In the absolute stunned silence that followed this declamation a rolling rumbling whoosh of flame erupted along the ridge, causing the big griffin to take wing and circle away to a safer resting place. Grass sizzled and soldiers cried aloud. Smoke poured heavenward as Liath looked up, startled, and saw the spreading fury of the fires. With an intent gaze, attention shifting entirely and horribly away from him, she frowned. The fires snuffed out, just like that. Smoke puffed; ash sprinkled down over the camp and drifted away on the wind.
Sanglant had become suffused with an entirely unexpected—or foredoomed—flush of arousal just looking at her, being close enough really to smell the perfume of her. His anger made his senses that much more on edge and her presence that much more intimate, although they did not touch. She was so beautiful, not in the common way but in the remembered way, when he had dreamed of her those nights in Gent, when he had woken up beside her those nights in Verna and been astonished and delighted and utterly famished, starving for the touch of her skin, her hands, her lips.
Maybe he couldn’t walk yet, but he had strength enough to move his arms. He caught her around the back of the neck, where skin and hair met at the nape. Just that touch made him drunk with ecstasy. He pulled her head toward him and kissed her. And kissed her.
And kissed her.
Her warmth melted him like the sun’s fire, as though desire itself could knit him back together again.
“My lord prince! The griffin!”
He released Liath as she pulled away from him, jumping to her feet. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright, as passionate as he was. But behind her, the griffin stalked through the line of tents. Men cowered, but the beast did not strike. Fulk stepped forward, spear raised, but Liath intercepted him.
“Don’t move!” she said sharply.
Heribert had gone gray-white, like curdled milk, and Hathui tensed, her mouth a grimace, as she prepared herself for death. Only Breschius stared in outright awe, gaze lit with wonder, as the griffin swung its head to examine him. The frater looked ready to die at that moment, as long as he was slain by something so terribly beautiful.
Then the creature moved past him and loomed over Sanglant.
“Don’t move,” said Liath, but of course he could not move even had he meant to kill it. An iron reek rolled off it like the heat of the forge, soaking him to the bones. He had to close his eyes; his face was sweating.
“Now what?” he asked, cracking open his eyes. He almost laughed. He was entirely helpless; it could take his head off, and even his mother’s curse could not save him then. Yet he could not keep his gaze away from his wife’s form, glimpsed beyond that massive eagle’s head. He knew what lay beneath Liath’s tunic; he saw the curve of her hips, the swell of her breasts, and frankly after all this time the griffin seemed rather more a distraction than a danger. At this moment. At this instant. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to die if you expired in the arms of the one you loved best.
The griffin huffed, a wheezing cough, and the silver griffin uttered a yelping call in answer.
“Do you wish to free her mate?” Liath asked.
“No,” he said defiantly. “I need griffin feathers. A live beast serves me as well or better than a dead one. I claim him.”
“So does she.” She, too, was laughing—although not aloud. Her expression sang with it. She didn’t fear the griffins, and more importantly she still desired him.
The griffin lowered its head until that deadly beak hovered an arm’s length from his face, seeking his scent or an understanding of his essence.
“Do you still love me?” he asked, thinking that he might die before he could take another breath. He had to know.
Now she did laugh. “I swore an oath to never love any man but you, Sanglant, so it scarcely matters, does it? I bound myself. I will never be free of you.”
“Thank God.”
The griffin huffed again, a noise that shuddered through its body, and lifted its head, then sat down on its haunches like a watchdog. The audible gasps of the soldiers and his attendants flowed around him like the murmur of a rising wind. An iron feather shook free and drifted down to slice through the grass beside his couch. He reached and found that if he grasped the quill and kept his fingers away from the feathered vane and edges, he did not cut himself.
“I couldn’t even kill Bulkezu,” he said in a low voice, staring at the feather. The anger wasn’t gone, only swallowed. “I need this griffin, or you may as well lead the army yourself.”
She grimaced as a shadow covered her face. “I am no leader. I am no regnant.”
