And God, it seemed, was as much a trickster as the horse under me, ready to upset my seat, my world, the moment my attention wandered.
“Hold a spell,” I entreated my two companions once we were away from the castle’s prying eyes. Rummaging in my packs, I found the hauberk with its gold-dyed leather my father had gifted me before I left for Camelot. Every fifth scale of the heavy armored coat had been plated in the thinnest layer of molten gold. When struck by the sun, the whole of it dazzled. Gold of itself was too soft a metal to forge for armor, so the matching helm and buckler had been fire gilded with powdered gold and mercury.
“A bit fine for a kitchen boy.” Lyn’s sharp tongue grated, but I was willing to forgive it under the circumstances. “From whom did you steal?”
“You could say I stole my father’s love to get it.”
“Then he must have stolen it from another.”
The lady wasn’t making it easy to bite my tongue and bide my peace. “The only thing my father ever stole was my mother’s heart.”
“That’s finery fit for a king.” Dismounting, Marrok stepped up next to me and chose a gilded scale over my chest to brush his fingers across. Heat flashed through me as though he had touched my naked skin instead. Then he slowly lifted his chin so his gaze traveled remorselessly up from my chest to the curve of my neck to the stubble across my cheeks and finally to lock on my own eyes. The intensity of his look as he stared into my soul from barely a spread handspan away was both unnerving and smoldering.
“Or maybe—” the timbre of his voice changed and the words rolled deep and husky—“the son of a king.” A slow smile lifted his lips, and I knew my eyes had betrayed me.
“No.” At some point Lyn had slid from her horse and stood now just outside the space Marrok and I had made our own. “He’s a kitchen boy. Unworthy.”
“Of my attentions—” Marrok’s gaze snapped around so it was full on Lyn, thrusting her into the space with Marrok and me—“or yours?”
The guilt in Lyn’s eyes was as plain as it was perplexing. As was the struggle that strangled her answer. “Ours.”
“Are you…jealous?”
Something in Marrok’s voice waried me. And it took a beat too long to my ears for Lyn to answer, “No.”
She looked to me then, her soul full of guilt and sorrow, fear and attraction laid bare before me like a shattered mirror to be pieced together. Fear for her sister only or of the secrets she wouldn’t tell? Attraction to Marrok or to me? Depending on which way I pieced together the shattered mirror, the reflection would be different. But which reflection was truth?
Lyn took a deep, half-sobbing breath. “If you’re done admiring yourselves, Nessie’s waiting.”
And even as she turned away, I could feel the mirrored pieces shatter just a little more.
Chapter 13
Lyn
When all I knew of Beau was that he’d been working in the kitchen, it was easy to believe I could mock and scorn him as my champion without guilt. Facing him on the road, though, in just our little group, the words came harder. In a world so full of cruelty, how rare it was to find courtesy and honesty.
And were I to be honest with myself, the sight of Beau dressed in gold upon a golden horse was as maddening to my senses as Marrok was in black on black.
They rode now just ahead, speaking low between themselves, no doubt learning things about each other I, too, was desperate to know. The tilts of their heads, the long stares, how they rode knee-to-knee even when the way was wide—all this I was privy to from my place behind. I had heard of such pairings before, whispered behind sheltering hands, made a secret and shameful thing. Unnatural.
Watching them together, I felt a knot settle in my stomach like a stone. A knot that quickly grew, twisting my insides in pain. And then I saw—though whether fae vision or enflamed imagination, I couldn’t be sure. It was a flash only. Naked shoulders, naked hips. Reaching hands and reaching lips. Distinctly male. Distinctly aroused.
No!
The two of them together was unnatural. I understood it now. The knot twisting ever tighter made it clear. Marrok had guessed it plain. I was jealous. Jealous of their attentions to one another. Jealous because I should have been their guiding star. Jealous that I was not.
But of which of them was I most jealous? I was never as pretty as Nessie, but I was not so plain that I didn’t draw the eyes of young lords in court. I was confident I deserved the attentions of both Marrok and Beau, but the twisting knot made it clear this was no petty pout. I needed one of them to stop paying his attentions to the other and pay them to me instead.
