Claudia Dain (19 page)

Ulrich hardly noted her coming. His eye was upon the wolves at his feet. His bow was broken. His sword was out. And he was snarling as ferociously as the wolves he faced, his lips lifted to reveal white teeth, his head lowered to match the wolves, stare for growling stare. A match for any wolf.

His squire, the boy William, was upon Ulrich's horse, to judge by the long and mismatched length of stirrup to boy, and he held his small bow with arrow nocked and ready. Yet by his quivering breath and unsteady hand, he looked hardly ready for a wolf attack.

Ulrich did. Of fear he showed none. Of feral anger and blood-lust he showed all. He looked ravenous with the desire to kill and draw blood, tear flesh, break bone. He looked a man to devour a wolf in raw and bloody swipes.

He looked a predator, from skin to bone, a predator. A hunter who sought only to kill. A man who drew blood as easily as he drew breath.

Of the lie of courtly love and chivalric banter, he showed not a trace.

With a sudden swipe of his sword and a lunge, he pierced the lung of a black wolf with a silver-tipped tail. With a squeal, the wolf went down, bleeding fast and hard into the dirt. Ulrich moved back to shield the boy, his sword ready and dripping red, his eyes the merciless blue of fire.

In an instant Juliane saw all. In the next instant, the dogs set the wolves to scattered flight, and arrows sent them scurrying faster past the crag of rising rock and into the deep shade of the wood. In an instant, they were gone, the echo of the crying dogs the only sound to mark their passing. Theobald followed the dogs at a run, nodding to Ulrich as he passed, one man of blood to another, and then he, too, was gone.

Through all the action, Juliane's eyes had not left Ulrich, who stood protectively before the boy who was to serve him.

"Lady," Baldric said, "I would follow Theobald if all is well here."

She could not tear her gaze from Ulrich, from his eyes gleaming blue in the dark green shade of a summer wood, from the movement of his arm as he sheathed his sword, from the tender motion of his hand as he reached to lay a calming touch upon his squire's shaking thigh.

"All is well here," she said, releasing Baldric.

A lie. All was not well. She was shaking to her very heart, the image of Ulrich in his killing feast fresh before her eyes, her eyes dazzled by the rapacious hunger of it.

Baldric left—she knew it by the pounding of his feet against the earth—yet her eyes stayed upon Ulrich. He whispered to the boy, his hand large upon the thigh of his squire, his voice low and sweet, full of gentle mirth and soft encouragement. The wolves lay dead in the dirt, a carcass of silvered fur pierced by a lance of sunlight striking through the trees, the hum of flies already to be heard as they prepared to feast upon the warm flesh of a recent kill. But she could only look upon Ulrich.

Captured by Ulrich.

The sweat, the splattering of blood, the taut muscles of his neck and jaw, the huge fist of his clenched hand upon his sword—all burned into her eyes, scalding memory. A hunter. A killer. A protector. All three together in a single man.

Warrior.

In time, he turned to her, pushing a hand through his hair, walking to her through the lance-light; in that fragmented beam of light his hair shone with sparkles of gold and red, like jewels, like something precious. Like something beautiful.

But he could not be beautiful.

"Lady, you came in good time," he said, leaving the light in a stride, shattering her vision.

"Did I?" she asked, her voice low and soft. "I think not. I think there was nothing here which you could not best."

She meant it. And hated that she meant it. He had killed a wolf or two. What man had not? Yet he had been alone, his squire more hindrance than help, and on foot. The safety of his horse he had given to another, lesser to him in all ways.

Ulrich grinned at her words of praise and came near upon her, stroking a hand down Onyx's muzzle. The horse snuffled against his hand, soothed out of any stray agitation at the smell of wolf so near.

"Including you?" he said, grinning up at her, his hands full of her horse.

Juliane smiled and shook her head at him. "I think I have praised you enough. More than enough."

"
I
do not think so," he said, starting to laugh.

"And why should you?" she countered, pulling her smile into sterner bounds. Aye, he was a warrior, who laughed when he killed and killed with delight. But these thoughts would not help her win their wager, and, like the warrior she faced, she understood that life was all of winning. "But how did you lose a horse? The wolves are fierce now, the summer having been dry, yet I do not think they would have come against two men on horseback, no matter their desperation."

Ulrich smiled and nodded at her choice of words and looked over his shoulder at his squire, who lifted his chin and slipped off Ulrich's mount at her casual notice of his manhood. The small squire swiped a hand across his nose and ran that hand through his hair, a gesture crying loudly of a man who had not a care under heaven.

"And so it would have been," Ulrich said to her in a whisper, "but that my squire had needs which required him to dismount. A whiff of wolf, the horse bolted, and so you find us."

"And so I find you," she said softly in answer, smiling in spite of herself. "A man's needs do ever and always land him in trouble most foul."

"It would have been most foul if he had not attended, lady," Ulrich said. "The air around and beneath him would have been most ripe."

"And the horse would, perforce, have still bolted," she said.

"As you say," he said, laughing silently, careful of his squire's tender pride even now. "Yet you are here and all is well."

All was not well. He made her laugh too often. He was too beguiling to her senses. He was too aware that he beguiled. He was too close upon the softening of her purpose, urging her to forget her need to win in this wager of theirs. They were too alone, it suddenly came to her. The wood too dark and still. The air too hot and moist. The pounding of her heart too loud and fast.

