Warrior Reborn (24 page)

Chase dipped his head respectfully, grateful he’d made it this far unnoticed, considering how many people apparently wandered the halls at this hour.

“Whatever you say, Captain. But it’s a damn shame a man can’t find some bread or fruit or something fit to put in his belly around here.”

His stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly. He really was hungry, having missed his evening meal in favor of something much more appealing.

“It’s yer arse, no yer belly, what will get the workout this day. Even now Artur assembles the men to accompany us to the Sinclair. So be off with you. It’s time you were readying yer mount for the ride. We leave as soon as I see this one home.” Ulfr growled the last, shoving his companion ahead of him.

The woman gasped as a cold burst of wind buffeted her at the open doorway, tossing the hood of her cloak back.

Chase recognized her as one of the servers he’d seen in the great hall at mealtime, a small, dark-haired woman who, from the back, he’d more than once confused with Christiana.

No confusing her now, not with her eyes swollen shut and blood oozing from the cuts to her lower lip.

“What happened to you?”

“Best you move along and forget what you’ve seen here,” Ulfr warned quietly, pulling the hood
back up over the woman’s head. “This concerns none but our laird.”

Torquil had done that to her?

Walking back to the barracks, Chase sent a silent thanks to the Fae that he’d soon have Christiana out of this place, even as his mind scrambled to figure out some way to make the beast who ruled this castle pay for what he’d done to that poor woman.

H
E’D SAID HE
loved her.

Christiana bent to the floor to retrieve her chemise and dropped it over her head.

I love you.
He’d said those very words not five minutes past.

Neither her physical exhaustion nor her concern over Chase’s obvious lack of belief in the power of the Norns could steal this joy from her. She wouldn’t allow it.

Instead, she’d consider how to keep him safe in spite of his erroneous belief that he could control what was to come. The future was woven and could not be undone. She was confident in that knowledge, though the memory of the gaping hole she’d seen in the distance did trouble her a little.

What if, as Chase claimed, the Faerie’s interference had changed everything?

“No,” she whispered aloud, crossing the room to pick up her overdress.

She couldn’t lose faith now. It was much more
likely that the alternative Chase had devised was waiting there in Skuld’s world, a path already woven, simply obscured by the Mysts.

With a sharp snap of the cloth, she shook the overdress in an effort to eliminate a few of the wrinkles caused by the garment’s lying in a crumpled heap upon the floor.

“Worth every wrinkle,” she murmured, a smile returning to her lips.

She would not waste her energy on this worry. It could all be resolved easily enough when next she traveled to Skuld’s world.

A glance at the deep gray light around the shutters assured her the morning’s sun hadn’t yet pushed its way above the horizon. Even now the cook’s helpers would be buzzing about the storage rooms, like bees at a hive, gathering all the ingredients for the morning meal. She had a good half hour or more before she could slip unseen through that exit.

Plenty of time to spread the blanket back over the bed so it wouldn’t be obvious anyone had been here. Plenty of time to lie down for a moment or two, just to rest her eyes while she held to her breast the pillow that still carried Chase’s scent.

T
hirty

S
TANDING AT THE
window, high in his tower, Torquil surveyed the activity below. As the sun spread its rays, more and more of his people emerged from their hovels to scurry about their day’s work, indistinguishable from this height.

Pathetic, interchangeable little beings, all of them, with no better purpose for their existence than to serve him as docile cattle.

Not all of them interchangeable, he amended his thoughts. And not all so docile. Though the little whore who’d spent the better part of her night begging for her life would think twice before she questioned his demands again.

Her and her ugly, muddy eyes.

He should have given her to the beast stirring within him. Next time, he just might.

He leaned his arms on the windowsill, drawing the crisp, fresh air into his lungs in an attempt to forestall his need for sleep. The whole of yesterday had been given over to the pursuit of the scroll’s spell.

