“I tell you what,” hewhispered fiercely in her ear as the sounds of men moving aboutoutside infiltrated their tent.“I’ll stay close by the king todayand you stay close by me.Deal?”
“Deal.”
Lara’s quick agreement to Talon’s dealworried him almost as much as her dream did, and he made sure theyboth kept to it by insisting she ride between the king and himselfas the army prepared to march east for the mountainpass.
They made Roncesvalles Pass by highnoon, and the bulk of the army were on their way down the easternslope of the mountain when the blare of a horn blasted through theoppressing heat, sending a chill down Talon’s spine.A second blastrent the air, then a third, then silence.
“That’s Roland’s horn,”Charles said.“He rides rear guard behind the baggage train.Go,”he told Talon as his personal guard closed ranks around him.“Go.”
Talon swung the Black’s head west, andhis men lined their warhorses up behind him and double checkedtheir weapons.Lara slid the roan in alongside Tree’s baygelding.
“Stay with the king,”Talon told her.
“But the cook’s wagon isback there.Plutarch is there.”
“What of your dream?”Ashiver ran down his spine.
“If it comes to pass,there will be many in need of a healer.”
***
Lara
They weren’t the first to reach thepass.As they sat their horses and stared out at the field litteredwith the bodies of men and horses felled by Basque arrows, it wasimpossible to distinguish the cries and moans of the dying fromthose who found them.The horrible tableau of Lara’s nightmarespread out before her, and she fixed her gaze on the overturnedcook’s wagon.She sent the roan flying down the hill, dodging thebodies of soldiers and horses and camp followers bristling with thearrows that had killed them.They’d been ambushed, and the rest ofthe army had been too far ahead and too late to help them.Talonhad been right.The Basques had claimed their revenge.
She pulled the roan up at the cook’swagon and leapt out of the saddle, kneeling down beside Plutarch,who clung to his rapidly fading life with an arrow sticking intohis chest and another in his belly.His face was ashen, his lipsalready turning blue as she cradled his head in her lap.
“Hamm, me boy.”He foughtfor breath.“Salt the stew, will you?”
“I will, sir.”Tearsstreamed down Lara’s cheeks.“Just a pinch, just like you taughtme.”
“Ahh,” he gurgled.“You’rea good lad.”His body gripped and his face contorted, and he wentinto a coughing fit and heaved up bloody spittle.All Lara could dowas hold him and watch his life drain away.He reached a shakinghand to her wet cheek.“Why do you cry, my lady Isabeau?”hewhispered, then his hand dropped, and he was gone.
Lara swaddled Plutarch’s body with hislongsword at his right hand and his ladle at his left, then slidhis short sword into her waist belt.She kissed his cold, weatheredcheek, pulled his death shroud over his head, and walked away asothers picked him up and carried him to the mound of dead.Numb andmute, she made her way to the line of wounded, where she was unableto do anything more than comfort them as they rattled their lastbreaths.
When the last of the wounded hadpassed and the king’s soldiers were preparing the funeral pyres,the captain appeared at Lara’s side.Neither of them speaking, hetook her by the hand and led her to their horses, where he liftedher up onto the Black’s saddle and swung up behind her, gatheredthe roan’s reins, and turned the horse’s heads east.Laraconsidered protesting his coddling, but his chest was so warm andcomforting against her back and his arms so strong and capablearound her that she had neither the will nor the desire to doanything but lean back into him, her head tucked safely under hischin.
They made camp at dusk, but instead ofhelping her dismount, he told her to stay astride the Black, gaveorders for his tent to be pitched, and pulled a blanket out of thesorrel’s pack.After slinging the bundled blanket up to Lara, heswung back up onto the Black, and they rode downriver for half aleague, stopping when they came upon a small pool formed by rocksand protected by head-high bushes along the shore.
