Roman barely noticed. Revenge was near. But he would not rush it. Would not let his emotions take over. He would follow her, stay calm and quiet, and finally he would have his hands on her. He stopped at a fruit seller’s booth, glanced over the produce, then walked on. He was closer now, closing the space. Tara was busy talking to a buxom young woman who sold flowers behind a small stand.
Closer. Closer still.
“They match yer eyes,” Tara was saying. “But they ain’t nearly so pretty as you.”
“Go on,” said the girl. “I know yer kind. All flattery and no substance.”
Roman moved closer still. He was nearly touching her now. But her back was to him and her words burned his mind. Tara? Flirting with the maid? He must be wrong. Led on a merry chase yet again. His hunger and impatience must have deceived him. But in that moment, she turned.
Eyes as blue as heaven smote him. His hand shot out without thought, circling her arm.
Her eyes went round, her jaw dropped. She stumbled back a step, but he held her in a firm grip.
“‘Tis good ta see ye again . .. lad,” he said, his voice barely audible to his own ears.
She’d gone pale and stiff. “How?” she whispered.
He smiled. Never had the sight of terror pleased him, but now it satisfied his soul and soothed his aching wounds. “Surprised ta see me?”
“How did you escape them?”
A thousand memories crashed back on him. The clash of sword. The pain. But worst of all, the knowledge that he had been betrayed by the very woman he had fought to save.
“Let us walk a ways. I’ll tell ye the tale.”
She shook her head and tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip and gritted a smile.
“‘Tis a story of honor and lies, of valor and defeat. The kind of tale any lad would love,” he said, and turned, towing her along beside him.
They moved easily through the crowd, though her movements were stiff. An alley gaped off to their left. He turned into it and stopped.
She stared up into his face, her eyes still round with disbelief. “How did you get away?” she breathed.
“I kilt them,” he admitted flatly. “I kilt them!” he whispered, leaning closer. “All but the one that found the necklace.” He tightened his grip. Anger rode him with a fury. “‘Twas a wondrous chain of sparkling gems. And I wondered, where did ye get it, Tara?”
She stared at him as if she had not an inkling of what he spoke.
‘The necklace!” he said, shaking her. “In yer trunk.”
He waited for an explanation. It would be a lie, and he would laugh in her face. Revel in his revenge.
“You weren’t hurt?” she asked breathlessly. Beneath his hand, her arm felt slim and frail. And her eyes! Even in the shadows of this godforsaken alley, they reminded him of a Highland loch, as deep and unfathomable as eternity.
He shook himself. “Nay!” he said through his teeth. “Of course I was na hurt. ‘Twas an even fight, after all. Only six ta one. Only six bloodthirsty bastards with nothing ta live for. But I had a reason to survive.” He moved an inch closer. “I had revenge.”
The alley was silent. His face must have reflected his shaky emotional state, for there was true fear in her eyes now.
“What are you going to do with me?”
He laughed. His thigh throbbed with pain. His belly coiled with hunger. “I could kill ye with me bare hands,” he said.
She stood perfectly still, watching him.
Even in this ragged boy’s garb, there was something about her that drew him.
“But I willna,” he whispered, staring into her eyes and knowing betrayal, feeling it in his soul. “I willna kill ye. Nay. For ye will lead me to the Shadow. And Dagger will pay me well for him.”
“Ya think I would betray the Shadow?” Tara rasped, low-voiced.
Roman leaned closer, glaring into her face. “‘Tis yer choice, lass. Either I take the Shadow to Dagger—or I take ye. And I dunna think ye would like how he treats young women who be trying to horn in on his territory.”
She gasped. Her eyes grew larger still… then rolled upward, and suddenly she went limp and slipped to the ground in a heap.
His hand dropped from her arm in surprise. “Tara?” he said, reaching for her again.
But suddenly she was rolling away. Roman grabbed for her. But she was on her feet in an instant. He snatched her coat, drawing her back. She turned like a cornered cat, claws extended. He caught her arms, but in that second, her knee came up. He twisted instinctively. White-hot pain slammed into his thigh.
