The Falcon's Bride (12 page)

He groaned awake. His hooded eyes, glazed and bloodshot, settled upon her face, and he vaulted erect in earnest, a motion he obviously regretted. Taking his head in his hands, he raked his fingers through his hair and sought her eyes again.

“What did you hit me with?” he asked.

“Oh!” she cried, slapping the furs with her free hand. “
Look
!” she said, pointing. “You are bleeding, my lord!”

“Bloody hell!” he trumpeted, attempting to rise. A grimace contorted his handsome face, and he fell back down again.

Thea’s hand flew to her lips, and she watched him struggle with the pain and the blear and the obvious headache, by-product, no doubt, of the blow she’d awarded him and the quantity of whiskey he’d consumed before his surgery. His breathing was rapid and shallow. If she were brave enough to stroke his skin, she was certain it would be hot and dry to the touch. He was burning up with fever.

Now what was she to do—locked inside a chamber with a man who could well be dying? Would anyone even hear if she were to cry out for help? And if they did, would they treat her as the others in the cave had done? She would rather die cooped up in this chamber than chance finding out. At least he hadn’t tried to rape her.

“C-can you kindle the fire?” he asked, low-voiced.

“If you will control that bird,” she said.

“Isor . . . will not . . . harm you.”

“Hmmm. Well, if he does, he will roast over that fire! The creature has clawed me once and bitten me twice. I will bear no more!”

“The tinderbox is on the mantel. J-just
do
it.”

A close eye upon the bird, Thea did as he bade. There were fresh logs piled in the corner. Working the flint and combustible bits from the tinderbox until a flame sparked, she touched it to the logs and fanned the fire to life with the bellows. It took some time, and when the chore was done, she turned back to find that Drumcondra had stripped off his leggings and was plucking the stitches from his wound.

His tunic barely covered his private parts, and her hands flew to her mouth looking on. But mesmerized, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. His face twisted in pain, he made no sound as he worked to remove the last strand of knotted thread. Whatever else he was, the man was a seasoned warrior. How many times had he done such as this after a battle? She shuddered to wonder. The sight thrilled and horrified her all at once. The effect of those polar emotions was so soul wrenching it drained the blood from her scalp, and she sank like a stone in the Glastonbury chair, drawing his eyes.

“You aren’t going to swoon on me again, are you?” he said. Blood was running down his leg, and he jammed the soaked bandage he’d stripped away into the gash and pressed down hard.

“N-no . . .” she stammered. It wasn’t the blood. It was the realization that she actually cared what happened to him that buckled her knees. “What are you doing?” she breathed.

“What should have been done before,” he said. “There is no surgeon hereabouts. My stabler tends our wounded, just as he tends the animals. He is getting old. The wound is too deep for stitching. I feared as much. . . .” He started to rise, and fell back down. Swinging his good leg back up on the bed with a groan, he left the other dangling over the side, still putting pressure on the wound. “Heat a poker in the flames,” he gritted.

“You would cauterize it?” she murmured, horrified.

He shook his head, his green eyes riveting. “Not I, my lady.
You
must. I will tell you how.”

“Ohh no, my lord!” Thea cried, shaking her head wildly. “I . . . I cannot. I
will
not. I am amazed that you would trust me with a hot poker after . . . after . . .”

He forced a chuckle. “I have no choice, other than to bleed to death,” he said. “And, my strange little creature, you are humane if nothing else.”

“Which is why I cannot do this,” she protested. “I could not do such a thing to an animal.”

“You can, and you will—
you must
,” he said. “Call your anger back if needs must. Just
do it
.”

“I am no surgeon. Can you not summon your stabler and have
him
fix this fine mess he’s made? I give you my word, I will not oppose you. Please, my lord, I beg of you. I cannot do this.”

“Heat . . . the . . . poker.”

The command was unequivocal. By the look of the amount of blood he was losing, it was plain there wasn’t a minute to spare, and she thrust one of the iron pokers into the fire. It raised a flurry of sparks, and she backed away from the hearth.

He beckoned her closer. “The flames will slowly turn the poker red,” he told her. “At first it will be the color of wine. Leave it until it turns as red as this blood here, then
bring it quickly, and lay it so.” He illustrated. “Hold it for a slow count of five, no matter what I do under the brand. It must be so.”

