RavenHawke (Dragons of Challon Book 2) Read online

  “Einar, see that his men and that their horses are fed, before they set off on the trail to Glenrogha.” She rose, stepping away from the table. “Now, Squire Gervase, I needs must take my leave. There be many chores. Lyonglen does not run by itself.”

  ♦◊♦

  Aithinne tried to slam the door to her room, but the three idiots were on her heels. Lewis in the lead had the door hit his nose. He pulled up short to rub it, and then Deward and Hugh crashed into his backside, which started their typical shoving matches. Too upset by knowing Lord Challon was seeking high and low for his cousin, and when he did not find him would be back―mayhap this time himself―she had no patience for the lads’ childish antics.

  She picked up the unlit candle and threw it at them. Lewis ducked but it hit the side of the door and broke into chunks. The other two put up their arms and tried to deflect the pieces.

  “Stay your temper, Sister mine. We have done naught―” Lewis started, but dodged as she grabbed the empty chamber pot.

  They scurried in three different directions to make her choosing a target harder. “Of all the brainless…halfwit―third-wit….ah…ooh―”

  “Lackwit be the word you usually hurl at us, Sister.” Deward peeked up from behind a chair. “Nodcock in extreme circumstances, methinks.”

  “Nodcock!” Aithinne stood vibrating with rage and much too practical to waste a perfectly good chamber pot on one of their hard heads. “Life be not cruel enough. I send you out on a simple errand to collect a man no one will miss and what did you come back with? The Dragon of Challon’s cousin! Of all the stupid, mooncalf―”

  Hugh poked his head around the door’s edge where he’d hidden. “Now, Aithinne, save your temper. All shall turn out fine. You will see. The man will go back and tell Lord Challon his cousin be not here.”

  Aithinne looked around for something, anything to bean him with. Finding naught she tossed her hands up in exasperation. “Of course he will. Then, Challon will become even more concerned, and will lead his troops on a more thorough search. What happens when he comes back, you dunderhead?”

  Deward shrugged. “I suppose he comes and we tell him the man be no’ within the curtain. Aithinne, it is not like he has eyes that see through stone, so how can he know his cousin is in the tower, and why would he think we have reason to hold his kinsman, so he will just go away, do you no’ think—”

  “Deward, hush your never-ending prattle! Most people take breaths when they talk.” She closed her eyes rubbing her temples, pain pounding to the point where she wanted to cry. “Och, we are doomed. I have trouble enough between Phelan and Dinsmore driving me to distraction, now you bring down the fire of the great Black Dragon.”

  “Sister—” Lewis came and put his arm around her shoulder, urging her toward the high bed. “—you are just tired. You need rest. Hugh shall fetch Oona and she will give you a tansy to speed you to sleep. Einar will keep guard. Then, we can decide what is best to do this evening.”

  “He goes back. Tonight. No more arguments,” she insisted, knowing it was the only option left.

  Maybe if they could get him back to Glenrogha by dawn no fire-breathing Dragon would descend upon Lyonglen and make a charred meal out of her.

  Chapter Six

  Then, maiden fair, you'll let me go...

  I'll be the perfect man...

  — Ballad of Tamlin

  The shrill cry―like a woman screaming―echoed through his fuzzy brain, rousing him from his dreamless sleep. The noise came twice more. Then nothing. Drowsing, Damian wondered if it were merely part of a dream.

  He might have drifted back to the black void of slumber, but the coolness of the bed caused him to stir. With a smile, he reached to pull her warm body close, wanting just to hold her, to bury his face in her soft hair. Stretching, he struggled to open his eyes, for once not feeling so drugged. She was not there. As his mind cleared, he ran his hand over the spot where she had lain. The feather mattress still bore the impression of her body, but it lacked any of her remaining heat.

  “So, my Lady Midnight is real and not a figment of my dreams.” Damian was not in the habit of talking to himself, but it gave him a sense of reality missing since Beltaine. “At times, I feared mayhap I had been wounded in battle and could not recall, and now fought for my life as I had when the Welshman’s sword found the split in my mail.”

