Intimate Enemies

by Shana Ab

  “Don't move,” said a voice to her left, where she could not see.“You need to stay still, Lauren.”

  She knew who that was. Lauren tried again to turn her head, back to the left, but this time the lightning blocked out everything else, and she actually felt herself slide into oblivion as it happened.

  No dreams now, only that discontinuation of time and life; everything empty, everything gone.

  When she looked up again, the canopy above her had not changed. It hung from wooden beams that had been polished and carved into long, twisting lines, as if the tree had grown into one of the braids she had made of the sage. The cloth against it was slate and silver, cool winter colors that soothed the pounding ache in her head.

  Lauren moved very slowly, expecting the lightning but getting only more of the ache. She searched the darkened corners of the room, and found a shadow that shifted and then separated from the rest.

  Arion came toward her, reached out a hand and lifted her own, bringing it to his lips. She felt the new growth of his beard rasp her there, brief and prickling.

  “You look terrible,” she said, but her voice was so slight even she barely heard it. Nevertheless, he smiled down at her, still holding her hand.

  “So do you,” he replied cordially.

  Lauren carefully managed to turn her head again, away from him, looking around at the rest of the room.

  “You're at Elguire,” Arion said, before she could ask. “ We brought you here after the fall.”

  “Fall?”

  He paused for a moment, until she looked back at him, waiting. “Don't you remember, Lauren? Yo u fell down a cliff. It was hell getting you back up, I assure you.” He spoke lightly but his eyes were deep and seri-ous.“That was yesterday.”

  “But …” Something he had said came back to her, alarming:“I'm at Elguire?”

  “One of the advantages to being on du Morgan land,” he said.“My home was closer than yours.”

  “Elguire?” Lauren repeated again. She could not stop the word from circling around her, a threat and certain cause for worry. Elguire—home of the enemy, seat of the devil family—her clan would be appalled; they would come, they would battle for her—

  She began to sit up but his hands were immediately at her shoulders, gently pushing her back.

  “Let me go!”

  “Lauren!” Arion leaned over her, frowning.“Do not try to get up. You're almost more bandages than woman at this point, and I won't allow you to harm yourself.”

  There was no sense in fighting him. He was much stronger than she was, and besides, the pain came rushing back, flooding her head until she had to close her eyes again, breathing quickly.

  After a while she felt his hands lift from her, but she remained where she was, struggling to keep her senses straight.

  “I must go home to Keir,” she said to him, when she could.

  “That would be unwise.”

  She opened her eyes and found him standing very close, the cloth of slate and silver hanging like clouds above him.

  “Am I your prisoner, du Morgan?”

  He gave her the smile that was not a smile, and there was no humor in his eyes.“No.”

  Just that. No explanation, no reassurances beyond it.

  “I can't be here,” she tried. “You must understand. I have to go home.”

  “No,” he said again.

  She could hear the wind now, an intermittent brush against the glass of the windows in the room, but nothing else—no birds outside, no voices in the hallway. Nothing. It was as if the rest of the world had vanished, and there were only the two of them left from it all. It felt odd and eerie and strangely like something she had always half expected in her deepest dreams—that they would end up so alone together, perhaps forever.

  Lauren shook her head at the thought. The pain came back, and with it, the reality.

  “My family will be worried,” she said. “How did I come here?”

  Now Arion sat on the edge of the bed, carefully, so that the feather mattress tilted a very little, and she didn't have to shift to make room for him.

  “You don't remember, do you?” he asked, but it was more a statement than a question. She felt the alarm in her climb, something dark and unpleasant lurking just beyond her reach, at the edges of her memory.

  “Remember what?”

  “Let me ask you this: What do you remember, Lauren?”

  “Well …” She looked down at the blanket covering her, the color of charcoal, the wool of it fleecy. “We were at … Dunmar. To find the Vikings …”

  —his face, the dinner, the heat between them, the cold night, the near kiss by the sentry tower—

  “And we rode out with the second patrol.” Lauren noticed her hands against the deep color of the blanket, so pale, almost too thin. Faint scratches crisscrossed the backs of them. There was a bandage wrapped up her left forearm.“We found that meadow, and the campfire. And then Rhodric …”

  She stopped, not because she couldn't recall what had happened but because it humiliated her, that her kinsman would say the things he had, would disgrace her so openly in front of everyone else, especially the Earl of Morgan.

  “I know,” said Arion, his voice telling her nothing of his thoughts.“Go on.”

  “Then there was fighting,” she finished.“Your family and mine. Everyone went mad, I think.”

  “And after that?”

  The dark lurking thing came closer, creeping out from corners and closed doors in her mind. She didn't want to open those doors. She didn't want to know what was waiting there for her.

  “I don't know,” Lauren said, trying to sound convincing.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” she stated.“I don't know.”

  He didn't respond to this, only studied her lying there, so close she could reach out and touch his hand, if she wanted to. But she didn't. Instead she turned her head away, trying to rid him from her vision, wishing she were anywhere else but here right now.

  The dark thing hovered, not banished, pressed up taut against her, waiting.

