by Lisa Jackson
But when they were in trouble, when their loved ones were consumed with sickness, or when a babe was turned and unable to birth easily, they came running, their fears temporarily stowed away as they begged her to help. Then her spells and chants and prayers were welcome. Then the runes she scratched or the candles she lit were no longer distrusted. Then, instead of knowing, worried glances, she received pleas, fresh eggs, and all manner of livestock, along with empty promises of friendship eternal.
’Twas enough to make even the most cynical soul laugh.
And she had for years. Behind their stiff, self-righteous backs, she’d smiled smugly to herself, content in the knowledge of who she was and happy in her own life. With her daughter. But now, as she aged, when her little cottage seemed cold as death and oh, so empty, her happiness seemed only a bittersweet memory. “Think not on it,” she told herself, blowing out the candle. Then she watched in horror as the smoke curled oddly toward the blackened crossbeams that supported the roof.
Her old heart stilled. ‘Twas not a sign. Could not be. Tara was safe. And yet the wisps of smoke rose in a pattern that made her ancient skin prickle with the knowledge that there was evil lurking in the forest. Nervously, Lodema licked her dry lips and sent up a quiet prayer, one to the Christian God, that her daughter, wherever she be, was not in any jeopardy.
But the fear that was lodged in her heart could not be dismissed. Tara, light of her life, was in danger. Serious danger.
Seated on the floor of the old chapel, Rhys leaned against the door. One leg was stretched in front of him, the other bent so that his boot rested beneath the opposing knee. The fire was now merely coals that glowed an eerie red as once-hot embers turned to ash. Tara, if that be her true name, was asleep on the pallet near the old altar, her breathing regular, her chest rising and falling evenly, the stone presumably yet in her possession.
How could one tiny woman affect him so? From the moment he’d laid eyes upon her standing naked in the forest, raising her arms to the heavens, chanting pagan spells, he’d been captivated. The dark emerald ring of Twyll had only added to her allure.
And yet he was certain he was stepping into a trap, one carefully laid by the fates, a snare with sharp teeth of steel that were sure to rip out his soul.
As he gazed at her, he felt at a loss for words. Her hair parted and he caught a glimpse of her throat, still partially veiled by the thick black curls that spiraled past her shoulders. God in heaven, she was beautiful. ‘Twas near impossible not to envision his mouth against her shoulder, his tongue sliding down that alluring cleft that led ever downward. He’d seen her naked backside at the creek and wondered what it would be like to touch each supple round cheek, to kiss that softness and smell the secret scent of her femininity.
Her coverlet had fallen away, and he stared unabashedly at her sleeping form. His damned crotch ached and yet he could not drag his gaze away from her, could not stop envisioning her bare body. Oh, to feel her naked against him. In his mind’s eye he could see the two of them—unclothed, embracing, kissing in the most intimate of places. He imagined her lying beneath him, writhing in pure animal pleasure, twisting from back to front, her nipples erect and hard, her green eyes widening with passion and surprise as he kissed those perfectly formed breasts, tugged at them with his teeth, and then, when she was anxious and crying for the want of him, thrusting deep into the warm moistness of her most private hollow.
Again and again and again would he take her.
So innocent she was. So seductive.
His member grew thicker, and he forced his thoughts away from the sweet torment of his bitter-sweet fantasy. He plucked an old piece of straw from the floor and turned it in his fingers as he contemplated the mystery of her. How had she come upon the ring? Not that it mattered. The fact that the dark emerald of Twyll existed gave credence to the old rumors and created endless possibilities.
“Rhys,” Abelard hissed from the other side of the door. A light tapping accompanied his voice.
Slowly Rhys got to his feet, then cast one final glance at the sleeping woman, resting so peacefully, as if she was not imprisoned in a thieves’ lair, not held hostage in a burned-out castle that was rumored to be haunted, not sleeping in a dead woman’s velvet gown.
Without making a sound, Rhys slipped through the doorway to the darkened hall.
