The Conqueror

The lines around his mouth deepened into a grin. “It soothes men too, Raven.”

“See?” she exhaled, throwing up her free hand in mock exasperation. “I will get nothing but what you wish to share, so I will ask nothing more.”

He picked up the jug of wine. When he cocked a brow in mute question, she replied by extending her empty cup.

He leaned forward and tipped the flagon forward, sloshing wine in. She nodded her thanks and retreated to the pillows. Outside the storm kicked and screamed, throwing itself against the stone walls, trying to get in.

“Highways or halls, mistress,” he murmured in his deep, masculine rumble, “there are always things to be seen and heard, when one is watchful and listening.”

She eyed him sideways. So, he was answering. Of a sort. “And is that what you were doing? Watching and listening?”

“A bit.”

“In times like these—”

“In times like these,” he said, cutting her off, “pretty ladies shouldn’t ride out on highways alone. They might meet dangerous men.”

She slipped back into the warmth of the furs. “You have already pointed out you are not one.”

He reached out again, this time retrieving a chunk of bread from the wooden platter set on the window ledge. Popping the bread in his mouth, he chewed, his gaze held on her. A sort of grimness had descended on him again.

“Not to you,” he finally said.

“Lucky me.”

“I’ll say,” was his dry rejoinder.

“Then to whom?”

He laughed and shook his head. “You’re unstoppable.”

She set the cup of wine on the furs covering her knees and tried to balance it. “Most find it simpler to surrender.”

“I am not most.”

The cup tipped over and she grabbed it just in time. No, she decided, sliding her eyes surreptitiously along his body, he was not ‘most,’ nor ‘many,’ nor anything but ‘one.’ Something about him pulsed with passion and verve and it was seeping into her bones, making her life sit like a yawning chasm of despair beneath. She had a sudden flash of insight, seeing her life before and after him as it always had been, aching and dry, like a week-old fish.

A streak of white light illuminated the room, then thunder descended in a mighty, crashing boom. Gwyn jumped half out of bed. Strange eerie moans keened their laments around the eaves of the building. A blast of furious wind set its shoulder to the side of the structure and pushed. The ends of her hair lifted in a ghostly breath of damp air that surged through the cracks in the walls. The shutters lurched and creaked, ballooning out in a thin wooden bubble, then sucking in, as if some giant god were blowing full a pig’s bladder for children’s play. Then, with a mighty crash, the shutters flung wide and crashed against the walls. She jumped fully and clutched the covers to her chest.

“Rest easy,” came Pagan’s low, steady voice.

He moved through the room like a strange dancer, hidden in darkness, then appearing in jerky moves as flashes of lightning split the sky. After each flash of blinding light came another detonation of thunder; the storm had settled in over the abandoned inn.

Winds whipped at Pagan’s chainse as he crossed the room, moulding it to his body. When he reached the window, he spent half a moment staring out. No oil parchment covered the opening; only the slatted wooden covering protected the inhabitants. Gwyn watched as lightning lit up the planes of his face, her mind spinning. Good Lord, she was not who she’d thought herself to be. All she wanted was for him to kiss her again.

“I used to ride in such storms,” she announced, staring at his back.

He angled his chin to the side, giving her his profile. “Ride? In a storm like this?”

She smiled. “Perhaps not quite like this. And aye, I rode. My horse. Windstalker.”

“A goodly name,” he replied, and pulled the shutters closed. With a flick of his wrist, he lowered the small iron rung, locking them in place. Casting his enigmatic eyes over the dark humps scattered throughout the room, he reached for a hemp towel slung over the bench and hooked it over the edges of the window. It fell down as extra covering, lifting and falling as winds buffeted the walls.

“You’ve a good horse too,” she said. “Noir.”

“The best,” he agreed quietly. “I had another, though, when I was young.”

“The ones when we were young are always the best.” She pushed herself straight against the pillows. “I got Wind when I was eight. Not all grown, mind you, but a foal, mine to raise. Papa said I was too young, but Mamma convinced him. She understood how I felt. She always underst—” She stopped short and swallowed. “I spent every moment with Wind. I remember nothing else of that year or the next—only Wind.”