The tent was divided into half by a panel of gauze. The other side was clearly Taylor’s side of the tent. There was a pair of beautifully painted five panel dividers, arranged to provide privacy for changing when the heavy tent sides were taken down, as they were now. There was a chair made comfortable with cushions and even a bed that must have been carried all the way from England just for her convenience. There were two big chests of clothes and smaller boxes of possessions. The costs and logistics involved in carting such luggage shocked her. No wonder Veris had been so disdainful about bringing a woman on crusade.
For the first time, Taylor realized that for this time and age, Brody had to be a man of influence and means, especially to be able to afford to bring such burdens as a wife and her luggage with him. The huge tent, the servants and the crest she wore meant Brody had his own lands and they supported him very well indeed.
And he considered himself to be a savage?
A woman with a much smaller crest on her gown stepped into the tent and through to Taylor’s side and dropped her head down low. “My lady,” she murmured. “M’ lord said you were looking for me. I’m sorry, I fell asleep. It’s this heat.” She straightened up and cast her eye over Taylor. “You’ll be needing to dress for dinner.”
Taylor looked out at the blazing sun, which was noticeably lower in the sky. “My husband wants a formal dinner tonight?”
The woman smiled. The smile showed wisdom beyond the few years the woman seemed to possess. “With all the rationing, I don’t think dinner will be anything much at all. But we must try, hmm?”
* * * * *
WHEN TAYLOR INSISTED ON BATHING first, the woman was shocked. Then she explained that water was even more severely rationed than food.
Taylor shed layers of gown and undergown as the woman—Taylor could not directly ask her what her name was—fetched the jug of water that was Taylor’s share for the evening and poured two cupfuls into a laver. Taylor used that water to wash herself while standing on a cloth behind the screens, then let herself air dry. In the torrid heat she dried in a few minutes.
She discovered when she unplaited her hair that it reached her ass. The woman combed through it with quick, practiced motions, barely tugging at all. Taylor marveled over the length and thickness of it. “Veris would love this,” she murmured.
“Excuse me, m’lady?” the woman asked.
“Nothing,” Taylor said quickly. She realized she had spoken English.
The woman had put out another full chemise and bliaut for Taylor to wear. The chemise looked to be made of some delicate cotton while the bliaut was rich with embroidery and with the heavy full sleeves.
Taylor shook her head. “I’m not wearing that. It’s too hot.”
“It’s a formal evening gown.” The woman shrugged. “The chemise is the lightest you have.”
“I’ll wear that, then.”
The woman looked relieved and picked it up.
“Haven’t I got a robe or something simple to wear over the top?” Taylor asked. “Or is all I have here bliauts?”
The woman frowned. “Robe, m’lady?”
“Something light that covers me, but isn’t constricting.”
“Like the tunics your husband wears?”
Taylor laughed. “That’s perfect! Go and get one from his chest. And the sheers!” She slipped into the delicate, cool chemise. It had a rounded neck and clung to her body from neck to hip. The material was so fine it left very little to the imagination. In the twenty-first century, it could even be called seductive.
The woman brought one of Brody’s blue and white tunics to Taylor, along with the sheers. The tunic was laid out with light blue and white squares on the left and white and light blue on the right, which left a perfectly straight line right down the center for her to cut along.
She tried the “robe” on. It was too large around the neck and had a tendency to slide off one or other shoulder, but if she tied her belt around the waist, it served well enough. It was a more comfortable substitute than the bliaut. She could slide into it in thirty seconds and it left her free to wear just the chemise while she was in the tent.
“Put the gown away,” Taylor told the woman. “I’ll wear that the night we have a real dinner.”
The cantering of a horse warned her of someone’s approach and she found herself looking around hopefully to the north. When she saw the blue and white of Brody’s tunic, her heart skipped a beat. He’d returned.
He threw his reins to a page, his gauntlets to another along with a murmured order and strode into the tent.
The woman bowed her head.
“My thanks, Mary,” Brody told her. “Go get yourself some supper. You’re dismissed for the evening.”
“Thank you, my lord,” the woman told him and slid past him.
Brody didn’t even look at her.
Mary, Taylor catalogued, as she ran her gaze over Brody, taking in the broad shoulders that the long hair and heavy metal clothes usually diminished. He wasn’t hugely muscled like Veris, but he was very strong, all the same. Some time since he had strode, fuming, from the tent and his return, he had washed off the blood and dirt.
