“I am apprenticed to the druidess, Derina. She is the true healer for the villagers.”
“The old one?”
She shifted in unease. “How do you know of Derina? You were blinded by the Sorcerer’s magic.”
“I sensed her.” He did not wish to explain about his inner faery sight. “What is your name, gray eyes?”
“Bryna of Loch Gur.”
“Bryna of Loch Gur, did you have the knowledge to free me all this time?”
Pink deepened in her cheeks. “Aye.”
“Why did you wait so long?”
“I waited for the fever to break.”
“My fever broke a day ago,” he said slowly.
“I waited the extra day for you to regain your strength.”
That made sense to him, considering the condition he had been in when she had first freed him in the dungeon. He touched his tender bottom lip. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?”
“One of the castle whores explained it to me.”
“Ah.”
His childlike waif looked up at that, her eyes swirling pools of gray mist and light.
“Do you often follow a whore’s instruction, Bryna of Loch Gur?”
“Nay.” She bit her lip in a sudden pause. “I have never kissed a man before.”
“I can believe that.” Her auburn eyelashes lowered again, hiding her silvery eyes. He found that gesture odd and took a moment to study her, his mind still foggy on what had gone before. Faerylike, slender, un-spoiled and ethereal. Those were his first impressions. All gray mist and silver starlight surrounded by hair the color of flames and sun. There was darkness and light in her coloring, as if nature could not decide and crafted her of both. His gaze slid to her jaw, drawn by a slight purpling discoloration. He frowned slightly, his body tightening unexpectedly. “Let me see your jaw.”
She tilted her face warily.
His fey senses fell silent at what he saw.
He had honor-marked her.
She looked at him then, with those gray eyes, a child woman of sense and touch, an innocent with the soul-penetrating gaze of his fey brethren.
He had honor-marked her.
Worse, he had honor-marked her without consent. Tynan came to his feet instantly. Heat pulsed in his blood. His heart pounded in his chest. All senses focused on the faery waif at his feet and then… the world abruptly reeled under him. Bright colors flashed at the corners of his vision so that he felt he might topple over.
“Tynan, may I suggest you sit before you fall?” The voice of reason spoke softly to him.
Tynan dropped down to his knees. His eyes closed. “The earth moves.”
“The earth does not move. Allow time for your body to adjust and senses to return. You have been under a spell crafted in evil.”
“How long?” He did not like this weakness.
“I doona know. Never have I done this before.”
A chuckle rose in his throat. “Neither have I.” His eyes cracked open. She watched him in stillness. He looked down at her thumb, searching for the familiar heart-shaped birthmark. “Brown,” he muttered and closed his eyes. “I had wondered at the color of the fey mark.”
“Do you feel a wee better?”
He took a deep breath. “A little.” He opened his eyes and saw that the earth had returned to normal.
“We have been in the waterfall cave too long. You must leave this place, and soon.” She climbed to her feet.
He looked up at her. “You are young,” he said in observation.
Her head lifted. “I am nineteen summers,” she huffed.
“You do not look it.”
“How old are you?” she countered in a righteous temper.
He fought back a grin. “I am twenty-seven summers, eight summers older than you.” He climbed slowly to his feet and found that he was not as steady as he had thought.
“Here, lean on me.”
“I can stand on my own. I doona need your help.” He pushed her hands aside.
She stiffened at his rejection and turned away. Tynan muttered an oath. “Lass, I did not mean my words to sound so harsh. A man needs to stand on his own.”
She nodded but kept on walking.
A sensitive waif, he mused, just his luck, and then noticed her right arm. “Are you injured?” She probably did not realize that she held her arm close to her stomach, protectively. She looked to the pond and replied, “Bruised but a little.”
He glanced at the pond then back at her retreating back. “From what?”
“The spellbound spider,” she offered as a matter-of-fact, and headed toward the basket of food on the other end of the pond.
Unfortunately, he had no idea of what she spoke. Tynan rubbed his throbbing temple. “What is a spellbound spider?”
“The Sorcerer attached a spellbound spider to your temple,” she explained, still not looking at him. “Derina said it fed off your senses. That is why you could not see or hear. When I pulled it off, it tried to burn me.”
“Spider? So, that is it. When did you pull it off?”
“When I . . . when we kissed.”
“Where is the unholy thing?”
She pointed to the pond. “I threw it in the water.”
He stopped to look into the pond. Moss curled about his bare toes, a slimy sensation. “I see only darkness in the water depths.”
“The waters are deep. It probably settled to the bottom by now.” Tynan turned back and saw her kneel near the baskets. He watched her rummage through the obviously meager provisions. Her right arm was pink from the fingers to her elbow.
He came up beside her and knelt. “Let me see your arm.” He could see that he unnerved her with his closeness.
“I am fine,” she said, shifting away.
“Let me see your arm, Bryna.” He pitched his voice low and calm and waited.
She looked at him with indecision and then held out her arm for his inspection.
Gently, he touched her wrist. “Does it hurt?”
