Hearts Aflame Collection III: 4-Book Bundle (11 page)

Stuffing her doubts back down her throat one more time, Riona took a deep breath and stepped forward.

For a moment, she thought that thunder had boomed out of clear sky, and that the old gods had recognized her lack of faith. She spun around, and through the crowd of shouting sisters and novices, there strode four people who looked like the gods of the wood made flesh.

Three men and one woman, dressed all in furs, paced quickly through the crowd, scattering them like starlings, making straight for the alter where she and Abbess Beni stood.

Bandits
, she thought with fury, and she grabbed the first thing that came to hand, a carved wooden staff that one of the nearby sisters had dropped in her panic. She stalked toward the invaders, heedless of the danger, but then she realized that the tallest bandit was coming to meet her.

With a startled shriek, she swung the staff hard at him, making him take a surprised step back.

“Come on, bastard,” she snarled angrily. “Do you think we won't fight?”

Behind the bandit's shoulder, his companions shoved the sisters away, brandishing steel swords but not swinging them. It seemed like a mercy, but in her momentary distraction, she had allowed him to take the advantage

His hand shot out and clamped around her wrist with such punishing force that she dropped the staff, crying out. Riona dug her heels in, but a single tug sent her stumbling toward him.

He's too strong, too strong by far, she thought desperately, and then from the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of green.

Abbess Beni, for all of her frailness, bore down on them like a storm. “How dare you!” she cried, swinging wildly at the bandit with a lead candelabra from the alter. “This is a place of peace!”

The bandit who held her swore, trying to jerk Riona away. He swatted at the old woman, and his large hand caught her on the shoulder. It did not seem like a heavy blow, but it sent her spinning to the ground, and to Riona's horror, she landed on the steps leading up to the alter with a bone-jarring thud.

“No!” Riona cried, struggling to get to the abbess. The fallen woman looked small, like a bird fallen out of the air, and Riona's brain refused to put the still form on the stairs with the woman who ruled the nunnery.

She struggled against her captor's hold, startling him enough that he almost let her go, and when he caught her up again, she kicked and flailed, landing at least one hefty blow across his stomach and making him gasp.

“Let me go, oh please let me go,” she cried, eyes on the abbess.

“
Enough of this.” The woman bandit scowled and reached for her. Before Riona could decide what to do, the woman's hands came up around her throat.

She's looking for my arteries
, Riona thought frantically, but blackness was already beginning to overwhelm her vision. She felt herself start to fall, but before she could, there was nothing.

***

When Riona awoke, she was aware of her throbbing head, a certain tenderness around her throat, and arguing voices.

“
It could have gone better, I suppose.”

“
Better? You choked her!”

“
I put her to sleep. We weren't going to make her come quietly otherwise.”

“
I still think we could have done it more subtly.”

“
You always think everything can be handled at night, Angus.”

“
Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?”

Riona calmed her thudding heart, lying as still as she could. There was only a little light cast from the fire, but in it, she could see the glint of a sheathed sword not far from where she lay. If she could roll over and reach for it...

“Shut your noise,” said a new voice. “She's awake.”

Surprise gone, she lunged for the sword only to find herself clasped in arms that felt as strong as iron bands. She screamed angrily, only to be set back firmly on the ground in a sitting position. The strength of the man must have been immense, for he pushed her back as if she were a tiny child.

“That's enough of that,” he said, moving the sword away and coming to sit across from her. “We mean you no harm.”

“
I don't believe that,” Riona spat, drawing back to glare at her captors mistrustfully.

The man who sat close, the one who had kept her from the sword, was the same one who had taken her from the nunnery in the first place. Even sitting he was a big man, tall and broad, with black hair that hung down to his shoulders. In the flickering light of the fire, she could see that his face was proud, as if cut from rock, and his eyes were the vivid amber of struck sparks. There was a strange beauty to him that felt alien to her. She didn't understand it, but even under her rage, she felt a sense of recognition, something that pulled her to this man. In fury, she stomped on it hard.

“We have been looking for you for some time,” he said carefully. “We are not your enemies.”

“
Prove it!” she snapped. “Take me home, and then never let me see you again.”

“
We can't,” interjected one of the men by the fire. He was more slender than the man who sat across from her, blond with a carefully tended jawline beard. “We need you, you see.”

“
Need me?” She glared, uncertain as to what kind of bandits she had fallen in with.

“
That's enough,” their leader snapped. “Soon enough for her to know what we need.”

“
I think I want to know right now,” she retorted. “Whatever you need, it was important enough to storm a defenseless nunnery and to strike down a frail old woman.”

Riona's breath caught in her throat as the memories of Abbess Beni flooded her mind again, of the old woman rushing toward the bandit, brandishing a candelabra in defense of her home and those she protected.

To his credit, the bandit leader looked slightly abashed even as he shook his head. “It was not my intent to harm her, but to win you, I am afraid I would have done much worse.”

“
Is that meant to flatter me?” Riona spat. “Am I meant to be honored that you came into a sacred place and wreaked havoc there?”

“
Not honored, but perhaps forgiving with time.” He shrugged.

“
That's fantastic, Rordan,” called the pale man. “That will make her do what you want.”

Despite her dire predicament, his light tone made Riona's mouth quirk in a smile.

Rordan scowled. “I had hoped to begin better.”

“
Then you might not have started with a kidnapping,” she said succinctly.

Close to the fire, the other bandits began to
snicker. Her captors were very strange.