But he still looked angry.
“You didn’t see him,” Taylor guessed.
Brody shook his head.
“I’m sorry.”
He made an impatient sound. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Apologize? This is partly my fault. You tried to tell me not to kiss him right then. If I’d listened, then maybe it would have gone okay.”
“Damn it, Taylor, don’t.” He lifted up his hand and made a fist of it. “I lay on a ridge and watched his camp and couldn’t see a sign of him. All I’m supposed to be worrying about right now is Veris and getting him back. Yet I look at you in that chemise with your hair loose and the only thing I can think about is dragging you down to the ground and fucking you until you mewl for mercy.”
Her heart seemed to stop for a moment. Then it hurried on, faster than before.
“You like my hair, too?” she asked. She didn’t dare move in case she broke the spell. Brody wasn’t pissed at her right now. She wanted to keep it that way.
Brody made a choked, almost desperate sound. “I can feel my hands sliding into it. I can see locks of your hair spread about after I’ve made you scream my name. Yes, I like your hair.”
She licked her lips. “Then, when—if—we get back, I am never cutting my hair again.”
His jaw rippled. “Veris told you the same thing, didn’t he?”
She nodded.
Brody looked away.
“I know what he saw in you the first time, Brody.”
His black eyes narrowed as he looked back at her. “He told you that, too?”
“No, but I saw it today, I think.” She threaded her hands together. “You were right, a little bit. I do tend to think of you as the bard. But not in a bad way. Not in a weak way. I think you underestimate yourself by calling yourself a savage.” She waved her hand around the tent. “You’re supporting how many people? You speak and write how many languages now? Right now in this year, 1099, before you met Veris?”
Brody’s mouth opened a little. “That’s hardly—”
“Yes it does count! God damn it, you’re just as stubborn as he is!” She shook her head. “Why does toting up Veris’ achievements make him smart, but it doesn’t mean the same thing for you?” She stared at him, daring him to refute her.
Brody cleared his throat and gave the half-sheepish shrug he always gave when he knew he was cornered. His mouth curled up at one corner. “I supposed it doesn’t count because I’m just as stubborn.”
She fought not to laugh. She had a point to make and wouldn’t let herself get sidetracked. “Thank you,” she said simply. “You didn’t need Veris to shrug off any traces of savagery or slavery. You did it all just fine by yourself. Today, I watched you as a leader of men, out there when the Fatimids tried to take down the siege engine.”
His glance flickered to where the wooden structures stood like forlorn abandoned skeletons, except that guards patrolled their base.
“You saw…all of it?” he asked.
She nodded and he winced. “Now I begin to understand your reactions this afternoon. That, then tending the wound, so closely together. I asked too much of you. Women of this century are raised to it.”
He thought she couldn’t handle the bloodiness of his work. The reality of what he was. They were back to that again. He couldn’t know she had been sick because of the baby. Now was not the time to tell him.
Taylor hurried to correct his impression. “Yes, you’re ruthless,” she said quickly. “I think that’s why you think of yourself as still a savage. Leaders are ruthless. It comes with the job. But Veris would know the difference and I think that’s what he saw in you.”
Brody drew in a sharp breath. She had surprised him.
“He saw you as a leader,” she added, “A successful man who came from the worst of beginnings. A man who hasn’t lost his soul along the way. The bard is still in you. Veris would have seen that and for Veris, that would make you almost irresistible. I know it does for me.”
Brody hung his head for moment. He shook it then lifted his chin to look her in the eye. “You’re astonishing. I insult you and head off to seduce another man and when I come back, you do nothing but praise me and put me on a pedestal.”
“You deserve it.”
He shook his head again. “Now I’m starting to feel like you’re the one stealing the oxygen, Maggie Taylor Yates.”
There was a clearing of a throat and they both looked around. The page boy stood at the entrance to the tent, his back to them, holding something.
Brody called, “Come!” in French.
The boy entered, carefully carrying the metal plate. It held food.
“Your supper,” Brody explained. He switched to English. “There is very tight rationing. I asked them to give you my portion, too.”
She smiled at him. “I remember that from the history books. Thank you.” She took the plate and smiled at the boy and thanked him in French. It was easier to speak in French than English, which took conscious effort to use. But using it with Brody made their conversations perfectly secure.