  His dreams of her back in that dark time had been strong. She had come and soothed his brow, whispering tender words. Her ghostly presence had kept him hanging onto life when his mind was scorched by fever or chills that had wracked his body.

  Sitting up, he once again took tally of the details of his peculiar situation. The chamber was in a tower, judging by what little he could view through the narrow window. He was sore. Very sore. That brought a smile to his lips as he considered how he got in that condition. But there was no wound from a fight.

  “Things are looking up. I am not injured, nor have a mind-fever. So someone feeds me a potion to see I stay in this muddled condition? The question is who and why?” He held his fingers to his nose scenting her. “But she is real. Oh, she is real. Tamlyn?”

  His mind worried around the edges of that burning question. He tried to concentrate on the woman’s face, but admitted the herbs he ingested saw everything slightly out of focus. Also, he had yet to observe her in more than moonlight and shadow. Whilst his heart cried out for it to be Tamlyn, logic bespoke such actions were not within the Lady of Glenrogha’s character. Pain lanced through him as he acknowledged she might conceivably keep Julian a sex slave in a tower, but upon his look-alike cousin she did naught more than smile in a sisterly fashion. As badly as he wanted it to have been Tamlyn these past nights, his warrior’s sense said it went against the grain of truth. Tamlyn MacShane was a lady of honor. Though Damian wouldst like to deny it, she was falling deeply in love with Julian. She would never do anything to dishonor that love or hurt Challon.

  So who was this woman who came to him in the shadows? Was she some Highland Lamia his mother warned him about, seeking to suck his soul dry? Did she pluck images of Tamlyn from his mind and refashion her visage to trick him? Trick him into what? What purpose did she hope to achieve by keeping him prisoner? By lying with him?

  At her mere scent his body bucked, saying he craved her yet again. How many times had he taken her during the night? Endlessly, it seemed. The corner of his mouth quirked up at his newfound stamina. “Mayhap, I shall inquire what is in the strange love philter―once I half strangle her for chaining me in her bed. Then my Lady Midnight, I shall turn the tables and shackle you in mine.”

  He experienced mixed emotions as his mind grew more firm that it was not Tamlyn. He wanted this woman with a fever that gripped his body. Even as the potion wore off, he still hungered after this mysterious lady of the night. Nonetheless, his heart felt a grieved disappointment it was not Tamlyn.

  “Tamlyn was never mine.” The muscles in his throat swallowed back tears as he admitted the cold truth.

  Damian pulled the plaide to his face, inhaling her intoxicating scent. Willing her to return to him. To have her again he would gladly give his soul.

  And anything else she might ask.

  ♦◊♦

  The next time he opened his eyes, sunlight streamed through the narrow window, showing it must be late in the day. His stomach grumbled, reinforcing that assumption. He was hungry and thirsty―and in a very foul mood. They were drugging the water or the victuals, mayhap both. He had to eat, and most especially required water. Howbeit, with his head near splitting, his temper out-paced reason, leading him to vow not to break his fast.

  “Short of sitting on me and pouring it down my throat, I shall touch naught of what they fetch me,” he grumbled to the empty room. Struggling to his feet, he wrapped the plaide around his hips, and started toward a screen that concealed the chamber pot. Forgetting the stupid chain shackling his ankle, he tripped. “That bloody rips it.”

  He snatched up the
links and yanked. Accomplishing nothing. Frowning, he pulled again, this time with all his warrior’s muscle. With the strength of his rising fury, he put his full weight against it, jerking over and over. It cracked and pinged, but the chain and bed held.

  The rattle of a key sounded in the lock, interrupting his display of bad humor.

  Her image rose in his mind. A deep throb pulsed through his blood and instantly his shaft flexed and thickened. “Down my fair fellow. My Lady Midnight has never come to me in the light of day before. You likely rear your head when ’tis only that strange crone, come to ply witch’s wares and potions and cackle at you.” His arousal slowed. “Aye, thought you wouldst feel thusly.”

  The door finally scraped open and a huge man halted, half through the doorway, as Damian raised the chamber pot. Clearly of Norse blood, the man grinned and then rumbled in a deep voice, “’Tis empty. I changed it out whilst you slumbered.”

