He smiled a little, the wind cool against his heated flesh as he considered how much she would want him. Again and again she would beg him to mount her. She would hate herself for the wicked, heated need that was powerful enough to make her ache for more. He would do what he wanted to her and would not stop until he’d planted his seed deep within her.
“M’lord?”
Startled, he jumped and whirled on the soldier, who apparently had awoken and decided to come prying.
“ ’Tis sorry I am for bothering you,” Afal said carefully, “but I wondered if something was wrong. ’Tis not like you to be up here at night.”
“I’m not an old woman,” Hallyd snapped. The nerve of the mongrel!
“Nay, m’lord, I know, and yet, ’tis not your usual manner to brood in the middle of the night—”
“Brood?” he repeated, one hand fisting and a tic forming beneath his eye. “Bloody hell, Afal, is this not my keep? Can I not take a walk upon my battlements at my whim?” He should cuff the idiot here and now.
And the man was lying, for it was always at night when Hallyd was about. Ever since the curse had been cast upon him, daylight burned his eyes and drove him inside. Only on the darkest days of winter did he dare venture from the shadow of the tall walls of the keep before the sun set.
“Of course you may walk wherever you want, but—”
“But what?” Hallyd demanded, irritated that this pathetic excuse for a guard would have the nerve to approach him, even challenge him.
“Not a thing,” Afal said, realizing belatedly that he’d overstepped his station. He lowered his head and began backing up, like the whipped dog he should be. “I was just inquiring as to your health. And now, I’ll be off to my post.”
And good riddance, Hallyd thought, eyes narrowing as the beefy soldier hustled back to the bastion and took up his post, ramrod stiff, as if he didn’t doze through the night watch. Hallyd was quite aware of that. He also knew Afal kept a small jug of ale tucked into a spot in the tower where the mortar had broken free and a rock had loosened.
Fool.
Hallyd considered pummeling the guard and casting him headfirst over the wall, but he could ill afford to lose another soldier. He also didn’t want to explain the death to the visiting priest, a reverent man who was suspicious enough as it was.
Gritting his teeth, Hallyd turned in the opposite direction and strode to the south tower, where he hurried down the spiraling stairs amid dusky smoke from the rushlights burning low. His own shadow chased him and a rat scurried away, tiny claws scraping as he reached the ground level and walked into the darkened bailey. Beneath the few scattered stars in the misting heavens he surveyed the darkened huts and steep walls.
Once this keep had been a magnificent castle, a shining fortress crawling with servants, peasants, freemen, and soldiers. Now ’twas decaying, half dead, the skeleton of a once robust fortress, filled only with the whispering curse that Kambria had laid upon him. Still, after all these years, that wretched curse cut him to the bone and echoed in the parapets.
He crossed the yellowed grass of the bailey, nearly tripping over a slinking cat that yowled, hissed, then shot into the darkness to hide behind the mason’s hod. “Miserable beast.” He hurried up the steps to the great hall, stung with rage that, like the cat, he had become a creature of darkness.
“Good evening, m’lord,” a guard greeted him as he opened the door. Hallyd strode inside to the smells of smoke, garlic, and pork fat, scents lingering from the last meal. Up the stairs he strode, his long legs taking the steps two at a time, his black mantle billowing behind him. ’Twas now, in the middle of the night, when he felt most alive, most vital.
He hurried along the corridor as the candles burned low and his boots rang hollowly on the stone floors. At the end of the long hall, he turned into his chamber, a large high-ceilinged room where the rafters were exposed and a feeling of emptiness pervaded. The fire had turned to embers and in the bloodred half-light he strode to an alcove where his old cleric’s robes hung by a peg, gathering dust, the rosary dull and still stained with Kambria’s blood.
“Liar,” he whispered now, his fingers curling over the sharp beads as her image invaded his mind. By the gods how she had haunted him, her curse forever ringing in his ears.
You shall live in darkness forever. . . . Your black soul condemned for all eternity. . . .
Nay, not forever, though the past sixteen years had seemed several lifetimes.
Think not of the past. Consider what is to come.
Starting with Bryanna . . .
