Forbidden Read Free Page B

dreams.
    Amber was certain he wasn't dreaming, for she had spent the past two days rubbing precious oils and warmth into his body. During that time she had sensed nothing new. Nor had the pleasure that came with touching him changed. It was as keen now as it had been the first time.
    As Amber worked, she spoke to the stranger, trying to reach him with words as well as with the warmth of her touch and the pungent, healing power of evergreen and amber.
    “My dark warrior,” Amber murmured as she had many times before. “How did you come to the Stone Ring?”
    Her hands massaged first one powerful arm, then the other, shaping muscles that were firm even in relaxation. The dark hair on his forearms gleamed with oil and candlelight. The sight of the strong cords binding him to the bed frame made her frown. She touched one of the cords and sighed, but didn't remove it.
    Erik had said the stranger was to be bound or else one of Erik's squires would be with Amber at all times. She had chosen the bonds, for she wanted no one else around if the man woke up and was discovered to be the enemy she feared.
    Amber didn't know what she would do if that happened. It was a thing she refused to think about, for there was no solution to the dilemma it would cause.
    Enemy and soul mate in one.
    “Were you afoot?” Amber asked. “Were you alone?”
    There was no answer but the rhythmic rise and fall of the stranger's broad chest.
    “Are your eyes the gray of ice and winter, the gray of Dominic le Sabre's? Or are your eyes darker, as the Scots Hammer's are reputed to be?”
    “Or are you a third warrior, unknown, come back from the Saracen full of certainty of your own ability?”
    There was no change in the stranger's deep, even breathing.
    “I pray you are unknown,” Amber whispered. With a sigh, she resumed stroking the patterns of hair across the man's chest. The masculine hair both intrigued and pleased her. She liked smoothing the crisp mat, feeling its resilience and tickling caress over her palms.
    “Did you take off your clothes so that you could enter the sacred circle and sleep safely at the rowan's feet?”
    The man made a murmurous sound.
    “Yes,” Amber said eagerly. “Oh, yes, my warrior. Come to the golden light. Leave all the shades of darkness behind.”
    Though the man made no response. Amber was elated. Slowly, slowly, he was emerging from his unnatural sleep. She sensed his pleasure in being stroked and petted as clearly as if he could speak.
    Yet still no memories came from him to her, no images, no names, no faces.
    “Where are you hiding, my dark warrior?” she asked. “And why?”
    Amber smoothed thick, slightly wavy hair back from the stranger's forehead.
    “Whatever you fear, you must awaken soon. Else you will be lost forever in a darkness that won't end short of death.”
    The stranger made no sound. It was as though she had imagined the brief stirring.
    Straightening wearily, Amber looked at the incense bowl that was set like a candle holder into the wall. The teardrop-shaped bit of gemstone was almost consumed. She added another precious fragment from her store of medicinal amber. A tendril of thin, fragrant smoke curled upward.
    The stranger's body twitched but he didn't awaken. Amber was beginning to fear he wouldn't. Too often that was what happened to people who were struck by stone or broadsword or horse's hoof. They fell into dreamless sleep. Nor did they awaken. Ever.
    That can't happen to this man. He is mine!
    The intensity of Amber's feelings startled her. Uneasily, she began pacing the cottage. After a time she realized that dawn was sending tiny lances of light between the cottage's shutters. Beyond the walls, cocks crowed their triumph into the dying night.
    Amber peeked through a crack where the shutters didn't quite meet. The autumn storm that had been the stranger's undoing had passed over the land. In its wake lay a world newly made, glittering with dew and possibilities.
    Normally