by Nicole Locke
Robert walked by, his clothing charred and torn. His short hair was covered in soot, dirt and sweat. He looked like a man who came from the fires of hell. She knew what those fires felt like because she survived Brynmor’s fires. But not Alinore.
‘Where were you?’ she accused.
Robert blankly looked from her to Teague. She wouldn’t let him go easily.
Swiping pebbles from her feet, she flung them. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be her great protector?’
Robert didn’t block the rocks hitting his chest. She heard each tiny rock hit the ground as if they were her own tears falling cold and unforgiving.
Teague pulled her to him before she could throw another handful. When his strength broke through her madness, she curled around his arm, and he carried her further up the bank and away from the villagers.
There weren’t enough tears, not enough to ease her pain. Her tears eventually dried up, leaving her sorrow hollow and dry. Teague was still there rubbing her back and murmuring soothing words she couldn’t hear.
When she could, Anwen wiped at her soot-and-tear-smeared cheeks. ‘Where is she?’
‘Robert is tending her body.’
Anwen inhaled sharply, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. She’d hurt Robert in the most heartless of ways. ‘Where?’ she repeated.
‘You mustn’t—’
‘Where, damn you!’ She slammed her fist into his chest.
Teague nodded towards a grove of trees just uphill from the river.
As guilt quickly overcame her grief, Anwen ran up the hill. She hadn’t been there, hadn’t saved her. Though Alinore would never know, Anwen raced hard to reach her. When she crested the hill, she came to a precarious halt.
The rising sun was already fading the moon and the stars. The grey light was enough to see two figures surrounded by a circle of young sparsely leafed birch trees.
One was laid out, as still as the earth and the fallen leaves she lay on. Her face and hands had been washed so her skin glowed white against the morning’s light and her hair, so carefully brushed, spread like gold against the green darkness of the grass. But for her dress, which was as black as Hell’s fires, she appeared as radiant as a fallen angel.
The other figure was deeply bent on his hands and knees. His body jerked and rocked as his hands alternately gripped, then caressed the woman laid on the grass. Anwen recognised him though his back was to her. There was no mistaking the sounds coming from the man before her. Robert of Dent wept over the dead body of Alinore of Brynmor.
Anwen took two quick breaths, enough to sustain her suddenly starved lungs; then silently she turned and walked down the hill and back to the river. As she did, she knew she left someone whose grief was even deeper than her own.
* * *
When she returned to camp, Anwen swayed on her feet. She didn’t know where to turn to first, but she hoped Melun would need her. She needed work to distract her from her thoughts, from what she should not have seen under the birch trees.
She felt rather than heard her name behind her. Teague was there, his impenetrable eyes assessing her, his lips moving. He was saying something she could not hear over the stark hollowness roaring inside her.
When he gestured and walked, she followed him. Away from the river, away from the din of the camp, up the long hill until they reached the hunter’s hut.
Again, Teague prepared it. The fire was burning, warming the hut, warming her body, which was cold. But it reached nothing of her insides, nothing of her heart which had seized up inside her.
‘She was more than someone you grew up with.’ Teague sat her on the stool by the fire.
Anwen nodded, knowing whom he meant. The emptiness inside her was too revealing to hide anything. ‘She was my sister.’
Teague set her blanket away.
‘My half-sister,’ Anwen continued. ‘I was Urien’s child too, but bastard-born. In the great import of a legitimate heir, I was quickly forgotten.’
Teague took a rag and dipped it in a cauldron of water resting by the fire. ‘Will you let me?’
He had cleaned, but she was still black. Yet in this tiny hut, when she felt so raw, did she want his touch, his attention?
He took her hand and held out her arm. ‘Come, this water is warm, unlike the torture of the cold river I had this morning, and I brought you clothes.’
It wasn’t his thoughtfulness that had her agreeing to his ministrations. In fact, those made her more reserved. No, it was that...dark hesitancy he’d shown her this morning. There could be no harm in this, so she nodded.
‘Your leg?’
‘Ffion’s salve is doing its work. I have some here for you, too.’ She inspected her hands as Teague untied the loose bandages, and dropped them.
‘What happened to your mother?’ Teague gently used the water and linen against her skin. Gentle, but her cuts and burns stung.
‘I was told she was a young servant girl, who just started her menstruating. I was given to a wet nurse immediately. Despite my bastardy, I was Urien’s, a Welsh prince’s child, and couldn’t be left to a servant girl. I don’t know what happened to her. Melun eventually came to take me and claim me in his care.’
She breathed in raggedly, shivers now rattling her body. ‘I’m cold.’
‘It’s the shock; it will go after a while.’
She didn’t want to argue with him, but she was too scared her coldness would be permanent, that she’d never feel warm again.
Teeth chattering, she inspected her now clean hands. There would be more permanent scars. More changes that were for ever.
She wanted to cry again, but couldn’t. She was too tired for tears and she was too tired to protest when Teague pushed her hair away from her face and took another linen to wipe the dirt there.
‘She lives on in you,’ he said. ‘When Alinore walked down the stairs that first night, the candlelight hitting the gold in her hair, I thought then how alike in appearance you were.’
