Intimate Enemies

by Shana Ab

  She didn't wait for his reply, instead wading closer to the opening, searching the faces up there.“Rhodric! Yo u know I'm right! Get them out!”

  “Lass, you're wounded,” came Rhodric's voice, doubtful.

  “Just go! The earl and I have found another way out of here. But all of you will die unless you leave now!”

  Arion came up behind her. “I agree. All of you, get out of there. Go as quickly as you can.”

  “But, my lord—”

  “Don't question me, soldier! Leave! We'll meet on the surface.”

  Lauren heard the muttered consent of the men.

  “And watch out for the Vikings,” she called after them. “They might be anywhere in the caves!”

  A surge in the tide pushed her forward and she lost her footing; only Arion's quick clutch at her elbow kept her from sliding beneath the water. When they looked up again, the opening was deserted.

  “I hope you weren't thinking of going into whatever tunnel access the Northmen did to escape,” Arion said, seeming almost cheerful. “I don't relish having to fight all of them at once.”

  “No.” Lauren splashed past him, bracing herself against the cavern wall for balance. She spoke quickly, because her teeth were starting to chatter from the cold. “I don't think there's any other w-way out of here but for that hole in the ceiling and the entrance to the s-sea. I th-think that man was waiting here, guarding the boat until his crewmen r-returned. Look, he could have hidden b-behind this rock here and we wouldn't have seen him f-from our vantage above.”

  Arion came behind her, wrapping his arms around her. The violence of the water seemed simply to part around him.

  “You're freezing, and you haven't stopped bleeding. We've got to get you out of here.”

  “I know.” She couldn't control the shivers now, fighting the urge to hug her arms to her, still trying to keep them moving. The water sloshed up to her waist; the cavern entrance was a half-moon ahead of her, shrinking rapidly. Lauren pointed to the boat. “We … have t-to leave … in that.”

  Ari didn't bother to argue with her, to tell her all the reasons why it was going to be impossible for them to fit the mass of the rowboat through what was left of the opening of the cave. Her lips were blue, her teeth were clenched together so tightly he could see the muscles in her jaw. At least the rowboat would be dry. If nothing else, he might be able to maneuver it over to the opening in the ceiling and hoist her through before the water crushed them.

  She was in no condition to run, however. One look into her eyes told him that. The amber of them had become vacant, glazed, and the blood from the gash on her forehead still dribbled down her cheek in vivid color, dripping off her chin to mingle with the salt water.

  The rowboat was bucking in the water now, the line that held it tied to one of the jagged rocks taut with tension. The only way to get over there was to swim, and Arion knew that Lauren wasn't going to be able to do that, either. He put her in front of him, wrapping an arm around her neck again, then pushed off into the waves, dragging her along.

  It wasn't far to the boat, but the difficulty was the roughness of sea, now frothing up at the end of the cavern in wild bursts, spray everywhere. His first try at holding the rim of the rowboat failed; it jumped out of his reach just as he leaned in for it, and then it came back down against him with a painful shove, knocking him sideways. Both he and Lauren went whirling in the water.

  He caught it on the second try, finding the wooden edge and grabbing on tightly.

  “Lauren! I need your help!”

  She stirred against him.

  “I need you to lift your hands and try to hold on to the boat. Can you do that?”

  She said nothing, but her movement grew stronger.

  She was attempting to reach the boat. He helped her, pushing her up close, both of them rocking wildly. Ari saw her hands rise and flatten on the side of it, white skin on dark wood, too far down to reach the edge.

  He let go of her and quickly moved back, then forward again, a rising surge with the water, taking her under her arms and lifting her as high as he could, straining. The wave receded and he fell away with it, but Lauren stayed. She was clinging to the rim of the boat. One more swell and he was back with her, arms around her legs, boosting her up higher. She kicked out and he had to let go, dropping back into the water, submerging beneath a particularly large wave and then coming up again. Ari looked up in time to see her disappear over the edge of the hull. She had made her way in.

