A man’s shirt. A shirt that swam upon her slender frame so loosely that it could well have belonged to a man the size of Kane.
The fact that it probably did took what remained of her breath away.
SHE HAD WALKED HERE.
Kane supposed, out of everything, that was what amazed him the most. This woman, who would barely come to his shoulder on her feet, had endured a journey that most men he’d ever known would hesitate to undertake on foot. As if the pure distance weren’t enough, the going was treacherous; not only the predators she’d mentioned, but countless other hazards, swift-moving rivers, swamps hiding lethal, shifting sands, thick, scratching underbrush too often dotted with poisonous plants. And all of that was nothing compared to the task of scaling the mountain itself.
But she had done it. She had walked that distance, through such perils, and then had had the courage left to risk the dangers of the mountain. Apparently, with him as her goal. He supposed he must admire her tenacity; this haven was not a place easily found or reached.
Which brought him to the most interesting of the questions her presence gave rise to: how had she found him? In all the years he’d lived here, only Tal had found him, and Tal knew these mountains like no other. No one else had ever done it. Men had come hunting him, yes, but he’d managed to avoid being seen by any of them. Sometimes he wasn’t quite sure how; once he and Tal had been caught in the open by a group of armed men, yet they had somehow never spotted them, even though it had seemed they were looking right at them. So much so that Kane had been certain they would die, and regretted that Tal would die with him, yet another soul tallied to his bloody accounts.
He shoved aside the memory and turned back to the complication at hand. Regardless of how she’d found him, regardless of the impossibility of the journey she’d made to do it, she was here, and he had to deal with it. With her. And it had been far too long since he’d had to deal with his fellow man, other than Tal, who was different enough to not be counted. And longer still since he’d had any dealings with a woman.
And she was most definitely a woman.
He spun on his heel and began to pace before the fire. He’d had no choice. He’d had to tend her injuries, or they might well have festered, she would have died, and he’d have yet another death on his conscience. There had been nothing carnal in it. He wasn’t fascinated by the bright, rippling waves of her hair; he’d barely seen the womanly curves of her body as he stripped her, hadn’t acknowledged that the soft curls at the juncture of her thighs were a shade darker than her hair, hadn’t noticed at all the way her soft, rose-tipped breasts made his old shirt peak in the most interesting way. That part of him was long dead, and the tightness he’d felt in his lower body merely an instinctive response to the memory of a time when he’d taken his fill of womanly companionship at his whim.
He spun on his heel again, and started back in the other direction. Damn Tal; he’d disappeared as swiftly and completely as that raven of his, just when he might have been of some use. He could have tended the woman, and much more proficiently; he had the knack, while Kane’s medical skills were of the crude, rudimentary kind learned on a battlefield.
And he doubted Tal would be wrestling with such ridiculous thoughts about the woman; he’d told Kane once that he was dead to such things, and he’d found the freedom from such urges quite liberating.
At the time, Kane had heartily agreed, thinking himself in the same situation. But Tal had shook his head, and observed in that maddeningly confident way of his that Kane’s heart wasn’t dead, merely in a long sleep, as the bears of the mountains did in the winter, and that someday it would awaken and be ravenous. That someday the right lady would lay a fair hand at his door, and he would let her in. Kane hadn’t much liked the idea, and had scoffed. Tal had merely smiled and let the subject go.
Again Kane turned, only vaguely aware of the speed of his gait. He would let her stay until her ankle was strong enough to support her again; he had little choice about that. He could hardly cast her out as she was; either the mountain would kill her or its more brutal inhabitants would, as she’d said, make supper of her.
That the old Kane would have turned her out without hesitation was a fact that wasn’t lost on him. If she were of no use to him, he would have left her to her own devices, caring little if she survived. He might have sampled the tempting sweetness of her body first, but even that, as everything in life, was transitory, and only of passing interest.
But that Kane was dead. At least, to the world he was dead, a man relegated to the status of myth; Kane himself was resigned to the fact that he would carry some piece of that brutal, vicious man inside him until the day he died. The day he had realized that, he’d been tempted to walk down from his mountain and put the prophecy he’d been given to the test; he wasn’t sure he still wouldn’t welcome the death that had been promised should he leave this place. Surely the world would be better off.
“I see you’ve slipped beyond edgy into plain surly.”
Kane spun around, barely stopping himself from again reaching for a weapon that no longer hung at his side. He swore under his breath, low and harsh.
Tal put up his hands, palms outward. “No, thank you,” he said to Kane’s muttered suggestion. “I’ve been there, and I don’t care to go back.”
“Where’s your familiar?” Kane asked, still peeved. He wasn’t used to being taken by surprise, and now it had happened twice in one day. Tal he’d almost grown accustomed to, but that a woman had done it . . .
Tal’s mouth quirked. “I do wish you’d stop that. You know people don’t take kindly to that kind of thing these days. I have no desire to be hanged for being suspected a wizard.”