‘Don’t.’ There were several cauldrons, several linens. It would be more expedient for her to bathe in the river than Teague’s slow gentle cleaning and soft words.
‘Just a bit more.’ Teague took her other hand, careful not to touch the burns as he squeezed more water down her arm. ‘Her hair and eyes were lighter than yours, but she had your dimpled chin and particular way of walking. I knew then you came from the same sire.’
Anwen inspected her blistered, scarred and callused hands that were so unlike her sister’s. ‘When we were small we’d play a flower-picking game. It was a game she’d always win since I was too impatient and lost most of my petals. My sister was good and she was the one taken.’
‘Yes, she was good, and gentle, and softer than you. She lacked your fire and blunt tongue, but a part of her was in you and you in her. That part is still there, as well as all her memories. She is alive in you.’
She didn’t stop the tears flowing then and she didn’t stop Teague when he cradled her head just under his chin and wrapped her within his arms.
* * *
It was a long time later when Anwen could breathe again. The setting sun darkened the little hut despite the fire. But the fading sun was not the reason she was cold. She knew why she was cold. The desolate changes inside her were becoming permanent. At least while Teague held her, the coldness was kept away. But her tears were done and now there was no reason for him to hold her. Unless...
She shifted away from his body and stood. With uncoordinated fingers, she untied the laces of her gown and let the outer garment fall. She quickly untied her ankle boots and fisted the material of the chemise.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Bathing. My arms and face are not enough. I thought you could do the rest.’ She pulled her chemise off.
She shoul
d have been colder than ever, but she wasn’t, not with Teague standing almost against her. But he did not touch her. So she lifted the small cauldron of water and held it out to him. ‘My hair needs washing,’ she whispered.
The cauldron’s weight and handle stung her hands before he took it. Before he set it down again. ‘This isn’t what I came here for; you don’t want this.’
She had never known a man, but she knew no other way to keep his arms around her. All she could think was that she must stop the pain. ‘Lie with me.’
Why did he hesitate? This wasn’t easy for her. ‘Make love to me. Now, here,’ she said, firmer now, not backing away from her decision.
‘Why are you asking this?’
That stopped her. Only the night before, he had wanted this. Perhaps the fire changed him, as well. She didn’t care. Merely the suggestion of this heat between them was taking the coldness from her. She needed this.
‘I don’t want to be alone,’ she said.
His eyes narrowed. ‘You ask this solely because of your grief, your emptiness.’
‘Then fill me.’
He let out a harsh breath as desire and need darkened his eyes. She felt absorbed in his eyes, as if she could sink into their fathomless heat. ‘I should refuse you.’
‘Why? This is what you wanted.’ She didn’t know what else to do. Her body shook. She would break if he did not touch her.
‘No, not any more, I want something more now. In the fire, you came back for me. Do you not know what that—?’
‘You refuse me?’ She was going to be denied? He wouldn’t. Before he could step away, she feathered her fingertips along his neck, tracing the cords that arrowed and dipped. So unique and so male. The movement whispered her breasts across his torso. His sharp inhalation matched hers.
Moments passed as he held still, as his eyes roamed over hers, before he dipped his head until she felt as if he kissed her. Until she licked her suddenly dry lips and parted them to let in air and his gaze snapped back to hers and held there. His brow furrowed as if what she showed him pained him. Then he cupped her face, and his eyes softened.
‘No. I cannot refuse you.’ He stepped back and tossed each piece of his clothing across the upper pallet rail until he stood before her naked, except for his short braies, and the wrapping around his leg.
So many bandages. The injury was extensive and it must pain him, but he stood strong before her as he lifted the first bucket. ‘We’ll make a mess.’
‘I didn’t say it was practical.’ She echoed his words from the night before. She closed her eyes and lifted her face up to the cauldron. She was aware of his eyes on her, aware that this was beyond anything she experienced, but she wasn’t cold. Not when the warm water sluiced over her body and she heard Teague’s almost predatory growl.
She opened her eyes.
The water splashed on him, as well. She watched it flow in currents over his chest and arms to a waist rippled with tight muscle. His skin was darkened by the sun, shadowed by the flickering light, yet she could see how it was lighter at the base of his waist and hips, where the fabric of his braies bunched, wet, thinned, outlining what he could not hide.
He gripped the rim of another bucket. ‘No, not practical...’ When she closed her eyes this time, she braced her hand against his chest, felt his heart speed up as he cradled the nape of her neck, lifted her hair, and waved the water through her locks and down her back.
She felt a quick movement from him, his hand impatiently at her neck, lifting her hair. His roughened fingertips sliding across her sensitive skin as he dumped the last bucket of water over her.
When that bucket clattered to the floor, when he pulled her into his arms, she wasn’t prepared at all. It wasn’t the feeling of his almost bare body against hers. It was the way he held her as if she was fragile, as if she was precious.
She opened her eyes. Oh, his obsidian eyes, absorbing, so much darker than she had ever seen them before.
‘Necessary,’ he whispered against her lips.
She couldn’t have known what it would feel like for his lips to skim over hers, for his tongue to beckoningly trace the seam for her to open. To feel the light slick slide of his lips as he pressed more of his body, until she shivered for more.
