De Mont stepped closer.
Breathe. Alais forced herself not to move. De Mont was small for a man, but he was larger and stronger than she. Success lay in surprise and speed.
Closer.
Exhale.
She could smell the wine on his breath, but he wasn’t close enough. Not yet.
Inhale.
He grabbed her arms.
She bent. Twisted. Lifted her arm and slashed out as she straightened. Resistance. Softness. Hot wetness coated her hand.
“Bitch!”
She’d missed his throat. Pain exploded from her left ear. She fell, landed on her right knee, tightened her grip on the knife. She slashed up and out, missed. He grabbed her elbow and spun her around. The heel of her right hand slammed against his nose. More blood. The back of his fist slapped against her right cheek. Hard. She hit the ground.
“You shall pay for that.”
She kicked frantically. He staggered back. She rolled to her stomach. Stood and ran at the same time. Tripped over her long skirt.
De Mont grabbed her hips. Jerked. With a bone-jarring thud, she landed and a thousand needles of pain shot through the right side of her body. He climbed over her back and grabbed her hair, lifting her head off the stone floor.
Pain. Darkness. Cold.
“I should have killed you years ago.”
The words barely reached her ears.
“You tried,” Alais mumbled, but she doubted if de Mont heard her. She wasn’t even sure if the words left her mouth. She verged on the edge of consciousness, would soon black out. She couldn’t stop it, and once it happened, she’d die.
Deus… she couldn’t remember the prayer, barely recalled a few words. Mortem et resurrectiónem…Hopefully, they would be enough.
Chapter Sixteen
Grym took the steps two at a time. Sharp snow stung his cheeks and ears as he crossed into the open walkway. Squinting against the snow, he lifted the torch and looked as far down the guards’ walk as he could see. Where were his men?
He glanced right where light from the fire danced along the lake. Of course. The whole damn castle was there. Drawing his knife, he moved as quickly as the snow and ice allowed across the walk to his solar. The door was open.
Alais.
De Mont.
Sound fled. Sight narrowed to a blonde woman in a crimson dress.
The dirk left his hand before he’d realized he’d drawn it. He was midway across the room when it hit de Mont in the back, just below the shoulder blade. The nobleman arched his back, but Grym grabbed him before he straightened. Pulling him off Alais, Grym dropped the torch in the brazier and turned to de Mont. Blood covered his face.
His thief had fought.
Good.
He glanced at her. She lay face-down on the floor. Not moving. Not making a sound. Fear flled his mouth, the taste cold and bitter. He grabbed de Mont, pulled him to his feet.
“Do not be rash, Warfield. She lied!”
“I do no’ care.” He pushed de Mont through the door.
“Ye hurt her.” Grym walked him backward to the wall.
“Ye killed Robbie, too.”
Grym pushed him against the wall.
Then over.
Then let go.
De Mont’s wild scream lasted a half-second.
“Sweet Jesu,” William whispered, suddenly at his side, then at the wall looking down. “You cannot just kill a—”
“He tripped.”
William’s eyes went wide. “Grym…”
“He hurt my Alais. Get Edith. Tell her to bring her herbs.”
William followed him back into the room, standing in the doorway as he fell to his knees. “Should I find Father Brand, too?”
God, no. He turned just enough to glare at William, then pressed a hand to her back. The moment stretched into forever. This was his fault. His arrogance and foolishness led to her hurt.
Or worse.
“Please,” he whispered.
Her back rose on a breath.
His spine felt like mush. Bracing against the floor, he ran one hand across her body and limbs. Finding no broken places, he rolled her toward him.
If he could, he would kill de Mont again.
Blood covered one side of her face. He pushed a matted curl from forehead. A bump had formed, and her nose looked broken.
Mine.
The thought filled his head, his heart. He didn’t care if she was the old king’s granddaughter or the child of an outlaw living off poached deer in the forest. She was his.
Johanna appeared at his side. “What happened?”
“I let down my guard.” Cradling her close, he rose and carried her to the bed. Johanna trailed after him.
“You put a guard on the nobleman. I know, because I kept my own watch. Where is your man?”
