Rose Borne

by Phoenix Briar

  She turned again, but he grabbed her and held her carefully. “Keturah…” he said quietly. “I did all of this to keep you safe…I would rather die in this room than have you be hurt…or…”

  She looked back at him for a moment and then said, “I won’t die.” For a moment, there was no sound, no movement, and then he reached for her, and she felt his rough, stone-like touch against her cheek. She leaned into it for a moment. “I promise. Now boost me up.” He sighed and picked her up around the waist, lifting her up to the hole she had made. Keturah peeked in first, into the dark room with the bloody corpse. She pulled herself through and back into the storage room above. Listening, she could hear men talking, getting agitated. Someone had figured out that something wasn’t quite right. There was a shout from someone down the hall, and Keturah took her moment.

  She leapt out of the storage room and onto the nearest attacker, a cut to the throat from her bloody dagger silencing his scream. He stumbled back from her, choking, holding his hand to his throat as she faced the other two, crouching down, daggers drawn.

  “Ketan!” one of the men cried.

  “Jon! Claud! Get up here!”

  Footsteps began pounding on the floor, and Keturah smirked, watching them all. They all seemed to move so slowly to her, their steps dragged out and exaggerated. She could nearly see each individual thread of each muscle contract and release. “Gods, look at his eyes!”

  “What magic is that?”

  The whites of Keturah’s eyes had turned a solid black, and her once blue-green irises shone a brilliant shade of blue. The Dark Sorcerer’s magic ran through her veins.

  She had no idea what they were talking about, but it didn’t matter. She would have to take down at least a few of them before more of them would go after her. So she launched herself at the first one. He could barely see her move. Keturah was merely a blur in his eyes before her knife was in his heart, the other in his throat. She ripped them out and moved on to the next one, changing tactics and going after the arteries in the legs and groin. She was trying to make noise now, and their screams and shouts and furious cries only drew more bait.

  And then the sorcerers arrived. At a cursed word, a spell of magic slammed into her, throwing her back. Keturah recovered, catching herself and crouching on the ground, dagger in hand, covered in blood, waiting. She looked around at them and then turned, bolting for a window. She dodged another spell and crashed through the glass, landing on the north side of the house, running. “After him!” someone cried, and men jumped down from the window or hurried out the back door. Some grabbed horses. Others followed her on foot. Keturah took off into the night like a shadow, soundless and unseen.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He was waiting for Keturah down by the brook, his eyes keen and alert despite how his body hunched over, unable to even stand up straight from the pain shooting through him. He had known it was her at once because she barely made a sound, and because the scent of her carried through the night to him. Lavender, from his home; earth, from the clay she gardened with; ash, from his fireplace; blood, from those she’d killed today. “Keturah.” His voice barely reached above a whisper, and she stopped at once, clearly not having known where he was—Alvaro was very good at remaining unseen despite his large size—and he saw the flash of silver of her dagger.

  She sighed at the sight of him and gave him an annoyed look, which he could now see in the moonlight of the woods. He also noticed the white which he had originally thought was her cloak hood but realized now was her hair. “Hurry,” she whispered, “Hopefully that inn keeper is as loyal as I think he is.” Keturah didn’t trust people easily. She was either very desperate or bordering crazy, and he wasn’t entirely sure which.

  Alvaro could not move quickly, but he tried not to slow her down as they made their way to a town. She went ahead of him, leaving to go and enter the inn from the back. She returned with a man behind her, a burly, somewhat aged inn keeper whose eyes grew very large at the sight of the Guardian. Alvaro hung his head, knowing that he was quite a sight when he was well dressed and presentable. He could only imagine what he looked like now, wearing only his torn breeches, hair a bloody mess hanging about his face, body covered in wounds and blood. Not to mention the normal hideousness of his horns and face and fangs.

  “It’s alright,” Keturah said softly, although whether to him or the inn keeper, Alvaro wasn’t sure, but he moved towards the inn, keeping his head down so as not to frighten the keeper.

