22 Nights (30 page)

“I certainly don’t want you to worry about me,” Savyn said. “I’ll be all right. If my sight returns, I’ll go home and take up where I left off, mending and building wheels and making swords.”

“And if it does not?” she asked sharply.

“Then I will go where God takes me, I suppose.”

Her pace increased; it almost sounded like she was running. When she grabbed his arm and yanked, shifting him off balance, he almost fell. Instead, he righted himself clumsily and turned to face her, wishing he could see her angry eyes and her wild hair and her luscious lips. Yes, he had to get away from her. This had to stop, or he would go mad.

“There is something you do not know,” she said softly, even though there was no one around for miles to hear her words.

“I imagine there is much I do not know.”

“I lied to you,” she said more harshly.

“A fine lady such as yourself owes me nothing, not even the truth.”

“Stop it,” she whispered.

“Stop what?”

“Stop being so damned gallant and calm. I lied to you! Because of me, an assassin took your sight and nearly killed you. You should despise me!”

“And yet I do not,” Savyn said. “I do not despise you at all. Could not, even if I wished to do so. Why is that, Lady Leyla? ”

He did wonder what lie she had told him, but in truth he did not care. He still wanted her. He still loved her. What a ridiculous notion, that he might be allowed to love one such as her.

“We were lovers,” she said, her voice even lower than a whisper.

For the first time in a long while, Savyn laughed. “I believe I would remember if that were true.”

He heard Lady Leyla take a deep breath and hold it for a moment before she said, “I took the memories from you.”

Savyn felt as if she had kicked him in the gut. What she suggested was a ridiculous notion, and yet it explained much. His fantasies were, at least in part, lost memories fighting to come back. His love for her, his need to protect her, they were not new at all. Everything fell into place, and he felt a rush of fury and regret. “Why? Why would you make me forget?”

She spoke softly and quickly, spitting out the words. “I was leaving, and I had no choice in the matter. More than anything, I wanted you to be happy, to have a wonderful life, and I could not give that to you. All I could do was let you go, and I did so the only way I knew how.”

“By using your witchcraft on me and erasing a part of my past?”

“Yes.”

He did not know whether to be angry or relieved. In truth he was both. “Can you put the memories back?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and she reached out to touch his forehead. “I have never tried. I suspect the memories are simply gone and cannot be retrieved.”

Savyn wished again that he could see her eyes at this moment. Was she sorry she’d ravaged his mind to clear her own conscience? Did she regret using witchcraft on her lover?

“Someone’s coming,” he said, sensing the rumble of the road, hearing the distant creak of a wheel. “A wagon,” he added. “Two horses, I believe.”

“We should hide in the woods until they pass,” Lady Leyla said, taking his arm and guiding him and the horse in that direction. He wanted to shake off her hold, but did not. With his stick he could find his way to and into the forest, but locating a proper trail and a hiding place was another matter. He had become a pathetic creature.

When they were a short distance from the road, he asked, “What was I to you, Lady Leyla, a stud? A convenience when your husband could not satisfy you? Did you pay me for my services?”

“No!” she said, softly but insistently. “It was not like that, not at all.”

“Then what was it like?” he asked.

Lady Leyla came to a halt and said, “We can wait here. We’re far enough from the road and the growth here is thick enough that those passing should not see us.”

Using her voice as a guide, he found and grabbed her face. “What was it like?” he whispered.

“We should talk about this later,” she said, her voice as soft as his own.

“No, we will talk about it now. I want to know what you did to me, and I want to know why. Did your husband pay me to do what he could not?”

Lady Leyla sighed. “You and I were not together until long after my husband died.”

“Did you love him, then?”

“No,” she answered sharply. “I was a spouse bought and paid for, a slave as much as a wife. There could be no love in such a relationship.”

“Did you love me?” He could hear the wagon on the road as it passed them without pausing. Children laughed and talked quickly, making so much noise there was little chance anyone would hear the words in the forest above the creak of wheels, the clop of hooves, and the voices of children. And if anything was heard, it would be dismissed as the whispers of animals or the scurrying of forest dwellers.