  “I want to go home,” she said tightly. “My clan will hold you responsible for keeping me here.”

  “Your clan is aware of where you are, Lauren,” he said. “They helped to bring you here. They agreed that it was best for you to recover at Elguire, at least right now. We have a good healer, and a broader access to medicine than Dunmar. None of your bones were broken—a miracle— but still you were hurt, and are unfit for travel. Even your foolhardy Rhodric agreed to it. So, you will stay here.”

  She felt trapped and betrayed, an uncontrollable reaction to his words and the thing that was pressing ever harder against her, pushing, pushing, relentless.

  “There were Vikings hiding in the woods there.” Arion stared down at the floor. There was something new in his voice, ire or pain, she couldn't tell. “They had to be from that rowboat in the caves. We think they were scouting the island, planning to rejoin the Northmen on the longship once they had discovered how many of us there are on Shot, the locations of our villages, our fortresses. We surprised them that morning, and they attacked. There were still more of us. We defeated them. But a good many of our men were felled before we had the wits to fight back.”

  She looked up.“How many were felled?”

  He sighed, and even that sounded angry. “Twelve. Five of yours. Seven of mine.”

  —she struck at the Viking and he blocked her easily, smiling, walking toward her with that leer on his face—

  “They came from the forest,” she said slowly, as images formed and scattered across her memory. “They waited until we were distracted, and then they charged.” She shook her head, feeling ill.“There were … so many.”

  “Aye,” said Arion, grave and soft.

  Lauren felt so peculiar. She felt as if she had split apart into two different people, and one of them was feeling a sickening rush of emotions, guilt and wrath and remorse—but the other was merely stan
ding back, surveying what was happening with a cool detachment. She moved to sit up and this time Arion helped her, his hands firm and impersonal, until she was propped up against the massive wooden headboard, and the charcoal blanket fell to her lap.

  The details of little things struck her with great importance:

  She wore a loose gown the color of heather, with tiny flowers embroidered on the cuffs.

  The bed was very high off the stone floor. There was a rug of many colors covering the area nearby.

  All the windows were securely closed, and the wind outside had not ceased.

  The Earl of Morgan was gazing at her face, and his eyes became the color of the sea in a tempest, nothing calm at all.

  “You were right,” the removed Lauren said, matter-of-fact. “I should not have gone to the meadow. I was a danger to everyone. I allowed myself to be taken by that Viking.”

  Arion looked taken aback for a moment, then said, “Lauren, you were the one who saw them before any-one. You called out to warn us all.”

  “If it had not been for me, he would have had no hostage.”

  “If it hadn't been for you, he would have killed many more than he did.”

  The dark thing pressed harder against her, storm and fright. It was howling her name.

  “But—I killed him.” Lauren wasn't certain if she meant this as a question. She looked down at her hands again. They were shaking. How strange.

  “Yes,” the earl said, and nothing else.

  “I—” The shaking was spreading, she couldn't stop it, though it embarrassed her, as if she were being un-pardonably rude.

  “ We were at the cliff, and I had my dirk … I suppose it's gone now.” She laughed, treble and tearful at once, and then choked it off, horrified at herself. What was happening to her?

  Arion was there, close—too close—and she pulled back from him, trembling.

  “What is it?” he asked, making no move to come near again.“Lauren, what's wrong?”

  “That man,” she said, in a voice that matched her shaking.“He was going to kill me.”

  “Yes,” Arion replied, urgent. “He would have. You did the right thing.”

  Lauren shook her head and brought her hands up to her face, covering her eyes, bowing her head, trying not to laugh and cry at the same time, which made no sense at all. She felt something warm and hard around her back—his arm, drawing her to him now, holding her to his side, a hand stroking her shoulder, her hair. She leaned her head against him, no longer fighting it, and felt the dark thing boil up and spill over her, thick and black and oily, smothering.

  She tried to breathe against it and felt the air within her turn into a sob, and then more of them, a prolonged misery of tears. She clung to Arion and he was still and solid beside her, but she barely noticed it, because the dark thing was so immense.

  Blood and sea and sand and death and death, her father's face….

  Arion was saying things to her, low murmurs and sounds that were not words, comforting, patient. He kept her close and held her there tightly, which was good, because otherwise she might go flying away, she might shatter into so many pieces that she would never find herself again.

  She heard her voice, whisper thin, her words tangled with grief and fear:“I see him. I see his face, as he died … and it's Da's face!”

  “No,” Arion said, sweet and gentle.“No, Lauren.”

  “And the other one, the first one on the beach—I killed him too, because they killed Da, because he was murdered by them and I wanted to murder them back— but it was his face, and I killed him—”

  He rocked her slowly. “You saved my life, my love, and then you saved your own. It was all you could do.”

  “Da,” she cried against him, a soft muffled lament, “oh, Da …”

  Ari put both arms around her and held her even closer to him, until her head was against his shoulder and he could rest his lips on her hair. She was chilled and flushed, quaking so violently with the force of her sorrow that he truly feared for her, that she would harm herself further, that she would go so deeply into that place of pain she had made for herself that he would not be able to help her at all.

