Sabine (5 page)

She shook her head. “It doesn't matter, Ciar. You were on your way back to the palace, yes?”

No one called him by his name except his closest friends and his mother. It should have sounded unnatural, but that same memory stirred. The wilder parts of him liked the way his name rolled from her tongue as much as he'd enjoyed the feel of her name on his lips. A rightness that defied explanation.

For now. Perhaps time would tease it free. “Yes, the palace. Are you accompanying me?”

Pain flashed in her even blue gaze, and she spoke too quickly. “No. I mean, I was, but only this far. Not to—to your home.”

“I see.” Only he didn't. Nothing made sense, especially not the lack of the painful, miserable hangover that surely would have accompanied the amount of liquor it would take for him to bring a stranger to bed and forget who she was. “Then where are you going?”

She turned away, her hair spilling over her bare back. “A small village to the south. Out of your way, I'm afraid.”

“And I can't convince you to come to change your mind? I could make it worth your time.”

The woman hesitated. “You're the High Lord. You could command me to, if it pleased you.”

His chest tightened, and he couldn't fathom why. Nor could he understand why it was so hard to summon the charm that usually came naturally. The war, perhaps, and the endless years of fighting. It made his smile awkward, but he tried to make up for it with the words. “A man who has to command a pretty lady to walk with him doesn't deserve to call himself High Lord.”

She bit her lip. “I will go with you. Not because you could command me to do so, but because I know you won't.”

He'd planned to make good time to the palace by running as a wolf, but if the day was nice, perhaps he could walk for a few leagues as a human. She seemed anything but fragile, and a chance to talk with her might solve the mystery of the way his instincts seized every time she smiled.

So he grinned and reached for her hand, lifting it to his lips. “Let's break our fast, then, and enjoy the morning.”

Her fingers clenched around his, but only for a moment before she pulled them away. “I can have something ready in a few minutes.”

“So my mysterious lady can cook.” He watched her slide from the bed and tried to ignore the panic that tightened with every step she took. “What else do you do, Sabine?”

She crossed the room naked and reached for a white shift draped over the back of a chair. “Live a simple life.” The words were thick, and she cleared her throat. “Wait for a man who isn't coming back from the war.”

Just like that, guilt closed its fist around his heart. “I'm sorry.” As he should be. Any man who would not return had died under his command.

“It was a long time ago.” The gauzy fabric drifted down around her, and she regarded him thoughtfully. “I think…I am close to making my peace with it.”

He shouldn't be relieved, but interest stirred in the darkest part of his heart. She was beautiful, and she must have found him tolerable, to be willing to forgive his lapse in memory. “And what will you do, once you've made your peace?”

She smiled sadly as she opened one of his satchels, unaccountably familiar with his belongings. “Get back to living my simple life, I suppose.”

“And if an unsimple man came along?”

“Would I let him complicate my life, you mean?”

Would she let
him
complicate her life? “Yes, that's what I mean.”

A strange light kindled in her eyes, and her teeth sank into her lower lip. “I think we shall have to see.”

No obeisance. No easy assurances, the kind he so often encountered. Few wolves would stand against their High Lord, but she didn't mouth the words he wanted to hear. “I'll enjoy finding out.”

She laughed suddenly, as though at an old, familiar joke. “I once had a conversation exactly like this with someone very much like you.”

Ciar grinned at her. “You wound my ego, my lady. I always thought there was no one else like me.”

“You may be right, after all.”

Even her casual words seemed anything but, as if everything she said had another meaning. Instinct insisted
she
had another meaning, a mystery beyond her inexplicable presence in his bed. She was sunlight and warmth wrapped in the comfort of an old friend, and that was the greatest puzzle of all.

He'd walk every league back to his palace on human feet if it gave him the chance to solve it.

 

If the fabric of the world had been personified, given form, Sabine would have sworn it was laughing at her.

