As days went by, Ariel marveled at the quick recovery Valteri made.
And since the arrival of Thorn and Shadow, Belial had been strangely silent and absent. Pleading illness, he’d seldom come near her. Something that made her ecstatic.
For that alone, she worshiped her two new brothers.
Yet the two of them kept a respectful distance from her that she didn’t quite understand.
Now, she sat outside in the small garden, trying to mend a tear in one of Valteri’s tunics.
How did the others make this look so easy?
Her mind told her that she’d done this a million times, and yet she couldn’t get any of the stitches right.
Not to mention, she’d much prefer being with her husband and listening to his rich, deep voice than the rustling leaves that surrounded her.
But he was a creature forever in motion. She was lucky that he’d given her several days to coddle him. According to Wace, that was a precious gift he’d never allowed another.
Then, two days ago, he’d started pleading with her to allow him to leave his bed and go about his routines.
To her eternal regret, she’d finally judged him well enough.
Provided he didn’t stress himself overmuch.
“Aye, it sounds like an omen.”
Ariel frowned at Brother Edred’s voice drifting through the shrubbery. She started to call out and let him know she could overhear him, when his next words caused her to freeze where she sat.
“The Norman is the devil’s own, without a doubt. Since first I saw him, I’ve wondered at his hair. Never before have I witnessed a Norman wearing hair in such a peculiar fashion. I wonder at what marks he seeks to conceal.”
“The beast’s mark, I’d wager,” Ethbert sneered with a hostile venom that sent a wave of anger through her.
Their voices faded for a moment before the friar spoke up again. “I, too, have seen visions of hell where the very demons bowed down before him, paying homage to their overlord.”
“But what of the lady?”
She stiffened at Ethbert’s question and the evil mischief they brewed.
“Like blessed Mary Magdalene, her heart is pure, but she follows the corrupt path of the flesh. I fear his evil beauty bewitched her so that she cannot see her husband for what he really is. A demon among men.”
A demon, indeed!
Ariel threw the tunic aside, rage burning raw in her throat. What could be more evil than a gossiping tongue?
For these six things doth the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination unto him. A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
Obviously, the friar needed to spend more time reading the Bible and less time sowing discord and lies.
No wonder Valteri felt the way he did toward Edred and his ilk.
Rising to her feet, she intended to give them both a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget.
“Ariel!”
Before she could take another step, Valteri rounded the corner of the pathway and headed straight for her.
Her anger melted at the joy in his eyes. A blush stained his cheeks and he was still breathing heavy from his ride.
“Valteri!” She tried to sound stern, but failed terribly. No matter how much she might want to castigate him for straining his wounds, his obvious happiness prevented her from saying anything that might dampen his mood. “You shouldn’t tax your strength.”
He came to rest beside her and seized her hands in his, bringing them to his lips, where he kissed first her right, then her left. Chills spread over her body at the gesture and the warmth of his touch against her flesh.
He offered her a hesitant smile and all thoughts of chastisement vanished. “I know I promised, but I couldn’t wait to return.”
Those words made her heart soar.
She cocked a playful brow, but couldn’t prevent one corner of her mouth from lifting in humor. “Well, you seemed eager enough to leave me this morn.”
His gaze turned serious and he tightened his grip on her hands. “I apologize for that, but I had business most pressing.”
Her humor faded beneath the sudden turn of his own mood. What business had pressed him to leave her side so early?
Had he changed his mind, after all? Was he going to leave her?
She swallowed against the stinging lump in her throat. Was this the good-bye she’d been dreading—nay, fearing—for so long?
“Business most pressing?” Her voice cracked from the weight of her fear and pain.
“Aye.” His dual-colored eyes twinkled. “While you were tending me yestereve, I realized I’d forgotten to take care of something rather important.”
She frowned in confusion. Had his fever and delusions returned? “Which is?”
He pulled at the pouch dangling from his girdle. Opening it, he retrieved a small wooden box and handed it to her.