  Furious, Damian flung it anyway. Damian gave the big man his due, he moved fast. Quick as a wink, the massive frame was behind the door, using it as a shield as the metal pail crashed against it.

  Still smiling, he poked his head back in. “My princess will not like you denting a good chamber pot.” The huge man moved past him to set a plate of meat, cheese and bread and a pitcher on the small table by bedside.

  “Princess?” Damian questioned, since the man sounded as though he truly meant the title. Surely, he had not been carried off to some north country to a Viking stronghold. Vague images of the three lads with a Scots burr arose within his memory. Consequently, he discounted that likelihood.

  The man nodded. “My princess.”

  Thirsty, Damian glared at the clay jug. “More mead?”

  “Just water. A man needs water.”

  Too dizzy to stand, Damian leaned against the bedside. “Where are my clothes?”

  “You have no need of them. Eat. Food you do need.”

  “Where am I?”

  “In the tower of my princess.”

  “Why?”

  The man blushed and grinned, but said naught.

  “What is your name?” Damian grew quickly aggravated with the half-truths he dragged out of the affable giant.

  “Englishman, eat.”

  Damian crossed his arms over his chest. “So you can foul my body with more of the witch’s potion?”

  The long white-blond hair shook as the man looked him up and down. “I adjudge you none the worse for the wear, eh? Most men would kill to be in her bed.”

  “Her?” Damian arched a brow. That simple gesture sent pages scurrying in terror to please him. Evidently it failed to hold the same power over behemoths.

  “My princess.”

  Damian rolled his eyes, back to the princess nonsense again. “Why am I being held by your princess?”

  “You ask too many questions, my lord.”

  “And you answer too few. You do not like questions? How about a command instead? Tell me the name of your princess.”

  “Eat. Rest. You need your strength.” He offered another of his smiles.

  The man was too trusting. As he turned to go, Damian jerked up the chain, causing the giant to trip. Damian flew at him, landing on his back and wrapping an arm around his neck. Most men would have a hard time rising from that position. Exerting little effort, he pushed up with Damian nearly riding his back like a horse. With his trough of a hand, the Viking reached behind him and grabbed a fistful of Damian’s thick hair, then with a small heft, flung him forward over him. Suddenly, Damian found himself flying through the air, heels over head, then crashing hard to the stone floor.

  ♦◊♦

  Aithinne leaned her head back and closed her eyes, relaxing in the hot water. With all the pressing duties of running Coinnleir Wood and now Lyonglen, she rarely had time enough to loll as this. At the end of a long day, she was too exhausted to wait for water to be boiled, then hauled to her room for her to have a full bath. Oona insisted a soak in the herbs would ease the woman’s pain of being with Lord RavenHawke. She had to admit it was helping.

  Damian. She had never spoken his given name, fearful of the dangerous power it would have over her heart. The final thread to forevermore bind her to him.

  This night she would send him away, back to Glenrogha. Back to Tamlyn. A burning knot formed in her heart. With every fiber of her being, she wanted to follow Einar’s advice― keep him. Despite, she could not risk his powerful cousin coming to Lyonglen, hunting for him. She needed to live quietly, and not draw King Edward’s attention until she was heavy with child. By then she would be in a better position to face what needed doing. Having the Black Dragon battering down the curtain walls in quest of St. Giles was a terrifying prospect, a risk she could not dare.

  Thinking of the child she sought to conceive through this harebrained plan, she slicked her wet hand over her belly. His child would grow there. She would carry the bairn for the passing of nine moons, breed with his seed inside her. An ache rose in her to hold the wee babe, so strong it was painful. The sensation awed her, humbled her. Never had she anticipated feeling these things, to want the child so badly that tears filled her eyes.

  “A heartbreak in the making. The wee bairn will be a constant reminder to me of the father.” Aithinne shut her eyes tightly, unable to bear the thought she would see Damian taken to Glenrogha as soon as it grew dark. Despair pressed in on her mind, knowing she would never see him again.

  “Aithinne!”

