“Brant.”
“You will come with me, milady.” Faint light stole into the shadows below. “Quiet, now,” he said. “I do not wish to draw any more attention.”
“You do not,” she muttered.
He resisted a smile. “I would hate to injure anyone else—or have to kill them. If you obey me, we can avoid bloodshed.”
She quivered against him, but said no more when he propelled her down the dank stairs. He halted several steps above a stone landing separating the upper and lower portions of the stairwell. To the left, an arched entry opened into a torch lit corridor. Once, judging by the hinges still bolted to the stone, a door had barricaded the steps up to the tower chamber. While that door no longer existed, the passage threshold was the ideal place for Torr to post guards.
Pausing too, Val glanced back at Brant, as though seeking direction.
Turning Faye, releasing her just enough to nudge his body around in front of hers, he pressed her back against the wall.
Holding the knife to her neck, he tilted his head to listen to the sounds coming from the corridor. Wretchedly difficult to concentrate, with her breath fanning across his neck, short, nervous pants that forced her breasts against his tunic. Despite his need to focus, his gaze dropped to her bodice. The sight of her bosom, squeezed against him, sent wanton heat surging through his loins.
A trembling sigh broke from her lips. The sound rippled inside him with delicious aftershocks, for she’d made sounds like that when they’d coupled.
Narrowing his gaze, he mentally shut out the sensual barrage. ’Twas not only his life under threat, but hers. He had vowed to protect her. He would.
A sound echoed in the near distance. Brant strained to hear. Clipped footfalls. Laughter. Guards. From the increase in the noise level, he deduced they were walking toward the stairwell.
He glanced at Faye. Judging by the glint in her eyes, she’d heard the sentries as well. Her cool stare conveyed an outward façade of obedience, but he sensed mutiny simmering within her. He fought the gut-wrenching urge to dip his head and kiss her. To thwart her fury with stronger magic of his own. To insist the intimacy they’d shared was very special to him, and always would be.
Brant drew back. Now wasn’t the time for tenderness. Knowing Faye, she would take advantage of such a moment to knee him in the groin and bolt toward whoever approached.
A warning growl rumbled from Val. The footfalls were louder.
Drawing the dagger from her throat, he motioned for her to move away from the wall. Her gaze spitting fury, she nonetheless seemed to remember his threat to cause injury or kill if need be, for she complied. He locked his arm around her waist, hauled her across the landing, and forced her down the lower stairs. Val scampered ahead.
From the corridor above, he heard two men talking. Any moment, they would reach the opening into the stairwell.
“Faster,” he growled in Faye’s ear, rushing their descent. The rustle of their garments seemed eerily loud, as did the scratch of Val’s claws.
Their legs tangled. She wavered.
Whipping the knife away from her neck, he steadied her before she pitched forward. He pulled her back against him, ignoring her indignant huff.
“Who goes there?” a man bellowed from the corridor.
Cold air gusted from the dark stairs below, bringing the earthy scents of dirt and horse. Further down, the stairwell opened into the bailey.
The guards’ footfalls sounded on the landing. “Who goes there? Answer!”
Brant shoved Faye onward.
Steel rasped. The guards had drawn their swords. “Halt!”
Pounding footsteps echoed.
“Run,” Brant snapped. His and Faye’s harsh breaths echoed back from the inky darkness. They were descending into near blackness, when the shadows began to thin.
A stout, wooden door came into view.
Brant grabbed the iron handle. He yanked the door open. Sunlight streamed into the stairwell. As he dragged Faye into the bailey, Brant glanced over his shoulder, to meet the gaze of a guard several yards behind.
“Milady!” the man cried.
“Stay back,” Brant growled, pulling Faye toward the thatch-roofed stables. “If you do not, I will kill her.”
Another armed guard broke from the stairwell, his expression grim.
Stones skittered beneath Brant’s boots while he continued his determined path toward the stables. “Do as I tell you, Faye,” he snarled against her hair.
“Do I have a choice?” she shot back.
Ears pricked up, Val loped toward the stables, where horses drank from a long trough. Brant’s destrier stood tied to a nearby post. A gangly stable hand, a lad of about twelve summers old, paused in the midst of running a brush over the horse’s gleaming coat. Such thorough grooming denoted possession.
Torr had already claimed the destrier for his own.
Bastard.
Struggling to control his anger, Brant glanced back at the guards in pursuit. More sentries stalked him now. Step by step, they backed him toward the stables.
Val’s excited barks, along with nervous whinnies, came from the direction of the water troughs. Val, it seemed, was doing his best to provide a diversion.
