Enchantress

by Lisa Jackson

  “You idiot!” Strahan jumped back, grabbing for his sword. Several men raised their weapons. Quick as a cat, Morgana tossed one candle into the rushes, and fire swept through the chapel, flames crackling hungrily at the priest’s vestments and Strahan’s surcoat.

  “Stop!” Strahan commanded.

  Clare grabbed the chalice and swung it at the guard standing next to her. As he stumbled, she deftly relieved him of his sword.

  “Morgana!” Garrick yelled, staggering to his feet.

  Terrified screams and shouts filled the small room. Garrick jolted forward, his feet leaden as he tried to stay out of the guard’s hands and away from Strahan’s sword.

  The priest quickly stripped off his alb, stamped at the flames, and grabbed the small font of holy water.

  “Fire!” the guards yelled, and footsteps pounding in the outer hallways. Women shrieked, and growling dogs added to the terror of the crackling flames.

  “As I predicted, Strahan,” Morgana said, narrowing her eyes. “Here you will die.” Swiftly she reached into her boot and withdrew the small knife with its carved handle from where she’d hidden it. Ignoring Enit’s warning, she swung at Strahan. He grabbed her wrist, pounding it hard against the altar. The knife fell to the floor.

  “Stop, bastard!” Clare held her sword aloft, aimed at Strahan’s head, but he ducked as she swung it down, and Glyn screamed yet again.

  “Fire! Fire!” the soldiers shouted, still dancing around the flames, their hands on their swords.

  Garrick was breathing hard, his entire body aching as he lunged for Morgana’s knife. He found the blade, but the hot metal seared his hand. Again the knife fell to the floor. All around him smoke and crackling flames burned the air, filling the chapel with a horrid stench.

  “Let there be no bloodshed in the house of the Lord!” Father Matthew insisted, stamping out flames on his way to the door.

  People rushed through the chapel in a panic, and Garrick grabbed a candlestick, the only weapon he could find. It, too, was hot, but he held it aloft and turned on his cousin.

  “You miserable asp!” Strahan swore as he finally yanked his sword from its sheath. “Go now to Satan!”

  “Let there be no bloodshed in the house of the Lord!” the chaplain repeated as he fled toward the door. “Please, save yourselves!” He threw the few remaining drops of holy water onto his vestments and ran from the chapel as the first servants carried in tubs of water.

  Strahan swung his sword but Garrick rolled away quickly. His body aching, consciousness threatening to fail, he dodged the sword by mere inches. The blade stuck hard in the wooden altar. With an effort, Strahan pulled his weapon free.

  Smoke clogged the room. Morgana wrapped the hem of her skirt around her hands and searched the burning rushes, withdrew the white-hot blade, and held it aloft. “Stop, Strahan,” she ordered, “or I will kill you myself.”

  “Morgana, no!” Garrick cried, for Strahan had whirled upon his new wife, wielding his sword. Garrick grabbed Strahan’s legs, bringing him to the floor, and they grabbed for the sword. Pain exploded through Garrick’s chest, but he hung on and swung a fist toward Strahan’s face.

  His hand connected and sent a shock up his entire arm.

  Strahan scrambled away, but Morgana still held her grandmother’s knife.

  “Think you could kill me with that?” Strahan asked, eyeing the small weapon.

  Glyn fainted, and Clare swung her sword at a guard before bending down and slapping the girl into consciousness.

  “She won’t have to kill you,” another voice yelled over the frenzy. Garrick twisted to find the servant woman, Springan, standing in the doorway. Her shaved head was red with anger, and her fingers were coiled tight over the handle of a pail. Her face was twisted, and tears streamed from her eyes as she cried, “Strahan of Hazelwood, servant of Satan, I now consign you to hell for that is where you belong!”

  “Kill her!” Strahan ordered, struggling to his feet.

  A guard swung his sword in Springan’s direction, but before the blade felled her, Springan threw the liquid from the pail at Strahan, and it ignited with a roar, crackling and spitting, smelling of animal fat.

  Strahan let out a horrendous scream, and the knight’s sword struck Springan in the shoulder. She fell, but her eyes stayed fast on the fiery mass that was the father of her child.

  Morgana stepped back, sickened at the sight, while Strahan’s men tried to douse the flames with tubs of water. But the grease had soaked into his clothes, and he had become a screaming human torch, clawing painfully at the skin on his face and neck, wildly running in circles as the fire swept over him, consuming the cooking grease and charring his skin.

  “No! Holy Christ, save me!” he cried, writhing from the torment of the flames. Again the soldiers threw water on him, but still he was hideously blacked, his face destroyed, his hair a blazing halo surrounding his ghastly skull. His screams echoed through the castle as he ran crazily, as if he could escape the flames that were eating him alive.