Lights exploded in his head. His hands fell uselessly away. Darkness threatened. But one thought rolled back oblivion. She was getting away!
Somehow he forced his legs to move. He stumbled forward. Rage, blood red and hot, filled his head. She was there, just in front of him. He jumped, catching her by the shoulders and pulling her to the ground.
She shrieked and kicked, but he held on, dragging himself up her body until he lay across her. His breath came in great gasps. His heart hammered against her back. Pain skittered through him. He lay immobile, waiting for the agony to ease.
Finally it did. He propped himself up and rolled her over.
“Ye’ll na get away this time, lass. Nay. This time ‘twill be ye who pays.”
“I did not wish for ye ta die.” She was still breathing hard. Her face was pale and finely shaped.
“Ye are the mistress of lies,” he said, reminding himself of the pain that came with believing her.
“But ‘twill avail ye little. For I will turn ye over ta Dagger.”
He watched her draw a breath and knew that he must indeed be evil, for even now, when he planned his revenge, he still desired her. “I will give ye ta Dagger na matter what ye say,” he whispered, but against his will, he leaned closer, as if his lips were pulled to her mouth by an invisible force.
“Ho!” chuckled someone. “What have we here?”
Roman jerked his head upward. Twisting off the girl, he turned to find two men standing not a rod from him.
“Looks ta be some interesting entertainment,” said the second man. He wheezed out a chuckle and shifted his eyes nervously sideways. “Don’t ya think, Sam?”
“Interesting indeed.”
Roman rose warily to his feet. Pain clattered down his thigh, but there was no time to consider that now, for more Firthport inhabitants had slithered out from under their slimy rocks. “I caught the boy stealing,” he said, pulling Tara to her feet. “I’ll be taking him before the magistrate.”
“Sure. After yer done buggerin’ ‘im,” said Sam, chuckling. “I ‘ate ta ruin yer fun, but we got us our orders. Said ta bring in any thieves we come across.”
“Bring them in where?” Roman asked.
“That ain’t for ya to know,” said Sam. “Now ya just be on yer way.”
Roman shifted slightly, positioning himself casually between Tara and the newcomers. “The boy owes me,” he said simply.
The second man wheezed out a sound rather like a laugh. “I wouldn’t mind watchin’ ‘im do ‘im, Sam.”
Sam licked his lips. They were pale and pulled into a thin line like a grimace. “You forgettin’ orders, Gourd?”
“Dagger didn’t say—”
“Shut up!” rasped Sam. “And you,” he said, addressing Roman and slowly drawing a blade from a sheath. “Get outta the way.”
Roman glanced at the knife, shrugged. “Listen. I’m willing to share.”
Gourd nodded and wheezed. “There’s enough there for the three of us.”
Sam licked his lips again. Lust was in his eyes, ugly, dark, terrifying.
Tara shuddered. She felt Roman’s grip tighten on her wrist.
“I’m not selfish,” Roman said, and chuckled. “In fact there’s something you should know about him.”
Gourd narrowed his eyes. “What’s that?”
“Come here,” Roman invited.
Tara pulled harder. Pan
ic was welling up, drowning thought. She yanked at her arm.
“I like ‘em fresh and sassy,” said Gourd.
“I’ll tell you a secret ‘bout this one.”
Gourd moved closer, pulling out a dirk. “If this is a trick, I’ll carve out yer gizzard.”
“Oh, it’s a trick,” Roman said, “but you’ll like it.”
Gourd was standing only inches away now, shifting his knife nervously. Sam was close behind.
“What is it then?”
Roman chuckled. “He’s really a …” he began, then shook his head and rubbed his neck as if in disbelief.
The knife appeared from the back of Roman’s tunic like a flash of lightning. It swept through the air and lodged in Gourd’s throat.
Tara shrieked.
Gourd gurgled on his blood and stumbled backward, groping at the handle.
“Run!” Roman ordered, but Tara was frozen to the spot.
