Chapter Nine
Torin had madeup a dozen different pasts in case anyone had ever asked him about his. Very few ever had. He thought he might be able to speak about it with Braya. He found that a part of him wanted to tell her, as if confessing his soul to her would somehow free him from the shackles of guilt and leashed rage.
But nothing could ever do that, and he betrayed his own heart by allowing himself to have feelings for an English woman. He was a Scot. He was here to bring war. She would never forgive him for lying to her…if she lived through it.
He couldn’t change what had been set into motion. King Robert was coming. What could Torin do to save her? What could he do to keep from meeting her on the battlefield? He didn’t think he could kill her, and if he doubted it for one instant and she didn’t, he’d be dead. He felt lightheaded from the realization that the one who made him want to live was the only one who could kill him.
“I know you cannot change it,” she said on the softest of whispers, not understanding what was beginning to eat away at him. “But it hurts you when you hide how you feel. You must speak of it.”
Her voice filled his ears like a soothing melody, luring him like no one else had before her.
“Sometimes you look as if…” She began to turn away. Her loose waves swayed and lifted around her face in the breeze.
His heart thudded hard in his ears. He touched his fingers to a tendril caressing her cheek. “As if?”
“As if…” She looked at him again with fearless abandon to face what she saw. “…you are filled with darkness and there is but a single part of you left that burns with light.”
He searched her eyes. How could she see into his heart and describe it exactly?
His eyes stung and his vision blurred. For an instant, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. When it dawned on him, he was too stunned to look away. Nothing had ever made him weep. Nothing since that day. He relived it always, and every time it made his heart darker. But now…tears? What the hell was happening to him? He brushed his hand down his face. Had he been pretending to be English for so long that he was turning into one of them? He’d seen many English soldiers weeping for their lives before he killed them. Was he forgetting who he was? Commander Torin “Shadow” Gray. He’d been slashing throats for almost a decade, avenging his parents, his brothers, his friends, himself.
It wasn’t enough.
“Forgive me,” Braya whispered, shattering his defenses with two words no one had ever spoken to him before. “I did not mean to—”
“You want to know my demons, lady?”
“Aye,” she answered without hesitation. She squared her shoulders and set her chin. “I do.”
“Do you think you can take them on?” He wanted to smile—to grin at her. Was she so confident? Hadn’t she come to the castle alone to see him? “What makes you think you can?”
“Because I lost Ragenald. He was more than my brother. He was my friend, and the only man in my life who believed in me.”
Torin raked his fingers through his hair. He hated that he had demons in the first place, and that Braya had them, too. He thought it admirable that she thought she could face his. In fact, he thought it the bravest act anyone had ever shown him.
“After my family was killed,” he said with solemn determination to give her what she wanted and to find out if she was correct. Would this help him? “I was terrified to live.”
And ashamed. But he didn’t tell her that. He couldn’t. Some demons were too dark and deeply hidden.
“I escaped and ran and did not stop for two days. Hunger finally forced me to stop, but I did not eat for another day. I slept. I dreamed of terrible things and woke up alone and afraid. I tried to steal a dried fish from a vendor but he chased me until another boy caught my arm and pulled me into the shadows. He was older than me—like my brother. He took my hand and told me to go with him.”
“What was his name?” she asked.
“What does it matter?”Jonathon.“We ran out of the town and disappeared into the forest. That was where I lived with a band of other orphans for the next five years. I learned how to survive, how to steal, swindle, and fight.
“I was ten when the Scots raided our camp and killed everyone. I had been away thieving in one of the surrounding villages. I was not there with the others. I had escaped death yet again.” Were these his words, his voice he heard coming from his lips? Why was he telling her about his life when he had never spoken of it before? Just because she had asked? He wasn’t ready to give his heart over again. He didn’t think he ever would. He would lose her and finally go mad.
“After that, I lived on my own for another three years, fighting everything, it seemed, to survive.”
He pulled in a deep breath and shook his head. “I do not feel any better.”
“You…” She looked shaken. As a matter of fact, her hands shook as they rose to swipe tears away from her flushed cheeks. “You have never played. You had no chance to be a child.”
“What?” What the hell was she talking about and why was she standing up and walking toward the water? When she kicked off her shoes, hiked up her skirts, and entered the shallow current, he bolted to his feet and followed.
“Are we going swimming then?” He smiled, pulling off his boots.
“No, but you will be getting wet.” She backed away and kicked a cold spray of water at him.
