Christina Phillips - [Forbidden 02] (45 page)

Caratacus’s rebellion had failed. There was no rallying point any longer.

In the gathering gloom she caught Bren’s furtive glance before he once again concentrated on stabbing the ground with the tip of his dagger. “If that’s what they want.”

The pain inside her breast magnified. Not once had he asked where
she
wanted to go. What
she
wanted to do. He accepted her presence as if it were an inevitable, yet ultimately uncomfortable, burden.

“What about Camulodunon?” She glared at him, knowing he couldn’t see because it was too dark. “There are plenty of opportunities there.” Such as begging, whoring, slavery, degradation—

“I always intended to take you there before I left, Morwyn.” His voice was stiff, as if she had insulted his honor.

Her hands fisted on her lap. “If I wished to return to Camulodunon,
Gaul
, I could do so by myself. I certainly wouldn’t wish to put
you
to any inconvenience.”

Judoc made an odd sound, as if he attempted to suppress a laugh. She rounded on him. “Do you have something to say, Judoc?”

“No. I wouldn’t presume.” He still sounded as if he was amused. Goddess, she’d give him something to laugh about if he interrupted her again.

“I’m well aware you could return to Camulodunon on your own.” Brennus still sounded insulted. How dared he be insulted? It wasn’t
she
who had turned her back on
him
. “And I regret Gawain was unable to accompany you. But whatever your thoughts, I’ll deliver you safely to your friend in the colonia.”

He would
deliver
her? Like a fucking
dispatch
?

And then his other comment penetrated the fog of fury in her brain.

“Gawain?” She hoped she didn’t sound as stupid to Brennus as she did herself. “Why would you regret such a thing?” She remembered Brennus had pulled alongside her as Gawain had left. He’d had a hard, shuttered look on his face as he’d watched the other man ride off and now that she thought about it, that look had barely diminished.

A shiver scuttled over her arms as the insistent, nagging uncertainty that had plagued her all day spilled from the abyss into her consciousness.

Brennus had not killed Gawain. That had never been the reason why he thought she left him. And yet Brennus assumed she knew something—something so devastating it would cause her to give up on their love.

“Because”—there was a hard, ugly edge to his voice—“I know you still love him.”

She stared at his dark silhouette. If only there were light enough to see his face, his eyes. “Why would you draw that conclusion?” As far as she could recall, she had never even mentioned Gawain’s name to him.

He shifted, as if the conversation irritated him. “You called out his name in the night. I hoped it wasn’t the same man I’d fought for his beliefs. Then I hoped it wouldn’t matter. I was wrong.”

She hugged her knees and leaned forward as if that would help pierce the encroaching darkness. “In my visions, I saw Gawain murdered. That’s why I called out his name.” She could feel the truth shimmering between them, insubstantial and fragile. She had to find the right words, had to discover what Brennus thought she knew. “I don’t love Gawain, Brennus. But he is the reason I left you.”

She could scarcely see him, but she knew he tensed. Fleetingly she wished Judoc would have the decency to leave them alone, but obviously he possessed no such sense of honor. She blanked him from her mind, and concentrated solely on the man she loved but was so perilously close to losing. “On that final morn, the Morrigan showed me the face of Gawain’s murderer. It was you, Brennus. I thought she was showing me you, my beloved, had killed the man whose death I’d vowed to avenge. That’s why I left. Because I couldn’t bring myself to kill you.”

For a moment the silence of the forest was absolute, as if it held its breath, waiting for the final denouncement. And then, so suddenly she scarcely saw him move, he was kneeling before her, his hands on her knees, her legs pressed against his chain mail.

“Morwyn.” There was an odd crack in his voice that tore her heart anew. “I thought the only reason you accompanied me this day was because Gawain turned his back on you.”

She threaded her fingers through his. “No.”

His head dropped and his lips moved over her fingers, gentle, reverential kisses that seared the core of her being. “Come with me to Gaul. Build our lives together.”

Her head dropped also, their foreheads touching, breath mingling. Her heart implored her to agree, agree to anything and everything because it was all she wanted. To be with him, build a life together, share her knowledge of the old ways with all those willing to learn.

But she couldn’t. Not until she knew the entire truth.

“Why did you think I left you? What did you think the Morrigan had shown me?”

“It doesn’t matter.” His heated words grazed her lips and his hands cradled her face. “Nothing else matters, Morwyn. Only this.”

It would be so easy to agree. To push the questions to the back of her mind, allow them to rot into obscurity Except if she did, the past would forever haunt her; a decaying fog of suspicion and doubt.

It couldn’t be connected to his wife. And yet somehow she knew that it was. Knew it was intrinsically connected to that night six years ago that he’d told her of. And the night three years ago—that he had not.

“Tell me what happened that night at Dunmacos’s village.”

His fingers bit into her flesh, molding the bones of her face, but she refused to flinch, refused to cry out. Refused to defend herself because she knew his reaction was purely instinctive, without malice.

“Nothing happened.” His voice was guttural. His brutal grip lessened. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

She threaded her fingers through his hair. She wished she could see him but there was a false sense of safety in this darkness. “What happened that was so horrific you thought I could leave you because of it?”

Air hissed between his teeth. “Leave it, Morwyn. I’ll never speak of it again. Not to you, not to anyone.”

She tightened her grip on his skull. “It’s killing you, Gaul. From the inside out, it’s eating you alive. And I won’t let it. Do you hear me?
I won’t let it
.”

“She’s right.” The disembodied voice shocked her for a moment. She had forgotten Judoc’s presence. There was no longer any trace of amusement in his voice. “You’re consumed with guilt and you have no reason to be. What you did—”

“Shut the
fuck
up.”