Ariel stared in amazement at the silver-inlaid box. It was exquisite.
He must have traveled as far as the town eight leagues away to purchase it. But why would he make such a journey?
“Open it,” he urged.
She flipped the catch with her thumbnail and opened the box. A startled gasp left her lips and joy beat deep inside her. Nestled on a bed of rare silk lay a gold ring encrusted with tiny, sparkling emeralds.
Tears filled her eyes as she looked from her small treasure to her much larger one. “A pledge ring?”
He nodded, his gaze warm and loving. “I realized last eve that you were without one, and I’d not have anyone doubt that you are mine.”
Ariel pressed her trembling lips together and pulled the ring from its container. The jewels winked at her as if they knew some jest that had escaped her notice. Never had she expected such a gift!
Valteri took the ring from her shaking fingers, kissed it, then placed it on her right thumb. He looked up at her, a small, timid smile on his lips. “Like your presence in my life, Ariel, it fits.”
She closed her eyes, savoring his words. But still the doubt lingered beneath her happiness, quelling it until she could stand no more.
“Does this mean you really intend to stay?”
He looked away from her and she tensed, afraid to hear his response. For several terrifying minutes he stared at the small postern gate surrounded by vines. Emotions crossed his features and she struggled to name them, but they passed so quickly across his face that she dared not try.
His grip tightened on her hands and he sighed. “Of course I intend to stay.”
Crying out in relief, she threw her arms about his shoulders and held him tightly. The strength of his chest against hers stole her breath and caused her heart to pound.
Suddenly, his lips claimed hers.
His rich, masculine scent filled her head and she trembled. Aye, this was what she’d wanted. All she’d ever want.
Her body burned for his touch and she ran her hands over his back, delighting in the dips and curves of his muscles. He entwined his hand in her hair and cupped the nape of her neck, tingling her scalp.
The very next thing she knew, Valteri swung her up in his arms.
She gasped in alarm. “You’re going to hurt yourself!”
“Nay, and even if I do, I don’t care.” He carried her through the hall and to their chambers.
With a gentleness she could barely fathom, he laid her against the bed.
Ariel trembled at the force of her desire. At last she’d have her fondest wish.
Valteri stared at her like a starving man eyeing a king’s feast. The raw hunger in his eyes sent waves of desire through her. She wanted him to devour her, and she longed to taste the rich, salty ripples of his muscles until she’d had her fill. But part of her heart told her that she’d never be sated with him.
Nay, she’d always want him, always yearn for his touch.
Licking her lips, she offered him a hesitant smile. “Come, my lord Valteri,” she whispered, pulling him back into her arms. “I have waited for you.”
Valteri closed his eyes at her words, savoring each and every syllable.
Even if he was damning both of them to an eternity of rumors and hostility, he couldn’t stop himself from seizing this one moment, this one woman. He needed her, and the only way he could let her go would be to cut his own heart from his chest.
Nay, he could never leave. If there was a God above, then this must be His way of making amends for all he’d suffered. And if this was his reward, Valteri decided it’d been worth each and every torment ever delivered, and he would gladly relive all of it for this one moment in her arms.
She wrapped herself about him and he shivered from the tenderness. He tasted her silken lips, her neck, where he inhaled her divine rose scent. His lips tingled from the saltiness of her skin and he drank of it deeply. This was the only nourishment he needed, the nourishment he’d starved for the whole of his life.
Heated fire replaced the coldness in his heart. Every color and scent seemed amplified and more vibrant to him, as if he’d opened his eyes for the very first time. As if he had been reborn.
Her hesitant touches echoed through his soul, crashing through every single barrier he’d placed around himself to keep from being harmed.
Now he stood before her like a naked babe on the edge of a cliff.
And just like that child, he wanted to cry out in desperation. Never had he felt so exposed, so very vulnerable, and indeed he knew one word of rejection from her would destroy him.
She pulled his tunic from him, her hands eagerly exploring each dip and curve of his flesh. Valteri closed his eyes, his body burning.
