The Fire and the Sword (Men of Blood Book 2)

by Rosamund Winchester

  He took another step closer, the warmth of him beating at her. He raised a hand and pressed it against her cheek. She couldn’t stop herself from pressing her face into his palm. “You will tell Bishop Norton all you have told me about your uncle. He is a good man. He will listen to what you have to say. He will decide what to do after that.”

  Her breath hitched, her mind spinning. She pulled away from him, and he dropped his arm. “And what about me? What will I do once I have given this information to Norton?” Damn! Why had her voice come out sounding like a plea? Was she silently begging him to remain with her? To stay with her, perhaps marry her and protect her for always?

  Non. Elric had never been the type to remain faithful to one woman, and she was a fool to hope otherwise.

  But he does not appear as she assumed he would, proud and arrogant. In truth, he seemed almost burdened.

  It is me, she thought. I am that burden.

  Non! He is overwrought with trying to save himself and his men from Uncle Remi’s plans and plots. Was she so conceited to think only of herself, that she was the only one embroiled in chains of her uncle’s making?

  But she had to know.

  “What of us?” she asked, her heart pounding against her chest walls. “Will you remain with me at Furness? Will you remain with me after?”

  Elric stiffened, his demeanor changing right before her eyes.

  “We cannot speak of that now, Minnette,” he replied, his voice hard. Unyielding.

  A wash of humiliation flooded her, and the acid in her belly burned, like a whirlpool of bile and regret.

  “So you mean to say that I may remain in Furness and live in the St. Mary’s of Furness convent, or I may return home to France. I can assume you will send another as an escort to the port in Scarborough,” she drawled, and the humiliation she felt twisted into anger in her guts.

  Elric’s eyebrows flew upward. “You would choose to take your vows as a nun?” he asked, incredulous.

  She threw her arms wide. “Of course not! Why would I sacrifice anything for a God who would bring you into my life? You are a snake! Now that you have taken what you wanted from me, I am nothing more than a burden to you.” She drew her shoulders back, meeting his stony expression. “I will not be a burden to anyone. Once we have arrived at Furness, you may rest assured you will never have to look upon me again.”

  “Ho, there! Hold on. I never said anything about leaving you in Furness. I said we would speak of it another time. There is much more to think on than what will happen later. If there is a later,” Elric argued, his face turning red. “And if I did choose to leave you in Furness, it would only be for your protection. If your uncle discovers what has happened between us…” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to.

  She heard what he left unsaid. If her uncle discovered that she had given herself to Elric, he would consider her unfit, calling her out publicly as a whore.

  As if anything Uncle Remi has to say means anything. But it wasn’t just her uncle that would look upon her with disdain and disgust. If she ever made it to her aunt in Chatteris, could she keep such a thing secret? And what if she fell pregnant? How could she ever explain away her unmarried state?

  She sniffed, battling to ignore the piercing pain in her chest. Oh, oui. Now that she was impure, she was no better than a common strumpet. No man of wealth or standing would ever marry her. Elric had more than ruined her for other lovers. He had ruined any chance she had of finding peace and comfort with a man ever again.

  He had stolen more than her heart.

  “Once I have fulfilled my obligation, I will not remain at Furness, waiting for you to return. I will no longer be your burden to bear. I will go to Chatteris, to my aunt,” she answered, her voice choked.

  Elric’s eyes widened, a cloud of something like fear turning the golden depths to a near brown. “Why?” he asked.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, as if to protect her heart.

  “What is there for me here?”

  He reeled as if struck. She blinked in surprise at his reaction. “What do you mean? I am here. I had hoped…” His voice died down to a heavy sigh.

  “You had hoped what?” she prodded, something within her desperate for him to tell her what she so needed to hear.

  When he didn’t answer, that sliver of hope in her chest shattered at her feet.

  “I will go to Chatteris,” she repeated, this time to bolster her intent.

  Her breath caught when he bent down and brushed his lips over hers. “As you wish, milady.” Without giving her a chance to say another word, he spun on his heel and walked back to the door, opening it before turning to look over his shoulder. He hesitated as if thinking on what to say. “Sleep well, Kitten.”

  He had gone more than an hour ago, but the room still held the scent of leather. Ever since their meeting in the stable, what felt like lifetimes ago, she would smell leather and think of Elric, standing at the stall door, staring down at her with unbridled heat in his eyes and his naked chest glistening with sweat, his taut belly flexing and moving as he breathed and moved. He’d been wearing leather pants and naught much else. And even though she had seen him in much less, that image would play at her thoughts, teasing her, until the day she died.

  Which might be sooner than you think.

  Sucking in a sharp breath at that thought, Minnette rubbed the bridge of her nose and then pressed her chilled fingers against her temples. Bell Heather had offered her medicaments to ease the pain in her head and neck, and especially the dull throbbing in her arm, but she refused. The medicine would dull her wits and not just the pain, and she knew that she would need sharp and quick wits to deal with what was ahead of her.

  “We leave for Furness on the morrow.” Elric had spoken as though it were of no real consequence, that they were taking a brisk ride in the morning chill to refresh their spirits. But that wasn’t the truth. They were riding with urgency to a destination where she would be safe.

