Scoundrel's Kiss

by Carrie Lofty

  "Ready?"

  "I am," she said, nodding once to the Englishwoman. "And you keep lookout for your warrior."

  Ada rubbed her arms. "I told you, he's not mine."

  "So says you."

  "And he's not a warrior."

  "Oh?" Blanca craned her neck to find Gavriel in the shadows but saw nothing. He was more phantom than man. "What is he?"

  "A novice to the clergy."

  "So says he." She grinned. "Now let me introduce you to Paco."

  The young squire stood between the two horses, apparently asleep, keeping himself upright from beyond the realm of dream by gripping the reins of both animals. Slim, wiry, and perfectly harmless, he had asked Blanca for a kiss the previous autumn. She had obliged, unimpressed by the sloppy undertaking and his roving hands, but feeling brave for having defied La Senora's strict rules. No money or ambitions of her own. No suitors.

  No longer.

  With Ada behind her, the horses standing between them and the guards at the gate, she approached the squire. "Paco? Paco, wake up."

  He jolted to wakefulness. The horses neighed and shied, sounding unnaturally loud. Both women crouched deeper behind the cover of those large bodies. Blanca crossed herself and tossed a prayer skyward.

  Keep them quiet Let me free of this place.

  When her breathing refused to slow, she pressed on regardless. That evening was not a time to wait for calm.

  "Paco, it's me. Blanca. Wake up, nina"

  "Nino?" Indignant and groggy, he pulled free of sleep and peeked around one horse's neck. "Is that all I am to you?"

  "Yes, but you could be more." She gentry rattled a small bag of coins sitting heavy in her sweat-dampened palm. Crooking a finger, she beckoned him into the alcove.

  Paco followed, his head covered by the hood of his short cape and his ambling gait that of a roused sleepwalker. He flung back the hood in the alcove, eyes wide when he found Blanca and Ada crouched there. "What is this, Blanca? Who is she?"

  "All we want are the horses." Smiling, she held out the bag of coins.

  Ada added spice to the deal by brandishing her jeweled dagger. "And in exchange, you can have either gold or trouble."

  Gaining vigor, old reflexes assumed control of his limbs. Gavriel jumped from his lowly cover and charged the guards, wielding the mace against his nearest opponent. The man slumped to the earth with nothing more than a gurgle, his skull collapsed. In the corner where the shaft of the mace met its round, spiked head, he caught the second guard's blade and twisted. The sword flew free. Metal met bone. Felled, the man's unearthly scream split the still air, bringing all eyes to him, then to Gavriel.

  Fatigue vanished in an explosion of energy. He dropped the mace and concentrated on his swordplay. Numbness gave way to the sharp clarity of battle. Mind and body quit their tiresome struggles and worked as one, turning and flexing against every blow. The sound of blood—rushing, flowing—filled his ears with the heady gust of violence.

  Another guard slashed forward, the blade whistling near enough to Gavriel that air swished across his cheek. His hands ached with each successive parry. The clang of metal on metal reverberated through his bones and settled in his back teeth. A second man joined their clash.

  Gritting hard against the strain, Gavriel fought the paired guards and a surprising flood of panic. He was losing ground. He had blithely broken his vows, a man convinced he would not meet his maker, not that night. But victory was never a certainty. Kill or be killed.

  And he would not be the one to die.

  Galloping horses and the hair-raising cries of two females briefly distracted the guards. One man ran into the night, disappearing. But Gavriel did not turn to see what he hoped was bearing down. He imagined Ada and Blanca riding with frantic speed, their garments fluttering behind them.

  His body never stopped moving, thrusting, fighting. He connected the toe of his sandal with the soft muscle of a guard's inner thigh, setting the man off balance. A set of keys jangled at his waist

  "Inglesa!" With his sword, he absorbed yet another crunching blow. He did not look for her as the horses sped past, only trusted she would be there. Sidestepping, deflecting his opponent, he kicked the felled man. "This one has the keys!"