“Have you even told her of Eryn?”

“Yes.” Morwyn wound her ankles around the backs of Brennus’s thighs. He refused to surrender to her touch but she clung on regardless. If he left her now, physically or emotionally, she would lose him forever.

“It took more than a year before he regained strength enough to pick up a weapon,” Judoc said.

“I swear,” Brennus said, “I will tear out your tongue, Judoc.” But he didn’t pull from her embrace, nor cease caressing her face with his thumbs.

“Tell her of Caratacus’s offer, Bren. If she’s worthy enough to be your wife, she’s worthy enough to hear the truth from you.”

Silence echoed. Finally he sucked in a ragged breath.

“He offered me a contingent of his finest warriors to hunt down the man responsible for the death of Eryn.” His fingers slid along her face, broke contact. “We hunted, and eventually we found our prey.”

“Three years ago.” Now it made sense. “And you burned his village, as he had burned that hamlet.” It was just. Why did the memory haunt him so?

“We thought the village was long deserted. And it was. Only Dunmacos and his followers should have perished that night.”

“But?” The whisper trembled between them. Because she knew what he was going to confess.

“But.” The word fell from his tongue like iron. “The bastard had brought his young wife along.”

She closed her eyes, tried not to let him feel the distress rippling through her body. She understood his code of honor. It was no different from hers. Justice demanded retribution. How could she condemn him for exacting such justice from his enemy’s wife?

But, goddess. For him to have inflicted such heinous crimes turned her stomach. She tensed her muscles, smothered the urge to vomit. Refused to show him by the slightest sign how repugnant she found his confession.

Whatever sins he had committed that night, he’d suffered for them a thousandfold every night since.

Could she forgive him? She didn’t know. But could she leave him for seeking such justice for his own wife?

No. Never. Because the man of that night wasn’t the man Brennus was. Not in his soul. His mind had been turned with grief, his reason blinded with bloodlust. He was not, at heart, a rapist or murderer of the innocent. He was . . . her Gaul.

“I understand.” Her voice was faint. She needed air. Space. She needed—

“I killed her, Morwyn. It was my fault.”

The world was already black, but now the blackness entered her heart, filled her soul. A cold, clammy blackness that sank insidious fingers into her brain, numbing her senses. Killing her from the inside out.

“Fuck it, Bren.” Judoc sounded furious. “You might want to be a martyr but I was there, remember? I was part of it.”

“Yes.” Brennus’s voice was remote, as if he were no longer in the forest but reliving that blood-soaked night. “You were.”

“So why don’t you tell Morwyn the truth? Why don’t you explain what our honorable men were doing while you and I systematically searched the huts for signs of life before setting them ablaze?”

“I was still the reason they were there, Judoc. The reason the last moments of her life were filled with pain and terror.”

A thread of distant light flickered in the suffocating black. Blindly she reached for him, dug her nails into his biceps. “Caratacus’s men raped her.”

“They were animals.” Disgust filled Judoc’s voice. “They dragged her from her hut, bleeding and scarcely conscious. Threw her at Bren’s feet. And urged him to brutalize her, the way Dunmacos had brutalized Eryn.”

“But you didn’t.” The certainty glowed in her mind, destroying the earlier crippling suspicions. How had she imagined for even a fleeting moment her Gaul was capable of such despicable acts?

He believed in justice and fighting for his cause. But she knew he didn’t relish violence, as some men did. Bizarrely she recalled the man in the latrines whom Brennus had punched. At the time she had seen no reason for his outburst. But now, knowing the man, knowing his protective instinct and tortured guilt at having been unable to save Eryn, she realized he had defended her honor.

His captive. A woman who believed him her enemy. And yet when the other man had called her a whore, Brennus had leaped to her defense.

“She begged me for mercy.” His voice was devoid of emotion. Except, beneath that facade, she could hear the agony. “I took her in my arms but it was too late.”

“No one could have saved her.” Judoc sounded weary. “You know that, Bren.”

Brennus tore from Morwyn’s embrace and she clawed wildly, but he’d retreated beyond her grasp. “I wasn’t there,” she said into the pitch of night. “But I’ve seen what a pack of men can do to a woman. How long had you been searching for Dunmacos? How many men had you lost to the cause?” Goddess, if only she could see his eyes. See if she was getting through to him. “If Dunmacos hadn’t murdered your wife, you wouldn’t have gone after him. If Dunmacos hadn’t brought his own wife to that village, she would still be alive.” She pushed herself to her knees, shuffled across the forest floor until she bumped into Brennus’s outstretched legs. “You did show her mercy. You gave her comfort in the last moments of her life.”

No breeze stirred the leaves. No nocturnal creature rustled among the undergrowth. Brennus was so still he might have been one of the stone statues in Camulodunon. Except she could feel the heat from his legs, hear his ragged breath, and then his battle-scarred hand grasped hers, as unerring as if he could see through the enveloping night.

“Caratacus pledged me his men on the understanding that if we wiped out Dunmacos and his closest followers and kin, I would take his place in the Legion. Shoulder his reputation for brutality. Use his military history as leverage.” A shudder racked through him and Morwyn edged closer until she could wrap her arms around him, offering him whatever comfort her body could provide. “We’d already slaughtered his kin before we tracked him down. But none of us had heard mention of a cousin, Gervas. Or the fact Dunmacos had recently taken a bride.”

“War is brutal.” Her whisper barely made it past the constriction blocking her throat. Brennus had suffered at the hands of his enemies. But he suffered so much more at the mercy of his conscience.

She swallowed, gathered her courage. Her offer was small, but all she had. And if he rejected it, she would understand. Never confront him with her heritage again.