Oh, God. Oh, God .
Two mercenaries followed; they also wore outdoor garments and wielded swords glistening with fresh blood. One of them carried a length of coiled rope.
Through the open doorway, Claire saw men lying on the ground, their clothes slashed and bloodstained. Veronique and her thugs had killed the guards.
Claire reached for the dagger she’d tucked into the snug sleeve of her gown. A weight suddenly brushed against her legs: Patch, limping his way over to the bed to cower underneath.
“Were you planning to leave?” Veronique’s brows arched as her gaze traveled over Claire’s fastened cloak, right down to her boots. “How strange, when you are a captive. One who only yesterday plotted against the lord of the castle.”
Venom sharpened the woman’s words, and Claire shivered. She pointed the dagger at the three intruders. She wouldn’t answer Veronique. She’d never betray Tye to his mother.
She had to get past Veronique and her thugs and run !
A harsh cackle broke from Veronique. “Do you really hope to deter me with that knife?”
“Stay away from me,” Claire said firmly.
“I am afraid not. You see, you are quite important for what is to come.”
Wielding the dagger, Claire took a nervous step sideways, toward the door. “W-what do you mean?”
“Tie her,” Veronique said.
Claire dashed for the door, while lashing out with the knife. A mercenary caught her arm, knocked the dagger from her hand, and pinned her arms. She shrieked, struggled, but the men swiftly subdued her and tied her hands behind her back, heedless of the sore marks on her wrists.
Her garments rustling, Veronique approached Claire. The older woman grabbed Claire’s chin, and her bent, aged fingers dug into Claire’s skin until she gasped with pain. “Whatever secrets you are holding, I will get them out of you.”
“Never,” Claire shot back.
“Today, I will also have the pleasure of killing you.”
Fear lashed through Claire, but she refused to yield to Veronique’s cruel glare.
Smiling as if she had secrets of her own, Veronique lowered her punishing hand. “Did you know an army draws near?”
Claire’s frantic thoughts shifted to Tye. Was he aware of the approaching army? His mercenaries must have alerted him. That meant, though, that Delwyn was working with de Lanceau. The deadly battle had begun.
“Ah. I see from your expression that you now realize what will take place today.” Veronique tittered. “’Tis why I need you.”
“Me?” Claire said, her mind reeling.
“ No one will keep Tye from doing what is expected of him. Especially you.”
“You will use me to force Tye to kill his sire?”
“See, you do understand.”
Revulsion broke through the panic churning within Claire. “Do you care about Tye at all?”
“How dare—?”
“Do you love him as your child? Or from the day he was born, did you view him only as a means to destroy de Lanceau?” Claire shook as she spoke, but she meant every word. Given the chance, she had far more she wanted to say to this horrible woman.
Veronique’s head lifted as she sucked in a sharp breath. Fury flashed in her eyes. Her gnarled hand slid toward her cloak, as though to draw a dagger, but before her fingers touched the garment, she seemed to change her mind. She turned away. “Bring her.”
Claire fought, but the men hauled her across the planks. Following Veronique, they dragged Claire down passageways and into a cramped stairwell. The iron-bound wooden door at the top opened onto the battlements. The men shoved her into the dawn light.
The bitterly cold morning breeze snatched the air from Claire’s lungs. Shouts, the clash of weaponry, and screams of wounded men echoed up from the bailey, while a short distance along the parapet, mercenaries scrutinized the landscape below, fired arrows, nocked more arrows to their longbows, and fired again.
The men holding Claire pulled her to the middle of the battlement where Veronique stood. Mounded snow remained on some parts of the wall walk; where the snow had melted but then frozen overnight, slick black ice glinted.
The thugs halted. One man either side of Claire, they held her firm. Through the gap between the squared stone merlons, she saw that on the frost-laden ground outside the castle, foot soldiers with crossbows and longbows were engaged in a full-scale assault. A few warriors were throwing grappling hooks with ropes to try and scale the fortress walls. Mounted knights circled farther back, issuing orders. Without doubt, Tye’s forces were outnumbered.
