Redemption Read online

  Redemption

  Annie Windsor

  The Legacy of Prator 2 -

  For Bridgette

  I wrote this with your candle burning. Enjoy the wild man.

  Prologue

  Camelford

  Late Fall, 470

  Lygnel barely allowed herself a breath as she stood in the stone hall outside Davyd Krell’s bedchamber. She heard sounds of coupling within—but a type of sex she had never known. Lovemaking with grunts of animal need, cries of wild abandon.

  Jealousy surged in her throat, bitter and hot, and yet in truth Lygnel had no claim on the man beyond the wooden door. The stallion. Davyd had long ago captured her fancy. She had watched him from her window, from discreet vantage points about the courtyard, and sometimes from hidden places in the nearby woods.

  Rough of manner but clearly soft of heart in the way he handled his training charges, Davyd’s paradoxes first interested Lygnel, then attracted her. In a court of barbarians, he seemed the most barbaric of all—and yet the most civilized. He was, without question, as raw and splendid as jewelstone hidden between layers of unforgiving rock.

  Her pulse quickened at the mere thought of Davyd’s hard, muscled frame and his feral azure eyes. How those layered gems darkened when he sparred! And no doubt when he swept a woman into his arms. Gods, but he was more handsome than any she had known in Avalon, and those men were half-ancient. Almost gods. Since Lygnel’s forced arrival at Castle Dore, though, Davyd Krell had been her secret religion.

  Now, she intended to do more than worship from afar, her own sham wedding be damned to the deepest of hells. Her body tingled as she considered her duplicity, her newfound boldness. This plan had to work, for the sake of her newborn babe. For the sake of this man she had barely spoken to but instinctively loved. If all went as she schemed, she would enjoy the steel of Davyd’s flesh one sweet time, enough to last her forever, then see him safe away with her little girl.

  Both her daughter and Davyd would be spared the fate of Castle Dore and its dark master Mordred. Her hated husband’s treachery would bring doom to all who remained at Camelford. That much, Lygnel’s weakened magik showed her with little variation.

  Inside Davyd’s room, a woman screamed her release. Lygnel shivered with shameful excitement, wondering how it would feel to make a sound of unbridled pleasure, of deep satisfaction. She couldn’t help covering her mouth. The soft, wet feel of her own lips against her fingers made her shiver all the more.

  She had never known pure lust in her bed. Only cruelty with Mordred—and briefly, with Arthur, gentle kindness—but never, ever passion. Such things seemed forbidden, to her above all others. Lygnel moved her fingers from her lips and pressed them against Davyd’s door, relishing the rough feel of the wood.

  All of that was about to change.

  * * * * *

  Davyd jumped up from the bed, then froze with shock.

  Alla, his night’s conquest, had fled in terror before the woman who now stood in front of him. A woman who had filled his senses, his dreams, each time he dared to think of her. But a woman like this, so proper and well-bred, so intelligent and discerning—she couldn’t possibly want the likes of such a scarred war dog, old before his time. He dropped his hands between his legs, a boy’s gesture, but this woman’s unswerving gaze had the effect of stripping away his staunchest defense.

  “I said do not be shy.” Lygnel used her diamond-blue eyes like a weapon. Sure as any sword, those jewels.

  He moved his hands away. As she stared at his hardening cock, he felt like a hostage.

  This was no serving wench. This was his queen, though two years his junior at eighteen, she could barely claim a woman’s age. Lygnel had become the Dark Prince’s unwilling bride two seasons ago. Rumor had it the union had been ordered by Avalon at the same moment King Arthur’s wedding to Gwenhwyfar took place. The workings of the fey—those were things best left unconsidered by mortal men.

  And still, this situation could not be ignored.

  Davyd knew a thousand painful deaths awaited any man who dared to look upon Lygnel of Dore in a wanting way. She was known to be rigidly faithful but for that one instance—at her foul husband’s undeniable command.

  Yet there stood Queen Lygnel, just inside his chamber door, shocking Davyd with her sultry gaze.

  “You have quite the reputation for endurance,” she murmured. “I have heard much about your skill. From many sources.”

