My Ruthless Prince

by Gaelen Foley

  He felt Emily tense as she huddled near him, for they saw that Malcolm had posted two horsemen by the gate, presumably to keep any of his intended victims from escaping.

  But this was a boon. “I’ll kill them, and we’ll take their horses,” he breathed, his lips grazing her hair, a bit of an evil glint in his eye.

  He was glad of the chance for violence. He needed to get rid of some of his rage.

  “I want you over there.” He nodded at another large tree closer to the wall. “Get out of the line of fire and stay down.”

  She nodded, not daring to question him when he was in that this state; she stole away from him, slipping behind the other tree as he had commanded.

  Crouching down, he pulled his rifle off his back, planted his knee in the sod, and brought the gun up to his shoulder. He assessed the targets’ position; the closer one was an easier shot.

  He narrowed his eyes, lining up his sights on the horseman’s chest. Then he squeezed the trigger, and the man fell dead off his horse.

  The other man yelled out in surprise while the horse spooked, swerving to the side with an angry whinny. The dead rider slumped and fell but dangled, his foot caught in the stirrup. The second guard had already drawn his cavalry saber and was charging in Drake’s direction, drawn by the rifle’s flare.

  Drake’s practiced hands required only thirty seconds to reload, but the powder’s flash had left his vision slightly dazzled. Rather than trust his aim, he stepped out from the cloud of drifting gun smoke and came around the tree with his sword and dagger at the ready.

  Despite the rider’s furious kicking, the horse slowed its pace leaving the trail, minding its footing in the darker woods. Drake braced himself for the onslaught.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Emily leave her hiding place to capture the spooked horse. The dead man’s foot was still caught in the stirrup, and the horse was panicked, dragging the corpse about as it tried to flee the awkward burden. Skilled as she was with animals, he knew she would have the horse under control in short order.

  He turned his attention back to the rider bearing down on him. Then the horseman was upon him, using the advantage of his mount’s height to swing and slash at Drake. Drake parried the blows, circling as the horse swung its hind end around. Its massive weight clumsy in the underbrush, it tossed its head, rearing up a bit when it sidled into a mound of brambles.

  The rider slashed at him again. Drake blocked the ringing blow on his sword and struck back with his dagger, gashing the man’s thigh. The rider bellowed and changed position, coming at him from another angle. Again he parried, absorbing the force of the blow on his blade, deflecting it with practiced skill.

  Then the horse joined the battle, trying to bite him, ears flattened against its head. Drake saw those bared ivory teeth coming at him in the darkness and was just in time to swat the horse’s head away, barking a rebuke.

  The rider reeled his horse about, reaching for his pistol. Drake reacted automatically, smacking the horse in its barrel chest; it reared up as the man fired, throwing off the rider’s aim. Drake ducked; the bullet bit into the tree trunk behind him. As soon as the horse’s front hooves touched back to earth, Drake moved in and grabbed the rider, hauling him out of the saddle.

  He threw the man to the ground and fell upon him viciously. They both were nearly trampled as they brawled.

  Drake barely felt the blows he took to the face and the body; he was too absorbed in landing the ones he dealt out. Everything was slow and crisp and clear, his heart thudding in his ears like cannon fire. The next thing he knew, Drake was down on one knee with his knife to the Promethean’s throat. Without the slightest hesitation, he dispatched him. The man’s struggles ceased.

  His chest heaving, he dropped the corpse forward, avoiding getting himself covered in any more blood. He rose, wove unsteadily on his feet just for a second, gained his balance, and took a deep breath. There. I’m all right.

  He took a step back from the dead man, spared a second to check if he was hurt at all, and saw he was still in one piece. Just as he reached to capture the ill-tempered horse, he heard a high-pitched scream.

  Emily? He drew his breath in and looked over.

  When he saw her running up the path on foot, another Promethean rider chasing her, the already black night turned to nightmare.

  “Emily!”

