“No. Them.”
Two figures appeared in the doorway, one behind the other. Large, broad-shouldered figures who seemed to be holding blunt-edged weapons of some sort. Aloft.
Pagan said something in the guttural Saxon tongue and that’s all there was to it. The men lowered their weapons and came out with welcoming gestures. Gwyn could understand nothing of their Saxon-held conversation, but it was clear Pagan was not worried.
She rested her hands on Noir’s furry, warm withers, patting his neck while listening to the murmurs of the men’s conversation, watching Pagan. He stood unaffectedly, a day’s growth of stubble roughening his face. He put his foot up on a log. The leather of his knee-high black boot rose up his calf, dully reflecting the firelight. One mailed forearm rested on his bent knee as he nodded and laughed at something one of the men said.
Gwyn found herself smiling too, and her belly did a little flip when he turned his dark gaze back to her. He said something to the men, then started over, his stride long and confident.
They walked together into the warm hut. Eight or so souls stood and sat in the small open space at the centre. It was crowded, but not uncomfortably so. Over the firepit near the centre hung a black cauldron, and inside the contents bubbled and burped. To the right, behind a half-wall, Gwyn could hear a cow shuffling in the hay.
All the faces were staring at her. She smiled. They didn’t exactly smile in return, but neither did they brandish swords. They were dirty faces, unkempt, but they did not appear hostile, nor like they wanted anything from her, and for the moment, that was sufficient.
One of the women, the blunt-nosed, square-shouldered matron, came forward and, with a nod, indicated Gwyn should sit at the table. A bowl of hot stew was plunked down in front of her. Small flecks of colour swirled in the dark brown broth, carrots and onions. Alongside lay a chunk of day-old rye bread.
“My thanks,” she exhaled in true, great gratitude.
Pagan nodded to her. “I’ll leave you here, then, mistress.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, startled, then tried to hide it. How embarrassing. Certes, he had more important things to do. She had no claim on him. “Of course.”
“Tomorrow morn, Clid there,” he said, gesturing to one of the square-shouldered men who had greeted them, “will be your escort to Saint Alban’s.”
She swung her leg over the bench. He was already backing towards the door. “I cannot express my thanks, Pagan. I owe you more than I can ever repay. You saved my life.”
He shrugged. “Your virtue, more’s the like. I don’t think your life was in any danger, mistress.”
“Oh, truth, sir, ’twas. For I’d have killed myself before I married Marcus fitzMiles.”
He paused, gauntleted hand on the door jam, and grinned over his shoulder, just like a friend would do. “Me too.”
She pushed to her feet then, feeling reckless and unruly and everything she hadn’t let herself feel for a dozen years. Crossing to the door, she kept her eyes on the dirt floor and fumbled with the bag of silver tied round her waist, shocked at how weepy she felt.
“Lady, please.” A touch of impatience sharpened the masculine rumble of his words. He turned and walked out.
“I am simply looking for a way to recompense you,” she explained helplessly to his back.
The length of his mail-clad body stilled, then he turned and strode back to within inches of her. He swept up the hair by her ear with the edge of a warm, calloused hand, and leaned in. “Smile.”
Something hot flashed through her body. “Sir?”
“Smile for me.”
He could have said anything. In that husky voice, his long fingers brushing back her hair, his breath warm on her skin, he could have said he was a traitor to the king and she would have smiled. And when she did, slowly, hesitantly, a corner of his own mouth crooked up in reply.
“I have been recompensed,” he murmured.
Something hot and cold and shivery came down like a rainstorm through her body. Every breath she tried to take came rushing back out again. She could hardly listen to his next words, with his muscular body pulsing heat onto hers, his lips just by her ear, whispering words that were all of sense, nothing of the animal arousal he’d just awakened in her.
“Take care here, Raven. Don’t talk too much. Don’t ask too many questions. Hide that silly pouch of silver and whatever you’ve got in the other one.”
He ran his index finger briefly along her jaw. It was a careless gesture, but it made the hot-cold chills explode like fire through her blood. She reached out and her fingertips brushed his mailed forearm.
“Don’t go. Yet. Please.”
And like that, deep inside of Griffyn, something that hadn’t moved for a very long time suddenly shifted.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her outside, propelling her behind Noir, using the horse as a shield between them and the huts. His intention was clear, and he barely dared breathe, waiting for her refusal. Let her pull back the slightest bit and he would step away, forget the whole thing, interpret her unsteady breathing as fear, her trembles as exhaustion.
But God, he prayed silently, please let her move not so much as an eyelash.
Why was his blood hammering so? Why was it hard to draw breath? He had barely touched her on two occasions, touches so innocent he could have performed them in a crowded room and barely brought a gasp. Why?
Because something about this small, courageous wisp of a woman was plunging into recesses of a desire he’d never known existed, and his arousal pulsed hot and hard and inassuagable inside him, all from the feel of a curving spine and the sight of a delicate, dirt-stained face.
Without a thought for custom or destiny or anything other than the green-eyed angel pressed against his horse and panting, he bent his head to taste the trembling lips. Sliding his thumb slowly down her neck, he brushed his lips over hers.
Her small intake of breath, like velvet on air, made him stiffen into a thick, hard rod. Catching hold of his breath, he pressed the tip of his tongue against the seam of her lips, pushing them open ever so slightly.
Gwyn threw her head back, stunned by the bolt of wet heat that blasted through her body. A slow-moving shudder rippled behind, quivering between her thighs, lashing pleasure through her blood. His tongue slid in further, coaxing her to open for him, taking long, slow sweeps of her, mining an unknown passion that was pulsing heat between her legs. She dimly realised she was embracing him, had her arms around his neck and was pulling him down. Ever gallant, he responded, cupping her face with one hard, gloved hand. He locked his other hand around her hip and tugged, coaxing her closer, his thumb pressed against the rounded flesh of her abdomen, coming dangerously and head-spinningly close to the place where hot, wet heat flashed inside her womb.
“Oh, Pagan.” The wasted whimper slid out of her, a moan, a ministration, a murmur of something she didn’t even know how to dream about.
Without thinking, which was no part of what she was doing, she pushed her body into his. Breasts, belly, hips, everything arched up into him. An invitation.
In a single, confident move, he dragged her up off the ground, tight against him, so her toes scraped the earth, his mouth hungry on hers. He pushed the flat of his hand against her belly and slid up her ribs until his thumb rested just under the swell of her breast.
She threw her head to the side, crying out. She had no idea what she might have done next if Noir hadn’t shifted just then, away from the pressure.
Griffyn did, though. He knew exactly what he would have done to her, starting with her parted lips straight down to her curling toes. But when Noir shifted, that woke him up. His hand shot out