by Amber Dane
She would not allow it. The pain in his eyes caused her to go on. Taking a deep breath, she asked sadly, ‘Does he live?’
An angry curse came from him. ‘I do not wish to speak of it.’
Caroline climbed off the bed and stood at the foot of it, a hand on one of the curtained posts. She surmised the subject was too painful for him and the look he was giving her said to leave it. She would for now and instead asked another question which burned inside her.
‘Why do they call you The Beast?’
More silence. But she saw him stiffen when he turned his back to her.
Her eyes looked over every inch of his broad back. He had more than his score of battle scars across his well-muscled body. The biggest disfigurement was on his face. Rumors- many ran throughout the countryside preceded this man for one to possibly believe all of them. They could not all be true, could they?
Devil on the field, with a legion of followers that had butchered the Saxons by a mere look from him. Another, he went into huts during the night, killing all right down to infants. Skinning and burying innocents alive, setting a torch to anyone who even dared glance at him while their loved ones watched. And many more horrid tales.
Caroline needed to know, watching his back the reason why he was called such.
Had it been because he’d murdered his wife? Disemboweled his Norman bride and ate of her innards? That one she knew could not be true. They had made him out to be a true monster and aye, she had seeds of her own horror in her gut when she had first met him.
But now…
She had glimpsed a gentle side behind that fierce countenance.
Hidden well it was but she had seen it. Like tonight, even though his mood was black tonight, the remnants of his dream still hanging over him, his fingers had been gentle along her jaw and worry had been on his face.
Then there was how he was with Kelbie.
And his lovemaking more than proved there was more to this man than met the eye. ‘Darc, will you not answer my question?’ she pressed.
Without looking at her, he walked over to where his clothes lay discarded and reached down for his boots. Caroline remained where she was.
She watched the muscles flex and move across his ribs, the sides of his stomach as he bent for the second boot. She was growing quickly impatient with his blatant disregard.
‘Why do they call you The Beast?’ she repeated a bit louder, not hiding the annoyance in her tone.
He jerked around and faced her. His dark expression even darker. His boot forgotten he stood and stormed over to her. She could feel the bare toes of his right foot against her own.
A long drawn out sigh bathed her face and she felt the heat emanating from him as he struggled with what he fought inside. His dark scowl failed to intimidate her and she waited.
He asked his question through clenched teeth. ‘What stories have you heard as to why?’
Mayhap she should not have asked after all, but she wanted to know. That and to get to the truth of his nightmares.
Talking had lifted the awkwardness and tension between them when she’d told him about herself.
Caroline craned her neck back further and replied. ‘That you and a select group of William’s top ranked men were quite the butchers after the victory at Hastings. Committing atrocities upon the Saxon people without reason. There are too many to convey them all.’
‘We were no more butchers of men than were your Saxon soldiers and your king during the battle. Harry’s men fought valiantly as did he. William just triumphed. As for afterwards, as you witnessed with Halvard, some people have difficulty recognizing and accepting the fact that they have been conquered.’
Caroline refused to take his bait.
He narrowed his gaze and commanded. ‘Tell me a few of these rumors.’
Caroline did and when she was done he snorted. ‘Do you believe them?’
She shook her head. ‘Nay. I believe you did what your king ordered you to do.’
His blue eyes widened in surprise at her answer. Then they narrowed on her as he turned away and threw his large body down into the nearby chair. ‘Some of the stories are true. Not by William’s order or by me, but by a madman’s way in seeking vengeance.’
She went to him and pulled off his left boot. ‘Your brother?’
His elbow rested on the arm of the chair, his hand fisted with his chin upon it. He looked away from her probing stare.
Darc wanted to tell her about Raven as Rourke had suggested, but he could not bring himself to tell her any more than he already had. The wounds were too deep.
His gut twisted into a hard knot and a headache formed. ‘It is of no matter now. Old tales best left alone and forgotten.’
He shut his eyes when he felt her soft fingers against his cheek. He winced under her touch.
‘If that were so then why do you still dream of them? You have to face the reason behind these tales. If you speak of them, mayhap they will cease.’
He jerked away from her touch and shot to his feet nearly knocking her over. He caught her before she fell. Her exclamation and the startled look in her eyes made him feel worse.
‘Is that what was told to you to stop your nightmares?’
Caroline took a step back from his black look. ‘Aye. I faced them.’
‘You lie so easily.’ He said with a smirk.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did you know you cry in your sleep, wife?’
She scoffed and shook her head. ‘Now who lies?’
He gave her a serious look. ‘I do not lie. What do you dream about, Caroline?’
He had backed her into the bedpost. Anger sparked in her eyes. ‘Halvard.’
Darc knew she was not telling him the whole of it from the quaver in her tone. But he would press her no further. Backing away from her he said, ‘Come. I will see you back to your chamber. The hour is late.’
Her disappointed look wore on him. Nonetheless, he took her by the elbow and moved toward the door. Her feet dragging made him look down at her and with a groan he remarked. ‘What is it?’
