20 Shades of Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Demelza Carlton

  Chapter 17

  Ursula thought it would be a simple matter of unwinding one set of bandages and then winding new ones around his leg – the work of a moment, surely. But the strips of linen that currently shrouded his leg had been soaked in something that glued the strips together into a sort of protective shell around his leg. And, if she understood his instructions correctly, she would have to melt the beeswax and soak the new linen in that before wrapping him up again. She wasn't sure how turning his leg into a giant candle, missing only the wick, would help it to heal, but she resolved to do as he asked. She wanted to see this injury for herself, to know whether this man was truly the harmless cripple he claimed to be.

  She felt his eyes on her as she busied herself melting wax and warming the water that he insisted would dissolve the current cast.

  When the water was warm enough, he shifted himself to the edge of his pallet so that his injured leg sat on bare stone. She poured the water carefully over the length of his leg, trying to let the felt sop it up before it could form a puddle on the flagstones. When the first bucket was empty, she picked up the second.

  "I can feel the water!" he said, his eyes shining. "It's working!"

  When she set down the second bucket, Ursula picked up a pair of scissors. He'd wanted her to use a knife to cut through the sodden bandage, but she was terrified of cutting him. She snipped through the layers of felt and wool slowly, carefully, not brave enough to look at his face, in case she hurt him.

  But as he made no sound to indicate he was in pain, her strokes grew bigger and braver, until finally, the cast slid away to reveal skin almost as pale as the bandages which had covered it. She reached for the third bucket, and the cloth to wash his leg. There were two breaks, not one. Each was a ghastly grey, rimmed with purple and red, then haloed in a yellow too sickly to belong to any saint. His whole leg was consumed by these two massive bruises. Bruises she had caused.

  She stopped and swallowed. "I… I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you. I feared for my life, and I panicked. Now, I'm afraid to touch it, lest I cause you more pain you do not deserve."

  The cloth dropped from her limp hand into the bucket with a soft splash.

  Then his hand was there, fishing about in the bucket, pulling out the cloth, squeezing out the excess water, before pressing it back into her hand.

  "Mistress Ursula, your ministrations are anything but painful. If anything, your touch heals me. Please, do not stop."

  She raised her eyes to meet his in surprise. She didn't know him well enough to be sure whether it was truth or a lie, but his reassuring smile urged her to believe him anyway. So she stroked the cloth from his ankle to the top of his thigh, then back down again, over bruises, breaks and all. True to his word, he did not flinch or make a sound.

  As she worked she lowered her eyes again, so that he might not read her thoughts. He was a brave soldier, a kind man who had never killed, and a holy man who had gone on a crusade. She did not deserve his forgiveness for what she had done, but if she nursed him back to health, perhaps she would pay a small part of the penance she owed him.

  Chapter 18

  Bernard gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to make a sound. Even the lightest touch to those dark places where he knew his bones were broken felt like the fires of hell itself. It mattered not. He could not ask her to stop, for the bandages needed to be changed, and he could not do them himself.

  Her hands were gentler than the physician's, he had to admit. The harpy, it seemed, had flown off, leaving this surprisingly sweet girl in her place.

  But all this warmth and stroking was having an effect he had not considered – and the proximity of the pretty girl wasn't helping matters. When he bared his leg, he'd made sure his tunic covered everything else, but he couldn't hide the rising tent in his tunic, nor could he stop it. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think of cold things, dead things, anything but the girl he wanted to pull onto the pallet beside him.

  She seemed so intent on her work, though, that she had not noticed his arousal. Or perhaps this sweet maiden had never seen a man in such a state, and so she thought nothing of it. If only he could stop thinking about it.

  When his leg was dry, she started with the new bandages. First a layer of clean linen, followed by a second layer of linen that had been soaked in wax. A third layer made of felt completed the job, before she laid his leg in its wooden coffin. She tucked scraps of felt into the box to cushion him from the hardness then laid a blanket over the top of it, folding it into a pad on the inside of his leg so that he might not injure the other leg while he slept.

  He was too busy watching her, that he didn't realise quite how high her hands had crept. No longer level with his knees, her hand had reached the bare skin at the top of his thigh, and more besides. His cock, as eager for her touch as any other part of him, moved as though it had a mind of its own.

  She cried out and snatched her hand back, staring wide-eyed at his escaped cock.

  He tucked it away, too late, for he feared the damage was done.

  She muttered something about washing her hands, scrubbing them violently in a bucket as she bowed her head in a fruitless attempt to hide her flaming cheeks.

  "Thank you, Mistress Ursula," he said. "Now, thanks to you, I may one day walk again. If there is any way in which I can repay you –"

  But she'd snatched up her buckets and fled from the room.

  Probably a good thing, he thought sourly, eyeing his wayward cock. There was only one way to tame it now, and some things were not fit for a blushing maiden's eyes.

  Chapter 19

  Ursula ran all the way to the kitchen, careless of the water sloshing onto her skirt. She poured herself a cup of the strong berry wine, and drank it down in three gulps, hoping it would settle both her churning belly and her shaking hands.

