The young woman huddled on the floor, chained up like a dog, looked like Lila. If she had her hair cut off and a thrall ring fitted…
“Jared?”
This had to be a nightmare. A hallucination brought on by too much sun and lack of food. She scrambled to her feet, the smile he’d dreamed of breaking across her dirty face, tear tracks leaving clean lines through the dust on her cheeks.
“
Lila
.” He wasn’t sure if he said it out loud. He stumbled closer, and dropped to his knees with a thump. Mere inches separated them. This was the moment he’d longed for and imagined a thousand times in the last two years, but now he didn’t know how to proceed. “What happened?” Even as he breathed the question, he knew the answer.
She dropped her head, turned her face from him, and wiped her eyes. “Don’t look at me. Don’t look at my hair.” Her shoulders quivered, and what was left of Jared’s heart crumbled.
He ignored the protocols. He pushed his own fears to the back of his mind and then did what he should have done two years ago. Or maybe two thousand years in the future.
“Come here.” He leaned forward, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her into his embrace. A moment of resistance, and then she melted, glorious and heart-affirming, pressing her face into his bare chest. Her cheeks were damp against his skin, her body soft and curved. He buried his nose against the base of her throat, well away from the hated thrall ring, and swallowed down his own sob, easing her closer, tighter, wanting to become a part of her, never to let her go again. The pain in his hands dulled, and he was able to stroke her back with his fingertips, cupping her neck awkwardly with his other hand. “We’re going to get out of here, I promise you.”
Lila
It felt right.
For the first time, I felt a glimmer of understanding as to why there were runaways. Human touch, the comfort of another person holding you, was powerful. I felt stronger, more aware, more capable. Just
more
. My hands lay awkwardly against his bare chest—
naked skin
—and I slid them up to wrap around his neck, remembering the thrall ring at the last minute. I’d seen blood on his throat earlier and I had no wish to hurt him any further. I draped one hand around his shoulders and lifted the other to stroke his hair.
The breath caught in my throat. Short, cut close to his skull, it was soft to the touch underneath my inquisitive fingertips. He huffed out a warm breath and squeezed me tighter, his rough beard brushing against my ear. “I was afraid I’d never see you again.” He sounded breathless. “I could only pray you’d got back safely.”
The words crashed over me like a bucket of icy water. For a blissful moment I’d forgotten why we’d come back here. Steeling myself, I pushed back, creating a little gap between us.
No more tears
. “We have to get Marc out of here. How close are we to the solstice celebration? How much time do we have?”
Jared’s hands dropped to my shoulders, as though he was unwilling to let go of me completely. “It’s tomorrow night, but Widreth has arrived early and the hall is in a state of uproar. We might get a chance tonight.”
My lungs tightened as I remembered Rowena’s warning. “Has he come with a party of strangers?”
I couldn’t see Jared’s face clearly in the dimly lit room, but I thought he looked wary as he replied. “Yes. Do you know who they are?”
“She—
Rowena
—said she’s gifting me to one of the chieftains.” I forced the words out, trying to sound calm and unworried, but failing. I couldn’t miss Jared’s look of horror. “She means a body slave, doesn’t she?”
To warm his bed
. He rubbed his chin in an awkward gesture with his wrist and I stared at the rough bandage around his hand. “What have you done? You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.” He moved it back to my shoulder, but I shrugged it off. “I said it’s nothing.” He spoke over me when I tried to interrupt. “We need to get you out of here, Lila.”
“Not without Marc.”
“Then I’ll come back for him. But I am not going to let them take you”—he swallowed hard—“and use you as a body slave. Believe me, Lila. You don’t want to risk that.”
“He’d rape me, wouldn’t he?”
His jaw tightened, and I felt his fingers close around my shoulders again. “It’s not going to come to that. Trust me.”
