Her Rogue Knight Read Free Page A

thing.
    Sir William had said they had six days and that the ceremony would be held on the night of the Beltane fires. What ceremony he spoke of, she had no idea. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She touched a hand to the slightly raised birthmark behind her ear. She had some idea.
    Before her mother had died, she had told stories. Strange, wonderful, magical stories that enthralled Gemma. She would sit for hours listening at her mother’s feet, staring up into her beautiful face and her strange eyes. Gemma had inherited her mother’s eyes, although they were tempered slightly by her father’s darker ones. Hers were more golden, while her mother’s had been more green.
    She recalled the tales she had been told. She could retell them herself and had done so to her sister, but that had been years ago. Alys had been just a baby then and remembered none of it.
    The day of Alys’ birth had been the day of her mother’s death. Gemma’s lip quivered, and her eyes grew hot with tears at the memory. She’d seen her one last time that day, holding the still-bloody baby, the cord still in place connecting daughter to mother. She remembered her first thought, the feeling inside her when she had been led into the birthing room. She had looked at the baby, her sister, but what had drawn her attention was the cord itself. It still connected this new being to her mother. Jealousy had erupted inside Gemma, an energy that made her body tingle, her muscles tighten, her heart fall like a boulder to her stomach.
    Her mother had called out her name then, and Gemma had turned her eyes to her mother’s, knowing her mother knew what she felt. Her mother’s bright eyes usually shone. But that day when Gemma had looked into them, she’d gasped, shuddering as if the devil had laid a hand upon her shoulder.
    “Come here, Gemma,” her mother had said, her voice weak as she held out her hand.
    Gemma had stared for a long time, her feet still, as if planted where she stood. Tears had begun to fall from her eyes, and if her father hadn’t know it before, he had known then by looking at her that her mother would not survive this birth. His own tears had come quietly, his hand large and protective on his wife’s shoulder, but unable to shield or protect her against that final death.
    Slowly, she had walked to her mother. She had placed her trembling hand inside her mother’s weaker one.
    “Mother,” she’d managed, her body rocking with emotion.
    “Daughter.”
    She had not said more, but while they had remained as they were, their eyes locked on one another, and Gemma had heard everything, had seen everything, all without a sound, all within an instant: her mother’s thoughts, her dreams, her fears, her loves, her losses and her regrets.
    “You will always be my first. No one and nothing can take that away,” her mother had said, releasing her hand to touch her face. A small shadow of a smile had played on her mother’s lips. “Love your sister as I have loved you.”
    Gemma had broken then. It was the end; her mother was moments from death, and she knew it. And as soon as they had cut the cord that connected her sister to her mother, she had passed. Without a sigh, without a gasp or even an exhale of breath; nothing at all. She had simply closed her eyes and passed.
    The nurse had collected the child as Gemma had fallen across her mother’s still form and howled. Since that night, Gemma had been the protector of Alys—that and Alys’ mother, her sister, and her only friend.
    A sound brought her back to the present, and Gemma gasped, startled. She touched the blade strapped to her upper arm as she looked around the thick, dark wood, but she saw nothing. It had likely been an animal. She was alone, tired and cold, and more than a little uncertain.
    She rode on a while longer until the path ahead of her disappeared fully in the thick growth of the forest and no more star light penetrated the dense cover of trees. She dismounted,