Lord of Rage & Primal Instincts (7 page)

“We sent them away.”

“Just like you said,” Bernt defended.

“I found her splashing around in the lake. That’s where we were attacked.”

“What were those things?” Torben asked.

“Scouts. Created by blood magic. I’ve seen them before, but only once.”

“I’ve never seen anything by blood magic,” Torben said, excitement lacing his voice.

A little too much excitement. Osborn glared down at his younger brother. “Pray that you never do.”

“There’s rumors you can hear the cries of the souls of whose blood was taken,” Bernt added, clearly not wanting to be left out of the conversation.

Osborn’s face turned grim. “It’s a sound I have no wish to hear again.”

“Their shrieks were horrible,” Breena added, and she couldn’t repress the shudder. She didn’t know if the wailing came of the soulless or not, but she recognized misery, unbearable pain. So evil…

“That’s because you are a girl,” Torben replied. He turned his attention back to Osborn. “I guess they didn’t shriek for long after you were done with them.”

Breena bit back a smile at the pride the youngest brother felt over Osborn’s prowess and fighting skill. Micah had been the same about Dayn and Nicolai.

Another thought of home without pain. Yes, the key was to let it flow naturally, and not work too hard.

Osborn cut a quick glance in her direction, then fo
cused once more on his brothers. “I, uh, didn’t have my pack.”

“But, Osborn, you’re never without your pack,” Torben said. The boy sounded incredulous.

“You always keep it within reach.”

Did she see a hint of color along Osborn’s cheekbones? He cleared his throat and crossed his arms against his chest. What kind of move was that? It was as if he were trying to shield himself. Finally the man didn’t have the upper hand.

“Yes, Osborn, why did you have your pack so far away?” she asked sweetly.

His brown gaze narrowed. “Turns out I didn’t need it,” he said between clenched teeth.

She met his stare. “Oh?”

Osborn shrugged. “Breena killed the beast.”

Breena stood a little straighter. Yes. Yes, she had killed the thing. Of course, she had the help of a little magic.

The two boys stared at her for a moment. Then Bernt began to laugh. His younger brother quickly followed. Breena might be wearing borrowed clothes, not have much memory, but she knew one thing…she didn’t much care for being laughed at.

The energy she’d felt at the lake began to swirl within her.

“Ouch,” Torben said as he backed up a step.

Bernt stopped laughing long enough to look at his brother. “What— Ouch!”

“It’s like someone pinched me right on the as—er, backside,” Torben said.

Osborn cut a quick glance her way, but he didn’t look angry at her use of magical powers.

“What was that?” Bernt asked as he rubbed his rear.

“Looks like you just got a taste of what those blood magic scouts received.”

Both boys glanced her way, their faces going from incredulous to betrayed. Then both boys slammed their attention back to their older brother.

“But you said girls were good for one thing. And that wasn’t magic or fighting.”

Now it was her turn to turn her attention to the big man at her side. “And what one thing is that?” she asked, almost afraid to know.

Osborn’s expression turned blank. “Cooking.”

“Cleaning,” the boys said at the same time.

Osborn shrugged. “I guess there were two things.”

She shot him a look full of venom. She’d never even glanced at another person in a cross manner in her life. Half a day in this family’s presence and she was shooting energy daggers. At least he didn’t suggest to these two boys that girls were only good for what happened once the chamber door was closed. Especially since her body was the only thing Osborn had showed much interest in when it came to her.

“You can’t take help from a girl,” Bernt said. “A warrior defeats alone.”

Osborn dropped the pack at his feet and draped an arm over the shoulders of his brothers. He bent his knees so he’d be on eye level with them.

“There’s no shame in a man accepting help from another warrior, even if she’s a girl.”

All this talk was beginning to fray on her nerves. Her father would be lost without his wife. The queen and her husband always stood side by side. He listened to her counsel, and shared the responsibility of ruling. At least Osborn seemed to have an inkling of how it was supposed to work. Unfortunately, he hadn’t shared
that with the two boys he was responsible for until apparently this moment. Her magic began swirling again, but she quickly tamped it down.

“Let’s get inside. I’m hungry, and Breena has a lot of questions to answer. Bed after supper. I’m taking Breena into the village at first light.”

“To the village? Can I go?” Bernt asked.

“It’s been so long since you’ve taken us to a town.”

Osborn shook his head. “Not until I know the threat.”

The two boys slumped, then lumbered up the stairs. She was hungry again, too. Strange how the body had a timetable all its own. Her family was lost, she’d wandered around in a wilderness, been attacked, and yet, she could eat like it was any normal day.