Only which one?
That question still haunted me when the men ahead drew rein.
As one, their swords slithered from their scabbards while shield and buckler appeared in their hands.
Urging my horse, with the pack beast in tow, to catch up to theirs, I strained to see ahead.
“What goes?” Marrok demanded.
Three—no, four—men with long daggers stood in the road. A horse whinnied from the woods to the right.
One of the men craned his thin neck to better see between Marrok and Beau and locked his eyes on me. “I have a message if you be the one called Lynette.”
A cold chill leapt up my spine to hear my name from such base lips, and I knew at once whose messenger he had to be. “I am.”
“The Red Knight sends his regards.” He swept into a deep and mocking bow.
“M’lady!”
In the shadow of the spreading elm I saw the man to whom the unseen horse belonged. He stood against the trunk with his hands bound from behind. To either side, two more brigands stood guard.
“Are you not the Damosel Savage? I knew your father well. These…gentlemen…tell me he’s been slain. I think they intend I join him.”
“Do you know him?” Beau asked me, nodding toward the bound man but his eyes on the two brigands by him while Marrok, breathing hard, kept watch on the four in the road.
“By sight, I think. A nobleman who’s dined in our hall once or twice that I recall. The brigands belong to Ironside. Compelled to be here, no doubt.” Beau arched his brows at that. “And my champion’s first task.”
He nodded and an easy calm settled over him.
Marrok, on the other hand… Just as my fae blood simmered in the presence of Nimue’s compulsion spell that rooted the brigands with naught but knives and the morningstar one was doing an ill job of trying to conceal among them, that same fae blood fairly boiled when my attention settled on the Black Knight.
Even his horse seemed to feel it as it shied under him. In the saddle, Marrok trembled. Not out of fear or trepidation as I’d first been concerned, but in a struggle for control.
Control of what, though?
Beau dismounted. Unhelmed and unhorsed, he made the fight fairer. Marrok, in danger of being unseated anyway, followed Beau’s lead only a breathspace behind him.
My heart stuttered.
The battle closed.
A shout of alarm tore my attention from the brawl on the road to the nobleman’s tree. Instead of joining their comrades on the road, the pair of brigands there advanced on the bound noble, their intent clear.
Without thought, I kneed my mare. Startled by the sharp command, she lunged toward the tree dragging the equally startled pack horse with her. The sheer mass of the two animals pushed the brigands back.
With a swift motion, one of the men grabbed my skirts. I kicked back but those same skirts tangled the blows. Then suddenly the saddle was gone from under me and I was falling.
We hit the ground together, the brigand and I. Except I lived, the brigand did not. Not an arm’s length from me blood pooled from his slit throat.
Half-a-score paces ahead the second brigand fell, and Marrok shoved the lifeless corpse away.
Strong hands on my shoulders helped lift me to my feet while I struggled for the breath that had been knocked from me. “Did he mark you?” Beau asked, and the concern
in his voice alone almost made me swoon. I tilted my head to see his face, and the panic in his eyes when I hesitated nearly undid me.
A second pair of hands claimed my waist and Marrok was there, nostrils flared, inhaling the scent of me, following the flick of his dark, impenetrable eyes.
Even as I shook my head, Marrok was already saying, “No blood.”
Beau’s hand swept the hair from my face. “Any other hurts?”
I shook my head again and gasped in a chestful of lovely, precious air. What did hurt was when they slipped their hands away, leaving me to stand alone.
Marrok backed the horses up, and Beau used one of the brigand’s knives to cut the noble free.
Other than a face drained of all blood that was only now pinking back up, he too seemed unharmed. As he worked feeling back into arms and hands, he looked over the six slain men. “My keep is only a league south of here. Join me there and I’ll send servants to bury these dead. As for you, what reward can I offer?”