Sam swore and made a wild swipe with his knife. Roman dodged. He swiped again. Roman jumped to the side, but he stumbled over Gourd’s lifeless body. In the next instant, Sam’s blade ripped across Roman’s arm, splattering blood into the air. Sam laughed.
“I’d like ta kill ya slow, only the boy’s waiting fer me,” rasped Sam and lunged. But Roman had found his balance. He leapt to the side. Sam stumbled past and turned with a snarl. But in that instant, Roman had wrenched the blade from Gourd’s neck. Sweeping it upward, he planted it deep in Sam’s stomach.
The villain rose on his toes and stumbled to a halt. His fingers curled into talons. The knife dropped to the ground. A moment later it was covered by Sam’s twitching body.
Roman stood gazing down at the carnage he had wrought.
“Come on.” Tara tugged at his sleeve.
Roman remained immobile, starring at the men at his feet.
“Come,” she said again.
He turned on her with the suddenness of a wolf. “Leave me.”
She started back. Rage glowed in his eyes. But his arm trembled and dripped with blood. “Someone will be coming soon,” she whispered.
“Get the hell out of here!” he yelled, and swung to push her away.
She ducked, then caught him when he nearly fell. “You’re hurt.”
He laughed; the sound was low and dark. “Not as bad as them.”
“Come. I’ll see to your wounds,” she said.
He grabbed her by the shirtfront, dragging her up to his nose. “Don’t ye ken what I can do to ye?”
She swallowed, nodded once, dangling like a felled hare from his fist. “Aye, you could have let them have me.”
For a moment, an unreadable expression overtook his face. Terror, pain, sorrow. But then he pushed her back. “Get away from me.”
Voices rose behind her. Tara glanced nervously in that direction, but no one was in sight as of yet. “You’re giving up then? Decided to sacrifice MacAulay’s life, have ya?”
Roman straightened slightly. Some semblance of sanity returned to his eyes.
“If that’s more of Dagger’s men, you’ll not survive the night, Scotsman,” she said. “And with you will die the lad’s only chance of returning to his homeland. But if that’s what you want…” She turned and ran away.
Behind her, Roman swore, but in a moment, she heard his following footsteps. Voices bloomed behind her. She turned to see men pointing after them. It took only a moment for Roman to catch up to her. Grasping his arm, she pulled him along. They would be followed, but she knew each alley like an old friend, every loose rock, every unlocked window.
“Here.” She eased open the door to a house she sometimes used and tugged on Roman’s sleeve. He stumbled inside the hovel then leaned against the wall. His gaze was sharp and steady as he watched her, but he held his wounded arm almost casually against his chest.
“How bad is it?”
He said nothing, but remained as he was, still watching her.
She scowled. Blood had soaked the sleeve. By the light of the fire that burned in the hearth, she could see the stain.
“Sit down,” she said, nodding toward the bed. It was a narrow tick that lay on the floor and covered a good deal of the room’s space.
He didn’t move.
Anger slowly brewed in her. She hadn’t asked him to find her. If he had never interfered in her life, she would have had no need of his heroics. “I wonder how a one-armed beggar would fare in Firthport,” she mused.
He leaned his head back against the wall, still watching her. “Mayhap I’ll become a thief.”
She snorted. “You’re not made of the right stuff, Scotsman.”
“Ye’ve na way of knowing what I’m made of, lass.”
She watched him. Never had she met another like him—a man who would avenge a dog, protect a whore. Oh, she knew him. “Sit down, Scotsman, before you fall down.”
He slid down the wall until he landed with his buttocks on the floor and his legs bent and parted. She knelt beside him. His sleeve had been slashed, but it was impossible to ascertain the extent of the damage without removing his shirt.
She scowled, knowing she was a fool. But regardless of his unwanted interference in her life, he had still kept her safe. “We’ll have to take it off.”
His head remained tilted back against the wall behind him, exposing the breadth of his dark-skinned throat. The chuckle seemed to rise from there. “And what is it ye wish for me ta take off, sweet Tara? Is that yer name, or shall I call ye something else?”
She’d seen delirium in the wounded before and wondered now if such was the case here.
