Embers

by Helen Kirkman

  His arm tightened round her, holding her still because she was clawing at him, and his fingers found some part of her that must hold the secret of all that he did, the secret of all that she had not known. Be-cause as his fingers, slick and heated with her own moistness, glided across her skin every sensation that she had, every maddening sense that he had aroused in her, became centred on that smooth touch.

  Her body moved in a rhythm that matched his in a wild and primitive surge. She was lost, beyond thought or fear or any constraint, beyond any control that she had. But he knew; he knew just how to touch her so that all the sensations gathered together and then disintegrated in light. And the shock was that she felt joy, deep and abiding and totally bound up in him, and all the fierce, shining pleasure it was possible to believe in.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  She was crying. The sound of it cut through him. Her dark head was buried in his shoulder. He could see the rapid rise and fall of her side.

  The last thing he could take was her tears.

  "Alina—"

  "Do not let me go." That was all she said, just as before. So he held her while his heart beat as it did in the rush of battle and the blood still ran like unslaked fire in his veins. He fought to master his own breath, to control muscle and sinew and the desire in his mind that was one step from utter madness.

  All he knew was that he could not place that burden on her. It was not fit, the depths of what he felt for her. There was too much pain in it and it was too absolute. It was not what she could want, not what he had wished to show her. He wanted her to see only the light.

  She moved, stirring against his overheated body. Her finely curved softness brushed against engorged hardened flesh, sending a jolt of desire through him that was barbaric. He stilled her body, stopping her maddening inadvertent touching. Control, with her, was a matchless trial. Yet he still kept his arms around her because it was the only thing she had asked of him.

  Her slight weight moved again, curving round him in a movement as blatantly sensual as it was naive. She had not the slightest consciousness of what she did. She was so easy to wound and yet so dangerously set in purpose. He still could not think on what she had done after she had left him and what might have happened to her.

  She was moving against him with small sounds of desperation and he gave in and held that delicate slender body as it was meant to be held. And then because that was no longer enough he took her again with his hands and his mouth until she shuddered against him and cried out for the release his skill could give her. All that he had…

  "Let me know you in the same way."

  The words came out of the fever dream of her nearness and her wild secret heat and the searing touch of her body.

  "Nay, that is not what—"

  She moved herself against him, just as she had before, taking control past bearing, and this time it was not inadvertence. She knew what she did.

  But yet she did not.

  He trapped her gaze. Her eyes held his. But their directness was an act of will. He could see it because he could read anyone's eyes before battle and weigh the exact measure of their determination. And the exact measure of their fear.

  "No. There is no need. That was not part of our bargain."

  "Yes. It was. Always. Together."

  "No." The word was violent. Beyond what was permissible. But he could not help that Because the long-dead bargain she referred to was beyond even the limits of pain.

  He saw the finely held balance in her eyes change, darkening their deep brown depths to blackness, and the regret for that burned with all the other regrets. Too many to count.

  "Leave it, Alina. Let me take you back now. Let us keep at least what we have."

  'Wo." Her word was equally strong and he realized that the balance had turned the other way. That what he saw in the darkness of her eyes was not fear, but the determination that had sent her four hundred miles south into a land she did not know.

  "Please." She hated saying that. She would not unless constrained. Yet the fear that lapped at the edges of the impossible determination in her eyes seemed not of him, but of being bereft. Of being alone if he left her. Her hands clutched at him in a wrenching mixture of her determination and her fears.

  "I will always keep what I have. What you have shown me that I did not know. Your gift. But I need the other half of it. I need to know that— Will you give me that much?"

  She asked something impossible. If she had not mattered to him, there would have been no more than he had promised for her: naught but the pleasure.

  But she was the measure of all that his life had been and all that it would be. She asked more than he could give.

  He sought for the words. Her hand touched the heavy gilded buckle at his hips. He saw that her fingers were unsteady. He saw that the fear still held equal measure with her determination. He knew the shadows that lay at the back of her mind. Because he could see so much, his mind made the only choice there was.

  She could not get the buckle undone, so that he had to do it for her. His hands brushed hers aside, unfastened the jewelled clasp, removed all that he wore, quite slowly because he could remember the look in her eyes when she had tried to prepare a bath for him. She watched him. Every move that he made.

  He could have killed that dangerous self-absorbed braggart, her father, for the look in her eyes.

  He glanced away before she saw the anger, but the low sunlight reflecting off the water dazzled him. The muscles of his sword arm tightened, trained reflex mirroring instinct, as though in response to danger, as though the blade with the elk-sedge rune were in his hand and the power of death in it. His skin shivered like a presage of the future. But the future had no existence in this glade. He would not allow it.

  He held out his hand to Alina. She took it without hesitation and then she laid her head against his shoulder as she had before, which made the breath choke off in his throat because he could not bear the full measure of her trust.

  She did no more, as though she needed time to gather her courage. Her fingers tangled in the thin band of linen strapped round his chest.

  "I could kill you for doing that to me. For letting me think that the arrow had found its mark."

