Warrior's Lady (20 page)

Twenty minutes later, five people entered the walled city surrounding the Pavilion. It was the hour after Last Meal and the arena was deserted.

Quickly and silently, Jarrett dispatched the Giant who stood guard at the door of the Pavilion.

Leyla shivered as they made their way down to the lowest level. She had hoped never to return to this place.

Jarrett locked Taark in one of the cells, and then they were standing before the narrow chamber that had imprisoned Jarrett.

She stood in the corridor while Jarrett ushered Rorke into the cell and shackled him to the wall.

“Ah, my Lord Rorke.” Jarrett pulled the hood from inside his shirt and turned it this way and that in his hands. “I hope you find your lodgings to your liking.”

Rorke grimaced as Jarrett threw his own words back at him.

“I can tell you now the food is sorely lacking,” Jarrett went on, “and the creature comforts are poor.”

“You’ll not get away with this, Jarrett, I warn you…”

“I grow weary of your warnings, Milord,” Jarrett exclaimed, and stepping forward, he dropped the hood over Rorke’s head.

Rorke’s reaction was swift. His whole body tensed as the hood settled over his head and shoulders.

“You would be wise to be content with what you have, Rorke. You may take the throne, but Greyebridge will never be yours. I warn you now that not even Leyla will be able to save you if I see your face again.”

“Jarrett!” Rorke strained against the chains that imprisoned him, every muscle taut, as the hood molded itself to his face like a second skin, its darkness embracing him wholly, completely.

“Only now do you begin to understand the true meaning of hell,” Jarrett said quietly. “Rest well, my Lord.”

Leaving the cell, Jarrett closed and locked the door. “Come, we have no time to waste.”

While Tor kept watch, Jarrett saddled three horses. Earlier, he had changed into a loose-fitting white shirt and a pair of velvet-soft black breeches that belonged to Rorke. Now, mounted on Rorke’s favorite horse, and with the hood of one of Rorke’s dark cloaks covering his head, he rode through the gate, unchallenged. Tor and Leyla rode in his wake.

Chapter Twenty-Four

It had been so easy she wanted to laugh. And later, when they stopped in a small clearing to rest the horses, Leyla did laugh, releasing the tension that had been building within her ever since they’d been forced to leave Greyebridge. Jarrett was alive and well and they were free.

She smiled at her husband as he helped her from her horse. Nothing else mattered but that he was there beside her. She hugged him close, frowning when he winced.

“What is wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Thee is wounded!” she exclaimed. “I had forgotten.” Ignoring his protests, she removed his shirt and ran her hand over the long gash in his back. There was an ugly red welt across his back too. “Tor, we have need of thee.”

“No, we don’t,” Jarrett asserted.

Leyla placed her hand on his arm. “Jarrett, it will take but a moment.”

Jarrett shook his head as Tor came toward them. “Leave me be, Maje. The wound is not serious.”

“But it pains thee,” Leyla argued, frowning up at him. “It is foolish to suffer when there is no need.”

“I can bear the pain better than his touch.”

Leyla glanced from one man to the other. “I do not understand.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jarrett said. He placed his arm around Leyla’s shoulders and drew her to his side. “So, Maje,” he asked, his tone skeptical as he regarded Tor. “Can you use that sword?”

High color stained Tor’s cheeks as he shook his head. “No.”

“I thought as much.” Jarrett gave Leyla’s shoulders a quick squeeze, and then he released her. “If you’re going to carry a weapon, Maje, you’d best know how to use it.”

Tor shook his head, his expression one of near revulsion. “I cannot.”

“You will learn, and now.”

“From you?”

“Who better to teach you?”

Tor scowled, irritated by the warrior’s arrogant grin.

For the next hour, Leyla watched as Jarrett instructed Tor in the use of a sword, showing him at length the correct stance, how to grip the sword, warning him not to choke the hilt.

Over and over Tor practiced the lunge and basic parries, swinging the sword from side to side and in circular and low-line moves. Feint, lunge, disengage, thrust, slash, parry. Tor was clumsy with the blade. His thrusts were awkward and unsure, his feints weak.

“Come at me as if you mean it,” Jarrett chided, his sword arm extended. “Don’t hold back.”

Time and again, Leyla watched as Jarrett flicked the sword from Tor’s grasp. He was agile on his feet, as light as thistledown as he eluded Tor’s blade. His eyes, as green as the moss that grew in the mountains, were filled with exhilaration as he breached Tor’s defenses.