Alais had warned him. He’d dismissed her experiences as isolated, the result of what happened because of the unique circumstances that came with being royal. He forced the condemnation from his mind. Time for that would come. First, he had to secure Warfield to keep her safe. “William, put a guard at the gate. No one leaves. De Mont came with three retainers. I want them found and bound. Also…de Mont spoke at length with the wife of Eagles Field.”
“Grym, they have been here for weeks. We know—”
“Do it.”
Soft skin brushed over the back of his fingers.
“Alais?”
Her eyelids fluttered, one opened. “Dead?”
“Nay.” He grabbed her into a hug.
“Put her down!” Edith marched across the room and smacked his shoulder. “She does not need your rough handling. Have you no sense?”
Grym settled her back on the bed. Alais’s hand slid down his arm and stayed on his hand. “She was attacked.”
“I can see that.” She smoothed a fur to cover Alais. “Can you speak, girl?”
“Aye.”
“Where does it hurt?”
“All…”
Edith smoothed a fur over Alais. “How about where it does no’ hurt?”
Alais lifted her left hand. “Go,” Edith said to Grym. “You have a fire to douse, and de Mont’s men are going to need watching, if no’ slaying.”
“But, Alais—”
“She will be fine. Do not come back until I send for you.”
“No.”
Edith put the full measure of her eighty years behind her glare, and suddenly, he was again a small boy being scolded for some mischief.
“We have work, Grym.” William’s voice was low and as firm as the hand on his shoulder. “If Edith is half the miracle worker you describe, Alais will be back to stealing your silver by the morrow.”
“She is precious to me,” he said.
“Anyone with eyes can see that. Come.”
Chapter Seventeen
Nothing cleared a castle of guests like murder.
No one openly questioned the explanation that de Mont fell, and Grym ignored the whispers rising behind him as he marched across the bailey. By day break, the remains of the kitchen smoldered in a pool of icy mud. The lord and lady of Eagles Field were through the gate before the sun had cleared the trees, the minstrel travelling with their retinue. News of de Mont’s death would reach the coast by noon.
Grym glanced at the knights who guarded their lord’s body. He suspected at least one of them had started the kitchen fire. As satisfying as it would be to take the cost of rebuilding out of their flesh, securing the castle against the outside world was more important.
“Go,” he said and left it to his men to oversee their exit. Heading back to the solar, he readied his argument for intruding, but Edith only smiled.
“She is young and strong. In a week, neither of you will remember this happened.”
Grym knew better. The sight of Alais on the floor would haunt him until he died. He’d been foolish to trust in another man’s honor. “How is she?”
“She sleeps.”
“Still?”
“’Tis the medicine. She will wake on the morrow.” Edith glanced up as she began gathering her bundles of medicines. “I expected you to burst through that door hours ago. Does this mean you have finally gained some self-discipline?”
“Ye will no’ forget that boy running around here, will ye?”
“I was rather fond of that boy.” She smiled and ran her thumb down his cheek as if wiping away a smudge. “She needs rest to heal.”
“She will have it.”
Edith glanced back at the bed. “Are the rumors true?”
“That she is my wife?”
“That she is a princess.”
“Aye, although her father was a bastard.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Keep her.”
Edith scowled. “You cannot just keep a royal lady, my lad.”
“I will defy both England and Scotland to keep her, if she wants to stay.”
Her smile showed three missing teeth. “There is wisdom in that head of yours, after all.”
Closing the door behind her, Grym added wood to the brazier and pulled off his heavy mantle and tunic. He slipped off his shirt and ducked it in a basin of water. He stank of smoke and charred wood, but washing his skin couldn’t drive the stench from his nose or loosen the knots in his gut.
The slumbering fire woke and cast an ember glow on a tumble of curls in his bed. Bruises danced along her face. “Thank God you are safe,” he said over her head, knowing she wouldn’t hear him in her sleep, but needing to say the words all the same. His blind arrogance had almost cost Alais her life.
And his.
Living without her wouldn’t have been living.
Now, to convince her of the same.
Turning, he slipped off his boots, then jerked when soft fingers skimmed against his naked shoulder. He felt her trace the scar that ran just below his shoulder to his ribs.
“You loved her.”
He froze. “What makes ye say her?”
“Only a woman would get this close.”
“Ye are supposed to be sleeping.”
“I am tired of sleeping. Your woman is harder than the weapon’s master that taught my brothers to fight.” Alais’s hand stilled. “What happened?”
