Beneath a Midnight Moon - By Amanda Ashley Page 0,23

goblet, grateful to have something to do with her hands. She sipped the wine slowly, feeling it spread through her, warming her, relaxing her.

“It’s pretty here,” she remarked, looking around. “Do you come here often?” Do you bring women here often? was what she really wanted to know, but didn’t dare ask.

He shrugged. “This was my favorite place when I was a boy. I used to spend hours here, walking through the woods, watching the waterfall yonder, fishing, dreaming.”

“Of what did you dream?”

A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Of being a great warrior. Of saving a princess from an evil wizard.”

Selene. The name slithered into the back of Kylene’s mind. Selene was the princess he was destined to rescue.

“And now your dreams are coming true,” she murmured. “Jared told me you are a great warrior. And soon you’ll have your princess.”

A shadow darkened Hardane’s eyes. He had forgotten about Selene.

“No doubt she’s very beautiful,” Kylene said.

“Perhaps,” Hardane remarked, and knew that it wouldn’t matter. Beautiful or ugly, he didn’t want her. He wanted the girl standing before him, wanted her with such soul-searing desire that he was tempted to turn his back on all that he was, to break the promise he’d made to his mother, just to possess her, if only for a day, an hour.

Kylene stared at him over the rim of her goblet. She could feel his desire reaching out to her, tangible, alive. It should have frightened her; instead, for one brief moment, she welcomed it. He desired her. Perhaps he thought her pretty. It was a heady thought, one that filled her heart and soul with joy, and then guilt overshadowed her joy, reminding her that she had vowed to take her place in the Sisterhood, that pride was a sin, that the yearnings of the flesh were of the most wicked kind, for which she would have to do hours and hours of penance when she returned to the Motherhouse.

A little seed of rebellion, nurtured by distance and watered by desire, suddenly sprouted in the back of her mind, reminding her that she might never return to the Motherhouse, that she might never have the opportunity to take her final vows.

And for the first time, she let herself think of what it might be like to live as other women lived, to love, to marry, to share her life with a man. She tested it, tasted it, and found it sweet. And then, like a bit of meat chewed too long, it lost its flavor and she knew she was only deceiving herself. Hardane was the only man she wanted, the only man she would ever want, and he was betrothed to another, just as she was betrothed to the church.

Saddened, she turned away from him and walked toward the sound of rushing water.

Frowning, Hardane stared after her, wondering at the play of emotions that had flitted across her face. Her hips swayed seductively as she walked. In any other woman, he would have said it was a deliberate ploy to entice him, a feminine art well practiced, but not in Kylene. She was artlessly seductive, completely unaware of her beauty.

Muttering an oath, he followed her down the path that led to the waterfall.

He found her a short time later, sitting on a large boulder that overlooked the river. The sound of the falls was like thunder as the water rushed over the edge of a high rock-faced mountain to crash into the river below.

“It’s lovely,” Kylene murmured. “So powerful.”

Hardane nodded. “It’s said that a Wolffan warrior once fell over the edge in the dark of night. He was riding to save his beloved from marrying another man and in his haste, he misjudged his distance from the edge. Unable to stop, he plunged to his death. When his beloved learned of his fate, she donned her wedding gown and rode her horse over the edge and joined him there at the bottom of the falls. You can see them sometimes, sitting together on that rock below.”

Kylene stared at the rock he indicated and then gazed up at Hardane. Her mind told her such a thing was impossible, but her heart wanted desperately to believe that the lovers had been reunited.

Hardane smiled down at her, mesmerized by the faint gleam of tears in her eyes, by the way the sunlight shimmered in her hair.

He had a sudden, strong urge to sweep her into his arms. Instead, he used his forefinger