by Jolie Mathis
She heard the voices of nearby soldiers, yet there were no cries of alarm. Nearly blinded by the night, she stumbled into the ditch that surrounded the burh. Brackish water permeated her slippers and skirts. So cold. She welcomed the discomfort, the numbness. How deeply she despised herself for having been inside the keep while Godric had suffered in the forest.
She had not thought the water would splash so loudly. Rigid and aware she stood, awaiting a horde of barbarians to descend upon her in a wave of death. But none came. Perhaps the moan of the wind and not-so-distant crash of the ocean had muted her haste. Warily she resumed her trek and ascended the opposite side of the ditch. Sodden earth crumbled and slid beneath her slippers, but she thrust her hands into the mud and climbed.
She halted, faced with the expanse of land that had been the day's battlefield. Having no other choice, she delved into the blackness. The scent of burned thatch and blood hung heavy in the air, along with a low-lying fog that teased her eyes with false images—surely false!—of the men slain there that day. All at once, a wall of trees rose up before her.
Into the thicket she darted. Godric must be safe and alive. She could not bear the loss of him. Panicked thoughts swarmed her mind. Had he been found? Captured? Killed? She approached the clearing.
"Godric," she called into the fathomless pitch. Her sodden skirts clung to her legs. " 'Tis I."
Frantic, she ran in circles. No response greeted her but the sound of the wind and the creaking of winter-bare trees.
"Godric!"
Just as a sob of grief arose in her throat, she saw a movement across the clearing. A flash of gray against the black. A person or the cursed fog? She could not be sure.
A familiar figure emerged. Her heart swelled with relief. She broke into a run. "Beloved."
From behind her came the sound of thunder. A winged figure swooped past her like a fiend from Hell, clods of frozen earth flying in its wake. Terror crashed through her.
Fool! How could she, in her sense-numbing fear, have allowed the Norse overlord to follow her to the hiding place of the treasure she held most dear? She watched in helpless terror as he swept low from his saddle, sword in hand, to capture Godric. Her son.
A child. He held a very small child, no older than two winters, in his arms.
Kol had no time to consider the unexpected turn of events.
At her cry his head whipped around. 'Twas not a scream, but a challenge to do battle. Like a Valkyrie, the princess flew at him—her visage radiant with anger, her black hair evidenced only by its high sheen beneath the night sky.
So entranced was he by the sight, she was upon him before he could react. Her hands struck his thighs, clawed at his mantle as if she would dismount him from his horse. Holding the child close, he scabbarded his sword.
"Give him to me." Her face gleamed white with cold and whatever emotion that fueled her attack. Fear or hatred? Both, he surmised. He reined his mount to the side, so as not to trample her.
"Mama."
The child spoke softly but the word stung Kol's ears as if it had been shouted by an army of thousands. His gaze held hers as he allowed her to take the child. Of course. Beside him stood a noblewoman, full-grown. He should have known she would have a family. A child.
A husband.
So why did he feel as if he'd been dealt a blow by the flat side of a sword? A vision formed in Kol's mind, that of a shining, faceless hero. Her husband. Hatred and jealousy flared deep within, and with it a primal desire.
She backed away, her eyes narrowed. Against her breast she held the child tight and whispered against the small cheek. Kol jerked the reins and spurred his mount to follow her. Over the child's head she cast him a venomous glare, clearly intended to wound. The effect was opposite.
He wanted to touch her.
"Come here." He dismounted.
"Nay." The princess's eyes darkened, clearly sensing a new and different danger. "I will not."
Silence ruled the grove, save for the rush of the wind through the trees and the elusive patter of Heaven spilling its frozen, fragmented tears upon the earth.
Had he met her husband in battle? He hoped so. A succession of images flashed through his memory, one after the other. The men he had fought and defeated that day. Each and every death-moment.
He moved toward her. She retreated, turning the child's face against her neck.