“She is asleep?” Abelard asked.
“Aye.”
“You’re certain?”
“Look for yourself.”
Abelard did just that. Shoving open the door a little further, he walked into the room without bothering to step softly. At the altar, he leaned over the pallet and watched for endless minutes. Rhys could almost feel the older man’s fingers itch for want of the stone, could nearly read Abelard’s galloping thoughts, running toward theft of the remarkable jewel.
Instead he gave off a satisfied grunt and strode to the door, shutting it softly behind him. He motioned Rhys down the passageway to the great hall. “You,” he said to Kent. “Guard the woman.”
Squatting near the fire, the toes of his polished boots nearly in the ash, Kent was cleaning his nails with the point of his knife. He managed an irritated frown. “I be not a jailer.”
“Except for tonight. Go. Now.” Abelard had no patience for insubordination.
“Is she our prisoner?” Kent, his blond hair gilded in the firelight, was finally interested. His knife quit flicking the dirt beneath his fingernails onto the floor.
“Nay,” Rhys said.
“Then why needs she to be guarded?”
“ ‘Tis none of your business,” Abelard grumbled. “Just do as I say.”
“She is detained but for a while,” Rhys interjected as Kent’s nostrils flared slightly and the corners of his mouth drew into a tight, uncompromising grimace. Slowly he stood and shoved his wicked little dagger into the sheath he wore strapped to his hip.
“All you needs do is watch the door,” Abelard added.
Kent scowled, then, without hurrying, made his way stiffly toward the dark corridor.
“I wonder about him,” Abelard said under his breath. “He takes orders not well.”
“None of us does. ‘Tis why we are all here.”
“Aye.” Abelard sighed, then, assured that he and Rhys were alone, threw several thick chunks of oak onto the fire. Eager flames devoured the moss and pitch, popping and hissing hungrily. “Do you have any idea what that stone of the woman’s is worth?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder to make certain no one was lurking in the shadowy corners of the vast room. The blackened chamber was empty, the single candle burning low and flickering in the wind that slid through the cracks in Broodmore’s ancient walls.
“A fortune.”
“Beyond that.” Abelard dusted his hands as he straightened. “That gem is the very destruction of Tremayne of Twyll.” His eyes glittered wickedly. “Not only does the emerald prove that there be a rightful heir to Lord Gilmore and that the story surrounding his death be not just the jabberings of some old women, but the ring itself is worth enough to buy an army of cutthroats and mercenaries, the likes of which all of Gaeaf and Twyll combined have not seen before.” He bit the corner of his lip. “We all have reason to hate Tremayne—you for your banishment.” Rhys winced inside. “Tara, if she be the true issue of Gilmore—and I be not certain that she is—because of the murder of her family, and me”—he held up his hand to show off his stub of an index finger—”For this. ‘Tis lucky that my finger”—he wiggled the stump—”is all that Tremayne’s blade found.”
Rhys shook his head and stretched an arm upward, easing a knot of tension between his shoulder blades. “ ‘Twas not just your finger that he sliced, but your pride as well.”
“Aye.” Abelard had always believed himself to be the best swordsman in Twyll. Losing his finger and nearly his life in a battle against Tremayne had changed and embittered him. ‘Twas the reason he’d taken Rhys under his wing years before when Tremayne’s men had left him n
aked and nearly dead in the forest, believing that wolves would finish him off. When Rhys had wakened, his skin afire from the flogging he’d received, he’d prayed to a disinterested God that he die rather than suffer the torture of healing. Abelard, the brute, had tended to him, brought him back to life, and abetted his festering need for vengeance against his half brother. “Think on it, Rhys,” Abelard said now, his face alive, his eyes brighter than the flames in the grate. “We now have the means to destroy Tremayne.” His smile was pure evil. “The emerald has given us this opportunity. We cannot let it pass.”
“The ring be not ours.”
Abelard waved his hand as if he were dismissing a lazy servant. “That matters not.”
