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He sighed, willing the anger to ease. He
moved her arms from her belly. Rested his hand, splayed across it
to feel her plump flesh.

“Moridac’s child nestles here?” He rocked his
hand on her flesh.

“I know not. ‘Tis too soon to tell.”
Catalin’s voice hitched, wobbled.

“On remembering my sire’s triumphant laugh, I
suspect he hopes ‘tis so.”

He fell back on the bed. It rocked like a
small craft on a windy day. He stilled. Thought. He listened to her
muffled sobs. He sprang from the bed. Padded across the cold floor.
One by one, he lit the candles in the room.

“Come. Rise. I would see what we must deal
with.”

Catalin’s chest ached, her neck strained,
trying to hold back sobs. His voice was so cold, so harsh. How
could she have been such a fool to yield to Moridac’s lightest
touch? What was to happen to her now? Ranald knew she was an impure
bride. If only she had blurted out her confession in the garden. He
could have refused to marry her and saved himself the shame of an
unfaithful wife afore he even wed.

“Wife. I await.”

Menace tinged Ranald’s voice. The words so
forced, as if through clenched teeth. She fought the urge to rise
and flee, but did not. His hands would clamp around her neck afore
she reached the door. She swiped her arms across her cheeks, trying
to hide her tears. Bad enough she had come to him a tainted wife,
but worse were she a coward too. Ranald stood beside the bed, his
hand out-thrust. She rested her icy hand in his and stood,
clutching the sheet to her chest.

Though every portion of his body had touched
hers, she had no image of him. Had he not imprisoned her hands and
she had felt him with them, he would not startle her so now. How
came a monk to be so strong, so hardened? Did they not idle the day
away in prayers?

This man looked every inch the warrior
knight, from his massive shoulders to... Saints! She was cold no
longer. Surely, her blush covered her from head to toe? If it had
not before, it did now that he pulled the sheet from her fingers.
It rustled to the floor.

Why was he silent? What she was staring at
with her eyes finally registered in her brain. His body had strange
scars, for they curved from his sides inward. What caused such
heavy scarring? He shifted, bringing her thoughts back to him.

He again raked his fingers through the hair
above his forehead. It did not help.

“Yer instinct led ye to protect yer belly,
Catalin. I note it as an instinct of a breeding woman.”

Her eyes followed where he looked. A torrent
of melted snow could not have made her colder. She had thought
grief had kept her woman’s time away. It had before. In truth, fear
had nagged at her. She should have known.

Her breasts were fuller, her nipples a
slightly deeper hue. She raised her left arm to cover them. Her
right went over her belly. She had ever been rounded, had felt like
a plump goose. Her belly did not sink in like a slender woman’s
would. Both arms curled around herself, protecting her body should
he beat her.

“Get back into bed. I’m not going to harm
you.”

She scrambled to sit back on the bed and
clutched the sheet again. He shoved her down flat, then rounded the
bed and went over to the basin and pitcher of water on a corner
table. The candles he had brought to the bedside table lit his back
to her view when he walked to his chest to hunt around in it.

Blessed Mary! His flesh looked as if some
strange creature had burrowed beneath his skin, leaving thin,
raised tunnels that crisscrossed each other. Her stomach heaved.
She realized why the scars were so heavy. For truth, the mud had
been nigh impossible to clean from his torn flesh. How had he not
died? Surely, he had suffered long, hovering between life and
death. Thinking on the man who had done this to his son, she felt a
roiling hate for Chief Broccin of Raptor Castle.

“I need yer help, Catalin.”

Ranald sat in the center of the bed. He
bunched the sheets under his spread thighs. She blinked and shut
her eyes.

“Ye canna help me with yer eyes shut,
woman.”

She opened them, stared. For the first time
she saw a man’s sex nested amongst the hair of his groin.

Where before his shaft had felt long and hard
as pewter, now it appeared soft and boneless. What had happened to
it? It rested atop two large, slightly hairy, vein-streaked
ballocks, strange looking things that they were.

Oh God. He gripped a dirk! He meant to kill
her. She scooted back against the head of the bed, slamming into
it.

“What ails ye?” His head popped up.

