B00CGOH3US EBOK (25 page)

As they rode throughout the morning, Kendale held his mount to a slow pace. However, every time Baelin drew near, the horse would suddenly speed up and put more distance between them. Maybe the animal was jittery sensing a dragon on its tail, but he suspected the knight was doing it on purpose.

It did little good. With the dragon's acute hearing, he could not help but overhear every word they spoke, even from a distance. Would that he could close his ears so he wouldn't have to listen to the way the knight flirted shamelessly with Lady Jill.

"Fair lady, your beauty rivals that of any flower of the field and your voice enchants me with its musical lilt from a land far away."

Baelin heard her snort. "Does that cheesy line really work on the women around here?"

Kendale was struck silent for a moment, then he tossed his head back and laughed. Baelin saw him swipe at tears as he struggled to regain his composure.

"Aye, my lady. It usually does. But I venture it is not working with you."

"No, it's not. So you can take your pretty poetry and odes to my eyebrows and shove them back in your pocket, because it's getting pretty deep around here."

The knight sobered and spoke to her with all seriousness. "Ah, but that is where you are wrong. You do enchant me. I have never, in all my travels, met a woman such as you."

"Now that I believe."

He watched on as Kendale rode with his arms wrapped around Lady Jill's waist. He hated that the other knight was able to touch her, to hold her, when he could not. To put his arms about her slender waist and pull her luscious body against his. But he couldn't very well force her to walk when she could ride.

Yet again, Baelin cursed the dragon part of him that prevented him from being like any other man. Prevented him the simple act of riding a horse.

He wished he could take the lead so he wouldn't have to look at them, but every time he attempted to go around, Kendale would nudge his horse and lope ahead, curse the man.

Walking downwind from Lady Jill, the gentle breeze tantalized him, carrying the subtle fragrance that was hers on fleeting wisps to tease him. Only now, her sweet scent was mingled with another's, tainted by horse and man.

It was as if his every dragon sense stood heightened just to taunt him, at least where Lady Jill was concerned. Just then, she laughed at something witty the knight said and the creature within, the one that hoarded treasure of gold and silver and precious gems, roared to life. But Baelin's inner beast coveted a different treasure now—one of flesh and bone, of emerald-flecked eyes and hair of silk. As much as he hated the monster he was, he couldn't deny the nature of the animal within him.

"Mine."

"Did you say something, my lord?"

He turned to find young Owen riding up beside him. The boy struggled to keep his small pony under control as the animal rolled its eyes at Baelin.
Aye, you should be frightened, you mangy beast. With the mood I'm in, I just might eat you.

"Nay, I was merely speaking to myself." Just as Lady Jill does. 'Twas yet another sign how much she'd affected him in the short time they'd been together.

Owen caught Baelin's penetrating stare at the pair riding ahead of them. "Fear not, my lord. Sir Roderick will let no harm befall her."

"I cannot help but wonder if it is not Sir Roderick I should be worried about."

"Why?"

He tried to choose his words carefully. There was no need to insult the boy's master. "He seems to be overly…friendly, does he not?"

Owen's young brow furrowed as he considered the pair riding ahead. "Sir Roderick is that way with all the ladies and they adore him for it. His skill with the fairer sex is quite renowned."

"'Tis what I am worried about."

"You should not worry overmuch. He has never been one to force his attentions. All I have seen in his company have been most willing."

"That certainly eases my mind."
Not in the least
. For in truth, what did he know of Lady Jill and men she fancied? After all, she herself confessed she was no longer a maid, and yet she'd never been wed. Did the women of her time give of themselves so freely? He did not want to think it so, especially not with a man like Kendale about.

Nay, he knew her well enough to know she was not any man's whore. Still, he could not help but wonder that if she had been seduced once before by a man from her future, could she be as easily swayed by a practiced courtier from his time? The very possibility had the dragon snarling to take back what was his.

"Damn it, Roderick," came Lady Jill's annoyed voice from up ahead, "if that hand of yours creeps any higher, you're going to be singing soprano in the next three-point-five seconds."

The knight chuckled, Owen snickered and Baelin growled, his hand on his sword hilt until Kendale raised his arm in a sign of surrender.

"A thousand pardons, my lady. I was merely making sure you do not fall," he said in his defense, but he did not bother to hide the humor in the tone of his voice.

"I'll just bet you were." Lady Jill took the offending hand and placed it on the knight's mail-covered thigh. "Move it again and you're going to have to learn how to wield a sword left-handed for the rest of your life."

Owen couldn't suppress his boyish laughter any longer, even at his master's expense. "Lady Jill, she is not like any other woman I have ever met before."

"Nay, she is not."

He grinned at Baelin. "I like her."

He returned the boy's smile and eased his sword back to rest within its sheath, comforted for the time being that Lady Jill could handle the amorous knight in her own peculiar way.

"So do I, lad. So do I."

At that moment, he caught sight of Lady Jill craning her head around the knight's large form to glance behind them.

"Fear not, my lady," he heard Kendale say. "He is still there, most like staring daggers at my back."

Surprise straightened her spine. "As a matter of fact, he is. So why are you doing it?"

"Paying homage to your beauty?" he shrugged. "'Tis what a knight does when in the company of a lovely lady."

"That's not what I mean. You know I'm with Baelin, but you keep coming on to me. Why?"

Baelin could well imagine the knight's confusion at her strange words. "Coming on?"

"Flirting. Sweet-talking. Trying to get in my pants."

