by Betina Krahn
He shifted his chest over hers so that the edges of his leather braces raked her hardening nipples. She arched into that delicious friction, seeking more, drinking in the size and weight of him against her. But a moment later his weight was replaced by his hands, moving in sinuous spirals over her unbound breasts, and the steady, progressive flow of pleasure was suddenly interrupted by a jolt of sensation that shook her bodily.
He lifted his head just enough to say against her lips, “Are you cold?”
She. managed to focus her eyes on his. She nodded, then shook her head, then looked confused. He laughed softly against her lips, sending sensuous vibrations all through her.
“What a troublesome creature you are, ma chatte . . . always in need of rescuing or feeding or warming.” His hands slid to her fitted sleeves and began to undo them. “Who warmed you before I came along?”
His words tumbled about in her head on currents of expectation as he fumbled with her laces. They had been damp when she tied them, and overnight had dried and shrunk so that the knots were drawn as tight as clam shells. His moan of frustration broke through her swirling thoughts, and a moment later he was sitting up and pulling her into a sitting position, too. The cold air gliding over her bare back and her abrupt change of position somehow righted his words in her mind.
Who warmed you before I came along?
No one. No one had ever warmed or touched her like this. Until Saxxe Rouen, she had always been “Princess Thera” . . . never “demoiselle.”
The next moment that thought shocked her to the ends of her being. She was “Princess Thera” . . . not “demoiselle.” The sense of what was happening between them rattled her to the core. The shock of it warred with the desire for it, but not for long. Distance—she had to put distance between them. She jerked her wrist from him and skittered back on her knees.
“What is—”
“I’m quite warm enough,” she said, clasping her arms around her shivering shoulders. “In future, Rouen, be so good as to keep your hands to yourself.”
In her jewel-clear eyes he glimpsed a raging conflict of longing and alarm. Inside she was half melted, vulnerable . . . and her desire for him horrified her. He understood all too clearly, for he was experiencing that same painful clash of emotions. Every fiber of his body was swollen with need for her . . . and the strength of his desire appalled him.
The thwarted heat of his arousal set fire to both his conscience and his pride. What in hell had gotten into him, making love to her . . . endangering his hopes of a fat reward? She had gotten into him, he realized, staring at her huge blue eyes, tousled hair, and kiss-swollen lips. Dieu—how she had gotten into him!
He bounded to his feet, giving the blankets a contemptuous kick, and stalked off toward his horse.
Fearful that she might have angered him enough to make him leave without her, she called after him.
“Rouen! Where are you going?” She was relieved to see him jerking his bow and quiver from his saddle.
“Hunting!” he roared back. “And if I have any luck, when I get back you’ll have something to sink your claws into besides me!”
Thera slid her arms around her waist and stared after his retreating form in a mild panic. She was alone with him now, and vulnerable in ways she hadn’t dreamed she could be. All he had to do was talk to her in that roguish, teasing manner, or touch her with his disarmingly gentle hands, and all her bones seemed to melt . . . starting with her backbone.
What was the matter with her? Why couldn’t her princess self just issue a royal edict and banish her unholy feelings for him to some neat little chamber of her mind where they wouldn’t be any trouble?
Because the woman in her wanted him. Because the woman in her found him interesting and strangely warm and companionable. And because the woman in her was every bit as stubborn as the princess.
Furious at her inability to control her own feelings, she stalked off into the bushes, then ventured down to the water’s edge. She washed her face and rinsed her mouth and rubbed her teeth with a soft, frayed twig, then set to work trying to draw and tie the lacing at the back of her gown. The laces were stubborn and the holes through which they threaded seemed to have both raveled and shrunk. Wrenching and contorting her shoulders and fighting her hair out of the way again and again, she managed to pull the edges together at least halfway up her back . . . then could reach no more and had to abandon the effort.
