Chapter Eight

Danielle turned, seeing Lukas’ body fall to the floor, his eyes rolled back in his head until only the whites showed. She screamed, falling to her knees beside the body she had slain, desperately hoping that she hadn’t been wrong, that killing Jourick’s body was the way to get her Lukas back. Her face dropped into her hands as she sobbed over the body, fearing she’d just killed them both.

She could only hope that what she’d thought of as she’d watched the two men fight was true. Jourick had seemed unwilling to harm his old body, as if he needed it somehow. And if he needed it, then killing the body seemed to be the way to return them to what was right. But if she was wrong, she’d just killed the man she loved and left herself in the hands of a monster.

The wolf on the bed howled, her voice undulating with eerie tones which echoed throughout the stone chamber. She jumped from the bed, sniffing cautiously at the body that had held the shadow wolf, finding its essence gone from the flesh and blood form. She walked to the other man, nosing around his face and chest, growls and whines coming from her mouth. Her tongue came out, long, pink and wet, and slurped across the downed man’s face.

“Stop, girl,” Lukas said weakly, pushing the big white wolf away from him. He opened his eyes, fearing what he would see after the pain that had taken him, remembering that it was Danielle who had caused it.

A shuffling noise had him trying to focus his eyes, and he found her sitting over him, her arms reaching for him before quickly dropping to her side, fear shining in her dark blue eyes. She stared at him, searching his green gaze for signs of her mate.

“Lukas?” she asked hesitatingly, fear in her voice that it would still be Jourick.

“Yes, my love.” Lukas pulled himself up, feeling the chill of the floor against his naked body. He stared down at himself, seeing the blood on his arm from the cut he’d inflicted upon his own body while his father had inhabited it. He felt strong, no longer sick or in pain, except for that annoyance of a cut.

“It is me,” he said, wonder in his voice.

Danielle started to sob, her hands covering her face as she cried in joy and relief. She felt Lukas’ hands on her body, pulling her close, holding her with the gentle care that she’d always known with him. With a loud shout, a mixture of both joy and victory, she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close as her lips found his.

Jasper reached for the coverlet, tears of his own falling down his face. He wrapped it gently around his lord and lady who embraced on the floor, in their joy unconcerned about their nudity. He turned and went to the wardrobe, reaching inside for another coverlet which he shook out and used to cover Jourick’s body, pulling the sword out of his dead lord with all the tenderness he could as he tried to remember him before the stone had stolen his true, gentle side and changed him from a caring lord to a cruel monster.

“He is dead, then, Jasper?” Lukas asked, seeing the tears on the old man’s face.

“Yes, lord, he is dead. I will gather some men and have them come and take him out of here and clean up the—” He had to stop and clear his throat.

Lukas stood, pulling Danielle up with him. “Have them treat him with care and the respect due a man of his rank, Jasper. I will speak with the people tomorrow. But for now, my wife and I will move to the room she’s been using for the remainder of this night. She needs rest. Have a bath brought up to us please.”

* * * *

Hot water scented with a few drops of spicy oil melted the tension in Lukas’ arms and back, and the feel of his wife, her back to his front, leaning against him in the deep water, took care of the rest. She had nagged him into letting her care for the cut on his arm then washed it and wrapped it with clean bandages before hurrying him into this hot bath. When she had turned, he’d reached out, wrapping an arm around her slender waist and pulling her into the water with him.

She’d gone in with a splash and a surprised shriek that quickly turned to laughter, the shift she’d pulled on quickly turning transparent. Water poured out around the rim of the long, wide tub as he helped her take off the shift. After the horror of the past few hours, he relished the way she felt, sleekly wet and naked in his arms. Now, he held her gently, his hands moving across her silky soft skin, filling his palms with the fullness of her breasts, sliding over her stomach and back up her smooth flesh to the taut tips.

“How did you know?” he asked, nuzzling her neck and planting a soft kiss to her throat as he watched his hands. They seemed so dark against her pale skin.

“I didn’t. I guessed because of the way he wouldn’t strike at you. He didn’t want to injure his old body, Lukas. I didn’t know if killing it would kill you also, but I couldn’t sit there and do nothing. I couldn’t let him get away with what he was doing to us.” She refused to add what she’d have done if she’d been wrong, how only her pregnancy would make life worthwhile without him in it.

If she’d been left in Jourick’s hands, knowing that he wanted Lukas’s child dead, willing to cause her the danger of a miscarriage to rid himself of the burden, how could she have lived with that?

She sighed, letting the hot water and the feeling of her mate, his arms around her, and his hands on her body soothe away the fears of the past few hours. Her hands slid down the hair-roughened skin of his thighs that were drawn up on either side of her waist. She felt him, hard with desire, against her back but neither of them was anxious for the healing caresses to end.

He smiled against her neck, breathing in her scent now that he’d washed the smell of his father from her flesh. “Well, I, for one, am pleased that it worked.”

She moved against him as he pulled upon her nipples, sending shooting sparks of pleasure through her to spasm in her womb. Something hard and round pressed into her back between her shoulder blades, and she pulled away from him to see what it was.

“Why do you still wear that, Lukas? It is evil and should be destroyed.” She stared with hatred at the blue and red stone still hanging on its chain around Lukas’s neck. “It caused this. It changed your father until he went mad. It almost killed you. How could you bear to wear it?”

His hand came up and grasped the stone, feeling a sting of power that spoke to his soul in a way that seemed almost familiar. In his mind, he heard a voice whispering, promising glory and tribute, power beyond any that he’d ever imagined. “Rid yourself of the wench, and you’ll have hundreds more—beautiful desirable women ready to throw themselves at your feet. You shall have power and wealth, command armies across this world, rule above millions. All you must do is let yourself feel our power. Take it into yourself.”