“None necessary,” Beau said. “You wouldn’t have been taken had you not been used as a pawn against her and us. We were indebted to free you.”
“We’re all someone’s pawn at one time or another. Let’s call both debts paid. You’ll at least sup with me and stay the night? Longer, if you wish. Lord Corbin, at your service.”
“I’m…called Beaumains. That’s Sir Marrok. And the Lady Lynette who commands us you already know. It’s she who will say nay or yea to your entreaty.”
“One night,” I agreed. Nimue would know her minions were dead and would be busy with whatever the next trial might be. I didn’t want to think what might be happening to Nessie, perhaps even in punishment for our victory here. But we needed food and sleep. And since we couldn’t ride at night anyway, it was less than a handful of hours lost.
And while we needed that small time to recover, I prayed it was a decision I wouldn’t regret.
Chapter 14
Gareth / Beau
Lord Corbin’s estate was a modest one.
“My wife passed on three years ago,” he told us when we sat at his table supping on the cook’s hasty meal of salted pork, early peas and fresh greens from the garden. “Our only son is at Benwick, a squire now in the House of Ban. I myself left the politics of kings years ago. I live simply now, in peace. So to be set upon by thieves…” He shuddered at the memory. “In my younger days, they could not have touched me. Not that I was ever a knight such as you good Sirs, but I had been known to acquit myself well in a battle or two. Now, however…”
“It was six to one,” Marrok pointed out. “And I doubt they gave warning.”
Corbin’s eyes clouded. “Truth.” Then he turned to Lynette, as much to absorb her life and beauty when he’d so recently thought to lose all than out of courtesy. “You’re quiet, M’lady. Is there something amiss?”
When she cast her eyes down rather than facing him, I went on guard. Beside me, Marrok stilled with concern. Had her fall been more serious after all?
I half rose from the bench when she at last looked up and I saw the pain in her eyes. “You—you sat a kitchen page at our table, Lord Corbin. I would…” She swallowed, hard. “I would rather eat with swine.”
I heard the words clearly. Understood them clearly. What didn’t make sense was the expression on her face, the guilt in her voice or how she avoided my eye. Even Corbin was startled, unsure of his reply.
I spared him the embarrassment. Whether Lynette meant the words or not, they shamed me. “With your leave,” I told Corbin as I took my trencher and cup and returned to the sideboard to finish my meal. I expected a look of pity thrown my way from Marrok. What I didn’t expect was for him to join me.
“She doesn’t mean it,” he said.
“No.” I’d seen the appraising looks she’d bestowed on me. I’d caught her more furtive glances filled with the want that belied her words of rebuke. “There’s nothing of disgust in her, so why did she scorn me?” Not that Marrok would know. He seemed too occupied with secrets of his own.
“I think she’s afraid of you.”
“Afraid?”
“Of how she feels about you. Or she’s afraid you won’t feel the same for her. So she’s protecting herself. Her heart.”
His dark eyes on me stirred something primal. “Why would you think that?”
He half-growled in frustration. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s because I’m afraid of you too.”
I gasped a little for air. Obvious? A bull in a lady’s sewing circle couldn’t have been more obvious. But to speak of it… I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it. Not from Marrok. Not from Lynette.
Because I was afraid of them too.
Because I had never been…afraid…of anyone before.
I was a king’s son, even though there were three brothers before me. And as I had a fair enough face, there had been fawners even before my beard tried to grow in. Not for lack of opportunity had I never fawned back. For while my body had urged me to it, my heart had never been engaged enough.
Until Marrok and Lyn, who challenged me both.
In a way I welcomed Lyn’s rebukes. Without them, I might have already made a fool of myself with her, trying to win her affection while she was still so clearly suffering for her sister.
Marrok, though, was more…complicated. Not for his gender alone but for the dark secrets he hid. It was one thing to trust Merlin’s vouch of Marrok as a companion on this quest. As a companion otherwise? I was unprepared to accept Marrok or Lyn in that capacity—yet. Perhaps never. Or perhaps…
I shook my head to banish the word before I could think it, but the ghost of it hung like temptation in my mind. Or perhaps tonight.