Remember what you will do to her, how much pleasure you will find, all upon her tender flesh. . . .
His bad mood dissipated into the cold night air as he disrobed and returned to envisioning the pleasures he would force from her body, the satisfaction he would gain.
He tossed his mantle over a corner bench, then worked at the lacings of his breeches. He was getting hard again, his cock straining against the leather at the thought of the ways this sorceress would transform his life. She would restore magick to the dagger, thus ending his painful blindness. She would deliver the Sacred Dagger unto his hands, bringing him power over all of the kingdoms in Wales.
He rubbed the tips of his fingers on his thumbs at the thought, and his cock swelled ever more thickly.
The dagger.
The power.
And another red-haired sorceress to defile.
The image of their primitive mating was so clear he had to bite down hard upon his lip, drawing blood. Desire pulsed through his eager body, but he fought his own searing lust.
’Twas not yet time.
“Bryanna,” he whispered, tasting his own blood as through the window he heard the creak of the windmill and the call of a night bird.
His breathing was shallow and fast, nearly a pant.
He’d waited what seemed a thousand years for this . . . for her.
Bryanna.
Chosen by the Fates.
Only she had the power to lift the curse of darkness.
Only she could deliver the charmed weapon that would elevate him to the highest throne.
His fingers played lightly upon his hardness. Sweat dampened his brow. Closing his eyes, he felt her heartbeat in his own, heard the thunder of her horse’s hooves racing ever nearer, and oh, so distinctly, as if she were truly lying with him at this moment, he imagined her hot, sweet breath against his skin.
Aye, the pleasure would come soon enough.
As would the power.
CHAPTER TWO
Bryanna rode on, ever northward.
Her teeth chattered and her fingers turned icy as she held her cowl tightly over her head against the cold winter wind.
After three days of riding away from Calon, Bryanna knew that if it weren’t for the ugly fact that she was running away because she was half in love with her sister’s husband, she would never have listened to the voices in her head. Never!
But what about the visions? The strange dreams?
She gritted her teeth and pushed away thoughts of the images that flowed through her head. Gems raining from the sky and a red-haired woman on a galloping horse. Absently, gloved fingers holding tight to the reins, she made the sign of the cross over her chest.
Guiding her mare along the rutted road, she considered for the hundredth time if she were slowly but surely going out of her mind. As Alabaster raced easily past a fallow field where the earth was already turned, she wondered why she was haunted by such vivid nightmares of dark omens and jeweled daggers.
“Bother and broomsticks,” she muttered, angling northwest at a fork in the road, where two runny-nosed boys in woolen caps were throwing punches at each other as their pregnant mother tugged on the leather rein of a tired donkey carrying bundles of sticks.
This curse, as she thought of it, had been with her for as long as she could remember, an oddity that set her apart from others, especially her siblings. Though she’d never actually heard wor
ds issued from the grave before, she’d experienced more than her share of premonitions. As a child she had played with friends only she had seen, people and animals she was certain were as real as those visible to others.
Her brothers, older and ready to tease at a moment’s notice, had chided her mercilessly when she’d spoken of the friends they couldn’t see. Tadd and Kelan had taken great pleasure in taunting her and embarrassing her to the point that she’d been near tears but smart enough to staunch their flow rather than suffer another onslaught of laughter.
Her sisters had been no better. Daylynn, the baby, had giggled, though Bryanna suspected the younger girl hadn’t really understood the joke. But Morwenna, the eldest daughter, had made Bryanna regret confiding in any of her siblings.
“That’s such rot,” Morwenna had admonished as they’d been walking their horses through the orchard and plucking a few forgotten winter apples still dangling from a tree devoid of leaves. They’d been in the outer bailey of Penbrooke Keep. The winter sky had been the color of steel, the air crisp but smelling of smoke and horse dung. The farrier’s forge had burned bright, his hammer clanging loudly through the bailey as he’d shaped horseshoes upon his anvil. A stable boy had been sweating as he pushed a cart piled high with dirty straw and manure toward the gates.
“Is anyone near you now?” Morwenna had asked from astride her larger gelding, a big brown beast with a single white stocking. “I mean, any of those friends you were talking about?”