  He was getting tired. That was a bad sign, that the cold was sapping his vigor, making the work of getting himself into the Viking boat a clumsy and painful process. He managed to get both hands on the edge, and hung there, waiting for the next big wave to lift him up. It happened almost too soon; Arion hurled himself out of the water, wrapping one arm and a leg over the wood, precarious.

  Two hands were pulling at him, tugging him in, and Arion found the strength to drop the rest of the way into the rowboat, trying not to fall on Lauren and not succeeding all that much.

  He lay there for a moment, unable to move, and stared up at the rough edges of the ceiling, which now seemed to descend upon him, closer and closer in awful, nauseating dips and peaks. Something new blocked his vision—Lauren, pale and bleeding and long red hair, worry in her eyes.

  Arion sat up, assessing the situation.

  One rowboat, one pair of oars, out of the water. The rope, now stretched to the breaking point, the only thing keeping them reasonably still. The opening to the cave— far, far too tight now for them to fit through.

  One woman, hunched and shivering in a soaked tartan, arms wrapped around herself, staring back at him in a poignant combination of dread and hope.

  Arion clambered up to the front of the boat, drawing his sword and severing the rope with one quick slice. Immediately he was knocked backward with the release, as the boat rode a new swell forward into the cavern, then came crashing up against the end of the rocks.

  He staggered back to Lauren, shoving her down to the bottom of the craft as he took the seat near the oars, then maneuvered them into the water.

  “Stay there,” he ordered, fighting to keep them from another crash.

  She didn't listen, of course. Arion shouldn't have been surprised that instead of lying sensibly on the floor of the boat—the safest thing to do right now—she rose to her knees and peered behind him, at the thin opening that was left to them in the heaving sea. Arion didn't have time to push her down again. It was all he could do to move the craft at all. It wasn't designed for such harsh conditions, and the oars were awkward in the stiff coldness of his hands.

  “Get down!” Lauren shouted suddenly, and when he didn't move she hit him with her fists, pushing him to one side, making him lose his grip on an oar.

  A rock from the ceiling the size of a man went grating past him, barely missing his torso but catching one of his thighs, tearing his tunic and hose, scraping the wood of the seat with a low groan. But the boat kept moving.

  “There's more,” Lauren said, her voice a rasp over the turmoil of the waves.“Don't get up.”

  Arion looked behind him and saw that she was right. If he tried to take his seat to row again it would be fatal. They were high enough now so that the long, pointed rocks hanging from the top of the grotto were a clear threat. Another came by, a new scraping sound against the planking, and Ari had to move again to avoid it, lower down in the boat.

  The current was taking them where they needed to go, out of the cave. If only they didn't get smashed by the rocks first.

  “Come on, come on,” he heard Lauren whisper. He turned his head and saw her crouched down, holding on to the oar he had lost. She was facing the opening, transfixed on it, her lips moving almost silently.

  Another rock, this one huge, large enough to block out all the light, and Ari lifted his hands above him and tried to make the boat go past it faster, pushing at it. When it cleared, he was staring up at the sky.

  He wanted to s
hout out his victory, he wanted to jump up and celebrate to the sky and the clouds, the open sea around them now. But before he could do any of this, the boat came to a grinding, shuddering halt, and a wave of ice water broke over his head.

  “What happened?” he shouted, clearing the hair from his eyes. He looked around and Lauren was missing— but no, he spotted one foot sticking out from underneath the mouth of the cave. The rest of her was blocked by the thick stone that pressed down against the hull. Her foot drew in, and then all of her was gone.

  The rowboat had stopped only partially outside the cave, trapped. It was obviously caught on the other side, but the water had not let up its ferociousness. Wave after wave was now breaking over the hull, splashing into the boat. Another minute of this and they would sink.

