by Brenna Lyons
Gawen smiled. “That’s good. You’ve been missed.”
* * * *
Pauwel smiled at Regana as he took the field against Cunczel. The other man was less than a year older, but his time smithing had left him roughly the size of a small mountain, larger even than Wil now that he was grown. The first two blows went to Pauwel, and Regana clapped in glee.
“Your wife is very proud of you,” Cunczel noted.
Pauwel glanced her way momentarily. “Yes, I guess she is.” He brought his weapons up to defend against the attack Cunczel was waging, believing him distracted.
“She’s much prettier than I remembered. It’s easy to see why you succumbed to her.”
Pauwel felt his jaw tighten reflexively. “I did not succumb. I pursued,” he reminded the other man patiently.
“I just wondered how it was that you managed that,” he commented.
“Managed what?” he snapped.
“Pursuing her. You had as little free time as the rest of us, no more. Plus, she was of Gawen’s house.” He smiled a slightly cold smile.
“I think you need to go tumble your chosen. This matter was closed, Cunczel. It is inappropriate to cast suspicion now.”
“Just a nagging wonder that came up later,” he explained.
Pauwel sighed. In truth, he had no idea how Jörg managed it. He’d never asked. He didn’t want to ask, because that would simply undo the distance he was placing between the damned pup and Regana. Already, she accepted his gentle touch without reservation. Reminding her of the other man’s demanding, brutal ways would only cause her undue pain.
“Are we sparring or not?” he asked.
“Of course.” Cunczel raised his weapon with a broadening of his smile, and they exchanged several more blows. “So, how did you manage it?”
“I cornered her while she did evening work and convinced her,” Pauwel lied smoothly, reminding himself to tell Regana about this addition to their story.
“You took her on Gawen’s own land?” he asked with a licentious leer her way that made Pauwel’s blood boil jealously.
“I’ve been judged for all, including my poor choices in my madness,” he countered acidly, striking a harder blow than was necessary.
“Well then, perhaps the great lady is not so virtuous, after all,” he mused.
Pauwel swept Cunczel’s feet from beneath him and straddled his chest, pinning his arms to the floor and crossing his blades around the other man’s throat. “I will kill you for such a lie,” he warned. “What do you want? Do you want to hear every detail of how I convinced her? It was dishonorable. It was beneath me to act in such a fashion. I know it. Regana deserves better than what I gave her, and I’ll not have lies like these tainting her name for my sins.”
Cunczel nodded frantically.
Pauwel knew he should back off, but some part of him screamed for a permanent lesson, a lasting one. He barely recognized Gawen’s voice as the master trainer demanded a hold, as he ordered Pauwel to stand down. Fighting the animal within had him shaking in his exertion. He noted Gawen storming his way, but he almost missed the flash of color that seemed to melt around the master trainer’s body.
“Regana, no,” her brother bellowed as his hands skated off the back of her dress, missing her as he lunged to hold her back.
Cunczel used the momentary lapse in Pauwel’s attention to throw the smaller man off. Pauwel rolled to his feet in a blur of motion. He swept Regana behind him, as Cunczel’s blade flashed. Pauwel deflected the blow easily, his Blutjagd fueled by the fact that the weapon would have caught Regana had he been slower in his reactions. One blade sliced a shallow line across the smith’s face while the other planted solidly at his throat.
“Disarm,” Pauwel ordered.
Cunczel looked at him in shock and dropped his weapon in the dirt. “Pauwel, I meant no,” he began nervously.
“I know what you meant,” he growled. “You made yourself very clear. I will do the same. Do not seek to injure my chosen in word or action ever again. Am I understood, Lord Schmied?”
Cunczel eyed Pauwel’s hand on the weapon that brushed his throat and nodded. “Yes, Pauwel. I understand.”
