She wielded her horse around to stand by the marker stone, then leaned forward to rub its neck in appreciation of his efforts and to wait for Sebastian’s return.
Lingering in the dappled shade, Frey breathed in deep, refreshing lungfuls of air, her heart beating rapidly from the exertion and the excitement of the race. She listened for the sound of returning hoofbeats and the accompanying jangle of a bridle.
There was silence but for the wittering of birds high up in the canopy of leaves and the steady sound of the chestnut horse grazing beneath her.
“Where on earth could your master be?” she asked her mount softly.
The beast ignored her and carried on eating.
Frey dismounted but held on to the gelding’s bridle for support as feeling returned to her lower limbs.
Taking a few tentative steps away from the horse, she peered as far as she could around the tumble of russet and ocher rocks flecked with gray flaky lichen and tall, thin tufts of grass.
“Does the baron of Tyrswick sulk like a child when he’s bested by a woman?” she called out.
She waited for a response.
When it came, Frey’s blood turned cold.
A sustained howl broke the silence and was joined by a chorus of similar cries that seemed to be all around her. Frey turned in a circle but could see only the trees.
Her horse had stopped its grazing and took a step back, ears flicking in one direction, then the other.
With hands cupped to magnify the sound of her voice, she called out.
“Sebastian!”
There was no reply save the call of the wolf pack.
Gooseflesh needled along her arms.
With greater calmness than she felt, Frey walked back to the horse and soothed it with soft words and a few strokes down its neck. It settled enough for Frey to unbuckle a leather quiver of arrows from the saddle, which she then secured across her back before releasing the bow, which she placed over her shoulder.
She cautiously mounted the horse, managing not to frighten it any more than it already was.
With a quick snap of the reins, Frey prompted the chestnut gelding to a slow, cautious walk.
She knew as well as anyone that a wolf pack was a force to be reckoned with. She had seen an entire flock of sheep slaughtered along with their lone shepherd, all defenseless against the relentless attack of a ravening group.
No wonder the Crown offered convicted murderers the option to avoid execution by becoming wolf hunters, she reflected. Such deadly and methodical killers were these beasts that the human killers rarely survived their first hunt. Now, from almost completely all around the large rock outcrop, Frey could hear the howling increasing in volume.
She extracted an arrow from her quiver and set up her bow, clenching her jaw in the struggle to maintain balance in the saddle of an unfamiliar mount without the control of the reins.
“We’re allies, you and I,” Frey told the horse. “We have to work together.”
Using pressure from her left knee on the horse’s shoulders to simulate the tug of the reins, she caused the animal to move to the right, taking the last corner wide in the hope she could see what danger lay ahead.
Some one hundred yards away, blocking a path made narrow by two massive boulders, she saw a pack of gray wolves, perhaps a dozen of them, with teeth bared and ears lying flat back. They surrounded Ebon.
Beyond the narrow path, blocking the way forward, Frey observed, was a landslip. Fresh, too, from the color of it.
Sebastian, his face grim, remained in the saddle with his sword drawn, masterfully controlling an increasingly frightened mount as the wolves snapped and snarled, circling in one direction as the black horse circled in the other to protect his flank.
As the horse moved round, Sebastian swung his blade, slashing at the pack. The tip of his sword dripped with blood, but the wolves, accustomed to affray, held mostly just far enough from his reach and reacted not to the pain of his occasional strike.
Then Ebon reared, his front legs catching an unwary wolf, knocking it to the ground, whereupon the horse stamped his powerful hooves. The wolf offered up a series of distressed, high-pitched yelps before scrambling away from the fight, injured and surely dead by nightfall.
The horse kicked out behind in response to another attack.
Frey lined up her target, a gray wolf lining up to leap on Ebon’s hindquarters, as she heard Sebastian yell, “Leave here!”
She ignored him and let her arrow fly. It hit the wolf high in the side of its torso and the animal fell to the dirt, dead.
At that, some of the younger and more timid beasts fled into the surrounding forest, where numerous and densely packed trees offered an ideal hiding and regrouping place for the canines but offered little comfort to a rider on horseback.
The sound of the baying was horrible, loud and increasingly higher in pitch as calling wolves competed with the yowling of the injured members of the pack.
Frey quickly drew another arrow and readied her aim for a second shot, but her horse reared as it, too, became the focus of an aggressive beast running in from the flank.
Frey scrambled for the reins. Her arrow fell to the ground, splintered by her panicked mount's hooves as it spun around.
Feeling herself losing her seat, Frey kicked her feet free of the stirrups and allowed herself to fall from the horse.
Soft earth broke her fall and Frey, though slightly winded, hurriedly regained her feet.
She turned rapidly, seeking the location of the wolf. It lay dead—trampled by the gelding that now galloped rapidly away, back along the path.
A quick mental inventory confirmed her further good fortune; nothing was broken, it seemed, although she knew she would be bruised. And also unbroken was her bow.
She bent and grasped one of several arrows spilled from the quiver, quickly nocked it, aimed, and released. Another of the wolves surrounding Sebastian fell, mortally wounded.
