The irony of those words, repeated eight years later, wasn’t lost onher.
“Merciful or not, the gods have a poor humor.” Alaric’s feeble smile only emphasized the spark of anger kindled in his eyes. “I’ll take my young to her dam in a few days.” He gripped her shoulders with hard hands. “Wait for me. I will return. Don’t leave Byderside, Beth. I’ll search the world for you this time, but I’d rather find you safe in yourvillage.”
His insistence eased her aching heart. His promise pushed back the emptiness blossoming within her. She even teased him a little. “What if you choose to stay with your femalewyvern?”
Alaric laughed, a touch of real amusement in the sound. “Then I best prepare for a bloody brawl. Damoshin is a fierce female, unwilling to share her lands. She’d challenge me if I dared stay more than an hour or so after returning our offspring to her.” He kissed her lightly. “Remember, we do not bond with each other in thatway.”
Elsbeth ran her finger down his nose, stroked the curve of his cheekbone and the softness of his beard. “I’ll wait, but confess I’m afraid. I want more than another near decade of empty years,Alaric.”
He captured her hand and pressed it to his cheek. His voice was fierce, determined when he answered her. “Then you fear for nothing. I came back for you once. I’ll not lose youagain.”
“If Angus were not so ill and your little one not so perilous, I’d insist you let mestay.”
“There’d be no insisting, Beth. I wouldn’t let youleave.”
They didn’t speak again, save for murmurs of encouragement and pleasure as Alaric took her again, this time leisurely. Afterward, they bathed each other with the tepid water remaining in the ewer. Elsbeth ran her cloth over Alaric’s body with the reverence of a votary. She savored the feel of him, the curve of each muscle, the smoothness of his bronzed skin. Committed them to memory in case he did not return, and she had nothing more than an image that would inevitably dim withage.
He helped her pack and dress in that same silence, as if by not speaking, time would slow and give them a few more hours together. Elsbeth was the one to break it first. She shouldered her pack. “I’mready.”
Alaric gave her a grim smile. “Then that makes one of us.” He embraced her, heedless of the cumbersome pack. “I will fly you to the farmer’s land, the one near Maldoza’sbase.”
Elsbeth was tempted. Anything to prolong her time with him. But his obligations were as important as hers. Someone depended on him as well. “No. You need to be near your daughter. I’ve walked the cliffs twice now. I’ll be fine.” She stared at him, swallowing hard to hold back tears. “I love you. Besafe.”
Alaric crushed her to him, kissed her as if he would draw her soul from her body and hoard it as he did his treasure. When they came up for air, his gray eyes were turbulent. The flush of passion graced his cheekbones. “Keep faith, Beth,” he commanded in an unyielding voice. “Nothing will stop me from returning to you this time. Do you understand?Nothing.”
She almost felloff the cliffs twice. The tears she’d held at bay when saying goodbye to Alaric refused to be squelched any longer. He’d promised to return, and she believed him, but it didn’t make their parting any easier. Elsbeth smeared the tears on her cheek and admonished herself. “Foolish watering pot. No better than Annais Smith who cries over a brokenfingernail.”
Her self-reproach did the trick, and the tears dried. She smiled. Annais might be the silliest, most empty-headed twit in all of Byder county, but she at least had the sense to watch where she was going. Elsbeth slowed her descent down the main cliffpath.
The sun approached its midday position, and the heat was stifling, relieved only by a slightly cooler breeze from the north. Elsbeth paused to enjoy its touch. Suddenly, she heard voices, familiar ones carried on the same breeze. She searched for a place to hide and spotted a cleft in the rocks, one that offered an overhang by which she could view her fellow travelers without beingseen.
Her heart jumped a beat, then sped up when she saw Malcolm trudging up the path, followed by his two toadies, Galen Horn and Jamie Knowles. They were heavily armed, weighted down with hand axes, sickles, crossbows, and quivers bristling with quarrels. All three wore pieces of Angus’s dragonarmor.
Elsbeth stifled an outraged gasp as they drew closer. They’d stolen Angus’s prized armor! She kept still in her hiding place, but the desire to march out there and confront them was almost overpowering. How did they get the armor? And were Angus and Irena all right? Fear and acknowledgement of her position tempered the desire to abandon her hiding place and challenge them. She was a woman alone on the cliffs. Matched against three armed men, there was no contest. Elsbeth shuddered to think what they’d do to her if they foundher.
She leaned farther out on the ledge, hoping to catch what they said to each other. Malcolm cursed Galen, admonishing him. His words made herblanch.
“Keep quiet. We’ll light one torch and keep one close at hand. If we trap it in a small cave, it won’t have room to fight. A dozen poison arrows will take any beast down, even one thatbig.”
Dear gods, they’d come to kill Alaric. Her stomach plummeted to herfeet.
Galen, a ferret of a man who feared his own shadow unless he could hide behind Malcolm, spoke. “What if it breathes fire on us?” His voiceshook.
“Hide behind that bit of dragon scale you took off old Angus’s armor. And stay out of theway.”
Jamie, far more intelligent than Galen but as easily led, gave Malcolm a sly look. “What aboutElsbeth?”
Elsbeth recoiled in disgust at his lascivious tone and the echoing lechery in Malcolm’ssmile.
“The beast has probably eaten her by now. I know I would have. Nice bit o’ tart that one, but never learned herplace.”
“What if she’salive?”
“Then I’ll teach her to mind that disrespectful tongue by shoving my cock in her mouth. No hunched old crone to protect her here inMaldoza.”
The image his words elicited made Elsbeth want tovomit.
Galen licked his lips. “I’d like a go at her myself. All that nice red hair. I wonder if her cunt hair is the samecolor.”
