Master of Desire (29 page)

As it was now, though, Draven felt himself weakening with every blow that fell upon his sword. He could feel the wounds of his back opening up and blood oozing down his spine.

His attacker caught him an upward blow to his shield that caused him to stagger back. Before he could recover, another blow to his right sent him hurtling to the ground.

Draven landed hard on his back. He gasped as pain exploded throughout his entire body. He could scarce draw a breath, let alone move his limbs.

This was it.

His opponent lifted his sword straight up. Draven prepared himself for the death blow, but just as the knight plunged the sword down, Hugh caught him about his waist and knocked him away.

Awkwardly, painfully, Draven rolled to his side and forced himself to stand. Yet it was hard. Every part of him ached.

He staggered toward his horse, where he grabbed on to his saddle to keep himself upright.

He glanced over to where Hugh still fought the imposter and saw the second attacker moving for Hugh's back.

Draven grabbed his dagger from his girdle and hurled it with fatal precision into the attacker's chest. Hugh saw the man fall, then with renewed strength he finished off the man he fought with one fatal sword stroke.

His strength gone, Draven tried to pull himself into his saddle. It was no use.

He sank to his knees.

“Ravenswood?”

He heard Hugh's voice as if it came from a great distance. Someone removed his helm, but Draven couldn't be sure who it was. The pain was too great.

He looked up into Hugh's face as it swam above him.

“Boy, don't you die like this. You hear me?”

Draven couldn't respond. Closing his eyes, he let the darkness take him.

 

Emily ran to the steps as soon as she heard the men returning. Joanne joined her.

As her gaze fell to her husband draped over his horse, Emily felt the blood drain from her face as terror consumed her. But even worse than the site of Draven was the fact her father refused to meet her gaze.

“Oh, mercy, nay,” Emily choked.

If not for the support of her sister's arms, she would have collapsed.

Simon and her father pulled Draven from the horse and carried him toward her.

“Move, daughters,” her father snapped. “We needs get him inside before he dies.”

Emily closed her eyes in relief. “He's not dead?”

“Nay, child,” her father said in a more tender voice. “Now move.”

Still trembling, she opened the door for them, offered a prayer of thanks, then followed them up the stairs.

 

Hours later, Emily sat beside Draven on the bed in her room. He had only just awakened.

“You scared me,” she scolded him.

His look bore into her. “I scared myself.”

“How do you mean?”

Draven reached out and took her hand in his. “Until today, I never cared in battle whether I lived. Today, I learned that I care. When I hit the ground, my only thoughts were of you and of the babe. For the first time in my life, I didn't want to die. I wanted to return here to see you. I wanted to be here to see our babe born.”

She cupped his cheek in her hand. “I love you, Draven.”

“I love you,” he said back to her.

The door to the room opened. Emily looked up to see her father hesitating in the doorway.

Never before had she seen him look so uncertain.

“Father?” she asked.

He cleared his throat and stepped into the room. “I didn't expect you to be awake,” he said to Draven.

“Haven't you ever heard the devil never sleeps?” Draven asked bitterly.

She saw the shame in her father's eyes as he approached the bed. “You're not going to make this easy on me, are you?”

Draven frowned. “Make what easy on you?”

“My apology.”

Emily sat in shock. Her father had never apologized to anyone in his life.

“I'm a prideful man,” he said to Draven. “I admit that, but I'm not so prideful that I can't admit when I'm wrong. And I was terribly wrong about you…”

Her father paused, then gave him the largest compliment she knew him capable of when he said, “My lord.”

And then she noted the softening of Draven's face, the relaxing of his taut muscles.

Her father swallowed. “All I can say in my defense is that I knew your father well, and I know I don't have to tell you what kind of man he was.” He met Draven's gaze levelly. “I don't know why you saved my life today. I wouldn't have done it for you.”

“I wouldn't have expected you to.”

Her father nodded as a muscle flexed in his jaw. “I think that might be the most painful part of all this. But I want you to know that had I been blessed with a son, I would want him to be just like you.”

Draven gave a bitter laugh. “Then you should be grateful you had daughters. If you recall, I killed my father.”

Her father's gaze gentled. “And today you saved his life. For whether you acknowledge me or not, from this day forward I will always claim you as my son.”

Emily smiled at her father. Never had she been more proud of him, and by the look on Draven's face she could tell how much her father's words meant to him.

“My thanks, Hugh.”

“Father,” he corrected.

Draven gave a halfhearted laugh. “My thanks, Father.”

Her father turned to leave.

“Hugh?”

Her father turned back with an exasperated sigh. “I can see you'll have to practice the father address, eh?”

“I shall work on it,” Draven promised. “But I was wondering who it was you killed in my colors.”

Her father looked to her, his gaze troubled. “You didn't tell him?”

“I didn't have the chance.”

He nodded and looked back at Draven. “'Twas Niles who wore your surcoat. The man you threw your dagger into was his cousin, Theodore.”

Draven looked back and forth between them. “But why?”

“According to Joanne, he married her wanting my property,” her father said. “His finances were such that he needed my entire wealth, and he couldn't wait for me to die of natural causes. Since he couldn't kill me for it without being hanged for murder, he devised a scheme to set us at odds so that you would do it for him.”

Draven frowned. “Why did he not marry a rich heiress or widow?”