  The inn keeper cleared his throat and moved out of the way. He shut the door and said to Keturah, “There’s a cellar in the store room, hidden. I’ve put some blankets and pillows down there, along with food for five days. There’s a barrel of fresh water too. Nothing to heat it with though.” He looked to Alvaro and added. “Go on ahead. I’ll find some towels too. There are wards so that once you’re in, the door will no longer open from the outside or inside for four days…I’ll get you some extra food too.” He seemed to make the last statement upon considering Alvaro’s size, and Keturah didn’t blame him.

  “Thank you,” Keturah sighed, turning her attention to Alvaro and reaching for his lowered face. With the hem of her cloak, she gently smoothed some blood out from around his eyes, and her face turned soft and gentle. It did something to her, seeing him like this, battered and worn because he had gone to save her. It made her both melt and murderous at the same time, and right then, the murderous part of her was more likely to come out.

  The man came back and said, “Go ahead. Quickly. They’ll be watching this town for a while, so they’ll know if I go to the cellar for too long.”

  She nodded. “I understand. You will be paid well for this.”

  He just smiled a bit and looked uneasily at Alvaro. “Are you really the Guardian?” he asked.

  Alvaro lifted his warm, brown eyes to the man and rasped softly, “Yes…”

  He nodded. “Can you…get rid of these damn vermin?”

  Alvaro hesitated, then nodded. “I will make sure, once I am recovered, that they do not bother your town again.”

  The inn keeper studied him for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll get you some tools for those binds. Go ahead and take him down.” Keturah nodded and walked Alvaro to the store room where a door in the floor had been opened. He barely fit through the opening, and Keturah stood by anxiously until he stumbled to the bottom and sat down with a groan. The keeper came back with some tools and handed them to her. “There’s an oil lamp too, but try not to burn it too much or you’ll run out. There should be some extra oil in a canister down there, but be careful. If you burn yourselves alive down there, ain’t a thing I can do to help.”

  Keturah nodded. “Understood. Thank you.”

  The man held the door open as Keturah descended and waited until she had found the lamp and lit it before shutting the door. The ward activated, and the door vanished. Down in the dim light of the cellar, Keturah took a look at her surroundings. The cellar was not huge, but it was enough to fit them for a few days. More than anything, it was a place to hide, and for that she was very grateful. She sighed and looked to Alvaro who had sat down against a wall and leaned against it, breathing heavily. She just studied the man, and after a moment, he opened his eyes and looked back at her. She smiled just a bit and sighed, shrugging out of her vest and gauntlets and carisses.

  “Are you wounded?” he asked, voice thick with weariness and worry.

  She looked back to him and smiled a bit. “Nothing but scratches. You are though. Let’s get those chains off you, and we’ll treat your wounds.”

  “I’m fine,” he said softly. “Just let me rest.”

  “How about not,” Keturah replied, stubborn, and she grabbed the tools, heading over to him. She got the binds off his ankles easy enough, but getting the one off his neck was difficult. She could take her time now though and worked quietly with the metal in the dim light, occasionally slipping and nicking her hand. She would curse and mutter to herself but then k
eep working again.

  Alvaro sat still, leaning his head back so that she could work. Keturah glanced at his face every now and again, making certain that he was alright, and then focused back on her work.

  “Keturah…” he said after a moment, and she glanced to his face again, having thought that he’d fallen asleep. “Why …why did you come for me?”

  She paused for a second, screwdriver between her teeth and pliers in her hands. Then, she turned her attention back to her work, taking the screwdriver out of her mouth to work with the metal again. “You’re an idiot,” she said simply.

  He didn’t reply for several minutes, until finally, the metal snapped, and she sighed with relief, pulling it off of his neck and tossing it onto the stone floor, away from them. His neck was chaffed and cut from the binds, and she inspected them with a low growl in her throat before he said, “I thought…you hated me.”

