Medieval 02 - Forbidden

he.”
    Erik’s calm statement sent chills racing through Amber. Speechless, she glanced from him to the stranger who lay wrapped in rich cloth and fur.
    And a thousand shades of darkness.
    “Inside?” she whispered, crossing herself quickly. “Dear God, who is he?”
    “One of the Learned, certainly. No other man could pass between the stones.”
    Amber looked at the stranger as though seeking his identity written in runes on his face. She saw only what she already knew—his face was strongly made, very male.
    It appealed to her as nothing ever had but amber itself.
    She wanted to breathe his breath, to learn his unique scent, to absorb his warmth. She wanted to know his textures, to savor his maleness.
    She wanted to touch him .
    The realization shocked Amber. She, the Untouched, wanted to risk agony by touching a stranger.
    “Was the rowan blooming?” Erik asked.
    Amber started and looked at him warily.
    “It hasn’t bloomed in a thousand years,” she said. “Why would it offer this stranger a lifetime of blessings?”
    Erik said only, “What else did you see in the pendant?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Talk about plucking feathers,” he muttered. “All right, then. What did you sense ?”
    “I felt…”
    Erik waited.
    And waited.
    “God’s teeth! Speak to me,” he demanded.
    “I have no words. Simply a feeling, as though…”
    “As though?” he prodded.
    “…I am balanced on a cliff’s edge and have only to spread my wings to fly.”
    Erik smiled with a combination of memory and anticipation.
    “A fine feeling, is it not?” he asked softly.
    “Only for those who have wings,” Amber retorted. “I have none. I have only a long fall and a harsh landing.”
    Erik’s laughter filled the small cottage.
    “Ah, little one,” he said finally, “if it wouldn’thurt you, I would hug and pat you like a child.”
    Amber smiled. “You are a dear friend. Come. Take this man to my bed until Cassandra can care for him.”
    An odd look was Erik’s only answer.
    “I would hate to lose to simple cold a man who can walk between the sacred stones,” she explained.
    “Perhaps. But on the whole, I think it would be easier for me to order his death if he weren’t a guest in your cottage. And your bed.”
    Shocked, Amber stared at Erik.
    The smile he gave her was as cold as the wind prowling beyond the cottage.
    “Why would you condemn a stranger found in the sacred grove?” she asked.
    “I suspect that he is one of Duncan of Maxwell’s knights come to spy out the land.”
    “Then the rumor is true? A Norman granted his Saxon enemy the right to rule Stone Ring Keep?”
    “Aye,” Erik said bitterly. “But Duncan is no longer Dominic’s enemy. The Scots Hammer swore fealty to Dominic at the point of a sword.”
    Amber looked away from Erik. She didn’t have to touch him to gauge the extent of his leashed rage. Duncan of Maxwell, the Scots Hammer, was both bastard and landless. Nothing could change his bastardy, but Duncan had been given control of Stone Ring Keep and its surrounding land by Dominic le Sabre.
    Yet Stone Ring Keep was part of Erik’s estates.
    Erik had fought outlaws, bastards, and ambitious cousins for the right to rule Lord Robert’s various estates in the Disputed Lands. There was little doubt that he would have to fight again. It was the nature of the Disputed Lands to belong only to the strong.
    “What clothes did you find with the stranger?” Amber asked.
    “I found him as you saw him. Naked.”
    “Then he isn’t a knight.”
    “Not all knights returned from the Saracen with caskets of gold and gems.”
    “Even the poorest knight has armor, arms, a horse, clothing,” she protested. “Something.”
    “He has something.”
    “What?”
    “The pendant. Do you recognize it?”
    Amber shook her head, making her hair burn as though it were the sun itself.
    “Have you ever seen or heard of its like?” he persisted.
    “Nay.”
    Erik let out an explosive sigh that was also a curse.
    “Perhaps Cassandra?” Amber offered.
    “Doubtful.”
    The room seemed cold despite the cheerful fire, for Amber felt the jaws of a trap both delicate and insatiable closing around her.
    Erik had come to her as he had many times before, seeking the truth about a man who could not or would not speak the truth for himself. In the past, Amber had learned what she could in whatever way she could.
    Even touching.
    The pain of touching was a small repayment to the son of the great lord who