  That was so like Alina, confounding him with her words, unexpected, yet always so very much to the point. He could feel the laughter wake inside him and the echo of the joy that had been there when he had first known her. If only that joy could have survived. If it could lighten her heart now.

  "The arrow did find its mark," he said. "You should see the size of the dent it made between my shoulders." He pitched his voice deep with indignation so that for a moment she was caught by it. But only for a moment. Her head assumed its most infuriating tilt and her hair spread in night waves across the heat of his skin.

  "Empty boaster. You mean the dent in the meshed steel you were wearing."

  "Steel? That was a mere token. You did not see what really saved my hide."

  "What?"

  "Over there." He raised her head so she could see the dark shape beside his corselet. His hands slid deep in her hair, feeling the hidden silk warmth other neck.

  "That?" she said dubiously. "I thought it was leaf mould."

  "Leaf mould? That is Duda's leather jerkin." He surveyed the dark mound. "I have his word on it."

  "And you wore it?"

  "It was a gift."

  "A rare gift."

  The weight of that kind of gift pressed.

  "Aye." Nothing showed in his voice. For this moment, there would only be the light. He shrugged, as though that would push the weight aside. The searing heat of Alina's body moved with him.

  "Duda assured me it was fail proof. Or was that foolproof? It was one or the other."

  She considered this while her arm slid round his rib cage for balance and she must have been able to feel the parched unevenness of his breath.

  "Then I must be persuaded by Duda's superior knowledge. How many patches does it h
ave?"

  "One less than it needs right now. But he says there is a lot of wear left in it. Providing people have the wit to look after it properly." The feel of her against his bared skin, the knowledge of the discreetly full curves he had just loved were enough to drive him out of his senses. "It might be repairable. Were you keen on sewing?"

  The maddening tilt of her head intensified. So that the heat in his blood would take all. He could not let it.

  "Only gold work."

  "Shame. I cannot really see Duda in gold thread."

  The suppressed laughter vibrated through her body, through his. Except it was more than laughter. He saw her eyes. Just as her hand moved. It landed in the hollow of his neck, in the wild mess of his hair where it meshed with the smoothness of hers.

  "I have a taste for gold." Her fingers twisted, just lightly, tugging the thick strands against his scalp with small teasing movements as though she were the most accomplished hor-cwen. It was her courage that was splitting something inside him into pieces, the way she looked at him as though he would never betray her gifts when he already had.

  "It is a high-price taste. Sometimes the cost of things can be more than a person should pay."

  She could turn away, even now. In two days or three, they need never see each other again.

  "Aye. That is why we can only afford moments." Her eyes were very clear. So clear he could see all the courage and the determination, all the past grief and the present fears, the longing for such things to be overcome.

  "If we want such moments."

  "Yes."

  Her fingers slid down again, across the linen but he caught her hand and placed it higher, as if she could feel through his heart what there were no words for, even no thoughts for.

  Her hand pressed against his skin. The rush of aliveness, of merciless desire took his body. He sensed its echo shudder through her as her hand fused with the wild heat of his flesh. She touched him with a firmness that surprised. Her touch was like no other, so that however he tried to close his mind, he could feel it through more than blindly aching flesh.

  He turned thought aside. Nothing existed for them except the moment. The shadows of the past were shades to be overcome. He would leave no shadows on her future.

  Her breath sighed across his skin. Her hands moved over the aching, white-hot planes of his body, downwards, seeking the desire-hardened, blood-hot sex.

  "Let me touch you…"

  No words existed, only the fierce unslaked hunger, the elemental needs of the senses. He showed her how to touch and where the pleasure lay. He kept control, and there was nothing he would allow her to fear.

  And when control was no longer possible, she had no fear at all, not of his merciless desire nor his wild-ness, so that the desperate heat and the harshly-held need shattered at last against the touch of her lamed hand.

  No one in the ordinary world guess. They were safe.

  Alina lay wrapped in her cloak, three paces away from the person who held her soul. None of the men gathered round the fire, no one, could know what had happened to her. That she had changed utterly and beyond the possibility of return.

  It was hidden from the everyday world and yet it lived inside her, with a strength and an aliveness nothing in this world or the next could mar. She rearranged Brand's spare cloak over hers, hugging it around her body as though its touch against her skin could be his.

  The night air caressed her face, but she was not cold. She would never be cold again, nor so frightened, nor so bitter about herself.

  All the problems of the future remained. They waited for her in the dark, outside the small circle of light cast by the flames. She knew that. But her courage to face them had grown. Because of him.

  And so had her power. It was so unexpected, but it was true. She had expected loss, but it had not been so. It was like a gift. One she did not deserve, but which was there.

  Her heart twisted. Loss, true loss, lay ahead. She could not contemplate that. The shimmering light of the flames danced before her eyes. Flames, pure gold, like Brand. Nay, not as strong, not as hot.

  She watched her lover's hands as he ate.