  But he couldn't think of anything else to do. It was plain that she was still shocked from all that had happened, and it might hurt her further to try to bring her out of it. So he just held her and kept rocking, saying things he hoped made sense, things that he hoped would reach her past all the tears. She kept one fist closed around the front of his tunic, as child might, seeking comfort.

  Eventually she relaxed into a heaviness against him, trusting and dear, and he slowed his movement and then stopped, not releasing her, unable to let go.

  He could tell by her breathing that she had fallen asleep, which was hardly surprising. She was not well; she had awakened to confront both him and her hidden fears, but her body was not yet healed from all that had happened to her. Poor, brave Lauren MacRae.

  Her hair was a fall of copper skimming over his arms. Her skin was dewy now, pale, the chill of before warmed away. He laced his fingers through hers, carefully freeing her hold on his tunic, then laid her back onto the pillows so slowly that she didn't even shift from his hold. As Arion pulled up the blankets to cover her again, she sighed and moved her hand across her chest, but that was all.

  He lifted his own hand to brush away a few burnished strands that clung to her face, then made himself stop. He backed away from her, leaving the room.

  HE WOMAN PROM KEIR DID not come as soon as Arion had hoped, and when she finally did arrive at the gate of Elguire, the sun was already high in the sky of Lauren's second day there.

  Ari was vaguely surprised by her age. He had been expecting someone more of Lauren's years, he supposed. But this woman was much older, dignified and proud atop her roan mare. She did not travel alone, but instead had an escort of eight men flanking her.

  Arion met her in the bailey, walking up to the group of them, nodding to the faces he knew among her guard.

  She dismounted with the help of her men, a stately woman with shining silver hair and doe eyes. He could only imagine what the beauty of her youth had done to the men around her. There even seemed to be something of Lauren about her face—perhaps the straight-ness of her nose, or the same elegant cheekbones. He was probably imagining that. Hell, he was seeing Lauren everywhere now, so deeply had she touched him.

  “So, here is the Earl of Morgan,” said the woman, surveying him. She raised one hand to him and Arion bowed over it, amused, in spite of himself, at both of them.

  “Madam,” he replied, since he did not know her name. All Ari had been told was that there would be a chaperon arriving from Keir for Lauren, to stay with her until she was well enough to leave on her own.

  Elguire had been housing a parcel of the Scots who had been on that fateful patrol two nights ago—stubborn about remaining near the promised bride of Murdoch— and Ari honestly didn't think anyone would be happier to see them depart than he was. Suspicions and barely controlled tempers had been running high on both sides since the unconscious Lauren had been carried into El-guire. And although the MacRaes had come and hovered over her every few hours, they still managed to stir up trouble the rest of the time, though Ari doubted it was entirely their fault.

  He had had to argue to bring Lauren here. He had had to threaten, in fact. She was bleeding from an assortment of wounds, deathly white, and Ari had been more than willing to fight them all to get her to El-guire, so that she might be saved.

  As he had watched her fall he had honestly thought, in that sick, horrible instant, that she would be killed. That when he raced to the rough new edge of the cliff he would see nothing of her at all; she would be gone to the depths of the canyon. He did not remember running to the cliff. He did not remember scrambling down the soft dirt, barely managing to keep his balance. He remembered calling her name, that was all, and it became a chant, a litany, a prayer as his very soul seemed torn from his body at her loss.

 
; But she was there. Below him—far below them all, her body draped limply against one of the few thin pine trees growing out of the side of the mountain. Her tartan had saved her. It remained stretched and taut over the branches and her body, preventing her from plummeting the rest of the way down.

  They had managed to raise her. That was another moment that was not quite clear to him now—shouts and hasty plans, a rope, a struggle to be the first to reach her. It seemed to take an eternity to get down to her, and all the while he kept his fervent stare on the colors of her tartan, sweating, straining, finding a new prayer for its strength, and that of the tree. He himself had carried her back up the cliff.

  After they had her safe again, the dispute began about where to take her to treat her injuries.

  She lay there, bleeding into the dirt, and Arion had stood over her and told them all that he was taking her to Elguire, and damn them if they tried to stop him. He had his sword out, streaked red with blood, his words coming rough and fast. This was his land, and he was the Earl of Morgan, with the might of his king behind him. If the Scots wanted a war they would get one, but he was taking her anyway, and they would have to fight him right now to prevent it.

  And the men around him had taken one another's measure once more—Ari had kept his gaze straight on Rhodric as he spoke—until finally the Scots begrudgingly agreed that Elguire was closer.

  So they had come here.

  Ari had known better than to insist on carrying her himself in his saddle. He handed her up to one of the Scots, and they all rode like hell to reach his home.

  The Viking had managed to miss the vein in her neck, but Ari's hands were still sticky with her blood, drying in the wind to a deep reddish brown that chilled the deepest depths of him every time he looked down. The entire ride he was sweating, frantic, not even realizing that he was still praying ardently to God for her life until they had placed Lauren in his bed and the healer had come.