Finally exhaustion flattened her onto the narrow bed. “I need more,” she whimpered. “But I can’t.”
His voice had gone hoarse. He held her tightly, muscles locked. “So do I, but we’ve run out of time. It’s almost dawn.”
The thought of separating from him was like someone slicing at her with a knife. She buried her face against his chest. “No.”
“You have to find a way to come back to your room before your audience with Isabeau,” he told her as his breathing evened. “Don’t let anyone keep you from doing it. I’ll figure out a way to get the battle spell here to you.”
Lifting her head, she searched his face anxiously. His handsome features had already become so familiar to her—she could see the man she had come to know in the darkness shining out in every one of his expressions and gestures.
It all fit in seamless harmony together, like a lock and a key. How she had ever entertained the idea that he could have been Warrick was beyond her.
“How?” she asked. “It’s harder for you to move around in daylight.”
“I don’t know.” He stroked her short hair. “But I’ll figure it out. I’ll work on that today. The main thing you will need to do is not trigger the spell before you’re ready to play, because when it activates it will be unstoppable. You don’t want to squander it beforehand, but you also don’t want to trigger it in front of anybody in case they sense it. Once it settles into your skin, you should be all right, and you’ll know when that happens. You’ll feel it.”
Remembering the flood of epiphany from the last time, she nodded. Her stomach tightened as she thought of what was to come.
But she wouldn’t let him see how afraid she was of all the many things that could go wrong. She had been selfish enough earlier when he had mentioned the possibility of leaving for a while. She wouldn’t do that to him again, not when he was already doing everything he could for her.
“It’s going to be all right,” she said, pushing conviction into her voice. “I’ve been performing since I was four years old.”
He tilted his head. “Really?”
“Really.” She smiled at him. “This will be just another performance.”
A performance that her life depended on. Neither one of them said it.
He shifted position so that he could lean his forehead on hers and stare deeply into her eyes. She had never felt so connected to another person before. She touched his mouth and ran her fingers along the lean line of his jaw.
“I’ll try to be in telepathic range when you play,” he told her. “But I might not manage it.”
“I understand.” Throwing her arms around his neck, she held him as tightly as she could. “Oh, Morgan, I…”
I love you. I need you. My body aches all over, yet I still want you so badly I can hardly breathe.
She didn’t think she could say any of it and still make her arms loosen enough to let him go. Biting her lips, she pulled back. When he looked at her inquiringly, she gave him a twisted smile and shook her head.
She told him, “You’d better go.”
With a muttered curse, he rolled off the bed, scooped up his clothes, and dressed in short, violent movements. As he fastened his trousers, he said, “The hunter’s spray I was wearing wore off quite some time ago. I have more in my bag, but you can’t let anybody in this room until you’ve had a chance to freshen it with some other kind of scent. Go to the chatelaine Preja and tell her you want to clean your room. Preja is a good woman. Ask her for some of the soap scented with lemon, and cedar chips for the wardrobe to keep moths out of your clothes. Both the cedar and the lemon are strong fragrances.”
“I will, first thing,” she promised. She glanced at the bed. It was time to test what Kallah said about the fabric being spelled. “I need to wash the blanket too.”
Slipping on his boots, Morgan dug in his bag and pulled out a bottle. After spraying himself thoroughly, especially down his legs and his boots, he tucked away the bottle, then pulled her upright to kiss her. “I would help you if I could.”
She touched his jaw. “You’re helping me more than enough already.”
He glanced again at the window, where the darkness was beginning to lighten, and his face set. “I need to go.”
She fisted her hands in his shirt. “Be careful.”
While his expression had turned grim, his eyes warmed. “And you as well.”
He kissed her one more time, a quick, burning caress of the lips that made her body pulse. In one swift movement, he pulled away and slipped out of her door.
The sense of his presence lingered in the room for a few moments. Then she felt the chill of the early morning on her skin and shivered.
I hate everything and everyone, she thought savagely. If fact, I’m going to live for the opportunity to rip off somebody’s head today.
As tired as she was, the thought of the danger to Morgan—to both of them—if she didn’t clear her room of his scent fueled her with adrenaline. She scooped up the blanket, the clothes she had worn, and the clean dress, and headed for the wash rooms.
This time, early as it was, she wasn’t so lucky about privacy. Several of the castle servants were using the rooms, both men and women. Self-conscious and wary, she collected the soap she needed and found a tub where she could work, but while she could sense the others casting curious glances at her, they left her alone.
As before, she washed everything else first. The clothes and the blanket were remarkably easy. After she plunged them into the water, she scrubbed them with the soap to be safe, and when she lifted them out, almost all the water ran off them, leaving them slightly damp. They would be dry before the day was over.
Then she washed herself, dressed and brushed her teeth. When she was sure she had thoroughly cleaned everything, she gathered everything up and headed back to her room.
As she stepped out of the wash room, she discovered Warrick standing with another man at the intersection of two hallways nearby. Another pulse of adrenaline hit, making her heart pound and her hands shake.
Ducking her head, she headed for her room. The last thing she needed was a confrontation with Warrick. She wanted to bite somebody’s head off, but in his case, she might be biting off more than she could chew.
But he clearly didn’t have mischief on his mind that morning. Instead, as she passed by, she heard him mutter to the other man, “I swear by the gods, I caught a hint of Morgan’s scent.”
“But he hasn’t been seen, or scented, anywhere since we know he left Avalon,” the other man said. He carried a pile of clothes under one arm and looked as if he were headed to the wash rooms.
Sid’s stride hitched. When she thought of how close she had come to them being able to scent Morgan on her body and clothes, her heart jumped to her throat. A few feet down the hall, she paused and bent, pretending to adjust the heel of her shoe.
Surreptitiously, she glanced behind her, but neither man paid any attention to her. She wasn’t a threat, and she wasn’t important—she was just another servant moving about, doing her chores.
“I’m not crazy,” Warrick snapped. “I know what I smelled.”
“I believe you,” the other man replied with a shrug. “But Morgan has also wandered this castle for centuries. Like so many others, his scent must be imbedded in the stones. To be sure, we need to do another circuit around the castle and the town. That’s going to be the only real test of accuracy. He couldn’t have left a fresh scent in here without leaving one out there, right?”
A shiver went down her spine as she listened. Morgan had been alive—had been a slave—for centuries? She could hardly fathom what it must be like to live for so long. What he had witnessed and experienced.
“I don’t want to wait to gather the other Hounds together,” Warrick told the other man. “You and I should head out right away.”
As the two men strode down the other hallway, Sid slowly straightened. Fear tightened her stomach. If they had chosen to go down the hallway that led to her room, they might have scented Morgan had been in there.
If only there was some way she could warn Morgan… but there wasn’t. She had to trust he was smarter and wilier than the other Hounds and he could remain hidden from their searching.