He was so close in his efforts, he’d actually felt
his body turning to mist on his last attempt. But then his cluttered, mortal-contaminated mind had betrayed him and the moment had slipped from his grasp.

Today, if he could but push beyond the limitations of his body, if he could but ignore his need for food and sleep, today could well be the day he succeeded.

The air he drew deeply into his lungs burned, the acrid stench of peat searing a path up his nostrils.

Peat? Impossible! He’d forbidden its use at Tordenet. He detested the smell. Wood or nothing, they’d all been warned; but someone down there had chosen to ignore that warning. Someone who would pay for such defiance.

Torquil leaned out the window, searching for any sign of who had dared disobey his order. Smoke curled from every building within sight, including several stacks on his own keep. The smoke coming from the chimneys all looked the same whether it was from the soldiers’ barracks or the east wing of the building in which he stood.

Irritation tightened his chest as he pulled his head back inside. It was as if they knew he didn’t yet dare take to wing in the light of day. As if they intentionally sought to highlight his failure.

But that wouldn’t save whoever did this. He’d send a party of men to check each of the structures on the castle grounds, one by one. A sound plan, that. They would be found there, not within the
keep itself. Though even if he were to search the keep, it wasn’t as if he needed to check every wing. There would be no fires at all in the east wing of the keep. That had been shut down since . . .

He lunged back to the window, straining to peer out to his right.

There
should
be no fires in the east wing. None of those rooms had been occupied in the months since Malcolm’s wife and her companion had been housed there. Yet, like a mystery waiting to be solved, smoke curled up from the chimney.

And solve it he would.

Artur. Ulfr. Come to me.

He stepped back from the window, panting as if he’d run a long distance, more exhausted than usual from the effort required by the Magic. His night without sleep had clearly taken its toll.

Crossing the room, he stopped in front of the fireplace, adjusting the stones under the mantel until one gave way, revealing the resting place of his treasures. He would need the scroll this day. It was his intent to master the spell of transport before he allowed himself to rest again.

He carried the polished wooden box to the great table and placed it reverently in the center before lifting the lid. Freed of their confinement, it was as if the scrolls spoke to him in a melodic murmuring he could not yet fully understand.

A murmuring that soothed his soul even as it soothed the sleeping beast within.

He braced his arms on the tabletop, resting in the comfort of the sound only he could hear, while he waited for the men he’d summoned. They had no choice but to obey. It was one of the more useful spells he’d mastered from the scrolls.

When they did arrive, two grown men doing their best to mask the confusion they felt at the compulsion of his call, he was ready.

“Follow me,” he instructed, leading them from his tower to the stairs in the east wing. “Swords at the ready, men. It would appear we’ve an intruder.”

That the security of his keep had been breached was of great concern to him. It was for that reason alone he’d called these two men to accompany him, delaying the start of their journey to capture the Sinclair heir.

Only one set of rooms in this wing housed a fireplace large enough to have the chimney he’d spotted from his window. The rooms his father had built for his Tinkler whore. Deandrea’s chambers.

Though he’d expected resistance, the door opened easily to his touch and he stepped inside the room. Through the parted curtains surrounding the bed, he spotted his prey. One lone body curled upon the bed.

A body he recognized instantly, pushing all security concerns from his consideration.

“I can handle this from here. The two of you have men waiting their departure for you to join them, do you no? Go, without delay.”

He closed the door behind him and surveyed the room before silently making his way to the bed.

Clad in nothing more than her chemise, Christiana slept on her side, one slender arm curled around a pillow she clutched to her breast, one shapely leg stretched out, freed from the confines of the garment that twisted around her body.

He reached out a trembling hand to trace a finger along the soft white limb, from her ankle to the back of her knee and beyond, onto the smooth, warm skin of her thigh.

She moaned in response to his touch, the sound flushing his body with heat. In that heat, the beast within began to stir.

Stilling his hand, he leaned down over her, to whisper into her ear.

“Wake up, little sister. I have need of you.”

