The women brought a tub usually used for washing clothes but a delight to Rycca, who wanted more than a pailful of water. When the tub was filled almost to the rim, the women departed. Dragon settled at the table with parchment, ink, and quills before him. Wolf had insisted they both learn to write, even enlisting a terrified priest to teach them. Dragon had resented the effort. It was only years later that he saw the good sense of not having to depend on anyone else for such communication. The letters were urgent, he intended them to go on the morning tide, yet words eluded him. Not that he didn't know exactly what he wanted to say, he was merely distracted.
His wife shed her clothes and began tying up her hair on top of her head. He found himself staring at the slim line of her back, the tapering of her spine and waist, the graceful arc of her hips. He glanced away with effort.
The parchment looked yellowed compared to the alabaster purity of her skin.
To my brother, the Lord Wolf of Sciringesheal. I send you greetings.
Her legs were slender and firm. He watched her step into the tub and remembered the silken strength of her thighs as they parted for him.
A
man of Wolscroft has appeared here, bent on mischief. He is dead now
.
She sighed deeply as the water touched her, a rapturous sigh of the sort that would have awakened his merry fellow were he not already at attention.
Grace to God, my wife is unharmed.
With a little wiggle, she settled her head against the rim, the rosy tips of her nipples just visible to him above the water.
Grace to God…
He'd written that already. With a frown, he crossed it out and tried yet again to give his attention to the letter.
Mercia ever breeds traitors. I write to Hawk as well.
She picked up the soap from the edge of the tub and began lathering her arms. Dragon splotched ink over the paper, cursed under his breath, and blotted it up with sand.
Alfred must be told but I think it better he hear of it from Hawk.
The soap slipped down over her breasts and farther beneath the water.
I will write more later. For now, come to Landsende if you can that we may discuss this matter.
Done, signed, sealed with a blob of wax hastily drawn from a candle and imprinted with his ring. He took the letter, stepped outside the lodge, found the first man-at-arms he came upon, and gave it to him.
"By fast boat to Sciringesheal. Understand?"
The man assured him he did and Dragon returned to the lodge. Rycca was just rising from the tub. He had yet to write the letter to Hawk but he could do that in the morning and it would still catch the tide.
He went to her with a length of cloth set aside for drying, enveloping her in it and drawing her back against his chest. His hands moved over her lightly but continuously. He could not touch her enough.
"You are a very understanding woman." He might have added
and a very forgiving one
but she turned just then and the cloth fell open. Her breasts pressed against his chest through the thin tunic he wore.
"Did you sleep at all last night?" she asked.
"No, of course not."
The corners of her mouth lifted. "Oh, well, then you must be too tired."
He remembered baiting her over the Amazons and grinned. "Fishing, my sweet?"
She smiled beguilingly, slipped a hand down his trousers, and found precisely what she sought. Stroking him, she murmured, "Come to bed, husband."
Let it never be said he refused a perfectly reasonable request from a lady. Or, indeed, failed to fulfill it with alacrity. He laughed and backed up until he felt the edge of the bed against his knees, then simply let himself fall. Rycca came right with him. They stroked, tasted, explored each other for as long as Dragon could stand it, which was scant minutes.
"Enough," he growled, then rose from the bed and undressed, leaving his garments where they fell. When he returned to her, she drew him to her urgently. Pleasure engulfed him but just around the edges of it lay a sense of unease. He felt a desperation in her that surprised him. He had known her to be desperate only for freedom.
"What is it, sweetling?" he asked, his big hands tangling in her hair, his thumbs circling the edges of her forehead, pressing lightly as though to drive out whatever concern lingered there.
"I'm sorry," she murmured and turned her head away. The thick fringe of her lashes drooped over her eyes but not before he saw the flash of frantic misery in them.
"God's blood," he said before he could think better of it, "do not bring your loathsome father to our bed."
The shock lifted her out of her morass. She propped herself on her elbows and glared at him. "I do no such thing." Even as she spoke, she angled her hips, trying to push him off.