“Why do your brothers think so little of girls?” she asked when they were alone.

His gaze lowered to her lips. Then fell to her breasts, and her nipples tightened and poked at the material of her shirt. “If you tell yourself a woman is good for only one thing, then you don’t miss all the other things you desire from her.”

His voice was filled with yearning, and so much loneliness she lifted her hand to cup his cheek.

His fingers grasped hers. His palm was callused, his grip tight, reinforcing her earlier musings that he hadn’t spent a lot of time with females.

“Remember what I said? About not being alone with me?” he asked, his expression fierce.

She nodded, unable to take her eyes off his lips.

Osborn lowered his head, his mouth just an inch from her ear. “You’re alone with me.”

A warning, a threat, a promise… His words were all three. A shiver slid down her back. She squeezed her
eyes shut tight as the soft touch of his tongue traced the curve of her neck.

“Breena?”

She nodded, wishing for more of this kind of caress. Wishing he wouldn’t send her away in the morning. Wishing for so many things lost. “Get inside.”

Breena slipped out of his unresisting arms, and shut the door firmly behind her. She slumped against the rough wooden door, dragging in air and willing her heartbeat to slow down.

Survive.

Revenge.

She’d do both with Osborne’s aid. Her dream magic was not wrong. Now all she had to do was get him to see it, too.

“D
ID YOU SEE THAT
?” Torben whispered. “She touched him, and he didn’t even yell. Or push her.”

Bernt nodded. “I don’t think things are ever going to be the same again.”

D
INNER WAS A SIMPLE
meal of tough bread, dried meat and berries she suspected were picked near the cabin. It was also completely silent. At Elden, dinner was a grand affair, with numerous courses, entertainment and lots and lots of laughter. Here, the three males regarded their food seriously, heads over their plates, and eyes steady on their meals.

“Does anyone know a funny tale?”

Bernt looked at her as if she’d suddenly begun speaking in another language. Her father always told such funny stories about his travels as a youth. Her mother could charm anyone with her tales of legend and myth. Nicolai told a great joke about a traveling king, a chastity belt and a trusted knight complaining about the wrong key.

Her gaze darted to Osborn and she felt her cheeks heat. She’d always thought that the funny part of that joke was that the king handed over a key that didn’t fit. Now she realized it was the knight trying to remove the chastity belt and that the king had purposefully given the wrong key—that was what made the tale funny.

Breena would smack her brother when she saw him. She’d told that joke at least three times. A pang of homesickness chased away her anger. No, if she ever saw Nicolai again, she’d hug him.

“Do
you
know a funny story?” Bernt asked.

She was alive, she was safe for the moment and her belly was finally getting full. One meal. Breena could snatch one meal, and not worry about her brothers, her home or how she was going to survive tomorrow. Pushing the plate aside, she lowered her voice to that same conspiratorial tone her mother’s took when she was about to relay something interesting.

“Well, did you hear about the king of Alasia who was most displeased with his fortune-teller?”

Both boys leaned forward. “No.”

“He told the king his favorite horse would die. And sure enough, the animal fell dead two days later.”

“Fortune-tellers aren’t real,” Torben said, his voice turning skeptical. She could only imagine where he’d acquired that attitude.

But Breena only gave what she hoped amounted to a mysterious shake of her head. “The king didn’t trust him, either. In fact, he suspected the fortune-teller poisoned the horse so that his prediction would come true. That way, people from all over the kingdom would know of his skills, and give him money to relay their fortunes.”

“What happened next?” Bernt asked.

“The king confronted the fortune-teller and dared him to reveal the date of his own death.”

Bernt was practically squirming in his chair. Had no one told these boys stories? “Why?”

“Because the king was going to kill him,” Osborn said.

Breena smiled over at the clever warrior. “Your brother is right. The king would kill the fortune-teller so that any answer he gave would be wrong, and no one would remember him.”

Torben was off his chair raising an imaginary sword. “So what did he do? Run or challenge him to battle?”

She bit her bottom lip. No wonder her mother had so much fun telling stories around the table. “He did neither.”

“What?” both boys asked.

“He looked the king in the eye, and said, ‘I don’t know the exact day of my death, but I do know that the king will follow me to the grave just two days later.’”

Osborn began to laugh, the sound of it delightfully rusty. She glanced his way and their gazes met. The desire in his gaze made her smile fade. Oh, she knew he wanted her body, but some other need for her lingered in his brown eyes. Her lips parted, and some elemental part of her wished to give him what he hungered for.

