Defiant

by Kennedy, Kris

  “Approximately.” She bent over, picked up a twig, and dropped it in the fire. “I know what you must think.”

  “What must I think?”

  “You suspect I am the Everoot heir.”

  His shook his head, his gaze never leaving hers. It was a hard, penetrating look from his night-dark eyes. “Never. You could never have run and left your mother behind.”

  Accursed Jamie. Her nose pinched tight and she swallowed hard once, twice, a third time. How did he do this, home in like an archer on the things of the heart, when he was so clearly lacking one himself?

  “I did not run,” she said with rigid precision. “She made me promise to take Roger and flee, the moment we saw the king ride up. I ne’er would have left her, you must know that. Someone must know that,” Eva repeated, suddenly harsh. But knowing did not matter. Roger knew, and Father Peter knew, and still the awful guilt remained. No one could give absolution for it. “But the countess Everoot made me swear . . . and there was Roger...” Her voice broke and she stopped until she could see Jamie clearly, and not through a shimmering veil of tears. “Yes, Jamie, massacre fits. The king would have killed us all if he could that night.”

  “What pricked the king’s rage?” Jamie asked.

  She shook her head, although he was not looking at her, but into the flames. “I cannot say,” she murmured.

  But of course, she could. She simply would not. One did not tell such tales. They were not hers to tell. Tales of how a beloved widowed Countess Everoot and the equally widowed Lord d’Endshire had not only developed la liaison amoureuse but had also been trying to spirit away treasures hidden in the vaults of Everoot’s castle before the king thought to confiscate them himself.

  But everything else . . . Eva knew everything else was going to be unleashed tonight. She felt it in some strange and inexplicable way. It was as if the words had been herded in her throat for ten years now, and once she opened her mouth, they all came galloping out.

  “We hid in the wall, Roger and I. We watched him. He murdered Roger’s father, Lord d’Endshire. The king knows we have seen this; he is not happy with knowing it. I hid Roger in a hidey-hole behind me.” She broke off. “Then Mouldin came. I took Roger and ran.”

  “You fled with the babe,” Jamie said. It was a low-pitched, smoldering summary.

  “He was not a babe. He was five.”

  “That is a babe. And no one ever saw either of you again?”

  “Father Peter did. He came for us, much later, in the woods. I think he must have known something bad would come. He used to travel north as a judge, on the royal eyres. The countess would invite him to stay. He first showed me how to draw when I was very young. We”—she shrugged—“were kindred.”

  “And the attack back in the woods, Eva?”

  She gave up on the gully; there was simply no way to kick out enough dirt to match all the truths coming out of her this night. She released a sigh and tipped her head back and peered between the shifting tree branches.

  “Mouldin’s men,” she admitted. Whyfor not? She could barely discern which truths were yet untold. “Gog saw them. To Roger’s detriment, they also saw him. And do you know what good and foolish thing he did? He jumped them and tried to stop them from taking Father Peter.”

  “All six of them?”

  She nodded glumly. “This is another of his so-good reckless decisions. We are a mess, our little family, are we not? They slapped him down like a mosquito. But they did not forget him. They must have told Mouldin of the little bug who tried to sting them, and he sent them back.”

  “How could a description of a fifteen-year-old harken to him a five-year-old boy?”

  She stared into the flames. “You do not know Mouldin. He is like a wolf trap, all claws and cold steel. He knows when heirs are due him.”

  Nighttime breezes brushed like a soft hand through the new leaves, humming little lullabies. The fire crackled and flared up as it licked its way over a pocket of air. In front of the suddenly flaring flames, Jamie was a solid black silhouette.

  “Do you know what a good man Roger will become?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  Jamie rolled the tip of his stick in the fire, a slow, highly controlled move. “I do. You have raised him well. You made a man decent and good, who would have otherwise been lost.”

  “And if you take him to your king?” she said bitterly. “Then of what good is goodness?”

  The fire hissed and hummed as he watched her.

  “You do not even know how easy it would be to ruin him. This goodness of his, it is like a grass blade. It will be trampled.”

