To greet the dawn
Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire Trilogy, and no profit whatsoever is intended.
A/N: Well, in stark contrast to what I had expected I can post another story before the going gets tough. Herdcat, this is for you, dear. As it isn't slash, I hope you don't mind the smut, lol. There's another Gerald (his 'new self' edition)/Narilka fic in the making, with no lemon for once, but as I've written only a few sentences so far, you might have to take patience for a while.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Silently like a wraith Narilka glided through the shadows until she reached the place where her entire life had been turned upside down once again. She had seen the Hunter's keep blown to smithereens by the crusaders with her own eyes, had mourned for the loss of something so beautiful if utterly alien, and yet it was there, its facade of volcanic glass reflecting the moonlight and the finials pointing upwards to the skies like a prayer of the damned turned into stone.
But she wasn't here to admire the Hunter's unerring aesthetic sense, nor to wonder how such a miracle could have come to pass. He was waiting for her, had called her to him with powers she couldn't even begin to fathom, and the pull of his dark, seductive siren song was so strong that her naked feet approached the huge main entrance as if on their own account.
She had never been inside this nightmarish version of Merentha Castle before, but she knew exactly where to go, drawn to the man filling her heart and soul by a force stronger than fire, wind or water. On and on she padded through long corridors and halls of gleaming black numarble, absentmindedly noticing the red silk tassels and occasional bits of gold that only served to heighten the overall impression of dramatic darkness, until she came to a pair of novebony doors with heavily carved surfaces. They opened for her without her ever having to lift a finger, and she stepped over the threshold without hesitation, her pulse racing as if she had once again run for the Hunter's wicked pleasure.
Gerald Tarrant was standing right in the centre of his audience chamber, no less awesome in his silken robes of an age long gone by than he had been on the night he had escorted her home, playing at shielding her from the dangers of the night. His pale eyes sparkling like precious gems in the moonlight falling through the vaulted windows and his finely-chiselled features a vision of flawless alabaster, he was a breathtaking sight to behold, every inch as regal as the mythical kings of old in the tales her mother had read to her in her childhood.
The Lord of the Forest bowed with consummate grace. "Mes Lessing. You're honouring me with your visit. I hope you had a good journey."
Enthralled by those molten pools of silver watching her with a faint trace of amusement in their depths, she couldn't return the greeting, couldn't move, just stood there as if rooted to the spot and stared at him, her heart hammering a wild staccato of yearning in her chest.
The adept chuckled softly, doubtlessly reading her mind at his leisure, and the sound was disconcertingly intimate, like a dark promise of things to come that had no place under a sunlit sky. His leather boots made no sound whatsoever on the numarble tiles when he glided weightlessly towards her, the only proof of his motions a faint swish of the cloak sweeping the ground at his feet. And why should they? He still could pass for a human after all those years of hunting the night if one didn't look too closely, but the mundane laws of physics surely had no bearing anymore on a creature who had been transformed into something far beyond the mortal plane centuries ago.
A slender finger tilted her chin upwards, unearthly cold but yet so very gentle, and she shuddered. The reason for her response to his touch wasn't the chill his undead body radiated like a greeting from a lightless realm from which no one had ever returned to the best of her knowledge save him. Not by a long shot. What raced through her like a bolt of lightning, speeding up her breath to short, rapid gasps and making her go weak at the knees, was a surge of wild, desperate desire unlike anything she had ever experienced before, not even when laying with Andrys in those rare stolen hours that had belonged to them alone.
At six feet three inches and weighing a hundred and sixty pounds in full regalia at most, Tarrant was a lean man without a superfluous ounce of fat on his body, but the hands catching her just in time when her legs gave way under her seemed to possess more than enough strength to crunch her bones beneath the layers of skin and flesh if he so chose. Effortlessly. "I know what you want, and I share the... sentiment, something that has happened to me only once before since I became what I am now," the Hunter breathed. "But although I'm loathe to admit it, this is one of the few things I can't give you. However regrettable it might be, the laws of my compact strictly forbid me from participating in an act so closely connected to life and everything it entails. Nonetheless, there's another way we could become one flesh. You know what I'm talking about, aren't you?"
Feeling as if her tongue had been glued to the roof of her mouth, the young woman nodded mechanically. Of course she did. In order to prolong his unnatural existence, the Prince of Jahanna needed to drain his unfortunate victims of their vital energy. Thus the hunt. But although no one had ever told her, she was well aware on a visceral level that human suffering wasn't the primal source of sustenance for the undead. There was a different carrier substance, an older, more primitive manner of feeding, as the faeborn vampires luring the adventurous or just plain foolish into their cold embrace could testify to.
