Books by Maggie Shayne (42 page)

He held her harder, unable, unwilling to tell her that he, too, was afraid. Afraid of losing her when he’d only just found her again. Afraid that this might be the last time he’d have the chance to hold her in his arms this way. For this battle, Ren had no doubt, was going to be the end of him, one way or another. Win or lose.

He only hoped Annie, remarkable, wonderful Annie, would be strong enough to go on without him. To raise his child, their child, to be the leader this world so desperately needed. To love it enough to make up for his not being there to do the same.

Annie bowed over the patient mare, clinging to a handful of her wet mane and clamping her jaw tight. Even through the rain slicker, she felt the cold. It had come suddenly, the drastic drop in temperature seemingly accompanying the furious storm. The wind was brutal, and Annie realized now that the sudden windstorm she’d experienced on the lake had been mild in comparison. It had tossed and shaken her, soaked and chilled her, but she’d never felt as if she’d been in any real danger.

This, on the other hand, was cruel. The sheets of rain stung her face, making mere droplets into razors. The vicious wind turned gentle fragrant pine boughs into lashing whips. The rain slashed so violently that she couldn’t see the trail they followed. The cold was so intense that even the horse shivered and shook its head in protest with every few steps it took.

Or maybe the mare simply sensed the evil presence as clearly as Annie did.

And it was dark. Such thick, murky darkness that it was like a living thing. She felt as if it were pushing out the air around her, replacing it with its putrid presence. The darkness wasn’t night. Not this time. According to the clock it should be broad daylight here now. No, this darkness was made of evil.

And then Annie felt something, and a new terror swept through her. Her trembling intensified. She was wet and cold, but the shaking came more from fear than from the chill that had settled into her bones. Brilliant, blinding terror clutched Annie’s soul. And its source wasn’t the one Ren might guess. It wasn’t the storm that so frightened her. It wasn’t Ren’s certainty that his nemesis was about to make a move against them. It wasn’t just the isolation and the darkness and the feeling that they were utterly alone here to face this powerful enemy without any hope of assistance.

No.

Her fear was based solely on the sudden cramping pain that banded her lower torso like an iron girdle. It crushed around her abdomen and lower back, drawing ever tighter, chasing the breath from her body, taking her so fiercely, she couldn’t even cry out in response, couldn’t even utter a single word.

Instead she bent lower over the mare’s back, one arm hugging her middle instinctively beneath the tent like poncho. With her other hand, she grasped the slippery
wet
pommel. For once she was glad Ren held the reins. She closed her eyes tightly and focused on the warmth and the scent rising from her mount’s wet coat. She closed her ears to the high-pitched keen of the wind as it ravaged the pines overhead, violating their purity with its filth. She even avoided inhaling that bad air when it swept down and up again, filling the hood she wore like a balloon and sending it backward, exposing her head to the rain.

Unnatural rain! Impure! Polluted
!

The thoughts racing through her mind were insane, but she jerked the hood up again, feeling contaminated by the water in her hair.

She clenched her teeth as the pain intensified, and dropped her chin to her chest, keeping her face hidden within the folds of the yellow hood. If Ren should look her way at the moment a flash of lightning split the black sky, she didn’t want him seeing her face contorted in agony. No sense alarming him. Not yet. There was nothing he could do.
It
was a mere thirty-minute ride down off the mountain and to her parents’ ranch. There would be help for her there.

She envisioned her parents’ cozy home to distract herself from the pain. A warm, dry place to lie down. Her mother’s efficient bustling and the I-told-you-so tone in her voice. Her father’s solid presence. He hadn’t changed in years, and she realized now that his constant presence in her life was as important to her as that of this place. Her father had always been there when she’d needed him. Always. He’d be there when she arrived. He’d be strong and stoic and calm.

And Ren would be there with her as well. She visualized him stroking her brow, kissing her face, easing her mind as she gave birth to his child. Ren’s soothing voice would make the pain easier to bear. His touch, his pride in her, would get her through anything.

Sweet Maria would be there, too, holding her hand and telling old, familiar stories.

A telephone. An ambulance. Paramedics on the way to take her to a nice safe hospital. Reassuring thoughts. Surely all of those things and more were only a few minutes away. All she had to do was sit on the gentle mare and hold on. Even in this storm the horse could find her way down to the ranch. It would be just a few more minutes. Labor lasted far longer than that. In a few more minutes, she’d get help.

