by Jess Lebow
“Yes. Yes it would,” said Liam, putting his flagon down and wiping splattered mead off his face.
The room went silent, and Knoblauch jumped to his feet. “Purdun’s here.”
Liam coughed once, trying to clear his throat. Then he got to his feet and stood beside the veteran just as the baron approached their table.
Knoblauch bowed. “My lord.”
Liam watched the veteran out of the corner of his eye and scowled. He didn’t know how he felt about the bowing thing. Not that long ago he hadn’t felt the need to show Lord Purdun any respect or even acknowledge his authority.
Now though, something had changed. He kind of liked being part of the elite guard. That gave him something to lose, something that could be taken from him.
Liam bowed as well. “Lord Purdun.”
“Please, gentlemen, no need for ceremony here,” said the baron, lifting a full flagon of mead from the table and taking a large swig. “I’ve only come to tell you how relieved I am that you made it back safely.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Knoblauch. “It’s really only because of Liam that I made it back today at all.”
Purdun nodded, looking directly at Liam. “So I have heard. So I have heard.”
Liam was a little uncomfortable. He’d saved the lives of many men before. It was an almost daily occurrence in the Awl. But he’d never received so much attention for it. He stood silently, not knowing what to say, trying to avoid eye contact with the baron.
“Well,” said Purdun after a long awkward moment of silence, “I don’t want to derail everyone’s well-deserved fun.” He turned to the room. “Please, everyone, carry on.”
A few of the men started to drink their mead, but for the most part the room stayed quiet. Only Captain Phinneous, lurking near the door, seemed to be enjoying himself.
The baron turned back to Liam and Knoblauch. “Liam, may I have a word with you in private?” he asked in a hushed voice.
Liam looked to Knoblauch. The veteran soldier nodded his head and gave Liam a little shove.
“Uh, all right,” said Liam.
“Excellent,” replied Lord Purdun, then he headed across the room and out the double doors.
Liam put his mead down on the table and did his best to look sober as he followed the baron out of the room.
Once they were outside, Liam could hear the soldiers begin to laugh and talk again. Purdun walked on in silence, waiting until he was halfway down the hall before speaking again.
“You’ve done well, Liam,” he said, slowing his pace.
“Thank you.”
“Far better than I ever imagined.”
Liam shrugged. “Guess you underestimated me,” he said.
Purdun smiled. “Indeed. And that is precisely what I wanted to talk to you about.” Purdun stopped only a few steps from the door to Liam’s room.
Liam stood at attention, his hands behind his back.
“I think your talents aren’t being fully used,” continued the baron. “I want to offer you a promotion.”
Liam’s head swam. “A promotion? What … what exactly does that mean?”
Purdun put his hand on Liam’s shoulder. “It means that with the undead incursions into Ahlarkham on the rise, the threat to my personal safety has increased as well. I’m going to be adding more men to my personal bodyguard, and I want you to be one of them.”
Liam shook his head, trying to clear the fuzzy haze of mead covering the inside of his skull. This was happening so fast. It wasn’t that long ago that he was fighting against this man, and now Liam was being offered a job as his personal bodyguard. Was this really happening?
“I … I don’t know what to say,” he said. It was one thing to take refuge in the elite guard, but protecting the life of the man he had worked so long to kill …
Liam shook his head. “I … don’t think—”
Purdun put up his hands, interrupting Liam. “Wait,” said the baron, reaching over and grabbing hold of the door to Liam’s private room. “I have a surprise for you.” Tugging it open, Purdun waved his arm as if he were a herald presenting a visiting dignitary.
“Listen,” said Liam, gathering his will to turn down the offer. “I—”
A slippered foot appeared first, followed by the rest of a beautiful woman. Out of his room stepped Samira, and Liam’s jaw dropped.
She looked like an angel descending into Zerith Hold. She wore a flowing white silk gown with ornate lace sleeves that flared at her hands, hiding them from view. Her long black hair had been lifted into an exquisite pile on top of her head, adorned with wildflowers and a handful of tiny sparkling jewels. She seemed to float as she moved, the smooth fabric of the gown trailing behind her.
Looking at her made Liam feel warm all over.
“Hello, Liam,” she said.
“Uh.” Liam did a once-over of his own appearance. He was still wearing most of his armor and was covered in tiny bits of leaves and wood. “Hi,” he said.
Liam looked into Samira’s eyes. She smiled, and the rest of the world seemed to disappear.
“I don’t want to keep you two any longer than I have to,” interrupted Purdun.
Liam tried to break eye contact with Samira, but he simply couldn’t. She was entrancing, and he was helpless.
“Liam,” continued Purdun, “don’t give me your answer now. But let me leave you with this one thought. The position I am offering you would come with a considerable raise in pay. Enough to, say, keep a lovely young woman in the custom she deserves.”
Liam and Samira continued to stare into each other’s eyes.
Lord Purdun bowed to the two of them. “I take my leave.” Then he turned and hurried down the hall.
Samira reached up and pulled out one of the torn leaves stuck in Liam’s armor. “What happened to you?”
Liam looked down at himself again. “Got in a fight,” he said.
