Children of Avalon Page 21

  “I will let go of nothing!”

  “I know that. Which is why I have to do everything in my power to pry you away. I am sorry, Nimuë, truly I am. But if I have to step in here, I will. In the interest of the future.”

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Dylan looked back at Sir Dagonet. Muttering under his breath, he turned us around to rejoin the old knight and Bridget riding with him. Sir Dagonet was either unwilling or unable to travel any faster while Dylan was eager to move—perhaps too eager.

  “I don’t understand why he’s so very slow,” Dylan complained, as we rode back.

  “He’s old, Dylan...”

  “Yes, I know,” he interrupted me with a sigh.

  Dylan had been doing this a lot over the past two days—riding forward and then coming back. He seemed tense and anxious. The others didn’t notice. I did, but I was beginning to think that I had become particularly sensitive to him and his moods.

  I was, therefore, not at all surprised when I awoke in the middle of the night to find Dylan sitting up, staring into the fire. Pulling my blanket around my shoulders, I wordlessly settled myself next to him.

  He looked over, a little wisp of a smile playing on his lips. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “No. I’m worried about you.”

  “Worried about me? No one worries about me,” he said in such a matter of fact way I wished I could see his expression. He had turned back to the fire, though. All I could see was his profile, and it revealed nothing of what he might be thinking.

  “Well, maybe it’s about time someone did,” I offered.

  Dylan shook his head. “There’s no need.” He paused and turned toward me again.

  His eyes softened, like liquid pools in the flickering firelight. He reached out and took my hand. “It’s very sweet of you think about me.”

  “Of course I think about you. I care about you.”

  “Do you?” He sounded surprised, but the rough pad of his thumb moving in circles around my palm was sending tingles through me, making it hard to concentrate on what we were saying.

  “Yes, I do.” The words came out more softly than I had intended. Even my voice was being affected by his caress.

  The little sounds of Bridget and Sir Dagonet sleeping nearby wove into the silence of the crackling fire.

  Dylan moved his hand from mine to cup my face. I could only watch as his eyes came closer. The green of them was intense. Beautiful. His eyelids fluttered closed just as his lips met mine.

  A gust of warmth blew through me, as hot as the sun on a midsummer’s day. His lips, though, were a soft, soothing counterpoint to the fury of heat and light. A tingling sensation spread from my mouth downward, waking up my whole body. At first I just thought it was the fact that I’d never been properly kissed, but then I realized that this wasn’t any ordinary kiss. This was magic.

  Gently, Dylan nibbled at my lips until I parted them for him. A soft moaning sound vibrated through in my throat as his tongue danced around mine. He tasted so good. Slightly salty, but sweet as well.

  A happiness such as I had never felt before washed over me. I was tumbling down a stream of joy, laughing, flowing with the water, flying through the air. I was a fish. I was a bird. I felt everything Dylan was feeling. Everything I felt, he experienced. Our emotions, our very senses, intermingled, even as our arms and bodies intertwined.

  His hand ran down my back and another slid up my side. My skin came alive with every touch. One hand came around to cup my breast, and I gasped as heat shot down to a spot between my legs. Another moan vibrated through me, but this one might have come from Dylan.

  He broke off his kiss just long enough to say, “You are so beautiful, Scai. I don’t know how I can keep my hands off of you.”

  I giggled because he wasn’t keeping his hands off of me. In fact, they were everywhere. I gasped as his thumb caressed my taught nipple. “You aren’t,” I pointed out to him.

  “No, but it’s been so hard having you so close and not touching you,” he answered, his voice little more than breath.

  The hand on my back slipped away only to reappear a moment later sliding up my leg—under my dress!

  His fingers reached higher even as his tongue swirled around mine, sending shivers of delight through me. But when his fingers came to the apex of my legs, I couldn’t suppress the shiver and moan that erupted from me.

  Dylan’s lips left mine for a moment. “Shhhh.” I could feel his smile against my lips.

