How he would do that, Byrne didn't know.

He reached the north side of the lake but saw no sign of Cyprien at the edge of the groves. Large black beetles flew out of the grass as his mare rode through it, whizzing past Byrne's face as they made their startled escape. Then something longer and more lethal passed by his head and struck the ground in front of the mare. She skittered back a moment before something struck Byrne's neck, sinking in like a heated poker.

He reached back to pull the thing from his neck when another struck his left shoulder. The shafts told him they were arrows; the pain told him they were copper tipped. He kicked his heels into the nervous mare's sides and headed for the cover of the groves.

The mare plunged down, falling away from him, screaming as the ground beneath them vanished.

Chapter 16.

"You cannot begin the archery contest until Lord Byrne returns," Jayr heard Harlech say as she carried in the last of the feed sacks and dropped them on the stable master's pallet.

"Very well, where is he? Gone off with your wife, too, Harlech?" There was a heavy thud, and the speaker grunted before gasping, "'Twas a jest."

"'Tis not funny, Reg," Beaumaris advised.

She came around the corner and found Harlech and several of the men standing in a loose group. "What is amiss here?"

"Lord Byrne has been gone for hours." Beaumaris glared at one of the trainers, who was holding a hand to his belly. "The archers are growing restless, as are the guests."

"He should be in his chambers," Jayr told them. "If not there, the guards' hall. Someone should be with him." She turned to Harlech. "Who did you send to attend him in my place?"

"That would be me," Beaumaris said. "I lasted but two minutes before he ordered me out. I could not help it that the fire smokes."

"His chimney always funnels the worst of the wind during the day," Jayr said. "I close the flue every morning to keep the backdraft from blowing ash into the room. You have to open it or the fire smokes."

Beau looked up at the roof beams. "Now she says something."

"Our lord has not been in the best of moods since you left," Harlech said to her. "We have searched the keep from one end to the other, and checked the guest rooms as well. He is not here. Did he say to you where he might go tonight?"

"I did not speak to him about his plans. He would not leave during a tournament." Jayr turned and spotted an empty stall.

"There. His palfrey is missing. He must be out riding."

At that moment a horse came trotting into the barn. The palfrey's empty saddle sat on her back, and her ears flicked as she whickered to the other horses.

"Or not," Beaumaris said.

Jayr caught her and checked her for injuries, but found none. She handed the reins over to one of the grooms. "Perhaps he went for a walk instead. Ask Lord Locksley if he would preside over the archery contest." She went to saddle her horse and then called Harlech over.

"I will go with you," he offered.

"I thank you, but no." She thought of the excuses she could make and then abandoned them. "I would have this time alone with him. We have much to discuss."

He nodded. "I will see you tomorrow night, then."

"It shouldn't take that long," she said.

Harlech gave her an enigmatic look. "Only remember that the joust begins at moonrise."

Few Kyn could ride horseback while tracking, as the air and the movements of the animal dispersed Kyn scent. Jayr had never been particularly adept at the skill, but she knew Byrne's scent better than any other save her own, and under most conditions could detect even the slightest trace of it. She always smelled heather around the stables, for Byrne spent a great deal of time with the animals, but rarely did it lead far from the stalls. Tonight she caught a trace of him outside the barn, and trailed it to the water's edge, where it took a turn to the north.

"Why would he come out there?" Jayr murmured as she scanned the north embankment.No riding paths went through that part of their land, much of which was covered by long diagonal rows of orange and grapefruit trees. As she wheeled her horse around, the skin on her arms and legs came alive with nerves, and the pit of her stomach clenched.

Danger. He is in danger.

She urged her mount into a gallop and bent low over his neck as they rounded the lake. She reined him in to look carefully, but saw no one. Then, barely registering in her ears, the distant sound of a familiar voice.

"Down here."

Jayr dismounted and ran toward the sound. A large, irregular hole stretched out in the clearing just before the groves. She ran over and stopped short of the edge of it. The scent of heather, strong and burning hot, wafted up from the pit. Her head spun for a moment as she looked down and felt as if she had been thrust back in time.

"My lord? Is that you?" She felt the ground loosening under her feet and staggered back as a two-foot section of ground crumbled.

A thready ghost of Byrne's voice drifted up to her. "Stay back."

The hell she would.

Jayr rounded the sinkhole, looking for a stable edge, and then dropped down onto her belly to peer inside. She couldn't see him. "Are you injured?" When he didn't answer she called, "Aedan?"

She crawled over to see past an outcropping of stone, and spotted Byrne. He lay ten feet below her, his big body motionless and spread-eagled on a rock. Blood covered his face and stained the front of his tunic.