“My lord, you are not thinking clearly,” she said, her voice steady for all that she was a shambles. “If I come near you with that poker, the bird will tear me to shreds.”

“Fetch me his hood from the candle stand,” he replied.

Thea did as he bade, and handed it over.

“Isor,
come!
” Drumcondra commanded, extending his arm. The bird hopped down from the headboard and stood while he fastened the hood in place. “He will not attack what he cannot see,” he said to Thea. “Fetch the poker.”

Thea went to the hearth and waited until the poker glowed before she hefted it out of the flames and carried it to the bedside. Staring down at him writhing below, she hesitated.

“Do it!” he said. “Now, before it cools.”

“I . . . I cannot, my lord,” Thea sobbed.

Drumcondra’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, driving the poker into the wound. She cried out as the hissing, smoking iron seared his flesh, but he held it there twisting and grimacing in pain, head thrust back and teeth bared, for a slow count of five before he let her go. Sobbing, she flung the poker across the room, and covered her face with her hands.

Drumcondra grabbed her arm and shook her. “On the chest . . . you will find a jar . . . and linens,” he panted. “Fetch them here. You must bind the wound.”

Thea brought them and knelt down.

“Only a thin layer of the salve,” he said. “Just enough to keep the bandage from sticking so we do not have to do this again. Then bind it.”

Thea uncorked the jar with trembling hands and shrank from the stench of the strange blackish stuff inside. “What
is this?” she asked through a grimace. Mingled with the stink of blood and burnt flesh, it threatened to make her retch.

“A Gypsy remedy,” he said. “Secret herbs and oils old as eons. It has great healing power. Mossie, my stabler has cured many a horse with it.”

Thea dipped her fingers in the thick, odious ointment, holding it at arm’s length. Anything with such a reputation that smelled so foul had to have something to recommend it. That it cured horses was encouraging. Ros Drumcondra had more stamina than any horse she had ever seen.

His eyes were glazed with pain he would not cry out to release. The look brought tears to Thea’s eyes—though she couldn’t think why, since he’d brought it upon himself—as she spread the salve on the blackened smoldering crust that had mercifully stopped the blood flow.

Drumcondra groaned and shut his eyes. “You have a light touch, my lady,” he murmured, and groaned again.

Thea did not reply. This was not the groan of a man in pain, it was quite something else, and it set her blood racing. Her hands were trembling when she unfurled the bandage linen. Twice—three times, she reached toward his leg and drew her hand back. Her touch had aroused him. It was impossible, but there it was. What was the man made of?

She had to lift his leg to wrap the linen properly, and her hand came closer to his sex with each precarious revolution. When her hand brushed the hard shaft of hot, veined flesh beneath his tunic, she cried out in spite of her resolve not to do so, and jerked her hand away. He smiled that maddening smile of his that did not reach his eyes. It was a cold expression, and yet it sizzled with inner fire. What was he thinking? It was impossible to say, though
hot blood surged to her temples while meeting that gaze, and she quickly tied off the linen and lifted his leg onto the bed.

“A very . . . light touch,” he murmured, and then he said no more.

Chapter Nine

Looking in dismay at the sleeping Gypsy warlord, Thea breathed a ragged sigh. The man had to be a sorcerer—she was convinced of it. She tossed the fur rug over him and backed away from the bed. A swarm of contradictory emotions overwhelmed her. This enigmatic virile warrior had awakened in her sensations that were frightening and new. Despite his rough bluster, he hadn’t really hurt her, but what he had set loose in her was more frightening than pain.

She’d glimpsed his manhood, felt its turgid strength, felt it respond to the reluctant fingers he’d crimped around it. Something tugged at her sex, recalling the way his flesh leapt to life at her touch. That tug—over which she had no control; she was completely under his spell—was what she feared most. What had he said?
Before I’ve done, you will beg me to put that which you hold in your hand inside you
. No! She could not—
would
not—leave herself vulnerable in such a way. She would not give him her virtue. But he
had awakened her to a thirst for pleasure that she knew only he could slake, and she hated him for it.