“Do your wounds still plague you?” She ran her fingers over the stitches in his side.
Valteri shook his head, his throat tight. In truth all his wounds both past and present seemed completely healed because of her.
She gave him peace.
“All I feel is you, Ariel, and you could never bring me pain.”
Those words made her blush. Her head reeled with the masculine scent of him, the gentle pressure of his strong hands roaming over her flesh. Everywhere he touched, hot chills rose up.
Ariel brushed her lips over the hard stubble of his neck, delighting in the salty taste of his skin. His throaty moan reverberated under her lips and thrilled her more than all the glorious mornings of the world.
“I need you,” he whispered against her cheek.
Ariel pulled him closer. “I will always be here for you.”
She shivered as he pulled her kirtle from her, and heat stole up her cheeks. Even though she’d already given herself to him, she was embarrassed for him to see her. Before it’d been dark, but in the full light of the day, she lay completely exposed, completely vulnerable to his gaze, his touch.
His eyes burned with an intensity that stole her breath as he moved again and retook her lips.
Valteri nibbled a path to her throat, and nipped at her tender flesh. Sharp, pulsing fires burned inside him. It seemed as if the first time with her had never been.
Not a callow, untried youth, he still found himself shaking from expectation. Nervous almost beyond endurance.
Her lips brushed the flesh just below his ear and he shook from the boiling desire that pitched inside him.
“Come to me, milord,” she whispered, her husky voice urging him further.
He separated her thighs.
Ariel shivered in expectation as she reveled at the sensation of him lying against the length of her. She held her breath, afraid he would yet change his mind and send her away.
Or worse, that he’d leave her again.
And that thought made her fear that he would one day leave. That would kill her.
Valteri was her life, her breath.
His body heat reached out to her and she raised her hips to him. With a groan, he buried his face in her neck and slid inside her.
All of a sudden, a horrible, body-wrenching pain tore through her pleasure. It seemed as if she were being halved in twain. Her stomach lurched and burned and Ariel gasped from the agony.
“Ariel?” Valteri’s voice sounded so far away that she longed to ask him where he’d gone.
Yet her head spun as if she had fallen into a well or some other deep hole.
Strange lights and images spiraled around her, stealing her breath. A hundred foreign voices spoke simultaneously, some accusing, some in pity.
From somewhere far away, she heard weeping and lamentations. Her chest tight, she tried to focus her thoughts, but like someone falling from a steep cliff, she couldn’t find anything solid to grasp.
Suddenly, the images stopped.
Brutal pain exploded inside her body. Out of nowhere, her memories returned with rich, sharp clarity.
All of them.
“Dear gods!” she cried, shoving against Valteri.
His gaze confused, he held her against him. “Milady, what is it?”
Milady.
That single word hovered in her mind like a nightmare, an unbelievable terror that paralyzed her.
Over and over, the veil in her mind was shattered. All the images that had been foggy became crystal clear.
They all made sense.
Shadow. Belial.
The man with eyes identical to Valteri’s …
Shite …
“Nay!” She moved away from him to cover herself with the fur-lined blankets. Ariel cowered against the edge of the bed, too horrified to think. “What have I done?”
Valteri looked at her as if she’d struck him and he slowly moved from the bed and retrieved his breeches. The pain in his eyes told her that he thought her rejection was of him.
With a trembling breath, Ariel stiffened her spine against the terrible, unbelievable truth she must deliver to him.
“’Tis not you, Valteri,” she assured him.
She glanced up, but couldn’t bring herself to face the misery that burned in his eyes.
Why? she wanted to scream. Why had this happened?
That horrid wretch of a witch!
Mildred and her cruel stupidity. So wrapped up in her own misery, she failed to look past it and see what her quest for vengeance could or would mean for others.
For the entire world.
“I have damned us both.”
And damned more than that.
A frown lined his brow as he moved around the bed to touch her, and though he appeared calm, she could sense the roiling anger inside him. “How so?”
