The Contestants Ch. 02

"Forgive me," she whispered. "How have you been able to keep me on all these years, to keep me alive, to care for me and protect me if you haven't forgiven me?"

She lifted her face and searched in anguish for the answer in his eyes and flinched when she looked into them. For a short second, his face was naked and his eyes unprotected and she shuddered and remembered his unspoken question; "Do you really want to know?" She lifted her hands and took hold of his head, and they started to kiss as if dying if not being able to quench the thirst and satisfy the burning need. He pressed his teeth against hers and he bit her, drawing blood from her lips. She licked his nostrils and bruised his mouth. Then they let go and stood trembling, facing each other for an eternity before he lifted her up and carried her to the bed.

He lay down with her, and she found that he had now removed all of their clothes. He lay on his back with closed eyes, and he had drawn the silk sheet over them to cover their nakedness. There was a profound silence, he didn't say a word, and he made no attempt to take her into his arms. She looked at him in wonder and alarm, realizing all of a sudden how hurt and upset he really felt, and she didn't know how to approach him. He even turned away from her, facing the wall, without having talked to her. She lay beside him in the bed and cried silently, tears running down into her hair; there seemed no way they could come to terms with each other tonight. She put her hand on his back, but he didn't react. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep.

When she woke some time later in the night, she felt him moving over her body, in between her legs and he entered her, not asking permission.

"Gareth!" she moaned softly and gathered him into her arms.

He felt hot and feverish, and his urgency expressed his great need. She eased her hand down between their bodies to feel his cock, and how it plunged into her cunt. She cupped his sack in her hand, and he groaned; it was almost a wailing sound and it scared her.

"I love you!" she breathed in his ear and this time it was easier to say it. "I didn't mean to hurt you, but I was hurt too," she went on, not knowing exactly what she was saying in the delirium she experienced right now.

He didn't answer and seemed oblivious of her, forcing himself in and out of her like a maniac. She could feel with rising anxiety how he locked himself in cramp, and at last he tore away from her with a muted roar of frustration and anger. He rolled off her and fell back into the bed and closed his eyes. Sweat was streaming over his face and body. She lay shivering by his side for a moment. Then she faced him and pulled him close to her body, and he didn't turn away. His wet and hard cock poked her in the stomach, and she took it in her hand. She made him rest his head on her breasts. For a long time, she just held on to his throbbing hardness, feeling it soften and listened to his breathing slowing down. When she felt him go heavy on her arm, she knew that he had relaxed at last.

She must have fallen asleep again for a while because she surfaced and became wide awake when he lifted her out of the bed and carried her to his bathroom. He poured some water into the tub and started to wash the sweat off her body with careful, measured movements. She washed him clean too and meanwhile they kept their silence.

Then he took her by the hand and returned to the bedroom. Still hand in hand they went up to the window and stood looking at the garden glistening with water in the moonlight after the storm.

"Why is everything so impossible?" she said at last.

He shook his head, and then he lifted her hand and kissed the palm of it. She turned, still holding on to him, and tugged at his hand, feeling a little bit cold now, and he followed her back to the bed. He laid her down and stroked his hands hard and tight over her body. Then he removed the golden bracelet from her wrist and put it on the table beside the bed. The little leather bracelet beneath the jewelry was still wet from the washing and she blew on it to make it dry.

"What if it broke to pieces?" she asked anxiously.

"It won't," he reassured her. "Conaill must have told you how tough it is."

"The Indian bracelet is mine to give away or take back," he continued after a while as he stretched himself out beside her. "I got it initially from the first person that I saw die. She was so immensely old already when I became aware of her the first time. She was Mother's Nanny and she had nursed generations before Eavan came into her care. She was an old Indian woman of Pueblo descent and although she must have lived close to a century with Mother's family, she still had a hard time to make herself understood. I was just a child when I met her the first time, and she scared me a little. However, she had a wonderful way with children, and Mother later told me how she once had entered my room and found me asleep with my head in the old woman's lap while she was singing her old, strange songs to me. Shortly before you came to us — I must have been around five years old — Nanny approached me and calmly said that she was going to die shortly. She said she was very content with the message that her forefathers had brought her because she was feeling so tired these days, and she wanted to go home. I didn't really know at that moment what dying was, she tried to explain it as disappearing from view but not from the mind. Then she took out the little bracelet from the folds of her dress and handed it to me. She said that if I ever needed to keep track of someone important, I could give that person the bracelet to carry, and I could always find that person no matter where in the world he or she might be at the moment. Then she left me as if she had completed a mission, and she went to her room, lay down on her bed, and she died during the night. When I saw her in the morning, she already looked like a mummy."

