Captive Heart (10 page)

“Lyn!”

My heart froze when I saw her disappear. I angled my horse’s head and urged him into the water after her. Marrok rode off to cross further downstream.

The bob of her horse’s head moved with chilling speed away from me. Had Lyn been struck by the horse when she fell from its back? Was she hurt? Unable to swim? Unable to surface? If she didn’t draw breath soon…

I scanned the water in despair.

“Lyn!”

I urged my horse downstream. Heavier and stronger than Lyn’s mare, he swam with the current without fear of being swept away. Well ahead of us, Marrok and his steed paused mid-stream as they headed for the far bank. Had they found her?

Although I knew Marrok was too far away to hear, I shouted, “Lyn?”

But no, Marrok reached into the water, grabbed the panicked mare’s bridle, and led her up the bank where the ground sloped more easily into the stream. At water’s edge, he paused, from this distance looking nothing so much like a hound casting for scent.

Then he pointed to a stretch of steep bank between us. Sliding from his horse, he ran on foot toward the area. We couldn’t miss her now—he on land and I in the water. Why I had such confidence in Marrok I didn’t know. Maybe because after last night he inspired my trust.

What I didn’t trust was that we’d find Lyn alive.

I saw her then, half out of the water, sprawled on the rocky ledge.

Sliding from the saddle, I splashed the last few lengths to her. On the bank above, Marrok reached her just as I did.

She lifted her head at our approach.

Relief washed over me. She was alive. Exhausted but alive.

“Take my hand.” Marrok braced himself on the ledge above her. As he pulled from above, I had the pleasure of pushing from below.

Once safe, she clung to Marrok as I scrambled up beside them. Then she reached out to hug me close as well.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

“Bumps and bruises is all. I just need a moment to catch my breath.”

We found a clearing nearby to set up an early camp. I gathered deadwood while Marrok retrieved the packs that had spilled in the headlong rush and then led the pack horse across the water.

“You’ll ride
her
from here on,” he told Lyn.

“She’s sound and sensible,” I added. “She carried me from Orkney to Camelot.”

Marrok and Lyn both eyed me sharply.

I took a deep breath. Trust, I realized, sometimes had to be extended to be reciprocated. “Orkney is my home, Ravenscrag is my House, King Lot my father. My brother knights are Gawain, Uwain and Gaheris.” Already they were looking at me differently. And yet I was the same Beau that they had known. But I had come this far. If I could trust them with my legacy, I could entrust them with the last piece of
me
I most wanted them to know. Not because of who I was, but because of what they’d come to mean to me. “My name is Gareth.”

My trust, of course should have started with Arthur. Outside of the three champions of the world, the lineage of King Lot held most renown.

“Lot’s son,” I murmured—with wonder, gratitude, perhaps a little awe. Certainly with shame as I recalled the way I’d treated him, however necessary it had seemed.

I felt a need to touch him, to make his words—
Gareth’s
words—real. Except Marrok was there before me, laying a hand to Gareth’s cheek with a look of reverence in his demon eyes that went beyond the pale of Gareth’s confession. After a too-long moment, he double-patted Gareth’s cheek and dropped his hand. His expression, however, didn’t change. Not until I took Gareth’s hand—my
champion’s
hand—in mine and bade him sit. Then I saw a flash of—anger? jealousy?—rise up in Marrok’s eyes.

Though quickly quelled it confirmed for me where his true affections lay. What looks might have passed between him and I were in my imagination alone. While suggestive they may have been, with me they were naught but a game he played.

Disappointment opened a chasm in me, deep and dark. I looked to Gareth for his reaction. Had I lost him too? He, however, only looked abashed, apologetic—either for being who he was or not disclosing earlier.

He sat as I bade, his hand, strong and warm, embraced still in mine. I took Marrok’s hand, hard and hot, in my other, and he folded himself beside Gareth.

Knee-to-knee, hand-in-hand, I sat in front of them.

“I have been a fool,” I told them. “On two counts. Marrok chastised me earlier for the way I’ve treated you, Gareth.” And now that I understood why Marrok had come so readily to Gareth’s defense, my scornful words still deserved apology. “For what shame you’ve endured, I’m truly sorry. Not because I know you now for Lot’s son, but because you’ve proven you’re above my scorn. And because…” I took a deep breath “…because I’m no longer afraid to tell you why I said such vile and hurtful things.” That last still held a lie, although I was trying to make it true. I still feared what Nimue might do.

Gareth shrugged it off as he’d done from the first, treating me always with a courtesy my behavior didn’t deserve. “My lady had greater concerns than what words she chose for me.”

At some point Marrok’s free hand had found Gareth’s—and Gareth had not pulled away. I found my eyes drawn to the gesture, the large and deadly hands curled protectively about each other. A gesture they would never dare in public, meant for private eyes alone. Eyes they could trust.

My heart sank, the joy it should have felt at that show of faith in me overwhelmed by the certainty that what flares of passion and desire that might have coursed through me in their presence would be forever denied.

But just because my heart was breaking didn’t mean I couldn’t still trust them with it. And with Nessie’s.

“No, there’s more,” I said at last, clenching my own hands about theirs for strength. “Ironside has a powerful accomplice. Merlin knows her, knows what she’s done.”

“She?”

“Nimue, a Lady of Avalon, a fae.”

“Why would she—?”

“Love makes for strange bedfellows.” I only meant Nimue and Ironside. I didn’t think—

Gareth blushed and Marrok’s lip twisted out a rueful grin as they passed side-long glances to each other.

