Intimate Enemies Page 4

  Arion narrowed his eyes.“Hold me here against my will and you risk a war, not only with my family on the other side of this island, but with my country. You know that both Henry and William have issued edicts against either of our families taking any more hostages. We have a truce.”

  “Truce. Is that what you call it?”

  “Why,” he drawled,“what do you term it, MacRae?”

  “Injustice! Your ‘truce' was only begun after I had been taken by your family as a child.”

  “Taken—and freed, MacRae. Or have you forgotten that part?”

  She stilled, staring at him, unreadable. “No. I have not forgotten.”

  Ari met her look, caught again in the colors of her, the strange notion of this beauty grown from that little girl. They had met so briefly at Ryder's castle—yet Arion remembered this aspect of her over all else: reckless bravery and wary intelligence, thoughts upon thoughts, the true depths of her mind hidden behind that amber gaze. Then her chilling smile returned, and he saw only the woman once more.

  “Yet I think you'll agree, du Morgan, that it is indeed our turn to take one of you. In the interest of fairness, after all.”

  “King Henry will not tolerate your hate.”

  “Your king,” she said mildly, “is much too far away from Shot to aid you now, in case you had not noticed. All your English forces are too far. And my family has subdued yours for centuries.”

  “I heard it was the other way around.” He was deliberately baiting her, though he knew it was not wise. It was the thwarted passion in him, perhaps, that made him say,“I heard my family has defeated yours.”

  “Mainlander,” she scoffed, and he didn't need to see her eyes to catch the derision there. She turned away from him, walked to the window. One of her hands swept out in a fluid arc, gesturing to the view.

  “All you can see before you belongs to my clan. Everything from here to the shore, from the woods to the far mountains, is ours.” She looked back at him, a calm glance over her shoulder. “You are new to Shot. Yo u grew up on the mainland with your uncle, so I suppose I could not expect you to know the truth of the island. But look around you, du Morgan. Look at my strong home. Look at the stone walls of Keir, the solid defense of it all. My family built this, my parents and their parents and all our kin. We control most of this island, even by decree of your own king. Your home here on Shot is weak and unfinished. It always will be.”

  Now she faced him fully again, folding her arms across her chest. Her voice was still mild, the velvet in it unchanged, but Arion was not fooled. He had seen her battle a man twice her size and defeat him. He had seen her kill. And so he knew she could do it again, if she wanted to.

  “Let your own eyes determine the truth for you,” said his fair enemy. “The du Morgan fortress on the other side of Shot is representative of your presence here: small and insignificant. Now, why don't you gather your nerve and answer my question—what were you doing on my land?”

  Arion smiled suddenly, he couldn't help it. She was so devoutly scornful of him, yet so beguiling, with her long hair and her clean beauty and the temptation of her voice.

  Good God, he was surely going mad.

  He erased the smile. “I believe that beach falls exactly on the border between your part of the island and mine. So I don't really think you can rightfully claim it. If anything, MacRae, it would be our land.”

  “Yours! Are you an imbecile? Yo u just said it's on the border! Ye t now you dare to claim it as your own—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “I meant ours. Yours and mine together.”

  That silenced her, all right. Her eyes widened, her lips parted. She seemed stunned, and Ari watched as the natural rose of her cheeks deepened and spread, a flush of indignation that he could almost see rising through her. She took a deep breath, and opened her mouth to speak.

  “I've answered your question, MacRae,” Arion said quickly, before she let loose her anger. “Now you answer mine. Why did you save my life?”

  Lauren stared at him, at this bold stranger sitting up brashly on the pallet—her pallet, in her room, in her castle—and couldn't even find the words to tell him what she thought of him.

  Idiot. That was a good one. Certainly he must be an idiot, to taunt a foe in her own domain.

  Arrogant. That one suited him, too. Arrogant and sure, smiling smugly at her while he questioned her, evading her righteous hostility with own easy demeanor.