Over the din in the bailey, she heard a shout. Was that Tye’s voice? She looked down into the bailey, to see him running from the shadows of the gatehouse. He ducked, barely missing an arrow, while he wove through the throng of men fighting by the entrance to the dungeons. Tye was heading for the forebuilding. Was he on his way to the solar, to take her to the cellar?
Oh, Tye , she silently cried. Beware .
Her heart ached, for when he found her missing, his mercenaries dead, he’d know his mother had betrayed him.
A brown-haired man down by the well, who’d just slain a hired thug, saw Tye and started toward him. Claire didn’t recognize the man, but by his authoritative stride and fine cloak, he appeared to be someone of importance. He stayed far enough behind that Tye wouldn’t sense he was being followed.
Veronique brushed past Claire, her sharpened gaze also on the man. “Dominic.” She spat the name like a curse.
“Dominic?” Claire asked.
“De Lanceau’s closest friend.” She sneered. “Arrogant bastard. He thought I could not escape from his dungeon after the battle at Waddesford Keep. How wrong he was.”
“He will be glad to recapture you, then,” Claire said. Veronique belonged in an isolated cell where she could no longer wreak harm upon anyone, including Tye.
Veronique dismissed Claire’s words with a disgusted snort. “Dominic will never succeed, that I promise you. Yet, if Dominic is here, that means Geoffrey is as well.” She studied the warriors in the bailey with obvious eagerness.
Claire discreetly twisted her bound hands. The mercenaries had tied her tightly, and the ropes cut into her sore flesh. Still, there must be a way to get free. She’d just have to find it.
As Veronique leaned farther over the battlement, searching below for de Lanceau, the door they’d used crashed open. The clang of swords rang from the stairwell’s shadows.
Moving backward, his sword poised to strike again, Tye emerged from the stairs. After him came two knights wearing chain mail beneath their mantles. In the lead by a few steps was the man named Dominic. Close behind was a tall, broad-shouldered warrior whose brown hair was streaked with gray. His silk surcoat, worn over his chain mail, bore the embroidered image of a flying hawk.
Claire immediately recognized him: Lord Geoffrey de Lanceau.
***
Sweat ran down the back of Tye’s neck and trickled down his temples as he faced Dominic and his sire. He’d come upon them in the upstairs corridor. They’d just broken through the locked door of the chamber where Lady Brackendale and Mary had been huddled together.
“Do not worry,” de Lanceau had been saying. “Wode is ours. Tye’s conquest is finished.”
Upon seeing him, his sire’s face had contorted with fury. The two men had raised weapons and rushed at him. Tye had fought them both, but they were excellent swordsmen. Changing his strategy, Tye had lured them into the stairwell, along the torch lit corridors, and up to the battlement.
As Tye deflected another strike from Dominic, this one perilously close to slashing his forearm, he realized others were close by a
nd watching the confrontation.
He snatched the quickest of glances. Hellfire ! Claire was on the battlement, near his mother. Sickening panic clenched his gut, for he guessed why his parent had brought Claire to the fight; by holding her hostage, his mother ensured Tye killed his sire.
“’Tis not as we agreed,” he snapped to his Mother.
“I changed the plan.”
His anger became a blazing hot tempest. He wanted to round on his mother, demand that she let Claire go, but he didn’t dare take his gaze from the men before him. If he didn’t give this fight his full attention, he’d die.
“I see you have brought your father. What a pleasure to see you again, Geoffrey.”
“’Tis no pleasure for me, Veronique,” de Lanceau muttered. Baring his teeth, he lunged at Tye, his attack a swift onslaught that forced Tye to stumble backward to avoid being wounded.