A woman's cry and the sound of horses' hooves tore his attention from her. Vekell burst from the weald atop his mount. Before him scattered a dozen or so children and one very terrified woman. Soldiers quickly fenced them in.
"Hermione," the princess called. Kol's eyes descended over her wet garments, which molded against long, slender legs. "Children."
The woman sobbed and fell at Isabel's feet. "Forgive me, my lady. When the boy heard you he escaped my grasp, and I knew not where to take the others." Around her narrow shoulders she wore only a thin shawl. The children huddled together, their faces gaunt, their eyes wide and fixed on the giants who surrounded them. Most were not dressed to survive the elements. Some wore no shoes.
Realization struck Kol, and with it, an anger so intense, the fires of passion that had so consumed him moments before were summarily doused.
He leveled his gaze upon the princess. "You knew they were here."
Her face shone luminous, her lips black red. Droplets of ice glistened upon her hair like diamonds. Her silence confessed everything. His men waited upon their mounts, quiet and watchful. Behind him his steed snorted and pawed, as if sensing his fury. Wind surged through the trees.
Anger thickened his voice. "You would let them die of cold to spare them from me?" The princess did not look at him as a man, but as a monster.
The princess did not blink. She did not move. She merely stood holding her child like the statue of some long-dead martyr, challenging him with her violet eyes. Almost as if she had witnessed every sin he had ever committed.
He was damn sick of her eyes and the way they judged him. Striding forward he took hold of her arm.
The children cried out. Some of them screamed.
As if he were a bloody-fanged monster, come to eat them alive. He grew more furious. All around, the forest trees pitched and roiled, brandishing their branches as if they, too, protested his hold on her. He heard their whispers.
Unworthy. Unwanted. Soon to be forgotten.
He released her. To Vekell he ordered, "Take the children to the keep."
Kol caught the nearest boy and lifted him by the nape of his tunic into the saddle with Ragi. When he removed his hand he froze. A dark hand print—his own—stained the coarse wool of the boy's garment. He lifted his fingers to his nose. Instantly he recognized the scent. Blood.
He spun around, searching the darkness. The princess had been the only one he had touched. The blood must have come from her. She stood beneath an ash tree sparring with one of his men over possession of her son.
Her voice rang with authority. "You will not touch him." When the warrior stepped toward her she slapped him away.
Taking full advantage of her distraction, Kol approached from behind. Before she could react, he stole the boy from her arms and passed the warm little body to the man. The child, now fast asleep, did not waken. Though the princess tried to pursue, Kol blocked her path.
"Vermin!" Panic tainted her voice. Small-fisted blows jabbed into Kol's chest. He caught her hands.
"I hate you," she hissed, her face a mask of feminine rage.
"Really?" He bent so low, so close, their noses almost touched. "I had not noticed."
Her eyes flew wide in astonishment. For a moment they shared breath. How lovely she was, even pallid from cold and reeking of ditch water.
The sound of horses and men grew faint as the last of me soldiers departed with their small passengers.
Kol released her. She stumbled backward and fell onto her bottom.
"Your wound," he demanded. "Where is it?"
The princess snatched u
p a stick and hurled it at his head. Had his mood not been so foul, he would have laughed. He caught her weapon midair and cast it to the ground.
Pointing at her, he warned, "Cease your foolishness."
With the intention of helping her rise, he bent but she scooted away like a retreating crab. She sprang to her feet and fled toward the narrow path as if she too intended to gallop the entire distance to Calldarington.
He caught her; gently, given the injury he suspected.
"You bleed." Frowning, he ran his hands over her rigid shoulders. "Tell me where."
So dark was her gunna, he could not perceive any trace of blood or injury and her softly curved lips held their silence. Impatient for an answer, he smoothed his palms over her breasts. The princess jerked back.
"Stop!" The clearing echoed with her shrill command.
He grasped her arm.
"Ow," she yelped. For a moment her face lost its expression of hatred. But in the next breath, her fist almost contacted his jaw.