  Shouts threatened his concentration, but the fever of one-on-one conflict narrowed his vision. Watching and waiting, he defended himself in a bid for time, only a little more time to find the guard's weakness. Parry. Retreat And then what he sought the other man dipped his left shoulder, turning slightly, tilting. Gavriel leapt forward and thrust with his sword, piercing leather armor and sliding between ribs.

  He yanked his sword free and turned. Ada wrestled the keys from the fallen man, the point of her dagger poised over his left eye and her knee pressing against his windpipe. Even in the moonlight, Gavriel could see his face turning unnatural shades, first red, then blue. Ada's expression never changed, grim and fierce.

  A shaky hand—his own—rubbed his eyes, his lips and jaw. Had he held a looking glass, his expression would match hers, battle hardened and indifferent.

  What are we?

  "Behind you!"

  He swiveled on his heel, her warning saving him from a sword plunging downward. Iron clanged over stone as the guard lost his grip, his balance. Gavriel kicked him once before sprinting to the gate.

  Ada was fast on his heels, keys in hand. She unlocked the winch casing that kept the crisscrossed bars of the portcullis lowered, then turned to guard him. Gavriel hauled on the winch handle, cranking the chains around its spool until the portcullis began to rise. His arms ached.

  As he secured the chain to keep the gate lifted, he heard Ada shout. "Blanca, this way!"

  Blanca looped back toward the gate, skirting past two men, and dismounted. "I hate horses."

  Ada handed her the keys. "You didn't say!"

  "No time." She slithered under the bars and ran ahead to open the lock securing the massive wooden door.

  The remaining guards began to close ranks, cornering them against the second barrier. Gavriel hoisted his sword, gripping with damp palms, but he did not know how much longer he could hold off another four men.

  "None of you move!" Ada shouted.

  Ice formed in his veins. He turned to find Ada pressing her dagger to the young squire's throat

  "I'll kill him," Ada said, her voice dangerous like cut glass.

  Blanca returned from the wooden door. She squeaked Ada's name. "Don't hurt him, please!"

  Ada adjusted her grip on the dagger. "If the guards back away, there will be no need."

  "Blanca, get through the gate with your horse," Gavriel said. "We'll meet you outside."

  He watched Ada, seeing what any trained warrior would see. Her stance was wide and solid, but she had a weakness. Anyone who moved on her from the left would have the advantage. Gavriel would have to go around, over, or through her to defend on that side.

  "Whose boy is this?" he asked the men. "Someone's son? Someone's ward?"

  None of the guards responded, their eyes dark and hostile, their expressions unmoved. His suspicions about their coming from Toledo seemed correct. The steel weapons, the martial training—and none of them showed a flicker of sympathy for a local boy held prisoner. If he rifled through one of the dead men's possessions, would he find another de Silva signet ring?

  "I suppose if no one values the boy, he's of no value to us. Ada, let him go."

  "No, through the portcullis first."

  He saw her meaning at once and grabbed the horse's reins. They shuffled backward, the whole world holding its breath. One of the guards moved to follow them, but Ada tightened her grip on the squire's forearm where she twisted it behind his back. The boy cried out.

  Gavriel kicked the winch handle to drop the portcullis and ducked beneath it, safely behind its bars when it fell to the ground. He was atop the horse in an instant and circled it to the east, toward the open wooden doors. Ada threw her captive to the ground, sheathed the dagger, and ra
ced on foot to meet him. His horse gained speed. He leaned over and extended his arm. She latched on. His muscles and joints screamed in protest as she held fast, momentum and the sheer strength of two desperate bodies propelling her onto the saddle.

  Only when she pressed against his back, hands clasped around him, did Gavriel dig his heels into the horse's flanks and ride.

  The horse flew over great lengths of grass, its pounding hooves hurtling them eastward. Ada intertwined her fingers just below Gavriel's sternum. He guided their mount with practiced ease, making her skills atop a horse seem childish.

  She could only wrap herself around his tense, muscled body and bury her face between his shoulder blades, trusting him once again with her physical safety.

  Trust was something she dearly needed, knowing with greater and more disturbing clarity that she could no longer trust herself—if she ever could. The opium had been bad enough. The kiss she slid past Gavriel’s defenses had seemed daring yet harmless, although a deeper corner of her soul knew better. And now she had threatened the life of an innocent boy. She squeezed her hands together, ever tighter, to end the trembling.

