by Nora Roberts
Only when they were galloping through the forest together, as the encroaching dusk began to cast long, inky shadows and the menacing growl of unseen wild creatures reached her ears, did she realize that she was seated before Blaine in his saddle, that Moonbeam was being drawn along with them, that the bitter cold was seeping through her tunic and cloak, and that Blaine’s powerful arms enclosed her on either side, providing some warmth and shelter from the biting wind.
“Where are we going?” She twisted in the saddle to peer into his face, which looked hard and grim in the failing light.
“I’ll know it when I see it,” he replied, barely sparing her a glance.
The going became rougher. The trees, which earlier on this path had been widely spaced, now seemed to grow even more tightly together, their roots snarled and thick, interlocking one with the other, making it difficult for the horses to travel without stumbling. A black, impenetrable darkness, unbroken by moon or stars, descended over the entire forest. With it came raging gusts of wind—furious wind—and a sudden blinding whirl of snow. Numbing cold ate into their bones.
It was only autumn, yet the frigid air and thick snow and howling wind made it seem like late December.
This was an evil night, full of some wicked magic, Willow realized, shivering in Blaine’s arms, and she was suddenly glad that she was not alone, that another human being shared her need to find shelter from the dangerous cold and wind. Any kind of shelter, even a cave…
“I don’t like the feel of this,” Blaine muttered in her ear, as if reading her thoughts. “I’d swear these trees are moving closer together all the time—forming some sort of trap.”
His words echoed Willow’s thoughts, and fear rose in her.
Neither of them saw the jet-haired figure perched in a tree branch high above. Her silver cloak blended with the white of the snow as Lisha the Enchantress waved an arm, and a sprinkling of silver sailed through the forest and fell upon a clearing in their path.
Then the magic dust and the enchantress were gone, and only the fierce night remained.
It was Willow who shortly after saw the dark hutlike shape ahead of them. “Look. There! Blaine, is it—can it be a cottage?”
She pointed, and he saw it, too. Swiftly he turned the horses in that direction as even thicker whorls of snow surrounded them.
“Empty or not, we’re taking it for the night!” he shouted, and then fixed all his attention upon guiding the horses toward the rough dwelling, a wooden hut packed with mud and twigs.
Before they reached the door, the snow was already carpeting the forest floor and weighing down the branches of the trees.
“There’s a lean-to behind. I’ll settle the horses after I’ve got you inside!”
She could barely hear his shout over the rising scream of the wind. Willow had never seen such a night as this, and she knew it was borne of a dark magic. The Troll King’s magic.
She braced herself as Blaine helped her down, and together they staggered toward the door. He kicked it open and drew his sword as they stepped inside.
Utter darkness.
And silence.
When they lit the tallow candle that Willow took from her cloak, they discovered that the cottage was empty.
Blaine kicked the door shut. “I’ll build a fire.”
“No. Leave it to me.” Willow put a hand on his arm as he started toward the grate. “Take care of the horses, or they will surely die.”
He glanced down at the small, icy hand upon his arm and then into her taut, lovely face. Her cheeks were reddened from the cold, and her mouth was trembling. The snow was still melting on her eyelashes.
Something clenched hard inside of him, something that was at once painful and sweet.
“I won’t be long, then.”
He lifted a hand, touched her face, then was gone.
A small stack of twigs was piled beside the hearth. Willow set about tossing them into the grate and setting them ablaze, even as she thought how strange it was that she awaited the return of the Wolf of Kendrick with a sense of something she could only describe as eagerness.
“As usual, my darling, you have made a rather large mistake.” Lisha the Enchantress popped so suddenly into the dungeon that Artemus had to stifle a scream.
“Where did you come from?” he demanded, his brows drawing together. “And more to the point, are you prepared to let me out of here now?”
He started toward her but was rudely halted when she lifted a hand and he crashed into an invisible stone wall.
“Drat it, Lisha. Stop showing off.”
“I’ve come to gloat. You deserve it.”
