Forbidden (13 page)

Gems of amber were everywhere on her. Bracelets of clear, golden pieces of amber circled her wrists, gleaming with every movement she made. The silver dagger at her waist was set with a single red amber eye. The hand-sized silver pin that fastened her cloak was set with translucent amber gems in the shape of a phoenix, symbol of death and rebirth through fire. A necklace of amber pieces hung around her neck, as did the pendant in whose golden depths Amber could sometimes see shadows of the past.

Yet as Duncan watched her, it wasn't the fortune in costly gems he saw. He saw the thick fringe of her eyelashes and the wild roses blooming in her cheeks. He ached to taste the chill of the wind on her skin, and then to drink the warmth behind her rosy lips.

He wished she were riding in front of him rather than on her own horse. If she were in front of him, he could gather her close, slide his hand into the opening of her mantle, and caress the soft warmth of her breasts. Then he would feel the softness change as her nipples tightened, pouting for the heat of his mouth.

Duncan's thoughts had an immediate effect on his body. The rushing, flooding heat and the hardening of his flesh was something he was becoming accustomed to around Amber. What he wasn't accustomed to was a small, quiet voice warning him that he must not take her.

It would be wrong.

Yet as soon as the thought came, Duncan disputed it.

She isn't betrothed. She isn't married. She isn't virgin, despite Erik's protestations. She and I have known one another. I'm certain of it.

And she is willing.

What can be wrong with that?

Nothing answered Duncan's inner questioning except the stubborn silence of the darkness where memories lay beyond his reach.

Am I married? Is that what the cursed silence is trying to tell me?

No memory came, yet Duncan felt certain he was not married. He couldn't say why, but the feeling remained unshakable.

“Duncan?”

He turned toward the girl whose eyes were even more beautiful than the amber gems she wore.

“We are nearing the Stone Ring,” Amber said. “Does the countryside look familiar to you?”

Amber reined in her horse at the top of a low rise. Duncan urged his horse alongside before he stopped and stood in the stirrups to get a better look at the land.

It was a glorious, hushed country of mist-wreathed trees, random outcroppings of stone, and steep-sided hills whose tops were lost in silvery cloud. A brook gleamed darkly among mossy rocks and fallen leaves, its voice hardly greater than that of the water drops slowly sliding from naked oak branches to the ground.

Anxiously, Amber waited, watching Duncan's face for the recognition she both feared and prayed would come.

The fear was for her own happiness.

The prayer was for Duncan's.

“It looks much like the trail to Ghost Glen,” Duncan said finally. “Would that Whispering Fen lay beyond.”

A small smile played beneath his dark mustache as he spoke. Color that had nothing to do with the cool day rose in Amber's cheeks. When Duncan saw her blush, his smile widened into a frankly sensual grin.

“Are you remembering what it was like to feel my mouth upon your breasts?” he asked.

The color in Amber's cheeks deepened.

“Or are you remembering the lush blooming of the flower?” Duncan asked.

Her breath hesitated.

Watching Amber, Duncan added softly, “I dream of the flower's sleek, hot petals and wake up in a fever.”

Amber could no more conceal the sensual shiver that went through her body at Duncan's words than she could take the high color from her cheeks.

“Tell me you remember,” Duncan coaxed in a low voice. “Tell me that I'm not alone in my fever.”

“I'll die remembering,” Amber said, her eyes half closed. “You gave me… Paradise.”

The sensual catch in her voice sent a stroke of heat through Duncan's body.

“You delight arid tempt me beyond endurance,” he said huskily.

A sad smile curved Amber's lips.

“I don't mean to,” she said. “I've tried not to, now that I know.”

“Know what?”

“The power of what draws us together.”

“Is that why you've avoided touching me as though I were somehow unclean?”

Amber gave Duncan a quick, sideways look. “I thought it would be easier for you that way.”

“Is it easier for the falcon to have broken wings?”

“Duncan,” she said, stricken. “I never meant to hurt you. I thought—I thought if I weren't always in your sight or within your reach, you would want me less.”

“Do you want me less now than yesterday or the day before?”

Her eyes closed as she made a despairing sound.

“Amber?” Duncan pressed.

