by Rebecca York
But she had trapped the two of them together in a dark cave. Was he a threat to her?
When she gripped his arm, he stirred.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I think so.”
Sitting up, he pulled her with him.
Moments ago he had been sprawled on top of her. As he cradled her in his arms, it felt almost as intimate. She didn’t know him, and propriety dictated that she should break the contact, but she had almost met death, and the feel of his solid body against hers was comforting.
When his hand stroked over her back and shoulders, she trembled, but she stayed in his arms. She had little experience with men, but she had a good sense of people, and she knew he could have left her to her fate and run from the dragon’s fury.
In the darkness, her hand moved along his arms and shoulders as she asked, “Did any of the rocks hit you?”
“Only small ones.”
“Thank you for fighting the dragon.”
“I fear it was a losing battle.”
“No. I would have been dead if you hadn’t come along. It was brave of you to defend me.”
He made a scoffing sound. “No man of honor would have left you there.”
His hold tightened on her for a moment, and she closed her eyes, blocking out everything but the feel of him, his scent, the warmth of his body. When he eased away, her eyes blinked open to darkness.
“Stay there.”
She did as he asked, straining her ears as she tried to hear what he was doing now.
She heard him moving around, and she remembered seeing a travel pack and equipment neatly stowed in the cave.
She turned her head, trying to make out where the entrance had been.
“We’ll have light in a moment,” the man called out.
How? In Valleyhold she might bring light with the force of her mind. Of course she dared not do that here.
She heard a scraping sound, then saw small sparks in the darkness. Flint and steel! She’d heard men who’d gone into the outside world tell of it, wonder in their voices. You could make fire with rock and metal, if you knew the right ones.
The sparks fell on a small pile of kindling enclosed by a circle of stones. Tiny flames grew larger. Smoke rose, and she was relieved to see it drawn toward the holes in the rubble.
“I was camping in here,” he said. “I heard the dragon and your scream.”
“Yes.” She hadn’t had much time to study him. Now she focused on him in the flickering light and judged him to be a few years older than her own eighteen years. His dark hair was long and tied back at the nape of his neck. His features were pleasing with a strong jaw, well-shaped lips, and eyes set wide apart. Though his attire was simple, a loose shirt over leggings and boots, it seemed to be of good quality.
Apparently while she was studying him, he was doing the same to her. “You’re dressed like a boy. In rough clothes. What are you doing out here in the wilds?”
She swallowed, wondering what she was going to say now. She had thought she had time to plan her explanations. Now they were thrust upon her.
“I needed to be alone for a while.”
“Why?”
He had no right to demand answers from her. Well, mayhap he did, since he had saved her life.
When she didn’t answer, he pressed, “Are you in trouble?”
His voice had the ring of command, and that made her think he was used to giving orders.
“I don’t have to discuss that with you. In fact, I could ask you the same question. What are you doing out here, dressed in travel clothes, camping in a cave?”
He gave a sharp laugh. “All right. I had a dispute with my father. I came here to be alone.”
He seemed to be waiting, as though he expected some comment.
Instead, she dragged in a breath and let it out as she glanced at the wall of rubble in back of him. “My reasons are similar. I was at odds with my parents.”
“But you are a woman.”
“I do not take your meaning.”
“No woman should be off by herself, far from any settlement. You put yourself in danger.”
She hadn’t thought of dangers, only escape. When she didn’t answer, he said, “It must have been a serious dispute.”
“Yes.”
“You admit that much.”
She angled her body away from his and pulled her knees up to her chin. “Do not press me with questions.”
Chapter Three
Grantland opened his mouth and closed it again. The woman had spoken true. In Arandal he was the crown prince. The heir to the throne. If he asked a subject a question, they answered. In this cave he was only a man who had gone off by himself to think, and he wanted it to remain that way.
Back home, women threw themselves at him, and he never knew if it was because they liked him or if they hoped to win the favor of the future king. He was careful in his romantic contacts. His lovers were all married women dissatisfied with their husbands. They told him he was a wonderful lover, and again he had no way of knowing if they were only trying to flatter him.
As far as he could tell, this woman had no idea who he was. Unless she was pretending ignorance…which could be true, of course. But if she knew his true identity, she hid the knowledge well.
A spy could do that.
He pressed his lips together. He’d been on his own for five days. If someone had followed him from the castle, he would have known.
He was almost certain she was not from Arandal, and if not, that put him in a unique position. He’d never known how people would have treated him if he were an ordinary subject of King Wilfred.
Mayhap he had a chance to find out.
He studied her. She was young, a little younger than he was, he judged. She might be dressed like a boy, but everything about her was feminine. The long golden hair she had caught into a braid down her back. Her delicate features. Her body. The way she moved.
She had an aristocratic air, although he was sure he had never seen her at court.