  He said nothing.

  “And yet, you will do what you will do, will you not? You will say you have no choice. That you are bound by vows and oaths, and this will hold you to terrible things.” To his credit, he did not look away. “But, Jamie, how could you? Do you not know . . . ?”

  Her voice faded off. He knew. He was a mythic warrior-king, sitting cross-legged before the fire. He looked every inch of it, with his flashing sword and dark eyes, his hands that had done so much, waiting to take whatever he wished. And yet, and yet...

  He looked down into the fire. “Eva, do you know what state this realm is in?”

  “Dying.”

  “No. Exploding. Erupting. It will not last long.”

  “And so men do terrible things while they can.”

  “And in their madness, would put on the throne a man worse than the known evil.”

  “There is no worse thing,” she protested, then pressed the back of her hand to her lips to hide that her voice had cracked, like a wall pressed upon too hard.

  He looked up then with a smile overflowing with bitterness. “Eva, there is always something worse.”

  The heart hangs over a pit. Strung up like a sacrifice, it swings in the winds of the world, of things done and things that might have been. Sometimes it is in terrible sway, those hopeless moments of How did it ever come to this? Other days are calm, and it is easy to forget what lies below.

  Then there are Jamie days. Hurricane days. Days where the worst winds are nothing but pale zephyrs beside the sweeping hurricane force of one other lost, swinging soul.

  “Eva.” Rough came his words, quiet and hoarse. He reached up and touched the end of her half-spun braid, where it hung in front of her belly. He might have stroked her with a lightning bolt, for the shock it sent through her. “If I could do a thing of my choosing tonight, it would be to walk in your vineyards, holding your hand. But I am not bound that way. I am shriven for something other.”

  Oh, loose the hurricane, she was lost in him.

  Tears pushed at her eyes with their little wet elbows. It hurt a great deal.

  She was bereft. Beggared. Without resources to meet this unexpected truth that it had come to this: her heart was seen by the man who would be her destruction.

  So she did the only thing left: she reached for him.

  Thirty-eight

  Jamie saw her extend her hand. Her slim, pale arm, her fingers, reaching for him. Trusting him to do no harm.

  He had a moment of knowing he could turn away. Do the decent thing, and not reach back.

  But Jamie wasn’t decent.

  Her body ached to unfold for him, and he wanted to make her do it. As he was not capable of anything more than this, the weight of needing of this one thing from her was almost crushing.

  And she wanted him. It carried her toward him in waves, and he would not resist swimming in her any longer, not if she gave the least encouragement. Not tonight, when the past and future were so close to hand. Not when she was so close to hand.

  Wry, perceptive, cynical, hurt, desperate Eva, right there.

  So he swept down on her like the wind, hoping to blow her over and move on, as he had been doing ever since his father had been murdered before his eyes on a London street.

  He reached up and touched the curling ends of her half-spun braid, where it hung in front of her belly. He could har
dly feel the silk of her, against his rough touch.

  “Loose your hair.”

  “No,” she whispered, but the word rode out on a trembling breath, and she bent her arms and pulled the pins from her hair.

  His heart started a sluggish, hard beat.

  Dark hair tumbled all around her shoulders. “You are exquisite,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “You are dangerous.”

  His eyes slid to hers. “You should run away.”

  “I am trying.” Her voice broke.

  No quarter given tonight. He touched her fingertips and tugged her down to her knees. Eva had a way of moving such that even in dropping to kneel before his warrior’s body, she looked like a princess. With the back of a hand, he brushed the hair away from her ear and curled his fingers against the base of her head, coaxing her forward.

  A long, hot breath slid out of her. She felt as if the freshest wind were blowing past her, making her dizzy.

  Then he leaned in and touched his tongue to her earlobe, whispering, “Lift your skirts for me.”

  Whoosh. “I will not let you,” she said, but her voice shook. Everything shook. He was the wind, blowing her over.

  “Yes, you will.”