“Love would not have been wise,” Lady Leyla said, her voice trembling just slightly. “Not then and not now.”

“Of course not. The fine lady and the poor craftsman would not make a proper couple, not at all, not even when I could see. My, how people would talk.”

“I never cared for any of that,” she insisted. “People have talked about me all my life, and I learned a long time ago to dismiss whispers, to ignore the hate and the fear. But you, Savyn, I suspect you trouble yourself more than I do over what people say.”

“Did you ever ask me if I cared about such things?”

“I am nine years older than you!” she said sharply, ignoring his question. “It would not be at all fair for me to bind myself to you when a future was impossible.”

Savyn placed his hand on her cheek. Yes, the curve of her cheek felt familiar, just as her scent and her voice and his fantasies were so sharply and torturously familiar. Nine years seemed nothing to him, so unimportant that he was angry she would even think of it as a problem. “If all this is true, then why do you tell me now? Why didn’t you just let me go?”

“You need me,” she whispered, though the wagon had passed and the time for whispering had passed as well. “You can’t go out into the world alone, not like this.”

He didn’t want her to feel sorry for him. She could hate him, she could want him, she could be bored with him, or angry or frustrated—but he would not have her pity. “I’ve been having fantasies about you,” he said. “Vivid dreams so real I thought they would drive me insane.”

“You should remember nothing,” she said softly.

“And yet, I do. I have always had a gnawing need to protect you, and there are moments when my hands itch to touch you, and I have to clench them into fists to keep from reaching out. Since I’ve been injured, it’s become more intense, more real, but from the moment we left Childers, there was . . . something. Something maddening. I knew long before I stole a kiss what your lips taste like,” he whispered, lowering his head slightly, “and I know very well what it feels like to slide into your heat, how you gasp when you find release, how your fine sheets sometimes smell of us. If you took all that away, why is it still with me? I swear, the bits and pieces that flit through my mind are enough to steal the last of my reason.”

It was Leyla—Lady Leyla—who closed the distance between them and kissed him. Her lips met his and it was, as before, like coming home. Like finding himself again, after being lost for so long. It no longer mattered that he could not see. He could feel. He could feel very well.

She tasted as he knew she should, and when his hand caressed her breast, the gentle swell filled his hand, as was right. As the kiss grew deeper, Leyla made an agreeable sound that spoke of need and passion and the love she denied. Trinity’s horse ran from them; they did not care. Leyla—just Leyla, not Lady Leyla, not when he held her this way—wrapped her arms around his waist and held on. She was so warm and soft, so right in his arms.

Savyn dropped to his knees, still entangled with Leyla as they fell. The kiss turned frantic; they were lost in each other, for the moment. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth and held it there, then deepened the kiss and thrust his tongue into her mouth, devouring her, taking what he had only dreamed of.

This was his dream come true, and it was good. He did not need to see in order to kiss Leyla, in order to arouse her. He had held her in the dark many times and he knew her body well, just as she knew his. It was such a relief to know that there was a reason for his love, for his fantasies. He was not mad, and his aching need to protect her, to be with her, to have her, it was all natural and right. Leyla had tried to take this from him, but in spite of her magic he remembered. Perhaps he remembered with his heart, not his head. Perhaps her magic could not touch him there.

He pushed her skirt high, his fingers brushing her bare thighs, and she whispered, “Yes.” She was ready for him, wet and hot, and he teased her with hands that knew her body very well. He did not think, he simply followed instinct as he aroused her.

Leyla fumbled frantically with the ties of his trousers and released his swollen penis. She rolled onto the ground and brought him with her, her thighs wrapping around him. Her gasp and her hands spurred him on as she guided him to her damp center.

He thrust deep, and when he did, everything he was, all he had ever been, was inside Leyla.