‘Tell me about your brother.’ Caroline waited, the storm in his tortured gaze threatened to swallow her whole.
‘Nay.’
‘’Tis easy to see there is great pain when you speak of him-‘
‘I do not wish to talk about this, Caroline.’ He reached for the chamber door.
‘What did he do to you to cause such soul wrenching pain?’
‘Do not pity me.’
‘I do not.’ She declared.
He released her elbow as if it burned him and walked over to the window. Caroline followed hurriedly behind him. He turned sharply on her, his eyes searching her face. She had lied, Caroline knew he knew it. She did pity him a great deal at the moment.
He grunted and looked out the window. ‘Twas too dark yet to see much out there and she knew he did it to avoid looking at her. His action did not hurt.
He grumbled crossing his arms over his chest. ‘I do not enjoy this talking as much as you.’
‘You talked a great deal with Rourke and seemed to not mind it.’
‘That is different.’ He shot her an angry look over his shoulder.
‘Why because he is a man? And your longtime friend?’
‘Aye.’ He said with a firm nod and satisfaction as if that were explanation enough.
Caroline bristled and would have said more to argue the point but she would save that for another time. She knew what he was doing.
He was doing what he could to avoid talking of the cause of his nightmare. She would have taken pleasure in him acting like a stubborn little boy, if her heart were not racing at the intimate way they stood so close at the window. She needed to take a more direct approach with him.
‘Your scar on your face? How did you come by it?’
Without pause, he replied, ‘Courtesy of my first wife.’ He looked at her then. The cold disdain in his eyes sent a shiver up her spine. ‘Had she not r
un away and into my brother’s arms I would have killed her myself.’
Caroline let out a breath. ‘So you did not murder her?’ ‘Twas more a statement than a question. He shook his head. The only sign her question bothered him was the muscles clenching in his jaw. ‘She had an affair with your brother?’
‘Aye.’
‘He does not seem like a very nice person.’
‘He is barbaric, depraved and has always been. He likes to cause pain. Likes to hear the sound of it, the cries when he inflicts his cruelty. There is no good left in him…or me.’
Caroline’s heart stung hearing his pain-filled words but said naught hoping he would go on. He did.
‘You want to know what I dreamt about?’ Darc told her of what happened in the dungeon. When he finished, he told her. ‘I will kill my brother when I find him for what he has done.’
‘Is there no other way to solve this between you? He is your brother.’
‘Not anymore. He is a monster. Raven’s aim has always been to take my place. He has no rightful claim to anything. He lost all of it the moment he turned his back on William. He saw murder as his sole recourse. In my heart I know he is the one who murdered our mother.’
Caroline gasped and clutched his forearm. He did not turn to look at her and she could feel the coil of rage and tension in his rigid body.
‘Aye, I do plan to kill him.’ His stern words hung heavy between them and Caroline waited for him to say more. He didn’t. She told herself what she did next was to calm him and herself as she always did with Kelbie. But she knew it was more than that.
Slipping her arms around his waist she leaned into him and pressed her face against his back. His fragrance filled her senses. A moment later she felt him relax and the air leave his lungs. She released her own breath when one of his large hands covered her own across his waist.
She was stunned by what he had revealed about his mother. She wanted to ask him more, but she knew he was done talking just as she knew standing here in this silence was what he needed right now, not more of her questions.
He would never allow her fully to breach the impenetrable wall he had built around himself. He held back much and believed he hid it well. As tiny as it had been, he had let her in by a very thin crack in that wall, but now it was shut.
This brother of his. This Raven he had called him, Caroline wondered where he was and hoped that wherever it was that it was far far away from Renald Castle.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Caroline moving out of his arms woke Darc and his arms clamped tighter around her and hauled her back up against his chest. She turned her wide eyes on him.
‘I must go.’ She said in a low voice, her cheeks reddening.
‘Nay. You do not.’
‘But, Kelbie-‘ she started.
‘Mildred can see to him.’ He pushed away stray tendrils circling her heated cheeks.
‘But what of your training?’
Darc laughed aloud. She was rigid against him. ‘You hated the idea of it, now you push me to it? Lady wife, nay. There will be no training this dawn.’
He felt her stiffen even more if that was possible. Last night he had held her in his arms and climbed into his bed with her. He remembered a hasty and light kiss against her cheek and had fallen into a dreamless sleep.
He felt good from the restful night of sleep. That she still lay next to him lightened his mood and he was glad that it did and his body’s reaction to waking up with her confirmed it.
Caroline lowered her gaze to his chest. He was right. Mildred and Laur would know where she was and see to Kelbie. Though her cheeks burned hotly knowing the women would know changed not the fact that she wanted to stay with Darc. She had thought to lie next to him till he had fallen asleep and once she saw all was calm, she would make her exit.
But she had fallen asleep too. The hairs on his chest, she slid her fingers through. Her body reacted to him last night to calm him. This morning it had awakened with a raging need, fire in her blood. For him. She did not resist when he lifted her chin with his thumb beneath it.
They stared at one another for a long moment and Caroline flushed further.
