"Good," he said, apparently satisfied, although his tone conveyed that he had expected no refusal. Scowling, he glared down in annoyance at the bloody trails raking his bare arms. "While I eat, I would have you fetch a basin of soapy water and a cloth to clean these scratches."
At the implied order that she should aid him--that she should be made to touch him--Serena shot an anxious look at her mother. Calandra paused, carrying a small black cauldron of stew over to the fireplace.
"I will tend your injuries," she volunteered, giving an abrupt gesture of her head. "Serena, come and mind the pot."
The stranger's eyes had not left her face, Serena noted when she dared a glance back in his direction. More flinty green than brown in this light, his gaze fixed on her in considering silence, watching as she dropped her bolster on the nearest stool and sidled away from him.
Was it rancor at being gainsaid in this small command that she attend him, or was it suspicion over her eager avoidance of him that tightened the stern line of his full mouth?
Serena did not hesitate long enough to guess at it. Hurrying to distance herself from the idea of touching him again, she went to the hearth and took up the task of cooking his sup. Calandra's look of acknowledgment was grim as Serena pulled on her gloves, then reached for the long stirring spoon. Serena mouthed a rueful apology for having unwittingly invited this trouble to their doorstep, but her mother's expression only softened to one of resignation.
"I'll go fetch water for the washbasin. I won't be long," Calandra said, her voice reassuring even if her gaze was not.
Serena nodded. She put the spoon into the pot of warming stew and listened as her mother's footsteps retreated behind her. The cottage door opened, then closed, leaving Serena standing there alone with their unwanted guest.
How she wished she could undo the mistake of finding him. How she yearned for the peace she knew on awaking that morning, before she discovered the rage-filled stranger washed up on her shore. How she regretted the touch that yet reverberated in her bones, the terrible rage that belonged to him before spilling into her the instant her hands pressed against him.
There was no undoing that, to be sure.
The peace she lost today was one she would not know for whatever length of time he stayed.
One she dreaded might never be hers again.
"Your mother and you live here by yourselves, do you?"
His voice jolted her, almost as much as his question. For a moment, Serena contemplated telling him that she had a sire and six strong brothers, all due back to the cottage in a short while, but she did not think it would matter. This man was too shrewd to believe the lie. No doubt he already knew the answer before she said it.
"Yes," she replied, watching her pot instead of looking at him. "It is just the two of us here."
"For how long?"
Serena shrugged, stirring the thick stew. "Forever. At least, as long as I can remember. I had a brother and sister, but both died when I was a child. I never knew them, or my father. He left soon after I was born."
Silence loomed at her back, a measuring quiet that unsettled her more than the deep timbre of his voice. "It must be difficult," he said after a moment, "two women left to fend for themselves."
"We manage. We look after each other. No one bothers us here."
Until now.
The unspoken comment hung in the stifling air of the small cottage room. The stranger went silent again, studying her, and this time Serena could not help glancing over her shoulder toward where he sat. His hawk's gaze was fixed on her, hooded in the undulating warmth of the firelight.
"I've no intention of harming you or your mother."
It was a simple declaration, one that seemed in earnest when she considered the sober look in his eyes. But the Knowing still skated through her fingers, whispering to her in black, steel-edged tones.
Rage. Annihilation. Vengeance.
"I do not think you came here in peace," she said, anxiously rubbing the palm of one gloved hand against her skirts. The friction did not dispel the current that yet swirled through her like smoke twining in the breeze.
"Only the lowest cur would bring pain on a defenseless woman." He stared at her as he said it, his voice rough with an emotion she could not name, his gaze narrowed and hard. Then he shrugged. "Think what you will. I am here only by sheer wicked luck--and a storm that seemed wont to kill me."
"You were shipwrecked?"
"Tossed overboard by the waves."
"You are bleeding," she said, her eyes straying to the scarlet slashes on his arms and chest and abdomen. The lacerations were angry and welted, uniform trails that had an animal look to them. "You were not the only one lost to the storm."
