Predestined Page 3

  The Centurion sat back in his chair. “Do you remember when I saved you?”

  “Aye.” She rubbed the tiny, heart-shaped birth-mark on her right hand. It had been seven years since that terrible day.

  “Remember when those superstitious villagers tried to burn the evil mark off your hand. It was only my intervention that saved your life.”

  “I remember.”

  “And yet you are not grateful.”

  “I am grateful for your rescue,” she said, her tone that of a respectful slave.

  “Not grateful enough, it seems.” Her master took a sip of wine from his tankard. “Who is this warrior to you?”

  “No one.”

  “Is he this Dark Chieftain that the people speak of?”

  “I doona know,” she replied, for in truth she did not.

  “What do you know?”

  She remained silent, not knowing how to answer, and felt his anger shift toward a more dangerous subject.

  “Your hair has grown lighter.” He reached over and lifted a curl from her breast. “I have never seen a color quite like it. It reminds me of flames.” He paused, a secretive smile on his face. “Now, tell me, my lovely witch, what do you know of the castle’s ancient lord?”

  “He is not ancient, my lord.”

  He released her hair and sat back. “If you are old enough to notice a man, you are old enough to bed.”

  Her gaze met his in an act of rebellion, and perhaps idiocy, for with a simple command she knew he could end her life.

  “The winter color in your eyes freezes a man’s soul, witch. I should blind you for your impertinence.”

  Always before, he had backed down. Would he again?

  “Lower those damn eyes,” he snarled. “Something must be done about you.”

  She waited, staring at the floor, terrified of what he might do.

  “Leave me now. I must think.”

  She turned dutifully, hitching her skirts up and raced out of the hall.

  “Sidhe Spawn!” the Centurion growled after her.

  “To Hades with the Sorcerer and the castle’s oral tradition. There is no ancient lord to reclaim this foul place.” He rose from his chair and reached for his tankard of wine. “Especially not this muscled oaf with woman’s hair.”

  CHAPTER 3

  THE OUTSIDE AIR COOLED THE fevered heat ravaging his bruised body. Hands lashed his wrists to posts.

  Whoosh . . .

  Tynan surged forward with the first slice of the whip. By the white moon, they whip me!

  Disbelief chilled the blood in his veins. Shrill whistling bombarded his mind. The imprisoned faeries screamed in fear for him.

  Whoosh . . .

  Stinging pain flicked at his shoulders. I will show no weakness to these bastards. He jerked at his bonds.

  Crack.

  Whoosh . . .

  Blades of misery flailed his back.

  Whoosh . . . Whoosh . . . Whoosh . . .

  He thought of Hawk and the way the boy sought mischief; of Rose speaking to her plants; of the swift vertical swoop of his tribe’s falcons; of the piercing kee-kee-kee cry of his mated kestrels; but most of all he thought of castle Kindred and the foul Evil One defiling her tombs.

  The whipping continued.

  His mind swirled in a haze of pain. Slicing torment and agony finally cut off thoughts. He prayed to the mother goddess, Dana, to give him strength to die honorably.

  His head lowered between bloody shoulders.

  He wanted to die a warrior’s death.

  Not like this . . .

  He slipped into unconsciousness, lost to a world of physical pain.

  Crack.

  Whoosh . . .

  The sun had set by the time Bryna made her way into the dank dungeons below the fortress. The long tunnel before her lay in ragged darkness.

  “Please, goddess, give me strength,” she murmured. Above her head, torches balanced on the brink of shadows.

  From below, the sounds of moaning and weeping faded in and out. She dredged up a prayer of protection from the mother goddess. It seemed impossible that life could survive down here in a tapestry of misplaced souls.

  She clutched the heavy basket tighter to her hip.

  To her right, a faceted crystal pierced the stone of the wall, breaking into a reflection of cool pink radiance.

  Ancient faery magic, Bryna mused. Remnants of Kindred.

  She continued deeper into the tunnel, her hands becoming clammy and cold.