“Ya need to take off your shirt,” she said.
“Ahh.” He chuckled again. “Me hopes be crushed. But, aye, yer free ta remove whatever ye wish from me person.”
She hesitated a moment. He was in a fey mood, and she did not trust it. But neither could she allow him to bleed to death. She reached for his shirt, but soon realized the difficulty involved in removing it.
“I’ll need to cut it off.”
He chuckled again, but didn’t explain the reason. Instead, he merely nodded.
Taking a knife from a shelf by the hearth, Tara sliced his shirt open down the front. It parted like the Red Sea before Moses’ staff, bearing an expanse of rippling muscle and …
“Sweet Mary,” she breathed, staring at the scattered wounds that marred his chest and belly. She raised her eyes to his face. “How …”
His gaze was dagger sharp and icy cold.
She swallowed and ever so gently touched a finger to a wound that marred his chest just below the toothed amulet. “You were wounded for me,” she whispered.
He said nothing. Silence stretched between them.
“Why?” she asked into the gathering darkness.
She watched him draw a breath. His nostrils flared. Ever so slightly his muscles relaxed beneath her hand.
“Once there was a lad,” he said, looking past her toward her humble pallet. “Small he was, and alone but for his uncle … and his hound.”
Tara waited in silence, for it seemed as if he had forgotten her presence.
“‘Twas …” He paused, and for an instant, she thought she felt him tremble, though it was a hard thing to believe, for he was built like a marble statue, hard and impervious. “‘Twas a mean existence,” he murmured. “Na goodness was there. Na so much as a kind word. Nay, na from Dermid. Evil. Deep as eternity. I felt it in him. I knew it was there. And sometimes … Sometimes I felt meself drowning in it, felt it cover me head and pull me under like a dark tide.”
Tara remained unmoving, transfixed by his singsong tone, his distant gaze.
“But there will forever be dreamers.” He chuckled softly to himself, but the sound was tortured. “It seems there were those who believed there was good in me. They taught me ta search for good in others. But even as I search—I kill.”
“They would have killed me,” she whispered.
“I told myself a thousand times that you deserve to die,” he murmured.<
br />
“But you could not do it, Scotsman,” she said softly. “Because you are good.”
Their gazes seemed to hold for an eternity. But finally Tara moved away. Going to the small hearth, she reached for a ladle and stirred the contents of a pot that steamed over the fire. She then swung a kettle of water nearby. Pulling a cloth bag from her pocket, she dumped the contents into a second pot and moved it near the blaze. Rising to her feet, she went to a small trunk. From it, she brought forth an old shirt that she ripped into strips.
She could feel him watching her, his gaze sharp and feral. Rage and pain emanated from him. He hated her. And why shouldn’t he? She had left him to die in her own house. True, she had been given no choice, for Liam had dragged her unconscious from the place. Still, she should have gone back, should have looked for him. Terror had kept her away. Terror of finding him dead, of being killed herself. Thus, she had once again immersed herself into the life of a petty thief. But in the night when there was nothing to occupy her mind, she had thought of him and prayed for his survival even though she knew there was no hope.
Yet here he was, alive and hale. Tara turned to stare at him. Relief flooded through her. Their gazes clashed. She quickly lowered hers. To him, she was a calculating whore who looked out for herself and none other. She must make certain it stayed that way. But it was tempting, just this once, to let down her guard.
She turned slowly, feeling the tension caused by his presence. There was a lean, hungry look about him. A look she had seen a thousand times before, a feeling she had felt in her own gut.
“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
He remained silent, as if reading something in her face. She turned nervously away, paced to the fireplace, and ladled a portion of broth into a wooden bowl. Upon a stone ledge near the fire sat a squat jug of deep green glass and a dark loaf of bread wrapped in a white cloth. Taking the loaf, she carried it and the bowl to him where he sat near the door, and, squatting, extended the meal toward him. She saw the hunger in his eyes, felt the slight tremble of his muscles as if it shook her own.
Highland Wolf (Highland Brides) Page 12