Stark terror welled up inside her, and she tensed every muscle in her body in the the instinctive fight-or-flight response of a prey animal sensing the ill-boding scent of a hungry predator in the air. "You needn't fear me, child," Tarrant quickly reassured her, a faint smile on his face. "Haven't I promised not to hurt you? Pain and death aren't an inevitable part of the process. If you allow me to feed on you, I could give us both pleasure far beyond anything your limited human mind can possibly envision. The choice is yours, though. You wouldn't stand a chance in hell against one of my Workings, but I won't force you into anything. Just say a single word, and you're free to go wherever you want to."
It was a most generous offer, something she was sure he had never ever made before, but she couldn't leave him any more than she would have been able to willingly stop breathing or rip her own heart out. And so she deliberately relaxed in his arms and tilted her head sidewards, so that the skin was stretched taut over the large blood vessels at the left side of her neck.
Recognizing the motion as the gesture of submission it was, the Hunter's delicate nostrils flared, and his pupils dilated until his eyes were a measureless emptiness, utterly lightless like the abysses of the underworld waiting for him in vain for nigh to a millennium now. As he parted his lips, Narilka spotted canines elongated to pointed, razor-sharp weapons, but her mind made up and utterly at peace with herself maybe for the first time in her life, she didn't recoil from the sight. Then he bent down to her with a low, wistful sigh that ghosted over her feverishly hot skin like winter's icy breath, and the world stopped turning.
The actual bite did hurt, a sharp, stinging sensation that brought tears to her eyes, but the pain faded into non-existence as a delicious, languidly erotic warmth started to spread through her limbs. Although Tarrant had promised to make the experience enjoyable for her as well, she hadn't expected the utter sensuality of it, the bitter-sweet bliss of his mouth working at her throat and the feel of his lean frame pressing ever tighter against her in an eerie perversion of the love act itself.
Moaning softly, she clung to the creature drinking her blood as if it were the most delicious wine like a drowning woman, only marginally aware that she was grinding her pelvis against his thighs in her desperate hunger for fulfilment. If this went on, she would find it without even touching herself, a feat that had evaded her even during the wet dreams of her mid teens which had always stopped at the worst possible moment, leaving her in a state of feverish arousal she hadn't known how to quench then. She could already feel her orgasm building up deep down inside her, could...
"Narilka?"
Although it came pretty close to the original, she instantly realized that the light tenor whispering her name wasn't the Hunter's voice. It was too human, utterly devoid of the silky, otherworldly smoothness she remembered so well from their two encounters. Confused, she forced her heavy lids open, just to find herself under the scrutiny of a pair of dazzling eyes. "You were dreaming," the Neocount of Merentha murmured into her ear. "I thought this might be a nice way to greet the dawn. It's already past seven o'clock."
'Nice' didn't even touch it. While talking to her, the man at her side never stopped circling the little nub of flesh representing the centre of her arousal in exactly the rhythm that turned her on like nothing else, and Narilka Tarrant née Lessing sighed with pleasure. Her husband surely knew how to drive her up the wall. His ability to read her like an open book, to know exactly what she needed and when, was uncanny at times, but it shouldn't really surprise her. Not with his history.
Without further ado, she pulled her silken nightgown over her head, tossed it on the floor and straddled him, hungry to have him inside her. Taking him in to the hilt in one fluent motion was like a shock, strangely akin to the sudden stop of a nagging ache or a refreshing shower on a hot day, and she paused for a moment, just breathing and relishing in the feel of being stretched to the brim. But then his right index finger parted the folds of her labia and continued its leisurely journey, slipping over the most sensitive spot at the top, and a shudder of pure, unadulterated lust passed through her body and made her hips jerk involuntarily. With each repetition of the manoeuvre sending sparks of bliss throughout her abdomen, the ring of muscles at the entrance of her vagina seemed to clamp tighter and tighter around the phallus buried deeply inside her. It was incredible, better than anything she could have pictured in her teenage daydreams.
Drowning in the sensations, she started to rock her pelvis back and forth at a steady pace. The pleasure was so intense now that it was bordering on pain, but yet her body screamed for more. Straining for release, her hips pumped faster, slamming hard against the fair skin beneath her. She was close now, so very close, her breath flying and her heart hammering as if it were about to explode, but very much to her chagrin the thrice damned fingertip on her sweet spot had slowed down to an occasional twitch that wouldn't suffice to let her reach the point of no return, no matter how highly enjoyable the motions of the rigid hardness in her pussy might be.
"Oh please, beloved, please don't stop now," she whimpered helplessly. "I can't take it anymore."
The chuckle answering her made her grit her teeth in frustration. Damn the man in general and his dominant streak in the bedroom in particular! One fine day she would pay him back in kind, that was as sure as day followed night. There might be a lot of talk about mercy and forgiveness in the writings of the Prophet of the Law, but didn't one of the ancient texts from Earth say 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'?
