Dream of Me/Believe in Me

off.”
    “W-why?” She wasn't nervous, absolutely not. Nor did she feel the deep thrumming of desire stirring within her. She was merely curious, that was all.
    “Because,” Hawk said as he straightened and un-clinched the sword belt around his waist, “they're heavy and I wouldn't want you getting walloped at a crucial moment.”
    If her mouth continued to open and close like that, she would be mistaken for a fish. This was really carrying matter-of-factness too far. If he thought she was just going to lie there and accept what he intended after almost four days of scarcely a word between them, not to mention everything that
was
hanging between them, then he—
    —Had been willing to be whipped in her place.
    What possible chance did she have to resist such tender valor? The man had absolutely no sense of fairness at all. But, oh, lord, he surely did have a beautiful chest, all rippling muscle and burnished skin, and her hands just begged to be run over it. Propping herself up a little higher, Krysta tossed her hair out of the way—no sense obstructing her view—and said, “Do you understand I'm only doing this because I want to have beautiful memories of the time we had together?”
    About to strip off his breeches, he stopped and stared at her. “When you're in the abbey, bent over your parchments, all hunch-shouldered and bleary-eyed?”
    “Don't joke. You'll be an old man then, too.” It was impossible to imagine him old. He would always be young to her no matter how many years passed.
    He pulled off the breeches, tossed them aside, and joined her on the bed. Catching glistening strands of her hair around his fingers, he said, “According to Thorgold, I'll still be buying you hair ribbons. Now do you honestly believe that stubborn old troll is wrong?”
    His hands were on her breasts, caressing them through the fine linen of her gown. His bare, heavily muscled thigh was pushing between hers. His mouth was hot along her throat. So very hot … as though she were about to go up in flames at any moment. Yet she shoved her hands against his shoulders and forced enough space between them so that she could look at him.
    “What did you call Thorgold?”
    Reluctantly, he gave up sweetly tormenting the hollow at the base of her throat and said, “A stubborn old troll. Would you describe him differently?”
    Her heart sputtered, started again at double speed. “You think Thorgold is a troll?”
    Hawk shrugged those massive shoulders she was unconsciously stroking. “He disappeared on me just the other morning. One minute we were talking and the next he was gone. Who does that kind of thing?”
    “Trolls … ?”
    “I'm no expert but it seems to fit. Before he went he told me my mind has wings I have yet to unfurl.”
    “Thorgold is a poet.”
    “So it seems. Notice I'm not asking about Raven. Best I leave that alone, I think. Is it my imagination or did Udell have a pecked look to him?”
    Krysta sighed deeply and felt the tight coil of sorrow that had existed within her these many days loosen a notch. “Udell and I had an … encounter four days past. Somehow it must have disturbed the ravens and they attacked him.”
    To her regret, he gave off caressing her and sat up. The tender, playful lover yielded to the outraged lord. “You will tell me what happened.”
    Because she always tried to obey him—surely no one thought it her fault that it seldom worked out—Krysta did as she was told. She kept the telling very short. When she finished, she hoped they would get back to thebusiness at hand. Hawk had other ideas. He rose from the bed and reached for his tunic.
    “I'm going to kill him now.”
    “Wait! What? You aren't!”
    “I'll be back in no time. Don't go anywhere.”
    “No!” Krysta hurled herself at him, grabbing the tunic he had half on and ripping it from his hands. “What are you talking about? Killing Udell? Are you mad? If he dies, Mercia will rebel.”
    “You have it the wrong way around. If he lives, Mercia will rebel.”
    He knew. What she had merely feared and wanted to believe was deluded bragging was real. Horror clawed at her but with it came swift hope. Grace of God, Hawk knew, which meant Alfred must know as well.
    “Why do you think I was summoned to Winchester?”
    She stared at him in shock. “Because of Udell?”
    “Do you think Alfred has united a splintered kingdom, ignited the light of learning where there was only darkness, and become the hope of his people