  The scream jolted her. She snatched up the sheet of woolen baize, pulling it across the tub for modesty as the door flung open and Deward rushed in. She quickly dashed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Sister, you needs must come…Einar has your warrior down and is sitting on him, and he bit our Einar, then Hugh tried to help and I think he bit Hugh as well―or maybe that was Einar trying to bite RavenHawke and missed and gnawed on Hugh, then Lewis tried to hit your RavenHawke with the chamber pot―fortunately, it was empty―”

  “Chamber pot? Einar biting St. Giles! By our Lady Annis!” Aithinne jumped out of the tub, clinging to the material, her mind awhirl with Deward’s nonstop explanation.

  “Nay, Sister. Did you not listen? RavenHawke bit him and then maybe Hugh―but that might have been Einar biting Hugh, but he meant to bite St. Giles back and―”

  “Och, hush!’ Her brain felt about to burst from listening to him. “They hit RavenHawke with the chamber pot? Have maggots gotten into their skulls? If anything happens to St. Giles, the Earl Challon will bring this fortress down around our ears.”

  Snatching her kirtle off the high bed, she made a face at her brother. He stood rocking foot-to-foot in impatience, waiting for her. It took several breaths before he understood what the glare meant.

  Eyes flying wide, he said, “Oh!” then spun around so she could slip the gown over her head. As she dressed, he asked in a worried voice, “Sister, you do no’ think they killed your RavenHawke, do you?”

  She paused. “Killed? You failed to mention anyone getting killed. Surely no’! Deward, do not beg trouble. Einar would never permit anyone to get killed…I hope.”

  Hurrying down the hall and up the winding stairs to the tower room, she tied the sides of her kirtle as she trailed after Deward. This was her fault. She had failed to dose him with Oona’s potion before she left him this morn. Now, he might be injured in the scuffle with her childish brothers and Einar.

  Her hand pushing open the door, she pulled up as she eyed the scene before her. She sucked in a shocked breath. St. Giles was on the floor, a plaide about his hips. Hugh sat upon the man’s right arm, while Lewis, whose hair stood strangely on end, roosted on the other. Glowering stubbornly, Einar used his knee on St. Giles’s thighs, pinning the warrior to the stone floor. The knight was awake, though he remained still, likely viewing resistance a wasted effort at this point. She gasped when she spotted the idiots had stuffed a rag in his mouth.

  “Of all the mutton-headed, dimwitted…chicken
-brained…sheep-dip—” Aithinne was at a loss for words to express how incensed she was by their rash actions.

  Lewis and Hugh scrunched up their faces and looked to each other, echoing the question, “Sheep-dip?” Hugh rolled his eyes. “Sister be in a bother again.”

  “Get off him, you…you…worms!” Putting her fists on her hips, she used the do-or-die voice.

  They did not move. Not even Einar. Her spine straightened in shock. They never failed to scurry to obey her when she used that tone―or at least get out of her arms’ length.

  “Sister, if we get off the man,” Lewis sighed with an exasperated frown, saying he thought surely she should see his logic without being told, “he will bite me again.”

  Aithinne glared at him. He hunched his shoulders, trying to make himself smaller, less of a target for her ire. Eliciting the response from Lewis restored her sense of control. “Get off him or I shall bite you!” When they sat unmoving, she frowned, and then knelt down to tug the rag from RavenHawke’s mouth.

  The eyes were clear, sharp―and focused on her in blazing fury. Oh, what had her carelessness wrought? She knew this was the first time he had seen her in daylight, first time his mind was unmuddled by Oona’s spells and concoctions. A blush rose to her cheeks and she realized her hair was a mess and she looked a fright. Thankfully, the only light came from the narrow window and threw deep shadows into the room. Keeping the sun at her back and allowing her long hair to fall about her shoulders as a veil, she pulled the rag from his mouth.

  “You!” he growled.

  She jerked back at the force of the hurled word. “Me? Uh…huh…”

  “Aye, you…you redheaded Lamia…I am going to snatch you bald.” The way the muscles around his mouth tightened assured her he meant his threat. “I am going to truss you up like a pheasant, then I am going to turn you over my knee and bea―”