All was most assuredly not well.

"William," Ulrich said, turning from her, though his hand slid to the bridle, holding her horse, and her, to this spot of heat and stillness and pounding hearts. "Can you find your horse while I stay with Lady Juliane?"

Alone in the wood with Ulrich of Caen? Nay, that would serve her not at all.

"He is afeared," she whispered, leaning down to Ulrich, pulling at the reins and turning Onyx's head from the grip of his hand. His grip stayed firm. He held her fast to this spot of hot earth, and her heart thudded at her entrapment. "Do not ask it of him lest you shame him."

Ulrich looked up at her, his blue eyes vivid against his skin. He measured her, searching for fear in her that he could use. He would find nothing but concern for his squire; there was no weakness in her. Or none that he could see.

"You think of him?" Ulrich whispered in return. "Or is it of yourself?"

"Do
you
think of him?" she countered, holding his gaze, unbowed and undaunted. "Or is it only of yourself?"

He searched her face a moment more, and she let him look his fill. Then he grunted in agreement and nodded.

"Well matched we are," he said. "You have called it aright, lady, though I think I called it well enough. But as you will—alone in the wood we shall not be."

"I can, my lord!" William warbled, his eagerness to prove himself and his reluctance to die by wolf bite warring on level ground within his heart. "I will!"

"Nay," Ulrich said, turning to his squire, releasing her bridle in the doing, "let be. Together we will find your mare, if she is to be found, and protect Lady Juliane between us both. Well bound she will be by two such men as we are."

"Aye, my lord!" William said, grinning and leading Ulrich's horse near.

"Well bound?" Juliane said as Ulrich mounted. "Odd wording to throw upon me."

"Yet not odd intent," Ulrich said, lifting William to sit behind him.

"So you proclaim, yet I own it not."

"Then do not own it," Ulrich said as he turned his mount to follow in the way of Theobald and Baldric and the hounds. And the wolves. "Own me instead."

She twitched the reins between her gloved fingers to hide the sudden quivering that shook her. Own him? He had an odd way of speaking, odd and disturbing. Own him? She had no wish to own him and could not. There was no such thing upon the earth, and well he knew it. A woman did not possess a man. 'Twas against the laws of God and nature.

"I would own no man," she said. "Not even you, though you offer most freely what you could never give."

She spurred Onyx to ride at Ulrich's side, for ride behind him she would not. Onyx compiled rapidly, for she was a horse who would follow none but took the lead in all endeavors. As did Juliane.

William turned his face to look upon the passing trees, giving them the illusion as best he could that their speech was private. He need not have bothered. What she would say, all could hear; aye, she would urge the squire to repeat it. Let all know how Juliane had defeated wild Ulrich.

Ulrich kept his eyes upon the dirt crushed beneath his horse's feet, his hands easy upon the reins, his countenance mild and sweet and undeterred. She was not fooled. He was neither sweet nor mild, and any man could be turned from the scent of a woman if the woman be strong enough to do the turning.

Turn from her he would.

"Nay," he said, not looking at her though she looked at him. The sunlight came through the trees in green washes of hazy light, lighting him to tawny brown and gold. He looked a lion of a sudden, on the trail of wolves. "Nay," he said again, "I would give you all of me, my heart and strength, my life and even my death; all given unto Juliane's soft hand. If you would only take me." He looked at her then, his eyes the blue of fire. "Take me, Juliane."

And in that instant, she wanted to. She wanted him. Wanted his strength to cover her, wanted his scent to mark her, his mouth upon her, his body within her.

"I thought this wager was of you taking me," she said over the wash of weakness that coursed through her. When had any man pled for taking when the world was all of men and what they took for themselves?

"This is none of wagers," he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder, brushing back a length of her hair. "I am beyond wagers. All that holds me now is you and what we could make between us."

"What we could make between us?" she said over a forced, hard laugh. "Your speech now is clear to me. Taking and giving, and then making. You speak as all men will, of making a child between us, setting your seed into the future. I will not be bound to you that way, my lord. That way is closed. Best learn that now and for always."

"You turn my words too hard," he said. "I would take nothing from you, and of a child, that is God's will and nothing less."

"Nay, there is my will with which you must contend," she snapped. Had she thought him charming? Amusing? Beautiful? He was as base as the snake, as cunning as the wolf, and as self-serving as she knew men to be. Resistance rose up in her and she sighed in joy at its coming. "I will not fall to you, Ulrich. I will not fall to any man."

"To any man?" he said sharply. "Aye, that is the truth. But to me? Lady, you
will
fall to me."

All charm had been cast from him and he was revealed as a man upon a steed bearing sharpened steel, bearing all the pride and arrogance and blood-thirst that made a man a man. This was the Ulrich she feared, this man of raw intent, his silken words of old cast away. Warm words and sweet smiles she had endured for a lifetime; a man blazing high with his intent writ clear upon his face, that was more rare. She stood in momentary shock and felt the surge of feminine weakness steal into her bones. Yet there was no weakness in her. There could not be.

"I will not fall," she said, spurring her horse into a gallop, leaving him to enjoy his arrogance alone.

"Then why do you run?" he called after her. She did not turn or answer, but kept on, widening the distance between them, letting the trees shield her from his gaze. Of William's mare, she saw none.

Chapter 11