  “Oh, Dylan, I...” But I didn’t know what I wanted. He was doing the most amazing things to me. I wanted to press myself against him. I wanted to touch him as he was touching me. I wanted to hold on to him, and never let go.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. As a tremor of pleasure shot through his body, I could feel it vibrating both inside and outside of my own.

  I pried my fingers from his shoulder where I’d been holding on to him and let them trail down his chest and then back up again. Up and down my fingers skimmed, each time coming closer to his waistband where I knew, from his own feelings and thoughts, that his manhood was standing at attention, reaching for me.

  I knew little of men but had some vague ideas, and I was eager to learn more.

  His hand disappeared from my chest for a moment and then found my own. He guided it down to his manhood. Curling my fingers around it, he showed me how to caress him. He was hot and the sweet smell of his arousal had me moaning again into his mouth. I loved touching him and feeling how good it felt for him as well.

  He guided my hand faster and faster, even while keeping his other fingers gently pressed against my most intimate place, only pausing once to flick and rub at me until I could barely keep still. The sensations were overwhelming, drawing me higher and higher, until I was sure I would explode.

  His mouth pressed harder against mine. I peaked with squeak, which would have been a scream if not for him. With his guidance I brought him to his peak. Shuddering against me, he let out only the quietest moan of satisfaction.

  For a moment, he leaned his sweaty brow against my cheek as he got his breathing under control once again. “Oh, Scai.”

  I just kissed his forehead in response and straightened my skirts.

  As we lay there, the pull of sleep began to overtake me.

  “I need to go,” Dylan whispered into my hair.

  I roused myself enough to ask, “Go? Go where?”

  “I need to find the chalice.”

  That woke me.

  “What? But that’s where we’re going.”

  “No. I need to do this on my own. It’s my birthright. I am the sole heir of Merlin. I need to find the chalice, and I need to use it to get rid of Lady Nimuë once and for all.”

  He lifted himself up on his elbow and looked me in the eye. “I feel this, Scai. I feel it deep in my soul. I never should have dragged you, Bridget, and Sir Dagonet into this. This is my quest, not yours.”

  I shook my head, heat of another kind entirely beginning to pool inside of me. I tried my best to keep my anger to myself. “It may have been your quest, but it’s not any more. We’re all in this together, Dylan.”

  He turned, staring at nothing. I wished he would look at me. I needed to see his what was going on in his eyes. He couldn’t honestly think to leave us behind—it wasn’t right. What had happened to the happiness at being together? It seemed to have cooled as quickly as the heat we’d generated together.

  “You don’t understand,” he said, finally. “This is something I have been told about since I was a boy. I have worked toward this my whole life. I have trained for it. This is my quest, my legacy. I am Merlin’s heir, not you, not Bridget.”

  The heat inside of me grew into small whirlwind in the pit of my stomach. “Well I didn’t grow up with this. I didn’t even know I was Vallen until Sir Dagonet told me so only a few weeks ago, but that doesn’t make me any less Vallen than you.”

  “No, of course...” Dylan began, but I wasn’t done.


  “And you may have always known your destiny, but that doesn’t mean that I am any less entitled to mine. And mine lies with that chalice just as much as yours does.”

  “No, Scai, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m Merlin’s heir. It is his chalice that he left for his descendants. I am his only descendant. It’s mine.”

  “He left it for the three of us. He practically names us in the prophecy.”

  Dylan just shook his head. “You don’t understand. Please, don’t make me force you...”

  “Force me?” I scooted away from him and sat up. “You mean like the way you nearly drowned me and Sir Dagonet? Like the way you tried to force us to turn around by alternately taking away our water and then making it pour for days on end so that Sir Dagonet became deathly ill? Is that what you want to do, Dylan? Is that what you are thinking? Because I’m going to tell you right now, no matter what you do, Bridget and I are not going to give this up. This is our legacy, our destiny—and you cannot stop us.”

