Medieval 01 - Untamed

assurely as it did through Duncan of Maxwell.
    But tonight, Ecclesiastes’ stoic enumeration of man’s failings and life’s inevitable cycles barely controlled Dominic’s impatience. Beneath an outward appearance of calm, the rage in him burned with a flame as primal as that which he had seen in Meg’s Glendruid eyes.
    The visual memory of Meg walking toward him wrapped in silver mist and hidden fire sent a flash of heat through Dominic’s loins, hardening his body in a rush that dismayed him. He hadn’t realized how thin his self-control was.
    Nor had he understood quite how much he wanted the witch.
    If Dominic hadn’t seen the silent, fierce burning in Meg’s eyes, he might have tried threats to bring her to bay—and to bed. But she would no more be dominated by fear than he. She had stood unflinchingly by his side and agreed to be his wife, and all the while she had expected to feel the bite of steel in her flesh no matter whom she betrayed in the church.
    There were few men who could have done what Meg had without trembling. Dominic had never known a maid with that kind of courage.
    The realization brought him to a halt just short of his wife’s room.
    Think , Dominic advised himself harshly. Which will be more effective against her defenses, a surprise rush or a bitter siege?
    Neither , he told himself brutally. She is too well defended to take without a cost that would turn brief victory into lifelong defeat .
    Then what? Think!
    The best way to take a stronghold is by treachery from within .
    The thought rang within Dominic’s mind like thunder. As the last echoes of understanding faded,the noose that had been tightening around Dominic’s chest since the lord’s dying curse began to ease minutely.
    Treachery .
    From within .
    Aye!
    I felt her startled breath and saw the color rise to her cheeks. There is passion in the witch. I will use it for my own ends .
    When Dominic took the remaining steps to Meg’s rooms, he was fully in control of himself once more. He was going into battle, and he knew it. The taming and eventual seduction of his Glendruid witch would be the most important and difficult victory of his life.
    But first he had to get through her door.
    Unlike many of the other chambers opening off the hall, Meg’s room had a stout door as well as a curtain that could be drawn across to cut drafts if the door were left open. The door, however, was shut. From the look of its heavy brass hinges, it would take a battle-ax and a stout yeoman to open the door short of the mistress’s agreement.
    The sound of Dominic’s mail-encased fist striking the wood of the door was loud in the empty hallway. Grimacing, he knocked again, but more lightly.
    â€œWho goes?” Eadith called.
    â€œA husband looking for his bride,” Dominic retorted.
    Inside the room, Meg flinched subtly, hearing the echoes of buried rage in Dominic’s voice.
    â€œOpen the door,” Meg said. “Then leave us.”
    Eadith looked uncertain.
    â€œIt is a husband’s right to be with his wife,” Meg said with a serenity she was far from feeling. “Go.”
    The handmaiden hesitated before she turned away. She opened the door, nodded to Dominic,and eased past him. The speed with which she retreated down the hall told Dominic that he wasn’t wearing his most reassuring expression.
    â€œDo I frighten your maid?” he asked neutrally, stepping into the room.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBut not you.”
    Meg’s lips shaped an uncertain smile. Dressed in hauberk and sword, chain mail glittering as though alive with each movement of his powerful body, Dominic looked like a devil come to life. She glanced down at her hands. They rested with false calmness in her lap. The events of the day had almost numbed her ability to feel anything.
    Almost, but not quite. She kept remembering Dominic’s exquisite restraint with the peregrine, and the warmth that had made his gray eyes smoky when he had whispered to her of his sword lying within her sheath.
    Caught between John’s curse and Glendruid hope, the possibility of warmth in Dominic called irresistibly to Meg. She wanted him to seek that same warmth in her, to come to her without the calculation and cold self-control of a tactician planning a battle.
    â€œYour guests have been seen to,” Meg said.
    She spoke formally, reporting to her new lord about the state of his keep as