  Davyd’s manhood betrayed him by springing up to confirm her statement. He tried to swallow, but could not. His eyes fixed on the queen’s lips. Carved ruby, cold-sweet. They had been the downfall of many lesser fools than Davyd, and he well knew it.

  Every man in Camelford would have ripped out his hair to spend one hour—nay, one minute—with so fine a woman. But what did the lady want, coming here like this?

  Mordred had been away nigh on twenty days, but he was due back any hour, to celebrate the coming of his first child. A babe, born a week ago to this woman-girl, who looked as if childbirth had taken no toll on her. But then, the castle’s midwife was known for her healer’s skill.

  Lygnel swept toward Davyd’s bed and stood beside him, moving free of burden or pain. Davyd managed not to move as he drank in her heady scent of roses and light powder. Beneath her gown of red and gold, her perfect curves threatened to slay all who might resist, and Davyd was not of a mind to refuse a woman’s attention. Even this woman. Especially this woman.

  Damn the peril.

  Outside the castle’s great stone curtain, thunder tore the air.

  Lygnel didn’t flinch. She kept her bright gaze on Davyd’s cock. He could fairly imagine her satin touch on his burning skin. Or those lips, taking him inside her clean, soft mouth.

  Four hells. I be a dead bastard come the morn. Aye, but a happy dead bastard.

  “Heed me, good man.” Lygnel glanced up at Davyd, and he saw both resolve and passion in her eyes. “I have a task, and only you to trust.”

  In halting words, the queen explained what she wanted of her husband’s training master, and what she would give in return. With each sentence, Davyd’s mouth opened a little more, until his chin touched his chest.

  After a few seconds of silence, Davyd hung his great head, barely conscious of his still-throbbing cock. He could well imagine how he looked to Lygnel with his lion’s mane of flaxen hair nearly covering the jagged scar on his left cheek. “Don’t ask this of me. I beg you, Milady. Even for your sweet favor—I can’t risk Mordred’s wrath. No man could stand such a storm.”

  Lygnel caught his manhood in her hand, choking his speech. Before he could react, she began a slow, maddening stroke. “Serve me, and your reward…will not leave you wanting.”

  At those honey-slick words, heat rose in Davyd’s face, spread through his chest, and crept down, down, down, to where her fingers worked his swollen shaft.

  Lygnel seemed to read his mind, leaning closer, allowing her full bosom to brush against him. She pumped him like a well, faster and faster. Davyd grunted in spite of himself, mind spinning as his queen pushed him toward an explosion of warrior’s proportions. Lygnel’s hair, famous and infamous for its likeness to High Queen Gwenhwyfar’s, spilled like spun gold down her lightly freckled shoulders, and Davyd more than appreciated her thin red and gold gown. As sheer as moonlight.

  Her nipples made dark, full cherries against the fabric.

  As Davyd’s grunts became groans, he could well understand how even the fabled King Arthur believed, if only for a short time, that Lygnel was his angelic wife.

  On orders from her cruel husband, Lygnel had successfully passed herself off as Queen Gwenhwyfar for nearly a month, sharing Arthur’s Camelot.

  And his bed.

  Davyd licked his lips. r />
  Had the High King himself tasted that tempting mouth? Before Arthur realized that his true queen was Mordred’s captive, had he known the pleasures of Lygnel’s wet folds?

  By Arthur’s one God, she was as full as any fruit. No doubt juicy but without question, bittersweet.

  Cursed.

  That’s what the old ones said. The ones who remembered magik, and Merlyn, and the times before the fair folke left Briton for less populated shores.

  As his climax neared, Davyd grasped the False Gwenhwyfar’s free arm and pulled her to him. So soft, that royal skin. The color of milk, firm but yielding beneath his eager fingers.

  Abruptly, Lygnel stopped her massage.

  Davyd’s back bowed, so great was his frustration. He started to protest, but his queen lifted her gown and discarded it on the floor.

  Candlelight played on her naked form as she lay down on the bed and spread her legs. His eyes widened at her sun-colored triangle. At the full, red swell of her moist lower lips. So great was his attention to her flesh that he scarce noticed the mark between her breasts. An interlocked sun, moon, and star.