“I heard,” she said. “Baron Purdun told me you saved a man’s life.”
Liam nodded. “I guess I did.”
The two of them stood in the doorway for a moment longer, looking at each other. Then Samira grabbed his hand.
“Come on. Let’s get that dirty armor off you.”
Liam followed her inside his room and closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER 19
Ryder lay on the warm stone floor, Giselle’s head on his chest, his fingers dangling in the quickly cooling water, staring at the stars.
The muscles in his back that had relaxed from the warm water and Giselle’s caresses were once again knotted and tense. His head hurt, and it took tremendous effort to simply lie still. He laughed at the absurdity. This was a fantasy come true—he was on top of a tower inside a splendid palace with a beautiful, exotic woman lounging naked beside him. Things like this didn’t happen to people like Ryder. They happened to the rich and powerful, not the poor farmer or the revolutionary. Yet, he couldn’t enjoy it.
The moment they had finished, Ryder was struck right smack in the middle of his chest with a tremendous wave of guilt.
Samira.
How could he have done that to her? She would never forgive him, and he wouldn’t blame her. She would never do something like that to him. Had he been killed, she would have likely spent the rest of her life celibate, grieving over him.
But not him. He had always thought of himself as a good man. But right now, he didn’t feel like one.
Giselle stirred, stretching her arms and turning to look up at Ryder.
“Hi,” she said, smiling.
He looked at her but couldn’t keep eye contact. “Hi,” he said, trying to put a smile on his face.
Giselle rolled over and got to her knees, then climbed up to straddle Ryder, looking down into his face.
“That was nice,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” he said, looking off over the tub.
Giselle grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. She was frowning. “What’s wrong?”
Ryder sho
ok his head.
Giselle shook hers as well. “No. I mean it. What’s wrong?”
Ryder took a deep breath and let it out. He was nervous about how she would react to the truth, but if he didn’t tell her … well, he didn’t know what would happen, but he was sure it wouldn’t be good.
“I … I don’t know what to say,” he said. He sat silently for a moment, trying to build up the courage to say what he needed to say. Finally he blurted, “Giselle, I’m a married man.”
“Well,” she said, leaning back a bit but not getting off his chest, “that doesn’t seem like you don’t know what to say.”
Ryder looked up at her. Instead of being angry, as he had expected she would be, she smiled and touched the edge of his face.
“You’re feeling guilty,” she said, not a question, just a matter-of-fact statement.
Ryder swallowed. “Yes.”
“That’s understandable.” She paused. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For your honesty,” she said. Then she leaned down and kissed him. “And for not turning me down.”
Ryder blushed. He’d never been in this situation before, but he felt tremendous relief. Much of his guilt was simply concern over what this attractive woman would think of him when she found out the truth.
“Listen, this life is very short,” she said. “I learned a long time ago that every moment I waste regretting something I did or didn’t do is another moment I don’t spend actually living my life.”
“Spoken like a true farmer,” said Ryder.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Giselle frowned.
“Just that before you can truly move forward, you have to be willing to live with the consequences.”
Giselle looked puzzled. “And what does that mean?”
“It’s something an old farmer in Furrowsrich used to say. To him it was a bit of wisdom about how and where to plow a piece of land into a new field. I’ve always thought it had a larger meaning.”
“All right, philosopher. How?”
Ryder lifted himself up onto his elbows. “Living your life is a scary proposition. The more you gain, the more you have to lose. The more you have to lose, the harder it becomes to live with the consequences. But that shouldn’t stop you from living the life you think you should live.” He looked into Giselle’s beautiful brown eyes. Then he touched her face. “You and I aren’t that different.”
Giselle leaned into his touch. “No?”
Ryder shook his head. “No.”
There was a long silence with both of them just gazing at each other.
After a long while, Giselle broke the silence. “So, this wife of yours must be the reason you’ve been so eager to leave Fairhaven.”
A sudden chill ran down Ryder’s spine. “You’re not going to have me locked up again, are you?” He didn’t struggle or try to get away. Whatever she wanted to do to him, he was going to let it happen.
Giselle laughed. “Oh,” she said, “what a good idea. I could keep you here as my personal love slave.” She smiled then lay down on him, pressing her breasts against his chest. “Then you couldn’t feel guilty. It wouldn’t be your choice.”
“Would I have to live in that dirty, rusted cage? I don’t think I would like that very much.”
Giselle shook her head. “No. You could stay up here. Of course, I’d have to make you work for your keep.”
“I have one question.” He sat up and, in one fluid motion, turned to his side, lifting Giselle off the ground and into the air as he got to his feet. Holding her in his arms, he stepped forward until her back was pressed against the stone wall. “Would this work—” He interrupted himself by kissing Giselle— “require any heavy lifting?”
Giselle’s face was flushed. Ryder could feel her heart pounding through her chest as he pressed his skin against hers. “I think it might,” she said.
Ryder nodded, kissing her neck. “Just checking.”
Inside the closed, private room, Samira helped Liam unbuckle his armor, placing it piece by piece back on the rack in the corner. Underneath, his long woven shirt was stained in places with blotches of blood and sweat.