  Arion flattened himself and crawled back to the front. He found Lauren leaning over the side of the craft, clinging to the neck of the wooden beast whose head curved into the prow of the boat, hacking away at the wood with her dirk. She was making less progress than the rock itself, which was slowly splintering the wood with each jolt of water.

  This was what had halted their freedom, this Viking carving, a snarling beast with a thick wooden neck. It resisted all attempts to separate it from the rest of the boat, as if it were a cursed extension of the invaders themselves, determined to drown the inhabitants of this island.

  They were at the very limit of any hope to escape; soon the water would crush the boat in its rush to flood the cavern. But if the head of the beast was torn off by the current, it might take the entire prow with it, and the craft would sink instantly.

  Arion copied Lauren's position on the other side of the boat, squeezing up through what was left of the opening, hanging off the side and using just his legs to hold him.

  “Go back!” he yelled at her, and unsheathed his sword. She looked at him silently, then shifted down again, out of his sight.

  Arion lifted his sword and came down on the neck, again and again, hacking at it, until chips of white wood were flying around him, and the head tilted down, bowing to the force of his blows and the unyielding pressure of rock. Spray from the ocean stung his eyes, a painful blur, and still he didn't stop, only kept stabbing at the beast. He halted just before it looked like it would snap, the wood giving off an eerie groan, almost as a real monster might under such an assault.

  Arion let go of the boat and dropped into the sea just as the neck gave way, and the head cracked off and fell into the water with a heavy splash. The rowboat, safe from flooding, slid past the opening in grinding spells, out into the open sea.

  Water buffeted him but he managed to sheathe his sword again. Arion took a deep breath and dived under the water to follow the boat, thinking of nothing but Lauren right now, alone in the craft, looking for him. She would be looking for him. He had to surface. He had to go to her. He couldn't give in to the heaviness invading him now, the cold, the dark, the endless deep….

  Lauren, Lauren … gold and copper and red roses …

  It wasn't that he found the surface but more that it found him, a rapid brightness, a buoyancy that took him and tossed him up, right up to the clean air, where he could breathe. And there was the rowboat, and there was Lauren, leaning off the side again, half standing with a hand shielding her eyes, searching.

  Ari made it to the boat and she helped him back in, though it wasn't easy for either of them. And although he was close to the end of his limits, he did a quick scan of the area around them, to see what new danger might present itself next.

  The cliffs, ebbing in the distance. The mouth of the cave, nothing but a narrow slit in the rocks, then it was gone. The rowboat was caught in a current that was taking them away from that danger but still somewhat parallel to the shore.

  The Viking longboat, moving away from Shot, a shrinking dot on the horizon. Apparently they had abandoned their lost crew.

  He was too tired to do anything more. Arion lay on the bottom now in the water there, beyond movement, letting the autumn sun come down on him and slowly steal away the chill. Lauren was folded up beside him, unmoving, the sound of her breathing soft in his ear. One of her hands lay peacefully across his chest.

  Clouds floated by in milky puffs. The sky was otherwise empty, cool and infinite.

  Arion turned his head to the side, and what he saw there made him sit up quickly.

  Lauren had collapsed in an awkward position, her eyes closed, her lips not quite as blue as before but still far too pale. In fact, all of her was too pale. Ari leaned over her and unfastened the silver brooch that held the soaked tartan to her, then unwrapped it from the intricacy of the folds around her. The wool cloth fell away with a wet heaviness, all the colors darkened to muted tones, testimony to her struggle in the water.

  Arion lifted her up and gathered her to him, holding her close, trying to gauge how badly she was chilled—if he should panic yet at her lassitude or not.

  She didn't open her eyes but did let out a low murmur, protest or reassurance, he couldn't tell. Her head rested against his chest, bowed, and all he could see now was the curve of her shoulder, drying strands of her hair beginning to float up with the breeze. He ran his hand down her arm, feeling the dampness of the tunic she still wore, wondering if he should try to remove it.

  He probably should. She would warm up faster without it. That had to be more important than her modesty.