  Something in the back of his brain stirred. Words of warning from his mother, his people about trusting Avalon or the fey, even halflings—but he dismissed them and marveled at Lygnel.

  How could she have given birth but days ago? Surely this was some spell. Old magik.

  “You may touch me,” she whispered. “In fact, I command it.”

  Davyd edged forward and stood over his queen, memorizing every line and swell, every shade and hue. He lowered his fingers slowly, barely brushing the soft flesh of her belly. The contact made his blood boil.

  “Sample the wares,” she insisted. “Touch me until I come. How else can you make your decision?”

  Davyd’s heart nearly flew from his chest, but he didn’t need a second invitation. His trembling hand covered Lygnel’s quim and pressed, drawing a sigh from her depths. Standing above her like this, he felt like lord of the land, master of all he could see.

  Woman’s musk filled his senses, and his cock throbbed until he thought he might spill himself before completing his queen’s command. Sensing his urgency, Lygnel grabbed the base of his manhood and held tight, forestalling his eruption. “Not until I have what I want. Everything I want.”

  “Yes, Majesty.” Davyd’s voice was no more than a hoarse croak. Dizzy with the sight before him, he thrust a finger into Lygnel’s damp hair.

  She groaned as he parted her slick folds and found her swollen clit.

  “Rub me,” she demanded. “Now. I tire of waiting.”

  Davyd’s breath caught. He stroked his queen in gentle circles, picking up speed as if his life depended on her pleasure.

  Lygnel’s throaty moans spurred him onward. She kept her grip on the hilt of Davyd’s cock, and with her other hand, she rubbed one cherry nipple. Were it not for her forceful grasp, Davyd would have succumbed at that moment.

  Instead, Lygnel thrashed beneath his fingers. Her orgasm shook her fair body, and Davyd gloried in her satisfied woman’s smile.

  As the tremors subsided, she once more pierced him with her sharp eyes. “Kiss me,” she said in her undeniable queen’s tone.

  Davyd obeyed her command, bending down to taste the forbidden fruit of her mouth.

  Her lips were as sweet and soft as he imagined. More so.

  Lygnel pulled him onto the bed, then urged him to give her his weight. In seconds, his pulsing cock pressed inches from the hot welcome of her quim.

  The queen shifted beneath him, opening her legs, inching up until the tip of his manhood slid against her opening.

  Davyd groaned.

  Lygnel wrapped her hands in his long hair. “Is that what you want? To take me?”

  “Aye. But I fear paining you. You gave birth—”

  “Never mind that. The midwife did her work well. I have no pain, Davyd. Only questions. Now, answer me—do you want to be inside me?”

  Davyd ground his teeth, barely able to restrain himself. “Yes. I do.”

  Once more, Lygnel shifted beneath him. He felt her wetness close over his sensitive head.

  “How badly do you want me?”

  Muscles tensed to the point of ripping, Davyd growled and bit his lip ‘til it bled. Queen or no queen, he was close to rutting on her like a crazed hound. “Name your price, woman. Name it!”

  Lygnel’s eyes blazed. “I have. I simply await your agreement.”

  The sensation of her walls pressing toward his near-bursting staff became unbearable.

  What she had asked him to do—was it really such a high price to pay? Hiding the babe from her demon-father Mordred and winning Lygnel’s favor would be fair worth the prize he would claim.

  “I will do it,” he grumbled.

  “Make no mistake. I would die to see my child free of Castle Dore’s dark stain.” Lygnel’s nails dug into Davyd’s shoulders. “Do I have your blood-oath?”

  “Yes, curse my soul. Yes!”

  And with that, Lygnel opened herself wider still.

  So be it.

  If she came to him as a woman, then he would show her all the pleasure a man could give.

  All vestige of station forgotten, Davyd grabbed Lygnel by the shoulders and rammed himself deep enough to tear a scream of raw excitement from his queen.

  He took her like a man possessed, humping hard and fast, smiling at the look of rapture on her exquisite face.

  Lygnel met his every thrust, pounding her hands against his back. “More. More. Make me scream, damn you. Make me scream until I have no throat!”

  Davyd doubled his efforts, rutting like he dreamed of only moments before. The bed crashed against the wall, and the stuffed straw mattress split apart from the power of his strokes.

