Aislin of Arianrhod (Land of Alainnshire) (9 page)

She’d first met him at a fruit market in Bellemeade when she was very young, before the sickness hit the kingdom. She’d looked up from her work to find him staring at her. She’d thought him quite handsome. She was young and free then, without a care in the world.

She’d expected her life to go the way it usually goes for a princess of royal blood. Alliances made by marriage were valuable, and she hoped she could make a good match for Arianrhod. Fionn never pushed her, but she knew he wished for the same thing.

She wanted to be in love with the person she spent the rest of her life with, so she was careful, talking with her suitors and getting to know them. She finally narrowed it down to one: Prince Heath of Thorndon.

Jariath had visited her several times in Arianrhod, but her heart was with another. She’d shown him around the kingdom, tried to be polite, but she didn’t think she’d encouraged him in any way. In fact, she told him once that another was courting her, hoping that would cool his ardor.

The day Jariath had stormed up the road by the orchard as she’d been out walking with Prince Heath qualified as one of the worst of her life. She thought for sure he was going to trample them both with that massive beastly horse of his. He’d done nothing but rain down insult after insult on both of them.

Neither of them had any weapons, and Heath had gripped her hand in terror. She’d felt him twisting his hand in hers, the physical manifestations of an internal debate he was having about saving his own life. She’d clung to him desperately, begging him not to abandon her to the madman on the horse. Heath was the only one standing between her and a possible kidnapping, and she was astonished to look into his eyes and see perfect self-preservation reflected back at her. At that moment, the first brick in the wall around her heart was firmly in place.

Jariath had called her a whore and, for some reason, it triggered a verbal response from the previously mute Heath. Jariath’s body had been as tight as a bowstring, looking for a reason to make this physical. He launched off his horse and started to pound Heath mercilessly, his fists pummeling the prince’s thin frame until he fell to the ground.

Aislin had flung herself onto his arm, but it was like holding onto a tree trunk flailing around in a windstorm. He threw her several feet, and she landed in the grass of the orchard with a bone-jarring thud.

The prince was now unconscious in Jariath’s grip. Aislin knew he would kill Heath if she didn’t find a way to stop him. She started to scream at him, knowing Heath’s death would have diplomatic implications for all of them.

Jariath had stopped then, one hand clenched so tightly on the front of Heath’s gold satin tunic that his fingers looked about to burst, the other raised above the prince’s face. He turned to her with wild, glazed eyes, and she said it again;
“If you kill him, there will be war! Is that what you want? Would that make you happy?”

The thud of distant hooves made her aware that someone had heard her screams and was coming to help them. She glanced to the right and could see Roderic and several others on horseback, flying in their direction.

“
Let him go, Jariath,”
she’d said, trying to soothe him. “
There’s nothing to be gained by killing him.”

He’d dropped Heath, limp and bleeding, onto the ground and ate up the distance between them with several long strides. She’d scrambled backward in a panic, so fast that her skirt had tangled around her legs, almost sending her back to the ground. The look on his face promised pain.

His hand had been in his pocket. She’d been wary, ready to run if he pulled a weapon, but he withdrew it to reveal a small square box in his shaking hands. A beautiful ring had been nestled within, and despite all that had just occurred, he asked her to be his wife. She was dumbstruck. She stared stupidly at the ring, and then back into his eyes, trying to gauge whether or not he was serious. He was.

Hearing Roderic and his riders grow ever closer to them, she’d found the courage to tell him she would never marry him. Ever. He looked down at her with eyes full of rage and promised, “
I
will
have you to wife, Aislin. I’ll never give up.”

And he hadn’t. Ever.

Heath was badly injured, and his father King Michael of Thorndon came a week later to retrieve his wounded son. He was furiously angry. Aislin remembered standing on the purple carpet in the throne room, head down in supplication, as King Michael berated both her and her brother.

“I send my son here to court the princess and get him back half dead!” King Michael had roared at them. “This is entirely inappropriate. I want a full accounting of this outrage!”

He’d saved a special tongue-lashing for Aislin. She’d stood, fighting tears, as he towered over her.

“Is it too much to ask that you limit yourself to one suitor at a time to prevent such problems as this? This is certainly an unseemly way for a woman of royal breeding to behave!”

King Michael might as well have called her a whore, as Jariath had done. To add insult to injury, Fionn had barely defended her.