“It tingles some.” She pulled back, reached for a slice of bread and handed it to him.
“There is not much.”
He stared at the dark bread in his hands. “Why did you help me, Bryna? It is a brave thing that you did.”
Bryna shrugged. She never thought of herself as brave, only resilient and mayhap naïve, for she had been molded by isolation.
He took a bite of the stale bread. “Tell me, how do you know the name Kindred?”
She put the rest of the bread back in the basket. “Kindred is the ancient name of this place. It is an old faery fort of forgotten magic.”
“It is old, but not forgotten.” Bryna found herself the focus of an unsettling intensity. “What do you know of the feypaths?” he asked.
She looked down at her lap, detecting an under-current in his tone. “Little.”
“Your downcast eyes suggest a deceiver.”
She was not a deceiver and glared at him. “Never am I a deceiver.”
For several long moments, silver mist swirled in displeasure at amethyst fire.
Tynan’s breathing quickened. Her faery gaze pulled him back to his past.
Faery eyes.
Faery vow.
Faery betrayal.
His tribe belonged to an ancient and separate sect of the Tuatha Dé Dananns, the noble people of the mother goddess Dana. His ancestors, assisted by the Good People, built Kindred. He was the last direct descendent of that ancient bloodline. Kindred belonged to him by birthright; the imprisoned faeries were his tribe’s brethren.
Faery eyes.
Faery vow.
Faery betrayal.
Every hundred years, one of the ancient bloodline promised to mate with a Daoine Sidhe in order to keep the kingship of the land. His father broke the promise, and with that came the invaders, persecution, and hardships.
Tynan felt his body quicken.
He had vowed to keep the promise no matter the personal cost. He never allowed him
self to think about bedding a creature of twilight. He knew his duty.
He stared at Bryna.
Small.
Slender.
Pure.
Translucent skin. Large, silver-mist eyes.
Black winged brows.
Burnished gold hair.
“Daoine Sidhe,” he whispered in sudden recognition and understanding. “I have honor-marked a faery.”
Her eyes widened in dismay, white tones of silver that reminded him of moonstone on a winter’s night.
“Nay, I am not.”
“You are faery bred.” Tynan stated with a growing conviction.
“You are greatly mistaken.”
He did not believe her and stood, not sure how to deal with so wrong a denial.
“Do you sense things, feel things that others do not?”
She refused to answer him.
“You are silent.” Tynan held her gaze. “Your fear makes you lie to yourself.”
She looked away. “I am a slave to a Roman invader, nothing more.”
“Invaders often bring slaves with them from other lands.”
“I am of this land.”
His geas confirmed this for his body already pulsed with awareness of her as faery.
“Where is your birthplace, Bryna?”
“Derina found me on the shores of Loch Gur wrapped in rags.”
“Loch Gur is a sacred lake to the faeries.”
“I know this,” she snapped.
A smile tugged at his lips. “You are faery.”
She stood and faced him in a virtuous anger, a magnificent sight for so slight a being.
“Where are my wings then, oh great warrior?” Small hands waved in the air and he half expected to be brought down to his knees for some punishment.
“Do the storms come at my command?” she demanded. “Why dinna I not just turn you into a toad at the first sign of my displeasure?”
Tynan’s lips curved into a grin. He could not help it. “And you are just as fiery and willful as the faery folk.”
“I am not faery.”
“As you say.”
Bryna looked away. The echoes of his words were like rays of light in her gloomy darkness. Her denials were becoming more for herself than for others. What if she were faery? What then? And what of her dreams? What of the golden territorial goddess kneeling in the nighttime glade? What did it mean to be a creature of twilight? She didn’t dare think of it and hurriedly pushed those thoughts aside.
She wiped at her skirt. “Tynan.”
“Aye.”
“You must leave this cave before the Sorcerer and his searching minions find this place.”
A large hand wrapped warmth around her left forearm and held her firmly. Bryna stared at his hand on her arm and froze in place. His touch was gentle, a hold not meant to hurt. A quickening began in her blood, in her womb. It frightened her.
“Look at me, Bryna.”
She shook her head. “My eyes reflect evil in a man’s soul.”
He released her and pulled back. “What fool said that?”
“The Centurion.” She could feel the heat of his gaze, could smell the clean scent of land and water on his skin.
“Is that why you look to the dirt?” His inflection was one of curiosity and not suspicion.
She gave a curt nod, a hollow feeling welling up inside her.
“Foolish faery,” he chuckled softly, catching her off guard.
Bryna looked up at him in surprise.
“Good, for I doona like talking to the top of your lovely head.”
“My eyes doona frighten you,” she said in amazement.
He shook his head slowly, a kind of confirmation that gladdened her heart. She could not let the Sorcerer find him. She had to protect him.
“Tynan.”
“Aye, faery.”
“You must leave,” she said adamantly. “You have to leave.”
He nodded. “We will leave together.”
“Are you mad?” she blurted, and then covered her mouth.
His lips turned up in amusement. “Methinks not so much today.”
