The Warrior Poet (6 page)

Even if she didn't know who he was, as he had
imperiously announced, it was obvious that the knight before her was wise and
seasoned. Her initial terror with her abduction had faded somewhat, leaving her
drained and weary and deeply perplexed; whereas she should have maintained a
rightful fear, she simply couldn't muster the energy at the moment. He was far
too beautiful to be frightening, and her puzzlement won over her apprehension
for the moment.

"I have never seen you before," she said after
a lengthy pause. "Why would you assume that I know you?"

He continued to take in their surroundings for a moment.
When he turned to her, she could read a palpable degree of dread in his
expression and her bafflement grew.

"You're a de Gare. You should know a St. John on
sight."

Her brows drew together and, as his statement settled,
her eyes widened to bulbous proportions. Christian watched her closely as the
color drained from her cheeks.

"You... you are a St. John?" She took a step
backward, slamming against the charger, who responded by swinging his great
head around to snap at her. Never one to back down from a fight, Gaithlin shoved
her fist into the soft velvet of his nose. As the horse lurched away, sneezing
and snorting, she put several feet of distance between herself and Christian.

Hatred and panic ran a desperate race in her mind as she
stared back at the man who represented several lifetimes of intense hatred. She
could scarcely believe that the St. Johns had managed to locate her in spite of
her mother's precautions and she silently cursed God for his favoritism of the
enemy. God had welcomed her into the bosom of the convent only to deliver the
unsuspecting refugee into the arms of the very nemesis she sought to escape.

Gaithlin was loathed to realize that tears were very
near the surface, tears of frustration and fear and anger.
 
But she would not display her emotions; in
fact, it went far against her nature to display anything other than complete
restraint and impassiveness. As her mother was reserved in nature, so was she.

"Who told you where I was?" she demanded.

"Does it matter? I have you and that is the only
factor of import."

Previous thoughts of his male beauty were forgotten as
Gaithlin's terror returned in one hearty blow, overshadowing the fury of coming
face to face with a St. John. She continued to back away from Christian,
positive he was determined to murder her. But her sense of self-preservation
was strong as she struggled against her panic; strong enough to warrant
refuting an enemy twice her size.

"You will not kill me without a fight, St. John
bastard,”
she
 
hissed
.
“I shall resist you 'til the end!"

She had succeeded in moving well away from him and he
casually sought to regain lost ground; should she decide to outrun him, he
would be at a distinct disadvantage in a hundred pounds of armor and mail. The
pure weight resting on his massive boots dug small crevices into the damp
English soil as he carefully advanced.

"I never said I was going to kill you."

"Then why have you abducted me?" she continued
to back away from him, her anxiety growing by the moment.

Christian could see that she was backing herself down a
small incline; at the bottom lay a small stream, pristine and noisy. The sound
of the water reminded him of the very first time he had ever witnessed Gaithlin
de Gare, caressing the still waters of the pond as if fondling a lover.
Erotically skimming her body over the surface as if responding to
its touch.
Good Christ, how he wished he had been the water at that
moment; truth was that he still wished it. As if the desires of his flesh were
able to briefly surmount his in-bred hatred of the woman and her family.
But only briefly.

He'd never been particularly apt in dealing with
resistance or insubordination, and his patience was especially limited when it
came to a de Gare. His manner hardened as she continued to move away from him.

"I can guarantee that you will regret your attempt
to flee," he rumbled. "Cease this moment and I may show mercy."

Eyes wide with defiance and face pale, Gaithlin shook
her head. "Leave me alone, you vile bastard. I shall not be your captive,
not ever!"

His jaw ticked. "I find your term for my parentage
offensive, for it is untrue. You will address me as Sir Christian or ‘my lord’."

Gaithlin came to a teetering halt and her eyes widened
further, if such a thing was possible. He found himself wondering if she were
going to burst a vein from the sheer expression on her face. "Christian
St. John?” she repeated, awed.
“The... the Demon of
Eden?"

He came to a halt as well, at the top of the small hill
as he gazed down upon her. An easterly wind began to kick up, ruffling her hair
in a mass of delightful streamers, but he ignored the charming picture as he
focused on the plethora of emotions surging between them.

He deliberately avoided answering her question.
"Will you come peacefully or will I be forced to subdue you?"

Gaithlin swallowed hard. A feeble hand came up to pull
the hair from her eyes as she stared at him, apprehensive and sickened and
disoriented. She realized with ironic certainly that she would not have been so
terrified if Lucifer himself were standing before her, demanding her soul.

The vision before her, looming on the crest above her
head as the wicked winds whipped his glorious hair into a bizarre halo, was far
worse than the threat of Hades. He was the pure embodiment of generations of
St. John evil - the Demon of Eden in the flesh.

Gaithlin couldn't help herself; the more she lingered on
her captor, the more frightened she became. Foolishly, giddily frightened in
spite of her normally-restrained nature as if the Dam of Reserve suddenly
crumbled, spilling forth an uncontrollable tide of emotion that invaded every
aspect of her common sense. A rushing surge of currant so strong, she was
unable to contain the deluge.

"You will not take me back to Eden, Demon,"
her voice was tight, quivering, and she hated herself for sounding so utterly
shaken. "I shall kill you first."

Christian put his hands on his hips, eyeing her
critically. "You nearly did. I did not appreciate being attacked with a
candle sconce."

"What did you expect? You violated an abbey and I
was forced to defend myself."

"You are a lady; you're not supposed to defend
yourself. God intended for the simple female sex to do as they are told without
question or defiance."

