Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 50898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Their lips met, fierce with unspoken promises and fears neither dared voice aloud, the fire snapping in the hearth as if sealing the vow.
CHAPTER 22
Rhodes sat alone in his solar, the fire in the hearth burned low, the room holding more shadows than light. Fawn had gone to tend her animals, promising she would get word to her mother that they wished to speak with her. He told himself he should be working on matters of the clan, but his thoughts wandered back to her instead—the way her eyes softened when she spoke of love, the way she responded so eagerly to his kisses and touch, and the way her fire matched his own.
A knock sounded at the door, Boyce announcing himself and Rhodes bidding him to enter. The door opened and Boyce stepped inside, shutting it firmly behind him. His expression was grave.
“What’s amiss?” Rhodes asked, straightening from where he sat at the table.
Boyce hesitated. “It concerns your wife. One of the men swore he saw her heading into the woods before dawn and with talk of witches already stirring and the anger all witnessed of you nearly dragging her through the village…”
Rhodes’s jaw flexed. He had woken this morning to find her gone, the space beside him cold. He hadn’t liked that she wasn’t there, warm beside him, and had gotten up when he would have preferred to linger in bed with her. He’d been determined to find her and find out why she had slipped away without telling him. He wondered now if he would have been wiser to stay in bed.
“It was naught but a spat between husband and wife,” Rhodes said annoyed. “Though I need not explain that to anyone.”
Boyce nodded. “It might be good that you do since there is another matter that might concern your wife.”
“Tell me,” Rhodes snapped, worried someone could have overheard something.
“The men who rode with you yesterday believe ravens followed you back to the keep. A handful sit perched in a nearby tree. The men remember well what the old man, Cander, said of them.”
Rhodes didn’t need to think, the words slipped out easily. “That witches sent them after him.”
“Aye,” Boyce confirmed. “That his village sickened while the birds circled, and he alone escaped. Now the ravens sit here, and folks are uneasy.”
The chamber fell silent but for the crackle of the fire. Rhodes remembered Cander’s hollow-eyed warning, the way his men had grown uneasy themselves at the raven’s cry. And he thought, too, of the raven Fawn kept hidden in her care.
His voice, when it came, was sharp. “Birds are only birds. Let the men chatter if they must but keep watch on the old man. I would know if his stories held more than madness.”
Boyce inclined his head, though unease lingered in his eyes.
Rhodes turned back to the fire, but his mind was far from settled. Ravens. Witches. Fawn in the woods before dawn. Threads that tangled tighter with each passing day.
He raked a hand through his hair, cursing beneath his breath. Bloody hell, his wife—a witch.
The word still caught sharp in his chest, impossible to reconcile with the woman who stirred in him more love than he ever thought to feel. If she truly carried such a mark, why then did she look more angel than demon, more light than shadow? Perhaps it was not she who was wrong but his understanding.
Driven by a need he could not ignore, he quit the solar and climbed the winding stairs to the turret. He found her there, kneeling beside Ash, the lame fox, stroking its fur with tender patience. Bramble and Willow cooed softly from the rafters while Sage shifted and blinked golden eyes in the firelight. And Fawn—his wife—her fiery curls tumbling loose down her back, her lips curved in gentle concentration, looked the very image of grace.
His chest tightened. How could such beauty be bound to a word whispered with fear? And worse, how could he ever bring himself to lose her?
Fawn glanced up, her green eyes meeting his, and smiled softly, pleased to see him.
He stepped further into the chamber, the door closing behind him. “There is something I would know.”
Her brow lifted. “And what is that?”
“The ravens,” he said, his voice low, wary. “They’ve gathered near the keep. Too many to be mere chance. Some say they followed the old man—Cander—but…” His gaze locked on hers. “You’re a witch, Fawn. Do you know what it means?”
Her breath caught, though she did not flinch. Instead, she rose slowly, her hand brushing Ash’s fur one last time before she faced him fully. “Aye, I know the ways of the forest, and oft the birds carry messages of what’s to come. But whether these birds belong to the wild—or to something darker—I cannot yet say.”
He studied her face, every line of it beloved to him, and for a moment he forgot the word witch, forgot the dread that hung over the clan. All he saw was the woman before him, the woman he could not imagine losing.