He was a man without equal, she thought, and beautiful to watch, so beautiful she forgot that it was forbidden for Tor to even hold a weapon of destruction. For a Maje, the taking of a life was a sin without equal, without forgiveness.

But she did not think on that now. Sitting on a fallen log, Leyla could scarce take her eyes from her husband. The three moons of Hovis shone down upon the two men, making Tor’s white hair gleam like winter frost, casting silver shadows on Jarrett’s long black mane.

Jarrett had removed his shirt and the moonlight caressed him like a lover’s eager hand. A fine sheen of perspiration covered his copper-hued skin. The wound Taark had inflicted looked like a dark ribbon across his broad back. Surely the Creators had designed a masterpiece when Lord Jarrett of Gweneth was conceived. Broad of shoulder, slim of hip, long of leg, he moved with the fluid grace of a blue tiger on the hunt.

The muscles rippled in his arms and back with each thrust and parry, causing her heart to pound and her insides to dance with excitement. Never had he looked so strong, so masculine. So desirable. And he was hers…

Her joy in that thought died a quick death as she recalled that Jarrett had said he wished to release her from her vows. Much as she longed to disbelieve, she knew Tor would never lie to her. Jarrett wished to end their marriage.

Tears burned her eyes. Silent as a drifting shadow, she stepped down from the log and made her way into the darkness beyond the clearing. She would not let Jarrett see her tears. If he wished to end their marriage, she would not argue, she would not ask why. She would leave him with her honor and her dignity intact…

Tor grunted as the flat of Jarrett’s blade struck his shoulder, numbing his whole arm so that his sword fell to the ground. He had not expected sword fighting to be so difficult. With his mind, he could easily discern Jarrett’s thoughts. He knew what the Gweneth warrior was going to do before he did it, yet he was powerless to avoid the other man’s blade. Had they been fighting to the death, he would have been dead a dozen times.

Grudgingly Tor had to admit that Jarrett was a masterful teacher. By the end of the hour, he could wield the sword with at least a bit of skill, and Jarrett was no longer able to disarm him with such ease.

Tor was breathing hard when Jarrett called an end to the lesson.

“Not bad, Maje,” Jarrett said, though it galled him to give Tor any kind of compliment. “You might be able to defend yourself against Leyla should the need arise.”

Tor scowled at him, his fist tightening around the hilt of the sword. For a moment, he thought of lunging forward, of burying his sword to the hilt in the arrogant warrior’s chest. But the consequences of such an act were beyond comprehension. He stared at the weapon in his hand, wondering at the turn of events that had brought him here, that had him turning his back on everything he had ever believed in, everything he knew to be right and true.

“Think twice, Maje,” Jarrett warned. “I’d hate to have to kill you.”

With a muttered oath, Tor lowered the blade.

Only then did Jarrett notice that Leyla was missing. His gaze swept the clearing but there was no sign of her. Sheathing his sword, he walked toward the log where he’d seen her last, his gaze sweeping the ground. Her tracks were barely visible in the waning moonlight.

“Leyla?” He called her name as he followed her trail into a grove of locust trees. By Hadra, whatever had possessed her to go off by herself? It was dangerous for her to be wandering around alone. There were wild animals in this part of the country, slime pits, pools of shimmering quicksand, bands of outlaws who bartered human flesh.

And then he saw her, kneeling on the ground beside a moss-covered tree trunk, her face buried in her hands, her hair flowing down her back and over her shoulders like a cloak of silver angel’s hair.

Thinking her hurt, he hurried to her side. “Leyla?”

“My Lord?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I would know why thee wishes to be free of me,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands. “Has thy love died?”

“What?”

“Perhaps thee thinks to send me away to keep me from harm?”

Roughly, he grasped her by the shoulders and drew her around to face him. “What are you talking about? You’re my wife.”

“Until we reach Majeulla,” she replied bitterly.

Jarrett’s eyes narrowed ominously. “Can you not wait until then? Are you so anxious to be rid of me that you’d risk your life by running off into the night?”

He stood up then, his chest heaving with silent rage. “Shall I send Tor to you? Mayhap you will not find his presence so undesirable.”

Jarrett whirled around only to come face to face with Tor.

“Did you think to have her now, Maje?” Jarrett challenged.

Tor shook his head, put off by the anger that blazed in the depths of the warrior’s dark-green eyes.

“You may have her, Maje, when we reach the Mountains of the Blue Mist. But until then, she is mine. And I would be alone with her this night.” Jarrett’s gaze locked with Tor’s. “Do you take my meaning?”

For a moment, Tor’s hand caressed the hilt of his sword. Then, with a curt nod, he turned on his heel and went back the way he’d come. No man in his right mind would dare to challenge the warning in Jarrett’s eyes.