A wry smile touched Brant’s mouth before he spied a man running along the wall walk, heading toward fellow guards. No chance now of a quick, surprise escape. Dread, as hard as stone, plummeted into Brant’s gut.
Val brushed against his leg. Tongue lolling, the little dog darted toward the surrounding men and growled, clearly looking forward to a fight.
Brant’s gaze locked with the closest guard’s. “Tell the lad to ready my destrier.”
“Release the lady. Then we will discuss your horse.”
Brant snarled. He forced Faye’s head higher with the knife. A little moan broke from her, while her hands flew wide, fingers outstretched in shock. Her body quivered against him.
“Ready my mount,” Brant said. “Now.”
His gaze sharp with concern, the man looked from Brant to the destrier. The stable hand stood wide eyed, his mouth gaping. The brush dropped from his hands and landed in the dirt.
A shrill wail erupted to Brant’s right. Maidservants drawing water from the well stared at him in horror. Hands flailing, an older woman dropped her basket of washing. “Lady Rivellaux,” she sobbed, collapsing on the well’s stone rim.
Snapping his gaze back to the guard, Brant said, “I will count to three. If you do not give the order to saddle my horse—”
“Please!” Faye gasped.
“One.”
“Brant,” she sobbed. “Do not—”
He ignored the sharp stab of his conscience. “Two.”
Crying out again, the woman covered her face with her hands.
The guard cursed, then nodded to the boy. “Go.”
The young man disappeared into the stable and quickly returned with the tack. His face ashen, he dragged over a wooden mounting block and began to saddle the destrier. Another lad led the other horses back into the stable.
Each jingle of metal, each creak of saddle leather, wore upon Brant’s fraying patience. Tension, as thick as invisible fog, stretched across the bailey. The passing moments seemed suspended, gripped in an eerie spell that threatened to erupt into bloody confrontation.
“Hurry,” Brant growled at the boy.
While Faye trembled in his arms, guards herded the maidservants toward the bailey wall, while they in turn comforted the weeping woman. Huddled in the far shadows, clinging to cloth dolls, children condemned Brant with their unwavering stares.
The wall walk, he noted, was now crowded with guards. Archers sighted along arrows nocked into bows. Sweat dampened Brant’s upper lip. The archers would try to slay him as he mounted the horse. If not before.
“Horse is ready,” the boy said.
Walking backward, Brant dragged Faye with him. Her legs buckled, but he halted and steadied her so she regained her balance. A kindness, he realized, that cost h
im distance between him and the nearest guards.
Signaling to Val, Brant pulled Faye to the destrier’s side. The little dog paced to and fro, teeth bared and growling, while Brant checked the saddle and bridle’s fastenings. Then, his arm firm at Faye’s waist, he whisked her around the horse’s hindquarters into the space between the animal and the stable, removing them from the archers’ clear sighting range.
Keeping watch on the lads peering out from the building’s shadows, Brant lowered the dagger from Faye’s throat. “Get on the horse.”
Outrage sizzled in her gaze. “May you roast in hellfire.”
He bit back the commands that would force her to his will. Her lips parted, no doubt to verbally flay him, but he caught her around the waist, yanked her to him, and covered her mouth with his own. His tongue forged deep, plundering the remembered sweetness of her. Reminding her of their shared pleasure.
Her rigid body lurched in his hold. She screamed beneath his mouth. Then, with a stubborn, yielding little groan, she surrendered to him.
I love you, Faye, he told her with his softening kiss. I love you, my treasure, and always will. His eyes stung with the fierceness of his emotions.
Breaking away, he pushed her back against the horse’s side. Breathing hard, eyes glazed, she stared back at him, desire etched into her beautiful features. She blinked, clearly trying to discern what had just happened. Seizing that moment of compliance, he sheathed the knife and pushed her up into the saddle. He whistled for Val. Bending down, he snatched up the little dog and swung up behind Faye.
The guards were everywhere. As thick as flies on a corpse.
Eyes narrowing against the wintry sunshine, he studied the pebbled ground between the stable and the gatehouse.
Between death and freedom.
Faye squirmed against him. He sensed her intentions before she slid part way out of the saddle, intending no doubt to drop to the ground and run. He snaked his free arm around her, pulled her securely into the V made by his thighs, then said, “Take Val. Tuck him into that leather bag by your leg.”
She crossed her arms. Her shoulders hunched in blatant refusal. She’d obviously figured out he couldn’t reach around her to stow the dog; he risked her shoving him off the horse.
Sighing through his teeth, Brant loosely wrapped the reins around his hand. With the same hand, he withdrew the dagger and set it against her neck. “Take Val.”