Darc ducked his head and kissed her lips gently. She sighed against his mouth and he deepened the kiss.
The honeyed taste of her had him yearn for more. He drew back. Her lips plumper, more rosy and parted, her long lashes stood out against her smooth pale skin.
She spoke against his mouth. ‘I like your kisses.’
Darc found himself cracking a smile. ‘I know.’
‘Do you enjoy them?’
‘Aye. Very much.’ Darc answered her punctuating each word with a kiss. He enjoyed them and much more. Her smell and the closeness of her as she wiggled up against him now, her body relaxing. She wanted him he knew. And he wanted her. The woman knew what she liked and he liked that about her.
When he paused in kissing her to take in her features her warm breath stirred the hairs on his chest and he shuddered under her.
‘Kiss me again,’ she whispered.
‘Look at me, Caroline.’
He could see in her eyes her desire and readiness.
Within seconds Darc had off his braies and her shift. They murmured words to each other, hands exploring, feeling and drawing gasps from the other as they languished ever so slowly over the enjoyment of their bodies. Caroline crawled on top of him and Darc looked down and froze.
He could hardly breathe. Her pink flesh nigh touched his hardened tip. He swallowed, ‘Caroline.’
She bumped him and he groaned inwardly from the exquisite sensation of her wet, hot flesh against his. Pure torture.
‘Tell me what to do.’
Darc closed his eyes and held onto her hips. It took all his strength, restraint not to pull her down and thrust up into her. ‘Lift your hips a bit-‘ he started on a strangled groan.
Caroline frowned, her brows dipped in confusion. ‘Like this?’ she stared down at his closed lids and the grimace on his face. Had he gone mad?
He opened his eyes and met hers. ‘Aye.’ She slid down on his jutting hard shaft. He groaned and arched his neck back. Caroline slid all the way down her eyes watching the defined chords of muscle and veins in his neck. The sight of him losing himself in the pleasure of their bodies connecting stole her breath away.
Then he opened his eyes when she shifted her hips. ‘Oh mercy, Caroline.’
He looked like he wanted to devour her and it was all it she needed to take all of him in to the hilt and welcome his thickness into her body. She moaned at the fullness of him and his hairs tickling her swollen bud.
He gave her a wicked smile. ‘Ride me.’
He sounded like he was in pain but she knew he wasn’t. He gave her such a passion-filled look before dropping his gaze. Caroline followed it to where their bodies joined. She gasped; a throaty and pleasurable exclaim escaping her throat when he thrust up. She was going to die from the sweet torment.
Her eyes shot back to his, he was watching her. His hands reached up to cup her breasts and tweak her. She could not take in a steady breath. She rose up and down.
Her pleasure burst over her and she heard her cries filling the room.
The control and power she had over him rose with each rise of her hips and each hard thrust he drove up into her, heightening her gratification and she screamed when her release swept her again into a shattering vortex of pleasure. Caroline collapsed on top of him, her body shaking with her climax.
Darc let out a feral cry of his own and moved to lift her off him, but the carnal thirst coursing through him sapped him of strength, making him weak and by God, too sweet to stop. He gritted his teeth and arched his body and held onto her hips, powerless to do anything else as his hot seed pulsed out of him and flooded her womb. He lost himself in the shudders, in her essence and clung to her until he could breathe normal again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Darc and his men rode back toward the castle under the
warm noon sun after questioning more people in neighboring towns and listening to see if any new news had emerged on the murders at Renald Castle. Or if any were drunk enough at the inns along the way to spill a word. The afternoon had soured the good mood he’d had after leaving Caroline’s side.
His dogs barking furiously brought him out of his deep fog of thoughts to see that he had ridden to the edge of the river. His well-trained warhorse, Gray, had stopped and Darc’s senses kicked in.
He looked up.
Across the stream a gang of bandits stood there watching him. Their menacing presence made even more so by the weapons they carried.
These were no mere peasants like the ones who had happened upon him and Rourke.
Nay, these men, their clothes bespoke of fine quality and the sun glinted off the mail they wore under their tunics.
Poachers they were not. Darc clucked his tongue and his mastiffs sat their large bodies down flanking him on side, their low growls and woofs of warning puffed out of their throats.
One of the men across the river, a tall fellow, big in chest as he was round all over nodded and a lopsided smile spread across his mouth. Darc’s blood boiled.
The look the man had given him was a challenging one and Darc would know who had sent the fool before he cut off his head.
The small group disappeared and fell back into the trees as if they had not been there at all.
The river was too deep for him to cross. But he was filled with barely contained rage as he sat staring after them where they had vanished.
Within seconds Renald knights poured out from the wood beside him.
Darc gave them the nod to go after the men. His men would have to go a ways down the riverbank to where it was low enough for the horses to cross safely. By then the strangers would be long gone, but he hoped they had left a trail. His dogs would pick up their scent. He turned and followed behind his men, his anger growing with each step.
There was no sight of them. No trail.
Gan approached and pointed in the direction of a thick part of the wood. Darc gave the order to enter. It led nowhere as well.