“Time for bed,” he told his brothers without breaking his stare.

“What?”

“It’s still early.”

Osborn sighed heavily. “You’ll need your rest if I decide you can go into the village.
If
.”

The brothers scrambled to clear the table and head into the room where she’d found the three beds earlier, and in just a few moments, she was alone with him. Again.

“Join me by the fire,” he said. It wasn’t much of a request, and when he offered her his hand, there was no way it could be disguised as courtly manners. She
was
going to sit next to him by the fire and she
would
be telling him everything he wanted to know.

Every great hall held a large fireplace, and even though the cottage was small, Osborn’s hearth seemed to dominate one entire wall. An inviting, fluffy rug lay before the large, flat stones in front of the firebox. She
sank down on the throw, seeking its softness. It was thick enough to be a sleeping pallet. Osborn’s brothers had added extra blankets. At home, most people slept before the fire, warmed their hands near the flames and danced in front of it during celebrations and heated their ale over it. Osborn seemed to prefer to stare into it. Glare.

“You’ll be leaving here at first light.”

Was he telling her or himself? He’d already announced he’d be taking her to the village in the morning. It was all decided. Wasn’t it?

“Already things are changing, and you’ve only been here a few hours. My brothers are unused to the gentleness a woman brings into a home. They’re wanting things. Things that are impossible.” His expression grew grimmer as he continued to peer into the flames. “You have to go.”

Yes, yes. He’d already said that.

“No matter how many times you ask to stay.”

Breena hadn’t asked. Her heartbeat quickened, and she felt a little tingle all the way down to her toes. She was doing a pretty poor job of reading the strong man in front of her. She couldn’t fathom his thoughts. No, she’d missed understanding his thoughts again.

Breena left the warmth of the rug and stood beside him. His height dwarfed her. The broadness of his shoulders filled her vision. She placed her hand in the middle of his back, and felt his muscles contract under her fingertips.

“Are you wanting me to ask, Osborn?”

He turned then, catching her off guard and imprisoning her hand between his. “I need to know what dangers you have brought here. Tell me how you got here.”

The solid strength of his hand was exactly what she
yearned for after wandering around hungry and tired and full of fear. “I don’t really know. It’s the truth.” Half-truth. Why did she still feel the need to keep all of what she knew to herself?
Survive.
Some instinct told her to tell Osborn only what he needed to know so he’d help her.

“Then tell me what you do know.”

“My home was attacked, the details are fuzzy. I woke up in this strange land.”

“So you didn’t see the markers telling you to keep out?” he asked, his voice filled with hostility and disbelief. His eyes scanned her face, searching for truth.

“I saw the bear skulls, so I figured I was on Ursa land, but they all died out. Years ago. So I assumed I was alone.”

“Not all,” he said, taking his gaze from her face and returning it to the fire.

Now Osborn’s suspicious nature and overprotectiveness of his brothers made sense. They were the last of their kind. The last of the Ursans. Would she be the last of her people? Was she? A tragic trait to have in common.

But at least she had hope. Hope that her brothers and some of the people of Elden had escaped. Osborn had none. “I’m sorry” seemed so insignificant to say about his loss, but she told him, anyway.

His throat tightened. “You’re the first person to tell me that.”

Sensing that was all the acknowledgment Osborn wanted to give to the tragedy that took his family, she went on with her story. “My people are magical. Not blood magic. Never. But my mother’s powers are very strong. I believe she cast me from our kingdom.”

“Why here?”

“Maybe something inside me chose the location. We’d been connecting through our dreams…?.”

His gaze burned for her as hot as the fire warming her cheek. Then his eyes narrowed. “You said you lost your powers, but you defeated the blood magic scout.”

“You remembered that.” Since he hadn’t mentioned it, she thought he’d forgotten she’d told him her magic no longer worked.

“Another one of your lies?”

She shook her head. “When I woke up here, there were just two thoughts in my mind. To survive and to kill. Avenge. My magic was gone and whenever I try to concentrate and really remember what happened in my home…all I get is pain. It’s like something is stabbing me behind the eyes, it hurts so bad. Believe me, if I could have used my powers when I was wandering around in that forest with no shoes and nothing to eat, I would have.”

The corner of Osborn’s lip turned up in a half smile.

“When your home was attacked, did you hear the cries we heard today? Creatures of blood magic?”

Breena closed her eyes, and tried to remember what she could before the pain hit her. All around her had been confused commotion. The sounds of battle and the wails of the wounded and dying. A flash of something sinister. A creature with razors for hands. A thing more skeletal than man. She sagged to the floor, and drew her knees up close to her chest.