Word quickly got back to her that Jariath was making threats against the princes of other lands. She was his. He intended to be king of Arianrhod as well as Morrigan, and she was going to be his wife. He’d isolated her just as surely as if he’d carried her back to Morrigan and caged her.

It was the sickness that saved her from a more aggressive and determined Jariath. She lost her brother during that time, leaving Arianrhod without a king. Since she knew a great deal about the day-to-day management of the kingdom, it was decided that she would be created regent for Fionn’s five-year-old son, Prince Bryce. Jariath seemed content to back off and leave her alone. For awhile, anyway.

The rambling, threatening notes he sent were disturbing, but he never tried to see her again. She was terrified just the same. She quickly drafted Devin Drake, who had previously been a stonemason, to be her assistant and impromptu bodyguard. The man was built like a bull, and she always felt safe when he was near.

There had been a long period of silence from Morrigan, and then Brock had shown up at the manor house over three weeks ago.

I shouldn’t have been so ugly to Brock, but enough is enough. Why can’t this man take no for an answer?

Aislin sat up and punched the satchel with a surprising amount of force, then flopped over onto her side away from Roderic.

Jariath’s ego was such that he would never believe she’d evaded him and slipped beyond the borders of the kingdom. He would be patient for a time, waiting for her to give herself up to him.

She knew how his mind worked though, that prey and predator thinking he was so damned good at. If he thought for one second that she was beyond his grasp, the systematic and total destruction of the land she loved would begin. After nearly eleven years of care and devotion, there would be nothing left for Bryce when he returned to the throne.

Aislin exhaled sharply. They
had
to get to Wyndham as quickly as they could.

Chapter Eleven

A
ISLIN AND RODERIC WERE UP early the next morning, packed and on their way as the first misty rays of light began to filter through the canopy above them. Keeping the sun in front wasn’t an easy task due to the height of the trees, but every now and then, they would come to a clearing. Orienting themselves again with blue sky and red sun, they continued on their way. Eventually they found what appeared to be a footpath, smooth and sunken in the forest floor, leading into the cool darkness.

Aislin had always found walking in the deep woods to be a sensual experience. The very air here seemed to crackle with mystery and an excitement she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Humid, dark, and lusty, the footpath had beckoned to her.
Anything could happen here.
It was a temptation she couldn’t resist.

As they walked, they talked about the past. Roderic had been the bane of Aislin’s existence as she was growing up. She often tried to do the dangerous and impossible on a horse, and he usually caught her before she could put her plan into action. He kept Aislin laughing with his stories, pushing her to remember things she’d not thought about for a long time.

“Do you remember the time I stole Maggie out of the stable? I really wanted to see if I could stand on her back while she galloped.”

“Yes, and you couldn’t have picked a nastier, more temperamental horse to practice on. I remember well the size of the gash you had on your head when she threw you off. You were about ten years old, I think. I had to get grandmother to hold you down while I cleaned the wound and put stitches in your head.” Roderic laughed. “It’s funny now, but I had been unofficially deemed your minder by your father, and I hadn’t been watching you closely enough. After you fell, you didn’t move for awhile. I feared the worst.”

Roderic’s grandmother, Mina, was long dead these many years. She’d been a short, round, gruff little woman with wild gray hair and no teeth. Aislin smiled as she thought of how she’d struggled in Mina’s arms, screaming at the top of her lungs as Roderic put in the stitches.

“My mother wasn’t happy a stable hand had sewn up the princess!” She laughed with delight. “My father told her he’d seen you bandage many an injured man, and there was no one better. The cut healed with no scar, and my hair grew back. None of the manor house physicians were as good as you were at stitching up a wound.”

“I certainly didn’t want to take you back up to your mother with blood running down your face and your skull exposed. She could be a difficult woman even under the best of circumstances.”

They walked in silence for awhile, and then Aislin asked, “Why do you suppose that is?”

“Suppose what is?”

“Why my mother has always been so difficult. Father was fun and easy. Mother has always been distant with me. It was obvious she loved Fionn, but when it came to me... she always acted like she was sorry I was ever born.”

“I don’t know if that’s true. I think she loves you. She’s just a complicated person.”

