Medieval 02 - Forbidden

the wind shifted or sleet rattled against stone or a voice drifted up from the floors below, her heartbeat doubled.
    Then she would hold her breath, listening with every fiber of her being for the sound of footsteps approaching her door.
    Duncan will come to me tonight .
    He must .
    Come to me, dark warrior. Let me touch you in the only way you allow yourself to be touched .
    Let me be one with you once more .
    Just once .
    I can touch your soul if you will let me .
    Just once …
    But none of the sounds Amber heard were those made by Duncan climbing the spiral stone stairway to her bedchamber.
    As the night lengthened and the autumn sleet beat against stone, Amber understood that she would remain alone in the storm. Duncan would not come to her on this night of all nights, when nearly dying at Erik’s hand had renewed his appreciation of life, of living, of simply being alive.
    Tonight Duncan would be vulnerable to his amber witch in ways he didn’t want to be.
    She knew it.
    And so did he.
    Abruptly Amber sat up and threw the rich bed coverings aside. The fine, fragile linen of her nightdress glowed with ghostly light, reflection of the dying hearth fire. The amber pendant she wore had the shuttered gleam of banked coals.
    Her eyes gleamed in the same way, veiled by a darkness that had nothing to do with night.
    Amber whirled her mantle around her shoulders, pulled the cowl into place, and set off for the bedchamber of the lord of the keep. She needed neither candle nor lamp to light her way. Duncan’s presence was a fire burning against the night, as certain a guide to him as dawn is to the day that follows.
    The path to Duncan could have been through a strange forest or a tangled glen, and it would have been the same to Amber. Clear. Certain.
    No one was about in the hall. The voices of the sentries from the battlements above were the only noises not made by the storm. Amber’s feet moved soundlessly over the wood of the floor. Her mantle lifted and fell around her ankles with every swift step.
    No squire slept outside Duncan’s door, for he hadn’t had time to choose among the young, wellborn boys who were eager to be trained in the ways of war by the legendary Scots Hammer. Indeed, the door to the lord’s bedchamber was half open, announcing the confidence of the warrior who slept within.
    A glance around the room told Amber that Duncan must have gone late to bed. Flames still leaped within the hearth. Candles still burned in their sconces. On a chest near the bed, an oil lamp burned at low ebb, sending the scent of rosemary through the room. Next to the lamp, a battle hammer lay in readiness, gleaming coldly with reflected fire.
    The golden light of the candles wavered when Amber walked in and shut the door quietly behind. Duncan didn’t stir. Nor did she expect him to do so. Though untrained, Duncan had a Learned warrior’s appreciation of when danger was nearby.
    And when it was not.
    Amber’s mantle slid to the floor with a hushed sound. Her nightdress followed, settling like a cloud over her mantle. Her golden hair shimmered with firelight. Golden amber gleamed between her breasts. Making no more noise than a candle flame, she eased into bed beside Duncan.
    The subtle smell of spices on Duncan’s skin told Amber that he had sought whatever peace could be found in a warm bath before going to bed alone. The same scent was on her own skin, for she, too, had sought water’s soothing embrace.
    But what she truly wanted was an embrace less soothing, more fiery, Duncan locked within her body.
    Deftly Amber drew the bed covers aside. Duncan’s bare back gleamed in the muted light. He was lying on his side, facing away from her. The naked power of his shoulders was both a lure and a warning.
    Dark warrior, who could make the hammer sing as no other.
    With the delicacy of a butterfly sipping nectar, Amber’s fingertips stroked from the nape of Duncan’s neck down the length of his spine. Though she had hungered to touch him, it was painful to her. Even while he slept, the savage conflict within his soul raged on, truth set against truth.
    And you say you never betrayed me. Such fine calculations they must teach the Learned, all the ways to split hairs until nothing remains but dishonor .
    My body knows you. It responds to you as to none other .
    We are lost, witch. Your soul was sold to the devil a long time ago .
    You’re a fire in my blood, in my flesh, in my soul .
    Yet when all truths were