Another glance about to ensure she was not being outflanked herself, then Frey quickly dispatched another.
Only a few wolves were now left, but those remaining were emboldened and roused by the smell of the blood of their kin. In a split second, one of them leaped up at Sebastian, snapping at him with slavering jaws before falling back. Pulling away from the wolf’s attack so abruptly, the baron was forced into a barely controlled dismount lest he actually fall from the horse.
Riderless, Ebon split the center of the pack and galloped past Frey in the direction the chestnut gelding had fled. Blood ran freely from its wounded flanks, spraying her with bright red droplets as it passed.
In a cloud of dust kicked up by the horses and in the lengthening rays of the afternoon sun, Frey found it difficult to see.
She tried calling Sebastian’s name, but her voice came out as a hacking cough instead.
Nonetheless, Sebastian's occasional grunts of exertion followed by canine yelps of pain reassured her he was still standing, still fighting.
Then a low, ominous growl to her left brought her focus back to her own immediate surroundings.
Just six feet away, two large amber eyes considered her. A wolf closed in, its chest close to the ground as it half crawled toward her.
Frey swallowed her fear and, with shaking fingers, slipped the nock of another arrow onto the bowstring.
As the wolf bared its teeth, she steadied her left hand and tensioned the sinewed bowstring slowly, taking it back as far as her strength would let her.
When the wolf launched itself, Frey released the arrow.
It hit the animal’s throat.
The beast slumped to the ground, the arrow head protruding grotesquely from the back of its neck as blood spurted from a severed artery for several tremulous beats before ceasing.
Breathing again, Frey turned to where Sebastian did battle for his life.
Standing with legs apart and sword in hand, his face half hidden in the afternoon shade, he looked as fierce and frightening as the Norman sol
diers she and her family fled in Durham.
The bodies of several wolves lay around him.
He wore a snarl Frey thought he must have stolen from the wolves. Then a deep growl forced its way through his set jaw.
“I ordered you to leave!”
With a cry and his sword raised, he sprinted toward her.
Frey was rooted to the spot, unable to move, mute and fascinated by the display of masculine aggression.
Sebastian reached her in scant seconds, shoving her aside. Frey tumbled, losing both bow and quiver, but as she fell she caught a glimpse of silver-gray fur, heard a yelp of distress, then nothing save the sound of her own ragged breathing and the birds high in the trees, unmoved by the slaughter on the ground.
Scrambling to her feet, Frey took in the scene in front of her with growing trepidation.
Where she stood moments before there now lay a wolf splayed over the body of Sebastian. The blade of his broadsword jutted through the fur of its back.
A deep red stain spread and pooled on and around him.
Before coherent thought could form, Frey watched with horror as the wolf trembled and raised its head to look at her, then huffed once, twice, in huge body-shaking tremors.
A scream lodged in her throat.
Frey’s fingers grasped at air as she reached across her back for her quiver before realizing that her weapons lay useless on the ground. She took a couple of staggering steps away.
A grunt more human than animal broke the silence.
The gasp was Sebastian’s as he pushed the dying wolf from on top of him. The four-legged brute tumbled to the side and stilled.
With heaving chest, his lungs filling with air, he rose to his feet with his back to Frey.
The baron extracted his sword from the corpse, wiped the blood from the steel across the dead animal's own pelt, and sheathed the weapon. He turned at the sound of a soft whimper Frey belatedly recognized as coming from her. His eyes that glittered hard emerald with fury just minutes before were now moss green, softened with compassion and tenderness.
A few steps closed the gaps between them and Sebastian enfolded Frey in his arms. Hers quickly snaked out from between them to cling to him tightly.
He felt solid and real. For the first time in a very long time, Frey felt safe.
They held each other for many minutes. And where Frey rested her head on his chest, she could feel his heart beating, quickly at first before settling into a slow, steady rhythm.
“Are you hurt?” he asked gently.
Unable to form the words, Frey shook her head vigorously in answer.
He stroked her hair and whispered soothing sounds into her ear and, as he did, second by second, tension ebbed from Frey’s shoulders, down her spine, through her legs, until it seemed to her that she stood only because he held her.
“Cry if you need to,” he whispered. “There’s no shame in it.”
Although she did not need his permission, her body accepted the release anyway. She wept silently, with body-shaking shudders that lessened with every passing moment.
Not all her tears were the result of today’s battle. Months, indeed years, of emotion bubbled to the surface and evaporated in the warmth of Sebastian’s arms around her.
When she had stilled, Sebastian pulled back slightly and tipped Frey’s face up to his.
Despite the weeping that had streaked lines through the dust on her face, he looked at her as though she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
She wondered what it would be like if he were to kiss her, and a stirring of arousal accompanied the thought playing itself out in her mind.
Frey licked her lips, leaving them slightly parted. Sebastian’s eyes flared with desire.
The first touch of his lips to hers was gentle and soft.
Her lips parted farther, willing him to continue.
He did, capturing her bottom lip, tasting its fullness, touching it with his tongue. Hers mimicked his and his mouth opened to give her questing tongue access. She sighed and pulled herself closer to him.