Surely they hadn’t—

The stone that was my heart shifted within my chest, crushing breath. In anguish, I clung tighter still to their hands.

“What have we to fear from Nimue?” Marrok said. It could as easily have been a statement of defiance as a question.

“She wields Old Magic.” I forced myself to breathe, to speak. “Only a handful of fae now are as powerful as she. She knows we come. It was she who sent me for a champion. It was she who set the thieves upon Lord Corbin. It will be she who orchestrates what other challenges we’ll face.”

The pheasant that panicked my horse—was that also of her doing?
My own bolt of panic arrowed through me. Surely even Nimue didn’t own such power to waste. Even she couldn’t shape fate. Because if I believed that… I stared again at the joining of Marrok and Gareth’s hands. An unbidden image of them naked and
together
sprang to my eyes. Fae Sight? How much easier it would be to bear if I could believe Nimue pulled the strings of their hearts.

“Then we’ll face what comes as it comes,” Marrok said. Clearly irritated, he rose, breaking the circle of our hands. “Unless you know what next she’ll do.”

“Merlin might. I don’t have his Sight.”

To my astonishment, Gareth caught my free hand in his, holding them both now, face-to-face and knee-to-knee. “Why would you?” he asked gently. “Merlin’s fae, like Nimue.”

I shook my head. “Not like her. Nimue’s corrupt, evil. You don’t know what she threatened—or how much she enjoyed it. Fae blood runs through them both…as it does me”—I looked pointedly at Gareth then up to Marrok who’d gone very still—“but Merlin is nothing like her.”

“You’re
fae
?” Marrok’s voice was gruff above me.

“Half-fae. My mother…” I chose to look into Gareth’s sea-washed eyes as he followed my words, gripping my hands harder in support.

“And your sister?” Gareth prompted.

“Half-sister. Nessie’s father is my own.”

Marrok stooped swiftly beside me. His back to Gareth, he whispered fiercely. “Then you can help me.”

I looked from him to Gareth with his furrowed brow and back again. “Gareth—”

“Doesn’t know.”

Apparently all our secrets would not be bared today. I kept my voice gentle when I whispered, “I have no magic to help you. Only Sight. And even that irregular and rare.”

“But Nimue would.”

“Perhaps.”

He charged to his feet then and shouted across the water, “Nimue is mine!” Turning back to Gareth, he added, “the Red Knight I’ll leave to you.” He stalked off then to shake his frustration. I knew the sharp disappointment he must feel, grateful that I didn’t let him carry hope for long that I might have the power to cure him.

Besides, Merlin had said I might need the wolf. Until Nessie was safe, I wanted Marrok just as he was.

“You know his secret.” Gareth said.

It wasn’t a question but I nodded anyway, trying to follow the emotions that played across Gareth’s face—envy that I knew and he didn’t, hurt that Marrok would not confide in him, joy that whatever the burden was, Marrok wouldn’t have to bear it alone.

“Take good care of it,” he said. “And of him. Marrok’s a good man.”

“So are you.”

He smiled a little at that as if he only half-believed me. That humility only made him more beautiful in my eyes. Still holding my hands, he slid closer to me. His eyes on mine sought permission for the liberty he took as we sat hip-to-hip and he placed our hands in my lap. And for the next liberty when he extracted one hand and placed it on my thigh.

I breathed faster, my chest lifting up and out with each breath. The image of him naked with Marrok returned, only this time it lingered so I could enjoy each hard curve of him—of
them
.

Then Gareth’s thumb began rubbing circles over the still-damp linen that clung to the fold between my thighs.

I felt a stirring not far from where he was rubbing. How ready was I to be excited by a man such as he. How unready was I to be simply teased. “I thought you and Marrok…”

“Yes.”

“Then you and I…”

“Are you and I.” His circling crept higher.

I blinked. That had truly not occurred to me. And I didn’t yet know how I felt about it. But I did know his hand on me was maddening. Tentatively I placed my free hand on his thigh, stretching my arm so it was as near his knee as possible.

He leaned close and moaned his appreciation. Then the hand holding mine in my lap took yet a further liberty.

My wolf was peeved and in a dangerous mood when I returned to camp. I had only taken the time to relieve myself and check on the horses. To come back to Gareth and Lyn cuddled together, hands on each other…

The wolf was quick to jealous rage. Gareth was ours, not some half-fae’s with temptress ways. And yet… I breathed in the scent of Gareth, remembering well his subtle hints of arousal. And mingled with his, the sharp, sweet scent of Lyn’s passion, delicate yet but ready to be flamed.

Hands on thighs, eyes-to-eyes, they paid little heed to my return. The wolf, though, would not be ignored. I circled behind and knelt at their backs, filling my palms with the hot flesh of their necks, their quickening pulses beating at my curled fingers.

Their tension was palpable, in the air between and in their muscles. I rubbed at their necks and the base of their shoulders to ease that tension, though I daresay I was the most tense of us all. Impatient, the wolf urged more, while the man understood the necessity of slow seduction.

The hand stealing liberties in Lyn’s lap left off, and Beau covered the rhythm of my hand with his. Not to stop me, for somehow, over the course of the night and the day, we were beyond that now. His was, instead, like mine, a proprietary gesture, an acknowledgment of the bond that had grown between us.

I exhaled the breath held pent in my chest. Gareth was mine. That had not changed.