by Kris Kennedy
Máel drew a letter from a pouch on his belt and held it up. Her father’s seal dangled off it.
She turned her face away.
“Read it, if you wish,” he said. “But you do not need to, do you? You need only use your clever mind. Follow the contours of the thing.” He stepped closer. “Think what you know, Cassia. Not with your head, with your heart. Ask yourself: who is my father, when all his bets have been called in, and he does not have what is required?”
She took a great, gasping breath and spun away, limping unsteadily to the wall. Staring out the window, she wrapped an arm around her waist, sucking air into her lungs.
Her father’s words came rushing back to her. I will get out of this.
“I,” not “we.”
Máel was right. For her father, the threat Máel posed, the danger of his knowledge, had been stronger than concern for his daughter.
In some corner of her mind, she presumed her father planned to return, perhaps with overwhelming force. Mayhap believed that he had enough time to plot such a thing and rescue her.
An unwarranted assumption, but she had to believe in that at least.
Nonetheless, he had not taken the simplest route to rescue. He had not called the hue and cry. He had not handed over the sword. And he had very much ridden away, leaving her behind. It had been more important to safeguard the sword and protect his treachery than to protect his daughter.
Fear over love.
On those scales, she had not weighed heavily at all.
Máel wrapped his arms low around her waist. He kissed her head, then her ear, her cheek, her neck.
She leaned into his body, the only solid thing in her tumbling world.
“It is over, Cassia,” he said. “You do not have to do anything more. Stay here, where you are safe.” His arms fell away and he strode to the door.
She turned. “What are you doing?”
He looked back, his blue eyes cold and resolute. “I’m going to hunt your father down.”
She pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, breathing so fast the room whirled. Then she flung her hands down.
“Stop.”
Máel stilled, a hand on the door.
Everything about him was pure. Unequivocal and unvarnished. Dangerous, indeed. Highly improper, certainly. Resolute, determined, decent.
Honorable.
Fear over love.
Or love over fear.
“I know where he is going,” she said.
His hand fell from the door. “Where?”
“I will show you. But we must hurry.”
Chapter 27
They rode at a gallop, Cassia on her own horse, who they’d taken from the stables. Despite their predicament, notwithstanding the encroaching peril, she felt excited and alive to be racing like the wind over the earth.
It had been so long since she’d galloped on a snorting, restive horse, a creature set free to run to his heart’s content.
So long since she had been let free.
But when she was a child, nine and ten years old… Oh, how she had galloped across the rock-ribbed wilderness of the Ware demesne, her father’s guards trying to keep up.
Age and station had confined her to the castle for many years now, and she’d forgotten those adventurous rides of her youth. How could she have forgotten? She was almost angry with herself. How could she forget how it felt to ride across the open land with the wind pulling back her hair?
Unfettered. Untrammeled. Free.
The way she had felt with Máel since the moment he offered her strawberries in the tourney stands.
Máel was freedom incarnate. He had no compunctions, not about himself, not about her. He did not regret or rue or disdain any of the wild, reckless things she’d done. Indeed, he’d urged her on in every one, to great effect.
“Come,” she called to him, her words grabbed and flung back as they galloped over the moors. “We are almost there.”
Máel followed her lead, taking back paths through the deserted lands. Villages were few and far apart in the north, towns even fewer. The desolation served them well.
Cassia rode with an expert seat, leaning over her horse’s withers, the reins held low and quiet. She’d twisted her long hair into an efficient braid. Only a few tendrils spilled out to be caught by the winds. His cloak, laid over her shoulders, lifted behind her, revealing colorful silk beneath. Her gaze was pinned straight ahead as she guided them through the emptiness.
She did not look anything like a character from one of her sad, romantic, English tales.
She did, though, look precisely like a character from one of his. A warrior-queen riding at the head of an army to save her people.
They topped a rise and paused to rest the horses.
“We are on Ware lands now,” she said quietly. Below was a winding river.
“You’re sure we will beat him?” he asked.
“He does not know these lands. He does not love them. I know them well. He will take the bridge crossing. It adds a half day’s ride.” She met his gaze. “We will ford it.”
It was a hell of a ford. The water rose above the horses’ chests, until they were swimming against the powerful current. They came out on the other side, fifty yards downstream and soaking wet.
“You’ve crossed that yourself?” he asked when they lay on the far side, catching their breath.
“When I was young, I did many things I was not supposed to do.”
She looked over to find him smiling. “Good,” was all he said.
They climbed the final passage. It was a stony, winding, narrow path, with the forest rising on one side, and a sixty foot drop on the other, ending in a rocky valley below.
Cassia closed her eyes as they went.
“I hate this passage,” she whispered.
A bank of storm clouds had taken shape on the horizon by the time they emerged from the woods. Castle Ware huddled in the valley below.
Battlement walls rose thirty feet in the air. The keep within rose another ten, a spire of stone. Pennants hung from their heights, flapping and slapping the Ware heraldry wetly against the stone.