  In the next second, he swung up onto the horse of the man he had just killed and gathered the reins, tearing out onto the path after them.

  When he spotted the corpse of the Promethean guard he’d shot lying beside the path ahead, he realized she must have succeeded in calming the spooked horse and freeing the dead man’s foot from the stirrup. But in chasing the animal out into the open, she must have let herself be seen.

  “Don’t touch her!” he bellowed at the cruelly laughing rider, who was even then bending down out of the saddle at a canter. With one arm, the large man scooped her up and threw her across his lap.

  Emily screamed and fought him, and Drake urged his horse into a full-out gallop, vowing that what he had just done to those other two was nothing compared to what her captor would get.

  The rider was heading back to the castle, where the blazing torches revealed a full-pitched battle under way. When the man glanced over his shoulder and saw Drake in hot pursuit, he spurred his mount on, galloping around the bend into the courtyard, where Drake normally practiced with his men.

  The courtyard was a seething cauldron of violence, a shocking difference from their controlled martial exercises.

  He knew that Emily must have been as furious as he was to end up there again, when escape had been so close. Then, as he prodded his horse on through the melee, trying to catch the rider who had taken Emily, his gaze fixed on her, he saw her reach under her cloak for something.

  Only three or four lengths behind them, he had an excellent view of what happened when she suddenly pulled out her forest knife, whipped her arm behind her, and stabbed the brawny rider in the side.

  “Bitch!” he exploded, throwing her out of the saddle; she went tumbling to the ground, but rolled clear of Drake’s horse as he veered past.

  “Get out of here!” he yelled at her, but the wounded rider blocked her escape, circling back with vengeance in his eyes. The man pulled out a pistol and aimed it at her while she was still getting up from the ground.

  Drake charged, leaping off his horse onto the man before he could pull the trigger. They both crashed to earth, each struggling to get control of the gun.

  When it went off, it was pointing at the Promethean. He quit fighting, screaming as part of his skull burst open. The bloodcurdling cry ended abruptly even as Drake jumped to his feet and scanned the courtyard for Emily.

  “Capitaine!” a familiar voice cried.

  He glanced over and saw Jacques embattled. Damn it.

  “Drake!”

  Emily ran to him. “Get on the horse and go!” he ordered, catching the animal’s reins again.

  Wide-eyed, she gave him a shaky nod, and Drake dashed off to help Jacques, he barely knew why. Hell, it was one thing to steal away in the night when all was quiet, but it was beyond his power to turn his back on an ally under siege. Besides, whether he knew it or not, the French sergeant and his band of mercenaries had won Drake’s respect and a measure of his trust when he had overheard their murmurs about doing something to save Emily.

  While Drake ran to assist Jacques against several opponents, the ill-tempered horse on which he had told Emily to ride away started acting up again.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw the bay rear up and nearly kick her in the face when she tried to mount it—a delay that only succeeded in drawing to her the attention of more of Malcolm’s men.

  To Drake’s utter fury, more of them went after her again. While he blocked and hacked his way through one soldier after another, he saw Emily run into the castle, her cloak flowing out behind her.

  Good enough, he told himself. She’ll hide.
/>   She was familiar with the ground floor’s maze of dark corridors and stone chambers. Malcolm’s men were not. Skilled in stealth as she was, he trusted she could stay out of sight until he could come to her.

  Then he threw another opponent to the ground and introduced him to Saint Peter, a savage sort of ecstasy pounding in his veins.

  Once Jacques and his men began to get the courtyard under control, Drake abandoned the fight, sprinting into the castle to find Emily.

  He ran into the ground floor of the castle and saw more fights in progress but ignored them, looking everywhere to find her.

  “Emily?” he yelled into one hallway and the next.

  Where the hell is she?

  At last, through the clash, he heard her answer faintly. “Drake! Upstairs!”

  He followed the sound of her voice, dashing up the steps two at a time, his bloody sword in hand. But when he reached the top of the stairs, she nearly shot him with an arrow.