Teasing, at the least, mercilessly and without remorse. Here was Ciar, the love of her life, with absolutely no recollection of who she was—and he wanted her still. Every step was surreal, an odd echo of a past long since lost.

He'd peppered her with questions at first, inquiring after her family and her interests. Even his responses were familiar, words he'd said before. Only the delivery had changed. He was harder now, a man with pain etched in his face, and even his most charming smiles had an edge of desperation that hadn't been there before the war.

Another difference—when she fell silent, he did as well, seeming content to walk at her side when before he would have insisted on conversation.

She'd expected it to hurt, walking with him like this. Those first few moments of realization that morning
had
, when she'd understood that he'd well and truly forgotten her during the night. That, as far as he knew, he'd awoken with a stranger. Only sheer force of will had stopped her from succumbing to the agony, but she'd managed. She'd stood against the urge to give in to tears.

Now, a curious hope consumed her. Ciar's obvious interest evoked nostalgic longing, bittersweet and beautiful—and the niggling, unavoidable feeling that perhaps this was a way around the spell that had cost them so much. The sorceress could doom Sabine to be forgotten, but she couldn't change the things that had drawn them together in the first place.

She had to speak. “What are your plans now that the war has ended?”

He didn't answer at once. Another change from the impulsive man he'd been, that he paused at times to consider his words. “I'm not sure,” he said at last. “See to my people, of course. And my court. I fought so hard to come home, but I imagine it's just more work waiting for me.”

“Work,” she repeated slowly. “Is that all your kingdom is to you?”

“No.” It sounded too hasty, and he repeated the word, this time with emphasis. “No, of course not. Forgive me, Sabine. I'm out of sorts.”

“I didn't mean to imply—” She took a bracing breath. “So am I. Out of sorts, I mean. Being here with you is…something I never imagined would happen.” Especially not twice in a lifetime.

“Something's missing.” Abrupt words, laced with frustration. “I know I was fighting to come home to more than this.”

Her hope gave way to pain again, and she had to fight to catch her breath. “Even a creature as solitary as myself has heard rumors. You're expected to marry, are you not?”

“My mother has chosen a lady already. She seems…very nice.”

His dread made her long to comfort him. “And what do
you
want?”

“Maybe I knew before the war.” He smiled, shallow and forced. “Today I want to walk beside a beautiful woman and listen to her stories instead of boring her with my own.”

“My stories are too sad to tell.” And intimately entwined with his. “Life, I think, is about making the best of things. People think it's about grand gestures and undying love, but that isn't the truth.” Sabine stopped and studied Ciar's profile. “The truth is that few can afford the luxury of such things.”

A few steps later he must have realized she was no longer at his side. Pivoting, he faced her, curiosity in his eyes. “What are you making the best of, Sabine? What brought you into my life, and why can't I remember how it came to pass?”

What would he think if she told him the truth? What would he say? He'd consider her mad, surely. “A chance meeting, my lord. Two lonely people escaping for a while.”

“Two lonely people,” he echoed, and that curiosity turned sharp. “And yet…I trust you.”

“And that's unusual for you?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

His fingers curled toward his palms. “I've been at war, my lady. I trust few.”

“Then I do not know what to tell you.” She shrugged. “If you have your suspicions, do share them with me.”

“I have no suspicions,” he retorted. “And that is my concern. I've seen magic. Curses turned against my men. I should be wary.”

“Is that what you'd like to hear?” she asked softly. “That I've enchanted you with magic? Bound you to me?”

“Have you?”

“No.” That much, at least, was true. “I've worked no magic.”

“And yet you know something I do not.” He sounded certain.

He'd always been able to read her too easily. “Perhaps
I'm
cursed. Perhaps you do not recall meeting me because you cannot—because no one can.” A terrifying thought occurred to her, one that diminished her lighthearted mood. “Perhaps, once you sleep again, you are bound to forget this, as well.”

He didn't laugh. Strong lips turned down in a frown as his gaze swept over her, assessing. Intelligence had always stood in his eyes, now it was plain on his face too. “I can't imagine how I could forget you.”