  Hand light on the back of her head, holding her steady, he leaned forward from where he sat and trailed a line of soft kisses down her neck to the soft dip at the base of her throat. No more breathing slow and steady. Her breaths came in sharp little pants now, pushing past her lips.

  He slid his hand down to the curve of her back, under the warm curtain of her hair, drawing her closer, until her knees were pressed up against him. Not stopping, he reached up and tugged down the collar of her bodice, then together unlaced the ties of the bodice of her gown. Then he looked at her, and her body started trembling.

  He took her nipple, cool and hard, into his hot mouth and sucked. She threw back her head as he sucked harder, and she cried out and threaded her fingers through his hair. And so, hard and commanding, but ever slowly, to torment her, he lapped from one breast to the other, nibbling and sucking, until her body kneeling before him began to tremble. He closed his hands around her waist, holding her to him.

  He ripped his mouth away and looked at her. Eva cupped his face, never having felt as weak as she did just now. The way he looked up at her, with potent masculine lust and something almost affectionate, made her tremble from the inside of her heart to her hot, flushing skin.

  He reached out and slid his thumb over one of her nipples, slippery from his suckling. Wetness throbbed inside her. His hard, dark, dangerous eyes locked on hers.

  “Now, you will let me.”

  She would. She did.

  He wrapped a handful of hair around his palm and slowly, irresistibly, pulled her head back as he rose on his knees in front of her, then bent his head and kissed her. Hot and hard, he took possession with a ferocious kiss that never ended. He mined deeper with each plunge. Her arms were around his shoulders, and he slid one hand down between their bodies. A flick of his wrist flipped the hems of her skirts up, and with slow, devilish intent he put his hot, calloused palm on the inner side of her knee and stilled. She exhaled a shuddering gasp. His eyes held hers as he slowly, achingly, slid his broad hand up the shiveringly sensitive inside of her thigh, higher and higher, until he reached the hot juncture between her legs. He stopped. She held her breath, whimpered, and pushed against him.

  “Jamie.”

  “How far shall I go, Eva?”

  “Oh, much, much further,” she pleaded.

  He gave her that small half smile and slid a thick finger into her heat, a single thrust, deep inside.

  She flung her head back, crying out. Immediately his mouth was over hers, covering the dangerous sound, sucking her tongue into his mouth, his finger still inside her, sliding almost out, then in again, hard and fast.

  He pressed his forearm against her inner thigh, coaxing her knees apart even farther, and she spread her legs for him. He slid a second finger in, and his thumb began circling against her slippery folds, perfect little pushes of sensual torment. She threw her head back and rocked her hips forward, and they made a slow rhythm of his capable hand and her tossing head, and his lips in her ear, his low voice urging her on. He bent with her as she arched back, his body tight against hers, one broad hand behind her shoulder blades as she clung to him, the other inside her, thrusting, harder and faster, so she could do nothing but toss her head on each rhythmic push.

  “I want more.” Dark and full of promise and threat, he spoke against her lips.

  She didn’t even realize that he’d sat back, bringing her forward with him, until he sat on the ground and she knelt over him.

  “Lean into me,” he coaxed in his low warrior voice, his hand still doing wicked, wonderful things, and she was unable to do anything but his bidding. She put her palms on his shoulders and leaned forward, her mouth by his ear. His arm stretched out under her belly as he slid his fingers in deeper, pressing for more.

  “Will you lift your skirts for me now?” he asked in his sinfulness.

  “Dear God, Jamie,” she gasped, shocked and so fiercely aroused her body was humming.

  “Rise up on your knees,” he ordered, and when she did, when she was up on her knees for him, shivering with desire, he tore her skirts up and forced her to hold them, and he watched her as he plunged his fingers into her deep and slow, over and over.

  “Jésu, you are beautiful,” he rasped, and leaned to kiss her belly.

  She hung on to his shoulders as his sinfully capable hand worked her, rocking two fingers inside her, and his thumb wicked in its slippery little strokes, his tongue hot, lapping, moving lower, his teeth making little shivery nips down her belly and abdomen, going lower, so that her thighs shuddered as she leaned on his shoulders, and her head dropped back so she was looking up at the blowing tree limbs, sobbing his name.

