by Nora Roberts
“You, there.” She approached the stables, clapped her hands imperiously. “Stableboy!”
Thane stepped out. He kept his head lowered, but his eyes lifted, and the hot resentment in them blasted her face. “My lady.”
For the benefit of the guard, she crooked a finger and moved to her mount’s far hind leg. She bent as if to inspect the knee, and as Thane did the same, she whispered. “I must speak with you. Tonight. I’ll come to the stables.”
“There is nothing more to say, and you put yourself and me at risk.”
“It’s urgent.” Risking a touch, she brushed her fingers over the back of his hand. “Beloved.”
She heard the clatter of armor and sword as the guard snapped to attention. Giving her horse a light pat, she straightened and turned to smile at Owen.
“Do you have some trouble with this . . . thing?” Owen demanded, sneering at Thane.
“Indeed, no, my lord. My mount seemed to favor this leg when we rode in. I was complimenting your boy on the care of my horse. I’m very fond of my horse.” Deliberately, she reached into her purse and drew out a copper. “For your good work,” she said and handed the coin to Thane.
“Thank you, my lady.”
“It isn’t necessary to give him coin, nor to speak to him.”
“I find such small boons ensure good care.” She moved, subtly, so that she stood between Thane and Owen, and sent the prince her brightest smile. “As I said, I’m very fond of my horse. Will you help me mount, my lord? I am so looking forward to a gallop.”
Owen shoved the mounting block aside and set his hands on Aurora’s waist. She laid hers on his shoulders and let out a flirtatious laugh as he vaulted her into the saddle.
“You’re very strong, my lord.” She gathered her reins. “I also have a fondness for a strong man.” With another laugh, she clicked her tongue and sent her horse flying away from the stables.
Owen, she discovered, was a mediocre rider on a superior mount. She reined herself in to keep pace with him. It was good, despite the choice of company, to ride. To feel the freshness of the air on her skin and to be away from the clatter of the castle and the smells of the city.
Her men, she thought, would come from the northwest, using the forest for cover and keeping off the roads. Then the hills would ring with the battle and, when it was done, with victory.
“You look thoughtful, Aurora.” Owen studied her as they slowed to a trot at the edge of field and forest.
“Only admiring the beauty of this country, my lord. And wondering how pleasant it is to know that all you see is yours.”
“The woman I choose will have part in that.”
“If you will it,” she said carelessly, and walked her horse along the forest path. “There is rich land in the west, as well. My father tends what’s his with a firm hand and a clear eye. The hills reach high there, and the cattle grow fat on them.”
“The name of my bride will be announced at the masque, at week’s end.”
“So I am told.” She slid her gaze toward his, quirked her lips. And slid her power over him like silk. “Do you know it?”
“Perhaps I do.” He reached to take her reins and stop her horse, then leapt from his own. While she raised her eyebrows, he circled, then lifted his arms to pluck her from the saddle. “But a prince must take care in selecting a bride. One who will be queen.”
She laid her hand on his chest. “So he must—as a woman must take care, my lord, in who takes her favors.”
“I want a woman who will stir my blood.” He pulled her closer and would have taken her mouth if she hadn’t laid her fingers on his lips.
“A man’s blood is easily stirred. And if a woman gives him what he desires before a pledge is made, the woman is a fool. What man, what king, wants a foolish wife?”
“If you give me what I desire, and it pleases me, I will make the pledge. Lie with me now, and you will be queen.”
“Make me queen.” She played her fingers along his jaw. “And I will lie with you. I will give you sons, and great pleasure in the making of them.”
“I could take you.” He dug his fingers into her hips. “You couldn’t stop me.” His breath came short as he lifted her to her toes. “You belong to me, as every blade of grass in the field beyond belongs to me. I am your lord. I am your god.”
“You have the strength, and the power.” And though she had a dagger beneath her skirts, she couldn’t afford to use it, not even in defense against rape. “Why take by force today what would be given freely in a few days’ time?”
“For excitement.”
She only laughed, and tapped his cheek. “To hump like rabbits in the dirt? Hardly befitting you, my lord, or the woman who wishes to sit by your side, and lie by it. The waiting will, I think . . .” She traced her fingertip over his lips. “Hone appetites.”
“A sample, then.” He circled her throat with his hand, squeezed, then covered her lips with his in a brutal kiss. She tasted his desire, and his delight in force. With all her will she swallowed revulsion and fury, and let him take.