Dragon refused to give way. He stuck an iron-hard thigh between hers before she could realize his intent, took hold of her shoulders, and pressed her back down beneath him on the bed. "Yes, you are. You're trying to distract me from his treachery and perhaps yourself as well. But dammit, woman, I care not! How many times, in how many ways, do I have to tell you that?"
"He struck from hundreds of miles away! I thought him safely behind me, that part of my life closed and gone, and I was wrong! How can I ever draw an easy breath? Ever truly believe I have escaped him?"
The full realization of her anguish leaped out at him. Their eyes met for a long, tortured moment. Words boiled up in him, of comfort, promise, reassurance, but they vanished unformed. He, skald-souled, could scarcely grunt. To do so would be to speak of the death that surely awaited Wolscroft, the only possible response to his attack. He did not wish to talk of death in bed. Instead, he took her mouth hard, kissing her deeply and not stopping until she put her arms around him and held on tightly.
Their lovemaking was frantic at first. He brought her to orgasm with his hands and mouth, driving her further and further until she screamed his name. Only then did he enter her, holding himself strictly in check despite the driving thrust of his need. Hardly moving, only stroking deep within her, he brought her up again, determined to wipe away every vestige of fear, unhappiness, concern. Determined as well to banish from her thoughts any lingering memory of the preceding day and night. She clawed at his shoulders, drawing blood, and he thought it well spent. His control shattered suddenly and he gripped her hips, pulling her up to him, driving again and again, finding release in oblivion.
Into which he sank between one heartbeat and the next. The long day and night without rest took their toll. He fell against the pillows, a steely arm draped over her, and knew nothing more.
RYCCA LAY AWAKE JUST A LITTLE TIME, ON HER back, eyes wide, stunned by the depth of the pleasure he had given her. Would it never be ordinary with this man? Never the comfort of sweet routine? Her smile was still aborning when she, too, slept.
Late in the night, when even the owls nested, Dragon dreamed. He was deep in a cave, comfortable and secure, with no desire to leave. But something called to him, some sound or sense, drawing him upward. He resisted it, wanting to stay where he was, but the need got stronger. His mind stirred, flaring at the edges of consciousness.
Urgency suddenly drove him. He opened his eyes but otherwise did not move. A shadow loomed by the bed, straightening into the form of a man with sword in hand.
One thought rang like hammer on anvil in Dragon's mind: Rycca lay beside him. Above all else, he had to protect her.
He jackknifed from the bed, landing on his feet and in the same motion reaching for the Moorish sword that should have been close at hand.
But was not. Was, in fact, in the hand of the intruder.
"You slept too deeply, jarl," Magnus said. He smiled grimly. "But then, I counted on that."
Maybe he was still asleep and dreaming, for this truly made no sense. Staring at the man he had known since boyhood—the man he had fought beside, gotten drunk with, and, truth be told, shared the occasional woman with—he struggled to understand. "What are you doing here?"
Magnus's mouth thinned. "Did you think I would never tire of being second to you?"
"You are mad."
"Yet I hold your sword and you are unarmed. Which of us do you think will die this night?"
And with that, Magnus lunged. He was a skilled and able fighter long schooled in battle. Dragon was naked and unarmed. The first slash of the Moorish sword would have gutted most men. Dragon sidestepped it easily. Even so he did not underestimate his peril… or Rycca's.
He could not think of her just then. All his attention had to remain on the man who meant to kill him and, no doubt, her as well. Yet from the corner of his eye Dragon saw that his wife had awakened and quickly taken in the situation. She was sitting up in bed, holding the covers to her breasts and keeping very still. He spared a moment to give silent thanks for her good sense, then picked up the small wooden table beside the bed and slammed it against Magnus.
The force of the blow staggered him but only for a moment. He closed in, swinging hard. Dragon blocked the sword with what was left of the table, which crumbled away in his hands. He looked around for something else, just barely managing to avoid several more blows any one of which should have killed him, and picked up a trunk near the windows. Magnus came at him fiercely but in that instant Dragon called upon his vast strength and lifted the heavy trunk over his head. His muscles straining with the effort, he hurled it directly at his attacker.