“1 want you more, not less,” she said in a low voice.

Duncan's smile flashed. Then he saw the tears slipping from beneath Amber's closed lashes and the smile vanished as though it had never been. He urged his horse closer, to hers.

“Why do you cry?” he asked.

Slowly Amber shook her head. Warm, hard fingers tilted her chin up.

“Look at me, precious Amber.”

A torrent of Duncan's emotions poured into Amber with his touch. Even as she drank them, she knew she must stop. The longer she knew Duncan, the more she understood what taking her would cost him.

His honor.

“Won't you tell me why you cry?” Duncan asked.

Amber's tears simply fell more rapidly as she sensed his concern.

“Do you feel I dishonored you with my touch?” he asked.

“Nay,” she said.

The sound of Amber's voice was thinned by the restraint she had to exert to keep herself from fleeing Duncan.

Or from throwing herself into his arms.

“Are you afraid I will take you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Would giving me the Paradise within your body be such a terrible thing?”

“No.”

Amber took a deep, aching breath and opened her eyes. Duncan was watching her with such tender concern that she longed to reassure him.

“For me it would not be a terrible thing,” she said in a shaking voice. “For you… ah, dark warrior, for you I fear it would be the beginning of Hell rather than Paradise.”

Duncan smiled. “Fear not. You will please me to the soles of my feet. I know it as surely as I know the hammering of my own blood at the thought.”

The sound Amber made was half laugh, half cry of despair.

“And then what?” she asked. “What if I am the maiden you don't believe I am?”

“I will keep my vow.”

“We will marry?”

“Aye,” he said.

Amber took another deep breath. “And in time you will hate me.”

At first Duncan thought she was teasing him. Then he realized she was not.

“Why would I hate the girl who is sweeter to me than I ever dreamed a woman could be?” he asked.

“Dark warrior,” Amber whispered.

Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it, just as the brush of her lips over his hand was so light he could barely feel the caress.

“Tell me,” Duncan coaxed, “what saddens you so?”

“I feel the restlessness in you,” Amber said simply.

He smiled. “The cure for it lies within your warmth.”

“For the prowling hunger, yes. For the part of you chained within shades of darkness, unsettled, troubled, hungering for a life that is no more… I have no cure for that.”

“I will remember someday. I am certain of it.”

“And if we are married before that day? What then?”

“Then you'll have to call your husband by another name in public,” Duncan said, smiling, “but in the bedchamber I will remain your dark warrior and you will be my amber witch.”

Amber's lips trembled in an attempt to smile.

“I think—I fear you would be my enemy if you remembered.”

“And I think you are a girl who fears that I will force the gates of Paradise.”        . "

“ 'Tis not—” Amber began.

Her words ended in a startled sound as Duncan lifted her from the saddle and settled her across his lap. Even through the thickness of her mantle, she felt the hard, blunt ridge of his desire pressing against her.

“Fear not,” Duncan said. “I won't take you until you ask for it. Nay, until you beg for it! Bringing you to that pitch will be a sweet, agonizing delight.”

Duncan's smile was both tender and hot with sensual anticipation. It made Amber's heart turn over with emotions she was afraid to name, much less to speak of aloud.

“I have neither family nor high station,” she said desperately. “What if you have both?”

“Then I shall share them freely with my bride.”

Hearing her dream spoken aloud did nothing to stem the hot glide of tears down Amber's cheeks.

Is it possible? Can Duncan come to love me enough to forgive me if his memory returns?

Can such a rich life come from such a dark beginning?

Duncan leaned forward and caught tears from Amber's eyelashes with tender kisses. Then he brushed his lips across hers in a kiss that was surprisingly chaste.

“You taste like a sea wind” he said. “Cool and faintly salt.”

“You taste the same.”

“ 'Tis your tears on my lips. Will you let me taste your smile, too?”

Amber could no more help smiling than Duncan could keep from sealing his mouth over hers in a kiss that was as deeply seductive as his first kiss had been restrained. When he lifted his head, she was flushed, trembling, and her mouth followed his blindly.

“Aye, lass. That is how it will be. Your lips parted, full, flushed with hunger for me.”

Duncan was bending down to Amber again when the outlaws struck from all sides.

