Lord Of Danger by Stuart, Anne (free ebook reader for android txt) 📗

of one of the four towers that surrounded Summersedge Keep. It was dark, and the pennons flapped wetly in the wind. She paused in the opening, cowering and hating herself for it as she tried to accustom her eyes to the darkness.

There was no other access to the turret. They were alone. He could throw her over the side with no one to witness it, and the only one who would mourn was Claire, who might already be dead in the forest.

She could see him now, standing with his back to her, facing into the pitch black night. Lightning sizzled all around him like a tapestry of stars and she watched in awe as it danced in the air about him. It sizzled downward, crashing onto the north tower, but he didn’t flinch, even as Alys cowered in the opening to the parapet. He was dangerous, god-like, elemental, part of the night and the storm, as terrifying and powerful as a bolt of lightning.

He must have felt her eyes on him. He turned, slowly, to look at her huddled in the entryway. He’d discarded his formal robes. His thin cambric shirt was drenched, clinging to his body, and his hose were wet as well. He leaned against the parapet, watching her, not even blinking as the rain washed down his bleak face. Watching her, as the thunder echoed around them. Watching her.

She wanted to turn and run, as she’d wanted to ever since she first set eyes on the creature. The man, for that was what he was. But the fear and the longing fought against each other, bringing her closer, ever closer. Bringing her up a twisted flight of stairs in the dark of night, to face her nemesis across a wind-swept expanse of stone. She hadn’t come this far just to run away.

She needed a sign from him, a word, but he’d given her none. She couldn’t even remember what had gone on between them in the dark hours of the night before, but she knew it had been monumental. She was finally ready to surrender, body and soul, but she needed to know he would accept the sacrifice.

The rain had let up, turning into a thick, soft drizzle. “What do you want, Alys?” he asked in a cool, weary voice.

You. The answer was clear in her head, but she was afraid to say it. “It’s raining,” she said.

“Very observant.” He pushed his long wet hair away from his face, sluicing some of the water away as well. “Did you come up to inform me of this?”

“There’s lightning. It’s dangerous.”

“I know that as well. I’m not afraid of thunder and lightning, sweet Alys. I’m not afraid of horses or men or death or even the wrath of God. I’m not afraid of anything.”

A faint ribbon of memory danced through her mind, and she spoke before she could think twice. “Except me,” she said.

He froze, a statue in the dark, rain-swept night. “I have no reason to be afraid of you, Alys. Your own terrors will keep you well away from me.” He moved his arm, and the lightning sizzled, followed by a loud clap of thunder.

Alys stumbled back onto the steps, and he laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “You see,” he said. “You don’t know what you want, and even if you did, your fears won’t let you reach for it. Go to bed, Alys. I won’t touch you again.”

Again. There was the word, proof that what she had forgotten had really happened. “Did you bed me last night?”

He smiled faintly. “Indeed. You weren’t sure whether you liked it or not, but in the end you were quite… amenable.”

“Why don’t I remember? Is it witchcraft? A spell of some sort?”

“Drugs,” he said succinctly. “You drank wine that was not meant for you, and the effect was calamitous. You were quite demanding, my love. A virgin bed was no longer an option you chose to accept.”

She could feel her cheeks flame red, the only warm part in her frozen body. He seemed oblivious to the cold and the wet, standing out there in the light rain. “Is that why I forgot?”

“Either because of the drug, or the shame of remembering that you wanted me.”

His eyes were cold. She didn’t think golden eyes would ever be cold, but his were. Colder than the rain.

“Why have you come here, Alys?” he asked again. “What do you want?”

She had no answers, and he turned his back on her, staring out into the stormy night once more.

She took a step upward, bare foot on icy wet stone, and a streak of lightning sizzled nearby. She took another as the thunder followed it, and the rain began to increase.

She was being tested, and she wasn’t sure who was doing it—a cantankerous wizard or a mischievous God. In the end it didn’t matter. She took another step, out into the opening of the turret, certain that something or someone would strike her dead.

“What are you doing, Alys?” He’d turned to watch her, and his expression was disbelieving.

She’d emerged from the winding staircase to stand out in the open, but she hadn’t yet been able to make her feet move further. “Facing my fears,” she said in a wobbly voice.

“Courting death?”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“The lightning might.”

“Are you going to kill me?” she persisted, flinching when the thunder rumbled again.

“Would you ride a horse for me?” he countered.

“Yes.”

“Would you walk across this parapet to come to me?”

“Yes.” And she started forward, shivering, as the rain lashed down around them.

He watched her with the quiet intensity of a man watching an acrobat walk across a narrow wire. He said nothing, made no gesture, as she slowly came toward him. She halted just out of reach, lifting her head and throwing back her shoulders with quiet determination.

“Would you come to me?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said. And he crossed the last few feet of parapet and pulled her into his arms, kissing her mouth.

He was wet,