Shana Abe (24 page)

Longing filled her, a violent yearning for a place she had visited ten thousand times over in her dreams.
I want this
, she cried in her heart,
please, let me have it now, at last. Let me have it for this small time and I’ll be good forevermore
.

Oh, please
.

“Wolfhaven,” she whispered, and it was all he needed to hear.

I
t was their secret place. None of the adults knew of it, none would guess that it was there, the thicket of briar bushes, a miniature valley of the richest green tucked up against a crumbling old Roman wall. They had to make a tunnel through the brambles to reach it and were rewarded with a long, hidden blanket of grass containing wondrous things: shiny ants, beetles with iridescent shells, quartz pebbles both smooth and rough. Above them tiny birds with speckled throats sang in short, piercing bursts
.

She was young, very young, with Damon still a full head taller. He sat beside her, cross-legged in the grass. Blades of grass tickled her chin. But she wasn’t happy. Damon was angry with her. Damon was upset, and that meant she was upset
.

Tears welled up in her eyes and rolled unchecked down her rounded cheeks. For once he did not comfort her, he would not hold her
.

I’m sorry, she sobbed, I’m sorry I did it. Please, Damon, I’m sorry
 …

His boyish face was unchanged, condemning. You knew
better, he said, I told you not to do it and you did anyway. That was very bad
.

No, she cried, and thought her heart would break
.

Bad girl, scolded Damon, but now he was a grown man, here in the thicket beside her, a huge man without the warm brown eyes of the boy she knew. The man’s eyes were hard, glittering. They were filled with disgust
.

She reached out to touch him again, and now she was grown too, a woman’s hand stretching for him, a woman’s voice pleading with him. Please
 …

He changed again, the boy and the man shifting, but remaining the same person at once. Both of them rebuffed her, made her sit alone in the well of thick green grass, made her feel her punishment with the keen sharpness of a knife. Was it so bad, she wanted to say, was it that unforgivable? I had to do it! You are my life, please hold me again
 …

But all he did was shake his head
.

No. Never again, never again
 …

And in the distance, she heard the lonesome howl of the wolf
 …

S
olange jerked awake, covered in a cold sweat that molded her nightgown to her form and chilled her to the bone. The wolf cry she had heard in her dream came again, a haunting echo of forlorn depths, sending shivers to her soul.

It was her first night at Wolfhaven, the first few hours still, she would guess, and the first time she had had the dream in many months. She hated waking up this way; she hated reliving the pain of loss over and
over again. She had hoped this dream would have stayed behind at Du Clar, where it had been born. She didn’t want to go through that again. Foolishly she had thought it would be vanquished now, but she was wrong.

To calm herself, she wrapped a warm quilt around her and climbed out of the bed, going over to the gabled window overlooking a misty forest. The window was already open; she had left it that way deliberately, uncaring if the cold air came in. At least there was air flowing, a breath of life in the room. She pushed the panes open wider and leaned her elbows on the sill, enjoying the briskness on her face. Beyond the forest and curving around to the south was the ocean, crashing against steep granite cliffs. The steady boom of the pounding surf carried over the treetops.

Wolfhaven.

Poised between the land and the sea, more savagely beautiful than even she could have imagined, Damon’s druid castle felt right to her from the moment she set eyes upon it.

It felt like home.

Not like Ironstag, of course, that physical home of her birth and unsuspecting youth. Wolfhaven felt like the phantom home of things she barely remembered, times so far past she could never name them, ghosts of friends, companions. She recognized the blackened towers, she knew the elegant, sharp lines of the castle even as she looked upon them for the first time. Her spirit had cried out in gladness to be back here and she didn’t question that. She didn’t want to question anything at all, no doubts, no fears in her new life. She
wanted to embrace everything joyfully, she wanted to replenish her life’s blood here in these ancient halls. She didn’t know how long she would be allowed to stay, but she would relish every moment.

It was what she was supposed to do, she was sure of it.

Damon’s arrival at Du Clar had been an unexpected shock, doubled by the news of her father’s death. Her knight’s timing, however, could not have been more fortuitous as far as she was concerned. She had already made plans to leave the estate as soon as possible; his visit had merely speeded her decision by a day or so.

She had planned to seek sanctuary in a convent, an English one if she could manage it, and had collected enough gold to ensure her welcome at any of them. But Henry’s death ripped a sudden hole in these long-awaited plans, and then the decision to go to Ironstag instead had seemed natural.

She would never have returned to the castle if her father were still alive. It was a sullen grudge, childish, no doubt, but anchored in a woman’s fear of being returned to Du Clar without being heard, or, worse, without caring.

Well, perhaps she had merely wanted to say good-bye. Looking back upon those final moments at Du Clar, Solange realized she had acted without much thought at all but rather on pure instinct. She supposed Ironstag would have belonged to Redmond now, but she was certain she could have made it there and been gone again before his men showed up.

But with a sudden turn of the stars Wolfhaven became home. She didn’t miss Ironstag. It felt as if she
was supposed to have been here all along. It had just taken her a few extra years to achieve it.

