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When Amber's tongue circled Duncan teasingly, he made a last effort at escaping her by turning away from her onto his side.

She was too quick. She turned with Duncan, flowing over him like a hot rain. Then Duncan found he could retreat no farther. He was caught between Amber's mouth and her hand sliding up between his thighs. She cupped him in her palm, weighed him, and laughed with pleasure at his readiness.

“Every part of you is hard,” Amber said. “You burn very hotly, dark warrior, but I would have you hotter still.”

She bent to Duncan again, caught him against her tongue with loving care, and stroked him until sweat glistened on his skin like rain.

“Stop,” he said hoarsely.

“Stop?” Amber's laugh was low, delighted, a bit savage. “Nay, my stubborn warrior. You have barely begun to burn.”

“I cannot—hold—much longer.”

“I know.” A delicious shivering went over Amber. “I like that knowledge.”

“Witch,” he said thickly.

But there was more pleasure than anger in his voice.

Amber's teeth closed delicately. Duncan said something dark as he fought the desire consuming him with every breath, every heartbeat, every hot caress.

Yet just when ecstasy was on the brink of overcoming his restraint. Amber stopped. Torn between relief and disappointment, Duncan breathed deeply, trying to calm the wildness of his need.

Tenderly, soothingly. Amber stroked hair back from Duncan's heated face and kissed his cheek as though he were a child who needed calming. Finally passion's claws eased in Duncan, allowing him to breathe evenly once more. With a groan, he rolled over onto his back.

Amber smiled at him, kissed his shoulder, and slid like fire back down his body.

And like fire, she burned him.

Soon Duncan was hotter than before, harder, shaking with what it cost not to give in to Amber. When he was no more than a breath from ecstasy she stopped and calmed him again.

And in time she set him to burning all over again.

“Finish it,” Duncan said through his teeth. “You will drive me mad!”

“Soon,” Amber murmured.

“Soon I will be mad!”

Laughing, she drew her nails over his clenched thighs and between his legs, goading him ever higher, yet always knowing when to draw him back from the sensual brink.

Sweat gathered and ran on Duncan's loins. Amber tasted it, found it good, and tasted again, elsewhere. She found that good as well.

Fire poured over Duncan, burning him to the marrow of his bones. Never had he known Amber to be like this, waging a sultry, determined seduction over every bit of his body. She wanted him, and she meant to have him.

All of him, in every way there was.

“Release me from my promise,” Duncan said thickly.

The warmth of Amber's laughter washed over him.

“Not yet.”

“ Tis beyond reason. I must touch you!”

“How?”

The word was as much a purr as a question. Low, husky, breathless with desire, the sound of Amber's voice sent a shudder of anticipation through Duncan.

Suddenly she moved astride his thighs and he sensed her opening to him. She radiated heat and wept with desire. The scent of her made him wild.

Yet Amber stayed where she was, poised just above him, brushing against the very flesh she had tormented so thoroughly.

“Finish it,” he said hoarsely. “You want me as much as I want you. I can feel it.”

“That will never change as long as I draw breath.”

“Then let me take you and end this torment!”

“That can't be your hand upon my thigh, pushing me down, can it?” Amber asked.

With a dark curse Duncan snatched back his hand.

“I didn't mean to,” he said.

“I know. I felt your surprise.”

“Have I no secrets from you?” Duncan asked angrily.

“Many. But only one that matters.”

“What?”

“Your soul, dark warrior. It is shut away from me.”

“So is yours from me.”

“Nay,” Amber whispered. “Tonight I am giving it to you one breath at a time.”

Whatever Duncan might have said in answer was lost in the husky cry he gave as Amber slid down over him, taking all of him in a slow, caressing glide.

Before the taking was half complete. Amber came undone. Her shivering flesh and rippling cries undid Duncan. Even as she took him fully, he gave himself to her in a succession of deep pulses that left him shaking.

And then it began all over again.

The tempting and the teasing, the intimate caresses and the sweet torment. Whispered words and touches that made Duncan jerk with pleasure. Unexpected kisses, love bites that stung and pleasured at once.

