and again, smothering her gasps and sobs, adding his own muffled words of endearment as his hands, lips, and body trembled with further admissions.
“Lucien,” she cried softly. “Lucien—”
“Hush,” he commanded, and stripped the gauntlets from his hands before lifting them to cradle either side of her tear-streaked face. “You have worked enough of your cleverness on me for one night.”
She melted into his kiss, savouring the devouring heat of his lips. When she could bear no more without the threat of a faint, she pressed her cheek into the crook of his neck and surrendered herself to the comfort of his arms.
“Take me away from here, Lucien,” she begged. “Take me away … now! Tonight! I am so afraid!”
“There is nothing to fear,” he assured her, smoothing the blonde wisps of her hair.
“As long as it is your intention to fight tomorrow, I will know nothing but fear.”
This time his mouth could win no response and he sighed. “Servanne, I cannot simply walk away from the evil here at Bloodmoor Keep. Perhaps … if it were just my own name and honour demanding vengeance, I could happily and willingly forsake it in order to take you away from this place forever. But it was my father who died a traitor’s death, starved in his cell like a mongrel, his name spat upon by men who believed Etienne’s lies. I can no more walk away from my responsibilities to the memory of Robert Wardieu, than I could turn my back on my most solemn pledge to the queen to see the Princess Eleanor brought back to safety.”
Servanne bowed her head and pressed her face against the thickness of his quilted doublet. He was right, of course, and it was unfair of her to think only of her own wants and needs, but it was also suddenly, shamelessly impossible to think of anything else.
Lucien drew his hands away, reluctantly forcing a space between their bodies. He reached up to disengage her arms from around his neck, but she only clung to him more determinedly and raised huge, glistening blue eyes to his.
“You must go back,” he urged gently. “You have already been absent from the keep too long.”
“Lucien—”
He shook his head and placed a finger lightly over her lips. “And you must not call me Lucien. Not yet. Not while there are a thousand things to betray us.”
“Betray us? How?”
“A loose tongue, an unguarded look. The Dragon is keen and clever; his suspicions must not be roused so near the end.”
She tightened her arms still further and drew herself up so that their mouths were only a breath apart and elsewhere, their bodies were not even that.
“Promise me,” she pleaded. “Promise me this will not be the end for us.”
“Has your confidence in La Seyne’s abilities gone the way of your expectations for the Black Wolf’s success?”
“Promise me,” she insisted, ignoring his feeble attempt at humour. “Give me your most solemn pledge, then I know it will be so.”
Lucien’s gray eyes studied her intently, his body responded to hers despite the armoured strength of his will.
“My pledge, madam,” he said softly, “is that when this matter is settled, we will bathe together, and often, in the grotto by the Silent Pool. Moreover, we will discuss this stubborn streak of yours. We will discuss it until you are too exhausted to plague me with it ever again.”
Servanne’s eyes shone as they drifted down to his lips. “Your word is your honour, monseigneur, and I do not question it … but … is there no other means of sealing a most solemn vow?”
Lucien was still as a statue; Servanne’s cheeks flamed as hot as fire.
“You will be missed—”
“I have spent these past few nights alone, feeling missed by no one,” she countered poignantly. “Aching for something … I knew not what until tonight.”
“Servanne—”
“For you, my lord. I ache for you. I ache with the loneliness and emptiness I feel when you are not near me. I know I dishonour myself in asking, but … but I would feel you inside me once more,” she whispered haltingly. “I would feel you banish the emptiness, and fill it with some small part of your courage and strength that I might carry it with me through whatever may come on the morrow.”
Neither Lucien the man, the outlaw Wolf, nor the vaunted Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer knew what to say or do to counter the powerful intoxicant of her eyes. His hands were less than steady