By Possession

  A SURRENDER TO PASSION

  MOIRA TURNED HER HEAD to find Addis looking at her. Despite the dim moonlight, she read, nay she felt, his expression and her heart turned over with an alarming jolt.

  His lips took hers before she could marshal any resistance. Gentle but firm, that first kiss spoke a determination that said nothing less than a pummeling struggle would stop him. Weak objections briefly drifted through her mind before she succumbed to the sweet beauty of it. That invisible cloak wrapped them both now, so comforting in its warmth and protection. The delicious connection overwhelmed her, and the careful explanations just articulated disappeared along with all her thoughts, carried away by the night breeze.

  He ended the kiss and caressed her face, his fingers drifting behind her ears to the pins holding her wimple. He slid the cloth off and pressed his mouth to her neck before carefully going to work on her veil.

  “You asked what I want with you, Moira,” he said while he kissed and bit and licked her ear in ways that made her shake.

  “I want everything.”

  ALSO BY MADELINE HUNTER

  By Arrangement

  By Design

  The Protector

  Lord of a Thousand Nights

  Stealing Heaven

  AND DON'T MISS HER NEW SERIES

  The Seducer

  The Saint

  The Charmer

  The Sinner

  COMING SOON FROM BANTAM BOOKS

  FOR JEAN,

  MY DEAR FRIEND AND MY FIRST READER

  PROLOGUE

  1324

  ADDIS WAS SURPRISED BY the witch woman's summons. She normally only called him to service her on nights when the full moon rose. All the same he obeyed and left the corral where he tended her father's horses and walked to her house near the forest's edge. He would be killed if her father ever discovered their furtive coupling amidst the pine trees while the white disk hovered in the heavens, but still he went. He had learned to take the rare opportunities for human warmth no matter how strangely they came to him.

  He found her outside, holding the reins of a horse. That surprised him more than the summons. The normal ritual was for her to make an excuse for his presence by giving him work to fill the evening hours of light.

  During the first year of his enslavement she had called for him frequently, and sat by the door watching him while he fixed her house and dug her paths. She had taught him her language and demanded to learn his until they could communicate in a rough, blunt way. And in that rough, blunt way she had finally told him that she suspected he was a knight and not a groom, and that to fulfill her calling as priestess she had a special need of him. He had fully expected to be sacrificed amidst those trees, which was the occasional fate of Christian knights captured by these pagan barbarians, not stripped naked and joined with the witch woman while she chanted incantations to her moon god above.

  Her face bore a hard expression which did not soften when he approached. The late afternoon light showed faint lines etching her skin near her eyes and mouth. Not a young woman, and thin in a gaunt way that spoke of the fasting and other self-denials that were a part of her magic.

  “I did not expect this,” he said in her Baltic tongue. The formalities between them had eased a little over the years. He might be a slave and she the daughter of a kunigas, a priest, but two people cannot make love repeatedly and remain strangers.

  “I need some plants that grow only near the river. You will help me.” Another surprise. She retrieved a large basket near the door and handed it to him. A cloth covered its top, but it was not empty.

  Curious now, he lifted her into the saddle, then took the reins and led her toward the forest path that snaked to the river. She did not speak the whole way, and he wondered if anyone in the big house or in the scattering of huts had seen them leave and would follow. She had never been this careless with his life before.

  They emerged by the river's edge, where the trees fell away and the boggy banks shot high with reeds and growth. He helped her down and tied the reins to a spindly sapling.

  “Our king will refuse baptism,” she said abruptly. “We heard this morning. He will wait until the papal legates come in the fall to say so, but he has chosen.”

  His chest suddenly felt hollow. He knew that her king had been negotiating with the Pope. It was to be a political bargain to ensure that the Pope stop the Baltic crusade led by the Teutonic Knights. It required that the king accept the Christian faith of Rome, and with him his people.

  He had refused to hope, had dug out the seedlings of frantic hunger in his heart that yearned to grow toward the light of freedom, but all the same a few had flowered and spread, much like the wildflowers peeking through the late summer greenery at his feet. Conversion might have released him. Fingers in his soul grabbed the disappointment and dragged it into the shadows where he had learned to bury and hide every emotion.

  “There will be much fighting again, worse than this last year,” she said. “The knights will come once more on their crusade. And there will be other repercussions. Many are angry that our king considered such a thing. They will want to appease the gods who have been insulted, and the bajora will not stop it now.”

  He heard a note in her low voice, a caution, a warning. “Does your father know?”

  “About us, no. About you … maybe. He has said things sometimes. I mock the suggestion, and he does not pursue it, and he admires your skill with horses, but the skill itself, when you ride … he has wondered. And you do not look like a groom. Too big. I remind him that your people are larger, but …”

  But his danger was real, more real than it had been since that day they found him six years ago amidst the dead killed in that reise. He had been conscious and seen them searching and managed to pull off his heraldic surcotte and most of his armor. If they had wondered they had put it aside because they had found another knight, unmarked and unscarred, to burn to their gods that night. Over the years his skill with the horses had gained him favor and safety. These people considered them sacred animals.