“ ‘Tis Tara’s.”
“Do you believe her story? That it was given to her adoptive mother?”
Rhys scowled into the fire. “I know not.”
“ ‘Tis far-fetched, think you not? Why would the old woman keep it all these years? Why would she not sell it? Did she get it by stealing the babe from the castle? How did she end up with the child? Who knows whether she only took the ring and the babe is elsewhere? Cavan of Marwood seems to think he be the true heir. Why?”
The same puzzlements plagued Rhys, though he had not yet voiced them.
“So. What the woman thinks matters not.” Abelard was certain he’d made his point and that his logic was irrefutable.
Rhys eyed his old friend—a man he didn’t trust and yet a man for whom he would lay down his sorry life.
“ ‘Tis not ours.”
“So? We are thieves, are we not?”
“Not this time.”
“Oh, for the love of Saint Jude, why not? You’re not goin’ soft on me now, are you? Since when did you care about booty, however it be gained?”
“This time ‘tis different!”
“Aye! This time ‘tis the damned dark emerald of Twyll we speak of!” Abelard sighed and shook his head. White strands of hair danced around his face. “We can use the ring.”
Rhys shook his head. “Only if Tara agrees. No matter how she came upon the emerald, ‘tis now in her possession, and our rule here is he who has it owns it.”
“Until someone else takes it.”
“ ‘Tis hers.”
“Ah, Rhys.” Abelard’s eyes widened in sudden under-standing. “Methinks you’ve fallen in love with her.”
Rhys glowered at the older man.
“Aye, she’s a comely lass. A beauty. All the men in this hall saw it. Dressed in finery, her chin held high, her hair tossed insolently behind her head as if she were a real lady. Did you not notice the lust in the others’ eyes, feel the current in the air—the need to mate? Even old Ben was fairly quivering with lust.
“That woman brought the thought of coupling to mind for each and every man in this room tonight. There will be many of them who will have to find their own ways to ease their hunger, for they will go to sleep aching with the want of a woman—that woman. Any man here would have given whatever he had stolen in his lifetime to spend one night in her bed. However, none be fool enough to think he is in love with her.”
“Nor do I.” Rhys was tired of the argument, irritated that the older man thought him caught in the vise of love—with the witch. ‘Twas lunacy.
“Then defend not her honor or her right to the ring that just happens to be in her possession.”
Rhys’s skin was suddenly too tight. His fist curled.
“She is playing with you.”
“I brought her here against her will.”
“And now all you can see is the need to please her so that she will welcome you into her bed.”
Rhys sprang. Grabbing Abelard’s tunic, he pulled roughly, catching some of the chest hairs beneath the fabric, but the older man only barked a laugh.
“So it’s gone that far, has it? That now you are threatening me?”
“Curse you, old man.”
“ ‘Tis not I who is lost. We need that stone, Rhys, if we are to accomplish all we have sought for years. With the dark emerald of Twyll we can bring Tremayne to his knees.”
“Only if Tara agrees,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Why would she not?”
Footsteps heralded Kent’s arrival. He rounded the corner and for once his serene, arrogant face was lined with worry.
“Trouble?” Abelard’s hand was on the hilt of his sword.
“ ‘Tis the woman. Tara.”
Rhys’s gut clenched and he silently called himself a dozen kinds of fool.
“Say it not,” Abelard ordered.
“She’s gone.” Kent’s Adam’s apple bobbed with anxiety. “I opened the door and … and saw her not.”
Rhys was already half running down the hall. Why had he left the door unguarded even for a second? The door to the old chapel was ajar. He shoved it open with his shoulder. Bam! It hit the wall, and even before his eyes swept the interior he knew that Kent wasn’t lying. The chamber was empty. Tara the witch had most certainly escaped.
And she’d taken with her the jewel.
Chapter Five
Tara hardly dared breathe. Dagger in her hand and emerald ring again strapped to her waist, she hurried along the labyrinthine passageways of the blackened old castle. Her feet in the dead woman’s boots were silent, and she sent up a quick prayer that she would find a way out of the tomb where so many before her had died.