In a heartbeat, the pain came rushing back. “You'll have to trust me when I say you could. Completely.”

“Did you know me well, Sabine?”

Gone was the intriguing charade, her chance to have more time before she lost him for good. She turned away. “I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

He moved so silently she had no warning before his hands closed around her shoulders. “All right. We'll talk of other things.”

She stiffened under his touch before she could stop herself, and she twisted away quickly. “I think we should not talk at all. Not for a little while.”

For a moment, she thought he'd push. It had always been his way, the arrogance of royalty tempered by his honest need to be a part of her life. Ciar had never let her hide herself, and he'd given his own open trust in return.

Now he fell quiet and nodded to the road.

Proof enough that she could harbor her delusions, but this
was
different. He was no longer a young prince in the blush of infatuation, and she—

She wasn't his lover.

Suddenly, Sabine wanted nothing more than to escape. Ciar would always see too much, and sooner or later she'd have to tell him the truth.

She'd leave first, steal away while he slept if she had to. She'd have to retrieve her things from his packs, erase the lingering traces of her presence. And the vial…

She shook herself. No, she'd take the poison with her, but only to find a way to dispose of it. If the last few days had proven anything to her, it was that she was strong enough to endure this loss. Ciar was her mate—that would not change, at least for her—and knowing he was safe and healthy was an irreplaceable comfort. That he'd forgotten her, that the bond had not overcome her curse, was something she could not allow to dominate her thoughts because she would surely break down.

Stolen moments could never replace what she'd lost, what
they'd
lost, and tormenting herself this way was nothing short of madness. So she would go, and content herself with the short reprieve she'd been granted. And it would have to be enough.

Chapter Five

Everything felt wrong from the moment he opened his eyes.

Ciar stared at the roughly plastered ceiling above his head and tried to chase the feeling to a conclusion. Any conclusion, really, anything to explain why he felt as if the past few days were a jumble of emotional upheaval when he'd spent them by himself.

Or had he? An intoxicating scent tickled at his senses as he rolled to sit upright on the edge of the low bed. The blankets were sturdy wool, and lifting one edge to his nose made it easier to catch the elusive smell. A female wolf. Faint—too faint for her to have slept with him—but present nonetheless.

A woman must have stayed in the cabin before him. Someone familiar, and it only stood to reason that he'd know anyone who might pass the night in one of the royal stations. A lady of the court, perhaps, traveling back to a distant country estate. Someone he'd pass in the halls of his palace in months to come and recognize by the scent she'd left behind.

Too bad she was likely married. His body thrummed with an awareness he couldn't disperse, a hunger out of place with his surroundings. Something was missing, had slipped through his fingers like a spirit, and the world seemed paler without it. Dark. Lonely.

So lonely.

Rising to his feet, Ciar stretched and forced such fancies from his mind. He'd grown soft from spending his nights in the relative comfort of well-padded beds instead of on the dirt floor of his tent. War might be a misery, but it kept a man too exhausted at night to do more than steal what moments of sleep he could.

And yet…everything felt wrong.

It felt wrong as he ate breakfast and stared at the empty spot across the table from him. It felt wrong as he collected his few belongings into his bespelled pack and stepped from the cottage.

He'd forgotten something. He was so certain he returned inside and checked every corner of the two rooms. He even ignored royal dignity and dropped to his knees, peering under the bed as he tried to recall what was missing. A thing, or a person—whatever it was, the cabin offered no answers aside from the mysterious female scent.

Outside again, Ciar examined the forest floor in a desperate attempt to find a clue. Any clue.

A careful perusal of the forest floor revealed the first inconsistency. There
was
another set of footsteps, and recent ones, at that. There were the tracks of his own large boots—odd enough, since he couldn't remember now why he would have walked when running as a wolf was much more convenient—and next to them, a smaller tread. A female or a young boy, slight enough that the indentations left in the muddy path next to the door weren't very deep.