Bryanna, slowly realizing that her sister, too, might mock her, had nodded slowly. “Aye,” she’d said, lifting her chin defiantly. “A few.”
“Really?” The older girl had taken a bite from her apple, then wrinkled her nose and spit out a wormy piece. “Well, I can’t see her or him or them, so they aren’t there.” Morwenna’s eyes had narrowed as a crow had fluttered onto one of the bare branches. “You’re not teasing me, are you? Not making this up for your own amusement at my expense?”
Bryanna had swallowed hard under her older sister’s steady glare, but shook her head, her reddish curls bobbing defiantly. “They are here with me. With us.”
One of Morwenna’s dark eyebrows had arched in disbelief.
“Here? Where?” Morwenna had asked. “On the horse with you?”
“Of course not,” Bryanna had scoffed. “Why would they be on my horse?”
“Well, I don’t know, goose. Why don’t you tell me?”
Bryanna had sighed in long-suffering boredom. “Wolf . . . she’s there, peering out from behind the bole of that tree. No, not that one . . . over there, by the sheep pen.” She’d pointed to the gnarled trunk of a tree. “And then there’s Lil. She’s shy and hiding over there, near the well.”
When Morwenna had turned her gaze to the well near the stables, Bryanna was certain that Lil, her silent friend, would show herself. Instead she peered shyly from behind the wooden bucket that dangled from a thick rod and creaked as it swayed in the wind.
“Lil?” Morwenna repeated, her voice thick as cook’s porridge. “Is she a wolf, too?”
“Of course not! Don’t be a ninny.” Bryanna tossed her hair from her eyes. “Lil’s a girl.” Impatient with her older sister’s open mockery, Bryanna had motioned to her friend. “Lil, come out from behind there.” But the girl, as had been her wont, disappeared when Bryanna hadn’t been looking. “Oh, now she’s gone and hidden herself again.”
“By the gods, Bryanna, you are daft.” Morwenna had been as cross as she had been concerned. “There is no wolf, nor a girl hiding behind the well like a thief.” To make her point, Morwenna had tossed her half-eaten apple at the well, knocking the pail and sending it downward, its rope uncoiling and twisting like a dying snake.
Wolf scuttled away from the well. Bryanna looked beseechinglyafter the little she-wolf, the distinctive ring of shaggy black fur around her neck in stark contrast to her silver coat. The boy she hadn’t mentioned, with his thick shock of black hair and disturbing silver eyes, had looked at her before diving behind a hayrick piled high with straw. Not that Morwenna had been able to see him, of course. When it came to friends, it seemed, Morwenna was as blind as the old hermit monk in the south tower.
“Listen, Bryanna. I don’t know why you insist you see these people and animals, but it’s got to stop. It’s embarrassing. You’re seven years old now, nearly eight, and everyone in the keep is talking about how strange it is . . . how strange you are.”
Bryanna had bristled.
“I don’t mean to be unkind, but—”
“Yes, you do.”
Morwenna had rolled her eyes to the sky, as if contemplating the thickening clouds. “’Tis true. I want you to stop this. You worry Mother and Isa as well. Come now, don’t be cross with me. Just, please, for Mother’s sake, do not be crazy.”
“I’m not.” But Bryanna had felt more than a little stab of guilt when she thought of her mother.
“Good.” Morwenna had nodded, as if satisfied. Then she’d yanked on the reins of her horse. The big gelding sidestepped. “Race you to the portcullis!”
“The captain of the guard won’t like it.”
Morwenna’s eyes had sparkled and a wicked little grin had slid across her lips. “I know. All the better. Sir Hennessy is such an old bore.”
Bryanna had laughed as Morwenna had leaned forward, pressing her knees hard against the horse’s flanks. Her mount shot forward, taking off at a dead run.
On her smaller horse, Bryanna had been quick to follow, her hair streaming behind her, the thrill of the race causing her heart to pound.
She’d lost, of course. She’d lost all competitions when it came to her older sister. But Bryanna had learned her lesson. From that day forward, she had held her tongue about the special friends who would visit her. She pretended to see only what her siblings confirmed, and over the years those ethereal friends—the wolf, Lil, and the boy—had faded to the point that she’d decided they had been nothing but a creation of her own bored mind.
