“I’m sorry.” The words just popped out of my mouth. I didn’t know if I meant to apologise, but I had tried to attack him and I’d put all our lives in danger by pulling in magic, the one thing I had been warned not to do. The words felt heavy in the air as he made no acknowledgement that I had spoken at all.
“To Hades with you,” I threw at him as I whipped away. It was his own damn fault that I had wanted to kill him; he was the one to blame for this in the first place.
His hand caught and held me, wrapping around my wrist. I stalled but didn’t turn back to look at him. My body was stiff.
“Are you okay?” he asked, taking me by surprise.
I nodded.
“Your trousers are still wet,” I said, turning back and indicating the leg furthest away from the fire where the leather looked darker as far up as his thighs.
His lip tugged up at the corner. “Yes.”
“You should dry them while we have a fire,” I admonished. Why he hadn’t done it overnight was beyond me, but maybe he had tried to stay awake on guard. I guessed it would have put him at a disadvantage had hound or man burst in here to attack us. I smiled as the image of him fighting with his scrawny legs exposed amused me.
One eyebrow rose and he levered himself out of the chair. Watching me, he proceeded to open his trousers at the waist before peeling them off. His thighs were as wide as tree trunks and were wrapped in more of those twirling Celtic tattoos. A tree encased one muscled calf, its branches reaching up and wrapping themselves around his thigh. I wondered how far its pattern played over his body.
And my cheeks proceeded to heat as I realised what I was doing – the type of full-body flush that I knew had my face glowing red in the grey light of dawn. I refused to look up to see if he had noticed. Of course he would have. I grabbed the damp trousers and busied myself with straightening them out. They were still warm from his body as I draped them over the arm of the chair on the other side of the fire.
I hesitated.
“How did you know what to do?” I asked softly, not wishing to disturb Marcus.
“I have a friend with some of your talents,” he returned equally quietly, his voice a low rumble in his broad chest.
My eyes flicked to his. I so badly wanted to know more but I was damned if I would ask him for anything, no matter how desperately I wanted it. I gnawed at my lip as I considered my options. I could return to the relative warmth of the bed while it was still available… but I couldn’t resist. What he had revealed was not nothing. Would he tell me more?
I perched on the edge of the chair that held his trousers towards the growing heat of the hearth. The damp leather had a particular earthy smell as it heated.
“He wasn’t trained?” I asked, “I mean, if he was trained why would he…?”
“Need a way to release power he wasn’t sure how to use?” he finished for me. “We were teenagers together, and he occasionally had moments of temper; he wasn’t always in control. When that happened, he had to figure out a way to release it without having to go to his teachers who would have reprimanded him for such reckless pulling of power.”
I settled back into the chair, sifting through the information he had just given me.
“Drawing in power when angry… That happens to other people?”
Gideon exhaled a huffed breath. His tone was wry as he answered.
“Other people implies there are lots of people who can do what you do. Outside of the druids, I know of only one or two others in the whole land who have anywhere near the level I felt in you.”
“Who?” I asked. Maybe this other person, or people, could help me, or at least tell me how to control my magic… or tell me who could teach me. I needed to learn to figure out what I was doing because I had seriously endangered us last night. If the hounds had found us, I would have been depleted, completely unable to fight them off. Though it remained to be seen if I could do anything at will, whether fully conscious or not. The odds so far weren’t in my favour that I would be able to draw on my power as opposed to just stand there, entirely defenceless.
“Rion Deverell,” Gideon answered me. The Rion they spoke of was of House Deverell, and we were headed to Carlisle, seat of the ruling family. House Deverell wasn’t just any house of Mercia, it was the house of Mercia.
“You grew up with the Prince of Mercia?” I asked. I’d assumed that Gideon was an Anglian from the way Bronwyn had spoken of his divided loyalties. His father, at least, was Anglian.
Gideon blinked, then answered.
“Yes, my father and I had a disagreement. I offered my services to the Deverells.”
“Does Devyn also serve them?” I asked. Devyn had given the impression that he had served a minor Mercian house. Apparently not.
“Supposedly.”
Then Devyn and Gideon both served House Deverell, the ruling family of Mercia.
“But you hurt Devyn.”
Amusement lit his face. “It’s complicated.”
“Explain it to me,” I gritted.
His head tilted to the side, the dark sheath of hair falling over his face as he contemplated me from across the hearth. The stoked flames brought the scar that slashed across his face into stark relief. He pushed his hair back as he turned his gaze into the flickering firelight.
“I barely knew Devyn as a child; he was a few years younger than me. We met a
