Untamed
Page 35
“Dominic—!”
Even as Meg crumpled, Dominic leaped forward and caught her with his left arm. His right arm swung in a fierce arc that made his sword flash in the firelight.
Grunting with effort, Rufus began a two-handed swing that was meant to cut Dominic in half, and Meg with him.
The blow was only a hand’s span from its target when Dominic’s sword sliced up through the darkness, deflecting the blade. Steel rang on steel with a force that sent shock through the men’s bones.
Shouting a violent curse, Rufus swung two-handed again. Dominic barely parried the blow in time. He was fighting one-handed, holding on to Meg with the other.
When Rufus swung a third time, Dominic seemed to slip. As he fell, he turned, protecting Meg with his own body. With a cry of triumph, Rufus lifted his sword for a killing blow.
The Glendruid Wolf came up from the ground in a silent, deadly spring. Too late Rufus realized that he couldn’t protect himself from the sword that was leveled like a lance at his naked throat.
Before the Reever could plead or flee, he was dead.
Dominic withdrew his sword, knelt, and eased Meg into his arms. She made a low sound and turned toward him. Even in the glow of the bonfire’s leaping flames, her face was pale. From across the fire came the last flurry of battle. Dominic glanced up once, then ignored everything but his wife.
“Meg,” he said, fear rough in his voice. “Where are you hurt?”
Her eyes opened slowly. Reflected firelight made the silver pin on Dominic’s cloak burn. Meg looked deeply into the wolf’s savage crystal eyes and sighed. With fingers that shook, she touched first the Glendruid Wolf and then the man who wore it.
“Don’t fear, warrior,” Meg whispered. “Whether I live or die, Blackthorne Keep and its vassals will be yours.”
“Damn the land and damn my ambitions with it!”
Meg’s mouth opened but no words came out. Dominic’s hands were searching tenderly over her, seeking any wound. What he found was a rent in her clothing where chain mail had ripped through fabric. Her breath broke when he touched her ribs.
“Be still, small falcon. Let me see how badly you are hurt.”
“’Tis but a few drops of blood and a bruise,” Meg whispered.
“You fainted.”
“The blow took the breath from me.”
A few more light touches assured Dominic that Meg was right. She had been pummeled but not badly wounded by the blow. She had also been very lucky. Rufus had meant to maim if not kill her.
The realization of how close Meg had come to death made ice gather in Dominic’s stomach.
“You never should have risked yourself that way,” he said harshly.
“Rufus would have killed you.”
“He nearly killed you! God’s teeth, if you had died—” Dominic’s throat closed, making speech impossible.
“My death wouldn’t have mattered very much.”
Meg smiled sadly at Dominic’s shocked expression. With a hand that shook, she traced the Glendruid pin on his cloak.
“You are what matters,” she said simply. “You will heal the land, not I. The Glendruid Wolf has set you free of John’s trap. In a way, I suppose it has set me free, too. I will no longer have to endure the exquisite pain of giving my body, heart, and soul to a man who sees in me only a womb for his sons.”
“What are you saying?” Dominic asked, appalled.
“Blackthorne’s people are safe without me now. You can have whatever wife you wish, and I can finally be as free as an untamed falcon.”
Dominic closed his eyes and struggled to control the combination of relief and fear and rage that battled within him. Meg was alive and safe, but she had never seemed farther from him, slipping away with each word, each sad smile, the trembling of her fingers as she touched cold silver rather than his face.
She had yet to meet his eyes. To see him.
“I will never let you go,” Dominic said harshly.
“Don’t worry, Glendruid Wolf. The people will accept you. Blackthorne Keep is yours for as long as you live. Nothing can change that now.”
“Without you, the land and the people are a feast for a dead man. Look at me. Look into me.”
“Nay,” Meg whispered brokenly. “I can’t bear it. I can’t bear seeing how much I love and how little you do.”
For a moment Dominic went completely still. Then he bent and kissed Meg’s eyelids tenderly, stealing her tears with the tip of his tongue. He felt the tremors ripping through her, as though he used a whip on her rather than his most gentle caress.
“Look at me and know what I know,” he whispered between kisses. “Look at me. See me.”
Slowly Meg’s eyes opened and she looked at Dominic, seeing him, knowing what he knew. With a sound of wonder she touched his lips with her hand.
“Glendruid witch,” Dominic said, kissing Meg’s fingertips, “you healed my body, my heart, and my soul…and then you stole them from me one kiss at a time. With or without heirs, I will have no other wife but you.”
As Dominic gathered Meg closely and buried his face against her warmth, he whispered the truth they both finally knew.
“I love you, sweet witch. I will always love you.”
Epilogue
WOLFLIKE, WINTER HOWLED, scratching at Blackthorne Keep with claws of ice. Secure in the knowledge of a fine harvest, the people of the keep quietly went about their business. While they worked, they waited for news of their mistress, who had grown big with the Glendruid Wolf’s seed.
“I wish Old Gwyn had stayed,” Dominic muttered.