  She'd touched his manhood. She'd touched the manhood of a man who was not her husband. What would her father say? She'd never get a husband now. For what man would want her, knowing that she'd touched another man's…

  She blew out a shaky breath. Not just touched it. She'd stretch her hand out and stroked the length of it, just the once, wanting to know what it felt like. Harder than his leg, yet the skin had been so much softer. How was that even possible?

  She could ask him, she supposed. But of course she could not. Touching him like that… why, it was not just unseemly. It was the sort of thing a man expected from one of the tavern girls, not the Baron's daughter.

  Never mind that she wanted to. She could not. She would not.

  He was a holy man. He had no desire to steal her virtue, but she could not explain that wicked flood of lust that had overwhelmed her, if only for a moment, before she had regained her faculties.

  She would not let it happen again. She would not, she repeated as she forced her feet to carry her back to her chamber, and him.

  He'd stretched out on his pallet by the fire, already asleep, she hoped.

  "Good," she said softly. "You sleep there, and I shall sleep in my bed, and honour shall be satisfied."

  Chapter 20

  Bernard had intended to pretend to be asleep, but her words or perhaps her tone stirred up emotions that would not rest. "Honour is never satisfied," he said bitterly. "Honour always demands more of you, sometimes more than any man is willing to give."

  She was silent for a long moment before she finally said, "I do not understand."

  No, of course she did not. He envied her the innocence that had been stolen from him, but not enough to want to steal hers. "A holy crusade is still a long journey, and many things may happen along the way. The things I have done for honour…" He shook his head, not wanting to continue.

  "But it was worth it, right?" she asked eagerly. "I mean, you were on a quest to free the Holy Land! Honours greater than any other awaited you. I can scarcely imagine…"

  No, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  "What is the Holy City like? Is it true that from the moment y
ou step inside those city gates, you breathe in only holiness? What does holiness smell like?"

  Bernard laughed. He loved her innocence, for nothing could have cut so cleanly through the choking miasma of his thoughts. "It smelled of strange spices, camel dung, and the sweat of a thousand men who were not used to the baking heat. The sun cooked the very city stones as if by roasting the place, it might purify it somehow. A thousand years ago, the Saviour might've walked those streets, but now it is no holier than any other city. There are men and women, sinners and saints, and everyone in between."

  "Oh."

  Such a small sound of disappointment, yet it cut him all the same. Perhaps he should have told her a cheerful tale, something that might make her laugh, instead of burdening her with the true nature of the world. For the more he spoke to her, the more he became certain that she was no maid. No, this was Baron Orson's daughter, the virtuous maiden who lived in the tower, and the woman his father had ordered him to kill.

  But his father was far away, and she was so close he could see her shining eyes in the firelight. That was encouragement enough to go on.

  "But it was still the strangest city I have ever seen," he continued. "I have never seen a city so in love with onions! Every tower had an onion for a roof, some beaten out of copper, while others appeared to be gold. And if this was not enough, they'd cut onion-shaped windows in their buildings, too. The marketplace was full of strange spices, and wonders you could scarcely imagine. But even in that far off place, the onion is king."

  Ursula laughed. It was such a lovely sound, deeper and throatier then the titters and giggles of court ladies. Lovely enough to make him want to hear it again.

  "They also had the most enormous baths. Instead of the tubs that we use here, they have entire buildings devoted to their tiled pools. And they are not just for noblemen, either. Any man may bathe there. And women! On more than one occasion, I witnessed a strange procession. A large group of guards and women would head to a particular bathhouse near the city gates. It was only when I asked later that I discovered one of the women was a princess, and the rest her entourage. She did not share the bathhouse, for it was closed for her use alone. On another day, I paid the place a visit, and I saw why the princess favoured it, for it had a bath tub the size of this room."

  Ursula sighed. "It sounds truly amazing. You are a lucky man to have travelled so much. I have never left this valley. My father had plans to send me away, to marry some nobleman's son I'd never met. Now, I will probably never leave."

  Definitely Orson's daughter. Bernard hoped she never learned that he was Vauquelin's son.

  Chapter 21

  After listening to so many stories of far-off lands last night, morning found Ursula surprisingly cheerful. She decided to spend the morning bring supplies from the cellars to the kitchens, where they would be easier to access when she needed them. As she worked, she found things she hadn't noticed before. Someone had hidden a sack of chestnuts between the wine barrels, which she gleefully lugged to the kitchen. There was flour too, and whole sacks of oats. It was almost enough to make her consider waking the villagers from hibernation. But she resisted the urge, for this food was all they had to last them through the whole winter. It seemed like a lot, but she honestly did not know how much they would need. Not to mention some of it belonged to King Siward, who would come to collect it in the spring.

  So she limited her takings to a sack here, a cask there, and a few big stone jars of whatever took her fancy. She packed some salt pork and mushrooms in her basket to take upstairs for dinner, debating whether she should take some turnips and carrots up as well. In the end, she left them on the table, for they were heavy, and she'd rather not carry them all the way up, only to have to drag them all the way down again. With a basket in one hand and a bucket of water in the other, she ascended the tower, greeting the soldier with a smile.

