Dream of Me/Believe in Me

she supposed Hawk used for shaving. Her reflection in the polished bronze showed tear-bright eyes and a mop of tangled hair. Freed from the dye, her hair had reverted to a curling, waving froth that defied all attempts at control. She could do nothing but catch up part of it with a matching ribbon and leave the rest tumbling over her shoulders.
    Having bathed and dressed, she tidied up after herself, delaying the moment when she would have nothing left to do but leave the relative safety of the chamber. Rather than hasten that moment, she looked around for some—indeed, for any—way to occupy herself. Her gaze fell on the table beside the window and most especially on the object lying on that table.
    A book.
    Krysta had seen perhaps a half-dozen books in her life and actually owned three, thanks to the generosity of her late father. She remembered Raven telling her that Hawk could read, yet the sight of so rare and precious an object still surprised her. She approached it tentatively and for some little time was content merely to study the ornate leather cover. But inevitably, the moment came when she found herself reaching out and very gently, with the greatest care, opening the book. At some point, she sat down in the chair beside the table but she had no awareness of doing so. The book held her heedless of all else.
    H IS ANGER WAS UNRELIABLE, HAWK NOTED . Scarcely an hour since he'd stormed out of the tower room and already the rage that had propelled him was becoming a memory. The wind blew his foul mood away as surely as it filled the sail of his skiff dancing over the waves beyond the harbor. He looked back toward Hawkforte where it lay nestled in the curve of golden beach and white cliff. The sight of the burgh never failed to make his spirits lighten whether he was returning from a short sail or a journey of many months. It was his home and his sanctuary, but more than that it was his triumph against a violent and uncaring world. He cherished Hawkforte in the private places of his heart, but now the town that lay so serenely in the embrace of land and sea had an added meaning. Within its walls was the womanwho was to be his wife, she who represented the hope of peace between both their peoples. She who he had just begun to wish might bring him a measure of the happiness he had seen was possible with his sister and her husband. She who had tricked him …
    But not for long. That was balm to his pride yet he wondered how long she had thought to continue her masquerade and to what end. Why risk his anger if she was found out?
    He supposed she had some reason, and perhaps he would learn of it eventually. Of rather more significance, he had met his bride at last, much good it did him. The mystery of her should by all rights be solved, but instead had only deepened.
    He had lied when he claimed not to desire her but a man would be a fool not to keep some things to himself. A fool ten times over to let a woman know the power she wielded over him. He lusted after his fey Norse bride as he could not remember ever lusting after another woman, which struck him as ironic given that she had accused him of meaning to betray her with herself. The memory of how she looked as she dragged herself from the tub, wet and bedraggled yet with fire flashing in her eyes, made him chuckle. But amusement fled, giving way to something deeper and hotter, as he recalled how she looked at him when he dressed. Lust, it seemed, was not his alone.
    A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. His eyes narrowed against the glare of sun bouncing off water. He turned the skiff into the wind and raced along the shoreline. From tenderest boyhood, he had loved the sea. There was no greater freedom than those moments when he could leave the land behind and become one with the mighty currents of air and water. That such surcease from daily care could never be more than temporary made it all the more precious.
    He sailed the rest of that morning and into theafternoon. Fishermen in their small, swift hide boats waved to him. So did the captain of an incoming merchant vessel, who lowered his banner in salute when he spied the skiff's hawk-emblazoned sail. A herd of fat seals frolicked past. They had just vanished from sight when Hawk was startled by something else in the water, dark and sleek, that seemed to lift its head to look at him. For a moment, there appeared to be several of them, but mayhap they were no more than shadows for they were as