When she didn’t speak, he said, “I am called Grant.” The shortened version of his real name was the one that his companions on the practice field used.
“I am Rowan.”
“Where is your home?”
“We keep to ourselves.”
“Why?”
“We prefer not to have outside influences.”
Was she from a group that worshipped strange deities or practiced peculiar customs?
“What gods do you pray to?”
“Holder is the chief one. His wife, Ravina. Their sons, Caldon and Meron.”
He nodded, reassured that she prayed to the same gods as he did He wanted to ask more questions. But that would give her leave to ask her own questions, which might lead to revealing his true identity. Better to keep away from personal discussions.
“Do you think the dragon can get in here?” she asked.
“Not unless it can burn through rock.”
She shuddered. “I hope not.”
“They only come out at night, I think. During the day, mayhap we can free ourselves.”
He looked back at the wall of rubble. It was hard to remember exactly where the entrance had been, which made it hard to judge the thickness of the barrier.
There might be too much to move, but he hadn’t explored the entire cave. He’d felt a stream of fresh air coming from farther back. There could be another opening.
He fed some larger pieces of wood to the fire, then looked up to see her watching him.
“We should eat,” he said.
“I have a few foodstuffs with me. Bread and cheese.”
“I was going to catch some fish.”
“In here?”
He gestured in back of him. “A river runs through the cave. I caught some fish yesterday. I can do it again.”
“How long have you been here?”
He had traveled three days on foot, found the cave and judged it a good place to camp and think about his life, pr
incipally whether he would go back to Arandal.
“Two days in this place,” he answered. Getting up, he pointed into the darkness. “You can wash. In the shallows.” He lit one of the torches he’d made, carried it to the bank and set it in the mound of stones he’d fixed for the purpose.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll go upstream. Around the bend.”
He gathered some of his equipment, then picked up another one of the torches and thrust it into the fire. When it flared up, he followed the watercourse to a spot where there was a larger shallow place.
First, he removed his shirt and washed off the grit from the rock fall. As he dressed again and prepared to catch dinner, he couldn’t pull his thoughts from Rowan.
He’d lain intimately on top of her and imagined her naked body.
Would she take off her shirt to wash? What did her breasts look like? He’d felt them against his chest when he’d sheltered her from the falling rocks. He’d like to feel them in his hands, make the nipples harden, stroke his fingers across the tight peaks.
His body reacted to those thoughts. He was alone with her. Trapped in a cave.
Few women he had pursued had refused the king’s son. But here he was only a traveler named Grant.
If he made advances, what would she do?
If he seduced her, then what? Could he simply walk away from her? Not with honor. And not when he didn’t know his own plans.
He could still go back to Arandal and accept the dictates of a king who had become increasingly irrational in the demands he placed upon his people and his son. Or he could make a new life for himself.
Was he running away from his responsibilities? Or escaping from a life for which he wasn’t suited?
He didn’t know, but he understood that Rowan was a complication he didn’t need. Which meant the less physical contact he had with her, the better.
He struggled to turn his mind back to the task at hand. After sticking the end of the torch into the mound of stones he’d picked up to hold it, he took off his boots, rolled up his leggings and waded into the water. He leaned over, holding his hands apart, then brought them together quickly when a fish swam between them.
He pulled the wiggling body from the water and flung it onto the stones, where it lay gasping and flopping until it stilled.
He caught another in the same manner, and then wrapped them in a piece of rough cloth he’d brought along.
When he glanced up, Rowan was watching him, a look of admiration on her face.
“How do you do that?”
He shrugged, embarrassed that the simple act of catching dinner had impressed her. Tanan, one of his arms masters, had taught him to forage when they’d been out in the field, obliged to fend for themselves in the wilds. But he wasn’t going to explain his training to this woman whom he didn’t know. A woman who was hiding her background.
“It’s not so difficult. I think they’re blind because they live in the dark.”
When she nodded, he picked up the cloth with the fish. “I have to prepare them.”
He took his catch downstream, expertly cleaning and filleting them and letting the current take the guts away.
When he came back to the camp area, she had brushed out her hair and was rebraiding it.
He had seen women do that before. After sex. Which he wasn’t going to have with her, he reminded himself.
She finished and looked up. “Do you want to have the apples I brought?”
“We should leave your supplies in case we need them later.”
“You think we’ll be here long?”
“It’s best to be prepared.”
She nodded.
“We can flavor the fish with herbs and onions.” He pulled small green onions and some wild thyme from a storage compartment he’d made of rocks.
“You know herbs?” she said, as she picked up the thyme and smelled it.
“Yes.”
“I work with them.”
“For what purpose?”
“Healing. And care of the skin.”
“That is your profession among your people?”
“Yes.”
Was she telling the truth? Or only part of the truth? Not meeting his eye, she took the knife and began to cut the onions into slices while he arranged the fish fillets in a thin skillet and set it on rocks over the fire.