Frey gloried in the sensation of Sebastian sliding his arm down her back to her waist, raising goose bumps as he did. His other hand stroked lengths of fair silky hair that had come loose from their braid.
This was right and necessary, she told herself. Could there be a more fitting way to affirm life than to glory in the sweet sensation of passion?
She pressed her breasts against his chest, wanting to feel more of him. He indulged her, dropping a hand to her buttocks, pulling her close to feel his hardness before his hand drifted up the planes of her back to her shoulder blades.
Frey offered a disappointed mewl as his mouth left hers, but it was to trail kisses along her cheek until they reached the shell of her ear. His breath brought rolling shivers down the length of her body.
She could feel his lips part again. “Don’t ever disobey me again,” he whispered.
Frey started as though doused by a bucket of cold water, washing away arousal to drip anger instead. Sebastian dropped his arms to his side and, holding her away from him, looked at her implacably.
Frey answered his expression with a glare. He continued to look at her steadily and unmoving.
Her ire simmered and boiled; a river of a great many fine Anglo-Saxon curse words, which no well-bred lady would admit to knowing, threatened to break its banks.
Frey opened her mouth to open the breach when another voice filled the air.
“Sweet Jesu! What the devil happened here?”
CHAPTER NINE
Frey started and looked wide-eyed at Gaines, who held the reins of the two runaway horses in his hand. The man looked like a giant astride his gray mount and with a mien that was just as fierce. Taking in the scene, he dismounted, unsheathed his sword, and looked about with the alert and probing air of a soldier well used to enemies lurking in the shadows.
Frey ignored both men and went to the riderless horses, examining them for injuries.
The chestnut had emerged from the encounter with the wolves completely unscathed, while Ebon bore several scratches on his limbs and flank. Nothing too serious, but they would nonetheless require treatment.
She was only half listening to the conversation between the baron and his man-at-arms. “I was taking Ebon for a gallop when I encountered this landslip,” said Sebastian, walking to the fall of thick, loamy rubble and rocks.
He picked up a clod and sniffed its earthy dampness for a moment before dropping it and looking up at its origin.
“Then I was surrounded by a dozen wolves,” he continued distractedly, looking for a way up to the top of the cutting. “And we had to fight our way free.”
Sebastian used tussocks of grass for hand- and footholds to make his way up the eight-foot-high escarpment.
Gaines frowned but remained on the ground.
“We? Who else was with you?”
“Our guest is an excellent archer,” Sebastian called down. “Lady Alfreya dispatched at least three of the wolves, possibly four, on her own.”
Gaines muttered some response to the revelation, but Frey couldn’t quite make out the words. Even if she had, she doubted they would be complimentary.
Having finished her examination of the horses, Frey looked up and her expression immediately matched that of Gaines, an askance look as if to say, “What on earth is that man doing?”
As Frey peered up at Sebastian, Gaines lost interest and turned his attention to the carnage around him.
“It’s a sorry shame we don’t have time to skin these brutes; they’d fetch a pretty penny at market,” he commented ruefully. He began dragging the carcasses off the path one by one.
Sebastian grunted in assent, distracted by his investigation.
“This slip was recent, the churned-up soil is still moist,” Sebastian commented while descending in a half slide back to the path. “But we’ve had no rains recently that would account for it.”
“Your timing was a good bit of luck r
eally, the wolves aside,” offered Gaines. “If the slip is that recent, you could have been right under it when it fell.”
Tension edged its way up Frey's spine. There was no such thing as coincidence. She thought once again of the little unexplained mishaps that had dogged her and her party for months.
“Good fortune, indeed,” responded Sebastian.
Frey caught an edge in his voice that hinted at suspicion of something more than the timely intervention of Providence.
She slowly turned on the spot, looking in all directions for something that would provide answers.
The forest yielded none.
“Send Talbot and Baldwin to clear the path,” Sebastian ordered crisply. “I am not happy about being in such an exposed position another night. We press through to St. Cuthbert’s Abbey, even if it means arriving after nightfall.”
Frey could see in Sebastian the master tactician at work and, without further question, Gaines remounted and set the gray into a gallop.
Sebastian looked at Frey for the first time since their kiss.
“My lady, I would have you tell Larcwide and Orlege to redouble their vigilance over Lord Brice,” he said.
Disappointment at his tone bit deep, but by now Sebastian had made his way over to Ebon and was checking his mount’s injuries for himself. He did not see the flush of anger and embarrassment that colored her cheeks.
Without another word, she gathered together Talbot’s bow and remaining arrows.
The ride back to their party, which had been steadily making is way down the valley toward them, was made in merciful silence.
Frey warred with herself.
Isn’t this what she wanted? That this Norman treat her as an equal warrior for the benefit of her men and her brother?
“What about how he made you feel as a woman?” a treacherous part of her mind whispered. A throb ran through her as her body remembered their kiss.
“It was never like that with Drefan, was it?” it reminded her.
“No, a thousand times, no,” she told herself firmly, trying to shove the bitter memory back to the part of her mind in which she had kept it under lock and key for nearly a twelvemonth.
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