Phoenix Rising I (3 page)

Bronwyn stared at her old nurse dubiously. Marta obviously believed she had some say in her fate when, in truth, she did not. She could ask the king if he would find a husband for her that hailed from the old lord’s bloodlines, but it seemed unlikely that he would consider it--especially if that entailed offering her to a lord of Verde Isle. He would want to reward some of his own men by gifting them with the estate.

Running her temples to soothe the beginnings of a headache, she set her needle work aside and moved restlessly to the window to stare out blindly at the world beyond wishing she had not been born a woman. Women were chattel, passed from man to man, father to husband. They rarely had any say at all in who was chosen for them.

She certainly had not. The king had arranged her first marriage when her father had died, leaving her his only heir. She had not been displeased. William was personable enough when he put himself out to please and he had behaved with the exquisite manners of a gentleman. How was she to guess that it was no more than a façade? In truth she had seen common men that were less brutish.

She had not even
said
anything to set him off. She had simply ignored him when he had come in raging about whatever it was that had displeased him, because she had already learned that saying anything at all was liable to make him turn on her.

Would the next be as bad? Or worse?

Possibly, and yet there was no escape. She must marry. A widow alone was fair game for any who might decide to prey upon her.

It might have been different if the babe had lived. Then the king would certainly have appointed a guardian, but she need not have wed again.

Distress threaded through her at that thought. She had despised William. And yet she could not help but grieve for the babe she’d lost.

Swallowing against the painful knot that rose in her throat, she turned away from the window, gathered her cloak and left the room.

The wind caught her cloak as she let herself of the stout oak door that fronted the castle proper sending it whipping around her. Ignoring it and the chill bumps that formed on her arms, she headed purposefully for the family chapel. It was empty at this time of day, and although she did not find comfort in prayer, she wanted to be alone--completely alone.

From force of habit, she performed the ritual of humility and worshipfulness required by the gods, and then moved to a bench to stare as blindly at the crypt that held her son as she had stared from the window before.

She felt--empty, lost, and she wasn’t entirely certain why. There was an aching sadness inside of her that might have been because she had not truly grieved for the child, but she did not think that that was truly the reason. She felt sad about the babe. It had been an innocent and she hadn’t hated it as she had the child’s father, but she had barely begun to accept that he was nestled within her womb when he was gone.

It
felt
like something else.

Unbidden, images rose in her mind, disjointed as they had been since she’d first awakened from her illness.

She knew it had not been entirely dreams, that she had to accept that some of it was memory, not dream, but there were aspects that she found equally difficult to accept as reality.

William had tried to kill her. She was absolutely certain of that. The ‘dreams’, the marks upon her--even the fact that William had fallen from the tower made it impossible not to accept that much.

But she had not saved herself.

And she still found it difficult to accept that the ‘man’ who’d saved her life was no man. An image of his face teased at her mind. She had found she could not mold it into a solid form, but she remembered his eyes. They were the color of ice. She remembered the well defined bones of his face; the high cheekbones, the strong, square jaw, the forceful chin, the sharply defined nose. She remembered his finely etched lips and his chilling blue eyes best, but she also remembered that she had found his harsh face appealing.

Because he had shown compassion for a stranger, a woman who meant nothing to him … and he had sacrificed something vitally important to him to help her.

She realized abruptly why he seemed familiar to her.

Rising from the bench, she left the chapel, halting again when she reached the courtyard and tilting her head back to look up at the gargoyle that guarded Raventhorne Keep.

“Nightshade,” she whispered.

Chapter Four

Nightshade knew when she looked up at him that she was beginning to remember. A flood of turbulent emotions filled him. Dread vied for dominance with pure animal lust. Shame came in a close third.

He had not really known what had inspired him to speak to her the way he had, as if she was some light skirt, to demand payment for services when he had no intention of doing such a thing--when no man of honor would expect, let alone demand, her favors.

But he was not a man of honor anymore--not a man at all. He’d shredded the last remnants of his honor when he had demanded the use of her body for saving her life.

Lust had inspired it. Being so near her, touching her, had banished what little doubt remained as to why he was so fascinated with her. He had been as near out of control as he could ever recall being, struggling against the mindless need urging him to simply pounce upon her and take what he wanted. He was a beast, not a man to whom honor held any meaning.

He might have acted upon it if not for the fear that he would finish what that bastard Smytheson had started. Like as not she was too frail for a monstrous brute like himself if she had been hale and hearty. Hurt and ill as she was then, in shock from the terror her husband had put her through, it would not have taken much to finish crushing the life from her.

Why then had he tried to frighten her more by speaking so crudely of his needs? Demanding what he knew damned well she would die before she gave him.

He had wanted to disgust her, frighten her.

It had been sheer torment to have her look at him as if he were some valiant knight who’d ridden to her aid--to have her look at him as if he was not a monster, but a man. She could not have seen him well. He knew she couldn’t or she would not have curled so trustingly against him when he had picked her up to carry her to her sickbed. She would have screamed, fought him, fainted--any or all.

The devil of it was he had been determined to dismiss the entire incident from his mind. He knew she had not been in her right mind when she had told him she would give herself to him. And she had not seemed to remember much of anything from that night.

She remembered now, though, and that knowledge was like acid in his veins. Despite all reason, he could not put it from his mind and it added to the torment that he had endured day after day for longer than he could remember until he’d become so accustomed to it he hardly noticed anymore.