“Use my chair,” Brody told her and pulled over a small folding table. “And my knife. It’s clean now.”
“Clean by our standards or crusades standards?”
“Ours.” He held it out. “Boiling water for twenty minutes. They think I’m crazy.”
She ate, suddenly ravenous. Food would be a problem here if she was pregnant and it was rationed. She would have to be careful about hoarding handfuls to ward off sickness if it struck.
“Tell me about you and Veris. How it was really meant to go,” she asked as she ate. “We need to plan how to get things back the way they should be.”
“You know this story,” Brody said.
“The broad strokes, sure. You’ve never given me the full-on tiny details. Neither has Veris.”
“Really? I’m surprised.” Brody pulled the chest over closer to the table.
“You’re the storyteller,” Taylor pointed out.
Brody grinned and unbuckled his sword belt. He reached around her to hang it over the back of the chair. As he did so, he kissed her cheek. “And I don’t even mind the tag this time. How do you do that?”
“It’s called truth.”
“When I use the truth, people just get insulted.” He unfastened his belt and dropped it beside his chair.
“You use it like a weapon. You use it to wound.”
Brody paused from lifting the tunic over his head to glance at her. “More truth, huh?”
She smiled. “Tell me about when you saw Veris for the first time.”
Brody threw the tunic on top of his belt. “It was another skirmish, like the one you saw this afternoon. The Fatimids want to preserve St. David’s Gate. Everyone does, of course—”
“Why ‘of course’?” she interrupted.
He looked surprised. “I keep forgetting you learned this stuff in history books. It’s the gate where they used to lead all the sinners, dragging their crosses on their way to their execution. Jesus would have gone that way up to the mountain. But there is also a holy Muslim temple — a mosque — on the same mountain.”
“I see,” Taylor said.
“Godfrey of Bouillon and his group are patrolling the walls along the north of the city and down along the west side as far as St. David’s Gate. Raymond, my patron, is controlling the walls south of St. David’s Gate, until they swing toward the east. The Fatimids tried another sally this morning, at the gate. Both Godfrey’s forces and Raymond’s became involved in beating them back.”
“And you ran into Veris,” Taylor finished.
“Not exactly. I was clearing the south side of the gate for Raymond’s knights to push through and saw Veris take a sword in the side. It was a mortal blow—or should have been for any other man. I think he believed no one else saw the strike. I thought nothing of it except that it was a waste of a fine fighting soldier, for I’d seen him working the field before.”
“Military thinking.” She picked up a date. “If I’d seen Veris fighting and knew nothing of him, I’d rue the loss of such force and skill, too.”
Brody grinned. “I was stunned to find him still fighting twenty minutes later, apparently none the worse for wear, except for a rent in his tunic and blood all over it, with his temper up well and good. I knew then, what he was. He could be nothing other than vampire. No one else would have survived such a blow.” He leaned forward on the chest, his eyes glowing. “You should have seen him. He was as good as three men, laying them down like a scythe at harvest time, his eyes blazing with fury. It was fascinating.”
Taylor had seen Brody only a few hours before, locked in battle with dozens of Fatimid fighters and she had been just as compelled by the warrior who had emerged from Brody at that time. She knew exactly what had drawn Brody to Veris.
“Then I saw the spear from the corner of my eye,” Brody said, straightening up. “I have no idea even now, centuries later, what made me so sure the spear was intended for Veris. There was no signal they were heading for him. It was just a sinking feeling I had that the one weapon that was lethal to vampires would be used against him. So I started running, trying to reach Veris before the Fatimid with the spear did. The Fatimid was clambering over the bodies that Veris had slain and making hard going of it, but Veris was turned away. The asshole was going to take him from behind.” Brody shrugged. “I got there in time.”
“In time to do what? Come on,” Taylor complained. “You can do better than this! What happened next?”
He blinked. “You want more detail?”
“Of course I want more! You can’t hold out on me about something as important as this! I want every single little detail. Every second of it!”
Brody rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, looking acutely uncomfortable.
Taylor straightened. “Oh wait. Oh, no, is this a guy thing? You don’t want to talk about the intimate details? Is it?”
