The Danu (10 page)

Then she heard a voice
that caused every nerve in her body to lock.   All her thoughts turned to
herself, and the man she had hoped never to see again.

"You should never
have run from me, witch."  Why was it that she could hear Khalon call her
witch and it felt like a caress, on this man’s lips it made her want to wash. 
"You are going to wish you had died that day at the river before I have
finished with you."

Katrine heard the malice
he spewed and let it wash over her while she pressed her eyes tighter against
the pain that turning her head so quickly produced.  Inwardly she sighed and
sent a brief apology to Deni wherever he was.  She had tried to let this go,
because he was Deni's son, she had left the Outcasts behind and moved on.  But,
she had always known this day would come, even if she tried to tell herself
leaving was enough. 

She opened her eyes and
met Renault's black eyes.  It looked like she was going to have to kill him
after all.

Khalon knew Katrine was
in trouble even before he found the blood and a red strand of hair where it was
clear she tumbled out of the trees and struck the ground hard.  He followed the
fresh trail moving fast.  It ended with more blood and a discarded bloody
arrow.
Renault,
he thought grimly.  Knowing in his gut that it was the black-eyed
Outcast who had her.  Khalon gritted his teeth against the growl that was
forcing itself out of his chest.  The thought of Katrine not only hurt but also
at the mercy of a twisted bastard that targeted her as a child, was enough to
make him crazed.

Being on foot following
the trail the horse left behind through the thick wilds gave him an advantage,
until they veered back onto the North road.  Khalon cursed fluently.  From the
sound of silence all around he was nowhere near either his horse and the rest
of the Southern Warriors of his brothers troops, and there was no sound in the
distance of the escaping horse, which meant he had quickly lost whatever lead
he had, and he had no way to get it back.  Cursing again, Khalon secured his
weapons and started running, guessing that the Outcast would be heading north
away from the battle.  He kept a look out for holes in the greenery while he
ran.  If Renault veered off into the green again, he did not want to miss it. 
With the sun going down, he could only hope that Renault stopped soon, and that
it was not too dark to see his trail when he did.

***

Katrine waited for
Renault to finish his crazed ranting that promised long pain filled and
degrading hours at his mercy.  Then she waited longer as he stroked the fire
and prepared the branding iron he had heating over the open flames.  That he
intended to brand her with it had anger rising right along with the fear being
tied naked and at his mercy created.

"Where should I put
my mark, do you think?" he asked almost mildly.  The satisfaction of the
thought brightening his eyes and making his breath come shorter.  "At
first I thought your cheek, so that none would doubt who you belong to, should
you ever attempt to run again, but I think I prefer to keep your face the way
it is.”  He came closer, his eyes on the nape of her neck.  "Nothing to
say? How about I put it right there," he said.  His eyes lit up with the
thought even as he grabbed the iron out of the fire and came at her.  Katrine
waited until he was almost upon her, and then kicked out with her bound feet
catching Renault in the chin before she did a reverse somersault flipping back
over her head.  It took her out of striking range and allowed her to reach the
knives he had placed against the wall, believing they were out of reach.  By
the time he shook off the chin strike and wiped the blood away where he bit his
own lip she had her hands free and was working on her feet.

He lunged at her, too
incensed to remember what she could do with the knives she now had in her
hands.  Her feet were free when he fell on her, and she had just enough time to
block the strike of the branding iron when it came at her head.  With one
forearm blocking his overhand blow before it could land, her other hand brought
up the knife and shoved it cleanly between his ribs.  Katrine looked into those
hate filled eyes and saw the pain of the blow turn to shock.  With her arm
shaking in an effort to hold his weight and the hot iron from her head Katrine
gritted her teeth and twisted the blade.

She did not look away
until the unholy light in those black eyes faded to nothing.  Then she turned
to the side and with an effort shoved his dead weight to the cold stone. She
fell back, closing her eyes as she caught her breath.  Both relief that it was
finally over, as well as guilt that she could not have spared Deni's only son. 
She knew in her heart it would come to this.  For Deni's sake, she still felt
the terrible tragedy of it.  Though had he succeeded in branding, raping and
killing her, she would have felt it a sight more clearly.