Until now. She had destroyed the modicum of peace that he’d been able to find. He had convinced himself he had come to accept, and now he knew he did not accept his fate at all, that he never would.

And as the sun slowly made its trek across the sky, he waged an inner battle.

She had looked directly at his face and she hadn’t screamed or fainted.

She had called his name.

She had meant the vow she had made to him.

It had been the fever talking. She would not have referred to him as a knight if she had truly been able to see him.

She had looked at him in revulsion when he had demanded she give herself to him.

He didn’t care. He hurt for what had been denied to him so long. He ached for her! Why not take something for himself for a change? What difference would it make to her? He would be gentle. He would not hurt her as Smytheson had.

She
owed
him a taste of peace from his torment! She should not have offered if she had not meant it! She had caressed his face, looked at him with open honesty when she had said that she would gladly have him. She should not have said that if she hadn’t meant it! She should not have touched him if she did not welcome his touch!

He had destroyed all hope of ever breaking the curse that held him because of her, killed the last of Gaelzeroth’s blood to protect her! * * * *

The dread that had never been far away even after she learned of William’s death tautened within Bronwyn as she paced the floor of her solar, accepting at last that everything that she had dismissed as the bizarre dreams of fever was real.

Nightshade had saved her life and in return he had asked for her … and she had agreed. She had
wanted
to give herself to him. She had been so grateful to be alive, so relieved that she need never fear William again, she had thought the ‘reward’ he had asked a small token for what he had done.

She still could not remember everything clearly, but she remembered well enough to know that much. She remembered that she had fallen, and no man, nothing but a creature of the dark could have saved her from plummeting to her death.

She
had
been out of her mind with fever for it to seem even vaguely reasonable to lay with a creature such as Nightshade! He was … She didn’t know what he was beyond a creature of black magic. A demon, perhaps? A monster certainly.

He had caught her mid-air as she had fallen, flown with her up to the top of the castle.

He had flown from the window of her room, for that matter, on the night that he had sought his reward.

She frowned at thought.

No, that wasn’t right. She had awakened to find him watching her. She had seen the hunger in his eyes, his face, in the tension of every line of his body. But it was not until she had spoken of reward that he had demanded her body.

She had thought at the time that he had only done that to push her away, to frighten and disgust her, because he had looked at her with far more anger then than desire. And she had said that she would gladly give herself because
she
had wanted to soothe him.

She could not now deny him when she had freely given her word.

The thought terrified her, more, she thought, because she had dreaded every moment that she had spent doing her ‘wifely’ duty with William. The first few times had been a nightmare of pain, humiliation, and disgust. After a time it had ceased to be painful unless he was bent upon hurting her, but it had still filled her with revulsion and dread.

She could not imagine that there would be a hair’s worth of difference from one man to another--which was at least part of the reason she had already nigh made herself ill with dread--knowing she had no choice but to marry again.

Nightshade was no man, though. He was a beast man, and a monstrous brute at that. He had carried her as effortlessly as if she were no more than a child.

He had ceased William and tossed him from the wall as if
he
were no more than a child.

Realizing that her train of thought was scaring her worse, she thrust them from her mind, trying to calm herself.

She could not refuse him. She was honor bound to keep her word.

She had endured months of William. Surely, she could endure the beast’s touch once?

Would once appease him, though, she wondered in sudden fear? Or would he, once she allowed it, demand again and again? She could not stop him. She was not certain the king’s army could stop such as one as he.

He seemed to have some sense of honor, though, she reminded herself, some small thread of humanity.

If he came …
when
he came, she would have his word of honor that he would not trouble her further. She would make him give his word that he would demand no more of her.

She did not know what she would do if he refused to grant her that, but the king’s man would come soon and he would be honor bound to protect her for his king.

She strove for calm acceptance, but as they day waned the little she had managed to gather to herself seeped away with the light. She was tempted, oh so tempted, to gather her women close for protection, because she thought he might not come if the room was filled with women, but she did not know that that would deter him. And in the end, partly because she did not want witnesses to her shame, and partly to protect them, she sent them away.

For hours, it seemed, she lay wakeful, listening to every slightest sound and growing more and more tense, certain with each creaking timber that Nightshade had come. She was not aware that she had dozed, but apparently she had. For, one moment she was alone in her chamber and the next he stood before the hearth, watching her as he had before when she had been so ill.

Everything in her froze when she saw him, limned in the flickering light of the fire and the golden glow of the single candle that had been left burning. She had not been able to remember him clearly, she realized, because she had not really seen him. She had been cocooned by her pain, illness, and shock before. She had not suspected that it was a creature of dark magic that had helped her. She had believed he was a man and that was all she had seen.

He was naked. For many moments that was all that she perceived--naked flesh, long ropy muscles, hard bulging muscle--bare skin. Her mind virtually shut down for several moments, unable to process what her eyes beheld. After what seemed an eon, he blinked, and turned his head away and it broke the spell that held her frozen.

He had not been clothed before, she realized abruptly. What she did remember of that night was being held against warm flesh.

He had reached the window before it dawned upon her that he was leaving.
Instantly, relief flooded her. He was leaving. He would not demand what he had before.
Without understanding the impulse that drove her, she sat up, staring at his

muscular back and flanks and the wicked demon wings that sprouted from his shoulder blades. “I know why you came,” she said in a voice that she hardly recognized as her own.

He stopped, turning his head to look at her. Slowly, his face contorted in a savage glare. “Do you?”

Bronwyn licked her lips. “I offered to reward you for your kindness to me.”