Bethany shook her head. “She’s fine as well. She killed five demons, but won’t stop talking about the fact that I shot two with a pistol.”
Owen started to comment, but thought better of it. Shooting a demon with a handgun meant Bethany was far closer to combat than she ever should have been. Her having been able to reload to shoot a second time meant she was in danger longer than he liked. Still, the expression on her face-a mix of embarrassment and anger-suggested Caleb had already given her a lecture and she didn’t want to hear any more.
“Something is bothering you.”
She nodded, her brows arrowing together. “When the Prince sent me back to the Stone House, Clara and I headed off as ordered. But not far back we found Count von Metternin and people, lots of people. We found everyone we’d left at Fort Plentiful, and many of those who had left after the battle. There were even more of those that Nathaniel had dismissed at Prince Haven and other volunteers who had joined along the way. They were just all there, waiting. When the cannons went off, they surged forward, just two wings of an army that I didn’t know was there and I’d swear Prince Vlad didn’t know was there either.”
“How did they come to be there?”
“Count von Metternin said it was on the Prince’s orders, but I never sent any messages.” Bethany looked up at him. “I thought, then, that the Prince had sent orders independent of me, because the Count said they were in the Prince’s hand. But Prince Vlad didn’t have a thaumagraph. Or I thought he didn’t, but maybe he did, and maybe he sent messages in secret.”
Owen reached out, resting his hands on her shoulders, stroking her upper arms. “He couldn’t have thought you were a spy.”
“No, I know. I didn’t think that.” She glanced back toward the east. “Before he met with Caleb and the other captains, he pulled me aside. He asked if I’d sent orders independent of him to bring the reinforcements up. I denied it, of course, because I didn’t. But he kept questioning me, asking me if I had gotten any messages or had seen anyone near the thaumagraph. I told him I hadn’t, and that I’d taken the precaution of removing the identification disk. The thaumagraph wouldn’t work without it.”
“That was a wise precaution.”
“Prince Vlad thought so, too. He thanked me for answering his questions, but I don’t think he felt good about my answers.” She shook her head, then raised her hands and held his. “But, here I am running off at the mouth about something which doesn’t matter. How are you, Owen?”
He smiled. “I can use some mending, but otherwise I’m fine.”
“What do you mean?” She stepped back, her expression sharpening. “Are you wounded, Captain Strake?”
“Only the little, tiniest bit.” He held his left arm out and cold air poured through the rent deerskin over his ribs. “Troll horn got me there and the one on my thigh was a tenacious demon.”
“Is that it?”
“Mostly.”
“Owen!”
He laughed, the exasperation in her voice a bit over done. “I’m banged up a bit. Got bashed into a tree or two, but these are the only spots where I’m bleeding.”
Bethany grabbed his right hand and immediately marched him toward a small circle of tents with a bright fire in the middle. A half-dozen men wore the green jackets of Northern Rangers. The rest looked to be some of the reinforcements who had joined up, including one family group with the grandmother and her beleaguered daughter- in-law doing some mending by firelight. She had Owen remove his tunic and hissed when she saw the three-inch long gash on his left side.
The old woman called to a boy of ten. She handed him a needle, thread, a cloth, and a crusty green bottle sealed with a cork. “You’ll be wanting those, Miss. The liniment, that’s mogiqua and grain alcohol, with just a bit of honey. Goes on the outside of him. Got the recipe from At Anvil Lake by Captain Owen Strake.”
Bethany laughed. “This is Captain Strake.”
“Cain’t be. Captain Strake is taller.” The old woman pointed a bony finger. “Now get on without foolishness, Miss. Sew him up good.”
Behind the old woman, her son shrugged, and the Rangers did their best to hide grins. For his part, Owen moaned a bit and groaned a bit-in a way Captain Strake of the book never would have done. The old woman snorted with satisfaction and went back to her mending.
Bethany wiped away blood and dirt, then scrubbed the wounds with mogiqua. It stung, but Owen said nothing. She threaded the needle, then sewed the cut over his ribs closed with neat, even stitching.
What Owen didn’t expect was his reaction when Bethany made that final knot, then leaned in to bite the thread off. Her lips brushed his flesh. Despite being in the middle of a crowd, in firelight, his flesh all goosebumps from the cold, a thrill ran through him at the intimacy of the contact. His mind fled back to the days when he lay in the Frost household, days when he had been in a deep slumber. She had tended his wounds then and though he imagined she’d cut thread with scissors, he could not help imagining her lips touching each of his wounds.
He became hyper-aware of her every move as she stitched up his leg. He borrowed a blanket and wrapped it around himself before stripping off his trousers. Bethany dropped to bended-knee to sew the cut closed. Again she cut the thread with her teeth and he could feel her warm breath against his leg. Her lips seemed to linger, not long enough for anyone to notice, but longer than was needed.
He dressed himself and returned the blanket to its owner. He thanked them all, then wandered into the darkened woods with Bethany. In the darkness he offered her his arm and she slid her hand through it.
“What are we going to do, Bethany?”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “We will do nothing, Owen, just as we have been doing. Do not ask me to be your mistress. I haven’t the strength to resist. I see what it does to Rachel, to love someone you cannot have. I do not know how she does it, but I know I could not.”
“I would not dishonor you, Bethany. And I would not cause you pain.” He kissed the top of her head. “I came to Mystria to find a way to create a life for my wife, for the two of us to share. And here I fell in love: with the land, the people, and with you.”
“Owen.”
He stopped and turned to her, taking her shoulders in his hands. “No, I have to say this, Bethany. In Norisle, I was always the outcast. I think I came to love Catherine because she was part of Norillian life. If I married her, they would have to accept me. They would have no choice, or so I thought. I’m not the first person ever to pretend that others must play by the rules he lays down, and not the first to be deceived by that arrogance. I wanted a life that would give her all the things her friends had, and all the things she desired, because I believed that would mean I was equal with everyone else. But I was wrong.
“I came here, to a land of outcasts-the land of my father, of my birth. Here I found a home among the outcasts. Mystria embraced me not for who I was, but for what I had become, and for what I did. In Norisle I did things to prove I was worthy of being an equal. Here the things I did earned me the respect of others.”
Owen shook his head. “You want to know how I got cut with a troll’s horn? I was out there, in the midst of battle. I’d fired my rifle, I had thrown my tomahawk. I was down to my knife. I saw a troll knock a man to the ground and prepare to kill him. I leaped and grabbed a hank of hair. Riding his back, I started sawing his head off. He cut me as he was struggling, dying, and as he fell I realized the man I’d saved was Ian. But here’s the thing of it: I wasn’t fighting to save Ian. I was fighting because I was outraged that these creatures were attacking my home. I’d have killed that troll if it was standing over Johnny Rivendell, or Guy du Malphias or even my uncle.”
Bethany stepped forward, slipping her arms around him, and he settled his around her. He said nothing, just feeling her there, feeling the brush of her hair against his cheek. Though he ached and felt exhausted, he wanted the world to stop so this moment would last forever.
Again he kissed the top of her head. “What I want you to know is that I love you. I am bound by vows which, ultimately, led me here to you, and yet keep us apart. A small piece of me wishes we had the courage that Nathaniel and Rachel have, but I understand that there are greater issues which mightily complicate things. While it would be easier to give in to our desires, it would destroy us.”
She hugged him a little more tightly. “Promise me you will always let me see your journals, that you will share that intimacy with me. If you will do that, I shall survive.”
“I promise.”