The candlelight behind him threw his face in
shadows. He looked wicked. Frightening, with his mask hiding so
much of him.

She gurgled and nodded at the dirk.

“Dinna be a dolt. ‘Tis for me.”

“You? You would kill yourself for my sin?”
She grasped her throat, about to gather breath for a hearty
screech.

“Quiet. I dinna want to cut too deep.”

He shook his head and huffed, then bent his
right leg up to lay it back on the sheet, spreading it so he could
reach an area at the edge of the hair nestled there. He laid open a
slit no longer than to the first knuckle of her little finger.
Blood welled. He did the same to his other groin.

“Come. Straddle me.” He twisted at the waist
to toss the blade on the table. He spread his legs wide and
beckoned her.

She sat there, mute as a babe, not
understanding what he wanted.

“Hurry, afore the bleeding stops.”

She didn’t budge. He grasped her waist and
dragged her to his lap then placed her legs around him. Once he
positioned her where he wanted her, he moved beneath her, rubbed
her cleft over his intimate areas, her thighs over him.

Heat flirted with her again, for her woman’s
flesh felt every least bit of him. That thing was changing form
again, too. She bent her head and peered at it. Aye. It did not
look the same as earlier. Nor did if feel as hard as when he took
her. She held to his shoulders. Why was he doing this? He did not
seem inclined to kiss or touch her in any other way.

Finally he stopped, for the wounds stopped
flowing. Bloodstains were on her thighs, her nether lips. Blood
smeared the sheets, too, as well as his rod and ballocks. She
nodded. Understood.

“Aye. My sire will have the stained sheets he
demanded.”

His voice was so very grim. He stood then
wrung cold water from the cloth in the basin and approached
her.

“Open.”

“What?”

“I would cleanse ye as if ‘twas ye who had
bled. Just enough to show I aided ye.”

“I can do it.”

“Nay. Likely, ye would wash my hard-earned
labors away. Fall back,” he commanded.

She did, pulling her pillow to cover her face
as he dabbed at her legs, her core. Though she had not been a
virgin, the cold cloth soothed skin that had been unused to such
activity. When he was done, she slapped the pillow down to cover
her private parts. Something rolled and tangled in her curls.

“Ack! A varmint has nestled in my hair!”

She bolted up, swatting at her head, sure
that some creature lodged there. Whatever it was, it bounced
against Ranald.

“What the...?” He rolled it around in his
hand then scowled at her. “Yer intent was to play the virgin?”

“Blessed Saints!” She craned her neck to see
the object. ‘Twas the forgotten vial Hannah had given her. It was
red. “When you arrived at the door, Hannah secreted it under my
pillow and told me to use it. I did not know what it was or when I
was supposed to do something with it. Please, forgive me.”

She watched his fist tighten around the vial
until his knuckles gleamed white as a peeled onion. Did he think
she told an untruth? She hoped not, for she already had much for
him to forgive. To her surprise, he laughed. Was he daft?

“I stabbed myself for naught. ‘Tis good the
blade was clean. I would hate to die from a festering wound of my
own making.”

Catalin could not believe he was doing so
much to save her from scorn.

“What will happen when a babe arrives afore
it should?”

“When did Moridac come to yer bed?”

“The night before he went hunting and was
gored.”

“I will claim ‘tis mine. If he looks like
Moridac, he will look like me. If I say the child is mine, who can
say me nay?”

“You would do this for Moridac’s child? For
me?”

Ranald heaved a sigh filled with sadness.

“Wife, I doubt ye have changed so verra much
over the years. My brother had a silver tongue. As young men, I
heard more than one lass talked into putting aside caution. I doubt
not he argued what did it matter when ye were to wed? ”

“Two days afore the wedding. But I should not
have listened. The sin is still mine.”

Though he held his anger in check, she saw he
seethed with it. His eyes blazed in a tight face, his jaw was
rock-hard, his stance stiff. She swallowed before she reminded
him.

“‘Twas that sin I wanted to confess and ask
the monk, uh, you, in the garden for forgiveness and guidance.” Her
voice wobbled.

“Ye should have confessed to me, the man,
afore we swived. We would still be wed. Though I am deeply angered,
it is not at ye. Do ye think me so cruel I would not protect ye?
Now come, we must sleep. ‘Twill be dawn before ye know it.”