Unless the phones are out. What if the phones

are out and we still can’t call an ambulance or get any help? What then
?

She chided herself. The phones would not be out. And even if they were, Annie assured herself that Maria could probably do a better job delivering a child than most obstetricians with twenty-twenty vision. She’d know what to do. Maria would know.

When she got to the house, Maria would probably comfort her while calmly explaining that this was just a false alarm. It wasn’t true labor. It couldn’t be. It was too early. She had a month to go.

The giant fist that had been squeezing Annie’s middle relaxed just slightly, and she lifted her head. Immediately the wind whipped her hood back and rain slashed at her face. She drew her first full breath in what felt like a long time, and she blinked the hot moisture from her eyes, grateful for the darkness that shielded her tearstained face from Ren’s watchful gaze.

But before the first wave of pain had fully receded, a second, even stronger one slammed into her, the force and unexpectedness of it pushing a strangled cry from her throat. She felt the horses come to an abrupt halt, sensed the way Ren’s head snapped around toward her. Felt his eyes piercing through the darkness.

“Annie, what is it?”

She tried to answer and found it impossible. Her jaw seemed to have locked itself into a painfully tight clench. Her teeth grated and she could barely draw a breath, let alone answer his urgent question.

“Annie?”

She heard the creak of wet leather, then his feet as they slapped the muddied ground. She wanted to straighten, to look at him, to reassure him. But for the life of her she couldn’t unbend. If anything, her body wanted to fold itself in half, only her protruding belly made that impossible.

His hand covered hers on the pommel, and before she understood his intent, he was mounted behind her. Bending close to her, his face pressed to the wet yellow vinyl of the hood, he spoke to her, and she heard the concern in his deep voice. “Annie, tell me. What’s the matter?” As he spoke, his arms came around her waist, slipping beneath the poncho. His strong hands opened and his palms flattened against her belly.

The pain clutched tighter, and she felt her abdominal muscles contract so hard and fast and brutally that it seemed she was being torn apart. She screamed. Her cry echoed into the storm, joining its ghostly wail and finally becoming lost in it. Annie’s spine felt as if it would snap in two. The pain didn’t ease. She stopped screaming only because she’d run out of breath and she couldn’t draw another.

Ren swore loud and long. “God, not now! Not here!”

His protests, she knew, were directed at fate, not at Annie. And then he kicked the mare’s sides and the horse moved ahead at a brisk walk. As they passed the stallion, Ren leaned over and caught his reins, leading him along beside them.

“Lean back against me, Annie. Try to relax. We’ll be at the house soon. Your mother will be there. I’ll get help for you. You’ll be all right; I swear it. And so will the baby.”

She answered him quickly when the tide of pain began to recede, knowing too well how soon she’d be flooded again. “Ren, this isn’t right. It’s…” She paused, panting, dizzy from lack of oxygen, barely able to find the strength to speak as loudly as she must in order to make herself heard above the storm. “It’s too intense. Too sudden. It can’t be—”

The next contraction cut her off midsentence, attacking with no buildup, no warning. Just a sudden, wrenching pain that had no mercy. And as she clutched herself, she tilted sideways in the saddle, only realizing how close she came to tumbling from the horse when Ren pulled her upright again and held her to him.

“My God.” It seemed to be all he could say.

He held her, rubbing her belly with his soothing hand, kissing her face as they moved onward—until the mare blew angrily and stomped her forefoot, coming to a stop and refusing to take another step.

Ren went very still, not saying another word. Annie felt the tension in his firm body double, and she knew something was happening.

She didn’t ask what was wrong. She couldn’t. She managed to pry her eyes open, and she blinked away enough moisture to see the giant pine lying at a cockeyed angle down across the bridge. Or rather, what was left of the bridge. Even in this unrelieved darkness, she could see that there wasn’t a hell of a lot.

It was too dark to eye the steep incline of the washed-out hollow the bridge had spanned, but Annie didn’t need to see it. She’d practically grown up here. Without the bridge, that gully would have been difficult to cross under any circumstances. Especially for her, in this condition. Now, with all this rain, its raw banks would be mud-slicked and treacherous.

“We can’t go on,” Ren said. “I’m sorry, Annie. Is there a way around?”