He glanced away, out of the tent, then down at his boots. “I don’t know that I’d put it…”
“Oh shit, it is,” Taylor said, staring at him in amazement. “That’s why I’ve never heard this story from either of you. You can’t talk about it because you’re both guys and it’s icky talking about intimate stuff.” She swallowed back a big lump of laughter, because she knew that would be guaranteed to make Brody shut up permanently. Instead she sat, flummoxed by the logic of the male mind.
“I don’t get it,” she said softly. “Neither of you has ever had any problem talking about anything at all with me about stuff we do, before now.”
Brody took a breath. A big one. “Of course not. That stuff we do with you.”
“Oh.” She chewed her lip while she phrased her next sentence very carefully. “But you don’t even mind talking about stuff you and Veris do—I mean, now I’m with you.”
“Exactly. You’re with us now.”
“But you talk about stuff you do even when I’m not there.”
“Not there physically, but that doesn’t make any difference,” he said flatly, his gaze not shifting from her eyes.
Ahhh… And just like that, the shape of it fell into place for her.
“Are you afraid I’m going to resent your relationship with Veris in this time, if you tell me too much about it?” she asked softly. “After all I said about your hold over him, the hold I didn’t have and wished I did?”
“No. I wasn’t even thinking about that,” he said flatly. He grimaced. “Although now I am.” He yanked at the hauberk and pulled it over his head in one impatient tug and it fell with a metallic, heavy sigh onto the ground between his feet. He plucked the undershirt away from his chest. The expression in his eyes was one of discomfort touched with resentment. “This time has always been ours.”
“‘Ours’?” she repeated, puzzled.
Brody rubbed at his brow. “Mine and Veris’.”
It actually hurt, once his meaning sank truly home. She sat staring at him as the pain settled and spread like a fast expanding pool of something black and noxious.
“God, don’t look at me like that,” he said with a groan.
“How should I look?” she whispered.
He turned his gaze from her. “It isn’t meant to hurt you,” he ground out.
“It does.” She couldn’t quite keep her voice steady. “What do all the trips back in time mean to both of you, then, if your time before me is so sacrosanct? Are they just make-believe? Something you pretend never happened? An alternative history in your memory? What?”
“Don’t do this to yourself. Not now. Especially without Veris here.” Brody sounded a touch desperate and even perhaps afraid of what he’d set in motion. “He would explain it better than me anyway.”
Taylor sat up, push her plate away. “Not now? Then when? Where? We’ve been together four years. These trips back in time were supposed to be giving us a chance to backtrack through both of your memories. I thought we were building me into your personal histories. That’s what the queen said and neither of you saw fit to disagree with her, or tell me any differently. Now you tell me neither of you consider me a part of your past. That you’re fighting to keep me out of it! How the hell did you expect me to react? Smile and say ‘oh, how silly of me. My mistake’?” She reached for the tunic she had cut up, thrust her arms into it and yanked it closed around her furiously.
Brody watched her every movement. It wasn’t until she gripped the spiked post at the back of the chair that he spoke.
“You’re reading far more into this than you should.”
“Really? The two men I love don’t want me involved in four-fifths of their lives? That’s trivial?”
That jerked him to his feet. “You’re going to penalize us for having pasts longer than you? I didn’t think you were capable of such prejudice.” The condemnation in his tone was rich.
She held up a hand. “Stop,” she said softly. Tears burned in her eyes. “God, Veris taught you how to do that, didn’t he? When the going gets too tough or uncomfortable in an argument, attack instead. It’s the easiest way out of talking about feelings.”
Brody sank onto the chest. “You’re right. That’s exactly what he does. Jesus, I just did it, too. I didn’t even realize.” He pushed his hand through his hair, then scratched at the back where the long hair he was used to feeling was missing.
Taylor felt her tears spill and let them roll unchecked. Brody was just going to have to feel even more uncomfortable now. This was too important to dance around with subtleties.
“Brody?” she nudged gently.
He lifted his head to look at her and sighed. “Oh, God, it was just a simple thing. It wasn’t this huge significant shutting out you feel it is.”
“Tell me,” she begged.
He looked down at his hand resting on his knee and curled the fingers into a fist, then loosened them. Thinking. Then he looked at her again. “It’s like that rule most people have about not discussing intimate details of past relationships with their current lovers.”
