Captive Heart (2 page)

As she and I slid under the rough flannel sheet and on top of the abbot’s straw mattress that smelled of must, my head whirled with all that needed to be dealt with once we were back home.

It was whirling still when screams and the sharp cracks of shattered glass pierced the night.

“Invaders!”

Suddenly the small abbey seemed even smaller.

The flannel sheet sliding over my naked skin as I lunged for my boot knife buried in the stack of our clothing reminded me just how vulnerable we were.

Something heavy slammed against the cell door. I dug frantically for the knife, cursing the thin lock bar meant to protect nothing more than the abbot’s modesty, not repel armed and determined men.

On the bed, Nessie had drawn herself to her knees, wrapping the sheet over her. “Lyn!” She screamed as the door shook under another assault.

My hand wrapped around the dagger’s hilt and I pulled it free just as the lock bar broke and the door crashed open.

Two men pushed into the room. No mere brigands these. Swords and armor claimed them knights. They overpowered the tiny cell, taking up what little spare space there was.

What use my pitiful weapon could be I knew not, but I edged back onto the bed determined to protect my sister however I could.

One of the men looked to follow.

“No!” Nessie cried.

Acutely aware of the knight’s eyes on my naked body, I held the dagger before me. “Don’t you touch her,” I hissed.

The man’s lips twisted into a frightening expression—half smile, half sneer. He lunged toward me. Did he think I was unskilled in the use of the knife? Did he think I had never seen men being armored before? I plunged the blade, short but true, into the joint under his arm where leather and steel scales opened into a vulnerable gap.

“You she-worm!” he howled, swinging out with his other arm and knocking me back into my sister so we both went sprawling, the sheet abandoned. I clung with determination to my bloodied blade expecting only for the second knight to raise his sword and claim their revenge.

“Hold!”

The sharp command came from without. Most surprisingly, it was a woman’s voice that uttered it.

For a moment I truly believed the men weren’t going to obey. The lust in the second knight’s eyes was plain as his gaze swept past me to Nessie as she and I gathered ourselves up to huddle again on our knees.

“Leave off.” The woman’s voice was strong and clear. “I will not command a third time.”

I felt it then. A shift in the air, a pressure behind my eyes. A compulsion spell, beautifully wielded and delicately controlled.

The knight threatening me backed off the bed and draped a supporting arm over his comrade who held a reddening hand over his wound. With glares black as death they backed from the room.

In their place, the woman behind the mysterious voice stepped in. I’m not sure what I expected. A warrior queen, perhaps, dressed in the same armor as her knights. The lady walked in as confident and regal as any queen, no doubt, but dressed in robes of flowing samite, costly, demure and sensuous. With a face that promised ecstasy and a figure that swore to follow through.

No mortal beauty she, but fae.

I drank in the power of her. Old Magic might be fleeing from the land, but in her it flowered still. Not so strongly as it did within the Ladies of the Lake who had all of Avalon at their beck, but certainly more strongly than it had flowered in my mother who had crossed into Avalon a twelve-year past. And immeasurably stronger than it budded in me, half-fae only that I was.

But being fae, this Lady was my blood and kin. In relief, I unfolded myself from the bed and stood to greet her.

“Who gave you leave to rise?” she demanded, her cold voice dashing my expectations of a warm welcome. “Give me the knife.”

I shook my head and held to it tighter. The pressure in my head built.

She took a step nearer. “I said yield it to me.”

I knew it was a coercion spell she worked on me. But the knowing of it was not a weapon against it. Though I willed myself to slash out in defense of my sister, she had only to snap her fingers and the blade fell from my grasp.

“Sit,” she next commanded, as she took yet another step nearer.

Of their own my knees bent, perching me on the edge of the bed. The ache behind my eyes pounded.

Another step closer and she was towering above me, exuding magic and power I could only dream for myself. Then she did the unthinkable. Turning her attention from me, she crooked a long finger at Nessie. “Come.”

“No!” I rallied what feeble magic coursed through me and lunged to my feet. We were of a height the fae and I. In fair battle, I could overpower her, but that was faint satisfaction in the face of magic so impressively stronger than my own.

A look from her froze me as the pounding in my head beat against my skull with near-blinding force.

She crooked her finger once again toward Nessie who had no gift of fae and who had already crawled to the middle of the bed. I could do nothing but watch as Nessie unfolded herself from the mattress and stood obediently before the fae woman. Her eyes found mine and the fright in them was as plain as the trembling of her exquisite body.

“Strength,” I whispered, and she nodded bravely.

“Ironside,” the fae called then, her gaze sweeping slowly, lingeringly over my sister.

Then there was commotion at the door and a tall knight with the breadth of shoulder to match pushed his way into what free space was left in the room. The leather binding the burnished scales of his armor was dyed a blood red, with gloves and boots to match. Even the leggings beneath his heavy hauberk were the color of heartblood, as was the very hair upon his head. As was the very real blood upon his sword.

Had his eyes not found me first, I doubt he would’ve known I was there. For as soon as he caught sight of Nessie, I heard his sharp gasp and saw the rivet of his gaze.

“She is all that the bards have sung,” he breathed.

Nessie’s blush deepened under the stare of the stranger knight, and I was acutely aware of the tears that sprang to her eyes.

“And now she’s ours, Nimue.”