  Lygnel pinched her nipples and pressed them against his chest, bucking higher and higher until she indeed screamed. And screamed.

  Davyd bellowed with his own release, pouring his seed into his queen’s quim—the one most forbidden of places.

  But the queen did not release him.

  She kept him well into the wee hours, satisfying her every whim, like a woman spending her last day of life exactly the way she chose to spend it.

  As for Davyd, he was of no mind to argue, no matter the hard road ahead.

  Chapter 1

  Spring, 490

  Two Weeks Before Bealtuinn

  In the years that followed, Davyd had to admit the road from Dore had been longer—and harder—than he had imagined.

  This windswept day offered no respite from his pains, and he placed the last stone on the last cairn, then turned away from his sorrow. From Cruther’s Point, the highest hill on Chapel Down, he gazed down at the blue vastness of the sea.

  The scent of brine, the light perfume of loam and wildflowers—these hints of island spring failed to ease his suffering despite his deep respect for the Goddess. Afternoon sun stroked his tanned cheeks as if to soothe him, but in truth, even a mother’s embrace would have left him angry and wanting.

  Finally, it seemed, he had lost everything.

  Except me, whispered Myrddin’s voice.

  “Except you, you bastard.” Davyd clenched his fists as a coastal breeze blew his blond mane and braids across his eyes. A few whitecaps curled closer to Chapel Down’s treacherous beach, but the jagged rocks barely matched his twice-jagged mood.

  Sometimes Myrddin—or Merlyn, as Davyd’s people called him—sounded distant and quiet in Davyd’s thoughts. Sometimes Merlyn sang, and other times he shouted. But one thing Merlyn never, ever did was stay quiet. The ancient lurked at the fringes of Davyd’s troubled mind like a tune that refused to be forgotten.

  Clearly aware of Davyd’s seething anger, Merlyn began to whistle. The sound moved away, as if the conjurer was taking a stroll toward the back of Davyd’s skull.

  Just as well.

  Davyd would have banged his head with a cairn stone if Merlyn failed to give him the peace he needed this day, afte
r burying a woman he cherished. In one way or another, Davyd had now lost all the souls of any value to him.

  He relaxed his fists, letting his scarred arms hang loose at his sides.

  Princess Ysbet had been hauled away to the mainland to marry Onri of Dore, the bastard who took Mordred’s castle after King Arthur and his troubled son died in the Battle of Camlann. Eduard, Prator’s young Captain of the Guards, was likely lost at sea trying to save the princess from wedded misery. And now, a fever had claimed Eduard’s father Andrus, the former guard captain—and King Roland and Queen Twyllian. A third of the servants, pages, lords and ladies had succumbed shortly afterwards.

  Knight after knight had fallen, until Arthur’s Men were naught but a rag-tag band of fools grieving over too many graves. Too many dead.

  Another breeze stirred Davyd’s braids and loose locks. He ran his fingers over the tightly wrapped hair and thought of sweet, sensual Nallad. Nallad, who liked his hair braided at the sides and free in the back.

  It be handsome, mon barbare.

  Mon barbare. My barbarian. He smiled, almost hearing Nallad’s lyrical voice. He pointedly ignored the pile of rocks to his right, marking her grave. He preferred to think of his exotic lover as alive and vivacious. So dark and beautiful, and always ready to surrender her kisses, her fine body, her warm embrace.

  Together, Davyd and Nallad had given each other hours of comfort and pleasure, respite from years of missing true loves lost to brutal, early deaths. And now, Nallad had given her life to the fever Onri left in his spiteful wake.

  “I will avenge you,” Davyd swore, keeping his gaze fixed on the sea. “And Ysbet, and…”

  His voice caught.

  Once more, his hands clenched.

  He couldn’t bring himself to speak her name aloud, though he had spent years dreaming of their single night together. A mere mental image of his first queen was enough to harden Davyd’s cock—and to break his battle-bruised heart.

  After nearly two decades, the scent of roses yet drifted through his memory, as if Lygnel sent the fragrance straight from the land of the dead. And after nearly two decades, Davyd yet longed to speak to her, touch her, even just once more. By the Goddess, he would give his life simply to see Lygnel again.