  He was her lover now. That had been sealed irrevocably, by the acts of the body and the mind. Even if she never saw him again.

  The man, Eadric, sat next to him. Brand was talking to him about something or other. She saw the gleam of Eadric's smile.

  Duda was stretched out at their feet, trailing through the grass like a piece of frayed rope. Uncon-scious. Doubtless dreaming of how to restore his leather jerkin to a state of unblemished finery.

  Everyone else slept. Even Cunan.

  Her tired mind drifted and her body seemed to float, pleasurably aching, still full of secret warmth. Her eyes drifted shut and the floating feeling intensified. She gave in to it. It was odd to feel so…safe. She was caught in the middle of a journey from one form of exile into another and now there was this…release. Rest. She could not find the word for it.

  Brand's face drifted into her mind, the way it had looked when he had slept after the fever.

  Peace.

  She buried her head in the folds of his spare cloak.

  The payment would be death.

  Cunan stared at a night so dense it robbed sight. That did not matter because what he saw was in the mind: the Northumbrian and the whore's daughter who paraded herself as his sister. How could she have done it? After all that he had said to her. He, and all of her kindred, meant nothing to her.

  It had always been so, all their lives. None of them had been good enough for her.

  His hand caressed the knife hilt concealed in his bedroll.

  It was done now, beyond his keeping. The lecher had taken his chance, and she had fallen. Willingly. He had guessed that much just by looking at her face. And because he knew the blood that ran in her veins.

  But the house of Maol would not be dishonoured again. He would see to that. It was his right. The slate would be wiped clean and all that he had planned would still come to fruition.

  His gaze bored through the dark, seeking out the Northumbrian's shape. The knife hilt dug into his flesh. The frustration of not being able to use it yet was unbearable.

  If only the man had died today. But Goadel had bungled that. Fool. He had not been supposed to act alone. That was what they had agreed. The attack had been too risky, too open to chance, too— It might have succeeded but for the Northumbrian's forethought.

  It was strange. He would not have considered such a man capable of forethought. Or that kind of courage.

  Goadel did not know the mistake he had made. He would think he had bought himself time that he did not have.

  And if the reckless attack had succeeded what would then have become of Alina? His breath hissed through the dark. She was not for Goadel's keeping. Not yet. Her rightful keeper was coming. He would be this side of the high western hills by now.

  Tomorrow, they would cross the River Humber into Deira, southern half of the English Kingdom of Northumbria. Deira. The Northumbrian would think he was safe, in his own land. There would be no forethought when they reached what was familiar to him, only the high heart of the man's natural recklessness. Then the trap would spring.

  He slept with the knife unsheathed.

  Brand's blood surged. He knew the lie of every wood and every fold of land that marked the wide-open face of Deira. Beyond it lay Bernicia and the true north, all the wild riches of its soul hidden in blue mist. His heart sang. It sought home. Every instinct drove forward. Yet he paused at the crossroads marked with the ancient Roman milestone.

  Crossroads connected not only human pathways, but paths of the spirit. Wyrd was there, waiting, so much more discernible where the barriers that separated Middle Earth from the other realms were thinner. His eyes sought Alina instantly. She was quite safe on the patient grey gelding, looking ahead as he had been.

  This time the parting from her would be absolute. More final than when he had believed her dead. More
deeply entrenched inside him. He had made it so.

  All of her lived in his mind, the warmth of her skin, its fineness, the gasp of her breath. The way her eyes darkened. The deepness that lived in the heat of her gaze.

  He would have looked away. But in that moment, she turned. Their gazes met, held in the bright sunlight. Then split apart as Cunan's heavy roan shouldered through.

  Brand turned his own mount with a knee, leading them off the exposed line of the road, toward the shade cast by the trees. It would hide them. It was home. Every sinuous line of the land, every tree and every blade of grass, seemed different, bathed in the subtle light of the north.

  The brightness shifted, then was cut off by the black depths of the forest's shade. Like all that was inside him. This time the pain that lay ahead seemed greater than the instinct to live.

  He did not have any regrets.

  He quickened the pace, like someone rushing headlong to meet their doom, impatient to feel the fell weight of its hand.

  The others followed.

  "Alina."

  She turned her head. They had stopped for a brief respite. Doubtless for her benefit. But she could ride now at a pace she would not have believed possible only days ago. It was probably the amount of food Brand made her eat. She was twice as strong and her clothes fitted.

  It was more than that. It was the sparking of the life force inside her. Released by him. It seemed unconquerable.

  If she did not look to the future.

  She glanced up from the shade she had found, narrowing her eyes at the taut male figure looming black against the low sun.

  "Cunan."

  "Who did you expect?"

  He stood like a jailer, his hand resting on the knife hilt at his hip. He had not been private with her since the day she had fled to the monastery herb garden, trying to hide from her feelings for Brand.

  She suppressed the thought, lest he could read it. But her heart knew, with the sixth sense that women have, that Cunan had guessed what had happened since beside the clear water. She wondered whether he hated her for it.