  Will I ever be safe? Elric had assured her that the bishop in residence at Furness would listen to her report of her uncle’s duplicity, and that he would shield her against whatever actions her uncle would take in response. So why didn’t she feel relief at that knowledge? Why did it feel as though one problem was only getting transposed with another?

  Dropping her hands from her head, she moved to stand beside her bed. She supposed she should ring for Mina to help her ready herself for bed, but she hadn’t the patience or the stamina to endure anything other than pulling back the bedclothes and climbing beneath them. She was exhausted, her mind and body weary, and her heart beyond strained.

  If Elric believed he could keep her safe, then she would trust him. She had to. She did. He had saved her even when she’d been fool enough to think herself better on her own.

  At the memory of the man in the dark, holding a knife to her neck, she whimpered. He was still out there somewhere, no doubt hunting her, stalking her for his chance to press his dagger into her flesh again. His voice like a thick illness to her ears, she recalled all he’d said there in that dilapidated cottage. He wanted her dead because her uncle had commissioned it, but that wasn’t what made her stomach roll with terror. It was how utterly excited he sounded about removing her head from her neck. Slowly.

  Clamping her eyes shut against the vision of her own head rolling across the cold, stone floor, she pulled back the bedclothes and climbed into the bed, throwing the counterpane and blankets over herself, all the way up to her head.

  There, in the dark beneath the blankets, she shuddered.

  She had never known such loneliness in her life. Never known such need for the warmth and strength of someone beside her. No, not just someone. Elric. She wanted him beside her, his arms around her, his head pressed into the crook of her neck, his hot breath feathering over her skin. But that would never happen again. Elric had shown himself a cad of the highest order. Oui, he would protect her life as a noble knight would, but her heart m
eant nothing to him.

  She would sleep little that night.

  As the sun set, the warmth of the earth descended with it, allowing the chill to rise, and his excitement along with it.

  It was time.

  It had been nearly an hour since he’d last heard any sounds from the other side of the chamber door. That meant the household was long asleep, at least the servants. He had no doubt that the guards were still patrolling, and the knights in the great hall were still carousing and whoring and drinking themselves into oblivion. They were all the same, using their positions of power to gain whatever it was they wanted.

  Just as his own father had done; burning his own son alive so that he would curry favor with a man without conscience or compassion or piety. Their lord had only wanted him dead because he wanted to appease the villagers. And the villagers wanted him dead because they feared him, what he could do to them as they slept. They’d seen what was left of his mother, they had seen the carnage left behind after he’d realized that cutting into human flesh was far more enthralling that cutting into the flesh of an animal.

  He hadn’t liked her all that much when she was glaring at him, ordering him about, castigating him about whatever she thought he’d done wrong. But once she was silent, gutted, dismembered, and cold…he’d preferred her that way. He’d enjoyed making her thus, her screams echoing in his young ears, her pleas for mercy, her cursing her ever birthing him, and finally the gurgling noises that were much softer but still just as pleasing. They’d been wet sounds, like a brook bubbling up from underground. Peaceful sounds. Unlike the shrieks that came when his father returned home.

  Sighing, Stringer stood up, his body aching from sitting on the floor, as still as an armor-plated statue in the unclaimed bedchamber. He moved as quietly as he could, his armor and the leather beneath sticking to the wound. He hissed as it throbbed. At the chamber door, he depressed the latch, the sound of it clicking louder than he supposed it should be.

  Opening the door, slowly, he held his breath then stuck his head out into the corridor to look. It was deserted. With his helmet on his head and his visor over his face, he knew that even if he ran into someone, he could still move past them without being molested. It was important to reach Minnette’s chamber without sounding an alarm, and that meant he couldn’t just dispatch everyone he came across between there and her chamber somewhere on the floor above that one.

  Closing his eyes, he focused on her, knowing that the Lord would guide him to his ultimate prize, a prize he’d earned for remaining faithful to what the cardinal had ordered.

  He opened his eyes, a smile stretching the mangled flesh along his cheeks and chin.

  Drawn to the end of the corridor, he walked until he reached the stairwell. He followed it upward to the next landing. This corridor was also deserted. Letting out a breath, he moved along the passage, still uncertain of which bedchamber held the woman he was seeking.

  Then, as though a sign from an invisible hand, his gaze landed on a door across the hallway from a brightly flickering sconce. There were several other sconces, their candles all but gutted, but this one still burned bright.

  She is here, he thought as his hand reached for the door latch. His hands were trembling. When was the last time he trembled?

  Never. He never trembled. Others trembled before him.

  His heart thundering, his breathing shallow, he depressed the latch and slowly pushed the door open. The chamber was dark save for the waning moonlight pushing through the partially drawn curtains. Stepping over the threshold into her chamber, he listened.

  Breathing. He could hear her breathing.

  A new sensation pulsed through him, one he would cherish for the rest of his days: delight. He had never known true delight. But this one woman, this amazing, beautiful, soft-skinned angel had given it to him. The grin on his face felt as though he were pulling his own face apart but he didn’t care.

