Thrones of Desire Page 10

  She gasped. He entered her like a dagger that stabbed into her cove of secrets to where she had been numb since her death. He was so sharp, like a thorn or a sword, but at once she felt herself succumb to his arms. Her cheek fell against his chest and the wet sting between her legs melted into a heavy, hard pleasure that elevated within her. Suddenly, with a low growl, Gerhard flipped her onto her back so that she was now pinioned beneath him, his hardness still within her. She could barely breathe as he thrust into her, over and over, stabbing her, thirsting for the scarlet blood of passion of their union. His hands fondled and twisted her soft breasts and his tongue delved deep into her mouth. She sucked on his tongue, wanting to imbibe his seeping heat, to feel her body unite with his as if they were burning metal melding into each other. Her inner thighs became slick, and her hips were frantically grinding against his pelvis as he sank deeper into her, as though he was willing himself to drown in her. His hardness felt as wide as an evergreen trunk, propelling into her until she shrieked with honeyed pain and murderous pleasure.

  “Your breasts, your skin…” Gerhard ran his hands over her. “You truly have not aged a day.”

  He shoved into her again. Eira screamed as she felt burning liquid implode from within her. Gerhard began to slide out of her, languidly dragging the length of his erection out from between her wetness, hesitant to leave her warmth. When only an inch of his sharp tip was left inside her, he froze, letting it rest at her opening. She moaned, lamenting at the current emptiness. But then, as slowly as he had exited her, he slid into her, inch by inch, her secret chamber easy and wet, until he filled her to the brim once again, the base of his member pressed between her legs. For a second and a third time he came out slowly, only to go back into her and then resume. When Eira was whimpering under his torture, he once again demonstrated frenzied bestiality, splitting her legs wide open until she thought she would tear apart as he stabbed into her with his full length again and again. His final thrust was like a murderous blow, a knife into her most secret parts, for Eira arched her back and screamed a scream that married deadly pain and tender love.

  Gerhard collapsed atop her, both of them heavily panting, their breaths shrouding their bodies in smoky, ethereal veils. When he tried to rise from her, Eira felt a pull on her neck. During their lovemaking, Gerhard’s key had inserted into her lock and now refused to let go, for her lock rose off her chest, the key stuck inside it. Eira laughed at the sight of this.

  The air was not as cold as it once was. Fat water droplets were dripping from the ceiling, one by one. Eventually two droplets fell at the same time, and then four. The ice walls were not as solid as they were supposed to be. They were slick with cold water. Golden sunlight poured through the windows, and the chirpings of robins and blue jays could be heard.

  “Eira.” Gerhard’s whisper was like a velvet caress on Eira’s breasts. “Come home with me.”

  Her smile faded. She turned her head so that one cheek was pressed against the pillow.

  “Gerhard…I’m dead.”

  “What are you speaking of? I can feel and see you.”

  “This kingdom kept me alive. I’m not who I once was. Now that spring has arrived and destroyed my kingdom, I can’t go back.”

  Gerhard got out of bed, not minding that he was treading over the thinning ice floor that was wet with the water droplets from above. He threw on his clothes, slipped into his armor and strapped on his sword. He turned to look at Eira. She was sitting up in bed, exposed from the waist up. She now looked like the Eira he once knew. Her hair was as golden as a field of wheat underneath an expanse of sunlight, her skin now as flushed as pink rose petals, her body more elegantly curved and rounded.

  “You have to leave, Gerhard. Leave before the castle melts.”

  With Eira wrapped in the blanket, Gerhard scooped her out of bed as easily as if she was a fragile child. She stared up at him and felt as light as hollow bird bones in his muscled arms. With Eira in his arms and the vial clutched in one fist, Gerhard ran out of the bedchamber. The grand staircases and halls were melting beneath the sun, succumbing to the warm weather that had been provoked by the lovers.