Her room was open and airy, filled with things she naturally loved, as if someone—no, she amended to herself, as if
Damon
had placed each piece of furniture, each thick rug, each glowing tapestry with her in mind. Even the window, the large, gorgeous window, faced west into the sunset, her favorite view. It was an impossible thought, of course. She wasn’t so vain as to think he actually did decorate a room for her, since he could not have known she would ever be here. But perhaps some of her taste did reflect in this magical room. Perhaps he had remembered, and thought enough of it to, well, emulate it a little.

Or perhaps she was just a stupid dreamer, she told herself firmly. He probably had nothing to do with the furnishings of any of the rooms. He was the marquess, after all, and decorating was women’s work.

Which led her to an interesting question. Was there a current Marchioness of Lockewood? She cupped her chin in her hand. He would have told her, she decided. She would have known somehow.

She turned and gave a speculative look to a tall wooden door in the wall by the bed. It was not the door to the hallway outside, that one was over by the fireplace. This was a connecting door leading to another chamber. Another bedchamber.

They had arrived long after the household had gone to bed, so late that the moon had already left the sky. Solange had been in a strange daze of excitement mixed with exhaustion. When she had her first view of Wolfhaven, satisfaction was added to the myriad
emotions within her. But for all the glory and wonder the castle evoked, she barely had time to take it in, for by then the gates were being raised by the nightguardsmen and Damon was ushering her inside, assuring her that Iolande would be well provided for.

She had declined food or drink, wanting only to lie down somewhere, anywhere, and sleep forever. The other men looked as tired as she felt and scattered to their own corners of the castle almost immediately. Damon did not press her for refreshments, but instead took her straight to this chamber. He lit the fire for her himself while she stood swaying wearily in the center of the room. Then he took her gently by the shoulders and led her over to the bed. He looked closely at her, unsmiling, and bid her a good night.

Then he left.

Solange tried now to remember which door he had exited. She thought it might have been the connecting door, but at the time she had paid no attention. All she had wanted to do was strip herself of her dirty clothing and fall into the softness of the feather bed. A maidservant had come by—or was that her imagination? No, because she was wearing a nightgown, a pretty thing of fine pale blue wool, and she had brought none to wear. Also, she didn’t feel the grime of the trail as she should. She had taken a quick sponge bath, that’s right. The maid had brought the gown and pitcher of water, yes, there it was, on the table, and then left without saying a word. She had definitely left through the hall door.

With the quilt trailing behind her, Solange walked over to the connecting door. It had a plain iron handle, she noted, which opened easily to her touch.

Behind it was a second bedchamber, just as she guessed. If anything, it was bigger than her own, sparsely furnished, and as familiar to her as could be. The figure in the bed was silent, unmoving, a dark shape she couldn’t make out. Nevertheless, she had no doubts about who lay there sleeping. This was Damon’s room.

It had the spareness typical of his style, a simplicity of design both masculine and elegant. He had a matching window here to the one in her room, with the same view. She saw a few scattered rugs of muted colors, solid wooden furniture, one or two massive trunks, and—this was new to her—a rather daunting collection of weaponry on the far wall, from crossbows to gauntlets to spiked morning stars.

But he had also kept the things she remembered. There was his vast pharmacopoeia, now taking up an entire wall. He had made a clever rack for them out of jointed, crisscrossing wooden planks that reached from floor to ceiling. Some of the jars and pouches still had her inked cards in front of them, balanced in the nooks.

She also saw the row of stones, placed on a far table, and beside them was the handkerchief, a small square banner of her love for him, faded and frayed but still kept after all this time.

Of all the things to keep, she thought regretfully, I left him with that sorry little bit of cloth. It should have been so much more.

The sadness overtook her without warning, the bittersweet heat of it blurring her vision, making her press both hands over her mouth to stifle the cry. She turned
back to the door, grabbing up the quilt with hasty hands, trying to make no noise at all as she retreated.

“Solange,” came the quiet call from the bed.

She stopped, stunned to the core.

“Come here,” Damon said.

She didn’t move. She couldn’t move.

“Please,” he added in a ragged whisper.

She had to do something. She had to decide. Behind her she heard him move the blankets off him, heard him stand up.

She was out of time and out of options.
This was what you wanted all along
, whispered a knowing little voice inside of her,
this is the real reason you opened the door. You should at least be honest with yourself
.

Solange straightened her shoulders and dropped the quilt. It fell in cushioned folds to the ground at her feet.

She was breathing rapidly, though from fear or anticipation she couldn’t tell.
Turn around
, the voice scolded,
turn around and face him, he deserves that
.

So she did, standing in the well of the fallen quilt. The nightgown twisted at her feet, forming a sheath that hugged her body with sudden appeal, leaving him to halt halfway between her and the bed. To her extreme embarrassment, she saw that he was nude. After one mortified glance downward, she kept her eyes trained on his face.

“Solange,” he said again, and this time all the raw need he felt was apparent. “If you don’t want me to shut that door behind you forever, you had better leave now.”