  “You should not be here, Witcheyes.” A guard cautiously stood up from his three-legged stool.

  Bryna looked down at the dirt floor. “I am to treat the prisoner Tynan’s wounds,” she replied softly.

  “Where is the old druidess?” The guard looked past her for Derina.

  “In the village,” Bryna said, lying outright, for in truth the ancient waited in the waterfall cave.

  She placed the basket at her feet. Flipping back the red cloth, her fingers curved around the clay bowl of seasoned stew. She straightened slowly, holding the bowl so the guard could smell the gamy meat.

  “I brought stew to keep you warm,” she offered. Laced with valerian root, the stew would hasten the guard’s slumber.

  From beneath lowered lids, Bryna watched the guard look at the stew, then glance at her, wavering.

  He licked his lips. “I suppose it is all right.”

  Bryna did not move. He took the bowl from her hands and set it carefully down on his stool.

  “Follow me and do not touch anything.” He turned and walked down a corridor without a backward glance.

  Lifting the basket, she settled it against her hip and followed the guard down the narrow path.

  “Watch your step here, Witcheyes.” The guard pointed to a crumbled step.

  Bryna clutched the basket to her and stepped down.

  Cold, damp air pressed upon her.

  The torchlight flickered suddenly as if battling against the murky darkness. Barely discernible blue-white light flickered across her path. She doubted the guard had even noticed.

  Her gaze darted over stone walls, searching desperately for the half-moon shaped rock that opened to the castle’s secret feypaths. This would be her means of escape.

  As a young girl, Derina had taken her from the herb garden one morning and had shown her the secret passages beneath the coastal fortress. She called them feypaths, carved out of rock and dirt a long ago time. The moonbeams, as Derina called the blue-white light, were a feypath’s signature.

  Bryna’s heart leaped into her throat. On her right, the half-moon rock lay wedged in the wall, its once purple brilliance soiled and grubby. The bulging length of it mirrored the size of a small man, but could easily go unnoticed if one did not know what they were looking for.

  “Witcheyes,” the guard called impatiently ahead of her. She hurried to join him.

  The guard removed the key ring from his belt and waited for her in front of a cell.

  “Do not stay long,” he warned.

  “I will not.”

  He put the key in the cell lock and swung the iron gate inward.

  Bryna stepped through into clinging shadows, her shoes sinking into the damp, mucky straw.

  Darkness.

  Coldness.

  Breathing.

  The guard moved one of the wall torches closer and then the gate wheezed shut behind her.

  “Please leave it unlocked. I may need to retrieve some healing herbs.”

  He grunted his displeasure, a moment of hesitation, and then left the gate ajar, anxious to return to his stew.

  Bryna waited until he had left. She turned back to the shadows of the large cell. She had come here to free the chieftain and bring him to the waterfall cave as her teacher had instructed.

  Torchlight from the tunnel threw slivers of light through the metal bars, showing flashes of silver-furred rats scurrying away in the straw. She held the basket in a death grip and listened to the deep breathing of the
chieftain. She did not think him conscious.

  He had been chained naked, facing the wall, with manacles at his wrists and ankles, his arms and legs spread wide.

  Bryna drew in a steadying breath. Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears she wondered if the guard could hear it.

  She moved closer, into the cast of torchlight.

  Bloody wounds criss-crossed the chieftain’s back. Rivers of blood, now dried, had flowed down his lean waist and firm buttocks to thickly muscled thighs and calves.

  She placed the basket at her feet. With trembling fingers, she pushed the red cloth aside and reached for the large flask. It contained a water mixture of onions and honey. The drink would help clear his head and purge lethargy.

  Reaching up, she gently pulled his chin to her.

  He flinched from her touch.

  “Easy,” Bryna soothed. While supporting his jaw, she raised the silver flask to his mouth.

  He jerked away and Bryna realized that he must think it some sort of poison.

  She laid a hand on his shoulder and waited, hoping his need would prompt him to trust her.

  His lips were cracked and bleeding, but he was alert now and probably expecting her to force him to drink.