There was no alternative but to put as much distance between herself and this man as possible. The door was locked, but the key had to be somewhere in the room. She would never get a better opportunity to search. Now, while he was sleeping and the bird was subdued.

He couldn’t have concealed it on his person. He was half naked. Her eyes darted around in search of a likely place. The room was large but sparely furnished. Except for the massive bed, the two Glastonbury chairs, a large linens chest bolted to the floor, a chamber pot and the wrought iron candle stand that doubled as the bird’s perch, the room was bare of furniture. She had been sound asleep when he entered earlier. He would have had plenty of time to hide the key. But where? Ros Drumcondra was no fool. Surely he knew she would try to escape at the first opportunity.

On tiptoe, she moved about the room. Keeping a close eye on the Gypsy sleeping behind, she ran her trembling hand across the roughly hewn mantel over the hearth, then moved on to search the Glastonbury chairs, lifting her pelerine from the one beside the door, but there was no sign of the key. Crouching low, she inched along the base of the raised platform the bed stood upon. All at once, movement near the corner of one of the fur throws that had fallen on the floor caught her eye as she probed. A squeaking sound nearly stopped her heart. She stiffened as her hand brushed the long skinny tail of the huge brown rat she’d disturbed there. Thea squealed in spite of herself, fell back on her behind and skittered across the floor, drawing her bare feet up beneath the blood-soaked hem of her shift. Where were the creatures coming from?

The cold light of dawn filtering in through the window
revealed the answer. There were holes in the wall on both sides where it met the floor. The scent of blood had evidently drawn them. She was covered with it, and the brazen rat was stalking toward her.

Terror all but paralyzed her brain. She held her breath in a desperate attempt to keep the raw scream building in her throat from escaping. If only she had something to attack with—if only the falcon wasn’t hooded! Drumcondra’s boot, lying where she’d flung it alongside the candle stand caught her eye. A likely weapon! Leaping to her feet, she pattered to it, but when she reached out to snatch it, another rat slithered from the wide, turned-back cuff.

The scream she fought so valiantly to hold back escaped in the form of a strangled exclamation. Though Drumcondra didn’t respond to the sound, the falcon did. Something clanked against the stone floor when it landed, wings flapping, on the platform. Thea stared. It wasn’t little bells that she’d heard clattering against the headboard earlier; it was
the key
, braided cleverly into the bird’s tethers.

Restless, Drumcondra stirred, a soft moan escaping his throat. Thea held her breath. The crafty warrior had hidden the key in plain sight—in the one place he’d evidently assumed she would never go to retrieve it. How little he knew her. Hooded, the bird was less fearsome. Drumcondra was the greater danger or rather
she
was, to herself, under his spell.

The rats forgotten, Thea crept up on the bird. As if it knew, it hopped away, clucking and bobbing its hooded head. She was scarcely making a sound. Could it be that sensitive to her motion? Evidently it was, though she couldn’t fathom how . . . unless it
was
a supernatural creature. She made a fresh approach and, hooded as it was, it pecked at her, missing her hand by inches. Like lightning, she drew back then made another approach.

Gingerly her fingers inched toward the bird’s tethers. But it was not to be so easy. By the third failed try, she’d begun to contemplate killing it—crushing its skull with Drumcondra’s boot. But she could not bring herself to do it. She could not conscience killing a defenseless creature. And it was defenseless, hooded, blind and unsuspecting.

It took several tries and more than one wounded finger before she won the prize, and at that not before she’d snatched Drumcondra’s cast-off leggings and thrown them over the creature while she worked. Tiptoeing to the door, she turned the key in the lock, breathing a sigh of relief when it opened. Then, snatching her pelerine, she cast one last look at Drumcondra behind, stepped into the darkened hallway, and locked the door behind her.
There then! Let him just try to get out without the key!
she triumphed.

Taking it with her, she crept along the corridor with no plan in mind except escaping, and melted into the indigo shadows not yet chased by the dawn.

Ros Drumcondra groaned awake to the squawking, flapping frenzy of his irate bird beating him about the head and chest with its massive wings. Half asleep still, he swatted at the creature, but that made the falcon screech all the louder. It would not be borne. His head was splitting, the aftermath of the whiskey he’d drunk and Thea’s crowning him.