  “Father, help us,” Glyn prayed, trying to swoon yet again.

  Springan lay where she had been felled, her life seeping from the mortal wound. Morgana ran to her while Glyn whispered prayers and Clare ordered the girl taken upstairs.

  “’Tis too late,” Springan whispered, her voice barely a rattle as her eyes sought Morgana’s. She clutched the sleeve of the dress that was to have been Morgana’s bridal gown and begged, “… Please see that my boy is cared for.”

  “It shall be done,” Morgana vowed.

  “Forgive me for hating you. ’Twas my jealousy over that bastard Strahan,” Springan said.

  “Think naught of it,” Morgana said as Springan’s eyes glazed over and her soul departed. Morgana held her still, unmoving, until Garrick pulled her to her feet and guided her from the chapel where servants and soldiers alike worked to put out the flames.

  “’Tis over.” Garrick held her close, kissing the crown of her head. “’Tis the path she chose.”

  “But—”

  “As I said, ’tis done.” Despite his weakness, he gathered her into his arms and kissed her like a man who was starved, as if in holding her he gained strength.

  She returned his kiss, and tears streamed from her eyes. Tears of sorrow. Tears of happiness. Tears of relief. “I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered brokenly, her fingers curling in the coarse fabric of his shirt.

  “I’m not easily lost,” he teased, kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her throat, though he could barely stand.

  “But Logan is safe at Tower Wenlock. My mother waits for word that he can be returned to you.” Swiping at the tears in her eyes, she managed a smile.

  “So you are a witch after all.”

  “Nay.”

  “A sorceress, then,” he said, twining his hands in her hair before he buried his face in her dark locks. “I love you, Morgana of Wenlock,” he finally admitted. “I’ve denied it for a long time, but I love you, aye, mayhap more than life itself.”

  Morgana stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “As I love you, m’lord, though now I know ’twas not you but Strahan who was the danger from the north.”

  His footsteps were not steady, and she helped him limp through the great hall to the inner bailey, where servants and soldiers had escaped from the smoke and gathered in clusters. In a hoarse, little used voice, Garrick ordered the wounded to be tended and Strahan’s and Springan’s bodies to be buried outside the castle walls. That done, he turned to the mass of people whom he had once commanded.

  “Hear you now!” Garrick said as loud as possible, his rasping voice ringing with an authority belonging only to the rightful baron of Abergwynn. “The fire is dead, as is the traitor who led some of you against me and the king. I am once again baron of Abergwynn, and anyone who betrayed me had best step forward now, for his punishment will be much less than later when I discover his treachery and lies.”

  There was
a murmur of voices, a rustling and shifting of feet, but no one spoke. Still leaning on Morgana, Garrick scowled down at his men. “Know you this: I will marry Morgana of Wenlock. You are all to bow to her and treat her as the lady of Abergwynn, for that is who she will be!”

  “M’lord,” Morgana whispered, her throat thick with tears, her heart filled with love.

  “Should I have asked?”

  She smiled, and her eyes brightened a bit. “’Twould have been nice,” she replied with some of her old devilment.

  “And what would you have said?”

  “That I cannot wait. Will not the priest marry us now?”

  He grinned, and his mouth hurt a bit as it stretched. “Are you so eager?”

  “Oh, yea, m’lord,” she replied. Lifting a dark brow, she added saucily, “I find it impossible to wait another night without warming your bed.”

  “Wench,” he growled with a laugh and swatted her fondly on the rear. “We need not be married for bed-warming tonight.”

  She smiled up at him, loving him. Lady of Abergwynn. Wife to Garrick. Mother to Logan. Aye, ’twas all she could ask. The fates that brought her here she no longer cursed, but thanked Almighty God for the gift that had led Garrick to Wenlock so many weeks before.

  Slowly the men in the yard stepped forward, and knight after knight laid down his shield and sword, swearing his fealty and accepting Garrick as his lord and Morgana as the new lady of Abergwynn.

  Garrick was about to talk to the priest about a marriage ceremony when shouts rang out. “My lord!” a sentry yelled. “’Tis soldiers!”

  “Father!” Morgana cried. “He followed me here, and I fear he’ll be angry with me.”

  “’Tis as it always is,” Garrick said with a chuckle, then yelled, “If the army belongs to Daffyd of Wenlock, open the gates!”

  Within minutes the soldiers passed inside the castle walls and, upon spying her father, Glyn screamed joyously and ran toward him.

  “What’s this?” Daffyd demanded, spying her shaved head, as he dismounted.

  “Oh, Father! Father! Thank God you are here!” She threw herself into his waiting arms and sobbed with joy against his shoulder. “’Twas awful! So hideous!”