While candles guttered and flames winked out, Amber burned on undimmed, pouring herself into Duncan as surely as he poured himself into her, burning with her because he could do no less, consuming her as certainly as he was himself being consumed. A whispered plea, a vow given back, and Duncan's hands were at last free to touch, his mouth to kiss, his body to sink deeply into the wildness that was Amber burning. She drank his passion and gave it back to him redoubled, driving both of them higher and higher, speaking to him in wild silence, describing a love that could not be put into words, expressing an unspeakable need.

Let me reach into you as you have reached into me.

Then rich life might grow.

When finally nothing was left undone, when both were so spent they slid from shattering ecstasy into sleep in the space of a breath, still Amber clung to Duncan, wanting to share her dreams as deeply as she had shared the rest of herself.

Let me touch your soul.

Just once.

But it was Duncan's dreams that were shared, bleak turmoil redoubled rather than relieved by Amber's wild giving and taking of self.

Soon Amber awakened, dragged into awareness by the conflict raging through Duncan's soul. When she realized what had been gambled and what had been lost, cold seeped through her.

The last part of the prophecy had been fulfilled.

Yet Duncan was farther from her than ever, locked in battle with himself. His word had been given.

It had not been given to her.

Yet he was part of her.

Darkness gathering, drop by drop, breath by breath, one soul given, one soul locked away. Untouched.

Cassandra is wrong. His soul won't wither, for he does not love me.

Slowly Amber drew away from Duncan and slid from the bed, unable to bear the agony of touching him any longer. With hands that trembled, she removed her amber pendant and placed it across the coiled metal of the war hammer that had given Duncan his name. She reached out to him one last time, but did not touch him.

“God be with you, dark warrior,” Amber whispered, “for I cannot be.”

Meg looked across the table at her husband. Their cold breakfast of bread, meat, and ale lay largely ignored on the trestle table in the great hall. Dominic was leaning back in his chair, eyes narrowed. The fingers of his right hand drummed softly on his thigh in time to the haunting tune Ariane was playing on a lap harp.

Simon carved another slice of venison, poured some ale into a dainty goblet, and set both in front of Ariane.

“Leave off making the harp weep and eat,” he said tersely.

“Again? I feel like a goose being fattened for a feast,” she muttered.

But Ariane set aside the harp and began to eat. It was easier than arguing with Simon when he had that determined look in his eyes.

“Have you dreamed, Meg?” Dominic asked abruptly.

“Yes.”

“Glendruid dreams?” he asked.

“Yes.”

The fact that Meg said no more told Dominic that the dreams had been unhappy… and that they had offered no solutions. The backs of his fingers stroked her cheek.

“Small falcon,” he said in a low voice, “I must find a way to give Blackthorne peace. I want our child to be born into a time and a place not torn apart by war.”

Meg kissed Dominic's palm and watched him with eyes made luminous by love.

“Come what will, Glendruid Wolf,” she whispered, “I will never regret bearing your child.”

Ignoring the others in the room, Dominic lifted Meg into his lap. Golden bells braided into her hair shivered and chimed. He held her close, whispering his love.

After a time, the haunting cry of the harp resumed, beautiful music describing all the shades of sadness.

“What a cheerful gathering,” Erik mocked as he entered the great hall, his peregrine on his wrist. “Do you play often for funerals. Lady Ariane?”

“That is one of her lighthearted tunes,” Simon said.

“God save us,” Erik muttered. “Leave off, lady. You will have my peregrine in tears.”

The peregrine in question flared her wings briefly before she settled to watching the gathered humans with inhuman curiosity.

“I would have expected you to be with Duncan,” Dominic said, “driving Learning into his thick skull.”

“My sister tried a more certain method,” Erik said, smiling slightly. “She went to Duncan last night.”

Dominic's smile was an exact reflection of Erik's. “That explains their absence at morning chapel.”

“Aye.”

“Did it help my quest for peace?”

Erik hesitated. Then he shrugged. The peregrine shifted restlessly on his wrist, making silver bells on her jesses ring.

“Something has changed,” Erik said. “I can sense it. But I don't know what.”

“Permit me to educate you,” Cassandra said from behind Erik.

