"No need to fear me, old friend. No need to move away. It is your oldest friend, Navarre." The horse calmed, listening to the familiar voice. Then he backed up, the woman safe beneath him.

"I never thought to see you again. By heaven, there's no need to pace away. No need to skitter now.

All is safe." The horse paused, listening to the Crusader's voice. His tail twitched.

Navarre waited as the woman groaned, then fought slowly to one elbow, her face pale. "What happened?"

"Best not to move. The horse is skittish and you're lucky to be alive."

"He threw me when those things..." She sat up carefully. "It had to be my imagination. If I weren't a fool, I'd say they were some kind of sickening creatures." She caught a shaky breath. "I tried to stop it-them. Whatever they were, they wouldn't leave. The horse was too near the edge. I tried to calm him. I slid onto his back." She closed her eyes. "Then they were everywhere. All over us.

That's the last thing I remember before I was thrown off."

"You rode him? He allowed you?"

"More than allowed." She knelt, wincing. "In fact, he nudged me until I had little choice."

Navarre was speechless. He stared at the great horse standing still, awaiting the touch of his master.

"What's the problem?" Sara eased out from under the horse, which obliged by stepping sideways, completely calm and obedient now. She patted the dark mane, then rubbed her hip, moving stiffly.

Navarre noticed that, too.

He shouldn't have cared if she'd been hurt. Her pain was of no import to him. She was going to die soon enough.

"I asked you a question, Mr. Navarre. Why are you staring at me like you've seen a ghost?"

"Because no one rides this horse. Not man nor woman." Navarre crossed his arms. "None save his lord, which would be me."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

HIS MIND demanded answers. "Tell me this again. You rode my horse?"

"Yes." She snapped the word. She was pale. Irritated. Her fingers opened, tangled in the long mane as she swayed a little. "I already told you that. You act as if he's royalty."

Closer than she knew. His noble Ferrant came from a bloodline guarded by kings and caliphs, more regal in his way than half the rulers of France.

Then Navarre had his second shock.

His destrier, feared and renowned throughout Outremer, lowered his dark head and neighed softly at the woman, bumping against her hand as though they were the oldest of friends.

More than recognition was in that motion.

Almost obeisance.

The knight felt a wave of disorientation, images flooding his mind from centuries before. But too much had happened. Too many years lay in between the man he had once been and the gaunt shadow he was now.

"Ferrant?"

The horse turned, flicked his tail, and Navarre started to growl more questions, but in the light of the rising moon, he saw the woman wince, gripping the horse's side.

She had a bruise on her cheek, a cut on one hand. Navarre was aware of her sudden exhaustion.

With an intensity he had never felt in his life, he sensed the chill of her skin and the broken catch of pain in her breath. Yet even in her exhaustion, she did not complain.

Perhaps he had misjudged the woman. Perhaps she was more than Draycott's minion or spy.

No more time for questions. Her hands clenched, she sank against the horse, one arm outstretched for balance. When Ferrant danced lightly, she swayed and would have fallen.

Something stirred inside Navarre, something he had not felt for too long to imagine. It was the first stab of need, and an almost unrecognizable tenderness. But these he could not allow. How could he, when his chance for revenge was before him?

Softness would not serve him. The warmth of a woman's skin was useless.

He ignored the hated Lord Draycott, still motionless. All of Navarre's attention was on the woman as she winced, rubbing her shoulder. "You have been hurt?"

She blew out a breath. "I've had better days."

"Yet you protected my horse."

"Anyone would."

It meant nothing. It changed nothing.

So he told himself. Then she staggered. Her fingers slipped down the horse's back.

"Go away. Leave us alone. You're...frightening the horse with your anger and questions." She closed her eyes, struggling to stand.

Willful and arrogant, Navarre thought. She had the bearing of a queen.

And he caught her as she fell. Lifting her into his arms felt utterly natural to him. She was warm, and her scent reminded him of all the things it meant to be a man. When her breath stirred on his cheek, it pricked more memories, more hungers he had thought long buried.

Not buried at all, it seemed.

Ferrant neighed and bumped his shoulder impatiently. Navarre smiled just a little. "Demanding as you ever were. Very well, we'll be on our way. But not just yet." Pulling the sword from its resting place between two stones, he waved the silver blade across the restless place of shadows, cutting the shapes that trickled free. They skittered away from the bright metal, as dark will always withdraw from light. After that Navarre set the blade on the stones so that moonlight pooled from its surface, sealing the shadows into the Other Place.

For now.

With the woman still in his arms, he mounted his war horse. "I've found the way of Draycott's castle. Huge, by all the saints. We'll manage the stairs if I'm careful."

They were a strange sight, the dark horse stepping gently through the doorway that led down from the roof. Navarre guided the animal through the broad halls, over priceless carpets and through the front door. Once outside, he jumped down from the horse. "Stay near, old friend. I'll have need of you before this night is done."

He could not yield, Navarre thought, feeling oddly disoriented by the woman's heat as he crossed the courtyard. He would put her in one of the beds in the gatehouse. Then he would forget her.