‘Needed.’ He sucked her lower lip slowly, sweetly, into his mouth. She heard rumbles through her body, mews of impatience. Her own.
He took a step away.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Now.’
‘Yes, now.’ His eyes were heavy lidded, his cheekbones flushed, pronounced, his lips full and sensual. Battle-scarred chest, muscular thighs. A line of black hair starting on his abdomen, that arrowed lower.
He grabbed a linen. ‘Turn around.’
She did, heard the inhalation of his breath and looked over her shoulder. Teague’s eyes roamed from hers, then slowly to the bottom of her feet. His hand gripped the linen tight and tighter yet as his eyes travelled upward.
‘I don’t want to dry you,’ he rumbled. ‘The way the light flickers across the water droplets, just here.’ She felt a slow finger along a shoulder blade and then trailing down her spine to her lower back before it was quickly removed.
‘Lift your hair.’ His voice was a low growl she hardly recognised, but with both hands she lifted the strands off her back and he wrapped her hair in the linen.
With each gentle squeeze, she felt the tension in him coil tighter, and in her tighter yet. Until he dropped the linen to the floor, took her hand and laid her down on the pallet.
‘You’re still wet.’ He knelt one knee on the pallet’s edge.
He skimmed his hand down her throat, gently caressing the cords that gave her breath, feeling the pulse of her blood through the veins.
Her body clenched, shook, trusted as she felt his hand tremble and she understood he was as affected as she was by his light touch.
More droplets of water allowed his hand to slide gently over her as he went lower, flattening his palm. He paused over her heart. ‘You were like this in the bath that morning, standing there defying me. The water beading on your skin in the sunlight...in my chamber.’
He lifted her hand against his chest, and she felt his heartbeat. Strong. Sure. ‘My heart felt then as it does now. Even then, you affected me.’ His heart pulsed harder the longer she held her hand to it, the longer she held his eyes. He caressed her hands, a slight frown rippling across his brow.
‘Do they hurt?’
Her hands stung with every movement she made, but she wouldn’t stop. She shook her head. ‘Your leg?’
He shook his head, telling her he knew she lied about the pain. ‘You saved me.’
‘I owed you my life, remember?’ she said.
His eyes lost their heated glimmer. She felt the pain in him then and her own increasing. It wasn’t what she wanted. ‘I want something more now, though.’
‘Yes,’ he said, his lips curving at the corners. He cupped one breast, letting the soft weight fill his palm, and rubbed his thumb across the peak. He bent his head and she felt a soft brush of his breath, a lock of his hair against her stomach, and then he kissed her breast, licking her nipple in one slow swipe, and an arrow of pleasure arced through her.
She clung then to his shoulders as he settled more fully on the pallet to set slow, purposeful kisses on her other breast, to blow cool air across it. He shifted again and went lower still.
His calloused palm and thick fingers lazily skimmed her abdomen. The water eased his thumb rubbing across her navel in firm circles. His kisses followed his hands, his fingers, the path of droplets she swore could not exist, even as she felt every one of them skimming crazily across her skin.
He went lower yet. His fingers weaved through her soft curls, his own loose locks caressing her hips, his tongue dipping into her navel, circling i
t. ‘Almost dry here now,’ he whispered. Then he went lower.
One finger traced just at the place where she ached. Provoking a growl from him; a gasp from her. ‘But not here.’
She was wet. She thought the water skidding on her body eased his finger’s heated path, but this...this was much more. Now her wetness allowed Teague to rhythmically slide his fingers as he touched her.
She couldn’t stand it and grabbed his wrist. ‘Wait.’
He eased his hand away. ‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No, it’s—’ Her eyes flickered across him sitting next to her. At some point, he had shucked his braies. She’d never seen a naked man before. Never seen anyone look like him. He was Gwalchdu’s lord. Fortified with more strength than any man should have. She watched his body as he trained in the lists. He fascinated her then; now he was mesmerising, and within her touch.
So she touched him, and he eased into her touch. She felt the textures of his skin, the roughness of his hair along his abdomen, his thighs. With skimming hands she wondered at the curves of his wrists and arms, his shoulders. Caressed with her fingertips along his collar bone. Rested her hand against his chest and felt his erratic heart thumping like her own.
‘How could I resist you?’ He captured her hand, placing it to her side as he covered her body with his. As he kissed the curve of her abdomen down to the fold of her hip and inner thigh.
‘I cannot wait,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘To see you. Touch you like this.’ He gave more kisses, a slick taste of his tongue. He raised his head. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes hardened with need. ‘I could only hope—’
Rising to his knees, he nudged her thighs apart and cupped her fully in his hand. His hand was hotter than before as he rocked his fingers, gently, more urgently, against her slickness.
‘What...?’ she gasped. ‘What...are you doing?’ With each rocking of his fingers, the bond between them grew taut, tense, strained.
‘I have to ease you.’
She didn’t feel ease. ‘It’s not working.’ She felt as if what was between them would snap, and she would fly away. As if sensing her sudden need, he anchored her with a firm hand on her hip, while his other...
