22 Nights (21 page)

“Not wrong,” he said in a raspy voice, desperate to defend himself. “It was their time . . .”

She pressed the palm of her small hand to his forehead, and when she did, he felt the grief and horror of all that he had done. He felt the pain as if it were his own. “Yes!” he shouted. “It was wrong.”

So wrong, and yet all he could do. All he knew was killing, and he tried to deliver death quickly, he did his best to make his victims depart easily and without pain. And yet—it did hurt. There was pain for them as they departed this life.

“You must pay for your sins, Trinity,” Leyla said, and her voice was gentle. “From this day forward, until the day you die . . .”

“No!” he shouted.

“You will feel the pain of those you killed,” she continued. “You will see their faces and hear their voices, waking and sleeping. They will haunt you.”

“Not until I die,” he said hoarsely. The witch who cursed him didn’t know what a
very long time
that was.

“Yes, until you die,” she said. “Until God takes you or rejects you, you will feel the weight of every soul you took from this world. You will pay for what you have done, and you will never again take the life of an innocent. Never again!”

His head hurt, it felt as if it were about to burst, it felt as if the lightning above was in his head, bouncing around in his skull, trying to escape. Before his eyes the woman beneath him appeared to be not a beautiful witch but one of the young soldiers he had killed when he’d attacked their party. He heard the scream as if it were in his ears. The rain turned to blood and fell upon him, warm and sticky. It fell upon her, too, bright red and abundant. There was so much blood.

“Redeem yourself, if you can,” the witch added, and then she removed her hand from his throbbing head. “Now,
run
!”

Trinity leaped to his feet and began to sprint away. He did not even think of retrieving his beloved horse, for that would mean facing the witch again. He ran from her and her magic, he ran from what she had done to him, even though he knew it could not be undone. No one had told him she was a witch!

Her curse was already at work. As he ran through the storm, the narrow, muddy road was lined with ghostly figures of those he had killed. He had killed many in his life as an assassin, and it seemed they stretched forever. They screamed at him, and together their screams were louder than the thunder, brighter than the lightning. Again the rain turned to blood, and the ghosts moved closer to him until they were so near he could not breathe as he fought his way through them.

What had he done?

LEYLA
ran toward the hut, praying that Savyn wasn’t dead. The blow Trinity had delivered could’ve been a killing blow, but maybe it had just rendered Savyn senseless. Maybe he was alive.

She slipped through the doorway. Savyn was lying on the floor just inside. He was in the exact same position he’d been in when she’d made her escape. Judging by the way his head was positioned and the single bleeding gash there, Trinity had not delivered a second blow. He had not lied about that, at least.

“Savyn,” Leyla whispered as she dropped to her knees beside him. She was shaking, as much from fear for Savyn as from the strain of using so much of her gift at one time. Her shoulder hurt where the stick which had injured Savyn had fallen so hard. She felt very close to dropping into a deep sleep herself, but could not until she knew Savyn was all right.

She had no dry cloth—even her underskirt was soaked—and she needed something to bandage Savyn’s head. She carefully unbuttoned his shirt and worked it off of him, then folded it into a thick length which would wrap around his head and stem the flow of blood. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do until morning. “I love you,” she said as she bandaged his wound. “I love you so much. I’m wrong for you and I know it, but that doesn’t matter, not now. In all my life, I have never loved anyone the way I love you. Even before we became intimate, before I realized what true passion was like, I loved you. You made me laugh,” she said softly. “You made me feel like a woman, not a frightening freak of nature.”

When his head was bandaged and it seemed the bleeding had stopped, she ripped strips from her underskirt and laid them near the fire to dry. Perhaps by morning she would have a more suitable bandage. When that was done, she placed her head on Savyn’s chest. He was much too heavy for her to move—just taking off his shirt had been a struggle—and now and then a bit of rain came through the door and landed upon them. But they had the light of the fire, and Trinity was gone, and they were both alive.

The strain of using so much of her power had sapped Leyla’s strength, and even though her heart and her shoulder were in agony, she passed out with her cheek pressed to Savyn’s heart.

 

BELA
woke with the sun, as usual. Her head rested on Merin’s chest, and her hand was nestled between his thighs. It was only fair, since his hand was resting quite comfortably on her right breast. He slept on, and she did not disturb him. Not yet.

In was in Bela’s nature to take what she wanted. Whether it was sneaking into Tyman’s room at night and borrowing his practice sword or lying to a handsome general in order to lose her bothersome virginity, Bela was like a bull when it came to getting what she desired.

She was twenty-three years old and just now learning that some things could not be taken. Some valuable things had to be earned, they had to be won in a gentle battle. Merin would have to be won. Love would come only at the end of an ardent, persistent battle.

Was she prepared to fight? Was she prepared to risk anything and everything?

More important, was she willing to be
patient
? She could, given the current state of affairs, wake Merin most agreeably and take the pleasures of their bodies entwined. He fought the concept of love, but his body wanted hers. He wanted her very much. But if she did that, if she tricked him again, he might never forgive her.

Belavalari Haythorne had never been known for her abundance of patience.

No, she was rightly Belavalari Merin at the moment, was she not? Wife of Tearlach, daughter of the chieftain Valeron, potential mother of the children of a hero. Together she and Merin would make fine, strong sons and daughters.

If she could make him love her.

Merin awoke not long after her, and his hand flew from her breast as if her skin were on fire. “Sorry,” he muttered, sleep still in his morning-hoarse voice.