  He threw up his free hand. “Don’t, it’s me!”

  Her eyes were wide and stark with terror. He saw that she’d been backed into a corner. Then he glanced down at three dead men on the floor before her, all with arrows sticking out of them.

  He lifted his gaze to hers again in astonishment, while the skirmish raged on in the great hall not far off.

  He realized she was in shock and took a cautious step toward her. “Are you hurt?” he asked softly.

  “N-no. You?”

  “No.”

  “Drake, I killed them,” she whispered.

  “You had no choice,” he said, reaching out his hand, but she wouldn’t take it.

  “This is my last arrow.”

  “You don’t need it. I’ll protect you. Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

  She just stared at him, paralyzed by the violence all around her, not moving from where she stood, her bow and arrow at the ready.

  As Drake wondered how to calm her down, he was suddenly distracted by the bloody spectacle unfolding in the great hall.

  He could see in through the wide-open doors as one of Malcolm’s men hacked down Septimus Glasse as he tried to run away. Another skewered the cowering cardinal. The Russian writer was already dead on the floor.

  My God, Malcolm is doing the Order’s work for us.

  The French marquis made a bold stand before the fireplace, until their bullets raked him.

  Malcolm Banks himself went striding past the doorway into view, commanding his men. “Drag that old bastard here to me! You can have the gold—I’ll cut off the traitor’s head myself. Bring me Falkirk!”

  “Unhand me, you cur!” He could hear James’s voice, and was barely aware of moving toward it, until Emily suddenly shouted, “Don’t go!”

  He glanced back at her, his heart pounding.

  “Please. It’s my last arrow.”

  He walked over without a word and handed her his loaded pistol. “I’ll be right back,” he promised in a low, deadly tone, gazing into her eyes.

  “He isn’t worth it,” she pleaded.

  He did not try to explain. Leaving her with adequate protection, he ran to try to save the old man’s life.

  Entering the great hall, he flung himself heartily into the fray, ignoring the fact that he could feel the darkness taking hold of him. At last, he was free from the self-restraint of practice, free to disgorge his hatred on them. He no longer cared that Emily was watching. In that moment, he barely knew her name. For all he knew, he might still be in the dungeon in reality; this, a madman’s futile dream, and she no more than a wisp of light in the all-consuming darkness. Only the savage rage inside him tasted real. Pain, death, blood, these were real.

  He sent a man’s head flying with a most effective strike. Time slowed; sound distorted; he blindly stabbed at anything that got in his way. His pulse booming in his ears, his hands tingling with the battle fury, he slit another enemy open and tossed him aside, deaf to the screams, only reveling that tonight at last they had given him a reason.

  Slash, slice, thrust, block. He was in his own world, a terrible place that seethed with bloody fantasies of vengeance. Perhaps the Prometheans had won if they could take a knight of the Order and turn him into this, a last, sane part of him observed.

  Fuck the Order, thought Drake as he twisted the knife in another man’s chest. Tonight was not for them or even James.

  It was for him.

  The Prometheans had turned him into this by what they’d done to him, so let them pay for it.

  “Drake!”

  Dimly, he heard James calling. He paused in his killing and looked through swimming rage for the old man.

  James was backing away from Malcolm, but when Drake spotted him, James pointed toward the distant corner.

  “Go to Emily!”

  He whirled around and through the open doorway saw her under attack. He drew his arm back with his dagger and hurled his knife without a second’s hesitation.

  It seemed to take forever as it flew across the corridor.

  Those precious seconds, watching it, reopened a narrow window back to sanity and wedged it open.

  Then the blade struck home in the man’s back.

  Emily threw him off her, ashen-faced, not injured, though her shirt was torn. From across the room, she looked into his eyes and spoke words that he heard more in his soul than with his ears.

  Come back to me.

  He knew she did not mean literally, to her side.

  She had seen what he’d been doing. She meant, Come back from Hell.

  But didn’t she understand that Hell was where he belonged?