Regana’s hands moved over Pauwel’s back in circles that calmed his blood. He groaned in release as Blutjagd was forgotten, and sheathed his weapons. Her hands wrapped around him, and Regana pressed herself into his back in a way that made him tighten in pleasure. Pauwel moved in the circle of her arms, as Cunczel backed to the side, holding a hand to his cheek in disbelief.
Pauwel took her shoulders in his hands. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded and ran a hand over his cheek. “Are you?” she countered.
“I am, now,” he admitted. “Never— Promise me you’ll never run into a battle again.”
Regana nodded and lowered her gaze to his chest. His mouth went dry, as she wound her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. Caught in the other fire and screaming for release as he had been for days, Pauwel buried his face in her hair in a hopeless need for her touch. As if she understood perfectly, Regana tipped her head back and brushed her lips over his, standing on tiptoe to reach him comfortably.
“Are you sure?” he whispered against her mouth.
She repeated the move as her answer, and Pauwel moved one hand to cup her jawline while the other snaked around her shoulders. He drew her to him, drunk on the sensation of the velvet warmth of Regana’s mouth under his.
He groaned as he buried his face in the fall of black curls again. Pauwel wanted her, and if he didn’t take her very soon, he’d be on the wrong side of a blade — Gawen’s most likely. His entire body ached for her. His mind and soul were scrambled and nervy.
Gawen’s hand fell on his shoulder. “Take her home, Pauwel,” he whispered. “You’ve had enough today.”
Pauwel nodded and wrapped an arm around Regana’s hip to lead her out into the overcast day. He tried desperately to ignore the looks from the other lords as they left. Concerned or hostile, it was a fairly even split. Suddenly, he decided that the gray sky was a perfect complement to his black mood.
They walked in silence for half the trip.
Finally, Regana spoke. “Please, tell me what’s wrong. What I saw— It frightened me, Pauwel. I didn’t recognize any of you in it. Explain for me,” she pleaded.
“My control is shaken,” he admitted.
“Because of me.” Her voice hitched at that.
Regana likely feared that Pauwel was as mad as Jörg, that his tender side would melt away, and he would become the same sort of beast she’d fallen prey to last. He could not allow her to believe that was possible, or she would never come to him willingly.
“No. Never because of you. It is me. If I can’t control myself, I’m no better than a beast. I will control myself better. You have my word on that.”
“You’re printing, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Then, we should definitely finish what we started this morning,” she mused.
“Not if that is your reason,” he countered stubbornly. Just as she could not live with being his duty, he would not take her if that were her motivation.
Regana stopped and looked at him in disbelief. “Am I that— Can you kiss me and not know how much I want you?” Her face darkened, and she looked away abruptly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” she managed.
Pauwel ran his thumb along the sensitive line of her jaw. “I hope, but I’m afraid I’m only seeing what I hope for,” he admitted.
She nodded, a jerking motion that announced her upset when other indications lied.
“Why are you so uncertain of yourself?” he asked.
Regana shrugged and started to walk away, but he took her by the arm and drew her back. She looked at him as if gauging his state of mind.
“Explain. Please, or I will never understand.”
She removed his hand from her arm resolutely. “It’s not appropriate to dis
cuss it with you,” she answered evenly.
“Jörg?” he guessed.
“Well, if it’s not you,” she joked in a weak voice. “Of course, Jörg! Why does everything bad in my life have to come back to Jörg?”
Pauwel wrapped an arm around her and led her off the trail into a stand of trees. He sat on a fallen trunk, denuded of branches for firewood, and drew Regana down next to him. “You still want him?” he asked fearfully.
“No. I said my goodbye the first day. He can’t come back, after all.”
He nodded, thankful for that small favor. “Then, what?”
“I want to know,” she admitted miserably.
“Know what?” he prodded.
“Why? He must have gone not long after I left him. Could I have stopped him?”
Pauwel groaned, but Regana hurried on before he had a chance to protest her innocence.