Savyn forgot that he was blind as he made love to Leyla hard and fast. It might’ve been nighttime in the confines of her bedchamber, with the drapes shut tight so no one would be able to see. They were upon hard ground instead of her soft mattress, but he did not care. All he cared about was being inside her, making her shake and scream.

She did shake and scream, and as her inner muscles quaked, he found his own release deep inside her. How could something so pleasurable be wrong? He did not care that she was older than he was, he did not care that people would talk. She was like no other woman in the world, and she was his. He could not remember details, she had taken them from him, but the feelings of possession remained. Leyla was his.

No, she had been his, but no more. He could get lost in her body, and he was glad to have this encounter to remember, since she had taken his other memories from him. He could not trust a woman who had used her magic on him, and he would not be a burden to her as she started her new life.

Leyla kissed him sweetly, and he was tempted to tell her that he loved her, one last time. He was certain he had told her before, perhaps many times. But if he said those words to her now, she would never let him walk away. She would follow him no matter where he went, obligated and forever bound.

“I needed that,” Savyn said casually as he withdrew and moved away from Leyla to right his trousers. “It’s been a while—I think,” he added sourly, “and I was sorely in need of relief. So were you, judging by your reaction. It’s nice to know that one skill remains, sight or no.”

“What?” He could hear the pain in Leyla’s voice, and was sorry for it, but the truth was impossible.

“You heard me. I am blind, but you are not deaf, Lady Leyla.”

He heard the rustle of her gown as she straightened her skirts.

“So, what now?” he asked sharply. “The horse is gone.”

“I never wanted to keep Trinity’s horse in any case,” Leyla said, her voice slightly thick. “Everything I took from the saddlebags is well hidden back at the hut.”

Savyn tried to keep his expression impassive. He did not smile or frown. “I suspect you are not going to allow me to keep walking away from you.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Then we will travel to the village up the road together, and there we will part. I suppose it would be best if we separate before we see the villagers. I will pass myself off as a traveling beggar, and you can make up whatever tale you wish to start your new life.”

“I would like to stay with you,” Leyla said. “I can take care of you, at least until we know if your sight will return or not. It’s still too soon to say for certain.”

“No,” Savyn said sharply. He knew she would argue with him, he knew she would be hard to shake, if she wished to remain with him. “You lied to me, Lady Leyla. You took my memories with your damned magic, you nearly drove me insane.”

“I thought it was for the best,” she whispered.

“Well, you did a good job, My Lady. I have forgotten. I thank you for the fucking, but if I ever loved you, that love is gone.”

 

MERIN
opened his eyes, surprised he’d slept so deeply. Bela still slept, naked and partially wrapped around him. It took a moment for him to realize that he was naked, too, and then he realized he was dreaming and he relaxed. What a nice dream.

The walls sang the lullaby Bela had sung to him in order to dull their unwanted voices. It was a lovely lullaby, a soothing melody which comforted him, which pulled him into the deepest of sleeps.

To be trapped in this enchanted mountain where voices invaded his mind should be a nightmare, a terror, but at this moment he did not feel at all terrified. He’d had nightmares before, and this was not one of them.

Bela would not appear in any of his nightmares, he was sure. She was a woman of pleasant dreams, the participant in dreams he did not want to end. The kind where upon waking, he would try to fall asleep again quickly, so he could regain the wonder.

She lifted her head and smiled at him, and her hands danced boldly along his body. Her hair fell in chestnut waves, and she gave him that wide and wonderful smile which made him love her.

She fed him, taking freshly sliced fruit and roasted meat from a nearby plate and slipping the small pieces into his mouth. He was hungry, and it was good to eat something besides an oatcake. When he’d had his fill, he returned the favor and fed Bela, taking pieces of food from the golden plate that never seemed to diminish, no matter how much they ate. It was a dream, after all.

After they had eaten, they kissed for a while. They kissed as if they had been apart for a very long time and could not stay apart. Bela was his, and she was so giving, so unguarded. His hand slipped between her thighs, and they opened for him. She was warm and wet, slick and ready.