How are we to live, my lord

ever together, forever apart?

The night between us poised, a sword,

forged and edged in my cinder heart.

I cannot have you,

however much I long.

I cannot leave you,

this bond too strong.

Thus I go on as I have before,

burning in Eden, with you,

evermore.

A bound journal lay next to the computer, and Byrne opened it, knowing he was likely intruding on her most private thoughts but hoping to find some happier sentiment. Inside he found it dated by the year, and filled with a series of sketches. Jayr had drawn him again and again, and had rendered his face from every angle, detailed with startling accuracy. Somehow she had transformed his barbaric visage into the face of a proud, handsome warrior. This was how she saw him, this noble savage.

He flipped through the pages, and where there were not sketches his name appeared repeatedly written with flourishes and scrolls, as if it were precious to her. He looked up on the shelf above the computer, where a long row of other journals stood. He took one down at random and found more sketches, all of him. Aedan mac Byrne sitting before a fire. In the guards' hall. Standing on the battlements. He took down another, and then another. His face and form filled every page, his name the only words recorded. The journals spanned the last twenty-five years.

Slowly he put back everything as she had left it. She loved him, of that he had no doubt, but she had loved him for far longer than he had ever suspected. No one could pay such a tribute out of liking or admiration. No, Jayr had suffered with her love, had endured it in silence, aching and burning with it, hiding all when she was with him, then returning to her lonely chamber to draw his face over and over, year after year, as if he were the only thing of importance in her world.

How could he ever be worthy of her? Love her as she deserved to be loved?

Byrne went to stand over her bed. The long, loose tunic in which she slept looked worn. It had been made for a man much larger than her, and that puzzled him until he recognized it as one of his own that he had discarded.

Even in her sleep she wrapped herself up in him. Bitterly he regretted that he had no poetry, no soft words to give to her. All he knew was the need to be one with her, to fill her as she filled his heart.

As he watched her he began absently unfastening his own tunic. The soft sounds of his clothes dropping to the floor stirred her to turn over.

"Aedan," she murmured, still asleep.

Byrne knew he should wake her, talk to her, explain what he had done and ask why she had never told him. Instead he pulled back the covers and slipped into her bed, taking her into his arms. His old tunic slid up, baring her from the waist down, and the need to be inside her surged through him, trampling his guilt and turning his cock into a rigid spike. Before he could think he had eased her left thigh over his right leg. His hand cupped her, and some part of him felt with wonder the soft, downy new hair that abraded his palm. He stroked her, coaxing silky fluid from her tight slit.

"Aedan," she murmured again, pushing against his hand, seeking relief.

Byrne felt an unfamiliar weight against his chest and tugged up his old tunic. Two small, full breasts pushed out from Jayr's body, begging for his mouth.

The skin of his cock's head stretched, tight and painful, as blood and need engorged him. He guided it to her with a shaking hand, hissing as they touched and her cool, sweet honey spread over him.

Jayr's eyes opened, first to slits, then wide. "Aedan." She braced her hands against his chest as if to push him away, and then as her breasts jiggled she looked down, aghast. "What has happened to me?"

"I cannae say, lass." He bent and brushed his mouth over her nipple. "But 'tis beautiful."

"Alexandra's potion worked. She's made me into a woman." Jayr met his gaze. "Why are you here? You don't want me."

Suddenly, inexplicably, rage boiled inside him. All of the lonely years. All of the women, meaningless, pointless. All of the longing and denying and watching and wishing and never knowing, never suspecting for a moment that she loved him, and had kept that love from him.

"I dinnae want you?" Byrne shoved himself into her, forcing her to take every inch in that single stroke. "I dinnae love you? You meant nothing to me? This is what you thought all this time?"

Her nails sank into his flesh. "My lord—"

He clamped his hand over her mouth. "I read your sweet words. I know what you have done. You say you are mine but you have kept yourself from me." He drew back and forced himself into her again. "I wanted you. I love you. By God, I could kill you."

Tears spilled over his fingers, scalding him like liquid copper. He slid his hand to twine in her hair, and touched his forehead to hers.

"Lass." What was he doing to her?

"Kill me, then," she whispered. "It would be a mercy, for I cannot leave you."

"Never." He looked into her wet eyes. "I will never let you go."

