Moon Shadows (16 page)

“D
RINK
this. All of it. Don't fight me now, just drink it!”

Gwynna twisted her head from side to side, but couldn't escape the warm liquid Keir poured between her lips. She choked a little, gasped and swallowed.
Wine
. It warmed her throat and woke her up all in the same instant.

“You.”

She gazed in shock at Keir of Blackthorne as memory rushed back—the Slegors, the boat, the icy water . . .

“You're here; it wasn't a dream,” she muttered. “You saved my life.”

His grim expression only deepened. He was shivering nearly as much as she was, and she quickly realized that both of their garments were soaking wet.

“Where are we?” she said, sitting up. But that was a mistake. The world spun, colors and shapes swirling in confusion.

“Easy.” His hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her. “You're far too reckless and impulsive, Princess, for your own good.”

“So Antwa is forever telling me.”

The cold bit like a whip, and Gwynna's lips trembled so much she could barely speak. “Where . . . are we? What is this place?”

“We are where you wished to be.” He sounded disgusted. “In Org. And this place is a tunnel. I need to find my way out though, find some more wood or you'll freeze to death—”

“Oh. Yes. We need fire.” Gwynna nodded, lifted an icy hand, and suddenly a tiny fire of twigs and sticks that glowed near the tunnel wall burst into a crackling bed of warmth and flame. The heat stretched out to them, seeping through wet clothes and chilled skin.

“That was quite useful of you,” Keir muttered. He released her then and Gwynna felt a sensation of loss. For a moment, with his big hands on her shoulders, she'd felt oddly comforted. It was strange, considering she'd nearly died and was about to venture into even greater danger, but Keir of Blackthorne's presence was an unexpected gift, and his touch had felt oddly reassuring.

He saved your life,
she told herself, glancing around her at the dank low walls of the tunnel.
He scooped you from the sea. That is why.

Keir moved away to yank a thick wool blanket from a sack. He returned and draped it roughly around her.

“Get out of those clothes. They must dry by the fire before we go on. You can wrap yourself in this.”

“And you?”

He shrugged and began stripping off his sodden cloak, then his tunic and mail. He set his sword down, his muscles rippling in the firelight. Through the flickering glow, she tried not to stare at the broadness of his chest, dark with hair. From beneath her lashes, she noted the sinewy rope of muscles in his arms, and the white scar that cut in bright relief across his swarthy right shoulder.

Her gaze dipped lower and she saw that he was long-legged and lean, his body powerful beyond measure. He wore only his underhose, so much was revealed; certainly more than she had ever seen before of any man. She felt a purely
feminine heat flood her cheeks, a heat that had nothing to do with the fire she had made. It came from a small fire that had caught flame inside of her.

Keir of Blackthorne came toward her. “Your turn.”

Her fingers fumbled at first, but she quickly recovered her composure, and when her cloak and gown and shift had been spread before the fire and she herself sat near it, wrapped in the blanket, she tried not to stare at the magnificent man sharing this tunnel and this fire with her.

But she may as well have tried not to breathe, for the rock-hard strength and masculinity emanating from him dominated the tunnel and filled her mind.

“We'll hide here until morning, then go back. I forced the ferrymaster, under threat of death and mutilation, to swear he'd come for us tomorrow—”

“Come for us? I'm not going back. Not until I've found Ondrea.”

Those wolf-gray eyes narrowed on her. “How did I know you'd say that?” he bit out.

Seating himself beside her on the hard floor of the tunnel, he wasted no time commandeering some of the blanket. If he noticed her shock at sitting beneath the wool covering alongside him, both of them nearly naked, he didn't give any sign of it.

“You want to die, don't you?” he asked scornfully.

“Of course not. I want my sister to live.”

Keir was silent, staring into the fire. It showed him nothing, but it was better than staring into this temptresses's face. With her midnight hair unbound, tumbling in damp curls down her back, her sensuous lips pink with life, and those exquisitely brilliant eyes a stark contrast to skin like fresh cream, she was everything lovely in a woman—and more. He was well aware of the lush curves of her body, of the sweet beauty of those breasts. But he told himself it was a spell that filled his mind with thoughts of her. A spell that had drawn him to leave his keep and fish her out of the sea, and to spend the night here back in Org, in a worm's tunnel, waiting for any number of foul monsters to descend upon him—upon both of them.

“I suppose I should thank you for saving my life,” she said at last. “Why did you come after me?”

“You know damned well. But it's wearing off. I won't stay here with you once morning comes.”

“What are you talking about? What's wearing off?”

“The spell. Tell the truth. You cast one before you left and it hit full power by midmorning. Don't bother denying it.”

Her eyes widened. She shook her head, and those luxuriant curls flew about her face. “I cast no spell on you. I have no need of your help.”

“Yes, I could see that when you were sinking to the bottom of the sea.”

She burrowed her chin deeper into the blanket. “I don't cross water well. And that sea was like nothing I've ever encountered before—”

“It's only the beginning, Princess.” Keir turned toward her suddenly. Beneath the blanket she felt the shift of his body, and a spark seemed to jump through her veins.

“Worse will come,” he warned. “Much worse.”

She nodded at him, and moistened her lips with her tongue. “I know,” she whispered back. “Do you really think I don't know?”

Keir sucked in his breath. She was afraid. He saw it in her eyes. The fear, the doubt, the cold dread that he too had known the first time he crossed into this evil land.

But she was persevering. As he had.

She doesn't know what lies in wait . . .

“There's nothing I can say to convince you to turn back, is there?”

He saw the answer in her eyes even before she shook her head.