Hovering between arousal and annoyance, she wriggled her butt in a desperate attempt to speed things up, but it was to no avail. Try as she might to outwit him, her husband effortlessly compensated for her frantic motions. As a delicately arched eyebrow shot up in sardonic amusement, she had to repress a momentary urge to slap him, but then the digit torturing her beyond the limits of endurance sped up at long last, slid over that spot again and again, slick with her own fluids, and she forgot all about her plans for revenge. At least for the time being.
"Oh God, yes. Aaah..." The tiny part of her grey matter still capable of thinking straight wanted to deny him the satisfaction of hearing her moan like a bitch in heat, but she just couldn't help it. As the tension building up inside her neared its peak, she went completely rigid, her muscles as taut as a bowstring. Then her orgasm hit her with the force of a quake, sending wave after wave of pulsing heat through her abdomen, and her brain shut down altogether.
Afterwards, his cock still hot and hard inside her, he graced her with one of the rare, genuine smiles reserved only for her. Tenderness, desire and a fair amount of mischief were warring in his eyes, but at present she was much more interested in the strange colour change that had taken place. Under normal circumstances his irises were green as a broad-leaf forest in late spring or a precious emerald and just as bright, but the early morning sun falling in through the window seemed to have leached them of colour somehow so that they appeared almost grey. Not altogether surprising again all things considered, but a dire reminder of how thin the line they were treading truly was.
The corners of Andrys' mouth - she had long ago learned to think of him as Andrys, even in her dreams - curved up ever so slightly, and the smile transformed his already striking features into something straight out of a fairy tale. God, she loved this man, had loved him right from the beginning, and what had followed had been nothing but a temporary substitute. As infatuated as she had been with Gerald Tarrant's last living descendant, or had believed to be at the time, she would have preferred that he hadn't come to harm that day in the bowels of the Hunter's black keep. The poor sod had already suffered enough. But blinded by his thirst for revenge and Calesta's lies, he hadn't listened to the voice of reason. And had paid the ultimate price for his stubbornness consequently as his ancestor, for whom he had been no match, had been forced to kill him in self defence. Peace to his soul, wherever he was now!
Without slipping out of her for a single second, the first and only Neocount of Merentha turned around and pulled her yielding body beneath him. Although she could feel his mounting arousal with every fibre of her being, his thrusts were gentle and deliberate, belying that she had just ridden him like a wild stallion between her legs. A faint flutter of lust stirred inside her at the memory, and her hand was already halfway down towards her sex when a sudden thought crossed her mind.
The man who had been the Hunter in an era slowly but surely becoming the stuff of legends was quite versatile, not just in everyday life but also in bed. Concerning the male anatomy, he had opened up a whole new world to her, and now she verily intended to take advantage of her knowledge.
Suppressing a grin that might have given her away, she licked her right middle finger as surreptitiously as humanly possible and put her plan into action. The grey-green eyes went wide with surprise when she carefully pushed inside. They had only practised this twice before, and on neither occasion she had taken the initiative, being rather content with adapting to her husband's needs. But today would be different.
Doing this with any other man, however attractive and scrubbed clean, might have disgusted her, but hearing the breath hitch in his throat when she found what she had been looking for, there was no room for anything in her mind but affection. Nothing about the being who had opened her mind to the wonders of the night could put her off, be it his unholy past or his sexual preferences.
After a few minutes his thrusts became harder, less controlled, and she realized that his climax couldn't be far off. Two can play that game, beloved, Narilka thought with an impish smile and wrapped her legs around his hips as tightly as she could, effectively condemning him to immobility.
Of course she was well aware that he could wrestle himself free at any time. As slender as her husband might be, his muscles were well-toned from his long rides into the countryside and the rigorous daily sparring sessions with his armourer. The precious sword he had purchased soon after their return to Jaggonath certainly had no chance to get rusty. But instead of insisting on having his way, he just shot her an amused glance from under his long lashes and let her do as she pleased. Bad luck for him. As matters stood, she could presently think of nothing more exhilarating than keeping her lord and master on tenterhooks just a little bit longer.
As she continued to curl her finger in the 'come-hither' motion he had taught her, Andrys' eyes closed in rapture, and a low sigh escaped his throat. The young woman blinked, somewhat taken aback by the unexpected development. Up to now, she had considered anal play as an additional bonus to the real thing, all well and good to enhance the male orgasm if her husband's enthusiasm had been anything to go by, but nowhere near sufficient to get him off in its own right. With regard to the way his breath was coming in short, ragged gasps now and his thighs were trembling, she had evidently been on the wrong track.