  He shouted Blanca's name. Ada brought her head upright. The midnight blue sky had lightened along the eastern horizon. Spring grass shone black in all directions, streaked with slivers of white as that faint, distant sunrise graced every blade. The desolate mesa absorbed their three bodies, insignificant on that flat expanse. No trees, no houses. So removed from the village, the landscape was no more inviting than a forest ravaged by fire.

  Far in the distance, Blanca's silhouette clung to that of her mount. She rode little better than Meg, without blindness as her excuse. Gavriel caught up to her and took her horse's reins. The girl sagged in the saddle with a tired sigh, apparently happy to give over control.

  "Has anyone followed us?" she asked.

  "Not that I can see," Gavriel said, his voice scratching like a man felled by an ague. He breathed almost as heavily as did the horse. "We'll circle north until we find the Tagus. Trees along the banks might provide cover."

  They reached Castile's most prominent river, its bubbling current made full by the spring run-off from the Albarracn Mountains in Aragon. Nourished by plentiful water, scrubby trees lined its banks, two and three deep. Leafy buds added splashes of pale green to the branches. Just seeing those trees—a place of refuge amidst the hard plateau—allowed Ada to breathe easier. Wash, rest, recover. She might begin to regain a year's worth of lost footing.

  Gavriel pulled both animals to a stop. He angled his right arm back and extended it. The corded muscles of his forearms brushed the top of her thigh. She tensed. But at least she did not shiver.

  "You first," he said.

  Her bones like pottage, she clamped hold of his forearm and dismounted. She looked down, seeing boots planted firmly in the loam and grass, but she could not feel her feet. She was still too numb. Too startled by the night's events.

  Gavriel dismounted and gave her an assessing look. But he shook his head and said nothing before helping Blanca down. "You did well," he said to the girl.

  If Gavriel's look was fierce, Blanca's was murderous. "I need you to be honest, Ada," she said, bridging the distance between them. "Would you have killed him? Paco?"

  Ada sought Gavriel's face, but he remained stubbornly detached and somber. Unable to do anything but meet Blanca's fiery eyes—so striking when set within the placid frame of her soft oval face—Ada exhaled slowly. But she found no answer. No genuine one.

  "I've killed men," she said carefully. "Men who intended me harm. I like to think I'm not the sort of person who could take the life of an innocent, no matter the threat to me."

  "But you cannot be certain," Blanca said. "Even now you hesitate."

  Sickness welled in her mouth. Her conscience dared her to deny what she had become, someone cruel and ruthless, but, she could not.

  "Blanca, I... I don't know what to say."

  "His name was Juan Paco de Yepes. He was a friend to me, a young man as eager to be done with our small village as I was." She ran both hands along her cheeks and into her hair, beneath the banded headdress she wore. Tossing the dirty cloth aside, she pinned Ada with another hard look. "I want to know what manner of people you are. Running and hiding, maybe even killing to defend yourself—I can accept that But Paco did not deserve what you might have done."

  Blanca left her horse and walked up river. Ada watched her go, gagging on unspoken words of apology—in part because the girl's changed manner so surprised her and, in part, because she did not wish to add lies to her uncertainty.

  She wanted to slump into the ground and sleep for a month. If she had to wake up to being such an unpredictable person, maybe sleep was best for everyone. Safer. Easier. But her legs kept her stubbornly aloft, and Gavriel's bloodied tunic, becoming more gruesome as the daylight crept over the land, caught her attention. "You should wash before someone sees you."

  A grimace pinched his face when he looked down, then away.

  "You would have killed him, inglesa." The rumble of his quiet accusation, one without emotion or judgment, raised the hair on her arms. "I saw your face."

  "And it wouldn't have made a difference, would it? None of the guards even blinked at my threat, and neither did they respond to your questions."

  "You distracted them long enough to make our escape." Both reins in hand, he motioned her to follow him along the path of Blanca's retreat "But killing him would have given us no advantage."