“Then quit acting like one.”
“Me?”
Tal’s look of innocence was so overdone, Kane couldn’t help smiling wryly. And had to admit, were it not for Tal, he would have been mightily lonely up here on this mountain all these years past.
“Where is the winged hunter?”
“Maud?” Tal shrugged. “Off hunting.”
“And where did you disappear to in such a hurry?”
“Off hunting,” he repeated, and lifted one hand to reveal the results, a sizable rabbit and equally plump pheasant Kane hadn’t even noticed he held. “I thought you might not have time for a while, what with your . . . guest.”
“You seem awfully sure she’ll be here awhile.”
“Won’t she?”
“Only until she’s well enough to walk,” Kane said firmly, while inwardly acknowledging that he doubted the woman would be up and moving for several days.
“Of course.”
Kane eyed Tal warily; whenever he agreed so easily with something Kane himself was wrestling with, Kane knew he was in trouble.
“She’s quite . . . striking in appearance, is she not?”
“If you like hair that color.” A color that made you think you could warm your hands at its fire.
“The color of a sunset? Some do, I hear.” Tal looked thoughtful. “Her eyes?” he asked.
Kane blinked. “I didn’t . . .” His words trailed off. He’d been about to say he hadn’t noticed, but it was a lie; he had. How could you not? “Blue,” he said abruptly. And it seemed a poor word for the intensity of the color; even in the shadowy light of the cave, they’d been bright, vividly blue.
He wondered how long he’d been standing there like a fool, contemplating the color of a strange woman’s eyes, when he came out of his reverie and saw Tal watching him with obvious amusement.
“What difference does it make?” he snapped.
“None,” Tal said. “None at all.”
“Stop agreeing with me. It makes me nervous.”
Tal laughed. “I’ll be off then, to round up that unruly bird.”
“You mean you
can’t just whistle?”
“I can. But Maud is like any woman; she’ll respond only if she’s already of a mind to.”
“I didn’t realize you were so well versed.”
“A wise man should always know as much as is possible of those around him. ’Tis merely a matter of seeing patterns others miss.”
“I thought you said it was impossible to truly know a woman.”
Tal raised a dark brow. “I was speaking of birds.”
Kane flushed. Tal grinned, lifted a hand to his forehead in a mock salute, and disappeared into the forest.
THERE WAS NO questioning that he was angry. And little doubt that it was directed at her. Yet he tended her with gentle care, a care much at odds with his fierce looks. And even more at odds with his widespread, lethal reputation. A reputation so vast he had become thought of as a mythical being, because it seemed impossible anything less could have amassed it.
Jenna had barely felt the pain as he rebound her ankle. It had been slightly less swollen, but she wouldn’t have noticed anyway; she was, she admitted ruefully, far too fascinated by the man bent over her foot.
For two days she had seen little of him, except when he brought her food, tended to her injuries, and assisted her with more personal needs with a brusqueness that made the embarrassing process remarkably less so. He never spoke more than two or three words, and if she tried to begin a conversation he merely walked away. She spent her time testing her recovering body with occasional efforts to move, and contemplating her surroundings.
For a cave, it was almost comfortable. She lay in a small alcove off what appeared to be a larger chamber, a room large enough for even a man of Kane’s size to stand upright with room to spare. There were niches hollowed out of the walls that contained what apparently was a winter’s worth of foodstuffs. She lay on a bed of soft fur, and the cave walls were hung with various pelts for warmth from the cold stone. And there was a place across from her that showed signs of being used as a hearth.
She had been curious when she’d spotted that, wondering what kept the cavern from filling with smoke, then noticed the shape of the roof of the cave above the spot streaked with soot. There was a chute grooved into the stone, a perfect, natural channel for the escape of smoke. She would bet, with a fire going to heat the stones around it, the cave would be comfortable even on the notoriously cold nights of winter in these mountains. Kane had chosen well; if you had to live in a cave, this was probably one of the best to be had.
Why he had chosen to live in a cave at all was another question. And she doubted if she would ever get an answer to it. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered, except getting him to help her. If she couldn’t do that, there was nothing left. Her people would die. And if it came to that, she would die with them. Not just because it was her place as the Hawk, but because the clan was her entire life; she was connected to them in ways she’d never realized until the attacks had begun and she was faced with losing it all.
She shivered, although it wasn’t cold. She had to get Kane’s help. She simply had to. The alternative was unthinkable. And she couldn’t wait any longer. They had rarely gone a week without another attack from the warlord, and only the magical protection of the glade had kept them from being wiped out already. People were dying while she lay here coddling herself.
Today she had progressed to sitting upright for a long period, and while she was happy at that amount of success, she was anxious to go further. Anxious to get back on her feet. Anxious to get on with her mission.
She had to talk to Kane, and he refused to stay with her long enough for her to do it. So she must, it would seem, go to him.