With that thought,
Katrine rose shakily from her place on the frigid stone.  With a wince, she
placed a hand on her head for the pain and moved slow.  Finding her clothes
discarded near where her knives had been left so fortuitously, she dressed as
quickly as she could and headed out into the wilds.  Stepping from the small
cave she looked around and saw nothing but twilight kissed green and Renault's
horse tied up directly across from the small opening.

She was just about to
check the saddlebags when someone else came up the trail Renault had made
through the thick brush.  This time on foot and making very little sound as he
moved.  Katrine knew even before Khalon came into view with his sword drawn,
who it was going to be.

She huffed out a breath
and shook her head at the stubborn prince.  He showed only a slight hesitation
when he saw her, his eyes moving down her length and back up again and then
hardening at the obvious wounds.  He sheathed his sword while he came close
enough that he could touch the side of her head and turn it to examine the lump
there.  Katrine closed her eyes as the heat and warm male scent of him
enveloped her.  This man should produce nothing but the need for avoidance, she
told herself, but could not convince herself that the feeling of safety that
warmed her was an illusion, and a dangerous one at that.

"How badly are you
hurt?"  She knew what he was asking with his rage buried just beneath the
worry.

"My injuries are
just what you see," she assured him.  "I did not give Renault a
chance to do his worst."

He coasted the hand that
lingered by her hair to her chin and lifted her face to his.  He examined her
for the truth of her claim.  "And the Outcast?"

"Dead," she
said with soft finality.  If he expected to see regret for taking a life he
would be disappointed, as much as she wished it had not been necessary, all she
felt on the subject now was relief.

What he saw must have
reassured him because she felt the hard tension in him ease.  When he spoke,
his words and tone did not match, the words almost joking, the tone a rough
growl.  "Do you suppose if I stayed close to you the wilds would let me
bathe in yonder spring without trying to kill me again today?"

Katrine might have rolled
her eyes if her head did not hurt quite as bad as it did.  She ignored the
feeling of being stalked by a wild beast as he kept pace with her.

His anger was a palpable
thing, as if she were to blame somehow for his badly tamed frustration.  She
could not stop the aggravation from forming, nor could she keep herself from
berating him now that she had the chance.  "What do you expect when you go
tearing through newly attacked wilds after a Danu?"  She huffed when she
noticed a red slash bleeding into his leathers at the neck.  She clucked her
lips as if he was a child to be scolded, finally able to tell him what she
thought of his idiocy in following her.  "Surely your father would not
expect you to give your life in my pursuit." She reached up and tugged the
leathers enough to see the damage, which seemed to be slight considering all he
had faced today.  Something in her own belly loosened to see he was relatively
unharmed, though covered in blood and other bits she refused to name.  "I
assure you no matter what Ansgar the Bloody thinks I am not set on attacking
the kingdom."

Before he could open his
mouth and say something that just made her have to run from him all the sooner,
she turned and headed for the trickling water they could both hear. 

"Come, this time I
will protect you while we bathe." 

He followed her without a
word, which made her more nervous than if he had argued.  She spoke over her
shoulder well aware of Khalon close behind her.  "I doubt it will be
heated, but we are close enough to the Inn that it might hold some of the same
healing magic."  Since her connection to the wild weave was no longer
muffled by the stone of the cave, Katrine assumed the damage to her head had
not been as bad as she feared.  At least she could assure their safety, and to
be honest with herself she needed to check that his injuries were not worse
than they appeared.

Then,
she
assured herself, a hint of sadness permeating her determined thoughts;
I
will see him back to the road and safe from the wilds and that's it.
  They
would take the time to bathe; hopefully the healing magic would work a miracle
on her pounding head and queasy stomach.

The sounds of water led
them to a lagoon, which must have indeed been fed from the same source as the
Inn's hot spring because Katrine could feel the magic and steam rising from it
as soon as they were close.

