Dream of Me/Believe in Me (41 page)

It was on the very tip of Cymbra's tongue to suggest they take that time right now. She well remembered her one trip to the sauna and would not be at all reluctant to repeat it. But Brita and Olaf were waiting, as were several traders who hovered nearby, hoping to speak with the jarl.

With a sigh, she promised to return promptly. Before she could move away, Wolf caught her hand, raised it to his lips, and pressed a light kiss into her palm. Again she
was tempted to change her plans, but she only laughed and fled, aware of his warm gaze following her.

With Brita and the ever-watchful Olaf, she spent a pleasant morning in the hillsides and groves just beyond the town. Toward midday, they ventured down to the beach, where Cymbra found seaweed useful for clearing the chest and treating disorders of the skin. Olaf looked especially skeptical when she told him this but he already had some experience with her treatments, having the benefit of an ointment that eased the aching of his joints, and wouldn't entirely dismiss anything she said.

“If there is worth to be found in that,” he said, looking down at the pile of seaweed she had collected, “you'll be the one to do it, my lady.”

She thanked him prettily for the compliment and a short while later they made their way back to the fort. With the sea lanes soon to be closed by winter, Sciringesheal was thronged with traders, many of whom were passing back and forth through the gates in the berm. It seemed to Cymbra that the guards on the watchtowers were more numerous than before but she wasn't really sure of that and thought little of it in any case.

The day lengthened and soon enough she was busy with preparations for the evening meal. Having seen the women well started at that task, she left the kitchens and was walking toward the lodge, intending to bathe and change before seeking her husband, when a ripple on the edge of her awareness drew her up short.

A man was coming toward her. A very tall man wearing a long, brown cloak that enveloped his head and face. She had a moment to be surprised that any man would approach her so directly when he walked straight past her without slowing. Under his breath, yet with each word distinct, he said, “Come with me, Cymbra.”

Hawk.

Disbelief roared through her. She had seen him leave,
he could not possibly be here. Yet he was and like this, concealed, come by subterfuge to seek her out and—

The realization of what her brother had done chilled her to the very marrow of her bones. Not for a moment did she mistake the meaning of his presence. For all her effort and all his seeming acceptance, he did not believe that she was happily wed. He thought the opposite and he had come to correct it.

Come right into the heavily guarded hill fort, right past the guards, into the very heart of the Wolf's lair to take from it that which the Wolf claimed as his own.

He would die. She knew it as surely as she breathed. Her brother would die and she would be the cause.

On legs that scarcely felt able to carry her, fearful that at any moment someone would realize what was happening and raise an outcry, she followed the cloaked man around a corner of the stables and out of sight.

Concealed from the guards and with no one else to be seen, Hawk tossed back the hood covering his head. His gaze swept over Cymbra, finding her pale, wide-eyed, and trembling. Instinctively, he reached out, taking her into his arms and reassuring her gently.

“It's all right, there's nothing to fear. I'll get you out of here, I promise.”

“No!” She pushed free of his arms and stared at him in horror. “Oh, Hawk, what have you done? I thought this was all settled, that you had accepted my marriage. Why come you now like this when you must know how it will anger Wolf?”

His face darkened. “Aye, that damn Viking mustn't be angered, must he? You'll say anything, do anything, to prevent that.”

“Yes … No! That isn't what I meant. He is my husband, I love him, of course I don't want him to be angry. But I have told you the truth, Hawk, I swear it!”

He stared down into her pleading eyes for a long
moment. Slowly, he said, “Speak those same words to me on the deck of my ship, where you are no longer in the Wolf's power, and I will believe you. Until then, I will not.”

“I cannot go with you! I cannot!”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Then must I remain here, for I will not leave you.”

What a fool she had been to think he had done exactly that. What a ridiculous, absurd fool! This was the man who had held the child Cymbra in his arms through solid days and nights when she screamed with the pain of others. The man who had wielded his power and authority to create her sanctuary from the world and, by so doing, given her the time and place to grow into the woman she had become. The brother who had also been both parents … and friend … and guardian … and lord—

And she had believed he would simply sail off and leave her? Fool! Stupid, idiotic fool!

“You cannot stay here,” she said, her voice thick with tears she dared not shed. “You know what will happen if you are found.”

He sensed his advantage, her deep and abiding love for him, and pressed it home. “Then come with me, Cymbra. Come right now. This can all be settled before the next hour is done.”

The enormity of what he demanded did not escape her. She would have to leave the hill fort without Wolf's permission and with no escort save the brother who had violated the rules of hospitality to come by subterfuge into his erstwhile host's domain. If her husband found out—

She pushed that thought aside. Hawk was right, it would take only a short time. She could yet convince him that all was well and see him depart without anyone else knowing what had happened.

“Where is your ship?” she asked, anxious not to waste a moment.

“In a cove not far from here.” He smiled mirthlessly. “All that sailing had its use. I now know this coast as well as I do that of Essex. It was an easy matter to double back and find a concealed anchorage.”

So he had been planning this all along, probably from the first day he came and heard her claims of marital happiness. Again she silently berated herself for thinking the matter so easily settled.

Desperation edged her voice. “All right but we must go swiftly. I would prefer Wolf does not know of this.” At the look he gave her, she amended,
“Not
for the reason you think. Only that no damage be done to the friendship that should exist between you.”

Her brother had no comment on that beyond an eloquent raising of his brow. He pulled the concealing cloak over his head once again and handed her a second, equally voluminous cape that he drew from beneath his own. “Put this on then and let us make haste.”