Closer inspection would reveal its decrepitude. The walls were in disrepair, pitted and gutted. The portcullis gate was rotting; the moat filled with dead fish. A low moan rose off the empty battlement walls as the winds picked up. No people moved within the baileys. No women toiled in the gardens, no soldiers rushed to the stables, no squires drew water from the well. No one.
“Jesus,” Máel muttered as he looked down on the emptiness. A pair of gulls circled overhead with lonely shrieks, then veered off, taking their cries with them, leaving silence behind. “There is no one there.”
“There is never anyone there,” she said dully.
Her father kept no staff when he was not in residence—he dragged everyone after him—and the castle would sit, ghostly empty for months, save for Cassia and a few servants who moved through the emptiness like wraiths.
“When will he arrive?” Máel said.
“By morning.” She turned to him. “You will not kill him.”
Tension tightened his jaw. He dropped his eyes and looked at the ground. “Cassia—”
She stepped toward him. “Promise me you will not kill my father.”
He drew in a long breath and met her eye. “I will not kill him.”
She laid her hand on his chest. “Thank-you.”
“You’d be happier if I did,” he growled.
“No I wouldn’t. And neither would you.”
“You don’t know me very well.”
“Yes.” She slid her arms around his waist. “I do.”
He kissed the top of her head, then turned and pointed to the path they’d just climbed.
“We’ll set up there, where the climb is steepest and narrow enough that only one of them can come up at a time.”
She shivered. “I hate that ledge.”
“So will they.”
They camped ato
p the forested hill encircled by the winding stone path.
The sky was clear, but storm clouds glowered on the horizon, reflecting a red setting sun. Rising winds came in from the west, where the steely-topped waves of the sea could be detected.
“It is wild and beautiful,” she said, looking at her castle.
“A storm is coming,” he replied, looking at the sky.
She turned to him. Since they’d left Rose Citadel, he’d reverted to the brusque, remote, cold-eyed warrior. Had in fact turned quite grim. But grimness notwithstanding, he’d made sure to drape her in blankets and his cloak, and she wore a fresh gown—he’d grabbed everything he could from her chest before they left the castle.
A secret hope made her think it was because he never wanted her to return to such places again.
But where else was there to go? What else was there to do? Her path was laid, fated and bereft of passion. Bereft of Máel.
Barring this one night.
He reached for his bow. Leaning on the end of the stave, he depressed it, forming an arc, and wrapped the string around the other end.
Cassia’s brow furrowed. “What are you doing?
“Hunting.”
“You are going to leave me here?” she exclaimed. “Alone? With the wolves. And the boar.”
He inched his head up. “The boar, is it?”
She folded her hands in front of her waist. “He was very large. I believe he might have followed us.”
That broke the grim set of his mouth. Something lightened in his eye. He reached for her and lifted her in his arms, bow held in the hand under her bottom.
“Let’s not break tradition now,” he said.
“No,” she agreed, her arm slung comfortably around his shoulder. “We should keep on exactly as we are.”
Although she could have easily walked herself by now. But she would much rather be carried.
One last night.
“Hang on,” he said and trudged into the trees.
Every stride of his body was like a song she’d once heard, all percussive beats and power, energy to march to war by. It roused the blood and inspired the heart. She felt every sinew of him, and wanted it never to end.
He emerged at a small clearing and settled her just inside tree line.
“Silence,” he ordered as he set her down. “No speaking or complaining about anything for a quarter hour.” He started off, then looked back. “Half an hour.”
She put her fingertips over her lips to assure him of her silence and settled in to watch him hunt.
Máel was entirely correct; she did love beautiful things. Ached for them. And this man…he was beautiful.
There was no other way to describe the grace of him. How he crouched in the grass, utterly still until he shifted his body on the balls of his feet, following a sound. How he rose from the grasses and lifted his bow in a single fluid movement. How his hard fingers pulled the string back, back, to his jawline, his eyes level and focused somewhere in the distance. The low reverberation as he released the arrow, how it hummed through the liquid evening sky…
And in a single shot, without pain or shock, it downed a hare she hadn’t seen.
She broke out in applause.
The sound broke Máel’s stride across the meadow to retrieve his prey. Startled, he glanced back.
She sat in a rose and dark blue gown, looking like sunrise as the sun went down, her long hair neatly braided now, but still flowing like a riotous river over her shoulders. She was beaming at him. Clapping.
Jesus. He’d never been applauded for hunting before.
He’d never been applauded for anything before.
Never been approved of before.
His blood brothers Fáe and Rowan would die for him, but they would never do anything so demonstrative as approve.
He collected the hare and strode back, where she sat like a princess of the wood, her gown trailing over the green grass, smiling at him like a queen.
The truth slammed like a blacksmith’s hammer on the armor around his heart. She’d been right in her arrogance: she was above him in every way.