  A garbled cry suddenly sounded from a few feet behind him. Drake whirled around to find James impaled on Malcolm’s sword.

  “You traitor.” Virgil’s brother sneered as he drove the blade in deeper.

  Drake vaulted over the couch and hurled himself at Malcolm, though he already knew deep down it was too late for James. Malcolm hollered for his bodyguards as Drake seized him, but Drake had already killed most of those nearby. Others harkened to his shout from around the castle and came running, but they stopped when they saw Drake’s blade at Malcolm’s throat.

  “Call off your men,” Drake growled at his ear.

  “Halt,” Malcolm told them grudgingly.

  They stopped.

  “Put your weapons on the ground!” Drake ordered.

  No one complied. He pressed the edge of his sword a bit more insistently against Malcolm’s neck, nicking him just enough to draw blood.

  “You heard him!”

  Malcolm’s black-clad men glanced around uncertainly at each other, then slowly disarmed themselves, setting their weapons on the floor and straightening up again.

  Jacques arrived just then. He and his mercenaries quickly surrounded them.

  “I suggest you take your hands off me if you want to live. I don’t think you realize who I am,” Malcolm said haughtily.

  “Of I course I do.” Then he lowered his voice to a whisper, so only Malcolm Banks could hear: “Tell the devil that St. Michael sends his regards.”

  With that—treacherously—he cut his throat.

  Malcolm’s men gasped.

  Drake dropped their master’s body with a dark smile. Then he murmured to Jacques, “Take them outside and get rid of them. Burn the bodies.”

  Jacques looked at him in surprise: Malcolm’s men had put down their weapons, as directed.

  Drake shook his head before the Frenchman could bother asking if they ought to be spared. “Save your breath. They’d have done the same to you.”

  Jacques absorbed this with an uneasy look, then shrugged and nodded in trepidation, as if to say, It’s on your head, then, not mine.

  I can live with that. Drake gazed back at him serenely.

  As the mercenaries marched their prisoners out, Emily came running into the great hall; she paused, visibly shocked by the litter of corpses, but she picked her way around them, taking her medicine bag off her shoulder. She ran to kn
eel by James.

  Drake joined her. She must have decided that if the old man was worth saving in his eyes, then she would help, too, with her medicinal skills.

  Fearing he had failed, that James was already dead, Drake braced himself, watching her uncertainly.

  She pressed her fingertips to the old man’s throat, feeling for a pulse. Then she turned to him, wide-eyed. “He’s alive!”

  Chapter 17

  Emily flexed her fingers, trying to stop their shaking. How was she to work on the old man with her hands trembling so? She doubted there was any number of stitches that could save Falkirk, but she had to try. She knew how much he meant to Drake, in the illogic of the human heart.

  She might personally abhor the head of the Council, but she had to try to save him, or Drake would only end up suffering more torment in the future, from the guilt of having failed him.

  She followed at a brisk pace as Drake carried Falkirk into the parlor and placed him gently on the divan.

  He was in and out of consciousness.

  She set down her medicine bag and opened it, shoving aside a thought of monkshood as she glanced at her collection of apothecary herbs. “Get him a blanket. I’ll need more bandages, as well. Can you bring him whiskey or something for the pain? I can also use the liquor to clean the wound.”

  Drake nodded and sped to get all three.

  Falkirk seemed so small and frail lying there that, as Emily glanced at him, getting out her scissors and tweezers, she could scarcely believe she had ever been afraid of him. She was not looking forward to the prospect of sewing his abdomen back together, but it had to be done.

  As she attempted to lift the torn, bloodied part of his vest away with the tweezers so she could clean the wound, she suddenly noticed him staring steadily at her, his gray eyes glazed with pain.

  “You never cease to surprise me, Emily Harper.” His cultured baritone had gone weak and raspy.

  “Pardon?” she echoed, taken off guard.

  “I know you despise me,” he said in a dry tone. “And yet you’d work to save my life—even though you know it is impossible.”