By Vengeance Guided (The Lost Shrines Book 1) (8 page)

She shook her head and sighed. "I'm afraid only the traditional families of the valley are invited. You'll have to stay in the village for the celebrations."

Of course, that answered one of his questions.

He frowned, then slowly, as if approaching a skittish barn cat, he reached out. With gentle fingers, Wyn took her hand in his, and stroked his thumb over the sensitive skin of her knuckles.

"Are you sure there aren't any exceptions? A party would be a nice way to relax after lifting all these rocks. A chance to spend time with you, without the backbreaking labor, is something I've been hoping for."

Oh, Goddess, it was something she'd been hoping for as well. Her body swayed forward, drawn toward him without input from her brain. If the wall hadn't stood between them, she had no doubt she'd have taken the fateful step into his arms. She wanted to.

His other hand came up to push her hair back, his thumb coming to rest on her cheekbone and his fingers cradled her face with a feather-light touch that made her ache for more.

Lia stared up into those beautiful, chiseled features and lost herself in the want, the need, she'd been suppressing since the moment they'd first met on the village street.

When Wyn leaned toward her, she went up on tiptoe to meet him. The first brush of his lips over hers was gentle, questioning. When she brought her hand up to tangle in his hair and pull him even closer, though, the desire and heat exploded between them.

His mouth closed over hers with firm demand and she willingly opened for him. Tongues tangled, breath mingled and soon she had no idea where she ended and he began. The drugging heat pulsed through her veins, washed through her like a blessing. Like a promise of untold pleasure to come.

Time had no meaning as she lost herself in him. The hard-edged rocks pressing into her thighs eventually worked themselves into her awareness, though. Then the sounds of the manor, men shouting, chopping, animals calling, children playing. None, thankfully, close enough to need immediate attention. But enough that she knew they could not continue. Should never have started.

Her hand slid from his hair, mapping a trail across the sharp planes of his face, down the strong muscles of his neck and shoulder to the broad expanse of his chest.

With a gentle, regretful press against him, she dropped back to flat feet, putting a few inches between them.

It took three deep breaths before she found her voice.

"I'm sorry."

He blinked, eyes still cloudy with passion. "For what? I think I'm the one that kissed you, I believe. If an apology needs to be made, it should be mine. Does one need to be made?"

She shook her head. "No. Not for the kiss. But I shouldn't have… I can't allow it to happen again. And I can't make an exception about the festival. So, I'm sorry."

Like a sudden winter squall, the desire and warm, easy expression disappeared behind an icy mask. His hands dropped away from her as if he had been scalded.

"I see."

"No, you don't. I'm afraid you never will. The important thing… The thing I should have told you before it got…" She waved a hand helplessly around them. "I should have told you I am betrothed."

He didn't even blink at her announcement. She narrowed her eyes, pinched her lips tight, and she took a step back to give herself a little more space from him. She'd have thought a stone wall was enough, but she'd just proven that wasn't the case.

"You don't look surprised."

There was a flicker of something, there and gone so fast she wasn't sure it had ever been.

"I'm not. Not really. I'd heard rumors. It's a small village, you know."

With a long-suffering sigh, she nodded. "I know."

"I'd also heard you probably wouldn't marry him. You'd get out of it. Somehow."

"I wish," she muttered, then, louder, she said. "That is the plan. However, right now, I'm still kind of stuck with him. Even if… I can't get involved in any way with anyone. There's too much at stake. I'm sorry."

She bit her lip. She was tired of apologizing. Tired of almost saying more than she should. Tired of not saying what she wanted to. Of not doing what she wanted to. Just, really, really tired.

He looked for a moment like he wanted to ask more questions. Then he stopped and let his eyes roam over her once again. She wondered what he saw. If her expression was as unreadable as his.

"All right. Friends, then?" He held out a hand.

"Yes," she agreed wholeheartedly and took his hand. An electric echo of the heat from their kiss raced along her nerves. She knew she’d regret the necessary outcome of this conversation for a long, long time.

*****

After Lia walked away, Caer finished the last of the stone wall, then followed when everyone joyfully cut the day short and headed home to prepare for the night's revelry. As soon as he arrived at the inn, he'd taken his meal upstairs with an exaggerated pout and heavy feet.

He collapsed on the bed to plan but remembered sensations of Lia's lips on his, Lia's skin under his hands kept intruding. Leading him down a path of
what ifs
that ended in his body taut, fevered and wanting.

Scrubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he wished he could wipe away the memory. The want. It was ridiculous. She was the target. With every scrap and hint he'd picked up, more and more it looked like she was the enemy.

Still, he wanted her.

A bitter laugh escaped. It wouldn't be the first time he'd wanted to sleep with the enemy.

The sorceress Irana had had him wrapped around her finger. He'd gone off on a stupid, pointless quest, to prove his worthiness to her. Even taken the Hounds with him, like she'd suggested, truly believing she'd wanted him to succeed.

Instead, she’d wanted his parents’ fiercest protection out of the way. She may not have intended to kill them, that day, but she'd had no compunction about doing it when they stood in the way of what she wanted.

Pushing himself off the bed, Caer went to stare sightlessly out the window.

He'd returned in time to stop her from taking the Cauldron but not soon enough to save his parents.

So, no, his instincts when it came to women couldn't be trusted. In fact, the more he was attracted to one, the more he should insist on being suspicious of her.

Unfortunately, he couldn't seem to remember that when Lia was moaning and combusting under his hands.

Slowly, by ones and twos, small groups and large, the villagers took to the road while the sun set on the valley. As he watched from his window, the village quickly emptied until only a few stragglers remained.

