Page 12 of Forbidden

Then he saw the ancient silver dagger she had taken from her belt.

“Nay!” he said hoarsely.

Abruptly he realized that the dagger was to be used on the knots rather than on him. With a groan, he stopped struggling. When the force of his blood slowed, the pain in his head subsided.

Amber looked up from her work and smiled encouragingly.

“I’m sorry you were bound,” she said. “You were…not yourself.”

Whomever that might be.

“No one knew how it would go with you when you awoke,” she added.

The man let out a long breath as his right hand was freed. The other bonds gave way quickly to the flashing dagger. Before the sweat of his brief battle had dried on his body, he was free.

“I’m sorry,” Amber said again. “Erik insisted that you be tied for my safety. But I know you won’t hurt me.”

A shake of the stranger’s head was his only answer. For the space of several breaths he lay and watched Amber, trying to understand what had happened to him.

All he knew for certain was that the less he moved, the less his head hurt.

“Ill?” he asked after a few moments. “I’ve been ill?”

Amber nodded.

“What kind of illness is it that leaves a man with no memory, nothing—not even his own name!”

A chill lanced through Amber. She sheathed the dagger with trembling hands.

This can’t be what Cassandra prophesied.

I haven’t been reckless. I haven’t been foolish.

He can’t be a man with no name.

But he was.

“You don’t remember your name?” she asked in an aching voice.

“Nay, nor anything but…”

“Yes?” Amber asked eagerly.

“Darkness. A thousand shades of black.”

“Is that all?”

Thick lashes flickered for a moment as the stranger rubbed his raw wrists and looked at the ceiling, searching for something only he could see.

“A golden light,” he said slowly, “a sweet voice calling to me, luring me from that fell night, breathing the scent of larch and pine over me.”

Hazel eyes flecked with gray and green and blue focused intently on Amber. His hand moved so swiftly that she was captive before she knew what had happened. His fingers slid into her hair all the way to her scalp. He held her gently this time, but so securely there was no chance to get away.

Nor did Amber want to. A curious pleasure was coursing through her. She had touched the stranger many times, but never had she been touchedbyhim. The difference was quite thrilling, despite her clear understanding that his emotions were a seething, unpredictable storm that might slip his control at any moment.

Slowly the man drew Amber down onto the bed next to him. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply, drinking her scent. Amber brushed her lips across his cheek and chest as had become her custom through the long hours that she had tended him.

“It was you,” he said huskily.