The pull of the stone was strong, slyly urging him to merge with it, to give himself over to its power. He felt it slip past the strength of his guard. His eyes grew blind as he watched the visions it gave him, predictions of him ruling, strong and able, the people happy and joyous beneath him.

“Get rid of the wench. She is unnecessary. You can wed princesses, bed whomever you want,” it spoke in its hissed whisper in his head. “Our strength can be yours. Our magics are the most powerful in the land. See what we can give you. See what you can become.”

“The people would be happy,” Lukas murmured, so softly Danielle wasn’t sure she had actually heard him.

“Lukas!”

Her shriek shook him from the trance he had fallen into. He looked into her eyes, seeing the love she felt for him shining through even above the panic that held her in its grip. Now that she had turned to face him, his hand rested on her stomach just above the softness that covered and protected his son.

Lukas still heard the insidious whispering of the amulet as it tried to seduce him with its power. With a curse, he jerked the stone hard, tearing it from around his neck as the silver chain parted. Its whispers grew as it realized what he was about to do, and he hurriedly threw it into the fire that suddenly roared with purple flames, a strange beating rhythm of red in their centre, then settled back to crackle and pop. Lukas saw the chain, the broken links of it, and the silver setting that had held the stone for more years than he could count resting over a log in the midst of the flames, but the stone itself was gone. And with its destruction, the voice in his head disappeared, as well.

He sensed a lightening of spirit, as if a sudden burst of sunlight had illuminated a gloomy day, and he smiled at his beautiful wife, his eyes sparkling. “I’ll find the book and burn it also, my love, then we shall no longer be held in the thrall of magics such as those. There is only one kind of magic I wish to feel now.”

Danielle smiled back, her heart almost bursting with happiness. She had her husband, the man she loved, she had her child growing inside her womb, and they were both safe and sound. “And what would that be, my lord?” she quipped, a sultry smile upon her beautiful face.

Lukas laughed at her play, then drew her closer, his lips sinking softly upon her own, clinging even as hers opened until he could tease between the soft morsels with his tongue.

She clasped him with, her long shapely legs on either side of his. His hands came up, massaging her breasts with infinite care, caressing her with the gentleness she adored. She felt his hardness brushing against her inner thigh, and she rose up, reaching down to guide him into herself, with a low moan against his lips.

Water splashed over the edge of the tub, puddling on the marble floors as she rode his shaft, her slim thighs flexing as she pleasured herself and him with long, slow strokes of her body. She lived for each sigh of his pleasure, each groan of joy she wrung from his beloved mouth. Her hands caressed him, finding those places that drove him to higher states of passion, searching for more as she sought to give him her all and erase those terrible memories of Jourick.

Lukas’ hands slid up her wet body, squeezing the flesh of her hips, moving her a little faster as her breath caught, gasping pants making her breasts jiggle in front of his face. He captured one firm tip in his mouth, suckling and nibbling, feeling her tight nether lips pulse around his hard shaft.

“Oh, gods, Lukas,” Danielle cried out her pleasure, her hands reaching for him, desperate to grasp what little stability she could as her world tilted with sensation. The water lapped around her hips, another kind of caress that stroked her skin with warm fingers of ecstasy. The air was cool around her body, but a fine layer of perspiration glowed on her skin in the light of the fire, making her glisten above him.

Lukas couldn’t take his eyes off her, her wet hair sticking to her body, her skin so smooth and silky. She was like hot fire around him, melted satin that cried tears of moisture that was even wetter than the water he lay in. He quickened her movements, pulling her down upon him hard as he drove his hips up.

Within moments, she cried out her fulfillment, muffled against his lips as he took her mouth in a kiss of desperate passion. She sighed deeply, leaning against him, her body heavy over his as she relaxed in the afterglow of his lovemaking.

But he wasn’t done yet. Lukas lifted her easily, holding her tightly, her legs wrapped around his waist, his cock still buried deeply inside her. Stepping from the tub, he took her to the thick fur rug spread before the fire, laying her with gentle care upon it. He propped himself above her, and her hands came around his sides, stroking his stomach as he rocked against her and inside her with devastating slowness and deceptive calm.

Her body seemed to glow in the firelight, arching as she sought the contact of his body against her own. She stared up into his eyes even as she felt the overwhelming heat of pleasure flow over her with shattering intensity. Danielle needed to feel his love, see it in his eyes. She needed the intimacy of his lovemaking to heal the rift caused by his father. Their love and devotion, which had conquered an evil magician, would also conquer the immorality of the deeds he had performed.

Lukas stared down at his love, watching her deep blue eyes darken then seem to go blind as she convulsed around him once more. The spasms around his cock drew him even deeper inside of her, and with a heated growl, he let himself follow her into that realm of pleasure, sinking onto her as the strength seemed to leave his body.

And afterwards, when their bodies were warmed by the fire, her thighs sticky from their lovemaking, he wrapped her tightly in his arms and told her of his love and his dreams for their future.

She felt safe and loved. Her head upon his chest, she heard the strong beat of his heart and listened to the sweet sound of his deep voice as he spoke. Happiness seemed to grow inside of her like a living being, and her spirits soared. But there was one thing she still needed to ask.

“But what of the wolf?” Danielle asked quietly. “Is he still within you?”

Lukas seemed to look deep, his mind turning inward, searching for the wildness that was his second nature. Instead of the wolf, he found a huge core of contentment he hadn’t ever expected to feel.

“I’m not sure, my love,” he said. “But even if he is, he is content now with his true mate in his arms.”