With her hand held in his, he growled, "I vow if you do that again I will smite you in kind." He wouldn't of course, but his threat achieved the desired effect. Defiance lit her eyes, but she yielded to his touch.
Be gentle, Kol reminded himself. Admittedly, he had little understanding of the female mind, having grown from child to man in the company of warriors.
With a deliberate lightness of hand, he inspected the princess's arm. He bit down a curse. The night was dark. He could not see. Abandoning his own caution, he grasped her woolen sleeve and ripped it, and the linen beneath, from cuff to shoulder.
She tried to shrug free, but he held her still. Beneath the moonlight her skin gleamed as exquisitely as Quanzhou silk.
At his touch, she gasped. Blood surged to his groin. The sound of the wind in the trees mingled with the rush of blood to his head. Thankfully, his jerkin fell to the tops of his thighs. Doubtless the princess's alarm would grow tenfold if she saw the robust tenting of his braies.
He commanded his attention to her arm and quickly found the source of the blood. A small, perfectly round puncture wound on her forearm, and another just above her elbow.
"Tell me how this occurred."
She glanced at her arm. Again, bewilderment softened her scowl. Had she even been aware of the wounds until this moment? But rather than answering him, she lifted her chin, her lips sealed more tightly than a regent's missive.
Could she not confide a simple fact to him? Irritated, he strode to his mount to retrieve linen to bind the wound.
Upon turning he found himself completely alone. He searched for something to kick, to curse, but there was only the condescending silence of the primeval forest around him.
He swung onto the horse and, with a jab of his heels, set off after her. She had run nearly to the tree line when he sighted her. Leaning low he claimed her by the waist and dragged her into his lap.
The princess sat between his thighs, an effigy of silent disdain. An occasional shiver broke her stillness. Encased in leather, Kol had little warmth to share, but still he pulled her against his chest, and banded his arm beneath her out-thrust breasts. Her garments had hidden the extent of her slenderness. Her rib cage was as delicate as a bird's. Cold-hardened nipples jutted in defiance of her tunic.
Kol closed his eyes. Exhaled through his nose.
Each shift of her thighs along his, each press of her buttocks against him, enticed. Tempted. Deep within his chest, and even more so in his loins, his arousal grew rampant, but he would not allow this impulse to sway him from his course. The extermination of his final enemy could be his only goal.
Isabel shared his enemy's blood. The girl who had once saved his life—who had unknowingly, but valiantly challenged his demons—no longer existed. Perhaps that girl had never truly existed at all.
Ranulf lived. Kol sensed that much in the air about him. He would use the princess to draw the king forth. There could be no more escapes. No more defiance.
Already he held the key to her submission.
Chapter 4
Two winters before
"I cannot have heard you correctly. For a moment I thought you said the princess... was with child." The timber walls of the women's chambers absorbed each of Ranulf's words instantly, leaving the room so silent Isabel wondered—nay, prayed each of its occupants had been swept away to some faraway land. A land where they would lose all memory of what they had just heard.
On the bed she lay, with the furs pulled over her head. She clenched her hands into the bedclothes, and promised to whatever divine being granted wishes, that if she were, indeed, taken to another world she would never shed a tear over not being allowed to say goodbye.
Not to family or friends, not even Merwyn, whom she had not been allowed to visit, not even for a pat on the nose, since—
Since the afternoon the Dane had pulled her from the river.
Cursedly near-deaf, the medicus shouted as if he truly believed Ranulf had not heard his revelation the first time.
"Aye, the babe wilt be born before the first frosts settle upon the fields."
"Shhh!" Berthilde reprimanded sharply. Isabel covered her ears with her hands.
Surely countless other ears strained against the outside of the door. Curious servants hoping to be the first to carry news of the princess's mysterious ailment to the multitude. Isabel pressed her face into the linens. Already there were too many witnesses to her shame.