He hardly acknowledged her concern or his injuries, answering her considering frown with the slightest lift of his brow. "Another passenger was swept over with me. He did not survive."
There was something flatly cold, something matter-of-fact, in the stranger's simple statement.
Merciless, came the hissed whisper of the Knowing. Relentless. Dangerous.
"Where were you sailing to?"
"Why do you want to know?"
Serena blinked, taken aback by his frank suspicion. She had never been beyond the boundaries of the forest grove that was her home. She had never talked with anyone except her mother and the animals who inhabited the woods--admittedly, one-sided conversations for the most part. Serena had so many questions and curiosities, but no one willing or able to answer them.
And now here was this man, this interesting creature from a world she knew nothing about. Her fear of him paled a bit beside her curiosity.
It was that desire for contact, her thirst for knowledge of what lay outside her world, that prompted her to question this stranger now, regardless of the wariness his presence caused. Her mother would disapprove of her speaking to him, Serena knew. But Calandra was not here to censure her. The nearest well was no fewer than two hundred paces from the cottage; she would not return for another handful of time.
"I don't mean to pry, but it is a rare thing for us that bloodied, shipwrecked strangers should wash ashore to invade our cottage and demand help from my mother and me," Serena said softly, somewhat meekly, lest the bite of her words incite the fury she knew simmered just below the surface of his steady gaze. "I should think it only natural to ask a few questions. Where you came from, where you were going...your name, at the very least."
"I am Randwulf of Grey--" He cut the reply short, and a muted shadow of emotion seemed to creep into his unreadable expression. "Most people call me Rand. That is all you need to know about me, Serena."
Her own name slid off his tongue in a slow drawl, an almost physical caress of sound that sent a wash of inexplicable heat into her face. She pivoted away, turning her attention back to the pot of stew that had now begun to simmer over the fire. He spoke as she gave his meal a vigorous stir with the long-handled spoon.
"I imagine it is also a rare thing that you should have any ale or wine in this place."
Serena heard the creak of the wooden chair as he leaned back in it and spread his long legs out before him. She did not look over her shoulder to confirm the picture her ears gave her of his negligent sprawl behind her. Already this man--Rand, she amended, testing the name in her mind--had disrupted her confidence.
Normally she was a calm person, possessing a level head, steady hands. But since his arrival in the cottage, Serena felt not unlike a stranger to herself, blushing and trembling, awkward and uncertain. She did not like the change he brought to her in such a short while in his presence. The air fairly crackled around him, ripe with a foreign current. Disturbed by a savage intensity.
"We have neither wine or ale," she told him, "but there is a sage tea left from our sup this afternoon--"
"Good enough."
At his reply, Serena abandoned the stew and went to retrieve the pitcher of cooled tea. She brought the vessel to the hearth, intending to place it onto the co
als to warm it for him.
"No need for that," he said. "I'm too parched to wait on it. I'll take the brew as it is."
The pitcher in one hand, Serena withdrew a clean tankard from atop the fireplace mantel. She pivoted back toward the table where he waited, and placed the cup down before him. She began to pour, watching the tepid tea swirl into the deep bowl of the tankard.
"What is wrong with your hands?"
Her gaze snapped up at once. Instinct made her pull her gloved hand back before he could think to touch her. Tea sloshed over the scarred wooden planks of the table as she withdrew, the spiced brown liquid puddling and dripping through the slats. Serena exhaled a frustrated puff of breath, hurrying to sop up the spill with a rag that lay nearby.
She could not have been more shocked--nor more starkly terrified--when he reached out to take the cloth from her. His large hand closed over the top of her gloved fingers, too warm, too firm.
"Do you glove them to hide a disfigurement?"
His query barely registered in her mind, as though issuing from within the murkiness of a deep well. She could not answer him, for the Knowing had stirred again, awakened by the sudden contact, even through the barrier of the leather.