  At the entrance of the castle, Eira could see that there was now green grass where there were once blankets of snow and flowers where there were once icicles. Gerhard set her to her feet.

  “Come home with me, Eira.” His plea was a pull on her heartstrings, and his hand grasped hers as though he wanted his flesh to melt into her skin. He stepped out of the castle. Now their hands were linked underneath the arching entrance. She was still inside, in the shadows of her deteriorating home. Her dark eyes met his, scintillating with sweet bitterness that ached with her heart.

  She lunged out of the castle and threw herself down on her knees to kiss Gerhard’s hand. Once the sunlight hit her, Gerhard felt the impact of her forceful lips soften. Eira was disintegrating into snowflakes. The blanket fell off her, exposing her white skin to the spring sun. Her hair fluttered as though it was blown back by a winter wind, the strands transforming into snowflakes that floated all around her. Her skin chipped into countless more snowflakes. Last of all, her face, so serene and smiling with peace, was the final fragment to go. When her lips became snowflakes, Gerhard watched them float up into the air toward the heavens like bubbles free to ascend into the blue expanse. He lifted his hand to see a snowflake clinging to the back of his palm, and on the ground by his feet lay Eira’s lock, still threaded upon its silver chain.

  HERE THERE BE DRAGONS

  Ashley Lister

  Dragonmeister?”

  Georgianna of Roxburghshire stopped moving. She snapped her head back toward the sound of the voice that had summoned her. Her heartbeat quickened. Above the stench of subterranean earth and dung, her nostrils caught the harsh stink of the burning-tar.

  Mercifully, the burning-tar was unlit.

  The night down here was as lightless as the tomb of a forgotten pilgrim. But the smell was assuredly the burning-tar, and that was a substance that had no place in the eastern catacombs.

  “No,” she whispered.

  It was as much as she dared to say.

  She was patrolling the catacombs, a thrice-daily chore for the dragonmeister of Gatekeeper Island, and inwardly cataloguing her stock. Here in the easternmost catacombs she kept a weyr of orientals that included three-toed Japanese dragons and five-clawed Chinese dragons.

  The orientals were the most ferocious and dangerous members of the island’s livestock. Maintaining their successful husbandry was an achievement that had won her shields of honor from Caleb the wolf slayer, laird of her fiefdom. But the husbandry of the orientals had never been a chore that George took lightly. It was a perilous job and she insisted there were rules that needed to be followed.

  “Dragonmeister? Are you there Mistress Georgianna?”

  After the question came the sound of flint striking stone.

  George clenched her teeth and shook her head.

  Her eyes grew wide in the darkness.

  It was one of the apprentice hostlers. She recognized the adolescent squeak of his voice. He was one of a cadre that had arrived earlier that year at summer’s end. In any of the other catacombs his ignorant mistake would merit little more than a stern reprimand.

  But this was the easternmost catacombs.

  This environment was not forgiving.

  In the western catacombs, where she kept the European dragons, the apprentice hostlers were known to fly the beasts in tournaments and race them for pleasure or for daring or for gambling. The western catacombs were larger than their eastern counterparts and hosted a range of dragons that made her laird’s fiefdom the envy of every baron beyond Gatekeeper Island. The western catacombs held Portuguese caco, Polish smok and Catalonian víbria.

  And every one of those creatures was controllable and trainable.

  The víbria were amongst her favorite beasts because they took pleasure and satisfaction from helping humans. The víbria lit fires for
summer barbecues. The víbria gave gentle rides to small children. And a blazing torch of the burning-tar would not present a problem in the lair of the víbria.

  Snakes of unease writhed in George’s belly. She held her breath and silently prayed to the gods of the golden temples that they would not need the sacrifice of a death this night. Sensing the carnage that was about to take place, she strongly suspected that her prayers would pass unheeded.