“He tried, but since he was out of favor with the crown, he could never get Henry's approval.” Her father clenched his teeth, and she saw the sorrow on his face. “I've been such a fool. I welcomed the son who was unworthy and turned my back on the one who was decent.”

“You're being too hard on yourself, Hugh.”

“Father!” he snapped.

Draven's gaze mellowed. “Father.”

“Good boy, now rest yourself. My grandson needs a father of his own.”

Emily couldn't resist teasing her father. “How do you know it's a boy?”

“After having nothing save daughters, I figure the good Lord owes me a boy.”

Emily laughed.

Her father bid them a good night, then left them alone.

She turned back to Draven and gasped as she felt a slight stirring in her belly.

“What?” he asked.

Joy filled her. “'Tis the quickening. I just felt the babe for the first time.”

And to her even greater delight, Draven smiled.

Ravenswood
Nine years later

“E
mily, help!”

Emily came running into the rose courtyard behind the keep at Draven's frantic shout. She stopped as she caught sight of him surrounded by four boys who pummeled him with wooden swords while another hung on to his left leg and yet another hung precariously about his neck.

Emily laughed at the sight. “'Tis your own fault,” she said to Draven.

“How so?”

“Out of six, could you not have given me a single daughter?”

Draven laughed as Jace climbed further up his back and wrapped one spindly arm around his father's head, over his eyes.

“Mama!” six-year-old Christopher shouted, stamping his foot. “You're not supposed to make the dragon laugh. It makes him less fierce.”

“Less fierce?” Draven asked as he gently flipped Jace over his head to land on his feet, then scooped Christopher up in his arms and tickled him. “I'll give you fierce, you scamp.”

Emily shook her head at their play. Their eldest, Henry, looked up and shouted to his brothers, “Look, Grandpa's here with cousin Harry!”

Emily turned to see her father entering the yard with Joanne's son by his side. It never failed to amaze her how much Harry favored Joanne, with his blond hair and blue eyes, while none of her own boys held any of her features, except for Christopher, who had her green eyes.

But then the entire lot of them were her father's pride and joy. And in spite of the fear that had once ruled him for his daughters' safety, her father took great pleasure in his grandsons, and especially in the one granddaughter Joanne had gifted him with three years ago after her marriage to a Scottish nobleman.

Though they didn't see Joanne much these days, Harry, who was being fostered by her father, was an almost constant addition to their household.

Before she could blink, her sons set upon the two newcomers with the same vigor they had used to attack their father. Jumping up and down and hugging them, they all talked at once, making understanding any one of them impossible.

Draven whistled loudly.

They quieted down.

“All right, boys,” Draven said. “Go easy on your grandfather, or he'll not take you hunting.”

“Sorry,” they said almost in unison.

“All right,” Hugh said with a smile. “Are the lot of you ready?”

“Aye.”

“Then let us be off. I saw a perfect doe just over yon hill!”

As they left, Emily joined Draven and wrapped her arms about his waist in a tight hug.

“Listen,” she whispered. “Do you hear that?”

Draven frowned. “Hear what?”

“The silence,” she said in a low tone. “Is it not truly eerie?”

He draped his arm over her shoulder. “Indeed. I can't recall the last time I heard such.”

“So tell me, milord,” she said as they walked arm in arm toward the donjon, “what are we to do this afternoon with no children about?”

He considered the possibilities. “We could try for that daughter. I believe there may yet be a position in your book that we haven't tried…ten times.”

Emily laughed. “You know, that reminds me of a jest.”

He rolled his eyes. “Not another.”

“Aye. Do you know the one about the king and his knight?”

“Nay,” he said with a sigh of resignation.

“They were having a discussion about bedding wenches. The king looked to the knight and said, ‘In our opinion bedding a wench is fifty percent pleasure and fifty percent work.' The knight responded, ‘Sire, forgive me, but I respectfully disagree. In my opinion 'tis seventy percent work and thirty percent pleasure.' For hours they argued and could come to no agreement. Finally the knight turned to his squire and asked him to settle the matter. The squire spoke up to say, ‘Milord, and Majesty, 'tis my opinion that it must be one hundred percent pleasure, for if any work were involved, His Lordship would bid me do it in his stead.' ”

Draven laughed. “Wherever did you hear such?”

“Your eldest son, milord. It appears your brother told it to him on his last visit.”

Draven frowned. “I shall have a word with Simon about what he's teaching them. But come, wench,” he said, his face instantly softening as he looked down at her, “let me see for myself how much pleasure there is to be had for the work involved.”

“Aye, milord, I think I shall most definitely have to try and make you work off a few of those extra pounds.”

“Extra pounds?” he asked offended.

“Aye, I believe Christopher called them your dragon's horns.”

Draven snorted. “I'll show you my dragon's horn, wench.”

Emily bit her lip as she looked up at him hungrily. “And I shall gladly make use of it, knave.”

B
estselling author KINLEY MACGREGOR knows men. She lives outside of Nashville, TN, with her husband and three sons. Raised in the middle of eight boys, and currently outnumbered by the Y chromosome in her home, she realizes the most valuable asset a woman has for coping with men is a sense of humor. Not to mention a large trash bag and a pair of tongs.

Writing as Kinley MacGregor, she is the bestselling author of the
Brotherhood of the Sword
and the MacAllisters series, and as her alter-ego Sherrilyn Kenyon, she is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the Dark-Hunters, Sex Camp Diaries, and BAD series.

 

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