  Crafty. To think to divert her interrogation of him, to hide his own sly plans for subterfuge on her land by attempting to confuse her, by daring to claim that the families actually held part of Shot together.

  Deceitful. Wicked. Vile! Odious! Contemptible and … handsome.

  Lauren couldn't deny what was such a striking truth; that would be a weakness in her, and she would not allow this man to grant her any weakness, no matter how much he troubled her.

  So, yes, handsome. He sat there as calm as lake water, with his raven-black hair and his laughing green eyes—still the color of the heart of the ocean, she thought unwillingly—the sensual line of his lips heightened now with a faint smile. The powerful shape of him was beautifully framed against the cool stone wall behind him.

  He was large and finely built—not a brute of a man, but with something more like refinement shading him. It irked her all the more, that this du Morgan could have turned out so comely; that when she meant to stare him down with abhorrence, what she saw was a strong jaw and broad shoulders, muscular arms, a flat, tapered stomach….

  As far as Lauren was concerned, it was all just another black mark against him.

  Yesterday morning she had seen him from afar, battling the Vikings. Losing. His group had been sadly outnumbered, a very few to a great many, and Lauren and her own party were running toward the fray almost as soon as they had discovered it. In that very first pulse-pounding moment, it hadn't mattered that it was the du Morgans they were coming to aid. What had mattered was that there were aliens on Shot, the same heinous invaders who had murdered Da so cruelly. Lauren knew that her men would do anything to hurt them back, and right then she had felt the same way.

  Aye, and she had seen this English knight first thing, his black hair free and tangled in the wind, the impressive size of him almost evenly matched against the giant he fought. Somehow, she had known instinctively that he was Arion du Morgan, the Earl of Morgan. It had been only a matter of time before they met again, she had always known that. She had heard, along with everyone else, that his uncle was dead, that a new enemy headed the devil family. Here at last was the boy from that nightmare in her childhood, now a full-grown man, tainting the shores of her island with his very presence.

  And even that had not stopped her from aiding him.

  His battle skills were sharp and true, she could tell that even from a distance. But Lauren had already seen that the Vikings did not scruple to fight unfairly, and when the arrow struck him she had not been surprised.

  By then, however, her people had reached the beach, and they had joined in the fury with something close to unholy glee.

  Lauren wasn't proud of having inflicted death. Almost the whole of the battle, in fact, was a blankness in her mind. Almost emptiness, like a scene hidden behind a kind of red, veiled haze. When she tried to remember those bloody moments, all she could summon was a knotted mess of emotions: fury and pain and excitement, newfound power and might. If she concentrated on it too much, she grew nauseated.

  But something must have taken her arms and lifted them against the Viking. Something had moved her feet quickly enough to dodge his lethal axe, drawing him away from the fallen man. The sun and the sea and even the sand had been her allies, showing her the weakness of the giant, allowing her the will and the courage to end his life.

  Yes, that had to have been the way it was. Glory and retribution.

  But it bothered her that she couldn't remember.

  When the red haze had cleared from her head, she had looked around again. T
he rest of the Northmen were fleeing, splashing through the waves to the safety of their longboat, closing ranks to heal their wounds and plan their next attack.

  “Will you not answer an honest question, MacRae?” Arion du Morgan asked now, the hard lines of his face showing her only what he wanted her to see.“I know it was you who came between me and that Norseman's axe. Why?”

  Lauren looked down at the floor, then up again into the steady deep green of his gaze. “Consider it an even trade,” she answered.“A life for a life.”

  His brows lifted, more arrogance, mingled with what might have been skepticism.

  “Even though you meant only to save your sister that night in your uncle's dungeon,” Lauren said, “I, at least, have honor. You managed to rescue me as well, and I have not forgotten it. Therefore, I saved you. But now we are more than even.”

  He laughed then, low and soft. It startled her, though she thought she managed not to show it.

  “Oh really?” he asked, mirthful. “Is that what you think?”

