Mary Reed McCall (21 page)

Of a sudden, her throat tightened, and a heaviness gathered behind her eyes. She frowned, feeling disjointed and staring down as if from a distance at her own body going through its motions; reaching out, she brushed her hands over what lay beneath the circlet. Her fingers stroked a shiny black crow’s feather, lying amongst a small pile of cool, shiny acorns…then, below that, a woolen shawl, obviously homespun, yet softened from much wear, resting atop a young man’s bloodied tunic, the ragged-edged hole in the chest showing where the wound had been delivered.

What the devil is all of this?
her mind screamed through the stretching, aching feeling that began to burgeon inside of her.
And what in God’s name is happening to me…?

All thoughts of her missing sword vanished under the assault of painful sensation. She felt as if she were teeter
ing on the edge of a whirlpool—a huge, grasping tide of something that would swallow her whole.

At that moment her hand touched a swath of rolled fabric—a length of silk, deep emerald in hue, embroidered with a faded white cross. As she lifted it up, phantom pain lanced up from her palm, cutting a path along her arm and shoulder to bury itself in her chest, high and to the left. A burning spot that felt as if she’d just been pierced by an arrow.

With a gasp she dropped the cloth, and it rolled onto the floor of the solar, the folds of material falling open to reveal a braid of ebony hair, thick and glossy.

Hair the same exact shade as her own…

As if struck by a blow, Gwynne doubled over, burying her face in her hands as she fought against the images. They spun slowly at first, then faster and faster as they rose from the depths of their black prison in her mind, crackling bits of light and color that started to come together…

Oh, God…Oh, God…Oh, God…

Aidan gazed at her, smiling so that it reached up to the velvety depths of his eyes; then he took a deep breath and began his vows.

“I, Aidan de Brice, son of Gavin de Brice, second Earl of Sutcliffe, do take thee, Gwynne ap Moran, to be my wife. I love thee with all my heart and soul, and will bind myself to thee forever, with this my eternal vow. I do so swear it.”

Gwynne glanced down at the embroidered betrothal cloth draped round their joined hands, feeling the late summer sun beat down on their heads. A pair of sparrows danced and chirruped through the sky above them, and she smiled up at Aidan tremulously. “And I, Gwynne ap Moran, take thee, Aidan de Brice, to be my husband. I love thee with all that I am, and will keep myself only to thee until the end of time. This I so swear and will abide, heart and soul, until I die.”

Ducking her head, she dared a glance at him from beneath her lashes. Her heart throbbed with the love she felt for him. He was so wonderful, so caring. Her one true knight and lord of her heart, even if she was but a peasant lass and he the heir to an Earldom. They were as one now; they’d sworn their love in this ancient circle, and none could ever part them now. They would be one, always.

Always…

A blinding flash erupted again in Gwynne’s mind, yanking her out of that memory and into another. She cried out and pitched forward, her palms slamming against the open edges of the old trunk as she groped for the bloodied tunic at the bottom; when she found it, she pulled it to her chest, clinging to it, as the second memory hit with staggering force…images of the attack and Aidan’s wounding. Of the warrior snatching her away after she’d healed Aidan, and the pain and blackness when she’d hit her head…

A sound in the doorway wrenched Gwynne from her agony, dragging her back to the present. She blinked a few times, dazed as she sat in front of the open trunk, trying without success to absorb the shock of what she’d just experienced. Her head throbbed, and her body felt numb—yet somehow she managed to turn to see who had opened the door and found her here.

It took a moment for the sight of Aidan to seep into her awareness; the Aidan of here and now. Her mind still sizzled and ached with the disjointed images of her past—of the entire first fourteen years of her life, jabbing, now, into her awareness with razor-sharp intensity. She took in a shuddering breath, keeping her gaze fixed upon Aidan, her hands gripping his old tunic as if it were her rope to salvation.

“Gwynne—?”

The sound of her name uttered in his husky voice, so
uncertain, so filled with concern, shook her from her numbness, unleashing a rush of love for him that rocked her to the core. She choked back a sob; wet heat slid down her cheeks—tears that, released now by her memories, seemed to flow without end.

She searched Aidan’s face with her gaze; his eyes were shadowed, the expression in them as stunned and anguished as she felt. A thousand memories of him—the perfect completion of their life together up to the moment of her kidnapping—clicked into place, blending seamlessly with new memories of the past few months, and making the ache inside her bloom anew. She sobbed again, his blood-stained tunic falling from her hand as she lurched to her feet.