Taylor lowered herself onto the edge of the big chair. It held no cushion or comfortable lining. That, more than anything seemed to characterize Brody in this time period. “But you and Veris are my current lovers.”
“It’s different for us. You live as long as we do, you tend to compartmentalize your life. It lets us blend in with humans. It keeps us sane. Keeps things straight in your mind. You keep the events in one section separate from the others.”
“And you’ve separated you and Veris into one section and me and you and Veris into another?” Taylor asked.
“Something like that,” Brody said. He picked up her hand. “There’s no reason why the three of us won’t continue on for another two thousand years. You’ll have plenty of history to share with us.”
She pulled her hand from his. “Then why do we get to jump around history? Your history? Veris’ history? There has to be a reason. The queen thought it was so I could catch up with your pasts. Now you’re saying you don’t want me to share that. You’re saying she’s wrong. Veris has been insisting for about a year now we’re not just living inside our memories when we jump back, that this is really time travel. We’re actually back in history. I have facts to prove that he is right, too.”
“What facts?”
“I can’t give them to you until we’re back in our time. They’re material proof.” She fought hard not to touch her belly as she spoke, or look down at it. “But if we’re not flipping backward in time for me to catch up with your pasts, then why are we doing it?”
Brody shook his head. “You really think I have an answer for that?”
Her tears began to fall again. “I think you’re wrong. Both of you,” she said flatly. “We only ever travel to times and places in your personal pasts. Things you remember. It’s one of the first things both of you nearly always say when we arrive. ‘Oh, I remember!’ And have you noticed that I’m always with you when we travel? Sometimes the three of us go. Sometimes it’s just you and me and sometimes just me and Veris. But it’s always me that goes.”
Brody’s hand clenched. “I had noticed,” he admitted.
“Why would we be doing that if it wasn’t for me to catch up with your pasts? Can you think of any other reason?”
He sat there for a long moment in silence. Taylor waited him out.
“No,” he said at last. “But it doesn’t mean that yours is the only reason. It just means we haven’t figured out the reason. That’s all.”
She nodded. “I know. I’m not trying to trap you into agreeing with me. I’m just trying to get you to help me to reason it out.”
Brody pressed his fingers to his temples. “God, I wish Veris was here,” he muttered.
Taylor wiped her damp cheeks. “That’s why we’re having this conversation you so hate,” she pointed out. “To make sure he’ll be here next time we need to have one.”
His black eyes skewered her. Her heart beat twice before he said flatly, “And for that you need to know every little detail of what happened when Veris and I met.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The past has been disrupted. We need to get it back onto its rails again. You know how it is supposed to go because you lived it the first time. I didn’t. But if I know as much about what did happen, I can help nudge it back on track. We both know him inside out. I’ll have to make some adjustments for this younger version of him, but his erotic tastes will still be the same. If we can’t orchestrate your seduction of him in record time, then we don’t deserve him.”
Brody pulled the undershirt off over his head. Slowly, as he thought through her plan. “You suggested something like this earlier today,” he pointed out.
“Yes.”
“You really are willing to help me do this?” he asked, almost diffidently.
Taylor shook her head. “For heaven’s sake, it’s all of us at stake here. I’d do anything to preserve that. So would you.”
His face hardened and seemed to grow older before her eyes. “True,” he said simply. “I’m sorry, I keep forgetting the big picture. I only seem to be able to focus on the fact that Veris is gone.” His gaze cut away from her face abruptly.
“For now, that is all we have lost,” she said gently. “If we jump back to our time and Veris is still lost, then we lose it all. I lost Veris today too, Brody.”
He looked back at her, shocked. “And you were the one who kissed him…” He pulled her onto his lap and into his arms. “Forgive me. I’ve been utterly selfish.” His kiss was soft, seeking forgiveness. But it didn’t stay that way for long. His hand wound into her hair and his tongue slid into her mouth, while his lips hardened and grew more demanding and hungry.
His free hand found the hem of her chemise and pushed it up her legs, baring them to the night air that seeped through the tent walls. In this hot, dry climate even Brody’s hand was warm as it slid along her flesh. His thumb caressed her inner thigh.
Taylor sighed. She craved this intimate contact. The implied approval and love was a balm after the loss and disaster of the day and she clung to Brody, her body strumming with pent up need.
“Higher,” she begged, when his lips lifted from hers.