  He could infuriate her that easily, with just the contempt of his words, the easy attraction of his smile. Lauren clenched her teeth and returned his smile, a challenge. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he had riled her so thoroughly.

  Slowly, slowly, the expression on his face changed. The hard hauteur seemed to melt away, the sharp edge of his amusement blended into something else, something more subtle, warmer. She stared over at him, watching the transformation, wondering at it in the back of her mind.

  His eyes were so very green. His lashes were long and black. A vivid memory washed over her: the boy he had been, taking her hand in the cold death hall of the dungeon, telling her he would save her. The curious beating of her heart as she had stared up at him, that moment of awareness and heat.

  The memory of that feeling merged with the present, swallowing her, immersing her in back then but letting her stay here now; and it all felt like a rising within her, as if she had broken free of a restraint she had not noticed before. It held her, let her feel the nervous energy of it, strange magic. Like the sparks that grew between folds of wool on a winter's night, crackling and shocking. All this from him—this man.

  Lauren broke the look, her mind reeling, her mouth dry. She had to get out of here. She had to get away from him before he realized the uneasiness of her state, that he had found in her some odd deficiency, some wicked wizardry that let him confuse her.

  She walked slowly to the door, making certain her hands were not clenched into the fists she wanted to make. Just before she vanished into the hallway she stopped, but did not turn around.

  “I saved your life, du Morgan, and that of your comrades. It is a fact. But don't expect it to happen again. Next time, I will be the first one to cheer when they kill you.”

  Lauren walked out of the room, and made sure to lock the door loudly behind her.

  HE DID NOT GO BACK to see him the next day.

  Lauren told herself it was because she had too many other duties to attend to—meetings with her people, assessing the wounded from the latest battle, checking the patrols, the supplies, the fields, and the fishing nets. So many things.

  She sent word to the English that their lord was nearly fit to leave. She knew they were growing more and more impatient, and despite her empty threat to the earl, the last thing she needed now was a hostage to spark a new war on top of the one with the Vikings. Her clan was already worn close to desperation, and no one understood this better than she.

  With each passing day since her father's death, Lauren had prayed she would be able to retrace his steps as a leader, the great laird that he had been. He had tutored her himself, he had raised her after Mama had died, he had taught her and shaped her as surely and proudly as if she had been his son. Were it not for the accident of her sex it would be she who would lead the clan now, and not her cousin. That was not to be, obviously. Yet with Da gone, Lauren found herself pushing forward all the things that Hebron would have done.

  And in the turmoil of the past week, the clan had accepted her. Most of them. She was the closest thing they had to Da, she knew that as much as anyone. It helped that her voice echoed with ideas and words she had picked up from her father, lessons learned by steady observation and her own intuition.

  The new laird lay dying in Da's bed, carefully tended by the best medicines and healers the clan had to offer. Ye t it might not be enough. No one had to say it. Quinn had lost a lot of blood, and he had not yet awakened from a blow to his head.

  In the absence of her father and her cousin, Lauren had instinctively stepped in. It had seemed as natural as the ocean tide, and it had happened so smoothly that Lauren thought she might be the only one who had looked around one morning a few days ago in slow astonishment and realized what had happened.

  It was ingrained in her as the deepest rings in the heart of an oak tree: Lead the family. Protect Shot. Save them all. Every day she would mull over each new trouble, trying to be clever, trying to think like Da.

  What to do about the Vikings?

  Double the patrols, instructed a voice in her mind. Watch for them at night. They hide in the moonlight. Be ready for them.

  What about all the injured men?

  Guide them. Comfort them. Inspire them if you can.

  What of Quinn?

  Pray for him.

  And the English. The Earl of Morgan and his men?

  No answer. The voice didn't seem to have a response for this new twist in her life. She couldn't even imagine what Da would say.

  So Lauren concentrated on doing the things she knew she should do. She focused on her people, she smiled confidently and spoke briskly, cutting off any fear that might linger in her voice. She visited the women in the kitchens, the children in the nursery. She sat with her father's men while they brewed up plans for that night's patrols. When the day was winding down to darkness, she went to visit the chamber that held their wounded.