“You were kind to fish me out of the sea, as you've so charmingly put it,” Gwynna said. “But you don't need to accompany me any farther.”

Her teeth weren't chattering quite as much now, and the warmth emanating from his body along with the thick blanket and the fire was easing the chill. She had to resist the urge to lean into him, against him, for comfort and warmth. “If you'd
only tell me how you got out alive last time I'll never ask a single thing more—”

“Do you really want to know?”

His face had changed. And his voice. They were harsh now, tight and bitter. And in his eyes she saw something that made her breath hitch.

Shame
.

“I do want to know,” she whispered, and impulsively, beneath the blanket, she touched his arm.

He recoiled as if she'd scratched him, and his head jerked sideways, his eyes searing into hers.

“I crawled.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Princess. I crawled.” His lips twisted. “I've seen my share of dangers—I've faced a dozen armies on the battlefield, killed three soldiers at once with a single sweep of my sword, slain trolls and dragons from Weyre without a blink. But when I faced the evil assembled against me here in this cursed valley, I ran.”

Keir snorted. “Or tried to. It smote me, the darkness here, the utter blood-curdling evil. It seeped into me in ways you cannot yet imagine. And I crawled out on my belly, whimpering and blind, with soar-bats nipping at me, and Ondrea's Black Knights mocking me. They let me go in the end,” he finished in a low tone. “Broken, vanquished. Knowing I'd failed. It was more painful by far than any death she could have concocted.”

His bleak eyes stared into hers and in their depths she saw pain, grief and the ravages of defeat.

“I swore to avenge my family, to make Ondrea pay for what she'd done, but instead I crawled out, a coward, too weak and lowly to withstand the power of this place, much less fight it.”

He turned and caught her shoulders beneath the blanket.

“If you don't want to be broken in the same way, you'll turn back now. You can't succeed. No good can last here. The evil is too strong, don't you see? Spare yourself the pain, the shame—”

“You have no cause for shame.” She was vibrantly aware of his strong hands on her shoulders, of their warmth and weight, and of his nearness. It seemed that they were cocooned somehow apart from the world, apart even from Org. All she felt beneath this blanket was the nearness of his body, the pain emanating from a beaten soul.

It must have been a dreadful manner of evil to bring down such a man, she knew, but even this knowledge didn't shake her own resolve. It frightened her, it made her heart quicken and dread prickle her spine, but it did not alter her determination to do what she had come to Org to do.

Yet, gazing into Keir's eyes, into that hard-planed, handsome face so tormented with shame and regret, another emotion flowed through her.

Wonder. Wonder that such a man—a warrior, a duke, powerful and angry—could be made to feel such a failure. Wonder that he had yet, even after all that had befallen him, ventured across the Wild Sea to save her, help her, warn her.

“Some evil is too strong for mortals to fight.” She spoke softly. “To escape its snare is victory enough.”

“It was no victory—not for me.” His voice was sharp. “And not for you.”

His hands still gripped her shoulders. He couldn't seem to let her go.

He had known before that she was brave, when she'd stolen into his keep, defied his knights. When she'd set out alone for this wretched place. But now his admiration hitched a notch higher. She understood the danger and still, she would go on.

“Do you think your magic will save you? It won't.”

“Perhaps not.” Her words were quiet. “I suppose I'll find out soon enough.”

Her gaze on his remained steady, unwavering. At last Keir's hands fell away. He had failed. Failed to visit justice upon the enchantress who had slain his family and failed to convince this beautiful young witch to escape while there was still time.

“Then you'd best sleep while you may,” he said curtly. “Take the blanket. I'll stand guard.”

“Wake me in a while and I'll change places with you. You need sleep, too.”

He made no answer, but moved away from her, to sit on the opposite side of the fire, facing the tunnel entrance. He refused to look at her as she wrapped the blanket tightly around her and curled up on the tunnel floor.

Yet, after slumber had overtaken her, when the warmth of the fire had brought color back into her face, and she lay peacefully asleep, the sweep of her dark lashes startling against her fair cheeks, he watched her.

He couldn't shake the feeling that this Princess of Callemore, an admitted enchantress, had cast a spell on him. Otherwise, how could he explain why he'd told her all that he had? He'd never spoken of what had happened in Org, of how he'd crawled like a worm from the valley. He'd never told a living soul.

Yet he had told this girl, with her willful spirit and her brilliant eyes. And her stubborn, beautiful mouth.

Even as he sat guard, braced to fight whatever manner of creature might surface in this vile place, he wondered what it would be like to kiss that mouth, to taste those lips.

Strange, to be here in Org once again, and to think of something other than his hatred of this place and of Ondrea and Leopold, cursed be their names. To be thinking of this delicate enchantress with the midnight hair who had no idea what she was up against.

It is most certainly a spell
, he told himself, his mouth tightening.
Leave her be
, he thought, as she sighed softly in her sleep.
Get out of here come morning, while you still can.

But he knew it was a lost cause. He couldn't leave her here to face the evil alone. He wanted to, wanted to believe that he wasn't as foolish as she was, that he would put himself and his people above a futile attempt to save someone who refused to listen to reason.

But he was remembering how she'd touched his arm, told him he had no need for shame. Remembering how sensuous and regal she'd looked in that amber gown, and how deeply she loved her sister. Remembering that he had felt more alive
since she'd swept off her cap in his hall than he had since he'd crawled out of Org.

And he knew he was doomed to stay by her side and guard her as well as he could until he could no longer stand, no longer see, no longer feel. He didn't know why, only that this was how it must be.