  I stood up and moved away, unable to be near him. I had thought he’d changed his mind. That he’d repented for his earlier behavior. That he understood now that we were all in this together.

  I had thought I liked him and he liked me—after what we had just done.

  Clearly, I was wrong.

  I choked back an angry sob. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. We were all supposed to work together, and be together. I knew this for certain.

  I heard Dylan moving behind me, gathering up his things. After a minute there was a silence. I could feel his presence behind me.

  “I’ll leave you my horse,” he said quietly. “I’ll go into Stafford and buy myself another one there.”

  I refused to say anything. I couldn’t, without giving away the fact that I was on the verge of crying.

  “If it turns out that you’re right and I need you and Bridget in order to find the chalice, I’ll come back and find you.”

  He would come back and find us? If he needed us? I couldn’t believe him! My anger rose up again, shoving past the deep hurt inside.

  I heard him start to move away.

  “Don’t bother,” I said, turning around and locking onto his eyes with my own.

  He paused for a moment to look at me. I could see the hurt in his eyes, even in the dim dark of the night, but he said nothing more.

  He just turned around and left.

  <><><>

  “Where’s Dylan? Have you seen him this morning, Scai?” Bridget asked as she was tying our bags onto the horses and getting ready to move on.

  I piled another handful of dirt onto our campfire. “He left,” I said simply, while trying to ignore the ache that still lingered in my stomach from last night after my anger had blown away.

  “Left? What’s that you say?” Sir Dagonet joined us from the woods, now fully dressed and ready to go.

  I looked from Sir Dagonet to Bridget again. “He left. Last night. He said that he needed to seek out the chalice on his own.”

  “He’s going to search for the chalice alone? Without us?” Bridget said, letting a bag drop to the ground and advancing toward me.

  I stood up. “Yes. He said he’d come back if he needed us.” I could hear the monotone in my voice, the hurt and the remnants of my anger. I didn’t have the energy to even try to hide it.

  “Oh, he did, did he?” Bridget exclaimed, putting one hand on her hip. “So he thinks he can just go off on his own to find the chalice, and then if he needs us we will just accept him back, just like that. I’ll tell you what...”

  “Now, Bridget...” Sir Dagonet began.

  “No! No, that’s just not right. We’re supposed to be finding this chalice together—that’s what the prophecy said, didn’t it? So what does he think he’s doing?” She turned to Sir Dagonet. “If he finds it, can he wield it on his own?”

  Sir Dagonet’s eyes widened. “I, er, don’t really know now, do I? But I shouldn’t think...well, the prophecy does say that it needs the three of you...”

  “The three of us to find it, but one alone will wield it,” she corrected him.

  “One with the power of three.” He turned around and corrected her.

  “Yes. One with the power of three. So unless he has...” She paused and turned toward a few sticks lying on the ground next to me.

  I jumped when they burst into flames. “Bridget! You almost caught my dress!”

  “Sorry. I was just checking.” She held her open palm toward the flames and closed her hand as if capturing something inside of it. The flames disappeared, leaving the smoking remnants of the fire that had been there a moment ago.

  “Checking what?” Sir Dagonet asked.

  “My powers. Dylan didn’t steal them while I was sleeping.”

  “What? Of course not,” Sir Dagonet scoffed.

  “Bridget! How could you even suggest he would do such a thing? He’s stupid, but he’s not cruel,” I scolded her.

  “Well, he needs the power of three to wield the chalice,” Bridget explained.

  “He is not going to wield the chalice. Clearly, he can’t. But he does feel it is his right, as Merlin’s only descendent, to find the chalice first.” Somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to even look at Bridget as I gave Dylan’s reasoning. I could feel Bridget’s burning gaze on me, however, and looked up.

  She crossed her arms in front of her but said nothing.

  “Bridget, just let it go,” I said, finally letting my exasperation get the better of me. “He’ll rejoin us soon enough.”