Feeling thwarted and angry that she would have to ask for the use of Saxxe Rouen’s hands—after she had just told him to keep them to himself !—she ground her teeth and snatched up a lock of her tousled hair. Here, at least, was a task she could manage on her own. But she needed something to work with. Then her eyes fell on Saxxe’s leather pouches. What were the chances he would have something as civilized as a comb or brush in his possession?
She dragged the bags over to the blankets, knelt, and opened the first one, gingerly drawing out the contents. Various lengths of rope, a number of metal fishhooks, metal arrow tips, striking steel, two cups and a metal bowl, a flat bit of metal for use as a griddle, and a small pouch of coarse salt inhabited the first one. Nothing but the rude essentials for procuring and preparing food, she thought, wincing. How like him.
In the second bag she encountered more personal items, including a pair of old leather wrist guards, an aged tunic that bore stains and cuts that looked unsettlingly like wound marks . . . and a few bits of crumpled, faded silk that looked suspiciously like pieces of ladies’ veils. Then her fingers raked something large and hard and oddly shaped in the bottom of the second pouch. She seized it, drew it forth, then began to remove the chamois wrapping.
From inside the soft skin came the dull clink of metal on metal. She laid back the last fold of cloth and stared at a pair of gleaming spurs, simply but beautifully crafted. Golden spurs. The arched metal bore the soft patina and occasional nicks that came from use. She sat staring at them for a long moment, then ran her fingertips over their cool luster.
In Mercia there had been no need for knights for a long while, though a few crusty old relics of a bygone era still survived. But Thera knew full well that throughout France and the German provinces and Italy, a true knight was identified by his golden spurs . . . and that the only way a knight was parted from them was by death itself. What were these doing in Saxxe Rouen’s bag?
There were several possible explanations, she told herself. Perhaps they had been given to him in payment for his services, or they had belonged to the knight in whose service he had crusaded. There were also less honorable possibilities: he might have taken them from an enemy . . . or scavenged them on a battlefield . . . or stolen them.
“What in Seventh Hell do you think you’re doing?” came an angry bellow, startling her so that she fell over onto her rear. Saxxe, his eyes blazing, stood holding a brace of hares in one hand and his bow in the other.
“I . . . I . . .” Her face flushed crimson at being caught going through his bags, but only because they were his. As a princess, she had never been forbidden access to another’s possessions in her life; it never occurred to her that he might consider it a violation of privacy. She raised her chin and pushed to her feet, her fingers curling around the cool metal she held. “I had to have something to set my hair to rights and while I was looking for a comb, I found these.” As she held out the spurs, his mien went from thunderous to volcanic.
“Damnation!” he roared, slamming the hares and his bow on the ground and striding forward with his fists clenched. “You wait until my back is turned and plunder my things and take whatever strikes your eye!” He took another step, then another, and halted himself. “And you call me a barbarian!”
“I was not plundering,” she declared, scrambling to meet his unexpected fury. “I—I told you: I needed a comb or brush and thought perhaps . . . I would never take anything that didn’t belong to me.” She lifted her chin, casting him a look that said she doubted the same could be said about him. “Where
did you get these?”
“Give me those,” he growled, snatching them from her hands and dropping onto his knees to shove them back into the pouch. He quickly stuffed the other things back as well then hauled up the blankets and headed for his horse.
Every movement was like a whip crack, each glance like a dagger flung her way. The raw, honest fury of his reaction shocked her.
“You didn’t answer,” she charged when he went back for his bow and the game he had taken. She crossed her arms over her chest and tried to tell herself that she had no reason to feel guilty; she wasn’t a thief. “Is that because you stole them?”
A wall of floodwater had less impact on her than the look of compressed anger, loathing, and hurt on his face just then. He strode to the cold fire and gave the stones and ashes a hard kick that sent them flying, then stalked back to his horse and finished loading his possessions. Inserting his boot in the stirrup, he swung up into the saddle and sat there for a long moment, staring straight ahead.
