Warrior Untamed

by Mayhue, Melissa

  “Hold it together, Brie MacCulloch,” she ordered aloud.

  If there’d ever been a time she needed her wits about her, this was that time.

  She directed his horse next to hers and gathered up the lead of her mount.

  They still had time to reach Orabilis. They had to.

  “We will arrive at Rowan Cottage by nightfall. I’ve sworn it and it will be so. And you, my big warrior . . .” She ran a hand down Hall’s back before lifting the fur back up to protect him from the cold rain. “You must do yer part in this, too. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep right on breathing, do you hear me? Elsewise, you’ll have me to answer to.”

  Seventeen

  THE WESTERN SKY flamed with the last traces of red and pink light as the trees surrounding Orabilis’s home came into view.

  Brie didn’t dare yell out to try to attract the old woman’s attention. Though they were many miles from Tordenet, with the Beast’s powers, they were much too close for comfort.

  Step by step, she waited on full alert to confront whatever Hall had expected would keep him from crossing onto the property around Rowan Cottage. She directed his big horse to within a few feet of the front door before dismounting to survey her surroundings.

  Nothing at all unusual happened. No beasts or invisible barriers of any kind.

  If Hall were conscious, she’d give him a piece of her mind for all the useless worry he’d caused her.

  “Later,” she whispered as she approached the door. There would be plenty of time to chastise him for having worried her later.

  Please let there be plenty of time later.

  She lifted her fist to knock, but the door glided open and Orabilis stepped out into the evening to greet her.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t the last daughter of the House MacUlagh. Yer back so soon, Princess. To what do I owe this grand honor?”

  Brie’s face heated, remembering her first meeting with the old woman, and how she’d embarrassed herself by listing her birthright and ancestry as if it might give her some added authority.

  Orabilis had been less than impressed with her pedigree. It was more important who you are, the old witch had informed her, than who yer family had been in generations so long gone that few even remembered they’d ever existed.

  The witch, it seemed, was as wise as she was aged. Brie hoped now that her generosity would rival that wisdom.

  “I need yer help. My . . . my companion has been injured and the Tinklers tell us yer the only one who can help him.”

  “The Tinklers told you that, did they? Well, let’s have a look at him, then. If the Tinklers chose to send him to me, he just might be worth saving.” Orabilis tottered over to the big horse and squinted up toward Hall. “Wake up!” she yelled, slapping a hand to his leg.

  “He’s no asleep,” Brie said, straining to keep the desperation she felt out of her voice. “He’s dying, damn it all. Can you no see that? He’s losing the battle with the poisonous Magic that infects his wound.”

  “Magic, eh?” Orabilis scratched at her chin, studying her patient. “Magic too strong for the Tinklers means we’ve got our work cut out for us. We’ll need to start by getting this big one down from his perch.”

  “We can do it,” Brie answered, sounding much more confident than she felt.

  Climbing back up on Hall’s horse behind him, she worked the reins up and over his head before sliding back down to the ground.

  “There. I’d think that if we give him a good tug, between the two of us, we can catch him as he slides down. Can you do that, do you think? Help me to catch him before he hits the ground?”

  Eyeing the old woman, Brie felt some doubt as to the possibility of success for her plan, but Orabilis nodded enthusiastically and positioned herself next to Brie.

  “Here we go,” Brie encouraged while she put her back into pulling Hall toward her. “It’s working! It’s . . . oof!”

  As Hall’s body gained momentum toward them, Orabilis stepped back and away, leaving Brie to shoulder the full brunt of his weight. As strong as she was, she wasn’t strong enough for that.

  She fell to her back, him spread-eagle on top of her. The only thing that saved her from a painful landing was Orabilis’s hands at her shoulders, slowing her fall a bit, guiding her to the ground. Thank the Seven the old woman hadn’t completely deserted her.

  “Good of you to help,” Brie managed to squeak when she’d caught her breath. “Yer stronger than you look.”

