Awaken My Fire (40 page)

He was kissing her again. The kiss had nothing to do with gentleness and everything to do with the unleashed force of his desire, encompassing the last of her uncertainty and its resistance. Gone. The curse and death, warring nations and every last injustice was gone, banished by this kiss. All she knew was the spinning carousel of hot sensations, the start of a dream too beautiful to be true…

An avalanche of desire roared through him, the demand of it growing, devouring as his free hand slipped beneath her gown at her waist, sliding over the sculpted softness of her hips and thighs, then back again and over and over in ever-deepening strokes as his lips drifted to her arched neck, over her shoulders until, drawing breath hard and fast, she felt them on her breast.

The pleasure of it seized the whole of her body. She twisted maddeningly beneath him, but he hardly seemed to notice her struggle. A whimper grew in her throat as his lips played there. She was flushed and breathless, her consciousness fragmented to every sensation erupting through her body. She was lost—

A loud, shrill sound crashed into her mind. She stiffened, her consciousness collecting, riveting on the urgent cry. The clang of death bells echoed in her mind as he abruptly freed her hands and lifted himself up with a soft vicious curse. A cool shaft of air hit her like a blow, and her eyes flew open to see the screeching bird flying frantically around Vincent's head.

"Greyman!"

The falcon dove at his-head and instinctively Vincent swung at him. The frantic bird lifted up and away with wild, loud screeches of alarm, and in that instant Roshelle knew. "Nay," she said in a whisper, her brows slanted in confusion as her eyes darted to the surrounding wood and she screamed.

A slight thud sounded on top of an unnatural gasp. She looked upward to see Vincent's handsome face contorted in sudden agony. She stared in confusion until a circle of blood-red color appeared on his shirt and she screamed again.

An arrow had hit him from the back, piercing all the way through the side of his waist. She stared at the horror of the tip pointing out from near his stomach. She screamed as, like a lion with no more than a thorn in his paw, Vincent rose and turned simultaneously with an angry shout. Just as another arrow struck his head. Roshelle heard a whistle before it plunged into the tree trunk behind her. Desperate, thinking only of her, Vincent fought the swirling black-and-gray colors exploding in his head, but they suddenly burst into red colors and he felt himself falling, falling from her as from the white tower in his dreams…

The man watched the lady collapse at the duke's side

with a frantic call and he exclaimed out loud, "Holy demons in hell, that be a close one!" A wide grin spoke of

his pleasure.

Roshelle knelt over Vincent's form, an anguished cry on her lips. She stifled the panic. Papillion had trained her to the trick and she didn't think, only acted. Blood poured through the pierced flesh, quickly soaking Vincent's shirt. She had to remove the arrow, tricky business, and one requiring a sharp knife and a fire, which she didn't have. She first ripped the hem of her gown in one neat, long strip before carefully wrapping it around his head wound to stop the bleeding there. He would die, she knew, of course.

The curse would make him die.

Quickly, desperately, she stifled the thought. Not now. Now she must try to save him. She needed help, a knife.

"Leave the bastard to die, ma petite filly."

Dark blue eyes lifted to the giant of a man standing less than three paces from where she knelt. He spoke French, a low, guttural French. It sounded strange on this man's tongue, and in the space of the moment, she realized why. He was from Burgundy.

The knowledge registered dimly, disappearing as the nature of the threat crashed into her dazed mind. The man wiped his sleeve across his mouth, his eyes fixed on the sight of her. She pulled the parted gown tight across her front. "The bastard was taking such a long time about it," he swore, the word jerking her slightly. He looked around, confronting only the quiet of the forest. Greyman flew high overhead now, crying from the distance, but neither man nor girl noticed him. "I do not think he will be missed for a while, huh, ma petite? Besides, unlike him"—he motioned with his head to where Vincent lay, and laughed—"trust me to be quick about the business."

The man was smiling at her as if she were likely to be thankful for his intentions. She encountered the horror of his smile with a tiny shudder, and in the same instant, he lunged at her. She was ever quick. On her feet and turning, she left his hands grasping at thin air. His curse disappeared in the loud fear she put into her scream.

He caught her some distance away and she was still screaming, louder as his large, filthy hands came to her waist. He spun her around, laughing as he threw her to the ground, and hard. So hard, she lost her breath and darkness momentarily burst amidst tiny pinpoints of light in her head, her consciousness returning as he straddled her and she felt his weight on her stomach. The next scream died without sound, for she couldn't breathe. With the desperate energy of a drowning person, she clawed at his bearded face and belted doublet. He only laughed as he grabbed her hands and pushed them to the ground above her head. Holding them there with one hand, he pulled open her gown. The sight of her breasts caught his breath, and he nearly lost his sap right then, her ceaseless frantic cry not helping at all.

His shaking hand quickly fumbled with his belt. Urgency made his hand all aquiver, and needing both hands, he released hers. Instantly they flailed at him again with nails bared like a distraught kitten's, and he cursed her as he bounced his weight once to stop her. It knocked the wind from her heaving chest to her throat; she felt bile rising to make her sick, choking her as greedy hands suddenly were on her breasts.

A dark shadow came over the man and there was but the briefest sound of masculine disgust before he felt savage hands pulling him into the air. He screamed in a howl. The only reason Wilhelm let the man live the two seconds more that it took to pull him up before he thrust his long knife through his back was because Wilhelm did not want Roshelle to have the giant's weight on her when he died. Roshelle screamed as other gentle hands came to her person, and she covered her eyes just in time to keep the gruesome sight of his death from her mind.