It struck Magnus full in the chest. He lost his balance and fell back toward the bed. A canny fighter with swift reflexes, he reached for Rycca, no doubt intending to use her as a shield. But she was ready for him and did not hesitate, kneeling upright in the bed, modesty forgotten as she raised a ewer of water and brought it crashing down on his head. It broke into pieces as Magnus staggered yet again and went down.
Dragon was on him instantly. Magnus fought fiercely to hold on to the sword but Dragon wrestled it from him and kicked it out of reach. He pinned the traitor to the floor with an arm at his chest and another at his throat. Calmly, as though he had not just been in a battle for his life, he asked, "Why?"
Magnus was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling convulsively. A bitter smile etched his mouth. Already, his eyes gazed upon eternity. "Wolscroft has a bounty on you," he rasped. "He sent his man to find someone to take it."
"Not good enough. He must have had some reason to approach you."
"We shared a tun of wine one evening in Essex. He knew my feelings."
"You killed him."
"I didn't want the Wolf hunting me when I was done."
"He won't be," Dragon said, and snapped his erstwhile lieutenant's neck.
SLOWLY, DRAGON GOT TO HIS FEET. DIMLY, AS though from a great distance, he heard Rycca's voice.
"Are you hurt?" She stood close beside him, garbed only in the glorious fall of her hair. Her hand was on his arm and her eyes were wide with concern.
He looked down at her and shook his head. "No."
Hurt? Why should he be? Because he had been betrayed by a man he thought he knew and could trust? Such was the way of the world. There was very, very little a man could ever truly count on.
"You fought," he said and reached out, needing to touch her. His big hands stroking her hair, he drew her closer to him until he enveloped her in his arms and held her as tightly as he dared. It was just so damn good to feel the warmth of her body, to know she was safe and there with him. She anchored him to the world.
Rycca laughed a little shakily. "Oh, well, you know me, ever ready to plunge in." She touched her lips to his chest, kissing him lightly and repeatedly, needing the taste, the scent, the touch of him.
He had come so very close to death. Over and over, she had watched Magnus strike, believing that at any moment Dragon would fall. His strength and skill were as no man she had ever seen, yet for all that he was still human. Her hand drifted down to the scar on his thigh and she shivered. So very close…
"Don't think about it." As he spoke, he lifted her and carried her to the bed. She was shivering uncontrollably now, her whole body quaking.
"What's happening to me?" Her teeth were chattering, making it almost impossible to speak.
"Just a reaction. It will pass." He got into bed with her and held her close, stroking her back, murmuring to her soothingly. After a while, she began to calm, indeed too much. She felt as though she could barely lift her head.
"This never happened to you," she murmured.
He smiled in the dim gray light of the new morning. "Oh yes it did, and more than once. After my first battle, I was shaking so hard you would have thought it was winter instead of high summer. But that was better than the way I was before it."
"Scared?" she asked very softly.
"Spewing-up-my-guts scared. Make no mistake, I've seen the most valiant men react to battle in all sorts of ways. The best suffer even in victory. It's the ones who don't you have to worry about." He glanced over the side of the bed at what had been Magnus. "If you're better now, I have to leave for a few minutes but I will return immediately."
She nodded, understanding what had to be done, and burrowed under the covers as he pulled on a tunic When he was dressed, he lifted the body and hoisted it over his shoulders. She watched as he went out into the fading night.
He returned very quickly, as promised. She heard voices outside the lodge and saw the flare of torches just before the door closed behind him. He came to stand beside the bed. "All right?"
Scarcely had she nodded than there was a brisk knock at the door. Frowning, Dragon went to answer it. He came back bearing a heavily laden tray and instructions from Magda.
"You are to eat the soup first," he said bemusedly. "It is one of Cymbra's recipes and Magda says it will settle your stomach. You are to drink all the milk, eat the poached chicken, and not neglect the stewed apples."