They joined the stream of traders heading through the gates. Hawk drew her between two heavily laden wagons that offered them further concealment. Almost before Cymbra knew it, they were beyond the berm but she could not relax until they reached the bottom of the hill and veered away from the main road that led into town. Instead, they followed a narrow path of trodden-down grass and dirt that wound around the hill and vanished out of sight of the watchtowers.

Only then did she catch her breath and feel her heart slow a little. A swift and largely silent walk brought them several miles north of the town to an area where Cymbra had not been. There, in a secluded cove, she saw her brother's ship riding at anchor.

With a worried glance at the sky where the sun was
arching earthward, she hung back a little. “Surely this is far enough? You can see I am under no duress. Won't you believe me now when I say I never have been?”

“I will believe you when you stand on the deck of my ship,” he said stubbornly.

A sudden, terrible thought occurred to her. She dug her heels into the soft ground and stared at him, refusing to move. “Hawk … you meant what you said, didn't you? That when I have convinced you, you will let me go? You would not just … sail off even knowing that I want to stay?”

He looked surprised at the very thought, as though her fear that she would be forced to leave made him realize for the first time that she might well and truly wish to remain.

“I will respect your decision,” he said with gruff reassurance, “once I am certain of it.”

Convinced that she had no choice but to do whatever was necessary to satisfy his concern, Cymbra followed her brother down the verdant hillside fragrant with late-blooming wildflowers and into the secluded cove.

His men greeted them with eager relief. No doubt they had not been pleased by their lord's insistence on going alone into what they regarded as an enemy stronghold.

The sail was unfurled for a quick sprint to open water and the anchor was being raised as Hawk and Cymbra reached the shingle beach. He was just about to lift her onto the deck when the thunder of pounding hooves froze them both.

T
HE NORSE WOLF CAME OFF HIS HORSE LIKE
a vast, turbulent storm rolling down a mountain. Before his feet touched the ground, his sword sang from its sheath. He advanced on Cymbra and Hawk, his features set in a rigid mask of rage from which all reason and control were banished. His eyes glittered like the cold, hard steel he wielded. His mouth was drawn in a hard, taut line. Corded tendons pulsed in his neck and rippled down his mighty arms.

Cymbra gasped at the sight of him. In that moment, she truly understood how terrifying he could be and why men quaked at the mere thought of challenging him. His transformation into a being of raw emotion and instinct stunned her, and filled her with primitive fear. Yet nothing could change her deep and abiding love for him. Though her throat closed so tightly she could scarcely breathe, she still tried to reach out a hand, driven by the desperate need to comfort and reassure him.
“Wolf…don't—!”
Hawk, too, was driven by his instincts, and they
screamed to protect at all cost. Ignoring Cymbra's protest, he pushed her behind him and drew his weapon. He spared a glance for the men pouring down the hillside behind their leader, then concentrated all his attention on the deadly foe who continued to come straight at him without pause.

“Hold, Viking!
Or the peace you claim to seek ends now!”

Wolf's mouth twisted in a sneer that revealed the depth of betrayal tearing at him. “Peace is for deluded fools! There is only war … only this—”

He attacked without hesitation and so swiftly that Hawk's superb reflexes alone saved him from instant death. Silence descended over the beach, broken only by the savage clash of steel as two mighty warriors battled without quarter.

On both sides, Norse and Saxon looked on. No one moved to intervene or to join the fray. Locked in single combat, Wolf and Hawk went at each other with such savage fury that Cymbra could only stand frozen in horror. The scream trapped in her throat reached to her very soul. Shock roared through her like fingers of icy fire. This was her worst nightmare come true, the two men she most loved intent on killing each other.

A black pit of despair opened up inside her. One of them would die and how then would she live, knowing it was because of her? How would she get through the long years ahead, every moment made agony by pain she knew would never end?

She had to stop them …
had to …
but her strength was as nothing against theirs. They were both blood-maddened, enraged, consumed by the lust of battle.

She gasped as Wolf raised his sword and brought it down within inches of Hawk's head. Her brother only just managed to escape what would surely have been a death
blow. He attacked in turn, slashing and stabbing, only just missing severing Wolf's sword arm—

Around them, the men pressed in, pulled back, moving to the rhythm of the battle, as absorbed in it as the contenders themselves … oblivious to all else … including the woman who stood at the heart of the conflict itself

At the heart … in her heart, loving them both … desperate …

“Stop!”
Steel gleamed in the light of the setting sun, not the steel of warriors' swords but of Cymbra's own dagger, drawn from the sheath at her waist.

The dagger clasped firmly in both her hands.

Aimed directly at her own heart.

A mortal sin … eternal damnation … She gasped back tears, swallowed terror, and prayed as she had never prayed in her life.

“Stop!” she screamed again, her voice echoing against the verdant hills. “I love you both! If one of you dies because of me, I cannot live. Rather I would end my own life right now!”

For a seemingly endless moment, Hawk and Wolf stood unmoving, weapons locked. Only the dawning horror in both their faces told her they had heard—and seen.

“I mean it! Put down your swords! Step away from each other! I
will
do this, I swear it!”

A mere flicker of Wolf's eyes and Dragon moved. But she was prepared for that, knew the brothers were so close they could understand each other without words.

“Get back!”

Dragon stopped in midrush, staring at her with the same disbelieving shock that riveted every man on the beach.

Heedless of the tears streaming down her ashen cheeks, she tightened her grip on the dagger and pressed the point of it just below her breast.