Her eyelids fluttered open to reveal the brilliant blue of their shared ancestors, the haze of sleep giving way first to surprise and then to fear.

“Torquil.” Her voice shook with the latter emotion and her leg twitched under his touch. “What are you doing here?”

Fed by Christiana’s fear, the beast fully awakened, requiring his attention to maintain control. He breathed through the moment, lifting his hand from the heat he desired to explore.

“No, Christiana, the better question is, what are
you
doing here?”

She pulled the pillow closer to her breast as if it were a shield. “The woman, Halldor’s prisoner, is in my tower.”

He’d almost forgotten the wench, though the beast within roared its need for revenge at mention of her. He’d certainly forgotten that she dwelt in Christiana’s tower. No doubt Halldor’s use of the woman was troubling to his sister.

“And so you sought refuge here, in your mother’s chambers.” In the rooms his father would have visited regularly.

“These were my chambers for many years.”

“So they were,” he murmured holding her gaze with his own.

They had indeed been her quarters, the rooms where she spent her nights. Until his father’s demise. Until the time when he could no longer resist the temptations of flesh she presented, and he’d banished her to the tower across the courtyard.

He reached for her hand, tightening his fingers around hers when she would have pulled away. “I grow weary of waiting for you. I’d have you travel to Skuld’s world for me now.”

“But I canna,” she began as he pulled her from the bed. “The herbs I need are in my tower. You ken I’ve no the ability to direct the Vision without—”

“Then we go to yer tower.”

He was having no more of her excuses or delays this time.

She dawdled with her overdress, running her
hands over the cloth until he ripped it from her grasp and threw it to the floor.

“Now!” he insisted, capturing her wrist to drag her forward, slowing only to scoop up her cloak from the floor.

Not that he really cared if she suffered the indignity of crossing the courtyard in nothing but her chemise. It was only that neither he nor the beast felt particularly open to other eyes feasting upon what belonged to them.

He all but dragged her behind him, down the stairs and out the entrance, ignoring the servants’ openmouthed stares.

Christiana wisely held her tongue, as if she recognized the force within him driving him forward.

Inside her tower, he tore the cloak from her shoulders and tossed it at their feet.

“Where is the elixir?”

“In my bedchamber,” she whispered, keeping her eyes averted from his. “I’ll go get it.”

“No!” he roared.

Or perhaps it was the beast who roared; he couldn’t be sure as he wrapped one arm around her waist, guiding her up the narrow winding stairs ahead of him. Up to the room at the very top of the tower.

“Now,” he said, his voice once again his own as he forced himself to release his hold on her.

Christiana stumbled toward the fireplace, where she pulled a clay jar from the mantel and removed its stopper before lifting it to her lips to drink.

He waited in the doorway as she stretched out on her bed and closed her eyes as he’d seen her do so many times on the pillows in his tower. Within minutes, her breathing slowed and she traveled the pathways of Skuld’s world.

It took longer for him to regain control. Longer to shove the beast back down into the depths where it belonged. Once he’d managed that, he moved toward the bed, his eyes fixed on the gentle rise and fall of the chemise covering her chest.

An odd lump in her form caught his attention and he reached for it, dipping his fingers inside the neckline of her gown to discover what she thought to hide from him.

A small pouch hung from a cord around her throat and, inside, two small carvings.

Runes. He recognized them immediately, though the ability to read the future from the tiny bits of wood was her gift, not his. Two of them, Tiwaz and Berkana, the warrior and the birch tree, special enough she wore them about her neck. One to represent each of her parents, perhaps? There was no way for him to know at the moment. And certainly not important enough to disturb her travels in Skuld’s world.

He returned the little carvings to their pouch, enclosing it in his fist, delaying its return to its original resting spot between her breasts.

His eyes fixed again on the rise and fall of the cloth, on the way it molded to her breasts with each
exhale. Frustration held him prisoner, his fisted hand motionless only inches from that which he wanted.