  And a good thing it was, too. Without Orabilis to slow her descent, Brie suspected she might have been seriously injured. As it was, she was simply pinned to the ground under Hall’s weight, barely able to catch her breath.

  Orabilis stepped back, hands on her hips. “I suppose I am strong at that. But then, I’d have to be, living out here alone as I do, now, wouldn’t I?”

  “If you could just help roll him off of me,” Brie grunted.

  “Sorry, lassie. I canna see that happening. But perhaps I’ve something inside that might give us some assistance,” Orabilis answered, turning to hobble back inside her little cottage.

  At least Brie assumed the old woman returned to her cottage. With Hall on top of her, her view of everything other than a few degrees to her left was blocked.

  So here she lay, unable to move, struggling for breath, deserted by the only creature within miles who could help.

  “Bollocks,” she muttered, and tried in vain to pull her arm to freedom.

  Hall’s face lay next to hers, his shallow breath hitting her cheek in short little puffs. At least he still lived.

  She quickly realized that he lay so close, if she turned her head at all, her lips brushed against his. She did so, then tried it a second time, just to make sure she wasn’t imagining it.

  “Ahem. Am I interrupting the two of you in some sport?”

  “No!” Brie’s shout of surprise sounded more like a flattened huff of air. “I was only checking to see if the fever had taken him again.” Why she felt the need to explain was beyond her.

  “And has it?” Orabilis asked as she squatted down next to them.

  Brie regretted that she hadn’t actually been thinking of fever when her lips had touched his. Her lie forced her to turn her face back toward his to rest her lips against his once more. Heat flooded her body, assuring her that one of them was excessively warm.

  “Yes,” she responded breathlessly. “There is a fever.”

  Orabilis chuckled as if someone had told her a wonderful joke, leaving Brie with the awful suspicion that she was the punch line in whatever the old woman found so amusing.

  “Turn yer head away, lassie,” Orabilis instructed, and thrust her hand between them, up next to Hall’s nose.

  With so little warning, Brie wasn’t quite fast enough.

  An acrid, bitter odor crawled into her nostrils and rushed straight to her oxygen-deprived lungs. She panted, unable to fully catch her breath under Hall’s weight. The need to gasp for air or to cough out the stinging fumes overwhelmed her.

  “What is that?” she choked out after a moment.

  “Strong, is it no? A potent wee tincture of my own making. Good for waking a body from almost anything. Any moment now, yer big warrior here will be able to help us get him inside under his own power.”

  “And off me,” Brie grunted.

  As Orabilis had predicted, Hall groaned and began to stir.

  “Where?” His voice rasped as if his tongue were too thick for him to form words.

  “Dinna you try to speak, good sir,” Orabilis said as she tugged at his arm. “Save what little strength you have for getting on yer feet.”

  “Who?” He tried again while pushing up to his knees.

  “A stubborn one, you are.” Orabilis chuckled, her eyebrows waggling like fuzzy caterpillars. “I see you’ve found a match for yer own willfulness, have you no, lassie?”

  Brie ignored the question and got to her feet, snugging her shoulder under Hall’s arm to he
lp support him. She could only hope his mind was too fuzzy to have registered the old witch’s question.

  Found herself a match indeed. Not hardly. Though a night ago, she’d allowed herself to believe the same thing.

  “How?” Hall muttered, attempting to pull away as if he thought he could do this on his own.

  “Easy, now,” Orabilis cautioned as she shoved the cottage door open with one hip and guided them all inside. “Into the chair with him. Over here, near the fire. I need to see what I’ve got to work with.”

  The old woman grunted as they eased their burden down and then stepped away, hands on her hips as if admiring her accomplishment.

  “You said he’d been poisoned by Magic. What exactly has done this to him?”

  Brie straightened, her back protesting sharply at the last several minutes of mistreatment she’d given it. “The Sword of the Ancients. It barely touched him, but Editha Faas said its Magic is most powerful. And, judging by what it’s done to Hall, I have to agree with her.”