In spite of her terror, Gaithlin found herself willing
to spare his statement a good deal of irritation. "I am not simple, Demon,
and I will undoubtedly protect myself if necessary. And you in no position to
speak of God's intentions when you are guilty of breaching the sanctity of an
abbey."

His jaw ticked as much from her bold words as from the
return of his own guilt. "You will not speak to me of remorse, wench. Now,
will you come to me or will I be forced to pursue you? Preferable the former,
as I can guarantee my mood will not be favorable if I am compelled to capture
you like an errant animal."

Her answer was to turn on her heel and bolt across the
stream like a frightened deer. Spitting a curse, Christian made haste to his
charger and mounted the grazing animal with an effortless leap. Charging down
the embankment and jumping the bubbling broke, his destrier closed in upon the
fleeing captive within a matter of seconds.

As the wind increased, whistling bitterly across the
Cumbrian landscape, Christian bore down upon his prisoner and reached out a
massive hand, capturing her wild banner of magnificent hair. Giving a hard tug,
he meant to cast her off balance enough to send her to her knees and thereby
create an easy recovery. He didn't pause to realize that nothing about Gaithlin
de Gare had thus far proven easy or predictable.

Gaithlin felt his hand in her hair, upswept with panic
and a complete sense of self-defense. Knowing he meant to disable her, she
sought to turn the tables on him; reaching up, she managed to grab hold of his
arm with both hands. Simultaneously, she dug her heels into the soft earth and
threw her body weight opposite Christian's forward momentum. Off-balance and
off-guard, Christian found himself falling from his destrier in a weighty mass
of flesh and mail.

Gaithlin joy of success was dampened when she realized
Christian's dead-weight was heading directly for her. But the thrust from her
own actions had sent her to the ground and there was no escape from the
powerful knight who came crashing down upon her like the toppling of a mighty
tree. Crushed and dazed, Gaithlin's vision dimmed as her breath was slammed
from her lungs by several hundred pounds of Demon.

Dazed in his own right, Christian could feel Gaithlin
gasping beneath him and he was concerned that he had hurt her. Never mind that
she had deliberately evaded him, attempting to escape his presence with a
display of complete disobedience. All that matter for the moment was that she
was injured and he struggled to prop himself off her body.

Managing to elevate his massive weight from her torso,
he found himself gazing into the most lovely, flushed face he had ever had the
fortune to envision.

"Good Christ, are you all right?" he rasped.

Eyes closed, Gaithlin could scarcely breath. Christian
shifted his body weight from her completely, braced on his hands and knees as
she lay beneath him.

"Oh... God," she moaned, coughing. "I...
I cannot breathe!"

His jaw ticked as he sat back on his haunches, jerkily
removing his gauntlets. "Do you hurt? Show me where."

Her breathing was erratic and rapid. Christian's
movements slowed when he saw a single tear stream down her temple, dampening
her hair. His urgent, sharp manner softened.
 
It softened for a de Gare.

"Tell me where you hurt, my lady. Are you
injured?"

She swallowed hard and the deep blue eyes opened,
staring at the darkening sky above. With the utmost reluctance, her mesmerizing
orbs came to rest on eyes of ice-blue. "I... I don't believe I am injured.
At least, I don't feel any real pain."

He looked dubious, as if he did not believe her. Their
eyes held steady for a brief, indescribable moment as Christian lowered his
naked hand to her heaving torso. Fingers as gentle as the wings of a butterfly
drifted over her ribs, probing with the utmost tenderness. Gaithlin found herself
observing his actions with a level of surprise she had never before
experienced.

His eyes never left her face. "No sharp
pains?"

She could scarcely manage to shake her head. Where fear
and agony had reined not moments before, suddenly there was a degree of emotion
she was unable to interpret.
An odd
warmth seemed to radiate
from his trencher-sized hands, a peculiar heat that was intent on wreaking
havoc with her breathing far more than the agony his propelled body weight had
managed to cause.

"No," she whispered. "No sharp
pains."

He nodded vaguely, feeling her warmth beneath his
fingers, remembering with brilliant clarity the vision of Gaithlin emerging
from the waters of the pristine pond as Venus rising from the lake. He could
still see the sunlight reflecting off her magnificent curves, the embrasure of
the light as it caressed her sensuous flesh, and he recalled with complete
precision his physical reaction as he had devoured the vision. How desperately
he had wanted to experience her beauty for himself.

His fingers drifted over her torso, unaware that his own
breathing had increased. Palms met with the material of her gown, drifting from
her waist to the under-swell of her beautiful breasts. Under the guise of
probing her for injury, he allowed himself a stolen touch of her most enticing
body as he had graphically fantasized since the very first he saw her. He
wished the barrier of her gown was not impeding his exploration.

"No pain anywhere?" he asked huskily.

Oddly, she was in pain, but not of the agonizing
variety. A sharp tingling had invaded her limbs, mingling with the heat, and
she found the peculiar prickle most unnerving. The searing ache seemed to flow
directly from his hands, assaulting her like nothing she had ever imagined. She
should have been frightened but instead, she found she was actually curious.

"As I said, there is no pain," she replied
softly, her breathing steady. But his hands were still probing her, touching
her, and she felt her cheeks flush with a confused heat.
 
"Take your hands from me, Demon. I told
you I was not injured."

His expression was unnaturally soft as his hands moved
along the curve of her waist. But as realization dawned, the fact that he was
touching her purely for his own pleasure and that she clearly wasn’t returning
the sentiment, his chiseled features hardened and he abruptly removed his hands
from her torso.

"I simply wanted to see for myself that you were
not injured," he said, almost harshly. "Your weak attempt to flee has
demonstrated to me that you possess the supreme de Gare trait of foolishness
and stupidity."