The brothers scrambled to clear the table and head into the room where she’d found the three beds earlier, and in just a few moments, she was alone with him. Again.
“Join me by the fire,” he said. It wasn’t much of a request, and when he offered her his hand, there was no way it could be disguised as courtly manners. She was going to sit next to him by the fire and she would be telling him everything he wanted to know.
Every great hall held a large fireplace, and even though the cottage was small, Osborn’s hearth seemed to dominate one entire wall. An inviting, fluffy rug lay before the large, flat stones in front of the firebox. She sank down on the throw, seeking its softness. It was thick enough to be a sleeping pallet. Osborn’s brothers had added extra blankets. At home, most people slept before the fire, warmed their hands near the flames and danced in front of it during celebrations and heated their ale over it. Osborn seemed to prefer to stare into it. Glare.
“You’ll be leaving here at first light.”
Was he telling her or himself? He’d already announced he’d be taking her to the village in the morning. It was all decided. Wasn’t it?
“Already things are changing, and you’ve only been here a few hours. My brothers are unused to the gentleness a woman brings into a home. They’re wanting things. Things that are impossible.” His expression grew grimmer as he continued to peer into the flames. “You have to go.”
Yes, yes. He’d already said that.
“No matter how many times you ask to stay.”
Breena hadn’t asked. Her heartbeat quickened, and she felt a little tingle all the way down to her toes. She was doing a pretty poor job of reading the strong man in front of her. She couldn’t fathom his thoughts. No, she’d missed understanding his thoughts again.
Breena left the warmth of the rug and stood beside him. His height dwarfed her. The broadness of his shoulders filled her vision. She placed her hand in the middle of his back, and felt his muscles contract under her fingertips.
“Are you wanting me to ask, Osborn?”
He turned then, catching her off guard and imprisoning her hand between his. “I need to know what dangers you have brought here. Tell me how you got here.”
The solid strength of his hand was exactly what she yearned for after wandering around hungry and tired and full of fear. “I don’t really know. It’s the truth.” Half-truth. Why did she still feel the need to keep all of what she knew to herself? Survive. Some instinct told her to tell Osborn only what he needed to know so he’d help her.
“Then tell me what you do know.”
“My home was attacked, the details are fuzzy. I woke up in this strange land.”
“So you didn’t see the markers telling you to keep out?” he asked, his voice filled with hostility and disbelief. His eyes scanned her face, searching for truth.
“I saw the bear skulls, so I figured I was on Ursa land, but they all died out. Years ago. So I assumed I was alone.”
“Not all,” he said, taking his gaze from her face and returning it to the fire.
Now Osborn’s suspicious nature and overprotectiveness of his brothers made sense. They were the last of their kind. The last of the Ursans. Would she be the last of her people? Was she? A tragic trait to have in common.
But at least she had hope. Hope that her brothers and some of the people of Elden had escaped. Osborn had none. “I’m sorry” seemed so insignificant to say about his loss, but she told him, anyway.
His throat tightened. “You’re the first person to tell me that.”
Sensing that was all the acknowledgment Osborn wanted to give to the tragedy that took his family, she went on with her story. “My people are magical. Not blood magic. Never. But my mother’s powers are very strong. I believe she cast me from our kingdom.”
“Why here?”
“Maybe something inside me chose the location. We’d been connecting through our dreams…?.”
His gaze burned for her as hot as the fire warming her cheek. Then his eyes narrowed. “You said you lost your powers, but you defeated the blood magic scout.”
“You remembered that.” Since he hadn’t mentioned it, she thought he’d forgotten she’d told him her magic no longer worked.
“Another one of your lies?”
She shook her head. “When I woke up here, there were just two thoughts in my mind. To survive and to kill. Avenge. My magic was gone and whenever I try to concentrate and really remember what happened in my home…all I get is pain. It’s like something is stabbing me behind the eyes, it hurts so bad. Believe me, if I could have used my powers when I was wandering around in that forest with no shoes and nothing to eat, I would have.”
The corner of Osborn’s lip turned up in a half smile.
“When your home was attacked, did you hear the cries we heard today? Creatures of blood magic?”
Breena closed her eyes, and tried to remember what she could before the pain hit her. All around her had been confused commotion. The sounds of battle and the wails of the wounded and dying. A flash of something sinister. A creature with razors for hands. A thing more skeletal than man. She sagged to the floor, and drew her knees up close to her chest.
“Yes, it was blood magic.”
Osborn’s breath came out in a heavy growl.
She looked up at him quickly, his face as harsh as it had been at the lake. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to bring danger to you or to your brothers.”
He swallowed, closed and opened his fists a few times, then he nodded. “I know you didn’t. Tomorrow I take you to the village. The scouts will be coming after you again. I don’t want you leading them here.”
“You really won’t help me?” she asked, more for her benefit rather than needing confirmation from him. She needed to say the words, so she could know she was truly alone. So her heart could accept the truth, and even the tiniest of hope she still held within her would die.
His silence was her answer.
“I’m sorry I brought all this down over your head. You are not the man I should be dream sharing with. I guess my magic got it wrong,” she told him with a shrug. “I really thought you were the one for me.”
Osborn pushed himself away from the hearth with a hard shove. She was surprised the cottage wall didn’t give way. “I’ll find you a pillow,” he said, and stalked toward the chest in the corner where they kept the extra winter bedding.
HIS BROTHER WAS ON HIM the moment he entered the room. “She should sleep in here,” Bernt told him, his glance roaming to the door. “It doesn’t feel right. She’s a girl. She shouldn’t have to sleep on the cold floor.”
Osborn sighed at his brother’s misplaced gallantry. “You set out enough blankets to rival a mattress. She’ll be comfortable enough in front of the fire. Besides, you willing to give up your bed?”
Bernt squared his shoulder. “Yes.”
“I’m not.”
“I just said I’d sleep out there.”
Osborn shook his head. “And her sleep in here with two males? That’s even worse.” He tossed his shirt at the foot of the bed and made a show of stretching his length along his mattress. “Either the three of us sleep out there or the three of us sleep in the comfort of our own beds. You know what I’ll choose.”
Bernt’s breath came out in a huff. His little brother knew when he’d been beat. And he didn’t like it. He slowly peeled his shirt up and over his head and then slid beneath the pelts covering his bed. Osborn blew out the candle, and darkness surrounded them. He felt his brother’s uneasiness. It would keep the boy awake all night.
“You worried about her being a girl, think what sleeping in the house with us unchaperoned will do to her. Far worse than sleeping on a pile of blankets in front of a warm fire. The sooner she’s out of here the better.”
Soon the even breathing of his brother’s sleep filled the room, but Osborn couldn’t force his muscles to relax. If anything he grew more tense.