Nightshade (8 page)

They lay still, entwined, gasping for breath, unable even to move for many moments. Finally, still holding her to him, Nightshade struggled further onto the bed and loosened his hold on her.

Sated, glorying in the warm afterglow, Bronwyn made no attempt either to gather her wits or to gather herself to move away. Instead, once she had recovered some presence of mind, she snuggled closer to his body, resting her hand lightly on his massive chest. He lifted a hand with obvious effort and dropped it to her head, which was nestled on his shoulder, stroking her hair. “I did not hurt you, sweeting?” he asked gruffly after a moment.

From out of no where the urge to weep swept over her, filling her eyes with tears and overflowing.

Chapter Eight

Bronwyn sniffed, struggling to stem the scalding tears and failed. He had called her sweeting! He had just made her feel the most wonderful thing in the world, loved her body almost worshipfully, and now he was worried that he had hurt her?

She made a snuffling sound as she fought the urge to break down and squall like an infant, realizing abruptly that it was the sense of hopeless that filled her at his words that had broken the dam. He cared for her and she had fallen desperately in love with him and there was no hope for them! None!

Feeling the hot tears seeping from her eyes, he sat up abruptly, grasping her jaw and tilting her face up to his gaze. “No,” she answered him finally through lips that struggled awkwardly with the effort of forming even that word.

He released her abruptly, surging from the bed. She scrubbed the tears from her eyes with her hands, but they only filled again, blurring her vision as she tried to look at him. The look on his face when she finally brought his image into focus was truly terrible. “You did not hurt me,” she said shakily.

His face, already drained of color, went perfectly blank. She watched his throat work as he swallowed. “Why do you weep, then?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.

She didn’t want to tell him. What would it change to tell him? Would he even believe her? She scarcely believed it herself, and yet she had only to look at him to feel, deep in her soul, that he had touched her as no other ever had. He cared for her. He had thrown away his only chance of breaking the curse upon him because he could not bear to see her hurt. He had lavished her with his passion and given her wondrous pleasure in return.

He hurt. She could only begin to imagine what torment his existence had been to him. He needed her as badly as she needed him.

“I do not know,” she lied.

He knew instantly that she was lying. Pain flickered in his eyes, contorted his features. “I can not help the beast I am,” he snarled, staring down at his hands as if he hardly recognized them as his own.

Bronwyn stared at his hands, as well, and then glanced down at herself, spying the deep red marks from their rough lovemaking, the beginnings of bruises. “Nay! You are no beast to me!”

He shook his head. Turning, he strode to the window and leapt upon the sill.

Bronwyn’s heart seemed to stand still in her chest. She couldn’t allow him to leave believing he had hurt her! Scrambling from the bed, she raced toward him. “I was weeping for us, beloved!” she cried, grasping his hand in both of hers and demanding that he look at her. “I love you, Nightshade,” she gasped breathlessly when his gaze met hers.

He snatched his hand back as if hers had burned him, stared at her wordlessly in shock for a split second and then his face contorted as if he were in terrible pain and he tumbled from her window.

Stunned, Bronwyn stared blankly at the thick snow falling beyond the window for many moments before she gathered her wits to look out. She could see nothing but the falling snow however and after a moment, shivering with both the cold from the storm and the coldness that had begun to creep inside of her, she closed the window and retreated to her bed, cursing herself for ten kinds of fool.

* * * *

Pain tore through him, pain such as he could not recall feeling in his memory. It blinded him, clawed at his mind so that he could not think. It was instinct that guided him to try to catch the air currents with his wings as he felt himself plummeting toward the ground below, but he had no control. Briefly, he felt an uplift of his body as if his wings had caught a strong updraft, felt the slowing of his descent, and then nothing.

He struck the ground with stunning force, a force that punched the air from his lungs and shut down thought for an unaccountable time. As he lay stunned, staring up at the white flakes fluttering down to powder his face, tangling in his eyelashes, he began to feel as if his skin was on fire. His teeth began to chatter together so loudly that the sound finally penetrated his preoccupation with the burning.

He was cold!

Stunned by that realization, he struggled in the shifting drift and finally managed to push himself upright. His hands, he discovered when he lifted them to see why they were stinging, were scraped and cut. He stared in disbelief at the abrasions as the bright red blood seeped to the surface and dripped to the snow.

Finally, he dropped his hands and pushed himself to his feet, looking around to get his bearings. A frown of puzzlement knit his brows when he realized that he could scarcely see for the dark and the pelting snow.

After a moment, he lifted his head and stared upward. Dimly, he could see the glow of light from a window high above him.

He’d fallen.

He’d injured himself in the fall.

He pondered that, staring at his palms again, trying to ignore the cold that was rattling his bones as he stood naked in the snow.

He’d felt the pain of transformation, and yet it was night. There was no sign at all that the sun would soon break the horizon.

And the pain had been like nothing he had felt before, not like it was each morning when his body transformed once more from flesh to stone.