  She sat back from him and looked to his face before getting up and going to the barrel of water. She found a bucket and filled it up before grabbing a towel and rag and heading back over to him. “Why? Because you lied to me about enjoying sex with women?” she asked nonchalantly, sitting in front of him again. The blush that tried to creep into his cheeks almost made her smile, and she wet the rag before taking his face in her hands and beginning to clean off the blood and dirt carefully.

  “Because I lied to you at all…” he said sadly, not mentioning that he’d never had a lover at all.

  She sighed and worked quietly on his face before rinsing the bloodied rag and turning her attention to his neck. “It’s not okay, but…I know why you did…and it’s not exactly like I haven’t lied to you.” His eyes flickered to hers as she picked her way carefully around the gashes in his neck. She sighed out, “Damn, it’s a good thing you’ve got thick skin.”

  He made a quiet sound, almost like a laugh, and then fell silent once more. “What lies…can…can you tell me now?”

  He was starting to not make sense, probably because of how tired he was, and so she asked, “You mean, what lies have I told you?”

  “Mm,” he confirmed, and she moved her attentions to his chest, cleaning up the blood. Some of the slices and stab wounds started seeping blood again, and she seethed with anger at Alexzander’s men, just staring at Alvaro’s wounded flesh furiously. “Keturah.”

  She blinked back up at him and seemed to come back to reality. She sighed and dunked the rag into the bowl once more. “Keturah is not my birth name.”

  He chuckled a bit. “I did not expect a thief to tell me her real name.”

  She glared at him. “Perhaps not. But I also did not tell you that I am the last remaining Hawthorne heir.” He went very still, and his brown eyes focused on her, on her pale skin smeared with blood and dirt, her dark eyes glaring at his chest, that white hair framing her face.

  “My name is Isabella…Duchess of Hawthorne…I am the true owner of the Hawthorne Rose…and the one who gave it to the demon sorcerer as proof of my bargain with him that I would marry the one with the form of a beast but the heart of a man.”

  He concerned her with how still he had gone, and then he moved, sitting up and putting one massive hand to her cheek, thumb brushing back some of the blood. He looked down at her with wide eyes filled with hope and pain.

  “Isabella…” he whispered softly, just looking at her, and she turned her face up to him, letting him look on her. And then he laughed softly, just watching her. “You…you are the beauty of whom he spoke…the beauty’s rose.”

  Keturah looked at him, blinking a bit and then turned her face away, red in her cheeks. “What a stupid thing to call me.” But he just laughed and drew her into her arms, kissing his beauty soundly and knowing that she would not turn away from him. And she didn’t. She dropped the rag onto his thigh and put her arms around him, returning his kiss and then leaning her forehead against his and matching him breath for breath as he merely held her close to him, trembling. All of the tension and fear in her body eased away, and her heart’s frantic rhythm found the beat of his and slowed to a calm and steady thrum. She breathed softly there with him, opening her eyes once more to look into the warm honey-brown eyes which loved her so.

  When at last he set her down, she reclaimed her rag and cleaned his wounds, patching up those she could. She dumped out the soiled water on the dirt floor and then refilled the bucket once more, taking it over to the lamp. Alvaro laid back against the pillow she brought him, thinking himself quite eager for a few days of sleep as the dark-haired woman lingered in his vision. “What happened to your hair?” he asked sleepily.

  Keturah glanced to him, sitting down by the lamp with her water and rag. “The poison, I wager,” she said, turning away from him and pulling off her shirt, discarding it.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, suddenly nervous.

  She glanced back to him with an arched brow. “I’m covered in blood. Turn away if you don’t want to look, but it’s not comfortable to sit in blood.”

  It didn’t bother her so much physically as mentally. Keturah did not enjoy being bloodied for long, or at all if she could help it. Alvaro went silent as she washed the blood from her face, the ends of her hair, where it had seeped through her clothes. When that was finished, she dragged off her pants and shoes and did the same until she was more or less blood-free if not exactly clean. She used the remaining water to try and clean some of the blood out of her clothes, and when the water was red, she set it aside and hung her clothes up against a shelf to dry before wrapping a blanket around herself and returning to Alvaro with the lamp.