She managed to get to her knees, then braced her uninjured foot beneath her. She stood, carefully, uncertain of her own stability. And even less certain about venturing forth clad only in this shirt; although it covered her from neck to well below her knees, she was very conscious that she wore nothing beneath it.
Her eyes told her she was no more revealed than in her own soft leather leggings and the rough-woven cloth tunic she had worn on her journey. And logic told her that Kane must have seen all there was to see of her already; someone had undressed her and put this shirt on her while she lay senseless, and Kane was the only one here.
This realization sent blood rushing to her cheeks, and she wobbled slightly on her feet.
It’s over and done, she chided herself. You cannot change what happened, that you were so weak you tumbled in a senseless, useless heap just as you reached your goal. Let it go. He obviously will not speak of it if you do not.
“If he will speak of anything at all,” she muttered to herself. He would, she thought fiercely. He must. She would make him listen, make him help. Somehow. There were no other options. She would do whatever she had to. Starting right now.
She steadied herself, testing her ankle with a slight bit of her weight. It protested, but she thought she could walk. She turned her head and listened, hoping to hear a sound from outside that would tell her he was there. She heard nothing. But she did spy a small pile of clothing at the foot of the pallet she’d been lying on; her own clothing. Looking tidy and freshly cleaned.
Kane, the mythical warrior, acting as a washer? For a woman he did not even know? It hardly seemed possible. Yet there her clothes were. And welcome, she thought as she reached for them.
It took her much longer than she would have liked, yet less than she had feared, to get dressed. And only partly because of the lingering stiffness of her body; she spent far too long trying to envision the fierce warrior washing her delicate shift with his big, scarred hands. It was an image that made her shiver in the oddest way as she pulled the garment on; she wore it beneath the rough cloth tunic to prevent her skin from being rubbed raw. It was her one costly piece of clothing, and her only indulgence.
After considering the still swollen condition of her ankle, she decided against her boots; they looked so sadly battered by her trek she wouldn’t be surprised if they fell to pieces should she pick them up. And she would not be walking far anyway; it would be enough test of her injury simply to make it outside.
She hadn’t thought the cave truly so dark; the cloth hanging at the entrance was pushed back to allow daylight inside, but still she found herself blinking as she hobbled into full light. She stopped, not daring to risk a misstep until her eyes had adjusted. She didn’t want to—
“What are you doing?”
It was short, sharp, and angry. That alone would have told her the source, even if the rough, low timbre of the voice had not already done so. She turned toward him, squinting against the bright sun as he towered over her.
“Trying to become less of a burden,” she said in the sweet, meek voice her brother had always called wheedling.
“If that was truly your concern, you wouldn’t have come here.”
So much for wheedling, Jenna thought. Just as well; she couldn’t sustain it for long anyway; meek, Justus had always said, she was not.
Justus.
She suppressed a shiver as grief rippled through her once more. She had no time for such luxuries as grieving, she reminded herself yet again. She had time for nothing except making this fearsome man agree to help her people. Now, with him towering over her, it seemed a much more hopeless task than it had as she’d lain contemplating it.
“You should not be up. Your ankle—”
“Aches, but it is bearable. And it seems a small cost, compared to being wrapped in the coils of a serpent as long as you are tall.”
Her eyes adjusted now; she could see the bemused expression that flitted across his face. She doubted it was at her tale of woe, and suspected it was because he was not used to being interrupted.
“I doubt it would take a serpent that length to wrap around such a tiny morsel.”
Stung, she drew herself up to her full
height. “Among my clan I am near the tallest of women, and taller than some of the men, as well!”
“I thought this wondrous Hawk Glade supplied all the needs of its holders. Does it not supply enough food to grow full-size men?”
Anger shot through her as she remembered the bravery of those men Kane was belittling, men who knew nothing of warfare or even self-defense, but tried to defend their home and loved ones anyway, even knowing they would die by the score.
“We are more concerned with brains than muscle, with heart and courage than blind force,” she exclaimed. “And you will not find better men for those qualities in any place in any land than you will find among my people.”
For an instant she saw satisfaction glint in his eyes, although she could not guess at the cause. What had he to feel satisfied about? That he had provoked her to anger, when she meant to supplicate? That he had prodded a wound still so raw that it managed to deflect even her consuming grief?
She had the flickering thought that that might have been his intent, but she could deduce no reason for him to care if she grieved, so she discarded it swiftly. And chastised herself fiercely for having spoken so sharply to the man from whom she had come to beg help.
“Sit down,” he said abruptly. “Before you fall.”
“I won’t fall,” she said, although she wasn’t at all certain of that. It just didn’t seem wise to let this man know just how weak she was feeling.
“And I won’t catch you if you do,” he warned.
“I did not ask you to,” she retorted, wondering if it was her weakened state that made her so irascible this day. She smoothed her hands over the rough cloth of her travel tunic. It hung loose without her belt—
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