“I deserve to be set free. Enough of this nonsense.”
She regarded him from beneath a mop of dramatic black curls shot through with a few striking strands of silver. Her pale green eyes glimmered, as unreadable as a cat’s. Lisha was beautiful, sleek, and sensuous—and she was powerful. While Artemus’s strongest powers lay in the Realm of Dreams, and he was able to do a few simple tricks, like lower-level transformations and moving objects about with his wand—when he could find his wand—Lisha was known to be a cousin to Merlin himself, and she possessed powers that were truly splendid. Artemus eyed her warily, unable to help noticing how lovely she looked. Beneath her shimmering silver cloak, a rich turquoise velvet gown clung most provocatively to every single one of her curves.
Oh, my. But even as he admired her, he didn’t trust her, for she had an infamous temper and bewildering moods.
He didn’t understand women, not even his own daughter. So how could he hope to understand this intoxicating enchantress who was as unpredictable as a firefly on a summer night?
“Don’t you want to hear about your mistake?” she fairly purred, stretching out on the fur rug she’d cast into the dungeon, arranging herself sensuously upon it. “It concerns your daughter.”
“Willow?” Artemus took a deep breath, his eyes wide with alarm. “Tell me. What has gone wrong?”
“You sent her a dream, didn’t you? To help her find the necklace. But you also sent another dream.”
“That’s right. To Sir Dudley. What’s wrong with that? He will aid and protect her.”
“He would have aided and protected her, if you’d carried out the spell correctly, you bumbler.” Lisha stroked her hand back and forth across the fur. “You sent the dream to the wrong man, Artemus. The man accompanying your precious Willow through the Perilous Forest is none other than the Wolf of Kendrick.”
Artemus’s blood curdled. He could only stare at her, an expression of horror creeping across his face. “The…Wolf of Kendrick?” He felt as if he was going to faint. “Who…is he?”
“An adventurer.” She smiled carelessly. “Young. Brilliantly handsome. Ruthless. He is a womanizer, a mercenary. He wants the necklace for himself.”
Artemus covered his face with his hands. “What have I done?” he whispered.
He sank down upon the hard stone floor, visions of Willow in danger, not only from what lurked in the forest but from the man he himself had sent in after her, filling his tortured mind.
“I don’t care about the necklace anymore.” The words tore from him. “I’ll gladly stay here forever, if only Willow can come to no harm. Lisha, let me out of here. I must go to her, help her, then I’ll come back, I swear. I’ll come back for the next hundred years—”
“I’ve already assisted her. There’s no need for you to go anywhere. Thanks to me, she and the Wolf have a cozy place to spend the night.”
“Spend the night?” Artemus bellowed. A terrible thought struck him. “Why do they call him the Wolf?” he demanded.
Lisha shot him a cool smile. “You don’t want to know, darling.”
For a moment Artemus closed his eyes and shuddered. “Why are you doing this?” he asked at last in a weary tone. “All because I turned your lover into a toad? It wasn’t my fault that some stupid hawk ate him.” He ran a hand through his thin, graying hair. “I should have t
urned him into a cockroach!”
Lisha rose from the rug in one lithe sweep of her body. “You know full well that is not the real reason why you are in here,” she said, and for the first time there was a throb of emotion in her velvety voice.
“It isn’t?” Artemus stared at her. “But you said…I thought…”
“Men.” Lisha flushed with anger. “I’m going now, before I am tempted to turn you into a cockroach,” she muttered between gritted teeth.
“But…give me some clue…some hint…”
“The Melwas Ball. Remember?” She spit out the words, then vanished in a puff of fire.
The invisible stone wall vanished with her, and Artemus stalked across the dungeon and back, then paused to stare down at the fur rug.
The Melwas Ball?
“Oh,” he said suddenly, incredulity filling him. For the moment he even forgot about the fix that Willow was in—trapped for the night in the Perilous Forest with the Wolf of Kendrick. He was remembering himself and Lisha the Enchantress, four months ago, dancing together at the Melwas Ball.