  When she did not, he turned to her in wary expectation. Guiding his chin, Bryna allowed several drops of the liquid to spill onto his lips.

  A tongue darted out, capturing the precious liquid, testing it.

  She waited.

  He nodded, opening his mouth.

  “Drink slowly,” she cautioned, knowing he could not hear. She spoke more for her own comfort than for him.

  “Here, now that you made up your mind to trust me.” She gave him a small chunk of salty meat. He chewed it slowly as if it required great effort. He took three more from her hand, a wild creature caught and unsure.

  Bryna touched his side and his lids cracked open. Beneath black lashes, amethyst colored eyes stared down at her through a white veil of blindness. Despite the spell, it seemed the magic of the past lay in their strange depths.

  Tynan waited, painfully alert now. Darkness, silence, and pain receded to bearable levels. His stomach rolled and then settled into manly grumbling. His healer, for that is what he thought of her, squeezed his arm. He felt the trembling of her fingers and waited for what came next. Her touch slid to his back, to his ravaged skin. He recoiled and muttered a curse.

  His healer squeezed his arm again, trying to communicate with him. He felt her gently clean his wounds and gripped the chains against the agony of it. Shivering with cold and fevered weakness, he had very little left in him with which to fight. He fixed his mind upon his healer, driving away all else. Was she tall? Was she plump and soft? Did her hair glisten like sunlight, or was it black as pitch like his?

  After a time, warm hands spread a numbing paste into the wounds on his back. In relief, he rested his forehead against the cool stone wall and heaved a mighty sigh. He could feel her bandaging his back, up over the left shoulder and then across his chest. A pillowy breast brushed against his bruised ribs where she leaned into him. He focused on that unexpected softness and finally relaxed into her tending.

  “I am done.” Bryna stepped back to inspect her work. She could smell the herbs in Derina’s poultice, especially the garlic for the infection. The yarrow and toadflax used for the easing of pain and congealing of blood was less pungent.

  The chieftain turned his head toward her.

  Leaning forward, Bryna squeezed his arm. “I must get the keys. Hopefully, the guard sleeps.” She hurried out of the cell, praying the guard had finished the stew laced with the sleeping herb. Silently, she walked back up the tunnel’s path. There, slumped against the wall, the man snored gently. She approached him cautiously, removing the key ring from his belt so that it made not a sound.

  Hurrying back down the corridor, she heard the clanging noise of chains and became fearful that it might wake the guard.

  Once back in Tynan’s cell, she quickly returned to his side and grabbed his forearm to prevent another firm yank. His dark head turned to her, the muscles in his arm strained beneath her hands. She knew her only way of communicating with him was by touch. Her fingers slid down his side. His struggles quieted and she remembered her teacher’s words. Let him feel your touch, so he knows you. Heat rose in her cheeks. She had seen naked men before while helping Derina with the sick and feeble, but nothing prepared her for this, a warrior crafted in form and perfection. She sensed a primitive rage below the surface in him——that link again, that connection reached out to her. Veiled eyes watched her, oddly seductive and haunting in their intensity.

  Bryna felt herself grow bold. Curious, she leaned forward just a wee bit. Within a nest of black curls, she could make out his large, flaccid manhood. She pulled back, embarrassed to her core. By the white moon, I canna believe I just did that.

  In a fluster, she turned back to her basket. Gathering a large white cloth, she went back to the chieftain and tied the cloth around his hips, making sure his manparts were completely covered.

  For a moment, Bryna thought she heard Tynan’s soft chuckle. When she looked up, his veiled eyes continued to regard her, but there was a curious tilt to his lips.

  He jerked his right arm drawing her attention upward. She would never reach the shackle at his wrist. She looked for something to stand on, a stool, a table, anything, but the barren cell offered only soiled straw and the company of rats.

  Bryna’s gaze slid back to Tynan’s face. He waited, unmoving and expectant.

  She would start with the easy task first and free his ankles. Moving her hand from his arm to his waist, she knelt.