As Tye regained his balance, he stole another glance at Claire, pinned between the mercenaries. Her arms were behind her back; her hands had been bound. Rage warred with a ghastly sense of helplessness, for he had no means to help or protect her.
Once he’d slain his sire, his mother would probably kill Claire—just as she’d taken away the kitten in his childhood and everything else he’d ever cared about.
He’d failed Claire; he’d never meant to, but he had.
Somehow, he was going to have to get her away from the danger.
As Tye waited, calculating his next move in the brief standoff, he became aware his father was studying him, not a cursory glance-over, but an intense assessment. Was he realizing how much Tye had changed from the battered man he’d held in his dungeon months ago? Was he seeking a strategic advantage, a weakness, so he could win this fight? Tye glowered, challenging his sire with all his saved-up years of hatred.
De Lanceau wouldn’t find weakness; he’d find death.
His lordship’s stare hardened, and he shifted the angle of his sword. Dominic edged to Tye’s right. They were going to strike together.
“You two,” Veronique said to the mercenaries. “Go help Tye. I can watch over Claire.”
The thugs approached.
With a flash of steel, de Lanceau lunged. Tye met the blow and turned sharply to counter a strike from Dominic. Then the meeting of steel became a constant ringing sound as the mercenaries joined the skirmish.
Tye struck, retreated, struck again. Beneath his chain mail, his tunic stuck to his skin, despite the frigid morning. His arms burned with the strain, his shoulders ached, but he ignored the discomfort and fought on, making his way back to Claire.
With an agonized cry, one of the mercenaries stumbled, blood oozing from a slash across his neck. He collapsed, falling in a heap against the side of the battlement.
“Now the odds are a little better,” Dominic said, wiping his sweaty brow on his cloak sleeve.
The remaining mercenary glanced over at his dead comrade, roared with fury, and lunged. As his sword whipped down toward Dominic, his boot slid on a patch of ice. The mercenary wobbled and fell with the crunch of bone onto one knee. With a swift thrust of de Lanceau’s sword, the man toppled over, dead.
Tye took several steps back, bringing him closer to Claire. He had to get her away from his mother. Somehow.
His mother’s eyes gleamed in the sunshine. “Kill your sire. Kill him now, as you have wanted since you were a boy.”
Tye inhaled the metallic scent of blood: the smell of battle. Anticipation whipped through him, and his grip tightened on his sword.
“Go on! Kill him!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Her fingers working at the rope binding her hands, Claire shivered in the wind blowing across the battlements. How she feared for Tye, feared so intensely, she wanted to scream.
“Kill him!” Veronique shrieked again, standing barely a step away from Claire. “Slay the man who denied you all.”
Tye’s shoulders tensed, a prelude to an attack, and Claire’s heart ached with the agony of watching him, his movements controlled like a skilled predator’s. He was stunning in his own raw, untamed way. If he died on this battlement, ’twould be a loss from which she’d never recover.
How foolish that she cared for the man who’d murdered Henry. Yet, if she were honest with herself, she’d never really known Henry at all; not the way she knew Tye, as if he was part of her soul.
She loved Tye. She loved him. He was flawed, his soul badly damaged, but he wasn’t beyond redemption.
“Tye!” she cried.
His body jerked as if she’d struck him. He lifted his head, and hope flared within her. She must try to reach him, to sway him from his deadly purpose. “Please. Stop this fight.”
“Silence,” Veronique hissed. She grabbed a fistful of Claire’s hair and yanked, wrenching her head back. Claire gasped, but then shouted, “He is your sire!”
“Who has refused to acknowledge me,” Tye snarled. “A man who wishes I never existed.”
“God’s teeth,” de Lanceau growled.
As Claire twisted her head sideways, ignoring the punishing pain at her scalp to see the confrontation, Tye lunged, his sword meeting his sire’s with an ear-splitting clang . De Lanceau retaliated, his blade arcing down with a lethal glint. The weapons collided and clashed again and again.