  “There, there.” He patted her scraped scalp and held her closer. “’Twill be all right.”

  “Nay, never!”

  Sighing, he looked over his trembling daughter’s shoulder and spied his eldest. “Morgana!” Daffyd growled, eyeing his firstborn with quiet rage. “You have defied me for the last time.”

  “Aye, that she has,” Garrick said, his arm firmly around Morgana’s waist. “She has given me back my son and my castle, and I owe her my life. You’ll have no more gray hairs from this one, Daffyd, for she is to become my wife.”

  “Your wife?” Daffyd said, his scowl slowly changing to a smile of calculated pleasure and the thought of losing a willful daughter and gaining a powerful son-in-law. “Well, well…” With one arm still supporting Glyn, he crossed the inner bailey, moving past the kneeling peasants and knights. “This I will give my blessing, and I bring you good news: Osric McBrayne has turned back to Castle Hawarth. Lord Rowley and I convinced him it would best serve him to leave Abergwynn to you.”

  “You are truly faithful,” Garrick said. “You shall be rewarded.”

  Daffyd’s eyes narrowed a bit, as they always did when he contemplated gold.

  “There are others who must be rewarded and some who will be punished. We will find out which of Strahan’s thugs stole Logan, and they will be banished or beaten or worse,” Garrick proclaimed. “The men who killed Cadell and Ware shall be punished as well. And as for Will Farmer, I think we owe him a horse.”

  “Not Luck,” Morgana argued quickly. “For without him, I could not have returned.”

  “Then we shall give the farmer the pick of the stables,” Garrick said, his arm slung possessively over the shoulders of his bride-to-be. “What say you? A little food? A lot of wine? A marriage ceremony?” Garrick looked at his kneeling army. “Arise,” he said. “Those of you who will stay, I shall speak with on the morrow” —he glanced slyly at Morgana— “long after noon.”

  A hair-raising howl rose from outside the castle, and Morgana whistled sharply. Wolf streaked through the gate and into the inner bailey and wriggled his way into Morgana’s waiting arms.

  Morgana laughed and ruffled his fur before Garrick took her arm again. “Come. ’Tis time for a wedding.” He linked his arm through Morgana’s, allowing her to help him climb the steps. With Wolf padding behind them, the lord and future lady of Abergwynn walked into the great hall that was to be their home forever.

  Other e-books by Lisa Jackson

  If you enjoyed this book, you might also be interested in other e-books by Lisa Jackson. Following, please find a small selection of her vast catalog that might interest you.

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  Devlynn is determined to make the temptress pay for her deceit, but he soon discovers there is more to Apryll’s betrayal than he knows. And though her kisses carry the sting of treason, they also arouse a desire he cannot deny.

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  Twenty years ago, wild child Jessie Brentwood vanished from St. Elizabeth’s high school. Most in Jessie’s tight circle of friends believed she simply ran away. Few suspected that Jessie was hiding a shocking secret — one that brought her into the crosshairs of a vicious killer…

  Until There’s No One Left…

  Two decades pass before a body is unearthed on school grounds and Jessie’s old friends reunite to talk. Most are sure that the body is Jessie’s, that the mystery of what happened to her has finally been solved. But soon, Jessie’s friends each begin to die in horrible, freak accidents that defy explanation…

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  Becca Sutcliff has been haunted for years by unsettling visions of Jessie, certain her friend met with a grisly end. Now the latest deaths have her rattled. Becca can sense that an evil force is shadowing her too, waiting for just the right moment to strike. She feels like she’s going crazy. Is it all a coincidence — or has Jessie’s killer finally returned to finish what was started all those years ago?

  Wicked Lies

  If At First You Don’t Succeed

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  All her life, Laura has been able to sense approaching evil. But that won’t stop a psychopath bent on destroying her. Justice has been unleashed, and this time, there will be no place safe to hide…

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  “Chilling… Swift pacing and an intriguing plot make this a first-rate supernatural thriller.” -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  Born To Die

  Appearances…

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&nbs
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  Deadly…

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  If She Only Knew

  She Woke Up With A New Face…

  Not only has Marla Cahill survived a deadly car accident, but her beautiful features have been restored through plastic surgery. She should be grateful. Instead, she’s consumed by confusion…and panic. For the people gathered at her bedside — her family — are strangers. And so is the woman whose haunted eyes stare back from the mirror…

  She Woke Up With No Memories…

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  About the author

  #1 NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author Lisa Jackson began her writing career in 1981 after her sister, Nancy Bush, read an article in TIME Magazine about how young mothers were making money writing romance novels. Both Lisa’s and Nancy’s writing careers started right then, and lo, these many years later Lisa has published seventy-five plus novels and has no plans to slow down anytime soon.