A Battle Lord’s Heart (3 page)

           
The first target was a mere thirty
yards away, but it was farther away than the one she’d twice missed the day
before. The day she had finally admitted to herself, to Liam, and to her
husband that she carried their future in her womb. Atty stared at the target, unmoving,
for a full minute.

           
Moving over to where his men were
standing, Yulen crossed his arms to watch. He knew she still had her skills.
When the Blood army had almost managed to ambush them, she had been carrying
their child, and it hadn’t interfered with her abilities. No, yesterday was a
fluke, but a fluke she had to be prepared for in case it happened again. Yulen
hoped that it wouldn’t happen when he most desperately needed her bow for their
protection.

           
A slight wind gusted over the field.
Atty lowered her head and closed her eyes. Faint noises from the compound and
market wafted over to them, but they weren’t loud enough to break her
concentration. Yulen realized she was centering herself, trying to find that
inner calm from where she drew her unerring eye. Behind him the men also seemed
to notice, and one man whispered, “I wouldn’t doubt if she’s telling the babe
to settle down so she can make the shot.”

           
Yulen chuckled. Neither would he.

           
There were less than a handful of
people standing at the outer edge of the circle marking the circumference of
the practice field, but more were slowly climbing up the small rise to join
them. Silence sat over the stretch of dead grass.

           
Suddenly, Atty lifted her head and
grabbed an arrow out of the little barrel beside her. In one smooth flow she
nocked and fired. As if guided by a wire, the barb buried itself in the direct
center of the red bull’s eye.

           
Snatching another arrow from the
barrel, she began to walk toward Yulen and the group of men standing at the edge
of the field.
 
Yulen instantly knew what
she intended, and he mentally began to tick off the additional yards:
five...ten...twelve.

           
She whirled, without even aiming,
and fired the next arrow. The first arrow now became two halves as the second
one split it cleanly apart. Atty was back in full force.
 

           
Yulen let out a low whistle. She
heard his appreciation and turned around to give him a wink. Returning to the
barrel, she grabbed two more arrows, nocked one, and placed the other in her
teeth. This time she gave the target another good stare before she turned her
back on it and closed her eyes. Slowly, gradually, she raised the bow and
turned it sideways, aiming it behind her. The sub-lieutenant beside Yulen
gasped. “She’s going to attempt to hit it
for memory?
”

           
The wind gusted again. Atty waited
for it to die down. The bow lowered slightly as she adjusted, remembering how
it felt, the position of her arms and hands, the tension on the string. Her
eyes remained closed.

           
Everyone held their breaths. They’d
all seen blindfolded shots before, but those had been nothing more than
trickery. They were never meant to be actual, honest attempts.

           
Yulen didn’t know he was holding his
breath as well until she released the arrow. A heartbeat later, she nocked the second
arrow she’d been holding in her teeth and let it fly directly behind the first
one.

           
The crowd gasped. There were still
only two arrows on the target. The original two. Confused and surprised, they
all turned to look at the woman standing with a smug grin on her face. Yulen
blinked, then he let out a bark of laughter and pointed.
 
A second target sat, unobserved and
unnoticed, twenty feet beyond the one they’d been watching. A second target
that now held two identical arrows, one embedded in the other, just like the
closer one.

           
Oh, yeah.
He smiled to
himself as she walked over and into his arms amid the cheering. His Atty was
definitely back.

           
Once the congratulations were over,
the couple linked arms and walked back to the compound. Inside, Atty accepted
several more good wishes from people who had been standing on the parapet to
watch. It took them a while before they were able to make it over to the new
lodge where Yulen had planned to take her originally.

           
To Atty’s surprise, the lodge looked
complete. There was even a door.
 
“Okay,
this is going to be interesting.”

           
“How so?” he asked, opening the door
and waving for her to step inside ahead of him. She did as requested, halting
just inside the doorway. Atty gasped, unable to believe what she was seeing.

           
The living area extended upward to
the vaulted ceiling.
 
An enormous rock
fireplace was almost finished being constructed along one wall, disappearing
just beyond where a railing marked off a hidden area upstairs. “What’s up
there?” she asked.

           
“Let’s go see,” he grinned, pointing
to the stairwell behind them.

           
Atty ascended first, following the
curving steps to the narrow landing at the end of the railing. It was then she
noticed that the entire area upstairs was not enclosed, but rather opened up to
the living area below.
 

           
Here, the roof was pitched another
good fifteen feet overhead. The fireplace that had been started below had
branched over and filled the same north wall of the room.
 
One fireplace, two flues. Atty glanced over
where her husband stood, waiting for her reaction. “That’s our bedroom, isn’t
it?”

           
“Keep looking.”

           
The east wall held one enormous
window made up of many small panes of glass.
 
Atty knew she would love watching the sun rise in the mornings from that
window.
 
Behind her, facing west, was
the bannister overlooking the downstairs area. The only other wall to her right
was solid, braced by small doors on either side. “Where do those go?”

           
Yulen cleared his throat. “I’ve
already spoken to you about those, remember?”

           
She paused, racking her brain.
“Something about ‘in case’. Was that it?”

           
Rather than answer her, he motioned
with his hand for her to look.
 
Atty
went to the door closest to the bannister. Opening it, she stepped into the
bathroom.

           
“Oh, my God.”

           
She heard him chuckling as he came
up behind her. “Like it?”

           
“That is the biggest damn tub I’ve
ever seen in my life.”

           
Yulen had to agree with her. “Berta
had a fit when she saw it,” he confided.