Tye jumped back, swiping a hand over his sweaty face. “Admit it, Father . You want me dead .”
De Lanceau smiled grimly. “’Tis the only choice, unless you surrender.”
“Never.” Tye lunged again, his sword catching de Lanceau’s left arm and slicing through the fine mantle. The older lord winced, but jerked back before Tye could repeat the strike, and advanced with powerful blows that drove Tye back several paces.
Claire pulled against Veronique’s hold. The wretched woman didn’t let go, only twisted Claire’s hair tighter around her hand. Hatred boiled within Claire, but she didn’t dare look away from the fight.
“Surrender,” de Lanceau commanded, breathing hard, “Or I will kill you.”
“Because you hate me?” Tye goaded.
Claire swallowed a moan. Oh, Tye !
“Must I list the reasons why you should die? You are a criminal. You escaped my dungeon, and then had the bollocks to seize Wode—”
“ Our family’s keep.”
“Well done, Tye,” Veronique murmured.
“ My family’s keep,” de Lanceau roared, eyes flashing. “A fortress the de Lanceaus earned through loyalty and honor.”
Claire trembled at the violence about to be unleashed. Oh, God. Soon, there would be no hope of resolution.
“I will never return to your dungeon,” Tye spat.
“’Tis where a man like you belongs. Unless you are dead.”
“A man like me. You, Father, made me into the man I am now.”
Dominic whistled.
“Me?” De Lanceau swore.
“You cast me aside when I was a boy. Do you dare to deny it?”
A disbelieving laugh broke from Dominic. “Do you mean the meeting years ago in the meadow?”
“Aye, it took place in a meadow,” Tye said.
“I was there. I witnessed all that happened. As I remember—”
“I cast you aside, did I?” De Lanceau’s narrowed gaze slid to Veronique, then back to Tye. “Did your mother also tell you I asked her to hand you over to me, but she refused?”
Tears stung Claire’s eyes. De Lanceau had wanted to care for Tye, just as she’d thought.
“Did she also tell you she held a knife at your throat, threatening to kill you, so she could escape?”
Claire gasped in horror.
“A knife…” Tye sounded uncertain.
“He lies,” Veronique shrilled. “Do not believe him!”
“His lordship does not lie,” Dominic said, casting Veronique a foul look.
“What kind of mother would hold a dagger at her child’s throat?” de Lanceau bit out. “Think about that.”
Tye’s fingers flexed on his sword. Claire sensed him struggling to make sense of what he’d just learned.
“Tye!” Claire cried. “Please! Listen to him.”
“Silence!” Veronique snapped. A dagger flashed and then cold metal pressed against Claire’s neck. “One more word from you, and I will slit your throat.”
Claire stilled, her head still twisted back at an odd angle from Veronique’s punishing hand in her hair.
“Deception is your mother’s game, not mine,” de Lanceau ground out, sweat glistening on his brow.
“If you wanted me,” Tye shot back, “you would have gone after her. Captured her.”
“I tried—”
“Another lie!” Tye yelled.
“I sent men-at-arms to search my lands. I searched for sennights. I followed every lead, every possible sighting of you. When your mother fled with you to France… There was little I could do.”
De Lanceau’s voice caught, a betrayal of suppressed emotion. He had cared about Tye. It seemed he still cared, even now.
Tye’s lip curled. “You are telling me this to make me surrender.”
“I am telling you the truth ,” de Lanceau said. “Whether you believe it or not is up to you.”
Tye, believe what he says. Ask what lies deepest in your heart, and you will finally know —
Behind de Lanceau, the door to the battlement flew open again. A dark-haired man with a bloodied sword ran out, followed by a blond-haired warrior with a crossbow.
“Edouard. Aldwin,” Veronique called. “How good of you to join us.”
***
Tye glared at his brother who cast him a ruthless smirk and strode in behind his sire. Aldwin moved to stand beside Dominic.
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