  He tensed, looking down at her.

  “I think you must be wondering why I am kneeling at your feet. Doona worry, my intent is to free you.” She struggled to unlock the rusted shackles around his ankles. Once he realized what she was doing, he stilled.

  She soon freed both his feet and stood. He yanked impatiently at the chain holding his arms.

  “I know, impatient one,” she whispered. A ledge jutted out directly in front of him. She ducked under his arm. There wasn’t much room between him and the wall so she pushed on a muscled stomach, requesting more space.

  He stepped back as far as he could, which was not much given his shackles. A musky male scent pleasantly surrounded her.

  She stepped on the ledge and looked up the rock face.

  “I shall try to reach your wrists.” Reaching up to balance herself, she rested her hand on his right shoulder. He felt hot under her hand and she immediately suspected that in addition to his wounds, he now battled fever.

  He stood close behind her, breath warming her right ear.

  Bryna strained upward and choked back a sob of bitter disappointment. “Tynan, I canna reach.”

  Rising on tiptoe, her fingertips barely brushed the bottom of the shackle. Suddenly a muscular thigh pressed into her leg. She looked down and immediately understood. With one hand on his shoulder, she hiked up her skirts and stepped on his thigh. Within moments, she had both his shackles unlocked.

  He made a quick grab for her around the waist and lowered her safely to the ground, but did not let go.

  “It is all right.” She laid a hand on his bandaged chest, wishing he could hear her. “You are free now.”

  Tynan struggled to regain his equilibrium. He had no sense of symmetry or evenness in which to steady his world — only touch, only the healer. Swaying a little, he gripped her shoulders. His blood ran cold with the weight of the parasite feeding off his senses. He held the healer in place with one hand while he reached for the thing clinging to his temple. The healer grabbed his wrist with both her hands and tugged. He scowled at her attempt to restrain him. He felt the dark imprint of the evil magic in his mind, thriving off his senses, feeding. He wanted it off! Pulling free from her hands, he touched the thing at his temple. It burned his fingers and he jerked his hand away. Spellbound!

  Darkness and silence and heat
swirled in, stifling his mind. He had to concentrate to remain standing. Focus on the healer. Focus on the healer. He battled the gray fatigue gripping him and breathed deeply. He was a creature of the senses and they took them away. He hated it.

  The healer tugged on his arm.

  He hated the blindness.

  He hated the silence.

  Yet, he felt something, a tingling in the air just within reach. The faeries. He wondered if the healer felt it too. She tried to pull free of his hands. His grip tightened on her. She remained the only thing solid and real in his world of eternal silence and night.

  He cursed his veiled senses.

  He cursed the Evil One.

  He cursed the Centurion.

  She pinched him.

  “Ouch!” he mouthed furiously.

  He scowled down at her, letting her know he did not appreciate being pinched.

  She pried his left hand from her shoulder and directed his fingers to a mark below her right thumb. It was a small birthmark in the shape of a heart, an easily recognizable mark that he would know her when she touched him.

  He sensed that she was talking to him again, though what she was saying only the faeries knew.

  His hands slid up graceful arms, shoulders, and up the slim column of her throat to her face, slowly imprinting her youthful features. Soft skin. High cheekbones. Full brows. Lacy eyelashes that feathered the tips of his fingers. It occurred to him that she might possibly be lovely.

  He leaned forward and inhaled, taking her lavender scent deep into his lungs. He suspected this to be the same woman who had come to him in the tombs. She squeezed his hand.

  He squeezed back and felt her tug.

  Tynan followed her lead. She placed his hand on the open cell door and then guided him left.

  They walked a short distance upward along a narrowed path and then she stopped abruptly. He nearly toppled over her but caught himself and backed up a step. Reaching out to the wall for balance, he felt a sudden icy draft in the air. A gleaming blue-white light flickered in his black velveteen darkness and then disappeared. The light felt alive in its caress, moonbeams on a winter’s night. He tried to see it again by shifting his head, but could not.