Nimue
. Like most, I knew the name of the traitor fae, and with a chill I recalled the name of the knight whom Nimue had summoned. Ironside. Holder of the Red Lands. Son of the Baron Knight my father had slain and who in turn had killed my papa. Nessie and I were no happystance finds for a band of brigands plundering some nameless abbey. We were what they hunted.

Burdened by the sword in his right hand, Ironside lifted the left to his teeth and stripped the glove from it. Nimue flowed around him, making room for him to approach Nessie.

“Don’t touch her!” I cried.

“Oh, I intend to do much, much more than that.”

He ran an intimate finger between her breasts, tracing a line down her stomach and ending in her curls. She shrank from him and my heart grieved at the horror dawning on her face. Despite the pain of compulsion shredding the inside of my head, I struggled to be near her. But all my efforts only ended in a single whimpered, “No.”

Ironside—for I would not sully the courteous title of knighthood by even thinking of him as
Sir
—took notice of me then. Locking his eyes to mine he draped his arm across Nessie’s shoulders, his bared hand filling itself with her breast. Stepping against her from behind, his eyes never leaving mine, he cocked his hips in mime once, twice, three times. With deliberate flare he sheathed his bloody sword, swept an arm beneath her naked knees and carried her off.

Beyond my sight.

Beyond my reach.

Lost to me.

Stolen away.

I wailed in grief.

I might have gone mad then were it not for Nimue speaking words I had to hear. Words that pulled me from the brink only to dangle me over the precipice again before she was done.

“You wish to see Lyonesse again? Then you must find a champion. A knight as bold as Lancelot, as powerful as Tristan. Yet humble and obedient enough to follow you, no matter how much you abuse him. For abuse him you will. Distract him, try to drive him away. And if he will not go, then he must fight. The way to Lyonesse will be hard and dangerous, but not insurmountable. I’m giving you a chance to see your sister alive again.”

“And unharmed?”

“You mistake me for something I am not. I make no warrant for her condition—not her body nor her mind.”

“But she’s an innocent!”

The mingled look of anticipation and lust that settled across Nimue’s fair features chilled me. She was no savior to be appealed to with love and reason, but the left hand to Ironside’s right in this tragedy they spun before me.

“Why?” The word broke on my lips.

“You and she are blood of your father. Ironside desires revenge. I desire…more.”

“Are Papa’s bones not enough to satisfy him?”

“Your father died too easily. Vengeance requires a personal touch.” She let fall a hand on to my bare shoulder. “Some touches more personal than others.”

I shuddered. “How can you be party to his twisted desire? We are blood you and I. How can you do this to
me
?”

The gentle smile she turned on me held naught in the way of reassurance.

“Look into your heart. The blood we share is fae. What does the fae within want now?”

She knew. Above the pounding in my head that was her spell, another rhythm beat, gaining strength, gaining power with each moment Nessie was gone from me.

“Revenge. By the cruelest means possible. To see Ironside quartered if he touches my sister and you beheaded for allowing it.”

“We understand each other, then. I’m giving you a great gift—the thrill of the hunt and the opportunity to see Ironside slain.”

“You would never allow it. You and he are lovers, are you not?”

“That’s what he believes, yes.”

“Then why indulge him?”

“Because I play a longer game. And this, my sweet half-faeling, is but a single gambit in it.”

A game. One I knew I too would have to play and by the rules Nimue had laid down. And to play I needed first a piece to move about. “Does it matter from whence my champion comes?”

“Try Arthur’s court. Commend me to Merlin there. But hurry. Ironside is insatiable and he likes it rough. Like I do. Whips, ropes and a hundred different playlets to act out. I think it’s his boundless imagination I most admire.”

The squeezing in my chest choked breath. I knew I was giving Nimue exactly what she wanted. My complete devastation laid as bare as the rest of me for her to feast herself upon. She stroked my back, not to soothe me, surely, but to remind me who had control here. She leaned in close then and whispered in my ear, “Whatever you can imagine Ironside doing with Lyonesse, he will do in a hundred different ways. And I will be there to help him.”

Her lips dropped then from beside my ear to the fullness of my mouth. I could imagine a hundred things to do to the flawless face that filled my vision as she laid a kiss, soft and sensuous, across my virgin lips.

Then with a smile, she vanished away, though not by fae magic for I heard the knights she’d ridden in with depart away as well.

The fierce pounding of the compulsion spell throbbed away, too, leaving behind only the raw pain of the vengeance that consumed me and the sorrow I’d become.

In the quiet that descended, I could almost believe it had all been a dream save for the chill in the bed were Lyonesse no longer lay, and the abbot’s severed head watching from the altar as I galloped away.

Growing up in the shadow with three older brothers meant fighting every step of the way for recognition, merit and self-worth. When you’re the son of a king and those brothers sit at the Round Table, expectations can be unrealistic. Overwhelming even.

It wasn’t so much that I doubted myself. I didn’t lack for confidence. But my brothers’ values weren’t always mine, nor did I always agree with how they chose to bull their way through life’s problems.

Of my own, I dreamed of a seat beside Arthur, earned by my own merits, uninfluenced by birthright. In mid-May, I knew Gawain and Uwaine would be gone to Camelot and that Gaheris would return here to Orkney to feast with Mother and Father at Pentecost. Gaheris would find a rapt enough audience in Mordred, unbearded yet but already a magnificent swordsman, to tell his adventures to. Though I would dearly miss my brother’s visit, I chose Pentecost to travel to my Uncle Arthur’s court to win my knighthood there with my brothers gone and no one to know me for King Lot’s son.