  Above the catacombs, guarding the golden temples of Gatekeeper Island, there was a family of wyverns: two-legged, long-tailed dragons. The wyverns were responsible for protecting the doorways from the temple to the catacombs. They were also guardians to the fiefdom’s vault of treasure. George was slowly learning the language of the wyverns just as the creatures learned hers in an exchange of wisdoms and cultures. It was a fascinating area of study and she had already begun to fall in love with the rhythmic cadence of wyvern poetry.

  And, as dragonmeister of Gatekeeper Island, George knew that the combined danger posed by every caco, smok, víbria and wyvern was not as menacing as the threat that came from a single oriental.

  “Dragonmeister?”

  There was another scratching crack as the flint struck stone. The stink of the burning-tar struck her nostrils with renewed force. George heard something growl with barely suppressed hunger. And she breathed a sigh of relief when the flint refused to spark for a second time. If the apprentice hostler survived this night she would flay him until sunrise so he could act as a warning to the rest of her subordinates.

  “Are you there Mistress Georgianna?”

  George insisted that there were three rules for working with the orientals. If she had maintained her needlework studies from when she was a strapling she would have stitched those rules onto a tapestry and hung the framed needlework in the golden temple on the doorway above the easternmost catacomb.

  The dragonmeister always patrols the eastern catacombs alone.

  The dragonmeister always patrols the eastern catacombs in silence.

  The dragonmeister always patrols the eastern catacombs in absolute darkness.

  She had thought those three rules were made known to everyone who lived on the island. But clearly this apprentice hostler wasn’t aware of them. Or, if he was aware of them, he was too dunderheaded to heed rules.

  Either way it was going to prove fatal.

  There was another growl from the darkness. This one was heavier. And George did not need the gift of presentiment that came from working with dragons to know that it was now too late for the hostler.

  “Dragonmeister?”

  There was another scratching crack as the flint struck stone.

  This time the spark erupted into flame. It caught the burning-tar. The catacomb was immediately flooded with liquid yellow light. George could see she had been right: it was one of the apprentice hostlers. She recognized him from the ginger hair on his head and the hessian tunic he wore. His name had been Bob, or Rob or something like that.

  And he had entered the last minute of life.

  “Dragonmeister?”

  Bob or Rob peered toward her but he was clearly bright-blind from the flare of the torch he carried. If he had been able to see anything at all he would have noticed the dragons, three Japanese and two Chinese, circling around him.

  “Are you there, Mistress Georgianna? The island has visitors. We’re called on by the esteemed Thane Vortigern of Merioneth who comes he—”

  He didn’t get to complete the sentence.

  A Japanese exhaled. Its breath caught the flame from the torch and ignited. The fire seared the ginger hair from the hostler’s head. Before he could properly start to scream a second Japanese dragon had acted quickly and ripped his tunic away.

  The sound of aged and leathery wings flapped indolently in the shadows.

  The dragons looked lemony-white in the glow of their own burning breath. The scene was ghoulishly played out for George as a brightly lit testimony to hostler stupidity.

  Momentarily she stood riveted as the dragons snatched at him and nipped at him.

  The Chinese clawed.

  The Japanese snorted fire.

  The hostler was naked and bleeding and weeping and screaming. His hands flailed in a pathetic attempt to keep the beasts away. His sobs were mercifully inarticulate. If he had called for her by name George would have felt guilty for abandoning him. A Chinese slashed at him with five-clawed talons. Black-red lines opened across his abdomen.

  And then the hostler’s screaming ended.

  George turned away and fled.

  The hostler had been beyond help before the dragons attacked. Going in to save him would only have ended her own life. Even if her work did not necessitate the gift of second sight, she would have known that much from having worked with orientals through her adult life.

  As she burst through the temple doorway from the catacomb she was adamant that someone would tell her how a mistake like this had happened. And she was adamant that the person responsible would pay.

  “Dragonmeister Georgianna of Roxburghshire?”

  The man was tall and handsome. A pair of wyvern glowered down at him with characteristic suspicion.

  George motioned for the dragons to stand at ease.

