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“Are you unwell?” he asked.
She gave a shrug and a confused smile. “A little light-headed. No supper. I wasn’t hungry.”
She studied him as if she searched for something in his face, and he met her clear gaze head-on. Stars glowed in the blue depths of her eyes. Points of light hold
ing at bay a midnight void that seemed to suck him always downward. He held her gaze as if he gripped a cliff edge. Drew himself up to stand above her, her face tilted to meet him.
She barely reached as high as his collarbone, and his hands could span her tiny waist, but she never once regarded him with fear or hesitation. As if she read beyond the menacing strength of his body and the violence lurking in his mind.
“So much for the pitcher of water I brought you.”
He tipped her chin. Swam in that star-shot sea of blue. Sensed her curious excitement in the hesitant parting of her lips, the slight sway of her body toward him. If he kissed her, she’d respond. It wouldn’t take more than moments to have her answering his need with her own.
Caressing the line of her jaw, the column of her throat, he felt her mounting anticipation. A passion bound but not broken by the order’s constraints.
He bent to brush his lips against hers. She closed her eyes, fluttering black lashes shadowing the rose of her cheeks. One shy hand touched his chest. Fingers spread against the jump of muscles beneath his skin.
And with an earth-rocking explosion that tore through him with the force of a gunshot, present exploded into past.
The coiled serpent freed itself. Shattered his control, bringing with it a bowel-knifing ferocity. The man’s face returned. Pitiless. Twisted in frenzied, ruthless hate. A sword cut the air. Its downward thrust punching through Daigh’s flesh with screaming agony. And again. The blade sending ice cascading along his veins. And an answering ferocity that singed his heart.
He shoved her away, falling onto the pallet, head on fire. Body numb. Struggling against the memory while battling the menacing presence that seemed bent on its own dark purpose. It wanted him. But for what?
“Oh gods, let me help you.” She knelt at his side, taking hold of his hand, but he shook her off. Unable to endure the transformation of her touch from desire to sympathy.
“Leave me.”
Hurt clouded her clear blue gaze.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out.” He hardened his heart. Not difficult while his body remained caught in this malignant storm. Retching, he drew himself into a fetal ball, shuddering against the paroxysms raking him like a fusillade.
“I’ll get Sister Ainnir.”
He scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “You’ll get no one. You’ll tell no one. Do you hear me?”
Despite his humiliation and fear, his tone still carried the bite of command.
She nodded slowly as she groped for the door handle. “You won’t harm me, Daigh. I know that for truth. No matter what Ard-siúr says.”
So, she’d been warned away from him? Sorrow touched the frozen place in him, and he almost wished he never remembered. That his past could be shed like an outgrown skin. He could become someone new. Someone honorable. Someone worthy of Sabrina’s trust.
Sabrina stumbled into night’s damp, bone-chilling fog. Steadied herself against a column as she inhaled long, dragging gulps, letting the cold air settle thoughts ricocheting from heart-thundering desire to jagged alarm, hitting every emotion in between.
Her head swam, making her woozy and sick. Just as it had done moments earlier when she’d bent to the water pitcher and experienced diamond-clear images of her and Daigh together—she squirmed—doing things she had never done. Not with Daigh. Not with any man. It had been so real. An instant in time but she’d reveled in his hands upon her skin, welcomed the light of desire in his eyes, heard the gasp of her own breath as he entered her.
Had he hypnotized her? Cast some spell of seduction? Did that explain the strange flashes and queer feelings he generated? Or was she merely fishing for excuses to justify her own hoydenish behavior? She’d almost let him kiss her. Wanted him to kiss her. Badly.
Thoughts whirled and spun in an endless tangled loop. Her stomach lurched as her vision clouded and burst with odd spearing lights and colors. Black. Gold. Red. Purple.
The fog thickened, muffling sound, erasing everything around her, including the column she leaned against. She clung to it, trying not to faint, hoping the air would clear her head, but the sweet tang of wet leaves and wood smoke filled her nose.
As the fog dissipated, she stood in a clearing, arms wrapped about a huge moss-covered tree trunk, branches lifting away into the sky to mix with branches from hundreds and thousands of other trees as massive as this oak. A path wound off to her left, and she heard water passing over stones, the jingle of harness from a tethered horse. A man emerged into the dappled light. Daigh. Though he carried himself with an easy stride, unlike his usual tension-filled prowling.
She stepped forward into his embrace, his arms encircling her. His breath warm against her cheek. And it happened. The kiss she’d been waiting for. Her stomach leapt into her throat. He bent and . . .
A blast of air stung her face. An icy rain chilled her skin. She stood alone. In the dark. The courtyard, rather than the primeval forest, rising around her. The fog had thinned to streamers of heavy mist, leaving her shivering and afraid, yet aching with a unexpected yearning to return to that forest glen.
Was Daigh conjuring these visions? Was she?