  They would need more wood, she noticed as she set the basket down. Better to get it now than later, for the heavy clouds promised snow in the afternoon, and she wished to be inside when that storm hit.

  In the end, she made several trips, ignoring the ache in her arms, for snowstorms this early in the season could last several days, and it was better to have too much than too little.

  She was exhausted by the time she returned to the kitchen, but he wanted the turnips after all, and another jug of wine to season the stew. But when she returned to the kitchen, she couldn't find the turnips anywhere – or the carrots.

  She checked on the table, thinking they had simply rolled off, but no. If it was something smaller, she might suspect rats, but it would have to be an enormous rat indeed to carry away a whole turnip. Her thief might have been a cow or goat, had there been a single one left in the valley, but there were no hoof prints on the floor, either.

  She'd heard stories of vengeful ghosts who stole or moved things, but she'd never seen one before. Of course, she'd never seen an army slaughter her household before, either, so there could be countless such ghosts in the castle.

  Perhaps she should head to the church, and light a candle for their souls. Lots of candles, for lots of souls – for who knew if anyone had given them the proper death rites, or even a decent burial?

  She took a shuttered lantern and a box of candles with her, holding her cloak closed with one gloved hand against the rising gale. By the time this storm had blown itself out, the pass would be closed for the winter, if it wasn't already.

  The church was chilly, for the cold had seeped into the stone walls without anyone to warm it. The candles had all gone out, and Ursula doubted Father Jacques would wake from hibernation any time before spring.

  Nevertheless, she slid her fingers over the frozen holy water font until she had enough moisture on her fingers to make the sign of the cross as she genuflected.

  The statue of Our Lady stood where it always had, carved from the same limestone as the cave that formed the church walls and ceiling. The ledge before it was a river of melted wax, waiting for her offering.

  With shaking hands, Ursula lit the candles one by one. For Gidie, for Eudes, for Father, for Geoffrey. For the servants who'd kept her warm on cold nights, served her food, kept the home fires burning. For the guardsmen, including Durward, who had fought and died to defend the castle. For everyone she had lost, whose blood was on her hands, because her marriage alliance had not been concluded sooner.

  She even lit a candle for her mother, who would probably be waiting in heaven to greet her murdered family, but Ursula prayed anyway, in the hope that her words might make it so.

  When she had said all she meant to say, Ursula headed out the side entrance, through the churchyard, so that she might visit her mother's grave.

  The sheltered graveyard was not as open to the elements as the castle courtyards, so there was no snow on the ground to conceal the scar across the earth. Where there used to be a path through the gravestones and crypts, now there was an enormous mound of raw earth, topped by a stone cross that had once graced her family's crypt.

  Vauquelin hadn't needed to make it any plainer. This was where the remains of her family lay, along with those who had served them until death. Thrown into a mass grave, hastily covered over by men who had only cared enough to put a cross over them to mark the site.

  A black hole opened up in Ursula's chest, where her heart should be, as she wept for everything Vauquelin had stolen from her and her people.

  Chapter 22

  The wind started to whistle and moan around the tower, throwing snowflakes so hard they sounded like rain. Bernard stoked the fire and stirred the stew, trying not to worry about Ursula. It had been hours since she'd left, promising to return with turnips, but something must have happened to make her forget.

  Had Gosse returned, and attacked her?

  Bernard's blood ran cold at the thought. He'd only known the girl for two days and she'd tried to kill him the moment they met, but he would never have wished such a fate upon her. The panic in her eyes as she
fought for her life, pushing him down the stairs, he understood all too well. In her place, he would have done the same. In fact, in her place, he probably would have stabbed him last night, just to be safe, but she had not done so.

  Instead, she'd changed his bandages, brought him food and fuel for the fire, and let him bore her to sleep with stories of his travels. The girl must be an angel.

  An angel who did not deserve to die or worse at Gosse's hands.

  Bernard considered the door. If he could drag himself to it, he could probably reach up high enough to open it. Then, he could try to slide down the stairs to the passage below. Then what, though? Lying on the ground, here or on the level below, he was hardly capable of defending himself, let alone her. He could try ordering Gosse to leave her alone, but he doubted Gosse would listen to a word he said, let alone obey him.

  Her best chance against Gosse would be to defend herself, then run and hide. She might still be hiding, for she'd hidden for a week before returning to the castle last time.

  A week he'd worry about her, that was for certain. A useless pastime, but what else could he do?

  So he stirred, and stewed, and wished with all his might that she would be all right. But when had his wishes ever come true?

  When the door finally opened, he almost didn't dare to lift his eyes to see who it was. For if it was Gosse…

  She staggered inside, showering snow on the floor as she shivered in her cloak. She fumbled with the clasp, but couldn't seem to unfasten it.

  "Come here, let me help," he said, holding out his arms.

  Ursula dropped to her knees, dived into his arms, and sobbed.

  Bernard froze, but only for an instant. Then he did what he'd originally intended – helping her out of her snow-encrusted cloak before she was soaked through by the meltwater. Ursula didn't seem to notice, or care.