His thumb pushed between her thighs, up against her pussy lips. “No underthings. Why, my lady Tyra, you are most wicked,” he murmured. He licked her throat. His fangs lightly scraped over her skin. “Bare my cock and straddle me,” he commanded.
Taylor glanced around. There were soldiers, knights, pages, dozens of people lingering around the tent, going about their business or sitting or lying about campfires. But they were minding their own business. Inside the tent, as Brody had brought no candles with him, it was almost dark. Only the light from nearby fires illuminated the interior.
“I am their lord,” Brody murmured. “The walls of the tent, even though they are like gossamer, may as well be three feet thick curtain walls of a keep. My men are stone deaf and blind to everything that happens in here until I call for them.” He pushed aside the rendered tunic and his tongue slid over her nipple, through the thin fabric of the chemise. “Undo my pants,” he repeated.
She caught her breath at the bolt of pleasure that speared her at his touch on her breast. She dropped her hand to the fastenings of his braies and fumbled with the ties at his waist. It took her a few moments because she was both inexperienced and excited.
Eventually, she tugged at the garment, letting it drop down his hips and baring his cock. It reared, red and veined, more than ready and she stroked it. She adored Brody’s cock, which was thick and had a perfectly formed head. She loved Brody being inside her. She spread her knees over his hips, feeling her pussy open up ready to have him slide in. She gathered up the delicate chemise around her hips.
“Wanton,” he told her and bit her nipple through the chemise.
She moaned and sank onto his cock, feeling it slide up, separating the walls of her vagina.
His hand gripped her bottom and the tight grip told her he liked the sensation of her around him. Taylor lifted herself up and slid down upon him again.
Brody groaned, his eyes half closing. She caught the flash of fangs. He was truly aroused. She leaned forward to kiss him and lift herself up at the same time. She let her tongue touch his canines very carefully. It was all the warning he needed. She felt them withdraw.
His hands grabbed her hips and with a growl he jerked into her, hard and fast, riding her. She felt his cock slamming up into her and grabbed at his shoulders as her climax rushed at her with express train speed. Her clit was being massaged by Brody’s pelvis with each hard upthrust and all she could do was hold on for the ride.
She climaxed with a cry she did her best to smother against his hard, muscled shoulder.
Brody came a few seconds after her. He shuddered, his fingers digging into her hips and groaned loudly.
Taylor could feel her cheeks heating. Brody seemed utterly unconcerned about the men lying and sitting barely twelve feet away.
Taylor tried to climb from his lap, humiliated, but Brody stopped her. “Don’t,” he said softly. “They take pride in their lord’s virility and they have no thoughts about you at all. It is the way of it and we must be a part of these times for now.” He held her still until she ceased trying to get away from him.
She hid her face in his neck, instead. “For a moment I’d forgotten I was your property.”
She felt him laugh silently. “I wouldn’t dare presume that for anything but appearance’s sake.”
Taylor pulled back and kissed him lightly on the lips. When her breath and heartbeat had slowed, she murmured, “So…do you think you can tell me about you and Veris now?”
His hands linked around her waist. “I can try,” he said evenly. “But Taylor, you’re asking a man to talk about intimate details. Most men would rather stick themselves with red hot pokers than speak of such things.”
She nodded. “While a woman will spend hours going over every single second from every angle and analyzing it for implied meanings and more, with her best friend, her second best friend and maybe her mother for advice, just in case.” She sighed. “I do know this. But between you and Veris, you’re the most likely one to ever be able to tell the tale. Veris would clam up like an oyster if he was in your position. You’ve at least got a famous poet for a father, so you’ve got storytelling in your blood. Think of it that way, if you must. Tell me a story.”
Brody frowned. “If I have to,” he said reluctantly. He flexed his shoulders, like he was squaring off before a national heavyweight champion in the ring. “Where was I before?”
“You saw the spear heading for Veris and stopped it. Big on details, that,” Taylor said dryly.
Brody nipped the tip of her nipple between his teeth and tugged, stretching the still-damp linen of the chemise and making Taylor catch her breath sharply. “You’re in no position to complain about anything,” he reminded her when he let go.
She took two calming breaths. “The spear,” she prompted him.
* * * * *
THE SPEAR HAD A SILVERED tip that caught the dazzling early morning sun and flashed in Brody’s eyes. That was the only reason he saw it in time.