  “Sword of the Ancients, eh?” Orabilis chewed on the corner of her lip, her sharp eyes boring a hole in Hall. “If that’s the case, how did you pass through my ring of rowans, my good man?”

  Hall shook his head back and forth like a man waking from a long dream. “Tried to ask you that.”

  “So you did. That’s a mystery we’ll worry ourselves over later. Yer here now, are you no? Might as well get out of that tunic and give me a look at that injury of yers so we can see if Editha Faas kenned what she was talking about when she sent you here. You should be feeling a little stronger by now. Are you?”

  “Mistress Faas isn’t likely to make an error on something such as this. No Fae would.” Hall pulled the tunic up and over his head and let it drop beside him.

  Brie tightened her hands into fists as Orabilis laid a gnarled finger upon his wounded shoulder. The old woman traced the curve of his muscle to the edge of the bandage and Brie could almost swear she felt the touch of his heated skin upon her own hand.

  The light of the fire glistened off Hall’s chest and Brie’s heart beat a little harder, forcing her to breathe deeply to calm it down.

  Too bad he wasn’t what she’d thought him to be. Too bad she wasn’t what he’d want in a wife. Too bad, all of it, because he was exactly what she would—

  “Bridget!”

  Brie’s head snapped around to face Orabilis, realizing as she did that she’d missed whatever her hostess had said earlier. She’d been completely lost in staring at the beauty of Hall’s bare chest, remembering how it felt to be held by those strong arms.

  “I said I need more light in here. Run out to the shed and bring in peat staves for the fire.” The old woman spoke slowly, deliberately, as if her words were meant for a dullard.

  Brie deserved as much.

  “Right away.”

  She cast a quick glance in Hall’s direction as she headed for the door. In spite of his condition, a smile lifted one corner of his mouth.

  A mortifying certainty swirled in the pit of her stomach and heated her face. She’d been so obvious in her lusting after his body that, even at death’s door, he, too, had known she’d been lost in staring at him.

  If there was a greater name than fool for a fool, she had more than earned it this day.

  BRIDGET HAD DONE it. Just as she’d vowed she would. Somehow, this wild-spirited warrior had managed to get him to Rowan Cottage before the Magic of the sword had taken him.

  What an amazing woman she was.

  He tried for a smile as she headed past him, hoping she realized how grateful he was for all she’d done for him. But her gaze skated past him as if she couldn’t bear the intimacy of their eyes connecting.

  Little surprise there. He was hardly worth her time. One way or another, he’d be out of her life soon enough—a fact she’d apparently accepted.

  Hall turned his attention to Orabilis. His only hope for survival tottered around, looking as if she were on her last legs. Witch or Faerie, it made no difference to him. They needed to act quickly.

  “It’s betony and yarrow I need now—” he began, but the old woman interrupted.

  “Dinna you be telling me how to go about healing, boy. I was working with herbs long before you were born.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” In fact, he quite doubted it. To say he was older than he looked would be a great understatement. Though if she were indeed Faerie, her looks would have no bearing on her true age. The Fae wore appearances as Mortals wore clothing.

  “Well, I’m sure of it. I ken what you are. I felt it when I touched you. And dinna you bother to argue with me. You’ll want to save yer strength for answering my questions. The potion I used willna last overlong. What I do want to hear from you is where you got yer hands on the amulet that hangs around yer neck. The one that allowed you through my defenses.”

  So it was his talisman that had granted him entry to Rowan Cottage. His hand rose to clasp the wooden goat. It was one of his most prized possessions, and where it came from was none of her business.

  “It was a naming gift from my friend and brother, Chase Noble,” he answered, the words pouring out of his mouth in spite of his intent not to tell her.

  What the hell had she given him?

  Orabilis nodded, a satisfied expression settling on her wrinkled face. “Honesty is a good trait to find in a man, even if it’s not necessarily his first inclination. Very well, then. Since you received my little billy there as a naming gift, by what name are you called?”

  “Hall O’Donar.” When her eyebrow raised, he felt her disbelief like a slap to his face. “It is as my brother named me. I was called Halldor before the gifting,” he explained.