  “You still awake?” she asked, for his eyes were closed.

  “Yes,” he replied, opening his eyes to look at her once more. She smiled a bit and murmured, “Try and sleep as much as you can for now. I don’t exactly have a plan to get back to your manor, so we might be needing your magic and strength.”

  He shifted with a soft sigh and put one massive arm around Keturah, drawing her up close to him. “I will protect you,” he murmured sleepily, and Keturah nestled herself up against him, her body sore and aching from her journey and her efforts.

  “You’re an idiot…” she muttered, letting sleep claim her as a small smile stretched over his face.

  ◆◆◆

  Despite the large amounts of sleep they both needed, four days was a long while to wait. They had more than enough food and water, but Alvaro still ate sparingly, afraid of taking any of her food. Even when she cursed him up one side and down the other, he would not relent and eat as much as he needed. Instead, he abated his hunger and slept as much as he could.

  When they were both awake, Keturah entertained him with stories of her childhood at the manor, life with her two older sisters and her father, her meeting with the demon sorcerer. He listened with rapt attention, content just to sit near her, to listen to her. She was alive. She was here. She was unafraid. And she was his.

  When they were both sound asleep in the middle of the day—for there was no telling night from day in the cellar—the door was suddenly wrenched open, and in its wake stood a terrible, dark figure. Alvaro was up in an instant, throwing Keturah behind him and summoning his magic.

  “Hold!” the Beast called down to him. “You’re only going to waste your own energy like that.” Alvaro paused at his voice, glaring up at him. “Lady Isabella, are you alright?”

  The duchess-turned-thief righted herself behind Alvaro, straightening down a stiff and dirty black tunic. “Fine,” she growled. “What took you?”

  He bowed and said, “I apologize, my dearest girl. By all means, come up. You have someone quite eager to see you.”

  Keturah’s eyes went wide, and she bolted instantly for the ladder, climbing up it as Alvaro stood beneath her, steadying her carefully and waiting until she was up before leaving as well.

  “Mother!” Jacob screamed from the tavern which had cleared out very quickly upon the Dark Sorcerer’s arrival. The child ran to his mother, who was in a less than d
esirable state, her hair dirty and matted behind her in a knotted braid, clothes stiff and smelling of old blood. Alvaro looked no better, worse even, and the Beast just gave him a sore look and helped him out of the cellar.

  Keturah nearly collapsed on the ground, hugging her young son to her chest and rocking him back and forth as he sobbed against her. She soothed him while the inn keeper brought Alvaro some fresh, hot stew heavy with meat along with some bread and ale. He brought some for Keturah as well, but it took Alvaro nearly shouting at her to get her up off the floor and over to the table. She sat beside him and ate voraciously, giving some to Jacob too, even though he wasn’t hungry.

  “How are you feeling?” the Beast asked her.

  She shrugged. “I’m unharmed. Still tired and a little weak, but I’m sure a bed and a bath will fix most of that.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here another night to rest and bathe,” the inn keeper said, going over to their odd table of miscreants.

  Keturah shook her head. “I want to go home.” And she didn’t see it, but the Beast watched the way Alvaro’s face darkened with sorrow before realizing that she meant his manor, and he looked at her with such a look as the Dark Sorcerer had rarely ever seen. He smiled to himself and shook his head, letting them eat. “What about the den?” she asked.

  The Dark Sorcerer rolled his shoulders and cleared his throat a bit. “They are no longer anyone’s concern.” She looked up at him, and he shrugged. “Well, no one living.”

  She just nodded her approval and finished off her food, Jacob leaning against her. When she was finished, she got up and sighed, going to the inn keeper and shaking his hand. “I owe you much. Thank you.”

  He shook his head and smiled a bit. “It’s worth it to have those bastards out of these parts. This town will do much better without them.”