Gareth was silent for a while. Then he sighed and continued. "When I exiled Father from Inis, I felt that it was necessary to know where he was going, and I demanded of him to carry the bracelet. He did so until I took it from him to give to you. By then Conaill had carried it for so long that the leather was imbued with his personality, and this is why you can see him when you wear the bracelet. You must remember though that it is still mine, and I can take it back when I need to do so."

"Oh Gareth," she cried out, "everything in my life is at your mercy, isn't it? I feel so utterly helpless."

"And how do you think that I feel?" he asked low and furiously and turned to her. "Having you at my mercy. Do you think I want that?"

She hid her face in her hands and wailed quietly. He bent down over her and she felt his cheek brushing close to hers when he buried his face by her neck, but he didn't stay with her. Instead, he abruptly left the bed and went up to the window again. There he stood in silence for a while, breathing deeply. She got the notion that he was fighting with himself. Then he turned around and faced her. She could barely divine his features in the dark room, only lit by the moonlight.

"But tonight you are mine, and I am at your mercy," she heard him say.

He sauntered slowly back to the bed across the room, his hips moving with predatory grace; one perfectly fluid movement, strong and graceful, sensual and erotic. He was danger, beauty and sex all in one. With a soft growl like an animal, he caught her wrists and pinned them over her head to the bed, and then he was on her, his weight on her. He looked at her with half-closed eyes, and he parted his lips slowly, expectantly, and she could feel him appraising her. He moved his body slowly over hers, pressing his semi-erect cock against her stomach. He bent his head towards her quietly whispering in her ear of his intentions and desires, the smile present in his soft voice.

She began to tremble, knowing now not to expect any mercy or restraint from him although his violence tonight would be of the softest and most deceptive kind. She felt his tongue lick along her lips demanding entrance, covering her mouth with his spit as he gently moved his lips over hers, and she closed her eyes and opened up to him, savoring his wetness.

He cupped her breasts and flicked her pointed nipples with hard fingers until she pleaded with him. He sucked her like a hungry baby, pulling the swollen nubs between his lips, occasionally letting his teeth close gently over them, tugging at her. She shuddered when the intense erotic pleasure hit her mixed with pain, a little bit sharper with each bite but all the time triggering her arousal. She heard herself moan, and she heard his low chuckle as if he just became aware of what he was doing to her.

Then he took one of her earlobes between his teeth and his tongue traced the contour of the ear before dipping in, letting her divine what he was about to do to her. He let his tongue dance over her body, slowly moving down over her breasts, fucking her navel, sucking on the soft skin of her belly, bruising her with his teeth. He gently pressed his knees in between her thighs, and she felt his fingers probing deep between her folds. Her hips bucked involuntarily as he started to finger her, and she choked on her breath when he dipped first one finger then another into her, spreading her wide gently massaging the walls of her cunt. He moved down over her body, closing his lips over her clit, sucking it in between his teeth, making her groan high as his fingers continued sliding in and out of her.

He stretched himself out on top of her again, covering her body. His erection was now rock-hard against her belly. She felt it throbbing and twitching as if he could barely contain himself from thrusting hard and violently into her. He moaned quietly, his head falling to her shoulder as he continued to finger her, his hand dripping wet from her juices now. He started to rub her clit in delicate circles, and she twisted and turned under him as if trying to escape from the almost unbearable pleasure he was inflicting upon her.

Above her, his eyes stared hungrily into hers, glazed with lust.

He lowered himself onto her, moving in between her legs, the tip of his cock gently caressing her swollen folds. She was unbelievably wet, and she arched her body up towards him, grinding herself against his hardness not wanting to prolong the torture any longer. She wanted him inside, and she wanted him now. He moaned involuntarily as he finally let his penis slide into her; forge into her, spreading her in deep, deep penetration. She was so wet that there was hardly any friction at all, and all she could feel was how he filled her up completely, sinking into her until the hard head of his cock hit the very core of her body.

Unprepared, he cried out in pleasure at the incredible tightness of her hot throbbing sheath, encasing him in muscular softness. As he kept thrusting in and out of her in a slow and sensual rhythm, he moved his hand to her breasts, pinching her nipples hard until they throbbed with pain. She gasped and wailed at the same time. Then he eased his hand down between their bodies, searching out her wet and swollen sex, locking the achingly sensitive clit under his thumb as he fingered her furiously towards an orgasm. Her body rocked in unison with his rhythm now, and her cunt kept clenching and unclenching his cock in increasingly violent spasms as she approached her climax. Her muscles tensed and almost froze when she came, and he didn't stop, and she climaxed again and again.