“She had paid for her adultery for a thousand years,” Meg said. “I couldn’t ask any more of her.”
Dominic ran a powerful hand through his hair. He still wasn’t sure he believed as Meg did. All he could say with certainty was that the silver wedding dress, the crystal-studded silver chain, and the old Glendruid woman were gone as though they had never existed.
An expression of both concentration and unease went over Meg’s face. Dominic had noticed just that look more and more often since dawn.
“How do you feel?” he asked anxiously.
“Like I will need both of your strong arms to haul me out of even this shallow bath.”
Gently Dominic lifted Meg from the bath and wrapped her in a soft drying cloth.
“Someday we will have to find a suitable handmaiden,” Meg said.
Dominic made a neutral sound as he smoothed his hands over the body that had once been slender but was now swollen with his seed.
“’Tis unseemly for the lord of a keep to be his wife’s servant,” Meg pointed out.
“’Tis a great pleasure for the lord of this keep to feel his babe’s life stirring beneath his hands,” Dominic countered.
Abruptly Meg’s body went rigid with the force of her labor. When she spoke, her voice was strained.
“Call for the midwife. The babe is suddenly quite eager.”
While the storm howled around the keep, Dominic carried Meg to the bed she had prepared for the birthing. Fragrant herbs and dried flowers scented the air, and luxurious tapestries cut off drafts from the wind.
The midwife rushed into the room, saw at once that Meg’s time was close at hand, and muttered all the way through the Glendruid water ritual Meg insisted she perform.
“There!” the midwife said as she yanked a smock into place. “Are you happy now?”
“Aye.”
Meg’s voice was a bare thread. Her fingers were clenched on Dominic’s hand with enough force that her nails left bright marks on his skin. He smoothed back her hair and kissed her cheek, telling her of his love.
From the corner of her eyes, the midwife looked at Dominic. Such tenderness was rare in any man, much less in one whose ferocity had become famous throughout the northern marches.
No quarter. No prisoners.
And there had been none.
Roving gangs of bandits and knights without lords still harried t
he northern land, but not one of them troubled the domain of the man who wore the Glendruid Wolf.
The winter storm buffeted the keep, making a loose shutter bang. The long, rising cry of the wind made the midwife look around uneasily.
From Dominic’s shoulder, the wolf’s eyes gleamed as though alive and watching the Glendruid witch from whose body the future would come.
“You may go about your business, lord,” the midwife said. “I will care for her now.”
“Nay,” Dominic said flatly. “My lady has been by my side through peace and war, sickness and health. I will not abandon her in her pain.”
The midwife’s shock made her speechless. Before she could regain her tongue, Meg groaned as her body was seized by the urgency of birth.
Wolf’s eyes gleamed with every shift of Dominic’s body while he shared his wife’s labor in the only way he could.
Soon the wind howled with a triumph that was echoed in another strong cry, a baby tasting its first wild draught of freedom.
“Lord Dominic,” the midwife said, awed, “the witch has given you a son!”
IN the years that followed, Blackthorne Keep rang with the shouts of children at play. As the sons grew older, Dominic taught them the way of the sword and the wolf, giving them the skill to fight when they must and the wisdom to seek peace when they could. Meg’s daughters learned the way of water and growing things, of garden and herbal, and that the healing force was both gentle and fierce.
Together, in every word and silence, with laughter and with tears, Glendruid witch and Glendruid Wolf taught their children the most important truth of all: there is no more powerful magic than the generous heart and untamed soul of love.
About the Author
ELIZABETH LOWELL’s acclaimed suspense novels include the New York Times bestsellers The Color of Death, Die in Plain Sight, Moving Target, Running Scared, and four books featuring the Donovan family, Amber Beach, Jade Island, Pearl Cove, and Midnight in Ruby Bayou. Lowell has more than thirty million books in print. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband, with whom she writes mystery novels under a pseudonym. Visit her website at www.elizabethlowell.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors
By Elizabeth Lowell
DEATH IS FOREVER • ALWAYS TIME TO DIE
THE COLOR OF DEATH • DIE IN PLAIN SIGHT
RUNNING SCARED • MOVING TARGET
MIDNIGHT IN RUBY BAYOU • PEARL COVE
JADE ISLAND • AMBER BEACH
WINTER FIRE • AUTUMN LOVER
ENCHANTED • FORBIDDEN • UNTAMED
ONLY LOVE • ONLY YOU
ONLY MINE • ONLY HIS
EDEN BURNING • THIS TIME LOVE
BEAUTIFUL DREAMER • REMEMBER SUMMER
DESERT RAIN • WHERE THE HEART IS
TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH • LOVER IN THE ROUGH
A WOMAN WITHOUT LIES • FORGET ME NOT
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
UNTAMED. Copyright © 1993 by Two of a Kind, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Mobipocket Reader May 2006 ISBN 0-06-119110-8
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-90536
ISBN: 0-380-7653-0
20
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900
Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.uk.harpercollinsebooks.com
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com