For the second night in a row, Caerwyn snuck through the overgrown forest, thankful for the bright moon and the ancestry that gifted him with enhanced senses.

This time though, going was slower. He didn't dare stray too close to the road where the last few villagers made their way from the village to the manor. He circled around the same path he had the night before, wondering if whatever was going on in the herbarium would be part of the night's activities

To his surprise, no one went anywhere near the building. Instead, what looked like the entire population of the valley spread out on the front lawn surrounding four precisely spaced bonfires. Laughter and dancing and music filled the night. Wine and ale passed from person to person, along with plates and baskets and bowls of foods.

This wasn't the diabolical ritual he'd been expecting. There was no evidence of nefarious sorcery. Simply a party celebrated under the light of the full moon as many other rural communities did. An excuse to rest and regroup from the hard labor of the planting season.

Then what was it about this scene that Lia and her keepers did not want him to see? Or, was she just afraid of her own lowered inhibitions in such an environment? Afraid of where their mutual attraction might lead?

When he began to think his brooding self-flagellation from earlier had been a little harsh, however, Caerwyn noticed a cloaked figure moving away from the light of the fire. Doing his best, Caer kept to the shadows of the trees and followed quietly. When he got closer, he realized the figure carried a basket and a blanket.

There was always the possibility the secretive figure was sneaking off to meet someone but the single-minded focus and quick steps seemed out of character for a moonlit tryst. Besides, Caer was sure he recognized the sway of those hips. He'd been watching them every day for the past two weeks.

If Lia was indeed going for a secret romantic assignation, Caer was damn well going to find out with whom.

She slipped into the tree line a few yards ahead of him, and he froze. She never paused, didn't even notice she wasn't alone in the night. No wonder Keneally and Nel worried about her. She had no sense of self-preservation.

It took several steps deeper into the dark forest for Caer to realize she was following a path of sorts. Though one so indistinct it could not be a well-traveled one. For fifteen minutes she moved with purpose and grace ahead of him. And he followed with all the stealth and skill his training and his heritage bestowed on him.

Eventually, they came to a group of oaks, so close and massive, they looked like a wall across the middle of the forest.

She slid past the first behemoth and he counted off several seconds before he moved toward it. Something stopped him, though, when he got it. Instead of moving forward to follow, he could only peek around the massive tree.

Lia continued to wind smoothly around large piles of rocks until she reached the center of the circle of oaks. Another pile of rocks, smaller in mass than the outer ring of debris, took up a good chunk of the middle of the clearing. At its center, the largest of the stones rose several inches above the others, long and flat and gleaming white.

Lia reached out and touched the flat stone, almost reverent in the way she traced her fingers lightly over the patterns etched in the hard surface.

Caer realized they weren't merely piles of jumbled rocks. They were the ruins of some bygone era. The center stone was a long forgotten altar.

He stopped breathing for a moment, every muscle tense while he waited to see what was next. If she was a sorceress, how dark was the ritual she prepared to perform? Would Keneally or Nel be bringing an animal to sacrifice? Or would he have to step in, reveal himself to protect a human from that fate?

His heightened hearing, though, told him no one approached. No one was even near. From her basket, Lia brought forth only flowers and herbs, bread and wine.

The power humming along the ground seeped into his consciousness. It tinged the air with a soft scent of energy. Nothing like what he'd learned to associate with sorcery in the years since he'd first met Irana.

It felt…feminine. And clean.

It didn't matter that it felt different, though. Humans had no access to magic of their own or to that of the elements of the earth. They had to take the power from something else. Witches used herbs and plants and stones and occasionally their own blood. The lure of power was usually irresistible, though, and they graduated to the blood of animals and humans, soon needing pain and fear and death to power their spells.

Caer swallowed the bitter taste of disappointment. He'd been hoping any witchery going on could be attributed to Nel. Still, it was only plants and bread on the altar. Nothing irrevocable.

Lia's cloak came off, dropped gracefully over the basket while he watched from beyond the invisible barrier. Her gorgeous chestnut hair was down and glittering in the moonlight. Rather than the stuffy, stiff petticoats and skirts she wore around the manor, her dress flowed in a soft white wave of fabric. It draped her body, floating around her. Both flaunting and hiding her femininity.

Then she spread out the blanket, covered in symbols he had never seen, and began to chant in a language he had never heard. Light and sweet and nothing like the harsh demands of sorcery he'd encountered before. Nor like the wheedling entreaties of the witches he'd dealt with.

The lilting language welcomed, beckoned. Before he knew it, Caerwyn moved past the first of the trees. The imaginary barrier gone like the soft silk of a spider web.

He couldn't move away now if his life depended on it. The sight of her, like a pool of moonlight in the center of the Circle, drew him as nothing ever had.

Lia stood in front of the altar, her gifts laid out in offering, and raised her hands to the heavens. He still didn't understand the words but knew it was not witchery. This ritual was not a sacrifice of the energy within the items on the table.

If he had to hazard a guess, it would be that it was a request for a blessing on them. When a ball of glowing silver light appeared above the altar, bathing everything with a sweet glow, he was sure he was right.

A small part of him wondered if it was a trick. A trap to lure him in. In his quest for vengeance, though, he'd encountered every darker aspect to be had. Whatever secrets Lia and the valley held, he'd bet his life sorcery wasn't one of them.

No longer able to hold himself back, he stepped fully beyond the shelter of the stones. As soon as he did, a sizzling wave of welcoming energy engulfed him, like he'd crossed some kind threshold. The orb above the altar brightened, expanded to fill the Circle.