  None had been killed in the latest fight with the Vikings. It seemed a miracle that they had all survived— even the English—because the previous two battles had been so lethal. The first had killed eight of their men, the second, ten. One of those had been Da.

  Lauren walked slowly around the men lying in rows in the medicine chamber, talking to them soberly, letting them see that she was unhurt, that she was just as determined to fend off the invaders as ever. They looked up at her with hope, with grit and confidence and lasting faith. She spoke with Elias, their best healer, about each of them, finding and hoarding encouragement from his short sentences, struggling to interpret good news in the sparseness of his words.

  No change in Quinn, she learned. And with that Elias fell silent, leaving Lauren to fight away her fear.

  When she left it was truly nighttime, and she had to rummage in the buttery to find the remains of the supper that had been served to everyone else. She took her meal and ate it in solitary silence up at the top of one of the turrets, looking out at the savage enchantment of her island, masked in the netherlight of the evening sky. The ocean was a siren's song in the near distance, sparkling black and silver. The stars hung low above her, glittering points that melted into the horizon.

  A sentry walked by and greeted her, and Lauren nodded back.

  It was time.

  There was a regular shift of guards both at du Morgan's door and at the door to the room that held his men. She let the guard silently unlock the one that held the earl, then shut it softly behind her.

  The chamber was unlit, only the glow from the window outlining the shapes around her. She crossed to the pallet, expecting to find the form there sleeping. But he wasn't sleeping. He wasn't there at all, just the mess of his blankets.

  “Spying, MacRae?”

  Lauren turned quickly to the sound and found a lighter form amid the dark, near the far wall. The bandages around his shoulder were a pale smudge against the black.

  “What are you doing up?” she demanded.

&nb
sp; “Planning my escape, of course.” The night masked his face but she thought he might have flashed that smile of his, faint in the shadows.

  She ignored the undertone of sarcasm in his words, instead moving away from the revealing patch of ghostly light that fell across the floor, choosing to stay in the dimness, as he did. “You will make yourself more ill. Yo u will never heal if you do not rest.”

  “So?”

  Another challenge. He seemed full of them, but right now Lauren was almost too tired to spar with him. It was draining enough just being around him, maintaining her feigned indifference to him, hiding the confusion he brought out in her.

  “So, go ahead then,” she said tartly.“Die, if that's what you want. Reopen your wounds and bleed to death. I'll no longer waste my good linen on your bandages.”

  He chuckled, still hidden in the cool night.“I'm sure it would please you to no longer have to worry about me, MacRae.”

  “Aye. I'll hold a festival to celebrate your demise. Please do hurry up with it. The dancing won't wait.”

  He didn't laugh this time, but walked slowly to her, until the starlight sloped across his features, becoming lost in the ebony of his hair, shining like mercury in the depths of his eyes. He wasn't smiling any longer; clearly he was an earl again, a tall knight with only a blanket wrapped around his waist and still holding all the dignity and power she had ever before seen on a man.

  “Did you come to kill me in my sleep, MacRae?” he asked quietly.

  She was offended, though she knew it was just another of his taunts.

  “I told you before, du Morgan. I am not an English barbarian. Your life means nothing to me beyond the debt that I have repaid. But it would hardly make sense to save you in battle only to kill you the next day.”

  His head tilted just slightly, serious, his eyes narrowed. She felt that strangeness slipping over her again, that unexpected heat, the connection between them that felt like quick sparks, close to pain. Without meaning to Lauren took a step back, away from him, and then made herself stop.

  “I have come to make you an offer,” she said, after it was clear that he did not mean to break the silence. At her words she imagined she saw a new glimmer in his eyes, something bright and interested, then subdued. But he kept his silence along with that intense look down at her, almost too handsome to be true, a man made of silver and starlight and stone.