  He wanted to smile. She made him want to smile. And once she was his, and they were alone in his dwelling in the woods, he would take his time with her. Smiling down at her as he found greater and greater delights in the sounds her flesh made as his blade pushed through it.

  Shuddering, he pulled his blade from beneath the loose-fitting chest plate and held it just above his own heart.

  Now at the side of the large bed, he pulled back the bed curtain and stared down at the lump beneath the bedclothes. With his left hand, he took hold of the top edge of the blanket, tugging lightly to make sure she wasn’t clutching it in her slumber. It moved freely.

  His grin grew, his teeth aching from the duration of this particular facial aberration.

  With awe not unlike what he felt upon seeing his mother’s corpse displayed to his young eyes, he pulled back the blanket, his attention trained on the woman he revealed.

  Exquisite.

  He slammed a hand down over her mouth just as her eyes fluttered open. She shrieked into his grasp, the terror in her bright blue gaze bringing ever more delight. With his knife at her throat, he could see how her nervous swallowing made the blade bob. It was more erotic than anything he’d ever experienced; the dance of the blade against her soft, smooth flesh.

  “Minnette, it is time to go. I assume you know who I am by now. Your knight would have discovered much about me. But that matters little. Once you and I have departed, he will have finally rid himself of you.”

  At those last words, she whimpered, and a single tear began to trail down her cheek.

  “Oh no, my dear. Save the tears for later. I would have them all for myself.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  She ached but she refused to make a sound of discomfort. The man behind her would like it too much.

  Minnette was perched, stiff as a board, on an ugly horse. Usually, she loved animals. They never broke your heart. But right now, she wasn’t feeling quite so compassionate. The man behind her, whom she still did not know despite his assumption otherwise, was relaxed, his body leaning forward into hers. It only made her lean forward to put more space between herself and him. But there was no space left, and her stomach and back muscles were screaming from remaining so tense and erect for so long. It did not help that the bastard held the knife against her belly, point up, waiting for her to try to escape. Nearly every moment since they’d left, she’d been contemplating what would happen if she allowed him to take her to wherever they were going. She also wondered how they’d escaped the castle unmolested. Were there no guards about that time of night? Had the man behind her somehow killed them all, paid them off, or was he just that skilled at sneaking about like a rat in stolen armor?

  She knew the armor was not his because the coat of arms on the surcoat belonged to Kentwithe, Lord Tristin’s father. This man was not a knight, nor a guard, so he must’ve stolen the armor. Probably killed the man who’d worn it before him. She snapped her teeth together to force down the shudder. It would not do to show the man any sign of weakness. He already had her at knife point, he already knew she was at her mercy. He did not need to think he would find her pliant. Though she was fast weakening, her muscles straining and her lack of sleep dulling her senses, though not the senses she preferred to have lost, there was a stench to the man that made her stomach turn. She had smelled it before, when she’d come upon a dead pig in the woods as a child. It was the smell of rot. And the more she smelled it, the more it made her head ache and her throat burn from holding back her sick.

  And how long had they been traveling anyway?

  When he’d secreted her away from the castle and brought her to his horse just outside the gates, it was nearly dark as pitch. But now, the sky was turning a merry sort of light blue with ribbons of pink, like a palate of cheery colors meant to mock her.

  “We are almost there,” the man announced, his voice a mix of gravelly and breathy, almost as if he were excited and nearly breathless with it.

  Though she so badly wanted to know where “there” was, she didn’t want to give him t
he satisfaction of her curiosity. He’d probably assume she was as excited as he was to get there. So, they continued in silence, the mount beneath her moving with ease over the flat yet rocky terrain. The forest around Bridgerdon had finally given way to open pastures and undulating hills, and after that, more forest. Tall, old trees stretched into the sky. They were spaced far enough apart that they could ride between them easily. The further into the forest they traveled, the colder it became. How did this man see when the gloom was so thick? He couldn’t be human.

  Demon. He is a demon from Hell sent to punish me. But for what? She hadn’t been the one to steal another man’s name and rise to power through deceit and false piety. She hadn’t been the one to seduce another person and tear their heart to shreds. No, she’d simply allowed all that to happen. She should have said something about her uncle sooner. She never should have allowed her desires to push her into Elric’s arms.

  Perhaps I do deserve punishment.

  Her body, finally losing its ability to sit upright, tumbled back into the chest behind her. The hand against her belly loosened for but a moment before he tightened his hold on her once again.

  “I see you have finally come to your senses. There is no use in fighting it, my dear. I have seen you, the real you, the you that wants this as much as I. And it is that woman whose tears I will lick from her cheeks.”

  She opened her mouth to scream, her terror mounting, but he drew the knife blade upward until the point was just under her left breast. She gasped at the slight pinch as the blade broke the surface of her skin through the fabric of her gown.

  He groaned. “That is only the beginning, my dear.”

  Minnette closed her eyes, twin bands of horror and rage wrapping themselves around her heart. She could not allow this man the chance to live out his disgusting fantasy. But how could she escape him? She was alone with him, in the dense and dark woods. She doubted he would have a dwelling within earshot of another living soul, someone who could come if she screamed loud enough. Non. She could scream until her throat gave out, and no one would come.