The men were armed with knives, wooden staffs, and a makeshift pike. Hampered by having Amber in his lap, Duncan wasn't able to fight effectively. Leaping and snarling like wolves, the outlaws dragged Duncan from the horse, and Amber with him.

When one of the outlaw's hands closed around Amber's arm while he clawed at her valuable necklaces, she gave a terrible cry. Part of her hoarse shout came from pain at being touched. Much of it came from pure rage that an outlaw would dare to take the sacred amber pendant from her neck.

The hash and slice of Amber's dagger drew an answering scream from the outlaw. He jerked his hands away from her, but only for a moment. She saw his fist coming and managed to turn aside as it struck. Despite her quickness, she was so dazed by the blow that she fell full-length on the ground.

The second time it was a dagger rather than a fist that the outlaw raised against Amber. Even as she gathered herself to turn aside from the attack, she heard the eerie steel moan of a war hammer slicing circles from the air. There was an awful crack as steel met flesh. The outlaw fell like a stone.

When his limp hand touched Amber, she felt nothing at all. The man was quite dead.

She jerked her hand back and began scrambling to her feet. An unexpected shove kept her flat, but no pain came from the contact. It was Duncan's hand that had touched her.

“Nay!” he ordered, standing astride Amber. “Stay down!”

She needed no explanation of why the ground was safer for her at the moment. The hammer's deadly humming had begun once more.

Through a veil of her own hair Amber watched outlaws surge forward again in a ragged charge, their staffs held like lances. Stout wood splintered as though it were charcoal. The single pike was destroyed. Another outlaw fell. He neither moved nor made a sound.

The heavy war hammer was a lethal steel blur circling Duncan's head. The remaining outlaws hesitated, then gathered themselves for another overwhelming rush such as they had used to drag Duncan and Amber to the ground.

With no warning, Duncan leaped forward. The hammer became a lightning bolt, striking in the blink of an eye. The outlaws yelled in outrage as another of their own fell and didn't rise again.

Duncan leaped back, standing astride Amber once more, protecting her in the only way he could.

“Get behind him,” shouted one of the outlaws. “He won't leap so high-and-mighty with his hamstrings cut!”

Three outlaws broke from the pack and began moving to Duncan's rear, careful to remain beyond the deadly reach of the hammer. Duncan couldn't watch the circling outlaws and the men in front at the same time.

“Duncan, they will—” Amber began.

“I know,” he interrupted roughly. “By all that's holy, stay down!”

Amber clenched the dagger in her hand and prepared to defend Duncan's back as best she could. The dagger's red eye glowed balefully as she shifted the blade, following the progress of the closest outlaw.

As the hammer wailed of coming death. Amber's voice rose in eerie consonance, cursing the outlaws in a language forgotten by all but a handful of Learned.

One of the outlaws stared at Amber in sudden horror, understanding too late whom he had dared to attack in his greed for wealth. He dropped the splintered end of his staff and ran.

The remaining outlaws paused in their ragged charge, but only for an instant. The men standing in front of Duncan feinted with staffs, seeking an opening in the deadly circle made by the hammer's swift, vicious flight. Other men moved well away from Duncan, angling toward his back. Suddenly two men rushed in from the rear.

“Duncan!”

Even before Amber's cry left her lips, Duncan leaped and turned about in midair. So great was his strength and his skill with the hammer that the weapon's deadly hum never hesitated during his turn.

The hammer swept around in a savage arc, bringing death to the two outlaws who had thought that Duncan's back made a safe target. Before the other outlaws could take advantage of his turn, he had leaped and faced about to confront them again.

The hammer hummed once more its song of death, whipped in circles by Duncan's tireless arm.

His shocking skill with the weapon broke the outlaws' will. One of the men made a lunge for Whitefoot, but gave it up when the mare shied violently away. The remaining men turned and ran for the cover of the surrounding mist and forest, leaving their dead behind. Duncan watched for the space of a few more breaths before he allowed the hammer to fall silent. A flip of his wrist slackened the chain. Instead of flying in deadly arcs, the hammer came obediently to rest. He slung it over his shoulder, balancing the weight of the ball in back with that of the chain in front. Should he need the weapon again, it would instantly be ready.