And then there was what had happened in the dark seclusion of the garden after the ball. “Oh. Yes,” he murmured, stroking his jaw with long, slender fingers. He grimaced. “That.”
6
SNOW PELTED THE roof of the tiny thatched cottage. Within its humble walls, Willow and Blaine sat on stools at a small table near the fire and dined on what food Blaine had stored in his pack: day-old bread, a hunk of cheese, and wine.
Willow was no longer shivering with cold, but it was not the fire alone that warmed her. The heat of Blaine’s eyes each time they settled on her seemed to melt her very soul.
What magic is this? she wondered as she sipped from the flask of wine and then handed it back to him, watching him all the while from beneath her lashes. A quiet mood had descended upon them both.
“Don’t you think it time you told me, Willow?” His deep, steady voice brought a fluttering into her heart.
She didn’t pretend not to understand. “Told you…the reason behind my quest for the necklace?”
He nodded. “Or do you hesitate because your cause has less merit than mine?” Despite this challenge, there was an oddly gentle smile upon his lips. That smile, boyish and frank and almost sweet, took her completely by surprise. If she’d been standing, it would have knocked her right off her feet.
“On the contrary, it has far more merit.” Willow was finding it difficult to speak evenly with her heart pounding like an anvil. She continued with effort. “You will agree when you hear.”
Blaine studied her, searching those breathtaking blue eyes, which were deeper, more intense, and more expressive than any other eyes he’d ever seen. “More merit than the quest to wed a princess? Doubtful, my imp. But tell me, and we shall see.”
Somehow the words spilled out of her, and to her surprise, he listened without comment as she told him about her father, Lisha the Enchantress, and Artemus’s misbegotten sorcery. She told him of the dungeon in the decaying castle, of Lisha’s decree that she would not release Artemus until he managed to secure for her the Necklace of Nyssa.
“And he allowed you to set out on this quest to save him? He sent you alone into the Perilous Forest?” Blaine demanded, clearly furious. “What kind of a man would—”
“He couldn’t stop me.” There was blue fire in Willow’s eyes. She pushed away the crust of bread left on the table before her. “He begged me to bring along a male protector, but I refused. I travel lightly and more quickly on my own. Besides,” she added before Blaine could comment on her penchant for landing in trouble, “he did help me in another way. A way that’s going to be invaluable once I reach the Troll’s Lair. He sent me the dream.”
Blaine choked on his last bite of cheese, grabbed the wine flask, and washed the errant crumb down with a long, noisy gulp. Then he went perfectly still. “What’s this you say…about a dream?”
“My father. He’s a Dream Sorcerer. He can dream the future—also the past and the present. He can send his dreams out to others to guide them, or to warn them, or to steer them on a better course. He sent me a dream about this forest, and about the bluebird I was following this very afternoon. He showed me the Troll’s Lair and where I will find the necklace once I am inside—” She faltered at his thunderstruck expression. “Blaine, what is it?”
“I had the same dream, Willow.” His powerful shoulders hunched as he leaned forward across the table. “That’s why I’m here, in this forest. That’s what gave me the idea for my quest to get the necklace for Princess Maighdin in the first place. On the night of the full moon, I had a vivid and very specific dream—about the Troll’s Lair, about the Necklace of Nyssa. I think it was the same dream as yours.”
Willow paled. The night of the full moon. That was when Artemus had sent the dream to her. She pushed herself off the stool and began to pace around the cottage, her cloak billowing about her, the firelight burnishing her hair until it rivaled the brilliance of the flames.
Suddenly she whirled toward Blaine. “You don’t by any chance know a knight named Sir Dudley, do you?”
Blaine stretched out his long legs. “I know him well. Dull, solid type. Been a soldier all his life. Decent fighter,” he added fairly, “but not too bright. Matter of fact, the other night I stole his precious cloak as a jest, and he never even—”
He halted in mid-speech, his eyes narrowing.
