The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

and saw a clear path. Zelen was standing by one of the long banquet tables at the edges of the room.

“Dance with me again?” she asked, slipping up to his side.

“I’d like nothing better.”

Branwyn believed him, and not only out of vanity. Proof was in the glow in his eyes as he turned toward her and the closeness with which he held her when they danced, not very much more than was customary but enough that she noticed. She doubted she was the only one.

“I’m not sure assassins are my worry tonight,” she said. “At least five women and two men may simply try to throw me out of a window after this.”

Zelen laughed, clear and melodious. “You’ll make me blush.”

“I can try.”

The hand at her waist tightened.

“I know you have your mission, and I wouldn’t want to interfere,” Zelen murmured, “and if the setting’s wrong for you I’ll understand, but after this, there are places we could go. It’s almost a tradition.”

Branwyn drew in a long breath, and even that motion felt sensual, making her aware of the slide of silk against her skin. “I think it’s practically mandatory,” she said, “that I experience the local customs.”

Chapter 16

“I could think,” said Branwyn, in a tone of speculative amusement that ran straight from Zelen’s ears to his swelling cock, “that you’ve done this before.”

Lanterns behind polished glass cast pools of colored light around the gardens, illuminating bare trees, giving color to statuary, and picking out the occasional couple—or group—who weren’t guarded enough in their desire. Zelen had led Branwyn past the blue-tinged rosebushes, which were discreet but hazardous to tender regions, and a spot in back of a hedge where interruptions were frequent. The next trysting place they encountered was in back of a statue portraying the wizard Gerant, one of the heroes from Thyran’s War. The ground there, Zelen recalled, tended to be damp.

“Knowledge is the most valuable treasure a man can possess, my nurse told me,” he said, as they passed the wizard.

Branwyn brought Zelen to a dead stop by dropping her hand to the front of his trousers and squeezing the bulge there—lightly, but more than enough to get his attention. “At the moment, I might disagree.”

“Ah—” Zelen exhaled sharply. “If you’d prefer this place, I’m rapidly becoming very fond of it.”

Peering up at the statue, Branwyn shook her head with a laugh that Zelen didn’t understand and she didn’t explain. “No,” she said, “I’d rather he wasn’t so close. Lead on.”

Around a corner, near the back of the palace, yellow light illuminated the marble features of a woman on a horse. Fewer people made the journey back there, and since the horse only had one leg off the ground, the earth behind it had been sheltered from rain. Zelen started toward it, then hesitated. “Do you object to statues as a general rule,” he asked, “or—”

Branwyn leaned in far enough to kiss his neck. He felt the light imprint of her teeth before she pulled back, and he shivered pleasantly. “No objection at all,” she whispered into his ear.

* * *

The night air carried harpsong out from the palace across the gardens, the shoulders Branwyn gripped were covered in velvet, and Zelen’s fingers brushed over silk as he cupped her breasts. Although they were outside, she thought that she might be having the most high-class assignation of her life.

It was also shaping up to be one of the most enjoyable ones. Zelen’s mouth and hands were as skilled as they’d been outside of the Rognozis’ house, and if more urgency animated him now, the same was true for her. Deliberate exploration was all well and good, but desire had been building for days, not to mention thwarted several times. Branwyn arched into Zelen’s touch with no particular need for leisure. They could go slowly later.

Zelen slid his hands into the neckline of her dress—thank the gods that was low—and teased the stiff peaks of her nipples. His breath was quick and hot against her neck, but he never fumbled. As Branwyn moaned and rocked her hips against the ridge of his cock, he deftly stroked, lightly pinched, and managed to pull the dress aside enough to free one breast.

The sheer hunger on his face was arousing by itself. “Gods,” he said hoarsely, “I could look at you like this all night.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Branwyn panted. Now that she had room, she began to address his shirt. The buttons were harder to work than the neckline of her gown, but as she captured one, she employed her other hand well, cupping the firm muscle of Zelen’s arse beneath his doublet and pressing him toward her again. “But I’d really rather you took a different path.”

“All sorts of them,” he said. “Starting with this one.”

Dropping gracefully to his knees, he closed his mouth around her exposed nipple, and Branwyn went molten with pleasure. She leaned back against the statue’s marble, only managing not to close her eyes with the sheer sensation because the sight of Zelen’s dark head at her breast was too much to pass up. As he used his tongue in warm swirls and little tantalizing flicks, gasps worked their way up her throat, then rapidly became moans, and not subtle ones either.

She would have been more disappointed when he raised his head save for two things: first, he moved to her other breast, and the contrast of his tongue through the thin silk was itself intoxicating, and second, his hands found their way beneath her skirt.

There was no way Zelen could have believed her unmoved even before he felt her wetness: it would’ve taken a far better actress than Branwyn had ever seen to counterfeit the desire that she’d experienced from their first dance and that had all but overtaken her as soon as they’d entered the garden. Still, when his fingers brushed against her sex, the ensuing groan sounded as though he hadn’t quite been prepared for what he felt, and