Page 155 of The Daughters of Avalon
“Seren,” he said softly. “Seren, please listen to me.” He gripped her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “It was your sister who sent me.”
Confused, Seren blinked at him. “Arwyn?”
“Nay, your sister Rosalynde. I am Wilhelm Fitz Rich?—”
It was so cruel to give hope, only to rip it away.So cruel!Once again, she flew at him, this time pounding his chest with all her fury. “I heard you the first time, my lord!”
A flash of irritation ignited behind his dark eyes as he caught her wrists once again, saving himself from the assault. Bewildered, Seren stilled, only because she was too confused to do aught else.
Who was this man? What was she supposed to do? Where should she go?Arwyn—oh, Arwyn, oh, nay.
“I’m no lord,” he explained. “I am baseborn son to Richard de Vere.”
De Vere?
De Vere!
“Giles?” she said, blinking with sudden comprehension.
He nodded. “Your betrothed,” he said, and when she did not respond at once, he prompted again, “Lady Seren?”
Seren’s jaw went slack. After everything that had transpired now, Giles de Vere would still force her to wed? Sweet mercy, in the wake of her sister’s death, marriage was the least of her concerns. Words failed her; grief caught in her throat like asticky pit. And once again she wrenched herself away, this time, rubbing at her wrists. “He isnotmy intended,” she professed. “Irepudiate him!”
The man coughed, looking askance, then scratching the back of his head. “Aye, well,” he said. “As to that… whatever lies between you and my brother lies between you and my brother. ’Tis none of my concern. Rather, I was tasked to find you and return you safely to Warkworth and this I will do.”
He lifted his face to Seren’s and for an instant she was lost in his dark, fathomless gaze—eyes that were so profound they left her confused. But there was something in his expression that calmed her, because even despite that she was still furious with him, he was looking at her as though he somehow understood… and more… as though he felt her pain. For a long, long instant, she couldn’t avert her gaze.
Baseborn, so he’d claimed. Giles was his brother. Wide-shouldered, brawny and swarthy, Seren had little trouble believing the man could be lowborn. But something in her expression must have revealed misgivings, because he said, “Hold me in contempt, if you will… I am only here to help.”
Normally, Seren was not an angry soul. If the truth be known, she had the least temper of all her sisters, but it was so much easier to be angry with this behemoth—this beast of a man who seemed so intent upon forcing her to acknowledge the truth. “How can you help me?” she asked, lifting her chin defiantly. “Can you resurrect my sister?”
His jaw grew taut, and he pursed his lips, displacing a long, dark curl from his forehead as he shook his head. At one time, his hair might have been shorn in the Norman fashion, but it was overgrown now, and disheveled. His beard was sorely unkempt. “I am sorry,” he said. “Your sister cannot possibly have survived the blaze. She is gone, Seren, and you must return to Warkworth with me.”
Crying out in pain, Seren pressed her hands to her ears, refusing to hear, even knowing he spoke true. She simply could not accept it. Arwyn died on her birth anniversary, no less—alone!
Goddess, please,she begged.
Let it not be true.
How could she face Rose and Elspeth?
How could she look her sisters in the eyes and confess how miserably she’d failed Arwyn?
Perhaps sensing her distress, Wilhelm stepped forward, and all Seren’s years of careful aplomb shattered like Merlin’s Stone. White hot intensity surged through her veins, and she felt a tempest rising in her soul, manifesting a wind that spun between them and eddied into the tree tops, shivering the boughs.Witchwind.It seemed as though all her twenty-one years of careful restraint loosed at once, and the potency of it changed the weather.
Seren herself might have been startled, except that fury held her in its throes. She surrendered to the feeling, allowing her spirit to unfurl into theaether, hoping for the first time in all her life that her demeanor could be frightening.
She wanted to frighten this man. She wanted to scream. She wanted to send trees toppling. She wanted to shout obscenities at the heavens and drive a silver blade into her palm to cast the most hideoushud du. For the first time in all her living days she welcomed rage, and intuitively understood how the feeling could drive her mother to darkmagik.
Fury, hot and savage twisted through her like a maelstrom, and something deep inside her snapped, like a twig. Something broke. Something Seren was sorely afraid she could never repair.
Somehow, she managed to recover herself, crossing her arms to keep from trembling, and after a long, long moment, thewitchwindsettled, but she could spy through the treetops thatthe sky was no longer blue. The storms that had plagued the city for more than asennighthad returned, and the air held a new chill.
Chapter
Five
Shewas doingthis.