She bit her lip, lifted her gaze to his, shook her head. “T-too… far,” she croaked.

“We’ll have to go back.”

The horse obeyed Ren’s hands, turning in the path to face the way they’d come. But it didn’t move forward. And before Annie could start to wonder why, she heard her answer.

“Well, White Knight. We meet again. And fate seems to be working against you this time.”

Annie’s head snapped up fast, and she saw the villainous bastard there. Blackheart, still anonymous within the folds of his black-hooded garment. He sat astride one of Satan’s own stallions, a beast as black and menacing as its rider. It pranced and pawed at the muddy ground.

“Ah, the lady’s still conscious. Well, what a little trouper she must be.”

“Go back to hell where you came from,” Annie shouted. The force of her pain gave the words strength and venom.

“Not just yet, fair lady. When I go, I’ll be taking your handsome knight with me. He’s broken his vows, you know. Taking physical pleasure with a mortal woman.” He shook his head slowly. “Penalty for that is death. But he knew that. Didn’t you, Ren?”

“No,” Annie whispered as her blood slowly drained to her feet. A new pain overshadowed even that of her unnatural labor for an instant:

the knowledge that by seducing her husband, she could have sentenced him to death. By trying so hard to hold on to him, she may have lost him.

“Oh, yes,” Blackheart all but hissed.

“Don’t listen to him, Annie.” Ren held her, spoke close to her ear.

“A crying shame, really, that it’s against the rules for me to kill you, too, dear Annie. You’d probably rather I did, wouldn’t you? Are you really going to want to live once I’ve taken your knight and your child?”

“Don’t answer him! If you consent, he’ll be free to murder you. Don’t—”

“You aren’t going to kill either of them, you filthy bastard!” Annie put all of her remaining strength into that proud declaration.

Blackheart’s laughter was dark and menacing. And in it Annie heard the gloat of certain victory. Then the pain hit her again, and she heard nothing at all. She bent over and tried to breathe.

“Why, lady, you seem to be in a bit of distress,” Blackheart mocked. “Whatever could be wrong? Ren, attentive Hero that you are, you haven’t been neglecting her, have you? And of course you’ve made certain she’s been taking her vitamins, those modern wonders of this day and age. Haven’t you?”

Annie’s eyes flashed wider, but she couldn’t look at him. Oh, God, the vitamins. It all came back to her now. The way she’d questioned her own mind when they seemed to become so bitter-tasting overnight. He’d switched them, given her some powerful labor-inducing chemical. He’d drugged her!

Then why hadn’t she had the baby before this? Oh, but as her mind fought for clarity, she knew the answer. She hadn’t taken a pill before this. That morning at home, as she’d tried to do so, the glass had seemingly leaped off the sink of its own accord. And this morning when she’d tried, a wind-driven wave had swept the whole bottle right out of the tiny boat.

Almost as if the lake itself and the sky above it had been trying to protect her. If such a thing were possible. God, she’d thought herself so clever, managing to save one small capsule from the lake’s greedy hands. She should have known better.

The lake is pure
.

For some reason, Maria’s tales about Mystic Lake came back to haunt Annie. Someone—
something
—had been trying to keep her from taking those pills. Maria used to say the lake had a magic all its own.

Annie shivered as she thought maybe it was true.

Whatever it was, she prayed the benevolent force would return and help her just once more. She needed it now, more than ever.

“Dammit, Blackheart, this goes beyond even your code of conduct!” Ren searched the storm-tossed forests in every direction, seeking help, finding none. Knowing he wouldn’t, even during the battle. Having broken his vows, he could hope for no support from the powers of goodness. And there would likely be no assistance or guidance from Sir George. Ren suspected he was on his own this time.

He knew he had to fight the bastard, but he detested leaving Annie alone in this condition. Her pain tore at Ren’s heart.

Blackheart stopped laughing and eyed Annie. “She’ll probably pass out soon from the force of the pain. There’s only so much a woman can take, you know. The baby will be forced partway, but with her unable to push…” Blackheart shrugged. “Poor thing will likely suffocate.”

Annie shuddered violently in his arms, and Ren tasted bile. “This woman,” he stated, “is stronger than you can imagine. And she won’t faint from the pain, Blackheart. But you might, before I’m through with you.” Ren wanted nothing more at that moment than to see the forest floor run red with Blackheart’s lifeblood.