He was not dead. This could not kill him. She would run back to the stables and fetch men, rope, and horses. They would pull him out. Jayr took in a deep breath and tasted a vile tinge in the air.

Copper from open wounds.

"I am coming, my lord." She could not risk leaving him to go for help; even as fast as she was, the poisonous copper might kill him before she returned. She kept a coil of rope on her saddle; she would fetch that and use it to lower herself to him. She thrust herself up on her hands and knees and went still as the earth rumbled beneath her.

The hole spread wide, pulling in more of its sides and Jayr.

It happened too fast for her to react; the earth took her and flung her into its depths. She screamed when she landed on her shoulder and felt bones crack. Rocks pelted her, soil choked her, and then the dark pit swallowed her alive.

Some time later, how long she didn't know, she opened her eyes. Her heart kicked in her chest and she coughed violently, clearing the dirt from her nose and mouth. Rocks shifted and fell away from her as she tried to prop herself up with the hand she could feel, then bit her lip as more pain stabbed through her left side. Her left arm wouldn't work, and her shoulder had become a ball of agony.

"Lass." A big hand groped and pulled more of the rocks away from her. Byrne's battered face appeared before her eyes. She tried to help him and gasped. "You're hurt; be still."

He uncovered her and pulled her up against him, propping them both against the side of a rock. The movements jarred her arm and forced a groan from her."Let me see." When she did, he felt the top of her arm and shoulder. "It's come out of place. Be brave; this will hurt like the devil."

He turned her arm and jerked on it at the same time, and Jayr stiffened as her bones shifted and ten thousand daggers stabbed into her shoulder.

"Good lass." He held her close, panting. "It's back now." He started to say something, then groaned and slumped over, rolling away from her.

"Aedan." Jayr ignored the pain and crawled over to him. The gash on his head was already healing, but blood soaked the back of his tunic. With effort she dragged him into the dim light coming from the top of the hole. Seven broken arrow shafts protruded from his back and shoulders, their barbs deeply embedded in his flesh. The smell and the blood coming from the wounds told her that the barbs were copper.

Jayr shoved her hand into her pocket and took out her knife. She would have to do this quickly or the copper would taint his blood and stop his heart, and then nothing might bring him back.

"You can't do this the night before my joust, my lord," she muttered as she tore his shirt away. Although he was unconscious, she thought on some level that he might be able to hear her. "You have to be there to award the trophy to me, for I intend to win." She gripped the knife tightly. "Aedan, if you can hear me, I am taking out the copper now. I will be as quick as I can."

It sickened her to stab the blade into his body and root with it until she felt the barb and could pry it free of his flesh. But he lay unconscious, and if she were swift she could have them out of him before he awoke.

"There." The arrowhead she plucked out looked familiar, but the copper burned her hand and she threw it away from her in disgust. "Six more and we will be done."

One by one she removed the arrowheads, their curved points rending his flesh and making the wounds bleed faster. When she had taken out the last, she tore at her own uninjured arm with her fangs, carving deep gouges into her own flesh. She then held her arm over each gash, letting the blood from her wounds drip into his.

Slowly Byrne's wounds stopped bleeding and the edges began to pull together.

At last it was done, and she fell back, staring up. Above them she saw dirt, rocks, and, distantly, the night sky. Her fall had caused the sinkhole to expand; her best guess was that they were at least forty feet down in the earth.

The immediate danger was past now that Byrne's wounds were free of copper, she thought. Soon the men would come and rescue them-and then she remembered what she had said to Harlech back at the stables.

I would have this time alone with him, Jayr rolled her head against the rock under her, laughing helplessly. No one would come looking for them tonight. Harlech wouldn't let them. They probably wouldn't be missed until the joust tomorrow night.

"This amuses you?" Byrne rasped.

"My lord." She turned and saw him propping himself up on his elbows. "How do you feel?"

"Like a pincushion." He rolled his shoulders and looked up. "Can we climb out?"

She tried to lift her left arm, but could barely move it. "Not without help. Who shot you in the back?"

"I dinnae see, and then the horse threw me in here." He paused, turning from side to side before he eyed her. "What did you do?"

"I cut out the barbs," she said. "They were copper.""What else did you do?" He seized her right arm and turned it up, exposing the slowly healing gashes from her fangs. "For the love of God, lass."

"I couldn't leave them in you, and it was the only way to stop the bleeding and close the wounds once they were out." Tears welled in her eyes. "Aedan, who would do this? What if they come back?"

"Shhh. We are alive; we will get out of here." His arms came around her and he pulled her against him. "But you must stop jumping into holes after me. It never turns out well for you."

She choked back her tears. "That is your opinion."

Byrne brought her onto his lap and held her, rocking a little as she pressed her cheek against his heart. They sat that way together until the moon passed over, and Jayr eased away from him to check her arm.