And deadly.

With shadowed golden eyes. Amber watched the man with no name who had come to her in shades of darkness… and whose true name she had just discovered, her greatest fear come true.

Duncan of Maxwell, the Scots Hammer.

“Are you hurt?” Duncan asked. “Did those carrion eaters touch you?”

The caress of his fingers on Amber's pale cheek made her want to weep for all that could never be.

Soul mate and enemy in one.

Her beloved foe kneeling next to her, concern darkening his eyes while currents of warmth and pleasure coursed through her at his simple touch.

“Amber?”

The last frail reed of hope was splintering in front of her eyes. Though Duncan had shown traits of Learned schooling, and the Scots Hammer had never been Learned, she could hardly deny the deadly skill with which Duncan had wielded the hammer.

There could be no more doubt, no more denial, no hope of error, no excuse not to tell Erik that he had saved the life of his greatest enemy and brought that enemy to Amber.

Who had then betrayed Erik by keeping her deepest fears of Duncan's identity secret.

I can betray Erik no longer.

But how can I betray Duncan, my love, my enemy, the very blood in my veins…

Powerful arms lifted Amber. Gentle lips brushed her cheeks, her eyes, her mouth. Each caress was a separate knife turning in her soul.

“I am… unhurt,” Amber said raggedly.

“You're very pale. Have you never seen battle before now?”

She fought for breath, saying nothing.

“Dinna worry, precious Amber,” Duncan whispered against her cheek.

Unable to speak, she simply shook her head.

“You aren't frightened, are you?” he asked. “I can protect you from worse than that worthless lot of outlaws and thieves. You know that, don't you?”

Amber laughed almost wildly. Then she turned her face into Duncan's chest and wept.

Duncan of Maxwell, the Scots Hammer. Aye, I know all too well that you can protect me.

From everything except the prophecy.

And from myself.

That most of all. How can you protect the heart from the very flesh surrounding it?

Soul mate.

Foe.

Lightning split the day from sky to ground. A savage peal of thunder came right behind.

“The horses,” Amber said.

“Stay here,” Duncan said, setting her down. “I'll get them.”

As Duncan turned away. Amber saw a patch of red on his tunic.

“You're wounded!” she said.

He kept walking.

“Duncan!”

Heart beating frantically. Amber ran after him.

“Easy, lass,” he said, catching her up in his arms. “You'll scare the horses.”

“Put me down! You'll hurt yourself more!”

Duncan's smile flashed whitely beneath his mustache as he saw the concern in Amber's eyes. He set her on her feet, took a few quick steps, and grabbed Whitefoot's rein.

The mare minced nervously but didn't fight Duncan's hand. He turned, lifted Amber, and set her astride her mare in a single easy motion. Then he smiled up at her.

“Simon's blow hurt more than—” Duncan began.

“But you're bleeding,” Amber interrupted.

“I've let more blood to a leech than to that outlaw's pig sticker.”

Before Amber could say anything more, Duncan turned, caught up his own horse, and mounted it with muscular ease. His actions belied the red stain on his tunic.

“Which way to the Stone Ring?” he asked. “Yonder?”

Amber didn't even look which way Duncan was pointing. Her only thought was to get his wound cared for.

“The keep is that way,” she said, pointing.

Lightning cracked and thunder shook the earth.

“The storm is that way, too,” Duncan said. “Is there any shelter nearby?”

“Stone Ring has a mound at the center and a room inside.”

“Lead us there.”

For a moment longer Amber hesitated, watching the sky with uneasy eyes. The sense of imminence that she had often known in Ghost Glen or other sacred places was growing within her now.

Yet she wasn't standing within an ancient place where stones had been placed by hands long since dead.

“Amber? What is it? Don't you know the way?”

A dazzling bolt of lightning sliced through the day, brighter than a hundred suns. Thunder split the sky and rolled like an avalanche through the glen. The hairs on Amber's nape stirred. The lightning had struck near the path back to the keep, as though in warning against going back.

But we must go back! Duncan is hurt.

Another bolt lanced down, closer this time.

Amber felt herded, harried, prodded like an animal into the mouth of a tunnel whose narrowing walls she could sense but not see. The feeling of imminence grew and grew in her until she felt she would burst.

