Chapter 9
The Stones
Roark and Alina followed the Long River
north, avoiding roads, riding through fields, meadows, and woods.
As night fell, they stopped along the riverside and made camp in a
glen surrounded by willows. Roark tied off the horses to a line
between two trees with plenty of spring grass for them to graze on
while Alina unpacked bread, cheese, and cherries for their
supper.
Logan had given them a small pot along with a
store of dried meat, field beans, onions, oats, and hazelnuts, but
Roark thought they were still too close to spying eyes to chance a
fire. He told Alina that while the Long River would provide them
with plenty of food, once it turned west and they continued north
to the Mounths, the pickings would be slimmer and the dry stores
better used then.
They tucked into the food, refilled their
waterskins, and repacked their bags so they’d be able to grab their
gear and ride off quickly if needed. Then they unrolled the saddle
blankets that were their bedrolls and laid them out under the
graceful canopy of a willow tree. Alina sat on her bedroll and
stared up into the night sky, finding the Big Bear and the North
Star. The stars they’d be following as they skirted the mountain
range called the Mounths. She shivered, and Roark pulled around her
shoulders one of the otter cloaks his mother had given them.
“Are you all right, Ali?”
“You call me Ali,” she said with a small
smile as he hunkered down beside her. “That’s what my younger
brothers, Aaron and Aleksi, call me.” She tucked a knee under her
chin and craned her head to meet his gaze. “But only you, sir stag,
call me lady owl. I like it.”
“I’m glad, my lady owl.” He gave her one of
his slow, easy grins, which made her feel anything but easy inside.
He coughed and cleared his throat. “We’d better get to sleep,” he
said, lying down alongside her. “We need to be on the move at break
of dawn.”
Alina woke with Roark curled around her as
the dark of night was giving way to the grey of dawn. They’d fallen
asleep under their cloaks and the shared blanket on their own
bedrolls. During the night, their bodies apparently sought the heat
and comfort of the other’s. Content in the snug cocoon of his big,
warm body, she nestled closer into him with a sigh, and felt
something long and hard poking into her backside. Roark stirred and
yawned and tucked in closer around her, his breath tickling the
skin at her nape, and then he stilled.
“Ach, Ali girl,” he murmured hoarsely. “I
didna mean to…”
“It’s fine,” she said, her stiffness easing,
even if his wasn't. “I have three brothers and numerous male
cousins. I grew up listening to them bragging to each other about
their morning wood.”
Roark chuckled into her hair. “Thank the gods
for brothers.” He took a deep breath in and blew it out. “We should
probably get up now.”
“I’d say you already were up,” she
teased.
Roark’s chest rumbled against her back with
laughter. “Ah, Ali, me lass.” He gave her a smacking kiss on the
back of her head. “You never cease to surprise me.” He pushed the
covers off them and stood and caught her staring at the bulge in
his breeches. He grinned and coughed and offered her his hand,
pulling her up and into his arms. “Don't think I’m not tempted to
lay you right back down and have my way with you, my lady owl. In
truth, there’s nothing I want more, other than getting you home to
your family safe and in one piece.”
“Ach, Roark me lad,” she replied with her
best imitation of his Green Isles burr. “Don’t think I’m not
tempted to let you. But…”
“But we need to get moving.”
They broke camp quickly and silently, each
eating a piece of bread and chunk of cheese as they rode. Alina
tried to concentrate on the countryside as they followed the river
north, sticking to game trails and riding around the farmsteads and
villages, keeping watch for any signs of Roger’s men. In between,
she kept sneaking glances at Roark, admiring the strong lines of
his profile, the firm, yet gentle grip he kept on Artur’s reins,
his well-muscled thighs gripping the stallion’s barrel sides
whenever they rode abreast.
When she was riding behind him, she couldn’t
help but marvel at the breadth of his shoulders and how his back
tapered down to a trim waist and taut backside. How he rode with
such a sure, smooth seat. How he kept sneaking glances at her too,
and smiling at her with those rain eyes, and that slow, easy grin
of his that could melt glaciers.
At noon, they stopped along the riverside to
water the horses and give them a rest. After tying them off to
graze, and without a single word, they walked straight into each
other’s arms and kissed, hard and hungry.
Alina moaned. She couldn’t get close enough
to him, couldn’t get enough of him, and then as suddenly as they’d
come together, Roark broke their kiss, their embrace, and turned
around and walked fully clothed to the river and dove in head
first.
Alina, still panting, followed him in. She
came up gasping and spitting water as she pushed her sopping wet
braid back to find Roark standing waist deep in the water, grinning
down at her.