But they would have tonight.
Her face was shining, her eyes bright. “Well done,” she called out as he drew near. “And did you notice,” she added in a proud little whisper, “I did not say a word?”
“You’ve outdone yourself.”
She pointed to the bow and got to her feet. “Would you show me how?”
“You’ve never used a bow?”
“My father would never allow such a thing.”
Their eyes met. “I do not like your father.”
She gave a soft laugh and reached for the bow.
He stood behind her and showed her how to lift it, maneuver it, how to set and release the arrow, then stood back and watched her let a bolt fly.
It went about forty feet off of where she’d aimed, and she leapt back, shaking her hand in the air.
“That hurt,” she exclaimed, touching her fingertips to her mouth.
“Give me that.” He took her fingers and lifted them to his mouth. He kissed each one, then wrapped his other arm around the small of her back and pulled her trippingly close. Bending his head, he kissed her.
She wrapped her arms around him and held on, even when he lifted his head a bare inch.
“You never should have let me touch you—”
This time it was she who shook her head, and put her fingertips over his mouth. “I was sure,” she said emphatically. “As I will be tonight. All we have is tonight.”
“That is all we will need.”
The lie was all he had to offer.
He carried her back to the camp, to feed her, and tease her, and make her howl, and somehow keep her from kicking open any more doorways to his heart.
He could not stand the light.
Chapter 28
He pulled water from the river, dug another fire pit and gathered wood, then pulled things from his pack, throwing them down beside the pit, before dropping to one knee beside it.
“Salt,” she exclaimed, picking up one of the little packages. “You truly do carry your home in those packs of yours.”
He paused. “What?”
The closeness of his attention made her look away and fuss with her skirt. “I thought it seemed as though you carry your home on your back.”
He smacked his flint against the blade of his knife. “I told you, I have no home.”
“Yes, you do. You have your enchanted forest. Just because you are not there does not mean it is not your home.”
A spark ignited the tiny dead leaves in the pit.
He didn’t look up. Clearly, he did not like to speak of home. But then, neither did she. Another way they were aligned.
But as she had only this one night, she wanted to know everything she could about this hard, confusing, beautiful man. Everything about his body, and his heart.
“Why did you leave?” she asked softly.
“War.”
It was a single, awful word, and she thought of what he must have seen, to drive him from his home and the enchanted forest he clearly loved so well.
“You will go back,” she said softly. Firmly. She reached for a few sticks of kindling and threw them on the little flames.
“Not without my sword I won’t.”
“Why does that matter?’
He stared into the new fire, his arm hooked over his knee. “I swore an oath to my father, as he lay dying, when men like your father came over and took our lands.”
“What did you swear?”
“To defeat our enemies.” He lifted his gaze. “I am to ruin you.” He shoved to his feet and pointed at the hare spitted over the fire. “Turn it.”
She blinked. “How?”
He stared at her, then lifted his hand and moved it in a turning motion.
“I see.” She pushed her hair back with a regal motion and, bending her hips at an extreme angle, began to turn the spit.
Her face
grew hot but she kept turning, feeling a sense of accomplishment as the meat began to roast. It gave off a rich, oily aroma. Her mouth watered. She went down to her knees and kept turning, eyeing it from various angles to ensure it was cooking properly.
“It is done, lass,” he finally said.
Her eyes felt slightly singed as she turned to him. “Are you certain? I could turn a bit more—”
“You’ve done good.”
A flush of pleasure moved through her. She unbent her knees and straightened, then put a hand to her spine with a soft groan.
“Dear God, what has happened?” she cried.
He grinned. “You were bent over too long. Standing like a witch over her cauldron.”
“I have more respect for witches then.”
She ate heartily, her fingers greasy from the food. Afterward, they washed, then he threw down the blankets and reclined on them.
They both knew what was coming. It was simply a matter of when. She felt cobwebbed by fiery silken threads, sensitive to every move he made. She wondered how long she could tolerate it. How long he could.
He held up a hand. “Come here.”
Not very long then.
She went to him and he drew her down to his lap, facing him. Down to his heat, to the feel of his hands on her waist, to hell and beyond, she went to him exactly as he asked with his mouth and his hands.
He would not be gentle or chivalrous tonight.
Thank God.
She sat astride him as he tipped his head and kissed her neck, his hand spread across her back, and she felt the tug of a ribbon being unlaced.
“Máel?” she whispered.
His head dropped. He muttered one of those Irish curses. Head still hanging, he said, “Will you be wanting to talk about something, Cassia?”
“Yes.” She shifted her knees, settling in more comfortably. He groaned and his head dropped farther.
“Can it wait?”
“No. It intimately concerns tonight.”
He lifted his head an inch. “What is it?”
“Last night, why did you not…I mean to say, I most certainly…” She moved her hand vaguely through the air, avoiding his eye. “And you most certainly did not…” She tugged on her gown. “Why?”