“Oh, Liam,” said Samira, taking off his ruined undershirt to reveal several recently scabbed wounds and a pair of massive bruises on his shoulder and chest. She cringed as she ran the tips of her fingers over the blackened skin. “Do they hurt?”
All Liam could feel was the soft caress of her fingers. He shook his head. “No.”
Going to the chest of drawers, Samira retrieved a wet cloth from the washbasin. “Lie down on the bed,” she said.
Liam did as he was told. As he lay down on the soft linen, he realized how exhausted he was.
Samira stood with her back to him now, dipping the cloth in the washbasin. The back of her gown came down low, exposing everything from her shoulder blades to the small of her back.
She wrung out the cloth and came back, smiling when she saw that his eyes were open. Sitting down beside him, she ran the cool cloth over his wounds. Liam closed his eyes and followed her motions over his body.
“So what are you going to do about Purdun’s offer?” asked Samira after a short silence.
Liam shrugged. “I just can’t help thinking that Purdun might be right.”
“Right about what?” asked Samira.
Liam sat up a little. “When I talked to him the first time, he told me that the Crimson Awl were being manipulated by an outside source. He said that we were being used to a greater end.”
“Used? By whom?”
A bolt of realization struck Liam. “By a vampire.”
“A vampire?” Samira laughed, running the cloth down his arm. “The vampires haven’t been seen in Erlkazar for years. The Crusaders dealt with them during the revolution.”
“We fought vampires today.”
Samira dropped the cloth, gripping Liam’s hand.
“There’s something else too, something that has been bothering me.”
She gave his hand a squeeze. “What?”
“Do you remember when Montauk and his thugs came by the field to take me to talk to the Council?”
“Yes,” she said. “I was so worried about you.”
“They took me to the old druid’s circle. But when I got there, there was a group of strangers there. Most of them were wearing cloaks. I couldn’t see their faces, but I’m pretty sure I had never seen them before.”
Samira frowned. “But I thought you knew everyone in the Awl.”
Liam nodded. “Me too. I mean, I do. And that’s what bothers me.” He shook his head, remembering back to that day. “When Purdun’s troops arrived, things got pretty crazy. Still, I could see the strangers leaving the druid’s circle.” His eyes met Samira’s. “As they walked away, I could have sworn several of them transformed into wolves.”
“Wolves?”
Liam nodded. “I know it sounds strange, but … I saw it. With my own eyes.”
Samira ran her hand along his arm. “But what does it mean?”
Liam took a deep breath. “I think it means Purdun was right. Someone has infiltrated the Awl and is manipulating the Council.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Liam. He turned away from her for a moment, then turned back. “What do you think?”
Samira smiled at him. “Well, I don’t think you need to solve all of Ahlarkham’s problems tonight.” She reached up and pulled out the sticks holding her hair in a pile atop her head, letting it fall down over her shoulders. Several of the flowers and tiny gemstones toppled out onto the floor.
Then she stood up and slipped the gown off her shoulders, letting it slide to the floor as well. Samira stood before Liam. The candle on the chest of drawers behind her lit Samira’s naked body in a soft orange-yellow outline.
Liam admired the exquisite woman before him, a warm sensation spreading up his spine. It had been a long time. He had always wanted this, but Samira was his br
other’s wife.
Samira knelt on the edge of the bed and leaned over him.
Liam placed his calloused hand along the side of her face. He felt like such a brute, his rough, broken hide alongside Samira’s smooth, soft skin. He pulled the hand away, but she reached out and pulled it back, placing it again where it had been.
Liam looked away, but Samira grabbed his chin and turned him to face her.
“Ryder is gone,” said Samira. “Nothing either of us can do will bring him back.”
“I know that,” replied Liam.
“It’s time we started living our lives for ourselves,” she said.
“But …”
Samira moved his hand down her shoulder and across her chest.
“But nothing, Liam,” she said. She leaned down and kissed him.
The aches and pains in his battered body were instantly replaced with a feeling of euphoria.
“I’ve seen how you’ve looked at me, Liam,” said Samira, pulling away slightly. “I’ve secretly looked at you too.”
Whatever worries Liam had in the world were swept away by those few words. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her down on top of him and squeezing her to him.
“I’ve always loved you,” he said, somehow now not afraid to tell her about the feelings he had been holding back for so many years.
“I know,” she said as she moved her hand along the side of his body and down his leg. “I know.”
Ryder stood beside the giant basin, slipping his shirt back over his head.
Giselle was also getting dressed. She watched Ryder as he put his clothes back on. “If you didn’t have a wife back in Duhlnarim, would you stay here?”
Ryder took a deep breath and shook his head. “There are other things in Duhlnarim that I must attend to.”
“What is so important in that backwater village of yours? The farm?”
“No,” said Ryder. “I have unfinished business with the Baron Purdun,” he said.
“The man who put you in chains?”
Ryder nodded. “The man who holds all of Duhlnarim in chains.”
“So you wish to return to get your revenge?” asked Giselle.
“No,” said Ryder. “I return to free the people from the tyranny of a cruel and evil man.”