“He wanted me to stay longer. If I had, would he still have done it? He had doubts. I knew that. It was so important— He had to hear that I would consent to marry him after the battle almost every time he saw me.” She stared at her hands in unhappiness.
Pauwel’s head seemed to spin lightly as he digested this new information. “Wait! You’re saying Jörg took you. He demanded to hear that you would marry him. He asked you to stay, and then…”
She met his eyes and nodded, tears pooled and waiting to spill.
“What else did he say that night?” he demanded.
“Does it matter?” she asked quietly.
“Yes. It does matter. I think it matters very much. Tell me.”
Regana sighed raggedly. “He told me all he could think about was me. He was even losing concentration in training.”
“You or lying with you?” Pauwel asked pointedly.
She furrowed her brow and darkened. “With Jörg, there was not much of a difference,” she admitted. She grimaced at some unwanted thought. “If there was any.”
He motioned to her to continue, tapping down his fury at the thought of it. Pauwel had suspected as much of the fool, but hearing Regana say it was almost too much.
“He said— He couldn’t worry about getting caught, because Gawen could only take his life, and he would die without me anyway.”
Pauwel wrapped his arms around her. “No wonder you looked so shattered the next morning,” he mused. “Did he tell you that he loved you, too?”
She was silent for a long moment, so still she barely seemed to breathe.
“Regana?”
“No, he didn’t,” she admitted. “He called me geliebt. He always called me that, but—”
“Did he ever tell you he loved you?”
“Once. Maybe more, but I remember once clearly.”
“Probably not,” he bit out. “Did he say it to get you to agree the first time?” Pauwel winced at the bite of sarcasm in his voice. Whether he believed it of Veriel or not, it was inappropriate to say such a thing to the woman the beast had wronged.
Regana blushed deeply. “I told you he didn’t ask,” she replied quietly.
Yes, he’d forgotten that – or tried to forget it. “Then, when did he say it?”
She didn’t answer. Her hands fisted in her skirts.
Pauwel felt his heart sink. “In the aftermath?” he guessed. “After he took you and he realized what he had done.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He held her to him.
“I should have handed him over to Gawen.” Her voice was small and lost. “Why did I believe him? I was a fool.”
“No. Never that,” he soothed her.
The urge to throttle Veriel was nearly overpowering. Whether he planned what he did or got dragged into agreement somehow, leaving Regana as he did was unconscionable. If he planned it, leading her on was below contempt. If he got dragged into it, the least Veriel owed her was an explanation to ease her pain. But how does a man, a man honestly enamored of a lady like Regana, lay with her and tell her he wants her forever only to choose anything but an honorable death?
He pushed that thought away with a renewed spike of fury. Jörg had never been honorable with Regana. What else would he expect from that beast?
“Pauwel,” she whispered, “I do want you. I have since you cared for me that first day when I felt faint.”
“Out of thanks or for what reason?” he inquired evenly as he drank in the feeling of her body pressed to his. Pauwel hoped it was more. He prayed it was to every god he could remember or even vaguely remembered hearing of.
“Not appreciation, because of the type of man you are. You are kind and gentle. You are caring. You are willing to accept censure for me with no guarantee of a return. I’ve never met a man like you.”
“You want me, but you haven’t come to me before now?”
“I— What kind of woman would I be?” she asked hopelessly.
“I don’t understand.”
“To jump from one bed to another that way,” she qualified. “You said it yourself. I have only been taught to be wanton and bold. I don’t want you to see me that way.”
“You’re not being unfaithful. He gave you nothing to be faithful to. You want to learn the tenderness I offered?”
“Yes,” Regana breathed. “More than anything.”
“You’re not offering out of appreciation or fear for me?” he whispered. “You truly want this?”
“I want it. I want you.”
“Then, we should go home. If I touch you now, I won’t be able to stop myself,” he admitted.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Let’s go.”