Leyla scrambled to her feet as Jarrett moved toward her, his booted feet making no sound on the spongy sod.

He was like a great blue tiger stalking its prey, she thought, graceful and lethal. His beautiful green eyes glittered with barely suppressed fury and desire.

“Jarrett…”

His mouth descended on hers, shutting off her words. She tasted blood, his or hers, she couldn’t say, and then he was carrying her down, pinning her body to the ground with his considerable weight, trapping both her hands in one of his.

She wanted to ask why he wanted to be free of her, to hear from his own lips that he no longer loved her, knowing that, even then, she would not believe it. But he was kissing her again, his free hand burrowing into her hair, holding her head immobile as his tongue plundered her mouth.

She writhed beneath him, her breasts crushed against the unyielding wall of his chest, her legs well caught between his. She could feel every heated inch of him, from shoulder to thigh, as he continued to kiss her, his lips moving over her face. His breath was warm, his words muffled and indistinct.

With his free hand, he dispensed with her clothing, then his own. Breathless, she stared up at him, her heart hammering within her breast. He looked like an avenging angel with his long black hair swirling around his face and his eyes blazing green fire. His skin glowed like heated copper in the moonlight, and she felt a deep answering hunger uncurl within the depths of her being. How magnificent he looked, her rogue warrior. His body was taut so that every muscle stood out in bold relief.

He murmured her name as he plunged into her, taking her violently, using her as he might have used a concubine.

She should have hated it and him. Instead, she arched beneath him, drawing him deeper into herself, her anger dissolving into tears as Jarrett breathed her name again.

Her nails raked his back as his rhythm increased. “I love thee, my Lord Jarrett,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes. “I will always love thee.”

Her words pierced the hard veneer of Jarrett’s anger. Abruptly his assault lessened and he took her gently, his hands softly caressing the smoothness of her skin as ecstasy blended with ecstasy, their bodies, fully joined, melding together in a dance older than time.

Later, holding her close, he rained featherlight kisses along her neck.

“Why, Leyla?” he asked, his voice gruff. “If you love me, as you say, why do you wish to renounce our marriage?”

“Thee is the one who wishes it, my Lord, not I.”

“What are you talking about? Who told you such a thing?”

“Tor. He said thee wished to end our marriage.”

Jarrett swore a vile oath. “I said no such thing. Tor swore he would not help you get away from Rorke unless I agreed to free you from your vows when we reached Majeulla.”

Leyla echoed Jarrett’s oath. “He told me he would not help thee to escape unless I renounced our marriage.”

“Then you do not wish to be free of me?” Jarrett asked.

“Never! And thee?”

“My life means nothing if you are not there to share it with me.” Jarrett stroked Leyla’s cheek, delighting in the softness of her skin, the radiance in her eyes. “He must love you very much.”

Leyla lowered her gaze. “We have been betrothed since I was a child.”

“And he cares for you deeply,” Jarrett repeated.

“Yes.”

Jarrett tried to be angry with the Maje, tried to hate him, but it was impossible. What man, knowing Leyla, could help but want her for his own?

“I’d kill him for his lies if I didn’t feel so sorry for him,” he muttered ruefully.

Leyla snuggled closer to Jarrett, her head resting on his shoulder, one arm over his chest. How could she have ever believed that Jarrett would let her go? They were bound to each other, heart to heart and soul to soul. She had no life without him, wanted no life without him.

“What will we do now?” she asked. “Thee cannot go back to Greyebridge.”

“We’ll go to Majeulla,” Jarrett said, thinking aloud. “You’ll be safe there.”

“I will not stay there without thee,” she said. “Do not even think of taking me there unless thee plans to stay as well.”

“My life is not my own,” Jarrett said, “nor will it be until I can convince the King that I am innocent of treason. And the only way to do that is to go to Cornith and beg an audience with Tyrell. I know he’ll listen to me.”

“Rorke will never allow it.”

“Rorke be damned!” Turning on his side, Jarrett rested his chin in his hand and gazed down at Leyla. “I don’t want to leave you, beloved, but I will not put your life at risk again. I’ll come back for you after I’ve seen Tyrell.”

“No. I will not be parted from thee again.”

“Leyla…”

“No! Do not think thee can trick me, or persuade me with pretty words and promises. My place is at thy side and I will not leave thee.”

“Ah, my brave warrior woman. Perhaps I instructed the wrong Maje in the use of the sword.”

“If necessary, I will fight beside thee, my Lord Jarrett.”