He watched her carefully rotate her shoulder. "How is it?"

"The pain is gone, but the arm stiff." She flexed her fingers. "Fortunately I carry a lance on the right side, or I would have to forfeit my place tomorrow night."

"The men will find us, and then you can see Cyprien's leech."

She had to tell him. "The men won't be looking for us tonight. I had thought you were walking, and before I rode out after you I asked Harlech to give us some time alone together. He will not send anyone to search. If we wish to get out of here, we must do it ourselves." She stood and reached up, testing the stability of shelves of coral rock above them. "If you can give me a boost, my lord..."

His hands spanned her waist and turned her around. "You cannae climb with that arm. We are staying put for now. Why did you wish to be alone with me?"

Jayr reached up to dislodge a root tangled in his hair. "Ever since the full moon, things have been different between us. More intimate than perhaps they should. I had thought we should talk about it."

His fingers brushed at something on her cheek. "Only talk? You could think of nothing else to do with me once you had me at your mercy?"

Jayr felt relieved that he was not angry with her, and angry that he found it amusing. "I am serious, my lord."

"So am I. The men told you that I spent most of the morning sitting outside your bedchamber." His brows rose as he studied her face. "Ah. The men didnae tell you." He ran his thumb along the line of her jaw and traced the curve of her ear. "I dreamed of you there, and I think you knew it. Do you remember being in the seraglio with me? You were reading books covered in pearls."

Her throat tightened, and she thought shame might finish her off then and there. "It was not real. It did not happen."

"That I know." He tangled his hand in her hair. "For if it had been real, I would have done much more than watch you."

She didn't know what to think. He had been with her in her most private moment. He knew.

"In the dream, you said that you thought of me when you pleasure yourself," he murmured, lifting her face. "Did you mean it? Do you think of me?"

He spoke as if he were unsure of her, and then Jayr understood: He didn't know. Not her thoughts or her heart. He would not put faith in a shared dream. He needed her to tell him, to show him."How could I not? You made me a woman. You taught me what pleasure is. I have never forgotten that day." On impulse Jayr turned her face into his hand and kissed his palm. "There has been no one else for me but you, Aedan. I am yours."

"There is this matter of the debt between us. I made you my seneschal the last time you saved my life." His hand stroked gently over her shoulder. "How can I repay you?"

"You can make it turn out well for me." With every ounce of courage she possessed, she slid her hand up and cupped his neck.

"You can make me your lover."

Byrne brought his mouth down to hers. Before he kissed her he said, "You're sure, lass? If you change your mind, you cannae run away from me down here."

Jayr smiled. "I am through running, my lord."

The world fell away again, silent and unimportant as his mouth touched hers. Such a simple thing, a kiss, but when Jayr opened for him and met his tongue with hers, she felt a thousand different sensations. No dream could have equaled the taste of him, or the liquefying heat that spread from their lips down the length of her body. Distantly she wondered if she could survive just this, for it made every other feeling dwindle to nothingness.

He brought her wounded forearm to his mouth, soothing the healed but still-tender skin with a dozen kisses. His hands turned her, tugging at her shirt, pulling it over her head. As the cool air touched her inadequate breasts, Jayr automatically brought her hands up, and then stopped as she remembered him looking at her in the mirror.

"I am not like the women you choose," she said, aching with regret.

"I never wanted a woman like you," Byrne told her, trailing his fingers from one flat nipple to the other. "I wanted you. I settled for them."

He put his mouth on her, sucking at the areola until her nipple hardened, and then turning his head to kiss and suck at the other.

Jayr shifted under him, cradling his big body with her arms and thighs, shivering as he nipped at the faint curves. He pushed his hips, fitting their sexes together, his key to her lock. The thought of having him opening her, stealing inside her and learning all of the secrets hidden within her body, made her fangs spring out, long and eager.

He knew the hunger was on her before she did. "Yes." He caught the back of her head and pressed her face to his throat.

"Taste me again."

Shamelessly she bit him, arching as her teeth punched through and his blood soothed her dry mouth. His hands hooked on the waist of her trousers and ripped them apart, baring her to his fingers. As she sucked, he tugged and shredded, destroying everything keeping their skin apart. She lifted her mouth to look down and see his arm bulging, his erect penis in his fist as he worked it against her. The tip of her clit protruded from her folds, and when he grazed it the sensation proved so intense that all of the breath rushed out of her.

Byrne's eyes glowed, and his tattoos curled as his mouth moved into a slow smile. He repeated the motion, deliberately teasing the small, stiffening protrusion.

"It feels like a faerie's tongue," he told her, slowly rubbing the helmet of his cock all around the rosy tip.