With sharp bursts of air, he darkened the
candles. He thumped his pillow and settled back on the bed. Of a
sudden, he loomed up again. He hovered over her, studied her,
before dropping back beside her. She had sniffled. The bed ropes
creaked, strained then quieted.

“Sleep. I willna thrash ye.”

A deep, drawn-in sigh exploded from him,
before he spoke again.

“Yet!”

Yet? Catalin’s eyelids flew high to near
ruffle her brows. He was thinking on it? She shuddered. ‘Twould be
better to be done with now than dread waiting for the first blows
to fall. She grabbed the sheet in her fists and clutched it tight
to her neck.

Likely he would not be as heavy-handed as her
Uncle Hamon, her only living relative, had been. Though Hamon was
her mother’s brother, he was nothing like that sweet woman had
been. He had been furious when she refused to marry Moridac soon
after her father died.

Moridac had noted the fading bruises on her
arms when she foolishly wore a wide-sleeved tunic. He shook her
uncle and threatened to flay him did he dare strike her again. So
to heart did her uncle take it, he refused to again accompany her
to Raptor Castle.

In case Ranald slept, she dared not move. She
caught her breath and edged her head to the side to venture a peek
at him in the dim light. She saw his profile, saw the white of his
left eye shining. Saints! He did not sleep. He stared at the
ceiling.

Fearful he would feel her gaze on him, she
squeezed her eyes shut and sought sleep. Ha. As if that were
possible. Her racing mind went back over their time in bed. With
that one night with Moridac, she had not the experience to tell,
but she had not expected a monk-turned-man to relish bed sport.

Ranald had not hesitated to touch her, had
seemed to delight in it. Her body flushed, remembering. Moridac had
not savored each touch like his brother had but had lingered only
long enough to prepare her for him. Soon as he attained his
release, he had moved away. She remembered wanting something more,
but not knowing what it was.

She knew now.

Ranald had pleasured her until all strength
had drained from her, so tumultuous had been her release. Judging
from the fervor of his thrusts, his own explosive release, he had
enjoyed their joining as much as she.

If not for his tonsure, never would she have
believed he had lived as a monk. Her eyelids flew wide again. Could
he have remembered how to make bed-sport from when he was a young
man? Had he practiced? Mayhap he had not been celibate. Were there
women housed in the abbey? By chance, a comely cook? How could she
ask him?

“Go to sleep!”

Ranald had not thought a lass could startle
so much she would near fall off the bed. Catalin clutched the sheet
to her forehead and went so still he feared she had stopped
breathing.

In his mind’s eye, he could see his father
sleeping with a grin spread wide on his face. No doubt gleefully
anticipating telling one and all that the sheets had been snowflake
white. No stains of lovemaking. No telltale red proving the bride
had been untried. Knowing him, he would demand to see Ranald’s
arms, his legs, to spy evidence of a cut.

He would wear naught but a kilt when he rose,
baring his arms. Would let the kilt ride up his thighs when he
mounted Satin’s Spawn. When he came into the bailey after a bout of
sword practice with Raik, he would strip and rinse at the well.
Naught would show that he was misleading them, for he had chosen
his areas well. For them to be visible, he would have to balance on
his head, his legs widespread to the sky.

Ah, to deceive Broccin! He burned knowing how
his father had deceived him. He had given no hint Moridac had
sampled his betrothed. His remark of the babe favoring his brother
was dafty, since they were identical twins—except for the unsightly
scars. Likely, Moridac had been the fool and bragged to his
sire.

He clutched the vial tight in his fist. Once
Catalin slept, he would conceal Hannah’s token at the bottom of his
scabbard. ‘Twas enough room there for the sword to share. While
with Raik, he would empty the vial, crush it and spread dirt over
it. An uneasy thought struck. Had Raik known? He would find out. If
he knew and had not warned him, he would pay for it.

Finally, the black sky gave way to the
faintest hint of gray. He eased from the bed, and it took him but a
blink in time to hide the vial. He padded over to the open window
and knelt, letting cold air flow over his naked body as he prayed
throughout what was left of the night.