“I really don’t think she wanted a daughter. At least that’s the impression I always got from her. I think my father took me under his wing out of sheer pity. He taught me everything he knew because he didn’t know what else to do with me. When Mother realized I was out there getting dirty and shoveling the stables, I think she felt guilty. She pulled me back up into the manor house and attempted to teach me how to sew.” Aislin gave a sardonic laugh. “Needless to say, it didn’t go well. We could barely be in the same room together. I ran away from her at every opportunity.”

“Your father taught you well. I’m sure even your mother would agree things would’ve been very bad if you hadn’t taken charge of the kingdom all those years ago.”

“Do you ever miss Fionn?” Aislin asked.

“Every day of my life. He was like a younger brother to me. His son is like my own.”

“Poor Gwen. She really loved him. She seems a little lost sometimes.”

“Do you think she ever thinks about meeting someone and remarrying?” It was an off-the-cuff question from Roderic, and it surprised her.

Aislin skipped ahead on the path and began to walk backwards in front of him, a smile lighting up her face.

“Roderic, don’t tell me you have eyes for our Gwen!”

He gave her a pained look. “And so what if I do? She’s a lovely woman wasting away in that manor house. In any case, it’s all for nothing. She certainly wouldn’t consider me.”

“You’re a wonderful man. I think Fionn would be delighted if you took care of his wife and children.”

“I don’t wish to talk about this any more,” he said flatly. “We should sit down and have some lunch.”

“She’s been alone a long time. I know she wonders if anyone ever notices her.”

“I’ve noticed,” Roderic said quietly. He walked quickly on ahead of her.

The footpath ended in a small clearing, warmed by the sun. After walking so long in the cool shade of the forest, the warmth felt good. They stopped and got out the last of the food they had brought from the cave.

An early morning and a full stomach made Aislin sleepy. She stretched out in the grass, her head on her backpack, hoping Roderic would take the hint. She peeped out at him from under a partially closed eye. He was plumping his own backpack and stretching out in the grass.
Good!
She closed her eyes and let her body relax.

The nap started pleasantly enough. She could hear the wind in the trees, and the birds singing above her, as she dropped off to sleep. Then her mind’s eye grew dark, as if a thunderstorm was looming. She could feel a threat in the air, and she started to run from a danger she couldn’t see.
If I can just get to the manor house...
but something took her off her feet and that something had wrapped a giant hand completely around her right ankle and was pulling her backward.

She rolled over and came face to face with a leering Jariath. Terrified, she tried to throw herself back over onto her belly and dig her fingers into the ground, but he lurched forward and dropped the length of his body onto hers. He caught her face with both of his brawny hands; his laugh sounded like an echoed rumble of thunder. Cold blue eyes held hers captive, impaled her, and intense pain hummed through every cell of her body. She tried to throw him off, but he began to kiss her, brutal and hard—a punishment for years of insults and refusals. She felt her soul lift from her body, absorbed into him, and she screamed...

“Aislin, wake up! Wake up, love, you’re dreaming!” She sat bolt upright and clutched at Roderic, her fingers digging into his shoulders. She buried her face on him, gasping and shaking. He held her, letting her come to her senses on her own.

“By the gods, that must have been some nightmare you were having!”

“It was... Jariath...”

“Shhh!” His arms tightened protectively around her. “I’ll never let him hurt you. Never, as long as I draw a breath.”

He said it with such heartfelt conviction that Aislin felt herself calm a little, though the terror still lingered.

“Come. We have a little bit of distance to cover yet before we can stop.” Roderic helped her to her feet and held her for just a second before he stooped to pick up her backpack.

Aislin was silent the rest of the day, her head down as she walked. The nightmare had felt so real that she was having trouble driving it from her mind. She could see Roderic look over at her occasionally, but she didn’t feel much like talking.

Roderic stopped abruptly. “We’d better stop here, if I’m going to have enough daylight left to do any hunting. Why don’t you start a fire, and get things ready? Hopefully I can kill another wild boar.” He dropped his backpack to the ground beside Aislin and pulled the quiver of arrows over his shoulder.

There was shuffling in the underbrush nearby. He tilted his head and grinned. “There’s our supper now!” He quickly disappeared into the foliage.

Aislin dropped her backpack, and unbuckled the knife and axe, dropping them to the ground. She had just begun searching for firewood when she heard a muffled cry followed by a menacing thud. The birds in the trees above her took off flying, calling the alarm.