She collapsed into a breathless, choked tears. Bryce held her tightly in his arms until she caught her breath. "Tis over, milady..." Greyman flew overhead, finally landing on her shoulder as she tried to collect her torn senses. His claws stretched through her gown, but she did not care. Trembling hands quickly worked the laces of her gown, but Bryce's strong hand still held her up by the arm.

Wilhelm withdrew his knife and let the giant fall where he died. He bent over to wipe the blood on the man's clothes, and as other guards came to take the body away, he uttered, "Light a fire. He will burn."

"Aye."

"Where is he?"

Roshelle heard the fear in Wilhelm's question; he assumed Vincent was already dead. She immediately rallied her dazed defenses. "He's fallen over there. Quick. He is in dire need."

She led the men to the place in a rush and stood back as they knelt in a circle around the duke. She closed her eyes to the horror of the reality all around her: he had died or would soon die, just like the beast who slew him and because of her curse. Her curse had killed him and she was responsible. She had not stopped him because she had not wanted to. She had so desperately wanted to believe him, with all her heart and soul she had wanted to believe him. She had killed him, just as surely as if she had strung and aimed the crossbow herself...

"Here, Bryce, we must pull it through. Keep him to his side and we will use one hand each and all our strength to make it fast," Wilhelm said, as anxious and nervous as a newborn colt. "Now turn your head, milady," he said, quite forgetting who she was. "Tis nothing a lady should see."'

The comment abruptly woke her from her awful train of thoughts and she opened her eyes to the dying man at her feet. She was first too horrified to speak; then, as her wits returned in force, so did the unquestionable authority that was as natural to her as breathing. "Get your hands off that arrow!" She fell in between Bryce and Wilhelm, forcing Greyman off her shoulder with an angry screech. "Nay!" Roshelle's hands came over Wilhelm's, stopping him just in time. "You cannot do it that way! Have you no sense? Mon Dieu, if he does not die anyway, he surely would if you use brute force to get that arrow through—'twould splinter and leave a hundred tiny pieces inside that would inflame his flesh and kill him with a fever. Indeed, a knife, a water cask, and I need a fire started ..."

No one moved at first, so shocked were they by a woman undertaking such a thing. "Milady, I do not think—"

'Twas as far as Wilhelm got. "A knife before he bleeds to death!" While she waited as the men suddenly dispersed to do her bidding, she found the discarded strip of her gown. She tore off another strip and soaked this in the water someone just handed her.

Sanders cleared away the brush and grass for a fire. "How big, milady?"

"Small, 'tis all I need." She gently wiped the blood from Vincent's head and face as best she could for now before expertly wrapping the dry strip around his head wound to stop the bleeding. His breathing seemed deep and slow. A skillful knot tied at the exact place of the wound added just enough pressure to stop the bleeding.

Then she carefully began removing his bloody shirt. Wilhelm helped with his knife. She tore another strip of cloth from her dress and used it to clean the blood away from his wound. Yet it bled profusely; he would have to have dozens of stitches. If he lived.

The thought momentarily put the tremble back in her hands. With an effort, and using some of Papillion's teachings to control her mind and thoughts, she banished it. She ordered a man to return to the castle to instruct Joan to prepare a sickbed. "She will know what that means."

The knight nodded and quickly left, no one questioning her authority now.

She rose and stepped away to spread the blanket one of the men had brought over the grass of bluebells. “You and you." She pointed to Bryce and Tyrone. "Lift him as gently as you know onto the blanket. He will need to be wrapped as soon as I am done. And keep him careful on that side." Everyone stood back as they did. Once done, she knelt down and asked for the knife.

Slowly, hesitantly, Wilhelm handed her a knife.

"Nay, not that one. 'Tis soiled by the beast's blood."

"Aye, but 'tis my lucky knife!"

She shot him a glance. "Lucky for killing—not, me-thinks, for saving."

Wilhelm supposed she was right and nodded to Bryce. That man held up a clean blade. She took it in her hand, tested its sharpness by pricking her finger. The finger went to her mouth as she began a thorough examination of the arrow from both sides.

"Is the fire going?"

"Aye, milady."

What she did next would live forever in the men's minds, for it was so simple and obvious and sensible, it seemed a wonder they had never seen it done before. Carefully wiping blood from the place, she first cut off the point and the five inches of the arrow sticking through his side, so that there would be far less to pull through. Then she used a burning stick to light the short end.

"Why are you doing that?"

"The flames will make certain no splinters get caught in his flesh, while also reducing the chance of a festering. No one knows why fire kills disease, but it does. Papillion said 'tis the reason a body makes a fever."

A small flame started traveling down the cut arrow. With the strength of one hand only, she wrapped her sure fingers around the other end and then, with a prayer to the Holy Mother and waiting, just as the flames touched his skin, she pulled it gently through his flesh.

Gasps of amazement followed as she pressed the cloth to the hole in his side, exerting pressure to stop the bleeding." Tis not over yet," she said. "Let us get him to a sickbed." And with tears filling her eyes, she added, "And may God above listen to my prayers."

*****

Chapter 11

Ten men had tried and nine had died. The fact rang loud and long in Roshelle's mind as she knelt at the bedside of the tenth man in the candlelit room, staring at the slow and steady rise of his chest and waiting for the sudden exit of breath from his body—the exact moment of his soul's ascension.

He would die before the dawn, she knew.

They had all died.

She kept his fine large hand against her cheek, wondering if a rising heat would steal his life.

The rhythmic sound of Wilhelm's soft snores mixed with the fainter ones of the duke's vassal, the man Fossy in the outer chambers. They were all asleep now. Wilhelm slept in a chair, while Fossy slept on a pallet just outside the open door. Neither man believed Vincent would die, though, suspiciously, Wilhelm would not leave his side until he woke again. Nor could Wilhelm conceal his worry.