  Obedient, the beasts relented from their stiff posture. They continued to strike a menacing pose but neither looked as likely to eviscerate the visitor.

  The stranger was dressed in the polished silver armor of a lowland warrior. His shield was decorated with the emblem of a blood-red snake. Because he stood a head taller than her, George felt a little threatened and intimidated.

  Defiantly, she threw back her shoulders. She met the challenge of his leering stare. Whether she was dealing with a truculent caco or a visiting warrior, she knew the secret to remaining in control was with a display of confidence.

  Of course, it didn’t help that she was near-naked.

  Save for the leather thong she wore whilst working in the catacombs, George was unclothed. Any other type of garment could have likely given away her presence to the vicious oriental dragons. They would have heard the rustle of hessian skirts on her thighs. They would have smelled the feral memories of animal stink on full leathers or protective furs.

  Hostlers were used to seeing George’s bare-breasted presence on the island. When she was escaping the catacombs she looked no more undressed than the temple prostitutes. But she was aware that there were circumstances when her state of near-nudity could sometimes send out the wrong message to the island’s occasional visitors.

  And this was clearly one of those circumstances.

  “How enchanting,” the stranger breathed. He stepped closer and cupped her right breast with his left hand. His fingers were warm against her cool flesh. His thumb absently stroked the nipple.

  She was jolted by a sting of unwanted pleasure.

  As the treacherous bead of flesh grew stiff she slapped his hand away.

  He looked hurt. His eyes flared. There was a curl to his upper lip that turned his appearance from attractive to cruel. She noticed the narrowing of his brow.

  “Vortigern?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. It was the name the hostler had used in the easternmost catacomb. “Is that who you are?”

  He looked perplexed by the informality of her address.

  If he was Thane Vortigern of Merioneth then the rules of cordiality dictated that she should address him with the full honorifics of his status. He was titled gentry and she was only a lowly dragonmeister. But George was still angry at having witnessed the unnecessary death of the apprentice hostler. And she strongly suspected that Vortigern was responsible for the tragedy.

  “Thane Vortigern of Merioneth,” he corrected.

  “Are you the shit-for-brains that sent a hostler down to summon me from my duties in the catacombs?”

  Vortigern’s lips thinned. He looked as though he had been slapped.

  “I am Thane Vortigern of Merioneth,” he told her. “I sent your hostler do
wn to summon you from your duties, dragonmeister. But you’re being visited by a nobleman and his attendant retinue. I think that the civilities of ceremony and greeting are a little more important than counting livestock and sweeping dung.”

  She bit back the response she wanted to make. The apprentice hostler’s life had been far more important than any demonstration of ceremony. But a gnawing sense of danger tingled at the back of her neck. Having worked with dragons long enough to have developed the gift of second sight, she trusted such instincts.

  “What business do you have here, Vortigern?” she asked coldly.

  He extended a hand.

  It was the same hand that had stroked her breast.

  “I have been sent by your laird, Caleb the wolf slayer. He has granted permission for me to visit here and oversee an exchange of treasures.” Vortigern paused. His eyes sparkled. “Aboard my ship I hold Y Ddraig Goch, the red dragon.”

  George muttered a squeak of delight. She strained to look past Vortigern’s shoulder in the hope she could see down to the harbor and catch a glimpse of his ship.

  “The red dragon?” she breathed. “The Welsh dragon?”

  Without thinking, she took hold of his hand.

  The moment’s prophecy flashed at the back of her eyes.

  Vortigern had killed Caleb the wolf slayer. She could see the lowland warrior decapitating her laird with a single stroke from a steel broadsword. Vortigern’s men had pillaged Roxburghshire. All that remained were smoldering huts and a handful of bewildered womenfolk and children. In her mind’s eye she could see the charred buildings with smoke spiraling up from their remnants. And now Vortigern was here to inveigle his way past the wyvern and plunder the treasures from Caleb’s fiefdom.