Hawk’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. His body tensed and he stifled an oath when he saw Rushka, who had been standing silently beside them, trace a gesture upon the air. “What are you doing?” Hawk growled, closing his hand around the Rom’s arm.
Rushka stopped and his brown eyes rested on the Hawk with deep affection and deeper sorrow. “We had hoped he wouldn’t come, my friend. We took all the precautions … the rowan crosses. The runes. I did everything I could to prevent it.”
“Who wouldn’t come? What are you talking about? Prevent what?” Hawk gritted. Every inch of his body was suddenly alive. All day something had been gnawing at him, demanding that he take action, and now it exploded to a fever pitch in his blood. He’d like nothing more than to take action—but against what? What was happening? The thunder of approaching horses rumbled the earth behind him.
“He comes.” Rushka tried to retrieve his arm from the Hawk’s deadly grip, but dislodging a boulder from his chest might have been easier.
The clip-clop of horses’ hooves canted up the ridge, drawing nearer.
“Talk to me,” Hawk gritted, glaring down at Rushka. “Now.”
“Hawk?” Lydia asked, worried.
“Hawk,” Tavis warned.
“Hawk.” His wife’s husky voice cut through the night behind him.
The Hawk froze, his gaze locked on the elderly Rom who’d been like a father to him for so many years. A flicker in the man’s eyes warned him not to turn. To just pretend nothing was happening. Do not look at your wife, Rushka’s eyes were saying. He could see her, mirrored deep in the Rom’s brown eyes. Not turn around? Impossible.
Hawk tugged his furious gaze from Rushka. He turned on one booted heel, slowly.
His wife. And next to her, upon the Hawk’s own black charger, sat Adam. Hawk stood in silence, his hands fisted at his sides. The ridge was eerily still, not one child peeped, not one crofter breathed so much as a whisper or troubled murmur.
“Lorekeeper.” Adam nodded a familiar acknowledgment to Rushka, and Hawk’s gaze drifted between the strange smithy and his Rom friend. Rushka was white as new-fallen snow. His brown eyes were huge and deep, his lean body rigid. He did not return the greeting, but cast his eyes to the ground, signing those strange symbols furiously.
Adam laughed. “One would think you might have realized that it hasn’t helped so far, old man. Give it up. Not even your…. sacrifice…. helped. Although it did mollify me slightly.”
Lydia gasped. “What sacrifice?”
No one answered her.
“What sacrifice?” she repeated tersely. “Does he mean Esmerelda?” When no one responded, she shook Rushka by the arm. “Does he?” Her eyes flew back to Adam. “Who are you?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing like a mother bear’s as she prepared to defend her cubs.
Rushka dragged her against him. “Be still, milady,” he gritted. “Do not interfere in that which you don’t understand.”
“Don’t tell me what I—” Lydia began heatedly, then shut her mouth beneath the Hawk’s lethal gaze.
Hawk turned back to Adrienne and calmly raised his hands to help her dismount, as though nothing were amiss.
Adam laughed again, and it made Hawk’s skin crawl. “She goes with me, Lord Buzzard.”
“She stays with me. She is my wife. And it’s Hawk. Lord Hawk to you.”
“Nay. A vulture, a sad scavenger to pick over the unwanted remains, Lord Buzzard. She chooses was the deal made, do you recall? I saved your wife for a price. The price is now paid. You’ve lost.”
“Nay.” The Hawk shook his head slowly. “She chose already, and ’twas me she chose.”
“It would appear she un chose you,” Adam mocked.
“Get off my horse, smithy. Now.”
“Hawk!” Rushka warned, low and worried.
“Hawk.” It was Adrienne’s voice that stilled him. Froze him in mid-step toward the smithy. Until now, the Hawk had been focusing his attention and anger on the smithy. And he knew why. It was the same reason he had delayed turning around when he heard the horses approaching. The reason why he’d looked at Rushka instead. He was afraid to look at his wife, of what he might see in her lovely eyes. Might she truly have unchosen him? Could he have been so completely wrong? He paused, hand on his sword hilt, and forced his eyes to hers. The insecurity that had seized him the very first day he’d found his wife at the smithy’s forge reclaimed him with a vengeance.