“Keep grinning at me like that,” she told
him, “and I’ll never make it out of this freezing water.”
“Keep kissing me like that,” he said, “and
I’ll be growing gills.”
She laughed and dipped her chin and filled
her cheeks with river water that she spit at him through her two
front teeth. Roark dove at her, splashing water in her face, and
then submerged and grabbed her by the ankle and the next thing
Alina knew, her leg was in the air and she was on her back
underwater. Roark let go of her ankle and she came up splashing and
sputtering.
“Your feathers are all wet, my lady owl,” he
teased.
“As is your hide, sir stag.”
Her teeth began to chatter, and she started
to unplait her braid, figuring since she was already wet, she might
as well give her hair a good rinse. But her fingers were numb and
clumsy and her thick plait wasn’t cooperating.
“Here,” Roark said, stepping behind her. “Let
me.”
She shivered as he deftly untangled her
braid, and when he was done, she dropped down into the water and
laid her head back, closing her eyes and letting the current flow
through her loose hair. When she lifted her head, Roark was
emerging from the water bare chested, his soaking wet tunic in his
hand. Alina gaped at the muscled breadth of his lightly furred and
heavily freckled chest, and then swallowed hard at the ridged
muscles of his belly and the line of darker auburn fur leading to
the waist of his breeches and below, which was thankfully
underwater.
He held a hand down to her and pulled her up,
his own jaw dropping as he stared at her wet tunic clinging to her
breasts and frozen nipples, which grew harder at his intent
gaze.
“We, ah, we should change into dry clothes
and get a move on,” he said, his voice deeper than usual. “I want
to make the Yew Tree by tonight.”
Alina crossed her arms over her chest. “The
Yew tree?”
“It’s said to be the oldest living tree in
all of the Green Isles,” Roark told her, “and is the land of my
mother’s ancestral home.”
***
They turned west with the river in the late
afternoon and made the yew tree by dark, where they staked out the
horses and set up a cold camp under the canopy of the ancient yew,
which sat sentry in the graveyard where generations of Roark’s
family were laid to rest.
“This is the last of the bread,” he said,
tearing it in half and handing the larger piece to Alina, who
handed it back to him and took the smaller piece. “Tomorrow eve we
should be far enough away from any keep or village to stop and fish
for salmon we can cook over a fire.”
“Fresh salmon sounds good,” Alina said. “I
can gather greens while you fish.”
Roark cut her a slice of cheese. “There’s a
cherry orchard on the north side of the village. If we leave early
enough, we can pick some on our way out.”
Alina’s eyes lit up. “I love cherries.”
“I know.” Roark grinned. “You smelled like
cherry blossoms that day in your greenhouse.”
Her eyes widened and her cheeks pinked. “I’d
been picking them earlier that morning.”
An image of her in a sheer night shift, hair
down and barefoot, tripping down a path of fallen cherry blossoms,
came to Roark unbidden. He groaned.
“Roark? Are you ill?”
“No. Not exactly.”
Alina tilted her head and blinked. “How do
you mean?”
The horses nickered and pricked their ears
forward. Roark held his hand up, stood, and pulled his short sword.
Alina was on her feet too, waist blade in hand. He motioned for her
to follow him and they took cover behind the yew’s thick trunk.
They waited, silent and at the ready, when a robin trilled. Roark
looked at Alina and grinned. Robins didn’t sing at night. He
returned the bird call, which was answered in kind, and he motioned
for Alina to stay and stepped out from behind the yew as a man
stepped out of the dark beyond the edge of their camp.
“Uncle Bryce.” Roark clasped his uncle’s
hand.
“Roark, my lad.” His uncle pulled him in and
clapped him on the back. “It’s glad I am to see you.” He peered
around Roark. “Where’s your lady friend?”
Roark motioned for Alina to come out from
behind the tree. “I take it Roger’s men have been here, since you
know about her and came looking for us.”
“Four of them showed up at the keep
yesterday. Said you and she were wanted for murdering the laird’s
son.”
Alina stepped up to Roark’s side and he put
his arm around her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“Uncle Bryce, this is Princess Alina,
daughter of King Jerrik and Queen Alyssa of Sea Ridge in the
Northlands. Alina, this is my uncle, Bryce MacKay, my mother’s
cousin and laird of Yew Tree Keep.”
“It’s an honor to meet you, Laird Bryce,”
Alina said as he looked her up and down.
“The honor’s mine, Princess,” Bryce said, and
then he grinned at Roark. “I ken why you chose her over that spoilt
brat your father sent you away for. Now, how about you tell me your
side of this story and I tell you what I know, and we figure out
how to get you two safely away to wherever it is you’re going.”