By Possession

A SURRENDER TO PASSION

MOIRA TURNED HER HEAD to find Addis looking at her. Despite the dim moonlight, she read, nay she felt, his expression and her heart turned over with an alarming jolt.

His lips took hers before she could marshal any resistance. Gentle but firm, that first kiss spoke a determination that said nothing less than a pummeling struggle would stop him. Weak objections briefly drifted through her mind before she succumbed to the sweet beauty of it. That invisible cloak wrapped them both now, so comforting in its warmth and protection. The delicious connection overwhelmed her, and the careful explanations just articulated disappeared along with all her thoughts, carried away by the night breeze.

He ended the kiss and caressed her face, his fingers drifting behind her ears to the pins holding her wimple. He slid the cloth off and pressed his mouth to her neck before carefully going to work on her veil.

“You asked what I want with you, Moira,” he said while he kissed and bit and licked her ear in ways that made her shake.

“I want everything.”

A
LSO BY
M
ADELINE
H
UNTER

By Arrangement
By Design
The Protector
Lord of a Thousand Nights
Stealing Heaven

AND DON'T MISS HER NEW SERIES

The Seducer
The Saint
The Charmer
The Sinner

COMING SOON FROM BANTAM BOOKS

FOR JEAN,
MY DEAR FRIEND AND MY FIRST READER

PROLOGUE

1324

ADDIS WAS SURPRISED BY the witch woman's summons. She normally only called him to service her on nights when the full moon rose. All the same he obeyed and left the corral where he tended her father's horses and walked to her house near the forest's edge. He would be killed if her father ever discovered their furtive coupling amidst the pine trees while the white disk hovered in the heavens, but still he went. He had learned to take the rare opportunities for human warmth no matter how strangely they came to him.

He found her outside, holding the reins of a horse. That surprised him more than the summons. The normal ritual was for her to make an excuse for his presence by giving him work to fill the evening hours of light.

During the first year of his enslavement she had called for him frequently, and sat by the door watching him while he fixed her house and dug her paths. She had taught him her language and demanded to learn his until they could communicate in a rough, blunt way. And in that rough, blunt way she had finally told him that she suspected he was a knight and not a groom, and that to fulfill her calling as priestess she had a special need of him. He had fully expected to be sacrificed amidst those trees, which was the occasional fate of Christian knights captured by these pagan barbarians, not stripped naked and joined with the witch woman while she chanted incantations to her moon god above.

Her face bore a hard expression which did not soften when he approached. The late afternoon light showed faint lines etching her skin near her eyes and mouth. Not a young woman, and thin in a gaunt way that spoke of the fasting and other self-denials that were a part of her magic.

“I did not expect this,” he said in her Baltic tongue. The formalities between them had eased a little over the years. He might be a slave and she the daughter of a
kunigas
, a priest, but two people cannot make love repeatedly and remain strangers.

“I need some plants that grow only near the river. You will help me.” Another surprise. She retrieved a large basket near the door and handed it to him. A cloth covered its top, but it was not empty.

Curious now, he lifted her into the saddle, then took the reins and led her toward the forest path that snaked to the river. She did not speak the whole way, and he wondered if anyone in the big house or in the scattering of huts had seen them leave and would follow. She had never been this careless with his life before.

They emerged by the river's edge, where the trees fell away and the boggy banks shot high with reeds and growth. He helped her down and tied the reins to a spindly sapling.

“Our king will refuse baptism,” she said abruptly. “We heard this morning. He will wait until the papal legates come in the fall to say so, but he has chosen.”

His chest suddenly felt hollow. He knew that her king had been negotiating with the Pope. It was to be a political bargain to ensure that the Pope stop the Baltic crusade led by the Teutonic Knights. It required that the king accept the Christian faith of Rome, and with him his people.

He had refused to hope, had dug out the seedlings of frantic hunger in his heart that yearned to grow toward the light of freedom, but all the same a few had flowered and spread, much like the wildflowers peeking through the late summer greenery at his feet. Conversion might have released him. Fingers in his soul grabbed the disappointment and dragged it into the shadows where he had learned to bury and hide every emotion.

“There will be much fighting again, worse than this last year,” she said. “The knights will come once more on their crusade. And there will be other repercussions. Many are angry that our king considered such a thing. They will want to appease the gods who have been insulted, and the
bajora
will not stop it now.”

He heard a note in her low voice, a caution, a warning. “Does your father know?”

“About us, no. About you … maybe. He has said things sometimes. I mock the suggestion, and he does not pursue it, and he admires your skill with horses, but the skill itself, when you ride … he has wondered. And you do not look like a groom. Too big. I remind him that your people are larger, but …”

But his danger was real, more real than it had been since that day they found him six years ago amidst the dead killed in that
reise.
He had been conscious and seen them searching and managed to pull off his heraldic surcotte and most of his armor. If they had wondered they had put it aside because they had found another knight, unmarked and unscarred, to burn to their gods that night. Over the years his skill with the horses had gained him favor and safety. These people considered them sacred animals.

The witch woman named Eufemia walked away, her body a little stiff, her bony arms pressed to her sides. “Wait here. I will gather the plants and be back soon.” Her voice sounded low and harsh. The growth of the high plants began absorbing her form. He looked down and realized she had not brought the basket. Lifting it, he called to her.

She turned, only her head and breast visible. Behind her the river roared, almost swallowing his voice, its force throwing up the fresh smell of water and earth. She looked at him, dark eyes glinting, and her gaze slowly drifted down his length. Ignoring the basket with which he gestured, she turned away, leaving him standing there alone.

Alone.
Suddenly the sounds of the forest and river became deafening. The horse refooted itself, jostling his shoulder. The basket weighed heavy in his hands. She wouldn't …

His mouth dried with fear and hope. He looked at the horse, and then the path winding beside the river, and then at the spot where her black hair had disappeared. The blood of excitement beat in his head, a painful sensation which he hadn't felt in years. Grabbing at the cloth, he uncovered the basket.

Two daggers, some bread, and some salt pork lay within. Something glittered below the food and he rummaged and pulled it out. Two gold armlets that Eufemia wore during ceremonies slid down his fingers.

He looked for her again. Would she pay for this? She was a daughter of a
kunigas
, and a priestess of rites older than the moon god and the sky god. Perhaps they dared not disbelieve whatever story she gave.

He wished she had said something. He had never let himself care for her or anyone all these years because it would be a form of surrender, but she had been the closest thing to a friend and in this instant he experienced a nostalgic pain and gratitude.