The Duke and the Dryad (Elemental Series) (15 page)

“’Tis a good thing Lord Wolf
e showed everyone how to combat the vines with fire or Lord Clive and his men would have been strangled to death today,” added Sir Norman.

“Aye,” said Wolf
e, not at all sure he’d done the right thing by saving his uncle. After all, the man had done naught to help when he saw Wolfe and his men were about to be overtaken.

“And Lord Wolf
e reasoned with the leaders from the warring sides,” explained Sir Theodore. “It seems they didn’t really want to fight each other anyway. There was some sort of misunderstanding about a message Lord Clive relayed to each of them that turned them against each other in the first place.”

“Amos
,” called Wolfe, seeing his steward approaching. “Send the old healer to my solar anon. Sir Braden has been injured and has lost a lot of blood.”

“Right away, my lord,” said the steward
, rushing off into the castle.

Wolf
e threw Sir Braden over his shoulder, the arrow still sticking out from the back of him. The arrow had not pierced him all the way through but was rather lodged inside his body. Wolfe had broken off the end, but could do nothing more while on the battlefield. He would take him to his own solar to tend to his wounds. He could only hope the old woman’s ministrations would help him, or he was about to lose his best knight, not to mention, his best friend.

When he got to the solar, Juturna was already there with candles burning and her herbal ointments spread out as well as a basin of fresh water and several
clean cloths.

“Did you see this coming, old woman?” he asked, laying Sir Braden face down upon the bed. The man was unconscious and did not move.

“Aye,” she said, hurriedly ripping the soiled cloth from the man’s body and inspecting the shaft of the broken arrow still lodged in his body. “I saw it in my gazing crystal hours ago. Only ’twasn’t Sir Braden that was shot by the arrow, ’twas you.”

“Me?” he asked in surprise.

“And you were dead,” she answered.

“Then your crystal is wrong,” he told her, settling his weary body atop the chair across the room.

“My crystal is never wrong,” she answered, yanking the broken shaft from Sir Braden’s body. The man awoke with a horrid cry of pain. “Settle down,” she told him. “If you don’t, you’re going to lose too much blood.”

She worked on Sir Braden for nearly an hour, but then turned to Wolf
e and shook her head. She motioned him out into the corridor, and while the knight was unconscious again, Wolfe knew it must not be good news or she would have said it in front of him.

“He’s near death, my lord. He’s lost too much blood. I can’t save him.”

“You must,” he commanded. “I would not allow him to die.”

“’Tis not up to you, Lord Wolf
e. And I tell you, it wasn’t his destiny to die today. That arrow was meant for you.”

“How can you be so sure?” He had been feeling the same thing, and now the seer’s suspicion confirmed it.

“Did anything out of the ordinary happen today at the battle? Something that may have changed the outcome and put Sir Braden in the path of the arrow destined for you?”

“A
ye,” he said with a slight nod of the head. He knew all along Rae had had a hand in the outcome, but now he was furious that she would take the life of another man just to save him. He stormed down the corridor, ready to wring Rae’s neck for interfering.

“Where are you going, Lord Wolf
e?” she called after him.

“I am going to
pay a visit to the person responsible for the condition of my captain of the guard.”

Lord Clive watched in the shadows as Lord Wolfe mounted his horse and headed out this late at night. Then he climbed atop his own steed, careful to stay far enough behind him, but still close enough to follow.

* * *

Rae waited anxiously outside her hut, having heard the call of the ancient oak telling her that Wolfe approached. She saw him riding through the woods in the dark, but with a burning torch in his hand. He no longer needed the help of Zev to find his way.

She should have been overjoyed to see him, but she knew even before she noticed the scowl on his face that he was angry.
Very angry. And it was obvious that he wasn’t happy about what she’d done.

She breathed a sigh of relief that he was alive, knowing that her
desperate plea to the forest and the animals must have worked. Then she bit her lip nervously, half-entertaining the idea to stay hidden, blended in to the bark of the oak.

“Where are you?” he shouted
, jumping off the horse and scanning the dark with his eyes. He swiped the torch in one direction and then the other, looking for her.

“I am here,” she said softly, stepping away from the tree to make her presence known.

“What did you do?” he demanded to know, coming forward with eyes blazing more than the torch in his hand.

“I couldn’t let you die,” she said, backing away from the flame as he approached her.

“I wasn’t going to die,” he told her, but now because of you, Sir Braden may have already drawn his last breath.”

“What?” She shook her head in confusion. “I never meant for that to happen.”

“Never mind your excuses, now gather up whatever your forest friends have to offer and let’s get going.”

“Going?” she asked. “Where?”

“To the castle. Juturna cannot heal him, he has lost too much blood. And I would not let his life slip away without a fight.”

“It seems to me a fight is what put him in this position to begin with.”

“I don’t have time for this,” he said. “Now are you going to help or not?”

“Of course, I am,” she said. “I am fond of Sir Braden and I would do whatever I can to help.”

“Next time, just forget about helping me, do you hear me? I am a warrior and can fend for myself. I don’t need your witchery or any kind of faery magick. Now come to the castle and heal him, and after that, I want naught to do with you ever again.”

Rae’s heart just about broke when she heard Wolf
e’s words. He couldn’t mean what he’d just said. Not after the wonderful night they’d shared in each other’s arms.

“Give me some time,” she said, “and I can collect the herbs and pl
ants that may aid in saving his life.”

“You best save his life
, because if he dies, I am not going to be pleasant to be around. And we don’t have time – so hurry.”