Until recently.
When Isa, the old nursemaid had died and had begun speaking to Bryanna.
Worse yet, Isa was just as bossy dead as she had been while she was alive!
“’Tis a curse,” Bryanna muttered under her breath as Alabaster flew over the frozen earth, her hooves thundering, throwing up bits of mud as they passed two huntsmen heading in the opposite direction. Over the back of one man’s steed was a gutted stag, while the other man had a thick pack that no doubt held rabbits, squirrels, and perhaps a pheasant or dove.
Oh, this was surely a fool’s mission. “Worry not, Bryanna, ’tis your destiny.” Isa’s voice rang clear as a church bell in Bryanna’s head.
“’Tis naught but a batty woman’s folly,” she groused under her breath.
The woman came to Gavyn at night, in his dreams. When he was close to consciousness but hadn’t quite awakened.
She was a woman with pale skin and burnished hair and eyes that gleamed the deep aqua of the sea. Riding through the clouds upon a horse as pale as moonlight, she whispered a soft chant that flowed through his brain and eased the pain that tore through his muscles.
Young and beautiful, vital and rare, she seemed unaware of him as the horse galloped past, gray stockings cutting through the filmy clouds and striking something rock-hard and flinty, causing sparks to appear and stars to shine for but a second before fading in her wake.
Did he know her? Why did he feel they had met before? As she disappeared the clouds roiled and blackened, turning purple and silver until there was only darkness, a gathering gloom in which no stars shined. In the darkness, the agony tore through him once again.
And something else skulked in the obsidian depths.
An evil presence lurked in the shadows, a malevolent being that was silent and hidden, but ever nearer, getting closer to the woman who sped by.
Gavyn tried to cry out a warning, to tell her that she was being followed, nay, stalked, but his voice would not speak and his legs were dead
to him, unmoving. He could not so much as lift a finger. Never in his life had he been weak or impotent, but lying still as death, he was useless. To himself. To her. And the evil one knew it. He feared nothing, this entity without shape that brought a sweeping coldness with him. His presence, his halo of imminent terror, clawed at Gavyn’s heart and froze his soul.
Not a man easily frightened, not a man who feared death, not a man who would back down from a challenge, Gavyn knew terror and desperation for the first time in his life.
And he could do nothing.
Nothing.
Bryanna and Alabaster had traveled far this day, riding through fields where the grass was dry and yellow.
“ ’Tis a good girl you are,” she said to the horse.
For the past few nights they had taken refuge in inns along the way. Though many an innkeeper’s eyebrows raised as she’d approached alone and asked for a room, she’d always found lodging, a bowl of warm water to wash with, and a meal of beans, meat, and dry bread. No one had asked why she was unescorted, a woman whose clothes and manner spoke of nobility, nor had any thief stolen into her room at night, attempting to rob her.
The first night, as she wrapped herself in the inn’s rough blanket and fell into an exhausted sleep, she had heard the sound of musical notes, a backdrop for Isa’s voice as clear as the rain pounding upon the roof. Isa told her she would meet a lone minstrel traveling in the opposite direction. She was to veer right over a bridge after the meeting.
Of course she’d thought the dream was nothing more than a silly enchantment. But at midday, when the heavens threatened to open with more cold rain, she came upon a musician riding upon a donkey, his long hornpipe slung across his back. At the next crossroads, she turned right and soon crossed a short bridge spanning a rushing creek.
The next night, Isa came to her dreams again, and this time her instructions were less clear, but she mentioned a hawk and the turn of his wing.
Rot and rubbish, Bryanna thought the following morning. After a breakfast of tasteless porridge, she collected Alabaster from the stable and again rode north. Although there was no rain peppering the ground, the wind was fierce, keening down from the mountains and whistling through the canyons. The countryside was more rugged than she’d seen, the towns and castles spaced far apart. As the day wore on not only was she hungry, but lonely as well, and as she spied a hawk in the cloudy sky, she silently cursed Isa and the visions.