  “Yes, because he won’t be able to do anything without us,” my sister retorted, stooping down to pick up the bag she had dropped.

  “Right. So what’s wrong with him going out on his own for a bit, wot, wot?” Sir Dagonet said with forced enthusiasm. “A young man’s got to stretch himself a little, perfectly natural, don’t you know? Can’t always be tied down to the ladies.”

  It wasn’t a pretty look that Bridget gave Sir Dagonet, but she didn’t say anything more.

  <><><>

  “It’s my fault,” I said.

  We’d been riding all morning in silence, Sir Dagonet alone on his horse, Bridget and me on Dylan’s. Bridget had been brooding and angry the whole time. I could practically feel the constant burning of her thoughts, sometimes burning higher, sometimes sputtering. My own mind had been whirling around as well, and now I was certain that what I’d been thinking was right. It was my conscience which forced me to speak out.

  “What?” Bridget asked.

  “It’s my fault Dylan left,” I said again, but quietly so that Sir Dagonet would not hear.

  “Why do you say that? He left because he’s a jerk, thinking that only he is entitled to the chalice.” Bridget’s words were so full of venom I was surprised I didn’t see any flames spring to life anywhere.

  “That’s what he said, what he told me. But I’ve been thinking that maybe it was something else.” I paused. “Me.”

  Bridget tilted her head sideways to get a better look at me from behind. “What did you do?” Her words were not accusing. They weren’t even harsh as perhaps they should have been. They were simply open and questioning.

  I took a deep breath. “Dylan and I were, um, intimate last night.” That was a lot harder to admit than I’d anticipated.

  I could feel Bridget pull away from me. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No.”

  “You... and Dylan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Bridget sounded so incredulous I had to laugh.

  “Why? Why not? He’s handsome, and sweet, and strong.”

  Bridget was silent for a moment. “I suppose.” She sounded very unsure. She gave a little shiver and violent shake of her head. “No. No. Sorry, I just can’t see him that way. He’s annoying and full of himself.”

  “No, he’s not. He does think he’s right more often than not...”

  “All the time,” Bridget interrupted.

  “All right, frequently,” I ad
mitted. “But he is right a lot of time. He’s got more experience than...”

  “Not more than me,” Bridget protested before I could even finish my sentence.

  “Well, more than me. And he knows much more about this chalice than either of us do.”

  Bridget just harumphed.

  “But that’s not the point,” I said, bringing the conversation back to where I had started. “The point is that... that I’m thinking he might be feeling uncomfortable around me now. I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t like what we did, or he’s worried that I’ll feel... I don’t know, too attached to him or something.” There was silence behind me. “I don’t know. I just feel that this is my fault. I shouldn’t have done... anything with him.”

  “Did you like it?” Bridget asked quietly.

  “What? Yes.”

  “Are you feeling more attached to him?”

  I thought about it for a moment. I really didn’t know how I felt about him, aside from the fact that I really liked him. But I’d liked him before we’d become intimate. I didn’t think I liked him any more afterward, and I certainly wasn’t feeling particularly favorable toward him just now.

  “No. It was a moment, Bridget. That was all.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Absolutely sure. I liked him before it happened. I liked him just as much afterward. And right now I’m so angry at him for abandoning us that I could... could... I don’t know do something to hurt him because he hurt me. He hurt us. He had no right to just leave like that.”

  Bridget laughed, making me try to turn around to face her, but being on a horse made that a little difficult.

  “I’m sorry. You’re just really funny when you’re angry.” She became serious again. “But you are right. He had no cause to leave us, and if we run into him again I’m going to do more than just something. I’m going to set fire to his toes.”

  Chapter Thirty Six

  I burst out laughing. “He didn’t do that!”

  Bridget’s shoulders were shaking with her own laughter. “He did. You wouldn’t believe the stupid things boys will do.”