"Isabel?" Ranulf's hoarse utterance stabbed past the barrier of her flat-pressed hands. She knew he stood at the edge of the bed. For an eternity silence throbbed about her.
"Tell me these are lies!" His shout tore the breath from her.
The fur coverlet flew from her body. She cringed, exposed. Air and light razed her skin but Isabel remained just as she had since the medicus' humiliating examination, curled tight as a sheave. Berthilde's ragged sobs emanated from the corner of the room. Isabel embraced herself even tighter, as if the fragments of her heart could be held together by force alone.
" 'Twas the Dane!" Ranulf raged.
"No," Isabel whispered into her pillow.
Her angel would not have done such a thing. In her mind she had pondered every moment of their togetherness. Despite the black moments, the missing memories, she was sure he had saved her life. That was all.
"You dare champion him?" her brother roared.
Forsooth, the Dane had been a stranger, but somehow she knew—
A sudden weight tilted the mattress. Berthilde cried out. Hands closed on her ankles. Linen bunched at her thighs as Ranulf dragged her from the bed and forced her to kneel before him.
Did he not understand? She wanted only to be still, to mend. Tears scalded her cheeks. Futilely her mind searched for an explanation for her missed courses, the persistent sickness—but there were no answers.
Yea, the Norseman had come, and he had gone, and now, inexplicably, she found herself with child, but she remained steadfast in her belief he was blameless.
Ranulf's voice broke as he pronounced, " 'Twas no immaculate conception."
Isabel stared upward, stricken by the amalgam of emotion in his eyes. Fury, tenderness—and disappointment. "I would never presume to say it was so."
Tears glazed his eyes, tears she had never before seen in this warrior king who showed no weakness. "And you, naive child. You set him free."
In a blink, Berthilde appeared along the watery edge of Isabel's vision.
"Sire, please," she whispered in a supplicant's voice, her hands pressed together as if in prayer to her king. "She hath been punished enough."
Ranulf paled. He sank to his knees in front of Isabel. Her half brother, the pride of their father, of their long and valiant noble line. Sunlight, waned by the approaching eve, stole through the window to shine off his golden hair.
"This is not what I had intended for you, sister. This is not—" He lifted a hand to touch her cheek.
Isabel could not look at him. Instead she stood and cr
awled to the center of the bed, where she turned from him and lay down, her arms at her sides. The linens still gave off the faintest bit of warmth.
"Isabel." Against the mattress he grasped her hand.
But another man's words, not Ranulf's, echoed through her mind. "God be with you, Isabel."
With each moment, her memories of her blue-eyed savior grew more faint, more altered. Desperate to remember, desperate to believe, she slid her other hand beneath the pillow. There her fist curled around the relic.
A bloodstained fragment of cloth, snatched from the fire when Berthilde had not been watching. Her only remnant of him.
"I bid you, cease looking at me thusly." The Dane spoke quietly, over his shoulder. He placed another shard of kindling on the fire.
On the far corner of the bed Isabel remained conjoined with the bed pillar, where she had scrambled after he'd deposited her moments before. She watched his every move, his every breath, her muscles tensed for flight. Would he lunge at her and tear her clothing, or would he take pleasure in a slow assault?
He pivoted and sat back upon the low stone hearth, his elbows propped upon his knees.
"As if I were some sort of monster." With a tilt of his head he peered toward her. His voice rumbled up from his throat like an elusive, first thunder before a storm. "My name is Kol. Son of Thorlek."
At her continued silence he frowned. "I thought, mayhap, you would wish to know."
Kol. How long had she wondered?
But she did not wish to give him a name. Monsters did not have names.
Silence screamed between them. Shadows blackened the chamber, save for the fire's meager light.
Somehow the man who sat before her did not concur with the stark, shocking images of a slavering fiend her mind repeatedly produced. Forsooth, his long, dark lashes contradicted everything hard in him. Surely he had been carefully crafted by Satan to beguile unwary women into opening their hearts.