She thought of how he would pay for this, and for the thousands of cruelties to her people, for his part in humiliating Thane. For every lash Eton might suffer.
When his hands pawed at her, when they clamped bruisingly on her breasts, she neither struggled nor winced. For he would pay.
“My lord, I beg you.” She hoped the quaver in her voice could be taken for passion rather than the rage she felt. “Indulge me and wait for the rest. You will not be disappointed, I promise.”
“Would you rather I nibble some housemaid to sate my appetite?”
“Such a man as you would have great appetites. I will do my best to meet them, at the proper time.” She broke free. “Your kisses make me tremble. It will break my heart if you only toy with me.”
He grasped her waist and tossed her up to the saddle more roughly than necessary. “You’ll know my answer at week’s end.”
Bastard, she thought as she gathered her reins. But she smiled, with her lashes lowered. “And you, my lord, will know mine.”
She wanted to bathe, to rub her lips raw so that there was nothing left of the taste or feel of him. But she laughed and talked her way through another night of feasting. She lifted her cup to the king in toast. She danced, and pretended only feminine flusters and objections when Owen pulled her into the shadows and touched her body. As if he had the right.
Her mind was too troubled to speak of it to Rhiann as she removed the ball gown and put on her nightdress. She watched the sky, careful not to venture too close to the window, as the world quieted toward sleep.
Then, donning cloak and hood, she slid out into the night, to the stables.
SHE knew he wasn’t there. She understood now that part of her would sense him, would always sense him. So he hadn’t waited for her, as she’d asked.
Once again she took a candle and followed after him through the tunnels, and into the forest beyond.
He stood in the moonlight. It showered over his ragged shirt, his unkempt hair, the worn boots.
“I told you not to come.”
“I need to speak with you.” She blew the candle out, set it down. “To see you. To be with you.”
He stepped back. “Are you mad, or simply sent here to ensure I will be?”
“You could have told me when I asked why you stay here.”
“It’s nothing to do with you.”
“Everything you do, everything you are, and think and feel, all of you has to do with all of me.”
“You rode with him.”
“I do what needs to be done, as you do, Thane.” She reached out a hand as she moved to him, but he turned away.
“Will you be wedded to him, and bedded to him? Does that need to be done?”
For the first time in days a smile that came from her heart curved her lips. “You’re jealous. I’m small enough to enjoy that. He will never have me as a man has a woman. You already have.”
; “I haven’t. I won’t.”
“In dreams you have.” She moved in, laid her cheek on his back and felt his body go taut as a bowstring. “You’ve dreamed of me.”
Both heart and body strained toward her. “All of my life, it seems, I’ve dreamed of you.”
“You love me.”
“All of my life.” He spun back, held her at arm’s length when she would have embraced him. “You kept me alive, I think, in dreaming of you. The loving of you, and being loved. Now, by the gods, you’ll be the death of me.”
“No one lives forever.” She took off her cloak, spread it on the ground. Then, standing in the moonlight, she drew off her nightdress, let it pool at her feet. “Live now.”
He reached out, wound her long, dark hair around his fist. He could walk away from this, still had the strength. Or he could take love, one precious moment of love, and have its comfort and torment with him the rest of his days.
“If hell awaits me, I’ll have one night in heaven first.”
“We’ll have it.” She waved a hand and around them cast a circle of protective fire. The light of it shimmered in golds as a thin mist covered the ground in a pure white blanket.
“I’ve waited for you, Thane.” She touched her lips to his, fit her body to his. “Through the light, and through the dark.”
“For this one night with you, I would trade a thousand nights alone. Bear a thousand lashes, die a thousand deaths.”
“Midnight nears.” She smiled as he lowered her to the soft and misted ground. “It’s my hour.”
“It will be ours. Aurora.” He kissed her tenderly, very tenderly. “My light.”
Sweet, so sweet, that merging of lips, the brush of fingertips over flesh. She knew his taste, his touch, so warmly familiar, and yet so gloriously new. The feel of his body, the hard muscle, the ridged scars, aroused her, as did the gleam of his eyes in the glow of witch fire.
“Thane. My wolf.” With a laugh, she reared up and nipped at his chin. “So much better than a dream.”
Their lips met again, a deep search that had her trembling beneath him, and shifting restlessly as needs heated in her blood. Her heart thundered under his palm—the hard callus of his labors, then under his mouth—the hot brand of his need. And her belly began to ache as if with hunger. Her own hands became more demanding, tugging at his worn shirt. The sound of cloth ripping was only another thrill.