Once she’d slid down off the Black,Lara dropped the blanket on the grassy shore and walked straightinto the pool until she stood hip deep in the water, oblivious tothe cold.She looked down at her hands, stained with the blood ofthe dead and the dying, and plunged them into the water, scrubbingat them, one against the other.Another larger, calloused pair ofhands covered hers and stilled them, then lifted them out of thewater and placed a bar of soap into her palms.
Lara turned into the big, solid chestshe knew would be there.What she didn’t know was that it’d bebare, or so warm, or that the smell of a man’s sweat could be soenticing.Nuzzling a light furring of black chest hair, shebreathed in the scent of leather and sandalwood, of Talon.Shepressed her lips to his skin and tasted the salty sweetness.Hishands stroked her hair, pulling her head back until her gaze methis, shining silver in the moonlight, then his mouth was on hers,slaking and demanding.
She thrilled to his kiss, the feel ofhis muscled back beneath her fingers, his skin warm, responsive,alive.He plundered her mouth with his lips, his tongue, and Larasurrendered to him, to his touch drifting up and down her back,pressing her so close her heart beat against his ribs.She brokeaway for air, for sanity.The heat of his gaze mesmerized her,drawing her back to him like a healer to nature’s cures.Shesighed, letting out the breath she’d been holding her entire life,and he kissed her again, his lips stealing her breath and givinghis heat until the ache between her legs began to grow and throb.Talon growled low in his throat, and it rumbled down to her core.He scooped her up into his arms, and she buried her nose into hisnape, breathing him in as he carried her to the blanket on theshore.
Lara eased down until they stoodbreath to breath, chest to chest.Her heart hammered against his,and her breathing grew ragged as he trailed kisses from her jaw toher throat, one big, strong hand running up and down the length ofher back as his other cupped her backside and pressed her belly tothe growing bulge in his breeches.
Panting, Lara almost fell into him ashe stepped back, leaving a chasm between them that Lara’s bodyinstinctively leaned in to close.He cocked a slow smile, thengrabbed her tunic by the hems and lifted the tunic off her beforetossing it onto the blanket.Then he pulled her in to his chest,and Lara half sighed, half moaned at the warm, living, tactile feelof his bare skin on hers.He rumbled low and deep and kissed hermouth, her jaw, her throat, her shoulder, a visceral groan escapingLara’s throat as he cupped her breast in his hand.He took hernipple in his mouth, and Lara gasped and moaned as he suckled firstone, then the other, his tongue drawing tantalizing circles aroundher nipples.
She arched her back to give him more,to give him all, and mewled like an orphaned kitten when he pulledhis mouth from her breast, then purred as he deftly untied thestays to her breeches and breechcloth.They dropped to the ground,leaving her naked and exposed to the night air, to him.Sheshivered, though the heat of his gaze warmed her from the insideout, then he shucked his own breeches and breechcloth and Laraforgot to breathe.
As a healer, she’d seen naked menbefore—she’d even seen him stripped down to his breechcloth manytimes, an impressive sight to be sure—but she’d never seen himnaked and fully aroused.Her breath left her in a rush, and shesucked in another at the raw masculine beauty of a man carved frombone, muscle, and sinew.
His grin was all male as he took herhand and pulled her down onto the blanket beside him.They were ontheir knees, chest to chest, his erect cock pressed against herbelly, his breath as ragged as hers as his hands roamed over everyinch of her, his tongue tasting and teasing her until she slid hertongue into his mouth, shy, tentative.His groan resounded from hermouth to her toes.Emboldened, Lara kissed him, explored his mouthwith her tongue as she ran her hands over the breadth of hisshoulders and down the muscled length of his back to his buttocks,marveling at their taut roundness.He took her hand and laid itover his cock, which stood proud and hard and pulsing with a heatLara felt throbbing deep inside her.All she knew, all she wanted,was that living heat.
He moved his touch over the thickthatch of curls between her legs and cupped her mound.Lara moanedand pressed harder into his hand, then gasped as he pushed a fingerthrough her curls, gently rubbing and slowly stroking her fleshuntil she was moving in his hand.
“Are you ready forme?”