“Bonnie wanted me dead.”
“I see that.”
“William saved my life. He had warned me for weeks, telling me I was a fool. I thought him jealous, which makes no sense, now, because even then it was plain he wanted only Elspeth.”
“Who?”
“Gregor’s sister. She died in childbed last summer. William is…he grieves his wife.” He sighed. “I grieve my brother. You grieve your family. People die too frequently without war adding more lives to the tally.”
She blew curls out of her eyes. “I know how it feels to be the only one left alive. My brothers…” She crossed her arms against a sudden chill. “Their deaths haunt my dreams. I cannot figure out why I live when they could have done so much more good than I can.”
“There is no sin in living.”
She rested her forehead against his shoulder, the warmth of his being in sharp contrast to the coldness within her. She didn’t want to die, but she was so tired of the pain that came with living. Silence stretched between them like a gold filament, thinner and tauter until the tension was finely honed and palpable. Reaching out, he cradled her face in his hands, tilting her chin upward until she could do naught but drown in the cloudiness of his gaze. He brushed his lips against hers. She drew back.
“Do not kiss me.”
“Why no’?”
She put a finger to his lips. “Because I am not your wife.”
“Ye will be…if ye wish.”
Alais shook her head. “King David has plans for you, even if you do not know them.”
“You know them?”
“I do not need to. I know how kings think.”
“You were right in how de Mont would think.”
“Men of honor assume others have the same honor. It takes someone without honor to see it in others.”
“Ye have honor.”
“Nay, I do what I must to survive.”
“Then ye must wed with me. Tha’ ’tis yer best path to survival.”
She answered with a laugh, and Grym stiffened.
“Is that a yes?”
“Your friend William spoke true last night. King David undoubtedly has plans for you.”
“I am lord here. I can do as I wish.”
“No one does as he wishes.”
“Maybe no’ always, but in this, I will.”
“And when yer king protests?”
“If I wed his kinswoman to keep her safe, he can say naught.”
“I am that woman no more, Grym. Ye must know—”
“I do no’ care.”
He pulled her closer until she could feel his heart beat against her skin. He ran his hand over her ribs, the heat of his hand making her chemise feel as nothing more than a thought. He brushed his fingers against one breast, barely touching her skin but leaving fire in its wake. Her body responded, becoming hard and melting at the same. Warmth infused her blood. He leaned over her until she was on her back.
“Did Edith not tell you to let me rest?”
“Aye.” He ran his fingertips across her collarbone. “And did ye no’ hear her say I lacked all discipline?”
“But—”
He silenced her with a quick, hard kiss that stole her breath as well as her protest. His hands slid up her arms and across her shoulder, resting at her neck. He became tender, brushing his lips softly against hers before deepening the kiss, staking his claim on her. It didn’t speak of raging desire, but it eloquently communicated regret and desire of an entirely different nature that only served to confuse her further.
When he finally pulled away, she lifted his eyes to hers, and his gaze nicked her soul with the odd, wanting way he looked at her. “What is it?”
“Jesu, I thought I’d lost ye.”
“I am not yours to lose.”
“But I want ye to be. Alais, I do no’ care what plans kings have for ye or me.”
“You do not know what I did to survive.”
“I care no’. Beyond our pasts, beyond whatever act ye committed so ye could be here with me now, and beyond whatever troubles lie before us, I want ye with me. Beyond all else, I will love ye.”
God’s gold, what did she do with that? Alais pressed her forehead against his shoulder and allowed herself the luxury of resting in his strength. Trust was a choice, Papa had said. What she felt for him, the aching want and warm delight, was beyond her control, but aye or nay were not.
“I am more warrior than wife,” she said at last.
He cradled her face in his hands. “Ye are my warrior and my wife, if ye want to be.”
“Aye,” she whispered. “I do.”
About the Author—Keena Kincaid
A writer who does her best work before she’s truly awake, Keena Kincaid stumbles through the first hours of her day after being awakened at zero-dark-thirty by a West Highland Terrier demanding breakfast. By the time the coffee kicks in, she’s written a scene or two and might manage a smile. A storyteller by calling and an historian by training, Keena writes medieval romances where treachery, magic, and love collide.
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