.”

  “Pray for me, Agnes,” Carissa had implored. “You pray for me and I shall pray for Antonio, and together we will bring him home.”

  She hoped Agnes was praying hard, because her nerves were raw. While on horseback, her attention had been occupied with the rough terrain, staying off the main road, and her increasingly sore rear end. Now that she’d dismounted and was walking to loosen her battered muscles, her mind had time to wander—and to wonder.

  Could she succeed? Was she only condemning herself along with her brother?

  Since she couldn’t bear to think of it any longer, she remounted Valiant the moment the beast finished drinking. “Sorry, old friend. But we still have a long way to go.”

  This time, unfortunately, her body had become used to the motion of the horse, and her mind wandered despite her best efforts to control her thoughts—and it was that very motion that guided the direction of her thoughts. She could remember the way his hands had stroked her. The way he’d traced her lips. The way he’d murmured in her ear, so soft his voice was nothing more than a whisper upon the wind.

  She wanted to believe that she would find him on the road to Lariano, but she’d seen no evidence of another traveler, and she feared that Agnes was right—he’d taken what she had to offer and gone his own way. A burst of anger at his treachery ripped through her, followed in short order by the familiar frustration with her own foolishness.

  But still, she could not deny that given the chance she would do it again. She’d wanted to be in his arms, and it was not even his treachery that frustrated her so much as the fact that she would never see him again.

  By the Virgin, her thoughts were in a dither, and her overwhelming exhaustion was not helping matters. By the time she reached the small inn on the hill overlooking Baloch’s palazzo, she was in a ripe fury. She was also exhausted. The sun would rise in only a few hours. She needed sleep and a bath and food, and she left Valiant in the inn’s stable and then hurried to the door, expecting that she would have to wake the owner in order to gain admittance. She didn’t.

  The place was not the quiet little inn she’d imagined, with darkened tables in the tavern and guests snug in their blankets upstairs. No, this place was loud and raucous and hot from the blazing fire. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and ale and unbathed bodies, and as she stepped over the threshold, all faces turned toward her. Harsh, battle-scarred faces, puffy and pale from too much ale.

  Without thinking about it, she took a step backward, then immediately recognized her mistake. She wasn’t a woman in this room, she was a young man. A young man who
’d just shown fear. And to these men, that made her a target.

  She strode forward, forcing her back to stay straight and her head to stay high. She didn’t want to, but she looked at each of the men at the tables as she swung her gaze across the room searching for the innkeeper. There seemed to be no one, however, who fit that role.

  “He looks too young to have a sword,” one of the men said, staring directly at her crotch. “Not a hard one, anyway.”

  He cackled, almost falling out of his chair with mirth as his fellows joined in the laughter, albeit more subdued.

  “What you doing here, boy?”

  “I’m a traveler,” she said, trying to force her voice lower but not doing a good job of it. “I came for food and shelter.”

  “He’s a traveler,” a particularly foul man said to his companion. “Does he look like a traveler to you?”

  His companion looked her up and down, squinting in a way that made the scar across one eye bulge. “Doesn’t look like a traveler. Looks like a thief to me.” Scar stood, his hand on his dagger. “Turn out your purse, boy. Let’s see what you’ve stole from your betters.”

  “I have no money.” It was true—taking coin from her father would have taken too much time and been far too risky. She had only the jewels she had hastily stitched into her clothing.

  “He lies,” the first man said.

  “We don’t like liars,” Scar said. He moved around the table from the left as the first man moved from the right. Behind them, another stood. Carissa swallowed, her fingers closing around the hilt of Antonio’s sword. She had his dagger as well, still sheathed at her waist, and the weight of it comforted her.

  “Little boy wants to fight,” Scar said.

  “I—no.” She backed up a step, praying she could reach the door, but Scar wasn’t having any of that. He rushed forward and got right in her face, his breath so foul she almost passed out.

  “I said, show us your money.” He pulled his dagger, but she was faster, and her own sword was out and flying in an instant, the tip of it slicing a new scar on the brute’s already marred face.