Blinded by her tears, she shook her head and charged forward, pushing past Aidan and out the door, needing to get away—to run from him, the memories, and the truth. The painful, awesome truth.

Aidan had loved her, and she had loved him in return.

It was true; they’d promised themselves to each other in the ancient stone circle, vowing to be one for eternity. And then her people—the same people she’d served all these years, the people for whom she’d sacrificed herself on the altar of the Dark Legend—had crashed into her peaceful existence and stolen her away, destroying whoever she’d once been, forever.

She ran, choking back sobs, from Aidan’s solar, the damning knowledge crashing into her, relentless and brutal…

Hammering into her the realization that, from this moment on, the world as she knew it would never be the same again.

G
wynne’s breath rasped in her throat, burning her lungs as she made her way through the keep, heedless of the stares; she fled out the main door of the hall and through the castle gate with its raised portcullis—just running, trying to escape the agony rocking inside of her. She had no plan or intent for where she was going, but by the time she stopped, she grasped in some cloudy corner of her mind that she’d escaped to a familiar place.

Her chest heaved as she gasped for air, and her eyelids felt swollen; sitting back on her heels in the grass, she looked around, trying to regain some sense of balance. God help her, but she’d come to the spot where Aidan had taught her to dance. Right next to where he’d staged their false berry-picking contest…the same spot where he’d kissed her for the first time.

But something else nagged at the very back of her mind. Narrowing her gaze the best as she could, Gwynne looked around once more, with the fresh and aching wis
dom of her regained memories—and in that instant her insides wound tighter, her heart feeling as if it had just been yanked from her chest.

Oh, God, this wasn’t just the spot where Aidan had spent so much of his time with her these past weeks—’twas the clearing that had been nestled inside the ancient circle of stones all those years ago.

The very place where they had pledged themselves to each other forever on the day the rebels had stolen her away.

Oh, God
…

Stumbling to her feet, Gwynne staggered forward again, toward the edge of the glade, where the grasses shifted to forest bracken; she searched the area, desperate to find the stones that should mark the circle. Naught met her vision but waving ferns and wildflowers, backed by the darkening fringe of forest beyond.

Where were the stones?
’Twas the spot, her ravaged mind insisted. But the jutting sentinels that had encircled this clearing were gone—gone, as if they’d never been.

Gone like the life she and Aidan had been meant to share.

Sinking to her knees again, she gave in at last to the pain; it took hold of her, and she buckled under its weight. Crying out, she curled forward, unable to stop it from filling her, unleashing its crippling power.

“Gwynne!”

Aidan knelt down in the grass next to her, and the touch of his hands somehow pushed her over the tenuous edge of control; she twisted into his arms, pressing her face to his chest and gripping fistfuls of his shirt as if she’d never let go.

“I feared I wouldn’t find you,” he murmured, stroking her hair as he cradled her against him, rocking her in his arms. “Why did you run? I want to help you—I can help you get through all of this…”

“Where are the stones?” she croaked, the question suddenly seeming more important than anything to her. As if the answer might somehow unlock the mystery of this entire tragedy for her—make sense out of that which defied reason.

Aidan didn’t answer at first.

“The stones of our circle,” she repeated hoarsely. “What happened to them? I remember them…I remember them being right here…”

“I knocked them down.”

He still held her close, and she reveled in the warmth and safety she felt in his arms; his breath riffled her hair as he continued quietly, “After the attack, I couldn’t bear the sight of them. A few months later I came out here and took the rage I felt at losing you out on them.” He loosened his hold on her, enough to let her look in the direction he indicated.

“Look over there. You can still see a piece of one on the ground.”

She followed his gaze and saw it, finally—a gray lump of stone lying flat, almost obscured under a thick blanket of moss. She stared at it for a moment before looking around the little clearing again, all the memories of her time here with Aidan washing over her anew. So much time spent living her sweet, simple existence—time spent loving Aidan—and she had lost it all to a life of violence and war…

“My God…” she whispered, her voice cracking with the strain. “I still cannot believe ’tis real…”

Looking back to him, she studied his face; her eyes felt hot and achy, and her hand trembled as she stroked it across his brow, her fingers smoothing down his temple and cheek, to the firm line of his jaw.