Lord Clive watched from behind a tree as Wolfe met with someone in the woods. Just as he’d suspected, he was meeting in secret with one of the Fae. He could see the girl’s face lit by the light of the torch. She was exotic and beautiful and he felt himself hardening just thinking about the ecstasy he’d feel once he’d entered her body. He’d have to remember his way back here. And soon, the chance of bedding a fae would be his once again.

Chapter
13

Wolf
e paced back and forth in the great hall, waiting to hear word about Sir Braden. He’d left Juturna there with the man to watch over Rae and her ministrations. He didn’t think she had a mean bone in her body until she’d done her magick, embedding the arrow meant for him into his best friend.

“Sit down,” said Lord Clive, stretching his leg
s out on the bench, cradling a goblet of wine. “Have some wine, ’twill relax you.”

“I don’t want wine, what I want is for my captain of the guard to live.”

“So . . . is the old healer working on him as we speak?”

Wolf
e stopped pacing and looked at the man. He was going to tell him about Rae, but something made him keep it to himself. “Aye,” he answered instead.

“Well,
then if you won’t go to him, I’ll go to be by his side.” He got off the bench, and Wolfe’s heart raced. He didn’t want him to know about Rae. He couldn’t let the man go to the solar.

“I think I’ll have a drink with you after all, U
ncle.” He sat on the bench at the opposite side of the trestle table, and poured himself a goblet of wine, then held it up to Lord Clive. “Shall we toast to the success of the battle?” he asked.

It worked. His uncle sat back down, but did not follow suit with the toast. “I don’t feel ’twas successful. After all, a truce was called. So no one really won now, did they?”

“I had to try to talk the warring sides into reconciling,” explained Wolfe. “My men were falling fast, and I did not see you nor your soldiers coming to our aid as planned.”

“We would have, had those damned vines not wrapped around our limbs and held us back, stopping us from entering the battle.”

Wolfe quaffed his wine and poured himself another. He’d seen his uncle just sitting there when they were in dire straits. The man was lying, and he didn’t know why.

“Aye,” he answered, “that was odd, I must admit.”

“Odd indeed,” said Lord Clive, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say some sort of magick was involved.”

“Really?” Wolfe
asked. “Well, I have caught the druids in my forest lately.”

“This was no work of the druids. Their magick is not that stron
g. This was done by one of the fae people. An elemental of the forest, I’d say.”

“What do you know about e
lementals?” he asked, having never heard his uncle speak of these things before.

“I know that the female f
ae is very pretty and mesmerizing. I also have heard it said that mating with one is exotic and vibrant. That when she moans in climax her voice sings out in a tantalizing tone much like a siren. That when a man thrusts his hardened form into her, her screams of passion ignite a burning desire within him. This desire can drive a man mad by making him so hard every time he thinks of her that his want is never quenched. So much ecstasy is felt by their joining that one would never go back to coupling with a human once they’ve experienced ramming their rod into a cute little fae’s -.”

“
Enough!” Wolf stopped him before he could say more. “Well, you’ve heard wrong,” he said. “And you have no right to speak that way.”

Actually, his uncle was exactly right, as just thinking of his coupling with Rae was once again arousing him though he was angry with her at the moment. He didn’t understand any of this. And he was curious as to how
his uncle knew so much of the fae people, when he’d recently just learned of them himself. The man almost spoke as if he’d actually experienced it, and this disturbed Wolfe greatly.

“You defend the f
ae people as if you have a personal interest, Wolfe. So tell me – do you?”

“Do I what?” he ground out.

“Have you ever mated with a fae girl?”

There was no way Wolf
e was ever going to answer that. So instead, he answered with a question of his own.

“Have you, U
ncle?”

“
As a matter of fact, I almost did,” he said, touching the scar on his face. “And ’twas most enjoyable having the sprite in my clutches, I assure you. ’Twas an experience I’ll never forget. If only I had known the creature wasn’t going to survive in the castle more than a day, I would have postponed a planned battle and instead concerned myself right away with what truly mattered – dipping into her pleasures.”

All of a sudden, Rae’s story came to mind. Hadn’t she said her mother had been stolen by an evil lord and locked into a tower until she died? He vaguely remembered her saying something about her father fighting with the man and scarring his face. Lord Clive had a scar on his face, but he’d always told Wolf
e that it happened in battle. Mayhap the battle with Rae’s father is what he meant.

No longer able to stand this, he got to his feet. “I expect you’ll be leaving on the morrow with your men since the battle is now over.”

“Nay. I thought I’d stay for a few more days.”

“I think it best you leave at first light.”

“Wolfe, my boy,” he said with a laugh. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were throwing me out. Almost as if you have something – or someone to hide.”

“Don’t call me your boy again, or we would have our own personal battle. And I warn you, if you are not gone by morning, I am not going to happy. And you know I am not a patient man, so I do s
uggest you comply with my orders.”

“Is that a threat, nephew? Because you know I don’t respond well to threats. Matter of fact, the last man who threatened me didn’t live to tell about it.”

“’Tis a request, Uncle. A request that I urge you strongly to honor.”

With that, Wolf
e slammed down his goblet and headed out of the great hall, down the corridor and to the solar.

Rae had just finished wrapping Sir Braden’s wounds after applying both a tincture and a salve that she’d made herself from herbs and plants of the forest. She was just washing up when Wolfe came storming into the room. He entered, closing and barring the door behind him. He looked even angrier than he had earlier, which she didn’t think was even possible.