Mistrust. Wariness. Something else too, something harder to read...
She heard a splintering crash somewhere close to her, felt the splash of wetness hit her skirts as the pitcher slipped out of her free hand and hit the floor. A curse punctuated the jolt of shattering pottery, but this too was a distant sound.
Her senses became entangled in the stranger's reactions, until his emotions were all she knew.
Confusion, concern...a small ripple of contempt.
He thought her mad, she realized. He assumed her weak-minded and frail.
He pitied her; the taste of it was bitter in her throat.
"Please," she finally gasped, forcing the words out in a rush. "Let go."
His grasp loosened only slightly, but Serena jerked out of his hold, cradling her hand against her breast.
And all the while, his hard hazel eyes remained fixed on her face.
"God's love, girl. What did you think I would do?"
The cottage door creaked open in that next instant, sparing Serena from answering him. Her mother's eyes lit on her at once, then cut to the large intruder who was standing now, his brows furrowed in annoyance, his stance one of impatience rather than excuse.
"What has happened here?" Calandra demanded. She carried in the bucket of water from the well, looking to the broken pitcher that lay in shards at Serena's feet. "Serena?"
"It slipped out of my grasp," she managed after drawing a few deep, calming breaths. Her head still rang from the touch, but it was dimming quickly, cushioned no doubt by the protection of her gloves. "'Twas nothing, Mother. Just clumsiness on my part."
The stranger--Randwulf, from a place he would not name--studied her, but did not betray her small lie.
Serena noted the dubious look coming from her mother. Calandra knew as well as she herself that Serena's hands were nothing if not careful, precise. Her touch never erred, for even slight mistakes could bring her too much pain. But things were different this evening. Rand's presence had changed everything. He had upset the balance of the peaceful life they had enjoyed as late as that very morning. Calandra's softening expression said she understood.
In the silence that followed, Serena hastened to clean up the mess she had made. She mopped up the spilled tea, and retrieved the wedges of earthenware from the dampened rushes on the floor while her mother prepared the soaps, salves, and bandages needed to tend Rand's wounds.
Serena finished quickly, then returned to the hearth to mind the cooking.
Behind her, Calandra assembled her supplies on the table, clucking her tongue as she inspected the cuts and bruises on her patient's body. Water trickled into the basin as a cloth was wetted and wrung out. Long moments passed, moments drawn to excruciating length by the silence in the cottage, but then, at last, Calandra proclaimed her work done.
Rand murmured his thanks, but all it won from Serena's mother was a grunt of acknowledgment. Followed by an exclamation of alarm.
"What are you doing?" Calandra shrieked.
Serena threw a glance over her shoulder.
Rand was standing now, his hands working to unfasten the laces that held up his torn, sodden breeches. "I am soaked to the bone, madam. These clothes are naught but rags. If you want me to wear them any longer, they will first need to rinse and dry."
Calandra regarded him narrowly, then submitted to his request. "Very well, take them off. You can don a blanket until your things are fit to wear again."
He nodded with a courtly show of gratitude. His long fingers gripped the waistband of his torn breeches, which were loosened and sagging down over damp, low-slung braies beneath. Bare skin peeked out above the rolled waistband, the bone of his trim hip framing an intriguing play of hard muscle that girded him like tightly knotted ropes at his abdomen. And even more intriguing was the thin track of dark hair that arrowed down from his navel to lower points at which Serena could only guess.
She had not dared look so openly at him when they were alone in the cottage, but now...
"Avert your eyes, Serena."
Caught by her mother's stern advice, Serena felt her cheeks flame. Rand's gaze slid to her, unfazed. Almost in challenge. He seemed to think nothing of disrobing before two women he did not know. Perhaps that was simply his way. Perhaps it was the way of all men, base creatures who cared only about themselves, so she had been told all her life.
This man certainly seemed to fit the mold her mother had so often described. He was brutal and demanding, full of arrogance and lacking any care for how his uninvited presence disrupted their simple way of life.