Rhys, when he discovered her missing, would be furious. If he ever caught up with her … She shivered and decided she would make certain that she eluded him. Biting her lip, she hurried onward into the darkness. Mice and rats scurried out of her path, their tiny claws scraping on the cold stone floor of the keep. Cobwebs caught on her hair and face, and she imagined spiders and the dried, empty carcasses of dead insects collecting in her curls. Not that it mattered. Determined to find a path of escape, she forged onward, hands outstretched to feel her way through the inky hallways. She had so little time. ‘Twould be only a matter of minutes before Rhys would discover her missing.
And then what?
She shuddered to think, but she knew there were even worse fates here in the shadowy corridors of Broodmore.
What if she stumbled upon one of those toothless, lusting crooks that inhabited this crypt of a keep? She’d seen the way some of the men had looked at her, their eyes narrowing on her breasts and hips when she walked into the great hall with Rhys. There had been an air of discontentment, a sense of desperation in their faces. Many, she suspected, had not been with a woman in years. Had it not been for the fact that she was with the leader of the pack of thieves, some of them might have tried to compromise her virtue.
Not that they could. Not without a fight. If she came upon any of those leering beasts, she was ready, dagger in hand.
If only she could escape this monster of a castle with its crumbling walls and ill-fated past.
Broodmore, Broodmore,
All that lived there died.
Broodmore, Broodmore,
All the children cried.
The old rhyme played over and over again in her head, and she felt goose bumps rise on her skin as she remembered how she had feigned sleep, how ‘twas all she could do not to sit up and scream as Abelard stood over her, his gaze creeping across her skin while she lay still on the pallet, breathing softly, forcing her tense muscles to appear relaxed. Now her fingers, inching along the rough stone walls, encountered a corner. Taking a deep breath, she turned the bend and nearly fell into a hole—nay, a staircase leading ever downward. Swallowing her fear, she edged deeper into this tomb of a castle.
Broodmore, Broodmore,
The kiss of death be there,
Broodmore, Broodmore,
All visitors beware.
Her heart hammered, and though the stone walls that scraped her fingers as she felt her way down the stairs were like ice, a fine sheen of sweat broke out beneath the gown she’d claimed as her own. Some-where in the far reaches of the keep she heard the muted sound o
f running footsteps and realized that she’d been found out. Already Rhys knew that she’d fled.
“Mother Mary, help me,” she whispered as the tips of her fingers began to bleed. She had a bit of candle in her pocket, which, should she light it, would aid her in finding her way, but she had no means to start a flame, nor would she risk it even if she had, for instead of helping her in her escape, the flickering light would surely draw her pursuers to her.
At the base of the stairs she stood in total darkness, and her skin crawled at the thought that she might be in a dungeon where the skeletons of dead prisoners were scattered over the floor. The thought unnerved her, for she’d never been in a true jail before, never witnessed the torture of men who were locked away. Who knew what lurked in these dark rooms?
A rank smell lingered, as if the few rushes lying upon the floor had been soaked in urine. Cautiously, her right hand tight around the hilt of her wicked little knife, she stepped forward and resumed her slow progress along the wall, following the bend where the stones turned, losing all sense of where she was in the keep. Yea, she was in a lower level, but the one above had been raised, a set of steps leading to the great hall. Was this dungeon underground or still above it? Her head began to ache and she reminded herself that she had only to turn around, run her fingers along the wall, and end up at the stairs.
And then what? Meet a furious Rhys and Abelard on the upper level? Face the consequences of their rage and retribution? Nay, she would continue onward. Her sense of direction was shattered, though, and she feared that she was only entrapping herself even further in the bowels of this monstrosity. The smells of dust, mold, and urine mingled in the stale air, and though she strained for any sound from the hallways above, she heard nothing now, not even the expected pounding of footsteps or shouts of men searching for her.