Her sorrow dissolved his rage, gentling his hands and melting their bodies together. He pushed past her resistance and into her, taking her mouth with his tongue as he worked his penis inside her, possessing all of her spaces, filling her with the dance of flesh to the symphony of hunger. She wept and struck at him and buried her fangs in his shoulder and pleaded for her release. He forced her to his will, punishing her and wooing her with his body, keeping her from coming until she was mindless and thrashing beneath him.

He wrenched out of her, sliding down her body, and brought her, sopping wet and swollen, to his mouth. A single stroke of his tongue over her jewel and she came, her body locked, her hands twisted in his hair, words of love mixed with sobs pouring from her.

Byrne came up beside her, turning her to him, holding her as he slid into her. He pressed her face against his chest, and groaned as she tightened over him, milking the pleasure and the seed from him in long, slow pulls.

He kept her there, joined to him, and held her until sleep claimed them both, unaware of the door opening, or the man who came to stand over them.

Robin of Locksley looked down at the lovers in silence, his hands becoming fists and then hands again.

"So be it."

He reached down, pulled the coverlet over them, and left as silently as he had entered.

The sign that dangled from the doorknob of room 413 of the EconoMotel in Dothan, Alabama, read, DO NOT DISTURB. It had hung there ever since the couple staying in the room had checked in.

The floor maid saw it when she pushed her heavy cart down from room 412, and considered reporting the problem to the desk manager. She hadn't been able to get into the room to clean or change the linens for days. She put an ear to the door, heard voices and the television, and sighed. If they wanted to use old towels and sleep on old sheets over and over, that was their business.

Inside room 413, Viviana put down the telephone and spoke to the man reclined on one of the twin beds. "Beaumaris says that Nottingham is to fight Jayr. Lord Byrne ordered her to refuse his challenge, and when she did not, he discharged her from his service. She is sworn to Lord Halkirk now so that she may fight."

"You see? The minute you and I leave the Realm, the place falls to pieces." Rain muted the television set, but watched as the latest episode of Top Design continued. "We could wait to see if she kills him. That would be rather convenient."

"We could." She sat down on the bed next to him. "I do not wish to. Jayr is my friend. I miss Harlech." She took the remote from his hand and switched off the set. "You know that you miss Farlae more than you lust after Todd Oldham."

"I am only infatuated with Todd's overbite." He regarded her gravely. "Vivi, if we return Guy could very well expose us both. The seigneur would be within his rights to demand our heads."

She nodded and stared at the hands she held folded tightly in her lap. "I miss Harlech," she said, unable to offer any other reasonable argument.

"Farlae will have moved into my rooms," Rain said, fiddling with the remote. "By now he's probably contemplating painting the walls black and covering my furnishings with navy linen." He gave her an indignant look. "He would do it, too, just to spite me."

"Some things are worth risking a beheading," she said softly. "Should I call the lobby, then, and tell them we will need a cab?"

"Immediately."

Jayr checked her mount before strapping cushioning pads to the horse's front and hindquarters. For this final practice she decided to use the leather trappers, which were lighter than the heavy metal peytral, flanchards, and cruppers she would use to protect her mount during the joust.

Her movements echoed in the barn, which, aside from the stabled horses, was deserted. Harlech likely had ordered the men to clear out to give her time alone to prepare and think. Lord Halkirk had already told her he did not expect her to begin her duties until after the tournament. Somehow she would have to explain her change of circumstances to him. He would understand. He had probably accepted her as his seneschal only out of pity, or only because he thought she would not live long enough to serve him.

She had everything to live for now. Aedan loved her.

Aedan had also discharged her over the challenge, and had kept from her his plans to give up the Realm. She still felt the sting of betrayal over his actions, but she would not allow herself to regret giving her heart and body to him. He had done what he had out of love for her, to protect her.

She shouldn't have left him alone in her bed, but she had needed time to think. Being with him had been lusty and primitive and shocking; it had also been tender and powerful and comforting. Through every moment, every touch, every whisper, she had felt the strength of their bond. Not as master and seneschal, but as man and woman, key and lock, seed and field.

Loved and beloved.

"How fares the arm?" Robin of Locksley asked as he came into the barn.

"It is not as loose as I would like," Jayr said, fitting the horse's head with a brown leather shaffron and buckling it to the crinet covering the mane. "But I can hold my shield and the reins, and that is enough."