She had to fight back a smile. “I belong to the Centurion,” she added in all seriousness. “He will come after me.”
His head tilted in thought. “You have been gone for five days, lass, will he not punish you when he finds you?”
“Nay,” Bryna locked her hands under her chin. “I doona think so. My teacher will have said that I am helping a sick villager. It has happened before and I only received a minor punishment.”
“A minor punishment? You will not be punished this time, for he will not find you.”
“He always finds me.”
His gaze slid to her bruised jaw and Bryna detected a sudden change in him.
“He will not find you, for you are going with me.”
CHAPTER 5
It had already begun.
The fey compulsion.
He wanted to mate; deep down where souls touched and passion lingered. His geas saturated his blood now, an unending, primitive desire for her.
Tynan inhaled, taking her feminine scent deep into his lungs. He had never met a virgin faery. They were always mated to the earth, loch, or air. Something about predestinies and blood ties, he mused, secrets forbidden even from the ancients. He dare not touch her until he confirmed her heritage. For now, he must endure the gá, the need.
She knelt again before him, rummaging through moldy cheese in a wicker basket. She was different from other women, other faeries, a waiflike combination of fortitude and fragile innocence.
She looked up at him, a sideways observance that slid away and left him heated. Her eyes were faery marked, but then so were his. It was the way of such things.
“What do you see when you look into my eyes, Bryna?”
“Violet and gold,” she answered stiffly.
“You doona like my eyes?”
“I am not used to meeting another’s gaze.”
“You have lovely eyes, Bryna.”
She looked up at him as if he had lost his mind. Her gaze dropped to his chest and dipped to the dark line of hair that started at his navel and disappeared beneath the waistband of his breeches. Tynan smiled at the pink coming into her cheeks.
She gestured to the pile of clothes in the corner. “There are clothes over there that you can use for the journey.”
He looked at the pile and nodded. “Although my tribe travel barefoot, I prefer covering on my feet.” It was a small concession that he allowed himself.
“There may be shoes over there.” He heard her breathe a sigh of relief when he turned away and grinned. Looking at the clothes, he reached for a forest green tunic and shrugged into it.
It was obviously too small, but it appeared to be the largest in the pile. The front laces pulled taut, exposing a large portion of his chest. He tested the seams by moving his arms.
“The tunic is too small,” she stated and Tynan smiled to himself. She watched him.
“Mayhap another would fit,” she offered in female advice.
“This is the largest in the pile.” He gathered his long hair behind him with a piece of rope.
“Tynan, the sleeves tear at the seams . . .”
“It gives me more room to move.” He retrieved a pair of brown, calf-high boots and tried them on.
“Do the boots fit?”
“They are snug, but not greatly so. Either way, they will have to do.” Tynan straightened and looked over his shoulder. Gray eyes were inspecting his legs. He waited until their eyes met.
“Do you like watching me dress, faery?”
She muttered something about males under her breath and turned away.
Tynan threw back his head and laughed.
He felt strong.
He felt invigorated.
He felt restless with an aching desire that he could not quench. Aye, he may not enjoy her body for now, but he’d enjoy her wit.
“Ah, you do like what
you see,” he said. “Good.” When the time came to woo her to his bed, it would make it much easier. He would not think of the possibility of the faery or tribe rejection of her for his mate.
He moved to the edge of the waterfall and listened to the sounds of vibrating life. The black waters stirred as his lust stirred, deep and constant. The gá, the need would get worse, he knew. The need to mate with the flame-haired Bryna would eventually drive him insane if he fought it. The imprisoned faeries would have to wait. They would be safe as long as the Dark Chieftain remained free.
He looked over his shoulder. “How did you come to know my name?”
“The Centurion called you Tynan.”
“How did he know my name?”
“I believe the Sorcerer told his servants who in turn told the guards.”
“Ah, I wonder how the Sorcerer knew.”
She shrugged and then flexed her jaw; a small grimace delineated her features.
He felt her pain down to his bones and stilled. “My mark brings you discomfort.” Blood began to pound in his temples, removing all thoughts but those of his honor-mark. He must ease the ending of it, for she had pulled away before he could finish it.
“Very little,” she replied.
“Bryna, my request may seem odd to you but I must ease the bruising of my mark.”
“The wound gives me little hurt,” she reassured.
“ ‘Tis not a wound, Bryna.”
“I meant to say . . . the mating bite.”
“ ‘Tis not a mating bite either.”
She looked at him, her black brows curved in a small frown of confusion. “Derina had instructed me about mating bites and I assumed that this,” she pointed to her jaw, “is one. I apologize if I have caused you insult.”
“There is no insult and it is my need, faery.” Reclaiming Kindred depended on observing his geas. To break the geas was unthinkable. It would be contrary to his honor and to nature, and the result would be catastrophic for his people. Each geas is unique and intimate, and those that where so possessed often kept it secret because an enemy could use it against them.
“Your need?” she echoed.
Tynan turned away before reaching for her. She had to come willingly into his arms. There could be no other way for him to complete the binding of his honor-mark on her.
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