He was gut-churning furious. Dieu! He’d spent half the day and night tending and warming her . . . only to have her riffle his possessions and accuse him of stealing! The fear he had felt when he saw her swept away and the pleasure he had experienced at having her safe and warm in his arms all night now embarrassed him to his mercenary core. She truly believed he was a low, thieving barbarian. The dull, squeezing pain that realization caused was an appropriate punishment for forgetting that she was a means to an end . . . a pampered, arrogant female who was redeemable for cold silver.
He turned and settled a hard look on her. “I suppose you wish to ride. Well, I guess it could be arranged . . . for a price.”
Thera’s crossed arms slid to her sides. He was angered and now intended to make her pay for it. And whatever price he demanded, she vowed not to pay it.
“I have decided that your manners could use a bit of improving, demoiselle. Say ‘Prithee please, sir’ and you may ride,” he declared, smacking the spot just behind his saddle.
“My manners?” she said hotly. “How dare you presume to judge me . . . when you look like a wolf with mange, act as greedy as a jackal, and have the manners of a boar hog in a wallow. Just who do you think you are?”
For a long moment they faced each other, eyes hot and pride crackling.
“I know precisely who I am, my savage little cat,” he said, his voice thick with roused pain and pride. “The more pressing question is: who are you?” When she remained defiantly silent, he supplied an answer. “You’re a pampered, arrogant noblewoman,” he continued, “who should learn how it feels to pay respect to someone else for a change. Say ‘Prithee please, sir’ and you may ride.”
She looked down at her bare feet, recalling her defiance when removing her shoes before the flood and hoping she wasn’t making the same mistake. She looked up at the glint of vengeful purpose in his gaze and squared her shoulders.
“I’ll walk.”
And walk she did. Through thick grasses, over rocky knolls, and along cool, wet beds of leaves on the forest floor; she followed him all morning long. By the time they paused by the swollen stream to rest and have a bite of food, she was parched, bone-weary, and her feet were pricked sore from the stubble and stones. She was too miserable to appreciate how effectively she had managed to put distance between them. She might have been in the far reaches of the Egyptian desert, as far as he was concerned, and the reason for her exile settled a weight in her chest every time she thought about it.
She had all but accused him of stealing a pair of knightly spurs, and the turmoil in his face still burned in her mind. The thought that she might have injured him with her words was somehow devastating to her.
One moment he was a lustful, swaggering brute; the next he was a warm, teasing swain. One moment she wouldn’t trust him with a silver groat, and the next she was trusting him with her life.
She honestly didn’t know what to think of him anymore. She only knew that she wished he would talk to her again . . . or at least look at her.
As if feeling her eyes on him, he glanced back, paused, then declared that they would stop for a while. When he untied the bag of oats from his saddle, she recalled the delicious warmth of the oatcake she had eaten only the night before and felt a terrible emptiness inside her that had nothing to do with hunger.
She carried a handful of oats down the stream bank, out of his sight, and collapsed onto a boulder, staring at the dry groats. She was tired, hungry, and dispirited . . . sitting on a rock in the middle of God knew where and wearing a dirty, tattered gown that wasn’t even laced properly. Her skin was sunburned, her long hair in tangles, and her toes bruised and scratched from trudging barefoot behind a man who seemed to wish she didn’t exist. Now she was sunk so low that she was eating the same food as a horse . . . fed to her by the same unwashed hand!
She’d never been so miserable in her life or had so little control over her circumstances.
Her eyes burned as she thought of her beloved Mercia and of her outrage at having to marry and give up part of her precious authority to a husband. It seemed a thousand years ago. Since she last saw her home, she had rejected a suitor . . . been caught up in an invasion . . . been abducted and nearly raped, robbed and chased by marauding soldiers, caught in a downpour, swept away in a flood, almost drowned, forced to bargain away her virtue, and regularly humiliated by her own venial impulses.