We finished our meal in silence both awkward and charged with anticipation. I could feel Marrok’s dark, steady gaze on me, felt Lyn’s jealous glances from across the room. She hadn’t meant for Marrok to leave her table too. Though her looks were not reserved for him alone.
I gulped down the sweet mead our host had provided. The drink was potent, heady, and I was determined to lose myself to it. To drive away those ghost thoughts that plagued me.
In the end, I still wasn’t drunk enough when I stumbled to the quiet corner of the hall where a servant had laid my pack and a blanket, and I collapsed on the makeshift bed.
Like a shadow, Marrok followed.
Only a slow-burning torch on the far wall lit the hall, and in our dark corner Marrok’s eyes glittered with a hint of demon red. He stretched himself beside me, not on his blanket but mine—our elbows propped under us and only a handspan’s breadth between.
With a smile he laid a hand on the back of my neck.
I tensed as his touch seared through me. Aye, there was the sweet ache as my body swiftly responded, but I also felt the hard clutch of his fingers as he drew me toward him. A predator with his prey.
Innocent in this I might have been, but I was no man’s prey. Twisting away, I rose above him on the blanket. Then I circled my arm across his shoulders, trapping him. Testing him. Five brothers in a household with three older than me and more experienced had taught me well the sport of wrestling. Of domination.
I didn’t need to prove I was Marrok’s better in any way—just his equal. If he understood that, we had a chance.
He shrugged off my arm and surged to his knees. Face-to-face, I braced for his next move, prepared I thought, for anything. But he threw a move my brothers had never taught. Hawk-swift, he captured my lips with his.
Strong, insistent, his lips to mine, he doubled my animal response to him. As I ground my lips against his, the blood in my staff began to beat.
Then suddenly I was breached, his tongue invading my mouth, thrusting for my throat.
I parried back and we closed, arms around one another, on our knees still, drawing close. Marrok’s breath rasped loud in the dark.
Then his hands were on the hem of my tunic, urging it off. I brushed him away. “I’m not so drunk I can’t undress myself.”
&
nbsp; “You’d allow a servant the pleasure. Why not me?”
Pleasure? It hadn’t occurred to me Marrok might enjoy undressing me. Maybe I was too drunk for this after all. Where did domination end and teaching begin? I would need to be led the first time. I would need to be willing to submit in order to learn.
“I can’t.” I pushed him back. “Not tonight.”
“You can’t?” Anger simmered in Marrok’s voice. “You bring me this far and now say you can’t?”
“You brought yourself this far,” I snapped. “Another night when I’m not so drunk.”
“Would you truly lay with me sober?”
Would I? It was a fair question. “If I would lay with any man sober, it would be you.” I gave him a drunk’s honesty.
The demon-red gleam in Marrok’s eyes intensified but he withdrew. Despite all, he remained a courteous knight.
My heart responded to that gesture as swiftly and surely as my body had responded to him. “Another night,” I said again, and this time it wasn’t just a possibility but a promise.
Chapter 15
Marrok
I sprinted from the hall. Outside, the security of the woods beckoned. Throwing myself down on the bank of a small creek that cut through the trees, I howled my frustration to the stars. The beast beat from within, demanding to be freed.
I had left with a promise, but Beau had rejected me all the same. Not only that, he had challenged me for power, for dominance. Such a game excited Marrok the man. I had hardened in anticipation when he rose above me. The only thing I had wanted to conquer this night was Beau’s reluctance.
But the wolf…every move from Beau was a direct challenge to it. A threat to its nature. A pack leader, my wolf would brook no other—man nor beast—to be its equal.
Even as I struggled with the wolf now, I had struggled with it in the hall. The devil’s humor was plain in my curse. The wolf craved Beau as much as the man did. In the end it wanted what I did—Beau beneath me. Hands, nose and eyes filled with him. Teeth nipping at his bared and beautiful flesh while I took my pleasure inside.
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