  But when he reached for the hem down by her shins—obviously the tunic was too large on her—she stirred again, and tried to brush his hand away.

  “Lauren, you have to get warm,” Ari said.“I'm trying to help you.”

  “No,” was all she replied, but she did not try to move from his arms.

  He let out his breath in frustration. “Your tunic is too wet.”

  She laughed weakly.“So is yours.”

  She had a point. Arion gave up on the tunic and instead relaxed back against the seat behind him, keeping her close. He felt surprisingly good, considering all that he had just been through. Yes, in fact, he felt better than that. He felt … wonderful.

  The sun was bright and promising above them, the wind not too strong, smelling of salt and freshness and Lauren.

  He looked down at her again and found her looking up at him, a faint pinkness at last returning to her cheeks, her lips. Her eyelashes had dried into star points around her eyes, whimsical and dramatic all at once, framing the gold with dark brown, so captivating.

  Her hair blew up and caressed his chin, his cheek, a silky skimming over his skin. It was not an invitation but his body responded as if it were: a quick hardening, the craving for her that could overwhelm him just that quickly, like a sunburst, total heat.

  He watched her eyes widen, almost as if she felt it as well. Yes, there was a definite shift in her. She seemed to soften against him, her head tilting back, her hair sliding down his arms. It was just like before, when he had lost his reason in that tunnel shaft and kissed her, and she had kissed him back, passionate, responding. Oh, it had been so perfect, so incredibly arousing….

  Arion lowered his head, his lips dropping down to hers, their breath mingled.

  Lauren pulled back with a jerk, until his arms tightened instinctively, stopping her from leaving completely. She stayed there, still close enough to him that his body ached for her, but she was shaking her head, and her hands were braced against his wrists.

  Obviously, it had been perfect for only one of them.

  Ari let her go. She moved away from him, as far as she could in the confines of the boat, not meeting his eyes but instead looking down and away. There could be no mistaking what was now a blush across her cheeks.

  “Lauren,” he tried, but she only shook her head again, a hand coming up to cover her lips, as if she could press back what she wanted to say to him. Her eyes lifted and then moved beyond him, behind him.

  “Look!” she cried, pointing.

  He did, following her hand to see the shoreline of the island, a minuscule beach crowd
ed with people, most of them waving and shouting.

  Ari saw the blue and green tartan of the MacRaes on a great many of those people, and plainer tunics and hauberks on the rest.

  His gaze moved back to Lauren and this time she didn't look away. Her face appeared carefully blank, smooth nothing. But her eyes revealed the truth. He saw the shame there, and the desire.

  Arion found his place on the seat behind him and wordlessly began to row them to shore.

  Chapter Seven

  HE WOMEN AT THE LOOMS were talking about her.

  Lauren couldn't ignore it, though she was too far away to actually hear their conversation. She was walking from the keep to the stables, looking for Hannah, when she passed the weavers sitting snug in their own building, a stone and thatch place that held the precious quantities of wools and dyes and people who created the woolen trade the MacRaes were known for.

  Lauren knew how to use a loom. She knew every step of the process, in fact; being the daughter of the laird had not spared her from having to learn the technique that all the women of the clan knew and passed down from generation to generation. She could even produce a fairly passable blanket, as long as the pattern wasn't too demanding. Otherwise, it had been long ago agreed that her skills might be better placed elsewhere.

  She had not minded at all. In fact, it had been a great relief to her when, at the age of twelve, both Hannah and Da had excused her from the weaving. No one had been happier than Lauren to bid good-bye to that painstaking work. Instead she had focused on all the things it was thought she should know as the future wife of a laird—supervising the castle, the meals, the cleaning, the supplies, the trading and accounts. So many things, all in preparation for her role as the wife of Payton Murdoch. And since Lauren had wanted her clan to be proud of her, she had truly worked hard at mastering these skills. But even as a child, her hidden heart had always longed for a life that could never be hers.