She sniffed and wiped her tears with her sleeve. Until a few days ago she hadn’t even known she had venial impulses.
Troubles. She’d had nothing but troubles since that night at the Earl de Burgaud’s when she roundly rejected the porcine Duc de Beure. The voice in her head suddenly became Lillith’s. Troubles and contention. And the next word she heard was prophecy. For the first time, when those words fell in the churned and receptive ground of her heart, they began to take root.
Compared to all that had happened to her in the last few days, having to marry and share a throne seemed a paltry complaint. If she ever got back to Mercia she was going to—
If ? She halted with her chin quivering, feeling that emptiness in her growing to cavernous proportions. She had to get back to Mercia. Battling back a smothering wave of anxiety, she straightened her shoulders and stuffed a few of the dry oats into her mouth, chewing doggedly. She struggled to swallow and glowered at the grain in her hand.
“And when I do get back to Mercia, I’m never going to eat another oat as long as I live.”
When they set off again, Saxxe turned in his saddle, patted Sultan’s rump, and made her the same offer: “You may ride, demoiselle . . . for the price of a ‘Prithee please, sir.’”
Thera strode to the horse’s head, took hold of his bridle, and looked the huge beast straight in the eye. “Prithee please, sir . . . may I ride?” The horse snorted and shook its great head, and she jolted back. Saxxe chuckled, and she realized from his wicked smile that he had probably done something to cause the horse’s reaction.
“If you wish to ride, demoiselle, you’ll have to say it to me,” he advised. “I collect all Sultan’s debts for him.”
And to think that mere moments before she had been racked with guilt for always assuming the worst about him! She groaned and set off along the ridge overlooking the flooded stream. She didn’t care how sore her feet were or how hungry she became, she did not intend to be in Saxxe Rouen’s debt any more than she was already.
* * *
By midday, both Saxxe and Sultan had grown impatient with Thera’s slogging pace and they ranged ahead for a while, then paused by a large stand of trees on the side of a hill overlooking the stream. When she caught up, she found Saxxe lying serenely beneath a tree with his arms crossed and his eyes closed. Feeling sweaty and gnat-bitten and not to be trifled with, she planted her fists at her waist and demanded:
“How much longer until we reach the place where I was taken by the flood?”
“I have no idea,” he muttered, not bothering to open his eyes.
&nb
sp; “Well, how far was I carried downstream?”
“I was too busy at the time to take note.”
“Then how do you know Lillith and Gasquar will still be there when we get there?”
“I don’t.” With that, he did at least open one eye.
“Then what in Suffering Stephen do you know?” she shouted, dropping her fists to her sides. That opened his other eye.
“I know enough not to hazard walking barefoot through such treacherous country when I could ride and make much faster time,” he said with an arch smile.
“Oooh.” She vibrated with the urge to kick him. Instead, she whirled and picked her way down the hillside to the stream bank and found a place to wade in the shallows.
As her feet and her temper cooled, she looked upstream, along the debris-strewn banks, and tried to recall what the crossing where she had been swept away looked like. The flood had happened so swiftly and violently that her recollections were now shrouded in a churning muddy torrent of water. Her shoulders rounded and she expelled a tired breath.
She had no choice but to depend on Saxxe to get her back to Lillith, then on to Mercia. But she did have a choice of whether to cling to her pride and waste precious time and energy or to give him his wretched “prithee please” and save both delay and her poor feet. Her duty to get back to her people was more important than her personal pride.
She rinsed her feet and started back, resolved to make the required sacrifice. Halfway up the bank, along the edge of the rock ledge, she felt something heave beneath her bare foot and she recoiled with a gasp. At her feet lay a huge, mottled brown snake . . . its coils shifting and sliding.
Her scream of terror brought Saxxe bolt upright from his nap. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, drawing his dagger and charging down the hill. He found her crouched on a narrow rock ledge, gripping the stone behind her with whitened fingers and staring in blanched horror at something in the grass.
