Blood Witch (23 page)

She might know she
wanted him as much as he did her, but she also knew it wasn't
companioned by love. Only desire.

His voice was in
her hair, the heat of his breath tickling her earlobe. "The air is
cooler down the tunnel," he whispered.

"I can't do that
to you," she murmured and felt his arm wrap over her stomach.

"I can live
without you if I can have just one memory to fill the
loneliness."

His hand slipped
beneath her tunic and brushed against her thigh. His touch was so
light, she doubted he felt anything against the hardness of his
callused skin, but when his breathing grew shorter and he cupped
her from behind, pulling her against him, she knew he didn't need
to feel her skin to know her response.

She felt his lips
on her eyelids, small fluttering kisses as silent as the darkness,
then brushing against her cheek, seeking her mouth until she parted
for him and tasted his tongue.

She thought again,
briefly, of Yenic, poor Yenic, and wondered where he was, then felt
such shame she didn't dare breathe until the grief of it all would
just go away.

Gael's arms encircled her and then she was
airborne, lifted against his chest so effortlessly she could be
flying of her own accord as he stood. His mouth went to her neck,
then nipped against her ear.

"It's a kindness you're showing me, Alaysha. No
more. Let me be yours just this once and I'll be yours until my
death."

She wanted him; they both knew it, and she would
be a fool to pretend she wasn't responding, but it was selfish. Too
selfish. "It's not fair to you."

His response to her protest was to claim her
mouth, devouring every inch of it, teasing her tongue. She was
weightless in his arms; he dropped her legs so that she hung
against him, not touching the ground, feeling every measure of him
against her. She realized her arms had wound past his neck and her
fingers were in his hair, that he had somehow managed to pull her
legs around his waist and was holding them there captive. That his
heart was beating against her own in a terrified, primal
staccato.

She realized they
were moving, that he was striding with her through the cooler air
of the tunnel with such ease he could have carried no burden at
all, and when they had gone far enough out of Aedus's earshot, only
then did he speak again, pulling his lips from hers and burying
them in her neck.

"I would never
force you. You decide what's best for you, but know if I have you
no more than this one night it will be enough for me."

If she could have
found a way to speak through the tightness in her throat, she might
have protested. She might have reminded herself she was bound to
the youth who thought her dead, but then she remembered the grief
of why he thought it so and all she could do was search for Gael's
mouth with hers to stop herself from recalling the pain.

He gasped like a
man finding air after a long spell underwater. She thought she
heard him moan but she couldn't be sure. He seemed almost afraid
she'd change her mind as he let her to her feet; his hands roamed
her skin in every place it was free of linen or hide, and when they
weren't on her, they were peeling at his own leathers.

He reached for her
hand and used it to trace the pattern of scars on his chest. His
voice came to her in a hoarse whisper. "I'd take all of these and
more for you," he said. "Know that."

She could only nod
before his mouth was on hers again, his tongue invading her in ways
she was too ignorant to respond to. She let him explore where he
would without resistance. He guided her to his pile of leathers and
tunics where he methodically peeled away her clothes and added them
to the impromptu bed. If it was cool in the tunnel, she'd never
know it; his body was warm and his breath a hot draft that touched
the hairs on her skin and left them laying low in submission.

He at once began
to take his time with her, letting his breath touch her skin before
his lips, his tongue, sometimes his hands. She knew each time he
put a callous to her flesh that it felt sacred to him, somehow,
that his kisses and the way he tasted her skin might have been his
opportunity to imbibe finally from a forbidden wine. She felt like
a fine libation in his hands; she felt like the fleshly altar of a
goddess.

More than that, he
made her feel as though his heated roaming of her skin wasn't
enough, that she had to touch him in return. She found she wanted
to trace each scar to its origin and feel the veins throb beneath
his skin.

Once, he put his
ear to her heart and let it lie there for several heartbeats. He
put her hand on his. When he was satisfied of something only he
understood, he reached to kiss her, long and torturously slow, with
a thoroughness that made her arch against him in need. She had to
let go a pleading moan before he took her, finally, with a
masterful but tender plunge.

His gasp sounded
like a prayer.

Chapter 23

When she woke next, she was beside Aedus again, but
she didn't feel Gael next to her. She groped for him in the
darkness, afraid suddenly that something might have happened to
him. She bolted up only to see a light sputtering its way toward
her in the tunnel, a large shadow hulking along with it. When it
edged around the curve, she saw Gael's face in the light it cast.
She had never seen him as peaceful, and she felt a flush overtake
her face and neck.

"Where did you
go?" she asked him as he settled down next to her, his great
muscled thigh touching her own.

"To see how far
the tunnel goes."

"You should've
slept, reserved your strength."

"I didn't want to
sleep."

"You should get
some rest."

He reached across
her to shake Aedus, who still snored lightly. She felt a tension at
his touch, as though he were restraining himself, but he said
nothing about the night they'd spent. "There's a room, not bigger,
but more air. Lots of old oil lamps."

"Very far?"

Aedus moaned and
rolled away, leaving Alaysha feeling chilly on that side.

Gael pushed
himself to a stand and bent to pick Aedus up.

"Leave me be," the
girl grumbled. "I dreamed of cats growling all night and barely
slept a wink."

Gael chuckled.
"You'll have a better pillow against my chest. Calm, little one.
You know we have to keep moving."

"Some pillow," she
said. "Just as hard as the stone floor."

"But far warmer,"
he told her, and she mumbled her agreement.

Alaysha fell into
step with him, holding onto the torch so they could both see. "What
do you think will happen, Gael?" She asked.

"I think whoever
woke first will have put the other to torture."

Alaysha thought
about that. If Yuri came to first, she knew the one place he would
think of that could contain a witch without concern for his own
welfare. If Aislin awoke first, she'd undoubtedly bring Yuri to the
same place: a cavern filled with all sorts of torture devices.