“Trust you? How can I trust you after what you did? You abandoned me, Jared. You were so keen to go off with your friends that you dumped me on a Roman cart and left me.” Six months of pent-up fury erupted. “I guess it wasn’t such a smart move after all, eh? The Saxons were more clever than you thought. And you know what makes me laugh?” I raced on, the words spitting out like drops of acid, making him flinch. “I
told
you these were dangerous times, but you didn’t believe me. You. Wanted. Freedom. Didn’t expect to end up as a slave, did you?” I sucked in an angry breath. “So, go on: how long did you have? Before they caught you?”
He finally let go of me and leaned back. “I was trying to
save
you.” He spat the words right back at me. “That was your best chance of getting to the jump site.”
My fury compressed to a hard, cold ball in the pit of my stomach. I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering from all the emotion. Lifting my chin, I glared at him. “My
best
chance was if you’d stayed with me. Was it worth it?”
He turned his head and stared at the wall, a muscle jumping in his cheek when he swung back to me. “You got home, didn’t you? If you were so sure I’d—” he hesitated “—abandoned you, why did you come back with a
ghardian
? Why bother?”
It was my turn to look away.
Jared
“You came back to tag me.” The words felt ugly in his mouth. “Your
ghardian
, the man I’m busting a gut to try and release, is going to haul me back on a charge of evasion.” Lila refused to meet his eyes, and he felt a hysterical laugh bubbling inside him. “Jesus Christ, Lila. You have no idea.” His voice shook, and he clamped his lips tight while he tried to process this new reality. He could only whisper. “I thought about you every day. I prayed to every damn god I could think of that you’d gotten home safely. And the thing that kept me going…” He stopped. Pressure welled behind his eyes, but there was no way in hell he’d shed tears. He swallowed and charged on. “The one thing that kept me fucking
alive
, was the thought that you’d come back for me. That you wouldn’t leave me behind.”
Silence grew between them, cold and toxic. Lila was the first to speak, her voice low and anxious. “Please help me to free Marc. Get him safely away from here, and I promise we’ll leave you alone. You can just disappear into the countryside and we’ll tell everyone you died.”
He didn’t want to know, but while they were throwing the truth around, he might as well get it over with. “Your
ghardian
, Marc, is he important to you?”
Her eyes were wide and shining. “He asked me to make a commitment to him. He wants to propose for me.”
Okay. He could deal with this. One breath after another. Her words rang in his head, a relentless chime that signalled the end of every last bit of hope he’d nurtured over the past two years. An ancient quotation tugged at his brain, something about when everything is hopeless, hope still remains. Yeah, right. Was there any point in telling his story?
The ghardian proposing for her.
Her eyes blazed back at him, bright even in here, and he knew
that
answer. He couldn’t bear her pity. It was better, far better, for her to think she was right. Jared huffed out a quick breath, his chest aching and heavy, and conjured a tight smile as something inside him withered and died.
Making a commitment to the ghardian
.
“Yeah, okay. That works for me.”
Lila
From the minute I’d seen Jared thrown at my feet as a slave, I’d wondered if we’d been wrong. His words gave credence to that idea, and I wanted to double over and weep afresh. I had a hundred questions for him and, to cover my shattered emotional state, I launched into them. Perhaps I should have trained in interrogation, instead of history.
“How are you going to free me? Have you tried to escape before? Can you get us some horses? Is there anyone we can bribe for help?” I stared at his hands again. They were both bandaged, the fingers curling round, stiff and swollen. “What happened to your hands, Jared?”
He glanced at them and shrugged, careless. “I annoyed Rowena, and she punished me.” A fresh angst flickered across his face. “That’s what happens to slaves. I hope you’re not here long enough to experience that.”
More questions poured from me. It was the best distraction I knew. “How long have you been a slave? You didn’t say. And what have you been doing here? The slave we asked told us you served Mistress Hilde.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”
“Are you a body slave?” I tossed that into the conversation, not expecting him to answer. I also didn’t expect him to scramble to his feet and move into the shadows, a few steps away. I could no longer see his face, but his voice was strained.
“I need to steal the tools to break your chain. I’m not sure I can get the thrall ring off, so you might have to bear with it. We’ve got some time before dinner, and I’m hoping in the general confusion they don’t realize you’ve gone missing.”