Contemptuous, spiteful laughter rose in his memory, seemed to ring in his, for he had memorized long ago every word from Gaelzeroth’s lips that had sealed his fate forever. Until the day a woman looks upon you with love in her heart, you will guard my keep from my enemies, keep watch over me and mine like the good little watch dog you are!

Warmth flooded him in spite of the cold. She loved him!

A tentative smile curled his lips. His little rose, his Bronwyn loved him!

A shaky laugh escaped him, a sound that had not emerged from him in …. He broke off the thought, sobering.

He was going to freeze to death. “Beloved,” he muttered wryly. “You picked a hell of a time to free me!”

The full impact of his predicament began to settle inside of him. He had nothing--no clothes, no weapon--no wealth, no estate, no chance to win his beloved Bronwyn.

“Evil bastard!” he snarled, looking around again and trying to formulate a plan since his wits was all he had and the strength of his arms.

Any curse can be broken, Gaelzeroth had said. The trick is to formulate one so cleverly diabolical that it is unlikely to ever be broken!

It would not have been either, if not for the fact that he had become so enamored of Bronwyn that he had not counted the cost to himself, that he had not been able to stay away even knowing she must be revolted or, more likely, terrified by his beastly form. He would have been perched still on his prison ledge to guard the knave’s keep forever.

And he had been stripped of everything.

Fury began to boil inside of him as the realization sank into him fully that he was still cursed, for he had no way to take his lady to wife.

Stalking purposefully across the keep, his hands balled into fists, he headed straight for the guard room. He knew that few would be on watch on such a night as this and those few would most likely be as drunk as the king’s man who’d been sent to oversee them but preferred to keep his fat ass warm before the hearth in the great room.

There were three men-at-arms he discovered when he pushed the door open and entered. They looked up from the game of chance they were playing half-heartedly and there mouths slowly slid to half-mast. Stalking purposefully toward them, he grabbed the nearest, hauled him from his seat and punched him squarely in the jaw. Pain exploded in his hand, but he ignored it as he had the cold, flinging the unconscious man toward the others. One sprang away from the body as it flew toward. The other went down beneath the weight of the unconscious man. He slammed his fist into the second man’s belly as the soldier grabbed for his sword. Off balance already, the blow doubled him over, sending him further off balance. He sprawled in the floor. Before he could get up, Nightshade had the blade at his throat. “Don’t,” he growled warningly.

The man subsided and Nightshade turned his attention to the third man. Seeing he was still struggling to crawl out from under the first man, Nightshade whipped the sword in his direction. “Slowly, unless you’re of a mind to be spitted on my blade.”

The man subsided and Nightshade looked them over one by one. “You! Get up and tie these two up.”

The man stared at him blankly for a moment but rose cautiously to his feet when Nightshade backed up a few paces. The two men still conscious exchanged a speaking glance as the man who’d been order to tie the other two moved slowly to obey. “It will cost you your life,” Nightshade growled warningly.

The man sent him a startled glance, tensed for a moment and finally relaxed again, conceding defeat. “Ye look familiar. Who are ye, then?” he asked sullenly as he searched the room and finally brought a coil of rope and proceeded to tie the other two men as Nightshade directed.

“It would mean nothing to you if I told you.”

“How’d ye get into the keep?”

Nightshade ignored that, watching the man through narrowed eyes until he’d tied the other two men and then motioning him aside so that he could check the bindings. His lips tightened and he sent the man a menacing glare. “Tighter--or I could simply slit their throats and eliminate the problem.”

The man’s face reddened with fury but he returned to his comrades and tied the rope more securely. “There’s only one reason I can think a man’d be running about bare arsed in weather like this,” he muttered. “An’ that’s on account of the woman he was fuckin’ tossed him out--Or he got caught plowin’ some maid he ought not.”

Uttering a snarl of fury, Nightshade caught the man square on the jaw with the hilt of his sword. Grasping the man’s tunic as he fell to the floor, he dragged the man up by the fistful of fabric until they were almost nose to nose. “Dangerous thoughts and a loose tongue,” he snarled. “Should I slit your throat, I wonder? Or cut out your tongue?”

The man’s eyes, still rolling about in his head from the blow, bulged. As he stared at the rage contorting Nightshade’s face, however, his fear deepened and his expression became a look of purest horror. “Nightshade,” he whispered hoarsely.

Nightshade shook him and released him. “The clothes. Take them off.”

Shaking like a leaf blowing in a strong wind, the man nodded jerkily and began to snatch his clothing off and toss it until he stood shivering in his chausses. Nightshade looked the garment over with distaste. “Those too.”

The man gaped at him but hastened to comply, dropping his undergarments beside the rest.

“Thank you,” Nightshade said almost pleasantly and then slammed his fist into the man’s jaw. The soldier’s eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the floor.

Setting the sword aside, Nightshade pulled the clothes on, trying to ignore the stench that clung to them. He’d judged the man closest to his size, but the clothing was still far too tight, the sleeves of the tunic and legs of the breeches too short. Muttering curses under his breath, he tugged the stockings on and shoved his feet into the boots.