“It has all come back to you, then?” he asked. He took
a sharp breath as he caught her hand and brought it down from his face to cradle it in his own warm grip.

“Aye.” She swallowed against the thick feeling in her throat. “It hurts, but I remember it all.”

She touched her hand to his chest, on the same spot where the arrow had pierced him during that long-ago ambush.

“I remember you leaping into the clearing to save me, to give me time to get away,” she said softly. “And I remember the arrow striking you—” She broke off, overcome with the pain the memory brought, fresh as it was, now in her mind.

“Then you must remember healing me as well. Like you did with Clara.”

“Aye.” She looked at him, wanting him to see in her eyes all she felt for him. “It seems we saved each other that day.”

Aidan shook his head. “I should have done more. I should have found a way to stop them.”

The memory of their last moments together surged up again, tiny, aching bursts of light in her brain. She sucked in her breath, reaching up to brush her fingers against Aidan’s temple, the place where the warrior had kicked him.
Futile
. It had been futile to try to stop them from taking her, but Aidan had given all he had…

“You couldn’t have done more,” she whispered, the ache swelling and her heart beating heavy in her chest,

“Not then. They were grown men to your fifteen years; ’twas a miracle you survived at all.”

Aidan looked stricken. “I wished I hadn’t afterward.” He held her, gazing deep into her eyes. “I kept asking myself over and over why it couldn’t have been me—why they wanted you, even after it seemed that you were dead to us all…”

“Aye—I remember hitting my head,” she murmured,
frowning as the rest of the shadowy image sliced through her, a memory of throwing herself backward in her captor’s arms, only to feel pain bursting over her skull, followed by blackness.

“’Twas one of the cottage joists,” Aidan supplied quietly, brushing her hair back from her brow and holding her against him again as he spoke. “You hit your head struggling to escape. You went limp and so still, I thought your neck had been broken,” he said, his voice gone hoarse with emotion. “I tried to follow you—I swear I did. I wanted to hunt them down and reclaim your body, but I was too weak from the arrow wound, and Father refused to send any of his men to search.”

She closed her eyes, pressing her cheek to him and listening to the steady beating of his heart; after a moment he continued, “I thought that you were dead, Gwynne, you must believe me. ’Tis why I was so shocked to see you on the field near Craeloch Castle—I couldn’t believe you were alive—that it was really you standing in front of me, swinging your blade like a virago.”

“I am sorry about that,” she murmured against his shirt, her mouth curving into the nearest thing to a smile she’d been able to muster in days. “I had no idea ’twas you.”

“Aye, well, the fault was mine for standing there like a fool while you took a swing at me.”

“I believe the word I used when describing you to Marrok was
idiot
,” she said, hearing Aidan’s chuckle even as her grief sharpened at the latent thought of her mentor. He had betrayed her, kept her in the dark about the person she’d been and all that she’d lost after her injury in the abduction, telling her instead that she’d been stolen as a babe by the English and rescued by her own people years later. Her entire life from the moment she’d lost her memory until now had been a lie.

She closed her eyes again, too exhausted by the rush of
emotion to think on it further. Tired to the bone of the upheaval and shadows that had been stirred up inside her by it all…

“
Lugh
, but my head hurts,” she murmured.

“I’m not surprised,” Aidan answered. “You’ve endured a great deal in the past half hour.”

“But I’m not used to feeling so shaky; if I tried to get up, I’d likely crumple right back to the ground.”

“There’s no shame in that, after what you’ve experienced,” he answered, still stroking her hair back from her face, soothing her as he held her against him. “By God, you’ve been stronger through all this than anyone I’ve known could have been.”

Aidan looked down at her, saw the way she held herself so carefully against him, trusting him implicitly.
Just as before
, a voice inside him whispered,
just as it was all those years ago, when she loved you
.

Jesu, but he wanted to kiss her right now, wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything. He could lean down and take her lips with his own this very moment; he knew it. She’d not resist. As vulnerable as she was feeling right now, she’d surely kiss him back, press herself against him, and wrap her arms round his neck. ’Twould be so easy to shift his weight and tilt his head just a little…

Aidan cleared his throat and rose to his knees, stifling his baser instincts as he gently tugged her into the same position. “You need some rest after all that’s happened. Come—I’ll take you back to your chamber, and when you awaken, I’ll order a warm bath and some food sent up.”