“No need to apologize,” she said as she removed her hand from between his thighs.

“We should arrive at our destination this afternoon,” he said, turning directly to business, trying to dismiss their closeness. Perhaps trying to dismiss his own desires.

“Yes, we should.” Bela sat beside him and admired the view from their place so high in the world. “I’m anxious to explore that area where Kitty was found. Would you kiss me? ”

“What?” He was surprised by the bold and unexpected question.

“Kiss me,” she said. “If you wouldn’t mind. I’ve never been kissed, except for last time you were here, and I’ve almost forgotten what it was like. Besides, I had lied to you then, so it was not a true and righteous kiss. I do remember it as being pleasant, and I thought while we are still married and there’s no one around to see . . .”

“It’s not a good idea,” Merin said gruffly.

“I know,” she said, looking him in the eye. “But after you’ve left us, I do not want to regret not taking a proper kiss when the opportunity presented itself.”

“Fine,” he said, not at all in the mood for a kiss by her reckoning. He grabbed the back of her head and pulled her toward him and coolly pressed his mouth to hers very briefly before pulling away.

It was not enough.

“That is not as I remembered,” she said.

With a sound very much like a grunt, Merin pulled her mouth to his again and delivered a much more proper kiss. His wonderfully full mouth was warm and tender, and it lingered against hers. His beard was rough, but she liked the feel of it brushing against her tender skin. Bela found her lips parting of their own accord, as if inviting more. In response, Merin gave her more. A tip of the tongue, a nip of the lower lip, a movement she felt to her bones.

Her body instinctively swayed toward his, and she rested her hand on his thigh, where it seemed to fall quite naturally. She tilted her head, inviting more, and for an all too brief moment, Merin gave her more.

And then it was done.

“I felt that kiss everywhere,” she said honestly. “Still do.” She rested a hand on her chest. “Kissing was not nearly so pleasant last time, perhaps because I was so ignorant of what might come next.”

“We must go,” Merin said gruffly, rolling to his feet and grabbing for his blanket.

“Yes, I suppose we must.” Standing languidly, Bela stretched her muscles and faced the morning with a smile. “What a lovely day it’s going to be.”

FORBIDDEN
Mountain was alternately rocky and forested, with periods of hard climbing combined with easier hours of crossing shallow creeks and walking gentle natural paths beneath ancient trees. As Merin had been told, there were no animals here, neither large nor small. That alone gave the mountain an unnatural feel, though he could not say he felt any trepidation or unease on this mountain that was said to be so unwelcoming.

Other than the occasional possibility of a nasty fall, there was not much to reckon with in the way of danger, he thought as he climbed, unless he could count kissing Bela. That had definitely been dangerous. Too bad there wasn’t more peril along this journey. He was sure a good sword fight or tussle with a mountain lion would make him feel much better. It would, at least, take his mind off a more immediate problem.

Bela. Bela was his problem. He’d been more comfortable when she’d threatened to take his head, when she’d seemed to hate him for not dying six years ago, as she’d planned. Now she smiled at him often, and she asked for kisses and she talked about love as any other woman might.

No, not as any other woman. Bela presented all she thought and felt without pretense, without a put-on shyness or uncertainty. She said what she felt and asked the same of him.

He could not tell her that her very presence was driving him to the brink of insanity, that the braided rope which bound them seemed to grow shorter and more binding every day. He could not tell her that he had suffered fantasies of keeping her as his wife, even though he knew he could not, should not . . . no,
could
not.

Emperor Jahn had become a much better emperor than Merin had thought he could be in those early days. The man who had once seemed to be practically worthless had become a fair and kind ruler. Jahn had his quirks. This ridiculous bridal contest proved that well enough. Still, he was emperor, and if Merin returned and informed Jahn that the woman he’d been sent to fetch was his wife . . . he would not be pleased.

Why do you care about pleasing an emperor more than you care about pleasing yourself?
Kitty whispered.

Merin sighed. He did wish whatever power gave the sword life would get out of his head. Was nothing private?

Merin glanced back at Bela, and she smiled. If she heard Kitty’s words, she gave no sign. It was damned odd that the power in the sword could choose to speak to both of them or only to one. Merin did not much like being so closely connected to a magic he could not entirely explain—a force which might be much more powerful than he or Bela or any among the Turis realized.

Kitty went silent. Was she sulking? And when had he started thinking of the weapon as “she” instead of “it”? He had lost control of his life in so many ways . . .

A clatter of rocks not far behind them alerted Merin that someone or something else was nearby. A muffled curse told him it was a man—or men—who followed. Miners? There were not supposed to be any Turi miners this far to the south, but perhaps they were lost or exploring, searching for another plot of rich land on this forbidden mountain. Nobel or his men? Probably not. Dishonest and greedy as the man who wished to wed Bela was, he’d seemed pleased enough with their agreement. Still, he was not a man to be trusted, so anything was possible. Who else would dare to follow them here?

Merin scrambled to a flat expanse of rock and unsheathed the sword he wore against his back. He dropped his pack to the ground, and Bela, who had surely heard the sounds, smoothly did the same. She dropped her sack of supplies and drew Kitty, whose grip shone brightly—perhaps brighter than before. The sword also emitted a keening noise, a sharp sound of excitement and preparation.

Moments earlier Merin had wished for trouble to distract him. It appeared that trouble was coming.