Much too intrigued to stop, she intensified the massage, pressing harder against the sensitive bundle of nerve endings and rubbing rapidly back and forth with her fingertip. She could feel the tight channel clenching ever further around the intruder at her every motion, the pressure so strong that it was almost painful.
The throbbing pulse around her finger when Andrys' pleasure finally crested was like the beat of a living heart. It spurred her on, made her keep up the stimulation in spite of everything she had ever heard about the male sexual response circle until he convulsed atop her anew with a low, strangled sob. To all intents and purposes, his second climax in the space of roundabout three minutes should have heralded the end of their love-making, but witnessing him loosing control in the throes of passion was such a sweet reward for her persistence that she went on, eager for more.
Her spouse had never been a screamer in the horizontal. Emotional outbursts of whatever kind simply weren't his style. But now his moans became more and more urgent, evolved into a hoarse outcry as he came for the third time, came so hard that his entire body shuddered and jerked with the force of the rhythmic contractions inside him.
Seeing him thus, so lost in sensation that he wasn't giving a damn for his pride and dignity anymore, set her blood singing in her veins like a heady wine. High on adrenaline, on the sweet rush of the power she was holding over him at that very moment, she slackened the grip of her legs around his hips and bucked up against him in a shameless plea for satisfaction. Andrys didn't disappoint her. He never had in the three years that had passed since he had collapsed with exhaustion in the Hunter's courtyard, be it in bed or in other matters. A look of almost religious ecstasy on his delicate face, he instantly took advantage of his regained mobility, pounding into her with utter abandon more arousing than the most potent aphrodisiac.
Succumbing to her desire, Narilka worked her free hand between their writhing bodies. She was too far gone to concentrate on her husband's needs by now, but it didn't matter, anyway. THe digit still buried inside him might have stopped teasing that peculiar little bump bringing him so much pleasure, but the frenzied motions of his pelvis more than made up for it.
Andrys was panting forth a string of obsenities now which would have made her blush under different circumstances, a stunningly outrageous behaviour for someone whose usual repertoire of swear words didn't go beyond a very rare 'damned', and the raw, visceral hunger in his voice propelled her to a level of arousal she hadn't even known existed. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut, she rubbed her own pleasure centre as hard and fast as she could, and it didn't take long until her second orgasm overtook her, leaving her breathless and shaking all over.
When Narilka woke up again, the late morning sun was shining through the tinted-glass windows of their bedroom. Andrys was still lost to the world, a faint smile on his face. He seemed utterly at peace for once, free of the terrible nightmares haunting him almost every night. He never talked about them, probably couldn't talk about them without jeopardizing his continuing existence. But on several occasions she'd been awakened by him thrashing about, or had found him at the washbasin, drenched in sweat and frantically rinsing his mouth as if trying to wash away a foul taste. Knowing of his past, she had a quite clear picture of what it was all about.
And then there was the matter of the priest. He rarely mentioned Damien Kilcannon Vryce, if at all, had only pointed out once that seeking him out was too dangerous and the man deserved a new beginning. But she had seen the sadness in those emerald green depths, the emotional turmoil he knew so well how to hide from everybody else, and her heart had bled for his loss.
The young woman stifled a sigh. Whatever soft spot he might still be harbouring for his former brother-in-arms, the ancient soul walking in the shoes of the real Andrys Tarrant had never made her feel like she was playing second fiddle. "You conceived last night," he had announced one glorious spring morn five months ago, his voice calm and controlled as ever but the light shining in his eyes saying more than a thousand words. The statement had flabbergasted her, but of course she should have kept in mind that his adeptitude could never be fully taken away from him. Like everybody else, he might not be able to Work anymore unless - God forbid - he paid the ultimate price for it, but he could still See.
Narilka's hands strayed to her rounding belly, a wholly unconscious gesture of protection presumably as old as the human race. Just a few more months, and they'd be parents, a complete family with a baby to continue the line Gerald Tarrant had founded so many years ago. Life was sweet indeed.
Smiling, the Neocountess of Merentha huddled up against her husband and went back to sleep.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
P.S. As you will have guessed by now, this story ignores the end of 'Crown of Shadows'. There's no black-haired youth and, naturally, no meeting on Black Ridge Pass. Gerald killed his descendant in self-defence, sacrificed a part of his identity (e.g. his given name and his past) and utilized the release of power for a last Working, Changing their eye colour shouldn't prove that much of a challenge for a man used to shape-shifting into a bird. Then he only had to swap their clothes, don Andrys' armour, et voilà.
P.P.S I know I'm not the first one having the idea that the man leaving the keep wasn't Andrys at all but Gerald, but for the life of me I can neither remember the title of the story nor the name of my fellow author. Sorry!