“
Was there another way to make you come?” he asked, and in that bare moment, it was like something had opened between them. She looked him in the eye, and for a dizzying few seconds, it was like she knew him, and that he knew her. It was a strange moment, and almost absently, she felt something click into place, something that she had been missing her entire life.

She meant to answer him sharply, but what came out instead was soft and honest.
“I don't know,” she admitted. “It would have depended on what you said.”

Rordan sighed, looking at the ground.
“I would have asked you to come away to a people who have need of you, both your skills and your blood, the people you have always belonged with.”

For some reason, her thoughts veered toward the night before, when she had heard the wolves howl, and wondered at the meaning of their cries.

“You're werewolves,” she said softly, and now that she looked, she could see it in the yellow and green of their eyes, the grace of their limbs and the way they occasionally tilted their heads to listen to the forest.

Rordan nodded, a little reluctantly, but when she sought his gaze, he held it.

“We are people,” he said, his voice rough and deep. “Our tribe is among the oldest in the world and... and we have need of you.”

“
You don't even know my name,” she said, mystified.

He grinned, wide and full of teeth.
“I do,” he answered, “or at least I think I do. It must be Rioghan, or Rionach, something like that, yes?”

She blinked.
“Yes,” she said uneasily. “Riona, actually, but how did you know?”

His laugh was sharp.
“Your parents kept to some customs, at least. Your name means
queen
in the old tongue, Riona, and it's something you carry in your name and your blood.”

“
You knew my parents?”

“
Knew of those like them, anyway.” Rordan hesitated. “You're of the wild folk, my lady, and you were meant to walk the wild ways alongside my tribe.”

She shook her head as if trying to clear it.
“No...” she said softly, and when he started to argue, she cut him off with an angry glare. “No! I will not be led by this so-called story of yours, or by what you say is in my blood. I am myself, and you cannot take that away from me.”

Rordan's eyes sparked with temper, and he leaned in closer.
“I'm not trying to take anything from you, I'm trying to give you what has been yours all along!”

“
At the expense of felling a harmless old woman, yes, I was there!”

Something furiously angry flashed across his face, and Riona didn't know what would have happened if the slender pale man hadn't sauntered up to them.

“Much as I love seeing you dig your own grave, Rordan, I have to step and grant guest right to our poor hostage. She looks famished, and maybe if we give you both some food, you'll be less inclined to snipe at each other.”

The two men seemed locked in a furious battle of wills for a moment, but at last Rordan gave an abrupt nod.

“I'm Ferric,” the blond man continued, turning to her. “That quiet lad over there is Angus, and it was Siobhan who sent you off to sleep while we effected our daring escape from your old women and little girls.”

“
Sorry about that,” Siobhan called, sounding at least a little abashed.

“
Anyway, we have food, nothing fancy, but there's bread and meat, and if your head is a little less sore, perhaps you'd share it with us.”

She realized that she was in fact hungry, and after a mutinous glare at Rordan, she came closer to the fire. There was something deeply familiar to her about sitting at their fire and sharing their food, and before too long, she found herself being lulled by their talk and their easy friendship. Ferric had a jibe for every occasion, though the sharp-tongued Siobhan gave as good as she got. Angus watched the interplay between his two friends avidly, but Rordan sat slightly apart, eating his own food with grim determination.

“The hour grows late, and we should be abed,” Rordan said. “We need to return as men and not wolves, and that means sleeping nights.”

There was a chorus of good-natured groans, and Ferric tossed Riona a blanket.
“Best make the most of it,” he advised. “You're with us for the time being.”

She meant to stay up and wait for a chance to slip away, but the events of her day caught up with her, and underneath the warm wool blanket, she drifted off to a fitful sleep as the wolves decided who would stand first watch.

***

Riona woke with a start, unsure how much time had passed or even where she was at first. She looked up past the tree branches to see a night sky crazed with stars, and the events of the day rushed into her, as she shot up with a start.

The fire was banked, but sitting close by was Siobhan, one booted foot propped up on her knee, and one hand flipping a dagger smoothly up in the air.

“
I need to relieve myself,” Riona said softly, and Siobhan nodded.

When Riona made to walk past, the wolf stood and followed her a ways into the forest.

“You can't think I'd let you out of my sight,” she said at Riona's aggrieved look.

“
I rather hoped you would,” Riona admitted. “Look, you can't think it's right that I'm being held here, can you?”

Siobhan shook her head.
“No, I don't, but I do a lot of wrong things because the alternatives are worse.”

Riona started to ask what she meant, but the other woman shook her head tightly. With a disappointed shrug, Riona relieved herself behind a bush, but when she returned, Siobhan was staring into the darkness. Even as a human, she gave the impression that her ears were pricked and that her hackles were rising.

“Go back to camp,” she snapped at Riona, and before Riona could respond, Siobhan sprinted off into the darkness, moving fast and silently as a shadow.

Riona stared after her for a moment, and then immediately started moving away. She knew which way Siobhan had gone, and she knew which way camp was, and if she only avoided both of them, she might find her way back to the nunnery.

It should have frightened her, being out in the wilds, but instead there was something comforting about it. She pushed away the thought that there was something to what Rordan said, about her blood, and she pushed the strange feelings he had stirred in her away even harder. Still, as she made her way with increasing confidence through the forest, she could still feel his amber eyes on her, looking right into her and waking something she couldn't name.