He wanted to go slowly, to draw this night into forever. She could vanish, he knew, when the sun struck, and he would be left with more misery than he thought he could bear.
But his need for her was impossible, enormous, and the love that stormed through him stole his breath. The urgency built with every touch, every murmur, until he was half mad.
Whatever he took, she gave, then only demanded more. She cried out his name when he drove her to peak, then clung relentlessly with her mouth like a fever on his.
The empty well of his life flooded full, and he knew for the first time something he would kill to keep.
His hands clamped on her wrists. He looked down at her with eyes fierce and gleaming green. “You’ll never belong to him. He’ll never touch you like this.”
“No.” Here was power, she realized. Another kind of female power. “Only you. It is the woman who gives herself to you, and only you.” She heard the bells begin to strike the hour. “Mate with me, join with me. Love with me. We’ll be more together than either can be alone.”
He plunged inside her, watched the power and the pleasure of the moment rush over her face. And felt the rough magic of it whip through him.
Then she was moving under him and with him, and for him. Their fingers locked, their lips met.
Overhead, lightning flashed in the form of a dragon, and the stars flared red as blood.
8
WHEN the witching hour passed, she stayed with him. But she knew the time grew short. If they were as others, she mused, they could remain like this, wrapped warm in her cloak, and sleep until dawn broke.
But they were not as others.
“I have much to tell you,” she began.
He only drew her closer to his side. “You’re a witch. I know. I’m bewitched. And grateful.”
“I’ve cast no spell on you, Thane.”
He smiled and continued to study the stars. “You are the spell.”
“We are the spell.” She shifted so she could look down at his face. “I’ll explain. You are a hero to me.”
He looked away from her and started to move.
“A man who would put all he wanted, all he needed, aside to protect others? The greatest of warriors. But that time is ending.” She took his hand, brought it to her lips. “Will you stand beside me? Will you pledge me your sword?”
“Aurora, I will pledge you my life. But I won’t lift a sword knowing the act will bring another down on my sister. My mother. Or some poor innocent. They hanged my friend, and he was but six seasons. His only crime was in following me.”
“I know.” She kissed his cheek. “I know.” And the other. “No harm will come to your family, or to any in your stead.” She reached out, picked up her dagger, and drew it across her palm. “I swear it, on my blood.”
He gripped her hand. “Aurora—”
“She is my sister now. She is my mother now. You are my husband now.”
Emotion stormed across his face. “You would take me this way? I’m nothing.”
“You’re the bravest man I know, and you’re mine. You are the most honorable, and the most true. Will you take me?”
The world, Thane thought, could change in one magic hour. “I’ll get you away to safety. I know how it can be done, with Kern’s help—”
“I go nowhere.”
“To the Valley of Secrets, through the Realm of Magicks,” he continued, ignoring her protest. “My sister is safe there, and so will you be.”
“Your sister? Leia lives?”
Fury flashed onto his face. “He would have sold her, like a mare. Bartered her like a whore. She was but sixteen. With Kern’s help, she was taken from the castle and away, and her cloak left torn and bloodied deep in the woods. She lives, and I will owe Kern and his kind all of my days. But she is lost to me, and I can’t risk getting word of her to my mother, to give her even that much comfort.”
Not a ghost, Aurora realized, but a memory. Shielded and safe—and apart. She touched her fingers to his cheeks. “What did it cost you?” she murmured.
“Kern asked for no payment.”
“No—what did Lorcan and Owen take from you? What scars do you bear from their anger at the loss of so valuable a possession to them? So many times, when we came to each other in visions, I saw your sadness. But you would never tell me.”
“You would always bring me joy. Beloved.”
“They whipped you in her stead. Laid the lash on your back because they couldn’t lay it on hers. I can see it now, and that you reached through the pain, beyond it, because your sister was saved.”
“Don’t look.” He gripped her hands when her smoky eyes went dark with vision. “There’s no pain here now. And there will be none. Kern will help me get you away. You, and my mother and sister, your women. Then I’ll find the rebels, and come back to deal with Lorcan and his whelp.”
“You won’t have to look far for the rebels. They’re on their way even now. Your mother and your sister will be safe. I’ve sworn it. But I stay, and I fight.” She laid her hands on his shoulders to stem his protest, and looked deep into his eyes. “A queen does not sit in safety while others win the world.”
She got to her feet. “I am Aurora, daughter of Gwynn and Rhys.
