The Taming (Peregrine 1)

The sun was high in the sky when he saw the outline of Moray Castle. He kept walking, stumbling over rocks, his muscles at last giving out after weeks of abuse.

One of the men on the parapets saw him, and within minutes, Severn was riding furiously toward him. Severn leaped off his horse before it stopped and clasped Rogan to him just as Rogan collapsed.

Severn was sure his brother was dying when he saw blood on his hands from Rogan’s back. He started to pull Rogan toward the horse.

“No,” Rogan said, pulling away. “Leave me.”

“Leave you? By all that’s holy, you have put us through hell. We heard Howard had killed you last night.”

“He did kill me,” Rogan whispered, turning away.

Severn saw the wound on his brother’s back. It was still bloody and deep, but it was not enough to kill a man. “Where is she?”

“Liana?” Rogan asked. “Liana is dead.”

Severn frowned. He had just been beginning to like that woman. She was a great deal of trouble, like all women, but she wasn’t a coward. He put his arm around Rogan’s shoulders. “We’ll find you another wife. We’ll find you a beautiful one this time, and if you want one that’ll set your bed on fire, we’ll find her. As soon as—”

Severn wasn’t prepared when Rogan whirled on him, slammed his fist in his jaw, and knocked him to the ground.

“You stupid bastard,” Rogan said, straddling his brother’s legs and glaring down at him. “You never understood anything. You with your high-born slut locked away, you fought her all the time. You made her life hell.”

“Me?” Severn put his hand to his bloody nose. He started to rise, but one look at Rogan’s face made him decide to stay where he was. “I wasn’t the one who slept with other women. I didn’t—” He stopped because the anger had left Rogan’s face. He turned away and walked into the forest.

Severn got up and went to stand behind his brother. “I didn’t mean to insult her memory. I liked her, but she’s gone now and there are other women. At least she didn’t betray you with Oliver Howard as your first wife did. Or did she? Is that why you’re so angry?”

Rogan turned to his brother and, to Severn’s horror and disbelief, there were tears that were beginning to roll down Rogan’s cheeks. Severn could not speak. Rogan had not shed tears at the death of his father or any of his brothers.

“I loved her,” Rogan whispered. “I loved her.”

Severn was too embarrassed to watch this. He could not bear to see his brother cry. He backed away. “I’ll leave the horse,” he mumbled. “Come back when you’re ready.” He left very quickly.

Rogan collapsed to sit on a rock, his face buried in his hands, and began to cry in earnest. He had loved her. He had loved her smiles, her laughter, her temper, the pleasure she received from the smallest things. She had brought laughter to him after a lifetime of hatred. She had given him clothes without lice or fleas, food that didn’t grind his teeth down. She’d brought that arrogant bitch Iolanthe out of hiding, and she didn’t know it but she’d made Zared ask Rogan to buy her some women’s clothes.

And now she was gone. Killed in the feud with the Howards.

Perhaps her death should increase his hatred of the Howards, but it didn’t. What did he care for the Howards? He wanted Liana back, his soft, sweet Liana who threw things when she was angry and kissed him when she was pleased.

“Liana,” he whispered, and cried harder.

He didn’t hear the footsteps in the soft bracken, and his grief was so deep that he didn’t move when the soft hand touched his cheek.

Liana knelt before him and pulled his hands away from his face. She looked at his tear-stained face and tears came to her own eyes. “I am here, my love,” she whispered, and kissed his hot eyelids, then his cheeks. “I am safe.”

Rogan could only gape at her.

Liana smiled at him. “Have you nothing to say to me?”

He caught her and pulled her into his lap, then went rolling with her to the forest floor. His tears turned to laughter as he

rolled over and over with her in his arms, his hands running up and down her body as if to reassure himself she was real.

At last he stopped and lay on his back, Liana on top of him, holding her so close she could barely breathe.

“How?” he whispered. “The Howard bitch—”

She put her fingertips to his lips. “Jeanne,” she said pointedly, “saved our lives. She knew one of her women was a traitor, and moments before she came to me, she overheard something that made her believe she knew which one it was. She sent me one way and took her traitorous maid the way you went. The woman thought Jeanne, shrouded in a cloak, was me and tried to stab her. Jeanne killed the woman while I was safe further down the wall. She had to tell you I was dead because she knew that otherwise you’d never leave the grounds.”

She caressed Rogan’s cheek. “I saw you swimming. If the Howard men hadn’t been so interested in you, they would have seen me. Jeanne had horses waiting, so I was never far behind you, but you traveled so fast I could not catch you.”