“Yes, it was blood magic.”

Osborn’s breath came out in a heavy growl.

She looked up at him quickly, his face as harsh as it had been at the lake. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to bring danger to you or to your brothers.”

He swallowed, closed and opened his fists a few
times, then he nodded. “I know you didn’t. Tomorrow I take you to the village. The scouts will be coming after you again. I don’t want you leading them here.”

“You really won’t help me?” she asked, more for her benefit rather than needing confirmation from him. She needed to say the words, so she could know she was truly alone. So her heart could accept the truth, and even the tiniest of hope she still held within her would die.

His silence was her answer.

“I’m sorry I brought all this down over your head. You are not the man I should be dream sharing with. I guess my magic got it wrong,” she told him with a shrug. “I really thought you were the one for me.”

Osborn pushed himself away from the hearth with a hard shove. She was surprised the cottage wall didn’t give way. “I’ll find you a pillow,” he said, and stalked toward the chest in the corner where they kept the extra winter bedding.

H
IS BROTHER WAS ON HIM
the moment he entered the room. “She should sleep in here,” Bernt told him, his glance roaming to the door. “It doesn’t feel right. She’s a girl. She shouldn’t have to sleep on the cold floor.”

Osborn sighed at his brother’s misplaced gallantry. “You set out enough blankets to rival a mattress. She’ll be comfortable enough in front of the fire. Besides, you willing to give up your bed?”

Bernt squared his shoulder. “Yes.”

“
I’m
not.”

“I just said I’d sleep out there.”

Osborn shook his head. “And her sleep in here with two males? That’s even worse.” He tossed his shirt at the foot of the bed and made a show of stretching his
length along his mattress. “Either the three of us sleep out there or the three of us sleep in the comfort of our own beds. You know what I’ll choose.”

Bernt’s breath came out in a huff. His little brother knew when he’d been beat. And he didn’t like it. He slowly peeled his shirt up and over his head and then slid beneath the pelts covering his bed. Osborn blew out the candle, and darkness surrounded them. He felt his brother’s uneasiness. It would keep the boy awake all night.

“You worried about her being a girl, think what sleeping in the house with us unchaperoned will do to her. Far worse than sleeping on a pile of blankets in front of a warm fire. The sooner she’s out of here the better.”

Soon the even breathing of his brother’s sleep filled the room, but Osborn couldn’t force his muscles to relax. If anything he grew more tense.

I really thought you were the one for me.

Her words were like a deep cut.

When he dreamed with Breena, he was someone else. When she admitted she put herself into his dreams he wrestled with temptation. He wanted to be the man in the dream for her.

But in his dreams, his blood never covered her hands. She’d brought this danger, but he brought much more. His dream girl didn’t belong with him. But for the first time, Osborn wished he could mean something to someone.

What he’d told his brothers was the truth. The sooner Breena was gone, the better it would be. For all of them.

B
REENA AWOKE IN THE
morning in front of the dying fire. Dawn crept over the line of the trees, and she heard
a few birds begin their morning song. So normal. So idyllic.

She glanced down at her hands. They looked the same as they always did. Same nails. Still the same little freckle on the back of her hand. Her pinky finger stretched just a tiny bit crooked at the end.

But with her hands she wielded powerful magic. She pointed in the corner. Nothing. With her hands she wielded powerful magic
sometimes
.

Why did her magic power suddenly appear—now? Why not days ago when she could have put the power to use helping her family? What had changed?

Osborn. He was what changed. Did his presence have something to do with their onset? Would they grow stronger the longer she stayed? Or was it all coincidence? Would her powers eventually have appeared?

Breena stretched her arms high above her head. Her neck was stiff, and her back ached, but it felt good to be alive. She glanced around the tiny cottage.

Loud whispers echoed in the bedroom, and she knew the three Ursan men were awake. It had seemed so perfect when she’d stumbled upon them yesterday. She kicked the covers off, and began folding the blanket. Breena didn’t want to be accused of dawdling. The door opened, and Osborn stepped out of the bedroom. “You’re up.”

Turning, she made herself busy straightening the blanket. She wanted to avoid seeing his handsome face. Now that she knew he wasn’t her warrior, she didn’t want to…

She didn’t want to still desire him.

Bernt and Torben pushed themselves past their brother, fully dressed and ready for travel. “I didn’t
think you were coming with us,” she said, thrilled there’d be some kind of buffer between her and Osborn.