Serena turned away from him to mind her cooking while he continued to undress little more than an arm's length behind her. Her mother left him to his immodest task as well, crossing the room to one of the linen chests. Over the crackle of the hearthfire, Serena heard the soft creak of the casket lid, then the muted riffle of wool as her mother shook out a blanket.
The pot of stew began to bubble on the fire. Serena stirred it, braving another quick sidelong glance over her shoulder. Still standing, Rand had partially turned now, pivoted away from her view.
And he was naked.
His bare back was wide as an ancient oak, solid muscle tapering to a trim waist and lean hips. Firm buttocks, somewhat whiter than the sun-bronzed hue of the rest of him, drew her eye and encouraged appreciation of the rugged strength of his long, sinewy legs. Clutched in his fist and held before him at his waist were the damp breeches and braies. Shadows hinted at the blatant masculinity concealed beneath the fall of heavy, salt-stiffened fabric.
Serena dared a longer look.
He must have sensed her watching him, for he slowly swung his head around to face her. His eyes seemed darker somehow, the deep-set lids hooded as he lifted a brow in lazy acknowledgment of her unseemly stare. His knowing gaze held hers for an overlong moment, piercing her.
"I wager you've given that ample attention, wouldn't you say?" he said, his voice a low drawl that seemed more amused than affronted.
Serena endured the heat of yet another fierce blush, and stammered to make an excuse. But he only smiled, mockery lifting the corners of his mouth.
"The stew," he said, indicating the pot that was suddenly bubbling and hissing on the fire. "My sup appears to be heated through well enough."
Serena turned away from him at once, her face flaming as hot as the amber coals, which were now smoking and spitting from the stew that boiled over onto the grate.
* * *
Rand did not sleep that night, despite the fatigue that pulled at him like a dark tide.
The tea had been cold, the stew burnt and scalding hot, but Rand had partaken of both like a ravenous beggar gone a fortnight without a meal. Now, hours later, he reclined on the pallet near the window, his back against the wall o
f the cottage, cushioned only by the woolen blanket wrapped about his body. The coverlet's weave was careful, smooth against his bare skin, expertly loomed. Like the pallet beneath him, the blanket smelled of forest flowers and a faintly woodsy spice that pleased his battered senses.
It smelled like home.
Not his, he thought ruefully, denying himself even the meager comfort of reflection, of pleasant memory. He would take no comfort in anything, not yet. He was not deserving, not until his purpose had been met.
Two pairs of wary eyes seemed to concur that he had no right to be there, filling his belly with their food, warming his bones with their fire and hospitality--be those gifts willingly surrendered or nay.
They observed his every move, Serena in particular. She and her mother were seated together on a humble bed at the other side of the cottage's sole room. The women huddled there in silence, Serena, timid, with her gloved hands clasped lightly in her lap. Her mother's arm encircled the delicate line of Serena's shoulders, draping her in a protective embrace.
Rand considered Serena for a moment, not the first time his gaze had settled on the waifish maiden with the night-dark hair and face of ethereal, placid beauty. She was so fine-boned and petite, he had guessed her to be merely a girl at first, scarcely past her first blood. He had been wrong. Beneath the willowy figure and wide, long-lashed gaze, was a woman full grown. Fear haunted her pale eyes.
Fear of him.
For a pained instant, Rand was reminded of the night his own home was raided. The invasion had been swift. The decimation had been thorough. Elspeth's screams would ring forever in his mind, her fear an acid that would forever scald his soul. He had long been her protector, had pledged to always keep her safe, to make her happy.
How deeply he had failed her.
Distantly, Rand noted the weight of a similar anxiety in the air of the cottage. Serena watched him in wary silence, moving not in the least from where she sat on the pallet, as though waiting for him to strike out like the beasts turned loose on Greycliff. She could not know that horror--God's love, no one should--but she looked at him with a gaze that seemed expectant of bloodshed that was certain to come.
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