Knight's Blood (34 page)
Authors: Julianne Lee
Tags: #Kidnapping, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy fiction, #Married people, #Scotland, #General, #Fantasy, #Children - Crimes against, #Fighter pilots, #Fiction, #Time travel
He kept his arm around Lindsay’s shoulders and murmured into her ear. “There’s someone you need to meet, hon.” She looked at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to go on. “He’s our son.”
Joy washed over her face. “You found the baby! Oh, my God, Alex!” She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, thank God, you found our baby!”
“No, I didn’t, I’m afraid.” He pulled her off his neck and held her arms, nearly afraid she might hit him when she learned his news. “He found me. And that’s him over there.”
A deep frown creased her face, and her eyes narrowed to slits. “I’m sorry, what?”
“That’s our son, standing over there.”
She looked over at Trefor, whose expression suddenly turned as bland as Alex had ever seen. He betrayed nothing of what he felt, though Alex knew he must be seething, in agony to know what would happen next. Alex prayed she would take it well.
The reply to that prayer was “no.” In fact, it was “no way.” Lindsay gaped at Trefor, then peered at Alex. “You’re not serious.”
“His name is Trefor. He came to me soon after I arrived here. Says faeries took him to the U.S. until he was twenty-seven, then sent him to Eilean Aonarach. He arrived a few days after I did.”
Trefor said nothing and was as still as the trees around them.
“That
man
?” Lindsay shook her head. “That man says he’s our son? No.” She looked at Alex. “No, that is not my baby.” Then her face crumpled into tears. “No, it can’t be him. Tell him to go away. He’s not my son; he can’t be.” With that she spun and retreated to the wagon where Gregor and the driver waited for the order to move on. She climbed onto the tarp covering it, and sat, waiting. A dark look at Alex told him she wasn’t going to discuss the matter any further.
man
?” Lindsay shook her head. “That man says he’s our son? No.” She looked at Alex. “No, that is not my baby.” Then her face crumpled into tears. “No, it can’t be him. Tell him to go away. He’s not my son; he can’t be.” With that she spun and retreated to the wagon where Gregor and the driver waited for the order to move on. She climbed onto the tarp covering it, and sat, waiting. A dark look at Alex told him she wasn’t going to discuss the matter any further.
Trefor watched her retreat, his face still impassive except for a knot of muscle that stood out on his jaw. Alex couldn’t see the pain he knew must be there.
Lindsay, perched on the wagon, laid her face in her palms. Her shoulders shook with sobs.
Alex watched Trefor return to his men, sauntering with insouciance for all he was worth, and sighed.
CHAPTER 17
The MacNeils retreated the way they’d come, letting An Reubair go the other direction. Alex glanced back frequently to his support wagons to check on Lindsay perched on the wooden seat next to the driver, but her expression seemed unchanged. He never found her looking at him, nor at Trefor. She wasn’t talking to anyone, not Gregor, not the driver, not anyone, but only stared off to the left at the forest passing slowly by, a blank look on her face. Unreadable except for its very lack of emotion. Just like Trefor. Eerily like Trefor, for it brought home exactly how much he was like them both.
The column proceeded to a spot near the forest edge where the trees thinned some amid the beginnings of the rocky expanse they’d passed. There they stopped for the night. Alex supervised the encampment, and once his men were settled, pickets posted, and the company was on their way to being fed, he went to his tent to discard his armor and clean up for supper.
There he found Lindsay already cleaning up, stripped to the waist and tugging at wet hair with his comb. She wore filthy, worn trews, and a ragged, overstretched elastic bandage around her chest. She’d lost weight and seemed skinny to him. The last time he’d seen her she’d been heavy with the pregnancy, plump and healthy, her cheeks bright with roses and a smile on her face in anticipation of the birth. Life since then had plainly taken far more from her than just the baby. Muscles rippled across her shoulders and arms, and her waist was long and terribly narrow. Her trews hung low by their belt from her hips and appeared nearly ready to fall to the ground. The odd thought crossed his mind he should be glad he’d found her before she lost so much weight she disappeared entirely.
The faded and warped bandage, not as elastic as it had once been, was wrapped around her breasts and the ends tied around her neck to hold up her chest rather than hide it. No longer was she pressing her breasts flat and letting her shoulders slouch forward, and in a way he was glad, for he’d always hated that. He wondered how she’d managed to come out as a woman to the men in her raiding party. It could be she never had disguised herself, but that didn’t make sense. She’d always been too paranoid about having to live like the other women in this time. She’d always preferred to take the abuse doled out to small, effeminate men rather than give up the freedom accorded to males.
For the moment, he put all that from his mind; he could think about it later. Now his wife was back with him, willingly it would seem, and he was glad. Ecstatic.
No, he was relieved. Only then did he realize how convinced he’d been she’d gone away with Nemed. That, also, he put from his mind, sorry he’d even thought it. He came up behind her and gently took the comb from her hand.
“Let me,” he said softly. She relinquished the comb, and he began picking tangles from the long hair she’d just washed in his leathern bowl. The water was so filthy gray he couldn’t see the bottom.
She said, “I kept dirty because I didn’t want anyone to think I was fussy and effeminate.”
“You don’t need to explain. That’s probably why they keep dirty, too.”
She chuckled and nodded, and held still for him while he smoothed her tangles.