“We must run for the keep!” Amber said, setting her heels to Whitefoot.

Lightning lanced down directly ahead. Whitefoot took the bit in her teeth and bolted in the opposite direction while thunder rolled behind.

At first Amber fought the horse for control. Then she gave in to the animal, accepting what she couldn't change. A glance over her shoulder told Amber that Duncan's mount was following at an equally frantic pace.

Stone Ring was upon them before there was any chance to turn aside or choose another path. Whitefoot raced between the outer ring of stones, not slowing until the inner ring was reached. There the horse calmed immediately, as though flight was suddenly the last thing on its mind.

Amber dismounted in a rush, picked up her skirts, and ran back to the outer ring. As she had feared, Duncan's mount had balked at the ragged 'outer circle of stones. He spurred the horse once, then again with greater force, but the animal only backed away more urgently.

“Wait!” Amber called. “He can't see the way!”

“What are you talking about?” Duncan shouted. “There's enough room between these stones to run five abreast!”

“Aye, but he can't see it!”

Cowl awry, hair disheveled. Amber ran to the outer ring. There she took the horse's bridle and spoke soothingly to it. When the animal was calmer, Amber put one hand on the horse's muzzle and the other on the rein.

A gentle tug, a low word of encouragement, and the horse stepped forward. The mincing wariness of its gait told how little the animal liked the place. Ears flicked nervously in all directions until the inner ring was reached. Then the animal snorted and let down its guard, visibly at ease again.

Duncan looked around, wondering what the horse sensed that told it safety lay here.

“What did you mean that my horse couldn't see the way?” Duncan asked.

“Your mount has never been into the Stone Ring before,” Amber explained.

“Why should that matter?”

“In order to enter sacred sites, Whitefoot had to learn to trust my guidance rather than her eyes in certain places.”

“Such as the way to Ghost Glen?” Duncan asked. Amber nodded. “But your horse hasn't learned to trust you in the same way. Nor has it ever been inside Stone Ring before, so it couldn't find the way by itself.”

Thoughtfully, Duncan looked around the ancient ring. Like the horse's, Duncan's senses told him there was more to the place than his eyes could see.

And like the horse's, Duncan's inner sense of danger no longer stirred. Rather, it slept, as though certain of safety.

“Remarkable,” Duncan said. “The place is enchanted.”

“Nay. It is simply different. There is peace here, for those who can see through the stones.”

“Learned.”

“Once I would have said aye. But now…” Amber shrugged.

“What made you change your mind?”

“You.”

“Maybe I was Learned in the time I don't remember,” Duncan said.

Amber's smile was bittersweet. She knew that the Scots Hammer wasn't Learned.

“Maybe,” she said quietly, “you are simply a man with an unused gift for Learning.”

Duncan smiled slightly and began reconnoitering the haven that lay within Stone Ring while a wild storm broke over the trail they had just ridden.

The central mound of the Ring was fully thirty strides in length and half that in height. The mound itself had once been completely surfaced with a paving of stones. Time, storm, and sunshine had changed all that. Now the mound grew a veritable garden of plants both common and rare between widening cracks in the stone paving.

Other than the mound, the circle was much too open to suit Duncan. There was no place to hide, much less a place suited to defense. Though there was forest just a few yards away from the outer stones, the interior of the circle was like a meadow. Only one tree grew inside, and that tree was hardly sturdy enough to provide shelter from a storm.

Despite that, Duncan's eyes kept coming back to the tree. Graceful, elegant, the rowan stood like a dancer at the highest part of the mound.

“What is it?” Amber asked, seeing Duncan's stillness.

“That tree. I feel that I…know it.”

“You may. Erik found you beneath the rowan.”

Duncan turned and looked at Amber with eyes in which both shadows and memory stirred.

“It guarded me while I slept,” Duncan said slowly. “I'm as sure of it as I am that you are standing there. The rowan guarded, me.”

Duncan dismounted and strode up the mound toward the rowan. Fear squeezed Amber's heart. Not wanting to, knowing that she must, she followed him. By the time she caught up, he was already standing beneath the tree, fists on his hips, studying the rowan as though it might be either foe or friend.