  Again her face creased into a satisfied smile. “So it’s Thor’s Rock gracing my humble home. I should have guessed. You hail from the Thunder people in the Lands of Mist, do you?”

  “I do.” Though he rarely spoke of his family roots with anyone, he would never deny them. Not that he had the ability to speak anything other than the whole truth, thanks to whatever Orabilis had given him.

  “In that case, I’d say my little billy had nothing to do with yer being here. All in all, good enough,” she muttered, crossing to a shelf on her wall to retrieve several pots. “Herbs,” she announced, returning to the fire to dump their contents into a bubbling cauldron hanging there. “Of my choosing, no yers.”

  Some of the aromas he recognized but others were strangely foreign to him.

  “A wound such as yers requires other than the usual healing herbs, wouldn’t you say, lad?”

  He nodded his agreement. The sword had been created specifically to kill those from his world, so he wasn’t at all sure that even one as powerful as Orabilis was reputed to be could find a way to save him from the ancient Magic at work in his blood.

  “There’s a way, never you doubt that, lad.” All traces of humor faded from her face as she held a hand over his bandage. “There’s always a way. I can only guess that whatever is wrapped in this linen is responsible for yer reaching my door with a breath of life left in you. And there’s only one thing I can think of strong enough for that. Would I be right in my assumption?”

  “The jewels,” he confirmed.

  It had taken more effort to speak this time than it had before. The old Faerie had been correct about the potion she’d used wearing off soon.

  “When I remove them, you’ll likely drift away quickly. Never fear, lad, I’ll bring you back from the middle lands. But before we begin, let’s get you into the back room while we still can. I’ve no desire to be hauling yer great body around without yer assistance.”

  Hall rose slowly to his feet, surprised at how difficult it was and how weak his legs felt beneath him. As he followed Orabilis, he tottered as much as she did.

  She opened a door and pointed to a tidy little bed. Obediently, he crossed to it and lay down. His mind heavy with apprehension, he waited as her gnarled fingers began to work at the bandage o
n his shoulder.

  “I have them. Shall I put them on the fire now?”

  Bridget’s voice floated to him on a rush of cold air, settling around him like a favored blanket as the bandage on his arm was lifted away.

  You’ve returned, he attempted to say, but the sound that came out of his mouth was little more than a garbled, gurgling noise.

  He fought the thick, black ooze settling over his mind, using what strength he had left to reach out his hand as he forced his eyes open once more to focus on Bridget standing in the doorway.

  She dropped the armload of peat she carried right there in the doorway and hurried to his bedside, catching up his hand and reaching out to caress his cheek.

  It felt good to have her here with him. To have her touch upon his face. If this was to be his last interaction in this world, he could think of no one he wanted more than this woman at his side.

  “WHAT HAVE YOU done to him? Why did you remove the jewels?”

  Brie’s breath seemed to be blocked somewhere in her throat, as if there were no longer room for the air to pass into her lungs.

  Hall’s fingers loosened in her grip but she couldn’t make herself let go of him. Maybe, somehow, she could pass her strength to him. Pass her will to keep going on to him.

  “Here.” Orabilis handed over a bowl and cloth. “Clean that wound while I gather what I need for the poultice. Mind you, try not to get those nasty bits of the ooze on yer own skin.”

  “Will it harm me as it has him?” Not that it would stop her from helping him. She only wanted to know what to expect.

  “No,” Orabilis answered, a sour, wrinkled expression on her face. “But it has a fair nasty smell that people like you would find difficult to wash away.”

  Reluctantly, Brie laid Hall’s hand on his chest, then dipped the cloth into the warm water.

  People like her? What was that supposed to mean? She would have asked, but the old woman had already wobbled off into the other room.

  Brie turned her attention to the task at hand. She cleaned the black oozing secretion from Hall’s shoulder to reveal a deep, jagged opening underneath. The wound had swollen, puckering and tearing the opening, which had once been only a tiny slice of a cut.