Once he was done combing out her hair, he picked up the linen cloth from the camp table, wet it, and began washing her. She shivered under the cold water, but otherwise held still as he ran the cloth over her smooth shoulders. He untied the knot at the back of her neck, and she removed the bandage so he would clean further. Then she dropped her trews and stepped out of them, leaving herself entirely naked. He kissed her wet neck, and she leaned into him as his cloth moved down her belly to her thighs. Her skin was as filthy as her clothes, and the water in the bowl grew darker as he went. He kissed each place on her as it became clean, soon kneeling behind her, then before her, and he ended by kissing her feet with heart-lifting reverence.
Then he stood to draw her toward his pallet, and she helped him off with his mail, tunic, boots, trews, and drawers. She kissed him as they lay atop his blankets, and he lost himself in the softness of her lips and tongue as she went to straddle him, then envelope him.
A long sigh escaped him and his sense of time and place disappeared. His world existed entirely within Lindsay. It had been so long, and he’d not realized it until now. The need to finish quickly was nearly unbearable; his mind crumbled, and he tried to roll her beneath him. But she resisted and pressed her palms to his arms to make him stay put. He groaned, then gasped as she moved hard against him. Then again. She began to slam against him, insistent, hard, thrusting with her hips the way he might have done her. Her belly flat against his, her muscles rippling against him, her breaths came in short puffs against his chest. She voiced them. Panting. Feral. Insistent. Faster now, and his head swam as she slammed against him and she tightened over him. His hips wanted to move, and they twitched against her, but she held him and made him keep still until a terrible shudder came over her and she uttered a cry, long and desperate. Sounding like pain.
Then she let go of his arms, he held her about the waist, and he finished in a few quick, satisfying movements. His body felt as if it were melted with hers, and he thought how impoverished were men like James and Hector, who did not love their wives. For the first time since returning to his ship, he felt whole.
She lay atop him, gasping for breath, and he held her there to feel her body still surrounding his, warm and damp and still a part of him he’d missed so terribly. He hugged her to him and murmured, “That was . . . interesting.”
There was no reply. Then he realized she was holding her breath, and a moment later she let go an enormous sob. His heart fell, and he stroked her hair away from her face.
“What’s the matter? It couldn’t have been that bad.”
She shook her head. He rolled her from him to lie beside him on the pallet, and gathered her into the hollow of his body. There she curled against his belly, her face pressed to his chest and her knees to his hip.
“Then what’s wrong? What did I miss?”
It was a long wait for an answer, but he let her think for as long as she needed. He wasn’t going to press her for her feelings about Trefor; he wasn’t even sure how he felt about the guy, and he’d had months to figure it out. He couldn’t expect her to have a handle on the whole mess so soon.
But when her reply came, it took him flat-footed. Her voice was low and flat, stripped of the feeling it should have had, and so quiet he could hear her tongue on her teeth. “You need to know I was raped.”
It was like being knocked sideways with a mace. Half a dozen thoughts and emotions swarmed over him. Rage. Grief. Curiosity. Who had done it? Why? When? Could she be pregnant? It took him several moments to sort through his reaction and cobble together a coherent reply. Finally he was able to say, “I expect he’s dead.”
She nodded, and that calmed him somewhat. Then came disappointment he wasn’t going to be able to kill the guy himself.
She said, “Is that all you have to say?”
No. But it was all that came to mind he dared utter just then.
She asked, “How did you know he was dead?”
“Because you aren’t. I know you well enough to know you must have fought him. If you were unsuccessful in stopping the assault, and he left you alive, you still wouldn’t have let him go. I don’t expect he lasted much longer than it took you to climb to your feet and tie up your trews. Am I right?”
“I stopped to eat first.”
“Ah. Well, I guess if you were hungry that was the thing to do.”
“It was a fair fight.”
“Of course it was.” He thought over his next words for another long moment. He could only hope for her to answer “Yes,” but didn’t expect it. He ventured, “Nemed?”
She tensed for a moment and looked up at him, then pressed her face to his chest again. “No. One of the reivers. Once they let me up, I went after him. Cut off his prick and balls, and threw the entire set into the fire.”
Alex gasped. “Ow.” His own testicles tried to climb up into his body and a nervous laugh rose, but he swallowed it. This wasn’t a matter for laughter. He asked, “How long ago?”
“I’m not pregnant.”
He wasn’t sure how to answer that, for what he really wanted to know was how long she’d been dealing with this, but he managed, “Good.”
The sobbing resumed and her tears wet his chest. The thing he wanted to ask now was whether she would be all right, but he didn’t think he’d get an accurate reply on that soon. So he held her and let her cry for a bit, until the sobbing stopped and she began to wipe her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a weenie.”
Alex had to chuckle at that, and murmured, “Big day. Lots to take in. I’m just glad you’re here, and you can cry all you want.” He wasn’t all that far from tears himself, and kissed her head to keep himself from them.
“More to take in than you think,” she said. “There’s something else I need to tell you.” She wiped her eyes and looked up at him again, and he tensed to know what the other news could be. “Apparently there’s a good possibility I’m one of the Danann.”
Alex relaxed. “Oh. I knew that.”
“How?”
He chuckled. “I’ve seen Trefor. He’s my son, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t give him those ears.” For a brief moment he hoped she would take the opening to talk about Trefor, but she didn’t. There was only silence, and he took heart in that she’d told him about her ancestry. “You didn’t know?”
She shook her head. “Not a clue. Not until it was pointed out to me. I’m still not sure. I’m not certain I care for it either.”
A smile touched Alex’s mouth as he remembered there was something happy he could tell her. “Would it help to know you’re a countess now?”
She rubbed one eye with the heel of her hand, and mumbled with a wet, swollen mouth, “Pardon?”
“Robert made me an earl. Faerie or not, you’re now the Countess of Cruachan.”
She leaned back to look him in the face as if she were checking to see whether he might be kidding.
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