  "I didn't think. I—how could I?"

  He rubbed the back of his neck, appearing wearier than she had yet seen of him. "I ask myself the same, even against men such as those," he said.

  Ada stopped short. "What do you mean, 'men such as those'? Who were they?"

  "Never mind." Gavriel looped the reins around a low, gnarled evergreen bough. He removed one saddle, then the other, and rubbed the exhausted animals' coats with firm sweeps of his broad hands. "Your protection is not your concern; it's mine."

  "Protection?" Her laugh was sharp. "This from a man who swore off violence."

  "We'll be safe in Ucles," he said, eyes distant. "Los caballeros will not allow anything to happen to us."

  "Have you no intention of telling me?" She closed the distance between them and stopped the restless stroking. He pulled away as would a stranger, quickly, firmly—their kiss like a dream. "If you know something about who they were, I deserve to know."

  "And what do you deserve? I've done everything to ruin my future with the Order, breaking my vows. And for what?"

  Sword in hand, he left the horses and stalked eastward. She caught up with him a few long strides later, falling in step beside him along the craggy riverbank. He kept talking as if he expected her to follow. "I've fought every man who stood against us, keeping both of you safe, all the while damning myself. How is that just?"

  "It's not"

  "And you," he said, whirling. "Can you be thankful for the sacrifices I've made? Is it even in you? No. You try at every turn to make my task an impossible one."

  "You forget, I never asked to be your mission."

  "No, you simply wallowed in a pit without the sense to grab a rope."

  Bursts of his breath warmed the tip of her nose. The pulse in his neck beat a haggard rhythm, one to match the pushing, pulling energy between them. Her heart echoed that fluttering as she leaned nearer, anticipating his kiss, needing it.

  She licked her lips. Tasting the salt of her sweat and the pungent sting of smoke, she watched his mourn and wondered if he would taste the same. "Are you my rope, then? Shall I grab onto you?"

  Ada did not look down, would not break the spell of their locked eyes. Questing fingers found his upper arms by instinct She tightened her grip and reveled in that thick strength, thinking him invincible—infuriating and difficult, but invincible. And for that span of breath, she saw more than the features of his face. Through anger and frustration, she found a deep and hungry passion in his eyes. W
ant Pain and want and a fear she could not comprehend.

  What could such a man fear?

  Seeking answers, seeking his kiss, she reached an unsteady hand to cup the roughened line of his jaw. He tilted his head into her palm, only slightly, giving her me faintest impression of surrender. She flexed her fingers. The heady rush of victory twined with desire.

  "Kiss me," she whispered.

  "Do my vows mean nothing?"

  "They meant nothing in the bathhouse, or when we fought those men."

  His expression soured. The heat in his dark gaze cooled until only two nuggets of coal remained. Calmly, with neither haste nor hesitation, he pulled her hand from his face. The scant distance between them became a wide sea. The flesh and blood man hardened, a cold statue taking his place.

  "I do not want you," he said.

  She could only stare, defeated and confused, as he walked away to follow Blanca.

  Chapter 15

  Gavriel secured the horses as the group settled near the river to wash and recuperate. He handed Ada a bundle of dried dates, but she kept her eyes lowered, an unusual silence wrapped around her. Blanca also kept her own counsel. The strained mood in their tiny camp—only two horses, a rim of scraggly trees, and the meager contents of their satchels—stood at odds with the stark, serene beauty of sunrise over the plateau.

  He walked to the river, sheltered by thick trees tinged green with spring growth. Only here could trees survive the desert conditions of the Meseta, and they harbored wildlife of all kinds. Thrushes and sparrows paused in building their nests to greet the daylight, while common cranes milled on the opposite bank.

  The fat waters of the Tagus rushed past with numbing monotony, loud, fast, and clear. He stood at the bank and edged the toes of his sandals over the moist loam, watching the water. Remembering and sorting. But not a single idea made sense.

  How had he become so lost? Two weeks previous, he had been one task away from entering the Order, on the path to becoming a clergyman. He would have been safe then—safe from the men who hunted him, safe from becoming the hunter.