When the blood stopped pounding in her ears, she let her head roll back towards the pillow, looking up at him, flinching when meeting his gaze. In the semi-darkness, his steely eyes gleamed with a light of their own, and a hint of a cruel smile curved his lips. She tried to look away, escaping his all-knowing appraisal of her, but he put a finger under her chin and forced her to meet his eyes.

"Don't look away from me," he commanded in the softest possible voice. "I want to be looking into your eyes when I come."

He didn't give her any time to recover, plunging deep into her again, fucking her in a frenzy with hard, heavy thrusts. He gripped her hair with one hand, drawing her head back, exposing her neck to his raking teeth and sucking lips. With savage fury, he drove his hardness in and out of her. She cried in earnest now, trying to stop him at the same time inflamed by the raw friction of his penis inside her sore vagina. Whether she wanted it or not, she entered that moment when everything froze as her second orgasm was about to explode. Involuntarily she wrapped her legs around his waist and drew his body close, grinding herself against his pubic bone; then she peaked, succumbing under the blinding pleasure. She arched her back and cried out a strangled cry as her thighs tightened convulsively around him, and her cunt began to throb in a feverish rhythm. She became aware of that he was no longer thrusting into her. He held his hot twitching cock buried deep within her. She felt his shaft stiffen, and she knew that he was about to spend his seed. He locked in spasm bent over her as he started to empty himself; his hot semen pulsing up through his rigid member, gushing into her, filling her, burning her with his sweet bliss. Then she felt his discharge wet her thighs, overflowing, and trickle down between her buttocks, pooling on the sheet underneath them.

Finally, his cock stopped its frantic twitching and pumping, and he slowly eased out of her. Then the fury subsided. Then the relief.

********************

When she woke up the next morning, she was alone in the bed. "Of course," she thought, "I didn't expect anything else." She couldn't even remember the last morning when she had been allowed to wake up together with him. Her body was sore, and she gingerly touched it as weakness filled her when memories of the previous night surfaced in her mind. She knew though that when she saw him the next time he would be wearing his mask again, and he would never ever admit to that she had been able to break his guard and see his true face for an instant.

"Oh, God," she murmured. "I suppose he left me alive only to remember — and for Conaill to be aware of."

Yes, she was certain of that fact. She looked down on the fragile threadbare little piece of leather that was the Indian bracelet, and all at once she wanted to remove it, but she found that she couldn't untie the knot any longer; no matter how hard she tried. She looked at it again with despair now, realizing that she was a prisoner to it. Gareth had tied it to her and through it he could see her wherever she went, and she could see Conaill, and Conaill could most probably see her — and Gareth. She couldn't think of a more devilish and cruel plan, and she buried her face in her hands and started to cry.

"Between the two of you, you are going to kill me in the end," she whispered sobbingly, repeating herself.

Eventually, she managed to get out of the bed and get dressed. She put the bejeweled bracelet on top of the small leather band and slowly left the bedroom. When she came to the Great Hall, she found it empty and the doors ajar. She stood still for a moment listening intently. Then a gush of wind soared through the room, and she became aware of his presence although she couldn't see him. She felt him lift her hair from her shoulders, and his lips that brushed over the nape of her neck.

"Show yourself to me," she cried out. "Talk to me! Forgive me! What shall I do to make you forgive me? I didn't scheme to use you in the first place. I just didn't know how to solve the dreadful problem with Eavan and Conaill at the time. I was so young, and I didn't know what to do or where to turn. You rule over my life and my death. Isn't that enough for you?"

Then she heard his voice close to her ear. "I have forgiven you, a long time ago, contrary to his belief. That is not an issue any longer. It is HIM that I haven't forgiven!"

Anna felt a chill travel down her spine at his words and a deeper fear entered her. Did this mean that he was going to use her to destroy Conaill for good? She looked frantically around, but she still couldn't see Gareth. His lips touched her again, on the mouth this time, and she trembled. Then he was gone, and there would be no more answers this time.

Was Gareth an enemy or an ally? She knew that she had to accept that he was her lover, but that didn't answer any questions. That could in fact mean just anything. Did Conaill know that Gareth perhaps was out to kill him? She almost succumbed under all anxious questions and worries. She knew she needed much time to think her situation over, lick her wounds, and prepare for the future. She longed desperately to be back with Celia in the sanctity of Celia's age-old wisdom and comfort.

"She will help me, she will help me to see things clearly again," Anna kept whispering. Then she gathered her skirts and ran towards the entrance of Inis not getting there fast enough. Beneath the gold on her wrist the Indian bracelet burned her skin.

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To be continued.