* * * *
Regana felt as if she were being blown along by a strong wind. After his pronouncement, Pauwel swept her under his arm and started back to their house. Twice, she had to ask him to slow down for her. Both times, he blushed and offered his apologies with a crooked smile.
“I’m sorry,” he finally managed. “I’ve been waiting so long for this moment that I can hardly contain myself.”
“I know what you mean. Every moment in your arms or in your bed—”
“Far longer than that,” he admitted. “I’ve been on the edges of insanity for you for months. I lived for the choosing ceremony.”
“And I wasn’t there,” she groaned. “You couldn’t have chosen another if you wanted to, could you?”
“The thought was sickening. I could never bind myself to another. I’d rather have died.”
“I’m sorry, Pauwel. Had I known—” Regana stopped speaking abruptly. “I can’t even lie about it. I wouldn’t have gone to the ceremony.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You’d have let me suffer?”
“No. Yes— Dammit!”
“Regana!”
“You haven’t forbidden me to curse,” she reminded him.
“I should. Explain.”
“I would have been offering you a lie, Pauwel. I wasn’t intact. I knew that I was with child to another man. How could I allow a man to choose me like that?”
“I would have had I known the circumstances. What am I saying? I did choose you knowing it. I was desperate, Regana. If you didn’t let me claim you and our child, I was as good as dead on Gawen’s blade!”
She nodded sadly. “I wish the baby was yours,” she whispered.
Pauwel stopped walking abruptly and turned her to face him. “It is mine,” he informed her. His eyes softened, and he caressed the area of her stomach near her navel as he was doing more and more often over the last few days. “Never suggest differently,” he crooned. “Not to anyone. Most of all, don’t suggest it to me.”
Regana’s eyes closed in pleasure. His touch was so gentle, and his intent was so pure. He would give anything for this child to be his own. Pauwel’s face moved close to hers, and his breathing was sweet music in his need.
She covered the hand over their child with her own. “Pauwel,” she invited.
“Yes?”
“When we reach home, I want you to remind me how it was when you planted the seed of our chil
d. Make me remember, please.”
“You’ll remember nothing else,” he promised. “Trust me, and you’ll have the sweetest, most beautiful memories.” Pauwel ran his hand down her throat. “If I kiss you, I’ll make it no further. I want to kiss you.”
“Take me to our bed, Pauwel,” she invited.
He swept her into his arms, carrying her quickly toward the house. Pauwel smiled sheepishly at her confusion. “It’s faster,” he assured her, “and I have a plan.”
“For what?” she asked, but Pauwel simply smiled secretively and moved faster.
He carried her through the main room past Kethe.
The other woman looked at them in concern. “Should I get cool water?” she offered.
“No, Kethe.” Pauwel settled Regana on the bed. “You could go to Emecin for another soothing tea — perhaps sweet bread from Bavin,” he suggested.
Regana knew his aim was to create privacy for them, but the worry on Kethe’s face troubled her. “Pauwel,” she whispered, “don’t make her worry. Please, don’t.”
He nodded in understanding and smiled at his younger sister. “And Kethe,” he began, raising an eyebrow at her, “don’t hurry back.”
Her face softened into a knowing smile before settling into annoyance. “If you wanted leave to seduce your wife in peace, you could have asked outright,” she countered.
“But the tea and bread are such a fine idea either way,” Pauwel protested.
“She shall have them. I will see you both for a cold dinner,” she teased.
“Dinner will be the only time you see us if my wife is so inclined,” he promised. “Oh, and Kethe, I don’t care if Gawen, all my brother lords, and Thorald show up at the door together for me. Until it pleases me, do not admit them. For the love of all that’s holy—”
Kethe laughed lightly. “It’s been too long for you,” she mused.
“Much,” he agreed. “Now go!”
“As you wish, brother.” She closed the door and moved away.
Before the outer door closed, Pauwel had dropped his weapons belt and pulled off his tunic. He went to work on his boots and smiled as Regana did the same, but he stopped her as her hands moved to her dress.