She tested the water with
a toe while she listened with her back turned to the rustle of leather and steel
as Khalon undressed.  It brought her flashes of memory from the night before
and the sight of him naked that had burned across her brain. Only this time
there was no enemy outside the guarded door waiting to pounce on them.  Even
Ansgar the bloody would not dare traverse the wilds at night, and her own
connection to the weave was strong enough to assure they had nothing to fear
from wild animals that she could feel, even now, were drawn to the carnage of
the battle far from them.  She felt as safe as it was possible to feel with an
unpredictable naked warrior at her back.

With a barely a ripple of
the water Khalon was past her and fully submerged.  Katrine saw enough as he
passed to know that he had more than one injury slashed across that golden skin. 
Thankfully none life threatening, and the magic in the water would move the
healing along faster and assure infection was not an issue.  Without thinking
too much on what she was doing, Katrine stripped quickly and joined him in the
water.

The first touch of magic
and heat was such a relief to her aches and pains that she did not hesitate to
submerge herself completely, as Khalon had done.  She stayed under as long as
she could hold her breath while the pain in her head gradually faded to
bearable.  The arrow wound hurt nearly as bad knitting itself closed as the
original wound had.

Favoring her right arm, she
looked around the small pool until she saw what she was looking for on the far
bank.  She ignored Khalon who was both watching her with heated velvet eyes,
and trying unsuccessfully to remove caked on blood from his arm.  Katrine sent
a small current of magic into the weave directed at a small plant that grew at
the water’s edge.  It blossomed with a thought and she pulled until she had the
bulb at its roots.  She squished it between her hands and rubbed the pulpy mess
until a rich sweet smelling lather formed.  She soaped up her wounds with the
foam and then her hair, and the rest of her body.  While she was doing that,
she directed her eyes from the plant to Khalon.  "That is a Ferina plant. 
Its leaves make a tea that helps with a fever, and the bulb will clean most
anything.  Generally you can use 2 to 3 at a time without hurting the plant
itself." 

Khalon did not speak,
just raised a brow at her words but came forward and took his place beside her
while she talked him through removing the bulb.  "Dig a little at the
base...be careful when you pull it that you leave the root."

Katrine moved away as
soon as he had the suds in hand and began washing.  She turned her back when
she found herself mesmerized by the way his sudsy hands moved over his chest.  It
did not erase the memory of him, nor shield her from the heat of his gaze that
she could feel move over her as if they held their own magic.  She shook off
the way he made her tingle in all her womanly places and instead concentrated
on her own washing.  When all of their blood and dirty suds had been washed
away by the current Katrine looked over her shoulder to find that Khalon had
moved closer again.  He was looking at the closed scrapes along his arms as he
moved.  He stopped near enough he could reach out and touch her bare back if he
wanted to.  From the way his eyes moved to her and traced her with a glittery
sharpness, he wanted to.

Katrine caught her breath
and started to move farther away again.  Khalon stopped her with a hand on her
upper arm.  The hard contours of his chest were pressed against her back a
second later.  The hot length of his erection was a brand against her that had
Katrine sucking in a breath and arching away from the shock of the sudden
touch.

Khalon hauled her back
and growled low directly into her sensitive ear.  "Do you know what I
thought about doing the entire time you rode before me on the journey?"

Katrine sucked in a
breath and shook her head, but she did not try to move.  His warm calloused
hand, wrapped around one arm, held her still while the other moved under her
other arm to wrap around and claim a breast.  Then he let her go and repeated
the move under her other arm, claiming both breasts.  The heat of his touch and
the roughness of his palms had spears of pleasure shooting from the hardened
points of her nipples to the very center of her body.  Khalon nipped her ear
when her head fell back against his shoulder with a gasp.

Katrine's hands went to
cover his, at first to remove them thinking the sensation was too much, and
then to press them firmer against her when she could not make them budge.  She
felt his mouth move from her ear over the arching of her throat to the base of
her neck where he bit down just a bit.  "I thought of a hundred things I
could do to this body while you sat before me with your soft ass moving against
me, torturing me with every step of the journey," he murmured.  Then bit
down on her shoulder and squeezed both his hands over her breasts hard enough
that they almost hurt.  The almost pain had her writhing against him, her body
a confused mass of contradictions, as was the man that held her.