"The bathhouse,"
she murmured, and Gael grunted.

"Neither will give
up the other," he said. "The Emir will die trying to get his son
back."

It hurt, that
short, truthful statement, but it also made her wonder how far
Aislin would go to save Yenic. She thought there might still be
hope for him.

"I don't
understand what's going on," she admitted.

"Your father has
lost Sarum."

"I don't care
about that."

"You should. Do
you think the witch lets him live because she's afraid of him?"

"Lets him
live?"

Gael turned to
look over his shoulder at her. His face looked haunted in the play
of torchlight. "For a warrior you are young in the ways of
war."

"Then explain
it."

"If she wanted the
city, she could just take it. If she wanted him dead, she would've
killed him. She wants something else. Something he has that she
doesn't."

"What could that
be?"

She saw his
shoulders move in a shrug. "Information."

"But what could he
know?"

By now they had
reached the room. It was small and cramped, filled with spent oil
lamps and dusty amphorae stacked against one wall and tumbling into
a crevice further into the dark. It was far more dry in this tiny
room that she could have believed possible. It astounded her that a
mountain she had lived in and so close to all these years could
have so many secrets.

She touched one of
the oil lamps, rubbing what looked like centuries of dust from the
surface. "So what could he know, Gael?"

"What have you
been doing these last few moons?"

"Besides being
sick? Killing." The words stuck in her throat. She'd always hated
using that word, truthful as it was.

"Killing who?
Enemies? Warriors?"

The mud village
had been a peaceful one. "No." She wanted to squirm. "Not the last
one."

"No. Not the
last."

"So what, what
does he know?" She had the feeling she was missing something,
something Gael wanted her to realize.

He smiled at her
so smugly, she thought for a moment he would have made an excellent
leader – if he knew the secret, he certainly hadn't made her think
before now that he was privy to it.

"The witch of the
Earth," she said, unable to stand the amazement in her own voice as
she realized the truth.

Once Yuri had
realized he'd managed to assassinate the elders, and that the other
witches still lived, he'd obviously suspected what Alaysha had not
until she'd gone back to the village: that the elders had made a
sacrifice of themselves to save the others. Aislin lived still. The
air witch, though lost, had obviously been saved. Why not the Earth
witch?

"But surely Aislin
would know, too, Gael. Surely if Yenic was spared as she was, that
Aislin would know where her peers were." She didn't want to say
that she thought she knew where this witch of earth might be.

"What if none of
them knew? What if they didn't trust each other?"

"But they must
have. They work in harmony. They worked together to protect Yenic
from me and from Yuri."

He gave her a
steely look. "What if it wasn't Yuri they were protecting
themselves from? What if their act was not one of defence, but of
subtle assault?"

"That's
ludicrous."

"His silver brow
lifted. "Truly? Do not think, powerful as you are, that the three
of them together couldn't stand against you?"

She thought about
that, and the thought that her ego had been so great that she had
never assumed anyone could stand against her, made her feel
embarrassed. Gael adjusted Aedus in his arms, and took a few steps
toward the wall where he eased himself down and against it. When he
was sitting, Aedus in his lap, her head against his chest, he
looked back at Alaysha.

"I think their
plan was far grander than we believed. They're out to trap someone.
Someone powerful. Or they have an agenda I can't decipher. But it
involves Aislin. I know it does."

She shook her
head, confused. "Why not the earth witch? Why couldn't it be
her?"

He sighed heavily.
"Because the earth witch is of my tribe."

It was such a bold
statement, Alaysha thought she heard her job click open and hang
there. She searched his face for signs of untruth and finding none,
sat on a stone to mull it over.

"How close," she
finally asked.

Again he shrugged.
"Close enough I suppose that Saxon provides some protection."

"Protection for
who?"

"Haven't you
guessed?"

She was tired of
having to guess. She was tired of knowing nothing. She leaned
forward, holding the torch high enough that she could see his face
clearly. "How much do you know? Tell me everything."

"Precious little.
Only those things Theron told me when I returned to the city."

"What does Theron
have to do with this?"

"Apparently he's
from my tribe." Gael sounded uncertain, confused, and angry that he
had only just come into information that changed what he believed
about himself for all this time. She could see him look down at
Aedus and only then did his face soften.

He sighed heavily.
"Theron has been leeching Saxon and adding the collected blood to
drafts he's been giving to the Emir."

"You've known
about this?"

"Yes. For a few
fortnights. I assumed he believed the same as Saxa, that Yuri was
ill and that he was doing his part in keeping him healthy."

"So you never
questioned it."

He sent her a
scornful look. "Have you ever questioned your father?"

She had to admit
that questioning the Emir was out of the question for any warrior
let alone his witch.

"But he could have
been poisoning him."

Gael chuckled.
"Only a fool would take his time murdering a man like Yuri. And
Theron is no fool."

"What else did
Theron tell you?"

"There wasn't much
time to tell me anything. Just that you had to be saved above all
else, even above Yuri or the witch – in spite of Yuri and the
witch."

"And?"

"And that Saxa and
I – our father was the youngest brother to the last witch."

"So if Yuri knows
where she is, why is he not sending for her?"

"I never said he
knew. I said only that Aislin believes he knows."

"And so far that
is keeping him alive."

"That and the fact
that Bodiccia has Yenic."

"Fortunate for
him," she said sourly.

"Fortunate indeed,
for a man who knows so little. He believes he has control but he
has been played by the forces around him. Much as we have
been."

"Then what's this
all about, Gael?"

"I don't know. I
truly don't. But Theron seemed to believe that war is coming, and
it will be a war the likes of which we've not yet seen. Subtle and
covert, but it is coming."