Page 305 of The Daughters of Avalon
And then suddenly, another thought occurred to her. “If you and my mother were…”
“Lovers?” Marcella finished.
“Aye. Then why didn’t she remember you at Blackwood?”
Marcella pursed her lips. “Oh, believe me. She remembers. She’s the one who introduced me to Cael, and no matter what we once were to each other, she was all too willing to use me to her service. She was merely too arrogant to?—”
“What?”
Marcella reined in her mount suddenly, sidling about to face Rhiannon. “Never mind,” she said quickly, sliding from her saddle. “None of that is important.”
“Then why have you told me these things?”
“Because,” she said, “it could be there won’t be another opportunity.”
“Why not?”
Marcella nodded toward the bright sunlight at the end of the forest lane, and said, “We’ve kept to the woodlands as much as possible. Soon, we’ll be leaving Cannock and we’ll not encounter shelter again until Macclesfield or High Peak. But that is not our immediate concern.”
“What is?” asked Rhiannon.
“We’re being followed,” said Jack.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Whatever awkwardness existed between the paladins, it vanished in that moment. They moved deftly together, like a choreographed dance, as though teacher and student had already rehearsed their parts.
Jack responded by moving forward to sweep up the reins of Rhiannon’s mount, drawing her off the road.
A glance about revealed that Marcella had chosen a spot to their advantage, with ample shelter on either side of the lane.
Even as Rhiannon dismounted, Jack was already down from his mount, unsheathing his dirk.
For her part, Marcella stood squarely in the middle of the lane, defiant and fearless, preparing to face their pursuer alone—a single rider who revealed himself without delay.
Rhiannon gasped aloud, her heart kicking against her ribs as she realized who it was…
Cael.
It was Cael.
No longer dressed in the finery of their wedding ceremony, he looked like a dark lord emerging from a mist.
Dressed in the accoutrements of war, he and the horse came trotting up the narrow path, his slow but purposeful gait deceptive in its casual affectation. Beside him traveled a lone, gray hound, eyes as yellow as a wolf’s, the head nearly as tall as the belly of his mount.
But though his pace was easy, there was little about him that was carefree. He moved fluidly with his destrier—a monstrous beast unlike any Rhiannon had ever beheld, and he wore his great sword tucked behind his back, with the pommel rising over his head so he could easily grasp the hilt. He appeared larger than life, and only for an instant, her knees went weak as pudding.
Fortunately, Jack caught her before she fell, but then he put a small blade to the tender flesh of her neck, as though to threaten her. Shocked by the sting of cold metal, Rhiannon unleashed herhud duand the knife in Jack’s hand heated swiftly, glowing red like fresh hammered steel straight from a forge. Jack yelped and dropped the knife.
Casting him an annoyed glance, Rhiannon rushed into the lane to stand beside Marcella, but here, again, the elder paladin seized her by the tunic, dragging her back behind her. “Damnation!” complained Rhiannon, but Marcella ignored her, her attention affixed to the approaching rider.
“I’ll not allow you to return her to Morwen,” said Marcella, and lest anyone mistake her meaning, the paladin withdrew the sword from her scabbard and held it at the ready.
Calm as ever, Cael kept his saddle even after he halted, his dark eyes looking past Marcella to Rhiannon.
“I do not intend to,” he said, with a half-smile that materialized only for her.