The Fatimids had clearly grown tired of the giant knight blocking their path and mowing down their companions with fearless and angry efficiency. Brody was certain now the broad-shouldered knight in the red and black Selkirk colors was vampire. The sword in his side had done nothing more than get his temper up and now he was an fury-filled fighting machine, standing upon a pile of rubble at the top of the breach in St. David’s Gate. Not a single Fatimid had made it through. The man had given Raymond’s people time to build the temporary wooden walls they could put in place over the hole the Fatimids had made.
But the Fatimids had not appreciated the knight’s effectiveness and one of their better warriors had been chosen to deal with him. Armed with a silver-tipped spear, the warrior had stolen closer under the cover of the chaos of Fatimid soldiers pushing toward the gap.
Brody saw the warrior as he began his run up the ramp of rubble toward the big knight. He had chosen a moment when the man had turned away to deal with Fatimids who had stepped through the wall and were perilously close to getting away altogether. From the angle the warrior was approaching Veris, the spear would take him in the back.
Brody began to run at the same time. There was no thought in it. He wasn’t even certain the spear was intended for the knight. He just didn’t like the line of possibility. Vampires and spears didn’t mix and the knight’s flank was unprotected.
Brody pushed between the knight and the ragged edges of the wall breach. He already had his sword up in the high guard position, the tag position, so it was simply a matter of bringing it down as he cleared the wall. It chopped off the head of the spear before it reached the knight as cleanly as a knife cut through lard. Brody risked taking one hand off his sword hilt to catch the infidel by the throat as his impetus pushed him farther up the rubble hill. The man literally ran onto Brody’s sword point and a surprised look appeared in his eyes before blood cascaded from the corners of his mouth and all emotion faded from his eyes.
“That was for me, wasn’t it? The spear?” The knight was suddenly at Brody’s shoulder. His voice was hard, heavy.
Brody tossed the warrior back down the rubble hill and looked over his shoulder. This close, he could see the knight’s eyes were pure blue. Saxon, he’d bet his life on it. There’d be blond hair under the helmet. If the man was truly vampire, did he go as far back as Viking, then?
“The spear was meant for you,” Brody confirmed. “You should be more careful,” he added. “Spears can be nasty for some.” He touched his canine under his lip so the knight would see the movement of the tip of his tongue.
The man’s eyes narrowed a tiny fraction. Then his mouth lifted at one corner. “You’ve been watching,” he said, dropping his voice just enough so that anyone nearby would have to strain to hear it. That still meant he was talking louder than a conversation anywhere else might be.
With a start, Brody realized that he had been watching this man with more than the usual amount of attention. His heart thudded. “Yes,” he said truthfully.
The knight turned and blocked a sword and beat back a Fatimid with a growl of impatience for having his conversation interrupted. He looked back at Brody, wiping blood from his face. “Norway, four hundred and thirty-nine.”
Brody felt a rush of adrenaline that had nothing to do with the fighting. The vampire before him had revealed his true age and birth place. Just like that. It told Brody the knight was just slightly older than him. Brody took a breath and rattled out “Britain, four hundred and sixty-one.” It felt risky to reveal such information so quickly, but the knight had already made the first move.
The man smiled, showing whole, good, white teeth. “Arthur’s man?”
“Too young.” Brody pushed back the rush of black memories that came with the name. Irons, chains. His back burning with the taste of a whip. Cages. Filth and cold. Misery. He swallowed back the reaction.
The knight’s gaze seemed to absorb all of it. “I see,” he said. Abruptly, he whirled away, taking on the pressing Fatimids with a roar and clash of iron. Brody found himself fighting next to the knight, holding back the Fatimids until the temporary wall was put in place.
Nothing more was said between them of a personal nature. There wasn’t the time or the privacy. But Brody caught the man looking at him once or twice and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled and something low in his belly tightened with possibilities.
He did find out who the man was, though. William of York, Selkirk’s man. Brody wondered what his real name was as he went about the business of the day. He wondered how long it would take William to track him down.
It never occurred to him to hunt William himself. Of the two of them, William was the hunter and in his gut, Brody knew the hunt had begun. He spent the rest of the morning half-aroused and happy among the carnage, lack of food and water and human crisis.