           
“I don’t doubt it,” Atty laughed.
“It’ll take two trips to fill it!” Looking up, she paused. “Yulen?”

           
“What?”

           
“Why are there two more doors in the
bathroom?”

           
“That one leads to the closet,” he
told her, motioning to the one in the wall directly behind the tub.

           
“Closet?”

           
Seeing him grin, she walked over and
pulled on the latch. It swung inward, revealing a large storage area where the
Battle Lord’s ceremonial armor already sat, if the huge leather sacks held what
she thought they held. To make certain, she rapped her knuckles against the
largest one, and met the resistance of metal. She stepped back into the
bathroom and went to the second door on the opposite side.

           
“How about this other one?”

           
“Keep snooping, my love.”

           
Giving him an exasperated look, Atty
opened the second door. Walking into the smaller room, she froze in place as
she spotted the tiny cradle sitting in the middle of the floor. Yulen stopped
behind her and drew an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him until he
could press his cheek to her hair.

           
“‘In case’ we ever had a baby,” he
said softly. “The cradle was mine. Madigan kept it in storage, hoping one day I
would end my wild ways and settle down.” He turned her around and settled her
body along his, feeling her warmth despite both their jackets. Atty snuggled
against his chest, closing her eyes as he held her tightly. Nudging his chin
into her temple, Yulen let her know he wanted to kiss her. She lifted her face
as he lowered his, and she hungrily accepted his lips.

           
How long they stood there touching,
kissing, stroking a cheek, a brow, or the tender skin under an ear, they had no
idea. Yulen had sent the workers home early so he could show Atty the lodge,
leaving them all alone inside the unfinished building. The solitude was
intoxicating.

           
Slowly, Yulen lowered them down to
the bare wood floor until she was lying on her back and he was stretched out
beside her. Undoing the buttons at the neck of her jacket, he found the velvet
warmth of her throat and the hollow where her pulse beat strong beneath the
skin. As his mouth and tongue rasped over it, Atty caught her breath and
shivered.

           
“Cold?” he murmured almost too quiet
to hear.

           
No. She wasn’t cold. Just the
opposite. She was burning up. Burning up with the need to feel him against her
overly-sensitive skin and breasts. Panting softly, Atty struggled to undo the
fasteners on her jacket as Yulen began to unbutton her pants. He rolled onto
her side, sliding along her hip, until she could feel his hardened erection
straining against her thigh. His mouth found the tip of one breast beneath her
tunic and he teased it with his teeth until her nipple ached for him to suckle
it. Atty groaned, and she heard him echo the sound.

           
Rolling onto her side, she reached
for his erection, finding it bulging within the tight confines of his pants.
Grasping it, she gave it a squeeze and began manipulating it, pulling and
tugging on it until he slipped his own hand down the back of her pants. Atty
whined softly as his fingers traveled between her buttocks, then dipped
further. He began to insinuate one finger into her anus as another found her
clit. He had played with her before in that fashion, telling her that at some
point in the future he planned to take her from the rear. Her body shivered at
the erotic electricity sizzling through her.

           
Atty lifted her rear to give him
easier access, when something alerted her. Faintly she thought she heard the
sound of a door closing, when a voice called out. Every nerve immediately
tensed, and Yulen shuddered as he likewise stopped to listen.

           
“Sir?” came a tentative voice for
the second time.

           
He let out a choice expletive. Atty
smiled to hear it. “At least it’s not Cole this time.” She tried to make light
of it, knowing how much her husband detested having his second in command
interrupt them during moments like this. It was a habit Mastin was trying to
break.

           
“No,” Yulen admitted, knowing the
man was still recovering in the clinic. “It sounds like Paxton.” Reluctantly he
got to his feet and jerked his coat down over his hips. “Stay there,” he
ordered down at her as Atty pulled the edges of her coat together to preserve
her warmth. “I’ll be right back.”

           
Atty watched and listened as her
husband left the nursery through a door that opened back into their bedroom,
and went to see who was looking for him.
 
“What is it?” she heard him inquire in a peeved tone. His voice
echoed eerily in the empty building..

           
“A messenger just arrived from
Bearinger, sir,” Paxton relayed from the living area below. “You need to come
hear this.”

           
“Give me the short end of it,” Yulen
demanded.

           
“Bloods.”

           
Atty was up and fastening her
clothes before he got back to the room to fetch her. She followed behind him as
they descended the stairs, only stopping just as they got to the front door.

           
“Oh, damn! I left my bow upstairs!”
she remembered. “Go ahead. I won’t be but a sec.”

           
“We’ll be in the main lodge,” he
told her, and went on ahead.

           
Quickly Atty hurried back upstairs
to find where she’d propped her weapon on the wall near the bathroom door.
Snatching it up, she turned to go back downstairs, but for some reason the
wooden steps wanted to sway under her boots. She paused, hoping to get her
sense of balance back. Taking one careful step at a time, and holding onto the
curved bannister with her free hand, she managed to get to the bottom landing
to find the floor there was also tilting at an odd angle. Worse, there seemed
to be a roaring in her ears, as though a great wind was blowing with tremendous
force through the living area.

           
Reaching for the door, she tried to
make the last few steps, hoping that once she got outside, the strange
topsy-turvy floor, and now the room, would stop moving. Relentlessly, the
roaring noise became so loud as to drown out everything, including her call for
help. The last thing she remembered was the floor rushing upward to strike her
in the face, and the world went from day to night in the blink of an eye.