Free Embers by Helen Kirkman Page B

of the dream that seemed to hold them both.
    "It is all right. You will be well now, and—"
    But once again, what she would have said was brushed aside, and she could see the same struggle in his eyes to fix on what had to be said and done, what was real.
    "You are quite safe?"
    "Of course—"
    "Duda…"
    Her smile became wry. "Won control by strength of numbers and the measure of his rage. If you had died, there would have been blood."
    The wryness in her smile found its exact match in the subtle change of expression in his eyes. Her heart jumped because it read that instinctive understanding between them that had never needed words.
    A wholly inappropriate heat jarred through her body. She veiled her eyes with her lashes, lest he could see, lest he could guess that she was still slave to the delight of sharing his thoughts and to the rich touch of his body, however fleeting.
    "You must drink," she said. "There is a herbal draught I—we—the infirmarian prepared. You will need that."
    She slid away, so that he would not be able to feel how she shook, sense the hot trembling rush inside her. In her haste, her hand brushed against the thick, curving muscle of his thigh, sliding across the full length of that solid nakedness. She gasped. It was so different, touching him now, now that he knew, now that she could see his eyes.
    She had nursed him for the endless age of the dark night, had touched almost every inch of that naked flesh. She had ached for him, poured all that was of her heart and soul into that touch, and now when he looked at her, her breath choked and lightning flared through her veins. And fear.
    His hand caught hers as it skittered away from the hard tightness of his knee.
    "You were there, were you not, through all that hell dark? It was you…"
    The intensity in his eyes, the rough-fierce caress of his voice, the raw unabated strength in the hand that held her, would take everything. They would take her and all that she was. They, he, had that much power.
    And then what would she do? If she gave in to all that she wanted more than her life? She could bring nothing but disappointment and then destruction. She could not bring the kind of peace that had touched him before.
    "No. At least, not all the time. Of course I helped. It was the infirmarian who had the skill. He prepared this."
    She turned away, towards the heavy wooden table that held the spilled herbs, the water pitcher and the leather flask with the healing draught. He let her go. Her hand slid through his so that she could feel the faint warmth of his palm, the hard calluses caused by sword fighting, the firm deft pads on each separate finger.
    "I will get the draught." She nearly spilt it. It took all the will that she had to get her shaking hands under control. But she did it, and when she turned, her face was the beautiful and unmoving mask that had always kept her inviolate.
    Or kept her trapped.
    She watched him drink and then fall again into the blessing of sleep. But the peace was gone.

    There was something clawing at him, fastening fiend's talons into his shoulder and his arm, sending the pains of hell through him. He could not get it loose. The black, faceless shape of it blotted out the torchlight. It was mouthing something.
    "Oy," ventured the shape.
    Not a
hell-thane
then, a hell fiend. Duda. Although sometimes there was not much difference. Brand glanced round the small chamber.
    Alina was gone.
    "What?" he enquired.
    "Thought you would never wake up."
    "There was a choice?"
    "Oh. Sorry. Was that the bad arm?"
    Some questions were not worth answering. He stuck to asking them.
    "Well?"
    "Few things been happening while you were not exactly with us." There was a reproachful glint somewhere in the midst of hair and whatever had not completed the perilous journey to Duda's mouth during breakfast.
    "What?" He bit back amusement, adopting the tone of one suitably chastened for willful inattentiveness over the last day and a