The quality of the Learned woman's voice brought a hush to the room.

Erik stepped aside, allowing Cassandra room to pass. He saw that her normally braided and concealed hair was loose, a seething silver glory rippling freely over her scarlet cloak. Ancient silver rune stones glittered in her hands.

The peregrine flared her wings again and gave a keening cry.

“You have just come from casting silver runes,” Erik said, his voice toneless.

There was no answer. None was needed. The hammered silver markers in the Learned woman's hands spoke for themselves.

“What did you learn?” Erik asked.

“More than I wished. Less than I hoped.”

Cassandra walked until she stood in front of Dominic and Meg.

“Witch of Glendruid,” Cassandra said formally, “do you dream?”

A single glance at Cassandra's silver eyes brought Meg to her feet.

“Yes,” Meg said. “I dream.”

“Will you share your dreams?”

“A scream the color of amber. A darkness being torn apart like tough cloth, one fiber at a time.”

Cassandra bowed her head for a moment. “Thank you.”

“For what? There is neither comfort nor answer in my dream.”

“It was confirmation I sought, not comfort.”

Meg gave the older woman a curious look.

“When my emotions are involved,” Cassandra said calmly, “I have to be wary of casting the silver stones. Sometimes I see what I wish rather than what is.”

“What did you see?” Meg asked. “Will you share it?”

“The amber prophecy is complete. She has given her heart and her body and her soul to Duncan.”

“You didn't need to cast the silver stones to see that was coming,” Erik said.

Cassandra nodded agreement.

“Then why did you cast them?” Erik asked. “They are not to be used lightly.”

“Aye.”

Silently Cassandra looked from Erik to Dominic. Then she looked at no one at all.

“Erik, son of Robert,” she said. “Dominic, Wolf of Glendruid. If you go to war now, it is because you wish to. Amber is no longer your excuse. She has—”

“What are you saying?” Erik interrupted roughly.

“—removed herself from your masculine equations of pride and power and death.”

“What has she done?” Erik demanded.

“She gave her amber pendant to Duncan.”

The peregrine shrieked as though its blood had turned to fire.

But even the falcon's scream couldn't drown the chilling scream of masculine rage that came echoing down the keep's great hall from above.

Cassandra tilted her head as though savoring the sound. Her smile was as cruel as winter.

“Duncan's suffering has begun,” she said softly. “Amber's soon will end.”

Dominic looked from the Learned woman to Erik.

“What is she talking about?” Dominic demanded.

Erik simply shook his head, unable either to speak or to calm his falcon's wild cries. He looked as though he had been struck by a mailed fist.

Another scream of anger echoed. Before it ended there were horrible sounds of smashing and clashing and rending, as though a battle were being fought in the lord's bedchamber.

“Simon,” Dominic said, coming swiftly to his feet.

“Aye!”

Side by side, the two brothers raced up the stone stairway to Duncan's bedchamber. What they saw there made them pull up short in the doorway.

Duncan was a man possessed. Naked but for two amber talismans, he stood with the battle hammer in one hand. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a grimace of pain or rage or both in unholy communion.

With a lunge, he ripped covers from the bed and flung them into the hearth. Smoke bloomed sullenly, then burst into savage flames, burning even higher than before.

The hammer whistled and hummed in a deadly blur, driven by the mad power of Duncan's arm. The hammer descended, a wooden table exploded, and he kicked the pieces into the fire. Then the hammer sang again, cutting circles around Duncan's head, its moan in ghastly duet with his scream of fury. The bed frame was smashed to kindling and fed to the ravening fire.

Dominic had seen men like this before, in the heat of battle, when the leash was slipped on all that was human and only rage remained.

“There will be no reasoning with him,” Dominic said softly to Simon.

“Aye.”

“We have to take him before he turns on the people of the keep.”

“I'll get some rope from the armory.”

Dominic drew his sword. “Don't be long, brother.”

He was talking to himself. Simon already was sprinting toward the staircase.

Very quickly Simon reappeared with a coil of rope in his hand. Dominic was waiting in the doorway, his heavy black mantle in one hand and his sword in the other. As soon as he saw Simon, he sheathed the sword.