was a reflection from the settling sun, the nearness of the mage’s robes or some magical power lighting the wand.
She swallowed thickly.
The sight of the wand stirred a slick and fluid warmth in her loins.
‘By the power of all the magicks I command,’ Nihal’s voice boomed from the walls. The brightness in the offices briefly intensified.
Caitrin couldn’t imagine where the extra light came from.
‘By the power of all the magicks I command,’ Nihal repeated, ‘you will tell me now your true identity.’
‘I’m Caitrin, youngest of the castellan’s three daughters,’ Caitrin admitted. ‘I’m Caitrin, twin to Tavia and younger sister of Inghean. Don’t you recognise me, Nihal? I’m Caitrin.’
Something in the stoop of the mage’s shoulders suggested Nihal was not yet convinced. ‘I don’t believe you’re a shape-changer,’ Nihal allowed. The mage began to circle her. ‘Yet I still have my doubts. You seem different from the Caitrin who last visited my offices. Why would that be?’
Caitrin blushed.
Only able to move her eyes, she lowered her gaze.
She was a different person from the Caitrin who had previously visited Nihal’s offices and she knew why she was different. Before, she had been a girl who knew nothing of men, the pleasures of the flesh or the significant wonders of dragon horn. Now, she was a woman with a woman’s knowledge of such forbidden secrets.
But the idea of admitting as much to Nihal was unthinkable.
‘Please don’t force me to tell you the truth,’ she begged. She was going to say that she would explain things in her own way and in her own time. She was going to add that the truth was unladylike, unflattering and unbecoming.
But Nihal did not allow her to say the words.
The mage thrashed the wand through the air.
Caitrin had thought she saw a cerise glow originally. This time she was certain she saw a flash of coloured light. Its aftermath fizzled in the air behind the tip of the wand. And, whilst that would have been impressive to behold – a private display of fireworks and pyrotechnics from the castellan’s most powerful mage – she was more startled by the fact that her kirtle disappeared with the gesture.
Caitrin gasped.
Her crimson and gold brooch fell to the floor where it tinkled loudly in the silence of the offices.
Again Nihal thrashed the wand through the air.
This time her undershirt disappeared. Caitrin shrieked as the clothes were torn away by invisible hands.
Thrash.
Another flash of dark, pink light.
Her chemise, breast girdle and braies disappeared in the same instant.
One moment she had stood before the wizard in her underclothes. She had been inexplicably erect and standing as still and motionless as a child playing gargoyles. And in the next moment she was stripped bare and touched by the chill of the room’s coolness against her naked flesh.
She gasped.
Her eyes opened wide in astonishment. She glanced down at herself and saw that her bare body was completely uncovered. Her breasts, well-rounded and firm, were revealed to the mage. The secrets of her sex, the dark curls shorn into the same fashions that Robert had said were in vogue amongst revered courtiers and courtesans from the palaces of the Southern Kingdoms, were exposed to Nihal.
The mage took a step back.
‘Caitrin,’ Nihal murmured with approval. ‘It seems you’ve matured into a comely young woman.’
Caitrin wanted to wrap protective hands over her body and cover herself from the mage’s gaze. But her arms stayed firmly by her sides. When she did make a concerted effort to cover herself she was appalled to find that her hands would not move as she willed them. Through the power of some dark magicks, Nihal had an absolute control over her.
The muscles inside her sex rippled hungrily at the idea. Her nipples stiffened as though they had been teased by the mage’s long and slender fingertips.
‘Why have you stripped my clothes away?’
She tried to say the words without revealing her excitement. As panic strained her nerves she began to wonder if Nihal might hear the sexual need colouring her voice. She wasn’t sure if that was something she desperately wanted or if it was something she heartily feared.
‘I have to make sure you are who you said you were,’ Nihal explained. ‘If Gethin ap Cadwallon is a potential threat to this fiefdom he could send spies to my offices disguised as someone above suspicion. The man could even be a dark mage capable of such shape-shifting himself –’
‘Getting at codswallop?’
She didn’t know what the words meant. The name sounded vaguely like the title of one of the landed gentry discussed in her father’s politics, but it was not a name to which she’d ever paid any attention. Her brow wrinkled with the effort of trying to understand the conversation.
‘Gethin ap Cadwallon,’ Nihal corrected. ‘And if you really are Caitrin it’s a name you’d do well to remember. Gethin ap Cadwallon is High Laird of the West Ridings.’ Nihal pronounced the visitor’s name with an emphasis that was somewhere between lofty importance and cool contempt. ‘The lairds of the West Ridings want to forge an allegiance with Blackheath and there will be mutual benefits in regular trade links between our two regions. But, obviously, Duncan is alert to the danger that Cadwallon may have an ulterior motive. There’s a fear that Gethin may want to seize control of Gatekeeper Island. And I have to be constantly vigilant about the threat of dark mages. But all the parties believe a betrothal –’
‘Does this laird look like me?’ Caitrin broke in impatiently.
‘No,’ Nihal admitted. The mage seemed nonplussed by the interruption. ‘Gethin is a swarthy wretch. He’s contemptible, according to all the accounts I’ve heard. But it’s said he employs shape-changers for spies. And, as I said before, your shape would be perfect for this errand because it’s commonly known I have a long-held tenderness for you.’
Again those words made her smile.
‘It wasn’t commonly known to me,’ she murmured.
Her frown returned deeper when she realised there was a fault to the logic of Nihal’s interrogation. ‘But you’ve undressed me,’ she pointed out. ‘You had no idea what I look like naked, so seeing me without clothes wouldn’t prove one way or another that I’m me and not a shape-changer.’
The mage shrugged. ‘True enough. But I’ve always wanted to see you naked and this seemed like the ideal opportunity.’
Before Caitrin’s blushes could deepen, the mage’s wand touched her three times. The first time the silver tip graced the thrust of her right nipple. Caitrin caught her breath and tried to decide whether the silver cap on the bitternut wand was as chilly as winter ice, or possessed the searing burn of a smith’s forge. She couldn’t properly decide whether she was being stung by an extreme of heat or cold. But her body responded with the knowledge that she was enjoying an extreme of some description. She sucked breath and savoured the ripples of pleasure that eddied from her breast to her centre.
The same thrill of excitement rushed through her core as the wand brushed her left nipple. This time she was unable to contain the groan of arousal. She released a heartfelt, throaty purr and regarded Nihal with an expression of undisguised lust.
With the third touch, a soft caress of the silver cap against the lips of her sex, Caitrin realised her body was scaling the heights of ecstasy. She bit her lower lip and stared at the shadow in the centre of the cowl where the mage’s face should have sat. Of all the desires she had harboured since first taking dragon horn, she could not recall a desperate need stronger