“You stole Sir Dudley’s cloak?” Willow began to pace again, raking her hands through her hair. She spun back toward Blaine abruptly. “Did you by chance fall asleep with it wrapped around you?”
He didn’t even have to nod. She saw the glint in those hard black eyes, and she nearly shrieked in frustration. “Sometimes Artemus needs to fix his mind on some feature of the person to whom he’s sending the dream—or on something the person wears, perhaps a ring, or a medallion—or a cloak,” she explained, grimacing. “He must have sent you the dream by mistake! It was supposed to go to Sir Dudley. Artemus must have wanted to direct him into the forest and to the Troll’s Lair, no doubt to protect me.”
Blaine came off the stool and stalked toward the fire, his face set. “That isn’t my fault,” he muttered. “I got the dream—and the idea for what to do with that necklace—and I’m entitled to it, same as you. And don’t think I’m going to let you have it, Willow. Sounds to me like your father is getting exactly what he deserves. Maybe he needs to spend twenty years in that dungeon and begin thinking about getting his spells right for a change.”
Willow’s eyes flashed. “I won’t ever let that happen.”
“You shouldn’t be here—in danger—in the first place.”
“He’s my father. I can’t abandon him. Or let him down.” She shook her head, sending her curls flying around her cheeks. “Isn’t there anyone, anyone in this world, that you care about, Blaine?” she asked wonderingly.
The wind howled at the door, the firelight danced and set the tiny cottage aglow with flickering amber light, but all she could see was the face carved in stone of this lean, dark man who had kissed her today with such force and such fire. Could a cold heart hold such passion, she wondered, or stir such heat as had sparked between their two souls?
“I don’t understand you,” she said softly. Her eyes mirrored the bafflement inside her. “Don’t you understand at all what it is to love?”
“No.” The word came quickly, harsh and certain, torn from the depths of him. His eyes glittered, frightening her with their sudden iciness, for they were as cold as the night beyond the cottage walls. “My father was a duke, a hated one as I recall. When I was a boy, he was murdered by his enemies, one or a dozen, who knows—they were too numerous to count. Among them,” he added, gripping her shoulders, his jaw taut, “were his natural sons, my half brothers. I was only the little bastard, of no consequence to anyone.”
Willow’s throat went dry, aching for him, for the boy he had once been. “Surely your mother…” she whispered.
“Blaine…”
“Don’t pity me, imp.” Never had he sounded so indifferent. A hard smile touched his lips. “I decided long ago that it was my fate to travel this world alone. To make my own way, look after my own skin. And I survived. Alone. Not only that, I grew strong. I learned that I don’t need—don’t want—anyone. You should do the same, Willow,” he said suddenly, giving her a shake. “You’d be much better off.”
Her gaze was soft and searching upon his. “I don’t wish to go through this life alone. Without family, without anyone to love.” She reached up suddenly, touched his jaw, shadowed now with a day’s growth of beard, as his heart, she suspected, was shadowed with loneliness. “Nor, I think, do you, Blaine of Kendrick,” she murmured softly.
Blaine’s hands dropped from her shoulder. He took a step back. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
He frowned and turned away, suddenly uncomfortable beneath that warm, steady gaze. “Believe what you want.” He stalked nearer the fire, warming his hands. “But you’ll have to beat me to get the necklace, Willow,” he said in an offhand tone. “And as you remember, no one ever beats me.”
“We’ll see.” Quiet determination flowed through her voice. “But I believe this is one battle you will lose.”
His eyes narrowed, and he spun back to study her again, filled with anger, frustration, and reluctant admiration toward this slender, intractable beauty with her dusting of freckles and her mouth softer than flower petals. What was it about her that fascinated him so?
Everything. Everything from the graceful way she carried herself, to the determination that blazed in her soul, to the devotion to her father that would set her on a path of danger in a bid to save him.
That the Wolf of Kendrick would find her so noble, so enchanting, was ironic, Blaine reflected tersely, considering that he himself had never known devotion from or toward anyone.