  The witch woman named Eufemia walked away, her body a little stiff, her bony arms pressed to her sides. “Wait here. I will gather the plants and be back soon.” Her voice sounded low and harsh. The growth of the high plants began absorbing her form. He looked down and realized she had not brought the basket. Lifting it, he called to her.

  She turned, only her head and breast visible. Behind her the river roared, almost swallowing his voice, its force throwing up the fresh smell of water and earth. She looked at him, dark eyes glinting, and her gaze slowly drifted down his length. Ignoring the basket with which he gestured, she turned away, leaving him standing there alone.

  Alone. Suddenly the sounds of the forest and river became deafening. The horse refooted itself, jostling his shoulder. The basket weighed heavy in his hands. She wouldn't …

  His mouth dried with fear and hope. He looked at the horse, and then the path winding beside the river, and then at the spot where her black hair had disappeared. The blood of excitement beat in his head, a painful sensation which he hadn't felt in years. Grabbing at the cloth, he uncovered the basket.

  Two daggers, some bread, and some salt pork lay within. Something glittered below the food and he rummaged and pulled it out. Two gold armlets that Eufemia wore during ceremonies slid down his fingers.

  He looked for her again. Would she pay for this? She was a daughter of a kunigas, and a priestess of rites older than the moon god and the sky god. Perhaps they dared not disbelieve whatever story she gave.

  He wished she had said something. He had never let himself care for her or anyone all these years because it would be a form of surrender, but she had been the closest thing to a friend and in this instant he exp
erienced a nostalgic pain and gratitude.

  She might be risking much for him. The final surprise, since she had made very clear that he wasn't really with her under those moons, that he only provided a body that the god Menulius used. Well, for whatever reason, she had decided to give him a chance for freedom, and he would take it.

  The hope long suppressed scorched, moving him to action. He swung up on the horse, noting that it was one of her father's finest. He quickly tied the basket to the saddle, noticing some garments stuffed into a leather bag on the other side. Eufemia had provided well for him.

  He paused, looking once more to the river. From his height he could see the top of her black head bending toward the water. Mouthing silent words of farewell, he dug his heels into the horse's flanks.

  CHAPTER 1

  Wiltshire, England 1326

  MOIRA FELT THE DANGER BEFORE she heard it. It rumbled from the ground up her legs and through her back while she bent over the hearth setting some water to heat. She froze as a distant thunder began shaking the cool dawn air entering through her open door. She darted to the threshold as the sound grew stronger. Stepping outside she saw the men approach through the morning haze.

  They poured down the hill from the manor house of Darwendon, aiming for the village, four dark shapes flying on fast steeds with short cloaks waving behind them. They looked like legged falcons soaring through the silver mist.

  Rushing over to a pallet in the corner, she crouched and shook the small body lying there. “Brian, up now! Quickly.”

  Sun-bronzed arms and legs jerked and stretched and she yanked at one wrist while she rose. “Now, at once, child! And silence, like I told you.”

  Blue eyes blinked alert with alarm and he scurried behind her to a back window. She could hear the riders galloping toward the cottages now. Brian paused on the sill, his blond head out and his rump still in, and twisted with apprehension toward her.

  “Where I showed you, and cover yourself well. Do not come out, no matter what you hear,” she ordered, giving him a firm push. Even if you hear my screams.

  She watched until he disappeared behind the shed in which she stored her baskets, then she closed the shutters and sat on the narrow bed. With quick movements she tied her disheveled hair behind her neck with a rag, smoothed her stained homespun gown, and stretched to move her darning basket near her feet. Lifting a torn veil, she pretended to sew.

  She tried to remain calm while the horses clamored toward her with a violent noise. They were not stopping in the village. They were coming here, to this house. The sour bile of fear rose to her mouth and she sucked in her cheeks and forced it down.

  Two horses pulled up outside in a m´elange of hooves and legs and pivoting turns. Two men swung off and strode toward her. They barged in and peered around the darkened chamber.

  “Where is the boy?” one of them asked.

  “What boy? There is no boy here.”

  The man strode to the large chest against the wall, opened it, and began rummaging through the garments inside. She did not protest. Brian's things were not in there, or anywhere they would easily find them. She had prepared for this day, although the passing years had led her to believe him safe and forgotten.

  The other man grabbed her arm and pulled her up from the bed. “Tell us where he is or it will go badly for you.”

  “I have no boy. No son. I do not know who you mean.”

  “Of course you know,” a new voice said.

  She twisted around to the doorway and the tall, thin man standing there. His long blond hair looked white in the dawn's glow.

  “Raymond!”

  Brian's uncle, Raymond Orrick, smiled smoothly and stepped inside, his knight's spurs glinting. He gestured lazily and the gouging grip released her arm. “Forgive them, Moira. It was not my intention to frighten you. We got distracted in the village and they moved on ahead. They thought …”

  “They thought I was a peasant and undeserving of any courtesy.”

  He sauntered over to the hearth, glancing around the simple chamber, taking in her two chests and bed and table and stools. His eyes finally came to rest on the pallet. “He is safe?”

