Free Rexanne Becnel by Where Magic Dwells

children.”
    “He left a woman here in Radnor Forest, a woman who was heavy with his child. He called her by the name Angel, and even though I’ve searched the whole forest, she’s nowhere to be found. But you’ve got five English orphans of those times.” He shrugged as if that were proof enough, and indeed it did give Wynne pause. But she would never give her children up to an Englishman.
    “That proves nothing at all. Besides, the English hate their bastards,” she spat back at him. “Everybody knows that. Didn’t your father hate you?”
    She knew at once she’d scored a blow, for his hands tightened around her arms. “You little witch,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “ ’Tis my very bastardy that guides me in this. Those boys—all of them—need their fathers. They need a man to look up to. To receive approval from.”
    “They have men—real men who do not rape and murder and torture! Druce is there for them, and they look up to him.”
    “He’s not their father.” He gave her another shake. “And you’re not their mother.”
    Had her hands been free, she would have struck him for that. As it was, all she could do was glare bitterly at him. Perhaps she wasn’t their mother, but she was the nearest thing to it they had. Still, in the angry silence Wynne couldn’t help but recall her own thoughts of just minutes before. They did need a father, and not just the boys. But this Englishman was not the one to decide who that father would be.
    She took a deep, steadying breath and willed herself to be calm. Then she fixed him with a narrow, glowering stare. “I shall make you very sorry you ever came to Cymru —to Wales,” she began. “You think you may come here, dangle the thought of a title and lands before me, and thereby justify stealing one of these children from the only home they know. Do you honestly believe I will idly sit by?” She let out a harsh laugh, then shrugged out of his loosened grasp.
    Fighting the urge to rub the spots where his hands had touched her, she went on. “I am not called the Seeress of Radnor for nothing. I am the Welsh Witch you spoke of, and I have powers at my command that you cannot begin to fathom. I sensed your presence in these forests long before you arrived. And I can predict already the tragedy that shall befall you and your men if you linger here. Sickness. Madness. Even death if you are not swift in your retreat,” she added for good measure, though at that moment she considered it no exaggeration. She would murder him with her own hands if that’s what it took to drive him away.
    He studied her for a moment, then grinned. “You are a superstitious people. No doubt the folk around here believe such things of you—maybe you even believe some of it yourself. But you’ll not frighten me off with such wild tales.”
    “Then you are more fool than I thought,” Wynne replied with a smug smile of her own. She was feeling stronger and more in control now, and he was playing right into her hands. She lifted her chin proudly and put her hands on her hips. “You’ve been given your only warning. I’ll not feel the least remorse for the hardships that shall plague you and your men now.”
    To her dismay, however, he only smirked and let his eyes run boldly over her, lingering on her outthrust breasts and then her lips before returning to her shocked eyes. “If you would put the same effort into seducing me with your considerable charms as you put into scaring me away with your questionable powers, you would no doubt succeed far better.” Then he reached out and caught one long tendril of her loosened hair and wound it around his finger. “Have you a husband?”
    Wynne hardly felt the sharp pain on her scalp as she turned and fled. She did not notice the path as she plunged headlong through the forest after the children. All she knew was that this Englishman possessed some awful power over her, one she’d never allowed any other man to have.