Kendale nodded. "Ah, but as you told me last night, you are a free woman, at liberty to be with whomever you choose. Am I correct?"

"Yes, but—"

"And as I understand it, Gosforth has no claim on you, save as your escort. True?"

"True, but—"

"Then that means I am free to
come on
to you, am I not?"

"No, it does not!" she sputtered.

Kendale laughed, then leaned in to whisper in Lady Jill's ear, but Baelin heard the knight's softly spoken words all the same. "And what of Sir Baelin? Do you hold affection in your heart for him?"

Baelin nearly stumbled. He slowed his steps, his ears pricked to hear her answer.

"It doesn't matter. We won't be together long enough for anything more than friendship."

"Ah, yes. He told me he was returning you to your home. I take it then that you plan to part ways once you reach there?" Kendale asked.

Lady Jill faced forward on the horse once again. "Yes. If everything works out, in two weeks he and I will never see each other again."

Baelin's stomach clenched at her words and his throat tightened to the point he could barely breathe. How could he have forgotten she believed she would return home once the curse was broken, that her hopes for returning to her time rode on the tapestry tucked safely inside his satchel? The burden of carrying it never weighed so much as it did at this moment.

He shifted the satchel to his other shoulder, hating the damn scrap of cloth more than ever.

He hung shackled to the wall, the stones cold and rough against his back, the weight of his body on his arms unbearable. The sharp edge of metal bit into his wrists and warm blood trickled down, falling drop by drop onto the white stone floor.

He didn't know how long he'd been hanging there. Time had lost meaning for him.

But he wouldn't give in. He refused to break.

Because then she would win.

"Come, Baelin. Why do you resist when it would be so much easier to submit to me?"

He kept his eyes closed, his head lowered. Not out of reverence or subservience, but out of self-preservation. If he looked at her now, all would be lost.

"I would sooner endure the fiery pits of hell than to serve your dark powers for one beat of your black heart."

She tsked. "Your sense of honor is to be admired, but I do grow weary of it."

Then release me! he wanted to shout. But he didn't. He would never beg for mercy from her. She had none.

He heard her shift one step closer.

"Do you not find me beautiful?" she cooed.

He refused to answer her, refused to pay her the worship her vanity craved.

She gripped his chin, her nails digging into the flesh of his cheeks, and forced his head up. "Do you?" she spat through gritted teeth.

He didn't want to look at her. He didn't want to open himself to the dark power he could not fight. One crack in his will was all it would take. One moment of vulnerability and she would get in.

He resisted the pull as his lids fluttered open with a will of their own, powerless to stop them. He shuddered as he peered into those spell-binding eyes that had no doubt lulled many a man to his doom.

Frozen by those shifting violet orbs, the lie of her stunning beauty faded and her true image took form. The perfect ivory shell of the visage before him cracked, splitting open, to reveal the rotting yolk within. But instead of spilling out on the white floor in a pile of fetid waste as it did each time he relived this horror, the dark core took shape, shifting and solidifying into a familiar form as the outer layer crumbled and fell away.

Dark shifted to light. Thick black sinews coiled, curling into silky brown tresses. Oozing tar softened and smoothed into creamy pale skin, and two dark pits formed into the green-flecked eyes he knew so well.

Jill.

Baelin's eyes flew open, expecting to see the stark white confines of his prison. To hear
her
laughter. But the only sounds were of the wind in the treetops over his head, the hiss of the fire as the ashes died down, and the steady snoring of the knight nearby.

He lay still and tried to calm the rapid beating of his heart, to dispel the hazy tendrils of the dark dream that remained.

The nightmares always returned whenever he was in human form. Even after all these years so far out of her reach, the witch still tormented him. She had no power over him in his waking hours, but at night she crept into his dreams, torturing him over and over again in his memories. This time, the pain had been all too real. He rubbed his wrists out of habit, surprised as always to find there were no deep gashes in his flesh.

But that was not what bothered him. He'd had the same dream many times over the centuries, but this was the first time the witch had changed into the maiden. What did it mean? He rubbed at his throbbing temples, but as the dream faded away on the morning mist, the answer refused to come. A man could go mad pondering the reasoning of it all.

He grabbed his sword belt and strode to the edge of the trees. Though the violence churned within him, as it always did when he dreamed of
her
, he would go no further. He dare not leave Lady Jill unguarded again.

He clenched his fists, itching to wrap them around the witch's neck and strangle her. Drawing his sword, he again heard her laughter and wanted nothing more than to sever her head from her body to stop the pealing sound that had rung in his ears for over two hundred years.

A twig snapped behind him and he whirled, his sword striking out without thought.

Kendale jumped back, the blade whistling through the air, barely missing its mark. The knight raised his hands, his expression wary.

"Hold up there, my man. No need to skewer me for taking a piss."

Baelin lowered his sword but did not sheath it. His hands were too unsteady to accomplish the simple task at the moment. Saints, his nerves were so on edge, he'd nearly gutted the man before he knew what he was about. Without the protection of his mail, the knight's quick reflexes had been the only thing that prevented Baelin from slicing him open from breast to hip.

What if it had been Lady Jill or the boy instead?

"Is aught amiss?" Kendale asked, his keen gaze searching the trees for danger.

"Nay, I thought I heard something, but it was naught."

"Ah, good." Kendale untied his breeches and a yellow stream arched out to douse the dry leaves on the ground. "I do so hate to face battle with a full bladder."