Ariel closed her eyes in an effort to banish the warmth of his hand against her bare shoulder, the comfort he offered.
Comfort she must shun. And shunning Valteri was the last thing she wanted to do.
How was she to tell him what she now knew about herself and the others?
He’d never believe her words. In truth, she found it impossible to believe and she knew it for reality.
Belial had played her well.
They all had.
But that one demon had surely earned his place in Azmodea for his treachery.
“Milady, what has caused you such distress?”
Her heart pounding, Ariel considered several ways to broach the matter with him, but nothing seemed right.
How could she tell him that she was something he didn’t even believe in?
That both of them had been nothing more than the pawns in a game they hadn’t even known they were playing?
“You will think me insane.”
He brushed her hair away from her shoulder. “I will never think that of you.”
She shook her head, refusing his reassurance. She must maintain distance between them.
For his sake and for her own.
This wasn’t about carnal knowledge. She was the daughter of Michael and he …
He had no idea who his father was, but she did.
Holy gods, what had Belial done?
Had Kadar brought them together to toy with them all? Just how sick a game was this?
Valteri gently took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “Talk to me.”
Ariel bit her lip. He would lose his mind at the truth. She could only imagine the rage.
Provided he ever accepted the truth.
Even now, anger sizzled in his gaze, scorching her with its intensity. His jaw twitched. “What vexes you, milady? Tell me.”
In his mismatched eyes she saw his fear that she’d rejected him.
She couldn’t allow him to believe she’d spurned him when he was her very life.
Don’t do it.
Keep silent.
She knew not to say anything and yet before she could stop herself, the truth tumbled from her lips: “I’m an Arel, Valteri.”
He scowled at her. “A what?”
Groaning in exasperation, she struggled to find the right words to make him understand. “There are powers here that I know you don’t want to believe in. That you’ve refused to acknowledge. But they’re real and a war is raging that has nothing to do with your brother, William. I’m a part of that fight. A warrior, just like you.”
His scowl matched her own. “How so?”
Ariel didn’t even know where to begin. If she had her powers, she could show him and that would make this so much easier. And with that, she realized that she still had parts of her memory missing.
Parts she didn’t quite understand.
But one thing she did know.…
“I swear to you that I’m speaking the truth. I was born from the powers of light, and the darkest powers have brought us together in an attempt to weaken my father and take you captive.”
Valteri looked away, his heart strangely blank. It was as if his body didn’t know how to react to her words and so decided to feel nothing.
“Well … my luck still holds, eh? I finally found a wife and it turned out she’s insane.”
She glared at him. “I’m not deranged! I know you don’t believe me, but you must!”
Valteri just stared at her. Not even the urge to curse came to him. Maybe he’d already died of his wounds.
Surely that alone could explain this strange surreal defeat that echoed through his body, whispering through his soul.
“Very well, milady. You’re an angel. Where are your wings?”
Ariel cringed at his question. “I said I was an Arel.” But a vicious side of her really wanted her wings to sprout out and make him eat those words. “In my true form, I actually do have wings. However, I was cursed to be human, and so it seems that my ability to spring them out has been taken from me.”
“What of your brothers?” His gaze darkened. “Are they Arels, too?”
Ariel bit her lip. How in the name of anything holy did she begin to answer that loaded question?
“The plural’s ‘Arelim.’ And they’re not exactly my brothers.”
He arched a brow. “How so?”
Ariel shifted her grip on the cover she held. How could she even begin to explain this one? “Well, Thorn and Shadow are sort of like my brothers. Though they’re not very well trusted among my kind. Thorn more so than Shadow. In fact, he has a lot in common with you, on that point.”
“And Belial?”
Ariel hesitated as she feared Valteri’s reaction.
But lying just wasn’t in her nature. It never had been.
“In truth, he’s the demon, not you.”
His expression turned droll and irritated. “How so?”
She took a step back. “As you so often say about yourself, he was demonspawn. Born of demons. His only purpose is to damn others and wreak havoc. Only in his case, it’s true.”