He found his way to a room with cut-velvet curtains. She made a small sound of pain and confusion when Navarre put her down on the soft sheets. She was already half asleep. On the inside of her wrist was a fresh scar, the mark of a bladed weapon. A second scar crossed the back of her hand just above the wrist.

What manner of woman was she?

He forced his heart to harden, to ignore the scars and the bruise at her jaw. She was nothing to him, merely a pawn in the sweeping game played out between two warriors. It was his right to treat her as he liked, even to use her now while she slept, should he so desire.

Heat stirred at the thought. Lust coursed through his veins.

Silent, he turned his back, pacing the room. He must govern himself, putting away all distractions.

Yet when she made a small sound in her sleep, something made him stop in the bar of moonlight and cover her, then slip one finger to check her pulse.

Fast but firm. She had strength to match her courage. There was no reason to stay.

No reason except to watch the play of her chest as it rose and fell. No reason except to savor the faint scent of roses and cinnamon drifting from her hair.

By the bones of all the saints, he was mad.

"No more of your temptation," he whispered harshly, crossing himself against evil.

Her simple white shirt parted, its odd circle closings awry. He saw the curve of one breast beneath a bit of white lace, and the dark outline of her soft nipple. The sight flamed in his blood. He could use her, treat her like a slave of war and teach her the pain that came with betrayal. It would have been a fine part of his revenge.

Yet Navarre's feet did not move. His hands were leaden. Furious, he listed the reasons why taking her was his right.

All were true. And yet he did not shift by so much as a hairsbreadth.

She whispered hoarsely, twisting in her sleep.

Nightmares, Navarre thought. The burden of a guilty conscience, no doubt.

But the words she muttered and places she named made no sense to his ear. As her restless movements drove her across the bed, he caught her when she would have rolled over the edge.

His skin met the warm hollow of her throat, and beneath that the curve of her full breast. His fingers burned. By blind instinct he could not name, he cupped her pale skin, reaching beneath white lace to trace her heat, his blood goaded when he felt her breath check in response.

Take her, by the saints. Use her for your needs. Too long has it been...

The hot lust rode him hard then, visions of wet, sleek skin and panting breath. The blind mating and then the silken release.

He pulled away, his hand clenched. He schooled his face to a mask, angry at his loss of control. No, he would go and wake the dreamer. Draycott would tell what the woman was to him-mistress or common harlot, though she seemed to have too much pride for either.

The answer was strangely important to Navarre now.

He had to know the truth.

Outside the wind was rising. As he turned, Navarre saw motion in the moonlight near the moat. In the courtyard he heard his horse whinny softly in an old sound of warning.

Two shadows moved over the lawn near the water, well hidden from all eyes but his. His awareness of danger, always acute, became a hammering in his blood.

Draycott must wait, it seemed.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

OUTSIDE THE WIND was rising.

Branches scraped the abbey's stone walls, while leaves rained down like dark snow.

Exhausted, Sara was only dimly aware of noise and a sense of anxiety as she twisted in dreams that felt old and painfully familiar, too real for the world of sleep.

The street was crowded with travelers and traders, priests and knights, but she had eyes for only one among them.

The knight in gray, sitting on a horse that danced in the sunlight. She was promised to an old man of power and wealth who offered gold to finance the king's expensive Crusade. But the knight before her was all she saw.

They were forbidden. They had no future.

But three nights before, though it was dangerous beyond reason, they had found a haven for an hour. Their tryst meant death to them both if the truth were known.

Now they crossed on the road, and smiled, acting for all the world as simply ward and guardian, bound by respect and nothing more. She kept her expression calm and full of dignity and spoke politely. He nodded.

But their fingers brushed, just for a second, when her horse shied from the crack of a passing cart.

His callused hand gripped hers, locked.

And then they were apart.

Two lovers, forbidden. Forbidden to the man she loved with all her heart and every singing surge of her blood, all hope of happiness lost in the ashes of war. By the order of the king, she must wed the man with rotting teeth and coarse oaths who brought valuable alliances and lands in the south of France.

Marianne, the ward of the duc of Navarre, tried to tell herself it was God's will, tried to believe it was her duty to be docile and submit. But she had never been docile or good at convincing herself of lies, and she would not begin now. She had tried to find an ally among those at the king's council, one who would speak for her to reverse the marriage. The Lord Draycott had offered his help, but not until the end of the campaign season. Her father and brothers were all gone, dead in the sands of Damascus. She had no allies, no wealth.

The ceremony was moved, now one month forward.

She closed her mind at the thought. She would give her body to no other than her knight. She would leave in the silence of night and flee....

To go where? Who would take her in once the truth was known?

A sudden premonition sent her back, trembling, one hand to her eyes. She saw not a crowded market and a sunlit road, but a broad avenue wrapped in darkness and shadows. English oaks lined the way. Before her stretched chill uncertainty and sure death.

But beyond that a slight flame, and with it perhaps something more. Perhaps hope.

NAVARRE MOVED LIKE A wraith through the oncoming storm, sure in his skill. At the edge of the green lawn he stopped, remembering the woman's devices and the strange powers they conveyed. If these attackers had the same...