“What about Marc? What are we going to do about Marc?”
“Jesus, I don’t know.” He scrubbed both bandaged hands across his face and I wondered again how he’d been punished. Thinking about Marc made me pause, as another thought sneaked in, unbidden. It skulked in the recesses of my mind, waiting for me to give it due attention.
“Jared—” I spoke slowly, careful to choose the right words. “You
said
you thought I’d come
back
for you. But why would I do that? Did you imagine I’d become another runaway?”
I heard him swallow, and then he continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “We’ll try and get a horse, maybe set a fire in the haystore to divert everyone away from the yard. Your
ghardian
has a stunner—”
“
Jared
.” I had to raise my voice. When he ignored me, I yelled, “Stop!” His breath rasped, his face still obscured from me. I moderated my tone. “Why did you want to run away?”
Silence. A sharp breath later, he sounded pained. “Why do you think?”
I fixed my eyes on his bare feet, the only part I could see clearly. “I don’t know. I thought you were happy in our time. I feared—” It was my turn to suck in a quick, calming breath. “—I hated thinking you were just using me.”
“I don’t understand.”
I screwed up my eyes and listened to the steady banging of the pulse in my temple.
Don’t lose it. Not now
. “Were you using my knowledge—
using me
—to run away?”
“
No
.” I heard the pain in his voice. “God, no. I wasn’t… I
wouldn’t
do that. You mean everything to me.” With a sigh, he edged closer, head hanging low and not meeting my eyes. “I’m not a
ghardian
. I’m never going to have the chance to make a commitment with you. And I thought, if we stayed here…” He shrugged. “It was a stupid idea.” He finally lifted his head, his eyes searching my face.
I’d always loved Jared’s voice. Mellow and warm, it reminded me of thick honey and I wanted him to keep talking. I gulped and waved one hand in a ‘go on’ gesture.
“I wanted a future, Lila. With you.” He moved closer. “Would that have been so wrong?”
Jared
He’d known Lila since they were small children. They’d played together in those early, long ago days and studied together and worked side by side later. He couldn’t imagine a life without her. Sitting on the dusty, straw-covered floor, her battered face mostly in shadow, she looked more vulnerable than ever before. With her hair shorn, her eyes looked huge and her lips even more generous.
He edged closer, unable to keep his distance. Dropping to his knees, he reached out to catch her hands, and breathed through the pain that flared out from his palms. She didn’t withdraw, but let him hold her hands loose and gentle. Her tongue flicked out over her lips in a movement so familiar, he could have predicted it. “Rowena was desperate to know your name. Does everyone here call you Wolf?”
He stroked his fingertips over her skin, wishing they were anywhere but here. She waited patiently, and he found his voice. “I’ve given so much to the Saxons. Hope. Self-respect. Integrity. In two years, the one thing I’ve clung onto is my name. And it’s bugged Rowena. She’s tried to beat it out of me on more than one occasion.” He rolled his shoulders, feeling prickly and awkward at the admission, especially when Lila gasped and sat up straight.
“Two
years
? You’ve been here that long? When did they take you?”
Memories of his capture danced before him and he sucked in a harsh breath. “Right after I left you. I headed back to the village to help Flavius, but it was too late. The Saxons had rampaged through it.” He swallowed. “Most everyone was dead. I fought for a while, but they overpowered me. I didn’t expect to be spared.”
He thought for a moment of Flavius. The last time he’d seen him, they’d fought briefly back-to-back, swords clashing and blood running. They’d been forced apart, and Flavius had charged headlong into another melee, only to take a sword thrust to his side. By that time, Jared had been fighting for his own life, unable to go to his friend’s aide.
He shook his head and tried to clear the memories. He drew in a long, shuddering breath, unsure if he could continue baring his soul like this. When Lila drew his poor, damaged hands to her body and cradled them against her chest, he let go of the words he needed to say. “I hated leaving you. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I just wanted to get you out of there, to get you home.”