  She moved up close to him, shooting cautious looks at the two others. Even if they were his liege men he should not speak of this in front of them. “Aye, he is safe.”

  Raymond smiled in the familiar way he had used too often since her fifteenth year. It was the smile that a magnanimous lord might bestow on a favored servant. But she did not serve him, least of all in the way he would most like.

  “You have done well for us, but we have come for him,” he said.

  “Come for him?”

  “It is time.”

  A sickening strumming began in her chest. She wished suddenly that she had claimed that Brian had perished in this summer's fever. Behind her she felt the presence of a fourth man enter.

  “He is safer here,” she said.

  “It is time,” Raymond said more firmly.

  “Nay. It is unwise and you know it. Your sister, Claire, asked me to care for her son before she died. You agreed because you knew Brian could be hidden here. If you take him back to your home at Hawkesford now, the men who wish him harm will learn of it and take him from you. You cannot withstand those who invoke the king's name as they commit their crimes.”

  The latest man to arrive moved. He came around her, taking a place in Raymond's shadow near the hearth. “Where is the boy?” he asked in a commanding voice that expected a response.

  She pivoted and peered at him. He stood taller than Raymond, and broader too, and she could make out similar long hair, but dark, not fair. He wore a peculiar garment on his legs, and no armor or sword. She could not see his face well in the shadow, but he did not appear friendly.

  Raymond looked over at the man and seemed to shrink a little, as if in natural deference. That was not like Raymond at all. He counted his own worth very high.

  “The boy,” the man demanded.

  Raymond caught her eye meaningfully. He stepped toward her, whether to signal that he relinquished responsibility for what occurred, or to protect her, she couldn't say. With his movement, the hearth glow suddenly illuminated the stranger.

  She gasped. Surely not. It was impossible!

  A handsome face composed of sharp planes emerged from the retreating shadows. Deep-set dark eyes met her gaping stare, the low fire highlighting golden sparks that brightened while he considered her. He turned slightly and she gasped again when she saw the pale scar slicing down the left side of his face from forehead to jaw, contrasting starkly with his sun-browned skin.

  Impossible!

  “You know who I am?”

  She knew who he appeared to be, who the scar and eyes and dark hair said he should be. But that was all that reminded her of him. Certainly not the suspicion and danger quavering out of him and giving that face a harsh, vigilant expression. Especially not the crude garments that made him appear like some marauding barbarian. In the hearth light she could see that they were made of buckskin, not woven cloth. The hip-length sleeveless tunic displayed the sinewy strength of his arms. More leather clad his legs to the ground in two narrow tubes. The tunic was decorated with orange beads that picked up the fire.

  “You spoke boldly enough before, woman. Do you doubt your own eyes?”

  “I doubt them, since the man you appear to be is dead eight years now.”

  “Well, I am not dead, nor a ghost.”

  “If you are who you appear to be, you should know me as well.”

  The eyebrow bisected by the scar rose. “Come here.”

  She stepped closer and he scrutinized her face. She managed not to flinch as his gaze pierced hers, invading and probing with a naked contemplation. Still, he didn't look quite so fearsome up near, and her own examination revealed something of the handsome, blessed boy she remembered. Leaner and harder, but the same high cheekbones and strong jaw defined the face.

  “In the last few years that
I served Raymond's father, Bernard Orrick, as a squire, Bernard kept a serf woman named Edith as his lehman,” he said. “You are Edith's daughter, but you are well grown these eight years, and not the plump child you were when I left.” His intense gaze drifted down and then returned to her face until their eyes met in a frank connection of familiarity. She saw recognition and maybe something else in his expression. Her nape prickled.

  Another count against him and she doubted anew. The man he claimed to be had never looked at her like that, and never would.

  “Raymond no doubt told you who I am,” she said.

  “So you do not trust Raymond either? No wonder you have kept the boy safe. In these times you are smart to suspect everyone. But Raymond would not know the name I called you when you were underfoot and in the way, would he?”

  Nay, Raymond would not know that name that spoke volumes about her youth, her appearance, her status in the Orrick household. Her insignificance.

  He reached out and touched the tip of her nose as he had done on occasion when she was a child. “You are little Moira, Claire's Shadow.”

  A stunned acceptance swept her, splashed with relief and joy and heartbreak. Brian's father, thought dead these last eight years, had come for his son.

  “Now, where is the boy?”

  The heartbreak submerged the other emotions. She turned away, castigating herself. She had been keeping Brian safe for a reason, hadn't she? He was not really hers and did not belong here. This man above all others would ensure that he someday sat in his rightful place and lived the life he was born to live.

  She should be happy, not devastated, but her spirit began a silent, grieving moan as she realized that she would lose Brian forever. “I will show you. Tell the others to stay here. They may frighten him.”

  Raymond and his men remained in the cottage while she led the way around to the shed in back. She called Brian's name when they approached the stacks of reeds drying for her baskets. The bundles shifted and a blond head stuck up. Young blue eyes examined the stranger cautiously.