“Nay.” She clenched her fingers in the fabric of his shirt, locking her arms. “Let’s not go back yet—please.” The fervor in her voice surprised him. She sounded sure of herself, as if she knew exactly what she wanted…

He met her gaze, startled at the passion he saw there, the softness and longing. The silvery depths of her eyes
were turbulent now with emotions that held her in sway—and awareness crashed into him with staggering force. Aye, she knew what she wanted; she wanted
him
.

Oh, God…

She shifted on her knees, and he was acutely aware of the way her breasts and belly brushed against him. ’Twas just barely, but it was enough to send a thrill of heat through him—a spiraling, burning sensation that scorched him to his soul. Instinctively, his body tightened, all his muscles contracting beneath her touch.

“Gwynne—”

He broke off to a little growl. He glanced away before exhaling and swinging his gaze back to her, feeling like a drowning man about to lose his battle with the waves crashing over his head.

“I don’t think ’twould be a good idea to stay here longer.” He swallowed hard. “You need your rest, and—”

Uttering a husky moan, Gwynne jerked him closer by fistfuls of his shirt, taking his mouth with hers and stilling any remaining arguments he might have offered. She melted into him, clinging tighter as they kissed. It felt so right, so natural, that he simply kept kissing her back, his mind shutting down to all of the reasons why he shouldn’t be doing this with her, why he had no right, now that she’d regained her memory, to allow this kind of affection between them.

“We have to stop,” he managed to mutter hoarsely against her mouth, barely keeping himself from kissing her more, so great was his craving, his need for her. “We have to stop now, Gwynne, or I don’t think I’ll be able to—”

“Then don’t,” she murmured. “Don’t stop, Aidan, please.”

She pulled back a little, and he saw that her cheeks were flushed; with a gentle smile, she lifted her hands to
cup his face, stroking her fingers lightly down until her thumbs brushed a sensual pattern over his lips.

“I remember it all, Aidan,” she said softly, one of her hands drifting down along the line of his jaw, across his shoulder to his chest, and he closed his eyes and sucked in his breath at the exquisite sensation of her touch.

“I remember what we were to each other all those years ago,” she continued. “What we’d planned for our future…what we were about to do when the attack began…”

She pressed her lips to his neck, a tender caress that wound the heat inside of him higher. “Heaven help me, Aidan, but I’ve spent my life since that day fighting and killing—training to be a warrior. To be a Legend.” She gazed into his eyes, staring deep, touching his soul as she had that long ago day. “Teach me to be a woman again. Teach me to be
your
woman, as I was meant to be from the start…”

“Oh, God, Gwynne, I want to,” he answered, his voice ragged with the desire pulsing through him. “I want it more than you could ever know.”

“Then stay here with me now.”

A war waged in Aidan’s heart, a fierce, violent battle, whose outcome, he knew, would be more crucial than any he’d ever fought on the field. He struggled with it, the force of his desire matched against his sense of duty, uncertain which would prove the victor. But when Gwynne touched him again, leaning into him, he knew that it had gone beyond his control—a realization that was sealed with the words she uttered next.

“Make love to me now, Aidan,” she murmured, her eyelashes fluttering against his cheek as she tipped her head to press another kiss to his jaw. “Love me here, in our magic circle…”

He shuddered once—a subtle rippling that dissipated into a sound that was half growl, half groaning need. Muttering a curse, he suddenly gripped the back of her head and pulled her to him; then he took her mouth with his, hungrily, greedily, like a man who’s been denied his soul’s sustenance for too long.

They fell to the deep grasses together, cradled and hidden in the soft green cushion of it. Gwynne felt heat rising in her, felt the tingling contact between them—the hard warmth of Aidan’s chest pressed to her own. She shifted, moaning as his knee slipped between her thighs; he balanced himself on his forearms above her, leaning over her, still kissing, tasting her, touching her face with the soft caress of his fingers.

Gwynne closed her eyes and breathed in, releasing Aidan’s name on a whisper; it almost felt as if it was that long-ago summer day all over again, the way it had been meant to be before the attack had destroyed everything. Only ’twas better now…so much better, like some cherished gift that had been lost and unexpectedly regained.

The sun beat down through the trees, soaking them with light and heat, and making Aidan’s shirt glow brilliant white. The sharp, tender scent of the grasses bit into her senses, and she arched back into their softness as Aidan kissed a burning path down the column of her throat to the hollow above her collarbone.