  “Come for me,” he ordered ruthlessly, his voice a harsh rasp. “I want to watch.”

  A stick cracked in the woods.

  They flung themselves apart. Danger had been too long a part of their lives for anything, even mad passion, to curb its bite.

  Eva practically bounded to the opposite end of the clearing. Jamie got to his feet and stared into the fire, trying to calm his breathing, just as Ry’s armored body appeared at the edge of the clearing, Roger beside him.

  Ry stopped short. He looked at Jamie, then at Eva, then back to Jaime. Roger did the exact opposite: looked at Eva, then Jamie, then strode to Eva’s side. She stood with her back to the clearing, to the fire. To Jamie. Gog stepped close, murmured something to her.

  “What happened?” Ry asked, drawing near.

  “I got in,” Jamie replied in a low voice.

  Ry examined him closely. “Aye? And?”

  “Roger is the d’Endshire heir.”

  Ry let out a low whistle. “Jamie, you could smash open a rock. Why on earth did she tell you that?”

  Jamie shook his head at the glowing bed of orange coals in the fire pit. Why had she told him that? Because he’d practically manhandled it out of her. Pushed on her when she was already tipping. Stomped on her where she showed the slightest weakness. Waded in where she was most transparent and dragged her through the shallows.

  This was not generally the sort of behavior that elicited reflection, and certainly not remorse.

  “That is what I do,” he said flatly.

  Ry eyed him. “Now what?”

  Jamie finally looked up. “Your query means what?”

  Ry swept his arm in a semicircle, to indicate . . . whatever had happened here. As if whatever happened here would change his plans. Affection never changed his plans.

  “Now we find the priest,” Jamie said.

  Ry glanced at Roger and Eva, a few paces off. “When we have one of the heirs right here?”

  “We have not made it this far, you and I, my friend, by relying on the king for our intelligence. I do not see why we would start now.”

/>   Ry glanced across the clearing. “And Roger? Do we tell him?”

  “Tell him what?”

  “That a barony is waiting for him, I suppose.”

  “Ah.” Jamie gave a small, humorless smile. “Not that I am Satan’s minion, come to take him to hell.”

  “I do not think that.”

  “You are alone in your good opinion of me.”

  “I did not say I have a good opinion of you,” Ry retorted. They looked at Eva and Roger, murmuring together. Roger had his hand on her shoulder and his head was tipped down, nodding, as if confirming something. Or encouraging her.

  Eva’s hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her bodice was laced, but barely. She was speaking in low tones, her face pale, her hands animated, moving in the air between her and Roger’s bent head. The light cast by the glowing embers brightened the front of her slim, tousled silhouette. Then she wrapped her arms around herself and bent her head.

  “If I have the stick to measure Eva by,” Jamie said slowly. “Roger knows very well who he is and exactly what awaits.” He turned away. “I have the watch till morn.”

  He climbed the hill and stood peering into the valley below. The narrow dirt road was visible crossing a distant hill, looking like a skinny belt on a fat man. Moonlight shone, making it shimmer here and there in puddles. The wind whispered through the trees, shivering the leaves. It was crisp from trees and salty from the far-off sea. Chilly.

  Then, far in the distance, he heard a wolf loose a great, howling cry. They were not all dead, then, not yet. He closed his hand into a fist, clenching it around the strange, fierce . . . joy that moved through him.

  He waited, but no answering cry came.

  He slowly unclenched his hand and raked his fingers through his hair. She was strength and courage, an erotic nymph with a glowing vulnerability at her core, and Jamie could carry no one’s vulnerabilities. Not his own, not anyone else’s. No vulnerable things in his life. Not anymore.

  Hopefully he’d proven his worth tonight, which was naught. For his sake and hers, he hoped he’d warned her off.

  He had a mission, and it did not involve butterflies or smart, sultry women who could be hurt by a look and wanted much more than whatever he had inside.