When she was done, he added the onions and some sprigs of thyme, the pungent smell filling the confined space.
“I don’t know any men who cook,” she remarked.
“On battle maneuvers, you may have that duty.”
“You’re a soldier?”
He hesitated. “Sometimes. In my country, all men must be ready for military service.”
She could have asked what country that was. But she didn’t press him. Mayhap because she didn’t want to speak of her own origins.
“You can have the plate,” he said when the fish was cooked. “I’ll eat from the skillet.”
He used his knife to divide the food, and then sprawled with his shoulder against a rock, leaning back as he ate, pretending to be at his ease when the woman across from him was stirring his senses in ways he knew he should resist.
She picked up a piece of fish from the tin plate, finished it and licked her fingers. “You are very skillful.”
“I made it a point to master many disciplines.” He laughed. “That sounds pretentious. I mean practical skills. I fear I am not much of a scholar.”
“You may not need scholarship.”
“My father doesn’t agree.”
She was watching his face, and he wondered what she saw when he mentioned his father. What would she say if he revealed that he was talking about the king of Arandal?
“What of your mother?” she asked.
“She died a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “For a while, my sister tried to fill that role. Then…she disappeared.”
“How?”
“She ran off,” he said, giving part of the truth. “And we never found out how she fared.” Ten years ago when the castle was under siege, Princess Devon had somehow managed to escape. Days later, a dragon carrying an armored rider had flown over the invading army, raining fire on them. Grantland had always thought the two events might be related, but there was no way to prove it. He hadn’t seen Devon since. He didn’t even know if she was alive. Or where.
“That must have been upsetting,” Rowan whispered, breaking into his thoughts.
“Yes.” He tipped his head to the side. “Are you doing the same thing to your family? Will they always wonder what happened to you?”
* * *
Rowan looked down, poking at a piece of fish on her plate. Again she wasn’t sure how to respond. Was Grant telling her she should go back?
“You don’t know my situation,” she answered.
“Enlighten me.”
She swallowed, then heard herself say, “I left because my parents want me to marry a man I loathe.”
“If they wanted it, it was your duty.”
“They didn’t know that he was…evil.”
“Evil. That’s a strong word.”
“It’s the truth.” She dragged in a breath and let it out. “He hid his true self from them. But I could see it.”
“So you ran away?”
“Yes.” She shuddered. “The idea of being his wife sickened me. I couldn’t go through with it.”
She kept her gaze on him, waiting for him to lecture her more on a woman’s duty, but he remained silent. Mayhap he didn’t scold because he had run away, too.
Well, she couldn’t be absolutely sure, but she suspected.
She turned back to her meal, finishing the fish. When she looked up, he had done the same.
“You cooked. I’ll wash the plate and skillet in the river.”
Standing, she gathered the eating equipment and took it to the water, where she found sand she could use to scour them.
&n
bsp; As she worked, a plan was forming in her mind. She had left Valleyhold to escape from Telman. But she must be a virgin to marry him. What if she remedied that situation with Grant? Then, even if men from Valleyhold found her, she would have made herself unsuitable to be Telman’s bride.
And what if…
She hardly dared to contemplate the rest of it. But it tumbled through her thoughts in a rush. She could tell Grant was unhappy with his old life. What if he could come to Valleyhold with her? She would have to be careful about revealing the location of her village. She would do it only if she trusted him, but perhaps he would be willing to live there. And the village would be the richer for it. Her people had forgotten many skills. Skills that Grant possessed. He could teach them.
Would he fit in there? Did he have latent powers she could help him develop?
In some part of her mind, she recognized that she was spinning a tale that she wanted to hear. Yet she couldn’t let go of it. And tonight she would put the first part of the plan to the test. If she dared.
When she came back, Grant looked at her carry bag. “Did you bring a blanket?” he asked.
“A thin one. I thought I could use dry leaves under it. But not here.”
“Use mine.”
“You need it.”
“I’ll keep watch.”
“Do we need to guard ourselves?”
“It’s only a precaution,” he answered, and she wondered if he was using the excuse to separate himself from her.
He spread his sleeping cloth. “Put yours on top.”
“I shouldn’t take both blankets.”
“It’s fine.”
She did as he asked, but she didn’t lie down.
“Are you worried about sleeping near a strange man?”
“No. Not with you.”
“You think me mild-mannered?”
“I believe you wouldn’t take advantage of a woman.” Which meant she would have to seduce him. Though she had little experience with seduction, she thought there might be a way.
When he made no comment, she walked to the pile of rubble that walled them in.
“What are you doing?” he called.
“I’m wondering how hard it will be to get out.”
“It’s dangerous over there. Come back.”
“In a moment. I want to see it.”
She walked closer to the barrier, touching it with her hand, feeling the contours.