“I hate you,” she snapped back. “Oh, how I hate you!”
The last word ended on a sob. Brant forced himself to ignore the crushing pressure in his chest. Once they had escaped Caldstowe, he would explain his actions to her.
Right now, he had a more vital concern: to get them both out alive.
Twisting a fraction, her face white with anger, Faye took Val from his arms and lowered him into the leather pouch. Val’s fuzzy little head popped out of the top. Bright eyed, he peered around him, nose wriggling.
Straightening in the saddle, Brant looked out over the guards standing in the bailey. “I warn you,” he said in a cold, clear voice, “lower the drawbridge. Stand aside.”
“Meslarches!” Torr’s roar rumbled across the bailey.
Several guards cringed.
An answering urge to flinch—so well learned over months as Torr’s lackey—welled inside Brant. Lip curling, he denied the impulse.
Torr stepped from the forebuilding and slammed the door. Sunlight struck his face, revealing the snapping rage in his eyes and the brutal set of his mouth.
He stormed toward Brant.
Flexing his fingers on the knife handle, Brant tamped down the questions boiling inside him: how Torr came to possess the journal, why he’d kept it secret, and what he intended to do with it. Later, in the final confrontation that had only one resolution—Brant’s death—he would have his answers.
Before the blood ran from his broken body and he drew his last breath, Brant would know the truth: for himself, and for Royce.
Torr marched ever closer. Brant focused on the calm conviction that had filled him from the moment he’d broken his blood oath. No longer would his will be enslaved to Torr’s command. Never again would his sense of duty, honor, and integrity be twisted by this corrupt bastard.
“Out of my way!” Torr snarled, shoving a guard out of his path. Stones crunched beneath his boots, the sound akin to snapping bones.
“Oh, mercy,” Faye whispered. In her words, Brant sensed a plea that Torr hadn’t found the journal missing.
Torr halted a few yards from the destrier. “Drop the dagger, Meslarches. Let Faye go.” Despite the cool day, sweat streamed down his face. When he swiped hair from his brow, his hand shook, a sign no doubt of barely controlled fury.
“She comes with me,” Brant said.
Lowering his hand, Torr clenched and unclenched his fingers. His gaze slid to her. Anger, concern, and possession all fought to govern his expression. “How did this whoreson come to hold you prisoner, Faye?”
His tone held deceptive tenderness. Cloaked in false concern was a demand for answers.
Brant felt a shudder ripple through her.
“The blame is mine. I betrayed her,” Brant said. “Manipulated her.”
“Ah.” Torr’s lips flattened. “Somehow, Faye, you got past the tower guards. Never did I anticipate treachery from you. What, pray tell, convinced you to visit him? How did you manage—?”
“Order your men to lower the drawbridge,” Brant cut in.
Astonishment widened Torr’s eyes. Throwing back his head, he laughed. Shrill, almost maniacal, the sound scraped like splintered wood over Brant’s raw nerves. “You believe I will let you ride away? With all these guards at my command?”
“I do.”
Torr’s laughter abruptly stopped. “Stupid bastard.”
His fingers curling tighter on the horse’s reins, Brant leveled Torr a cold stare. “I see. You care naught for Faye, then?”
“What?” Torr’s eyes narrowed.
Blocking out the sound of her terrified gasp, Brant shifted the angle of the knife. “If you do not give the order, I will slash the vein at the side of her neck. A lethal wound.” Forcing a brittle grin, Brant said, “Within moments, she will die, while you watch.”
Murmurs rippled through the guards.
Faye moaned.
Mocking laughter broke from Torr. “You will not harm her.”
“I am a murderer.”
Unease shone in Torr’s gaze before he reached a shaking hand to his belt. He drew out a leather-wrapped flask and guzzled the liquid inside. “You do not fool me.”
The faintest doubt darkened Torr’s words. By God, not enough!
“A man who murders once will do so again,” Brant added, letting the tip of the knife trail over Faye’s shoulder. The fabric of her gown sliced like warm butter. “Her death will rub like a stone upon your conscience, day, after day, after day. And at night . . . you will be haunted by her last, dying breaths.”
Again, Faye shuddered against him. How he wanted to offer reassurance—the barest touch, the softest press of his lips to her hair—but he didn’t dare betray his true intentions. Both of their lives hinged on the coming, tenuous moments.
She made a choking sound and wavered as though she were about to faint. “Please, Torr, I beg you. Do as he says.”
Torr snorted. His mouth twisted in a careless grin. “’Tis trickery.”
“Nay! Please.”
“Tsk, tsk. See how little your life means to him,” Brant muttered.
His face reddening with fury, Torr said, “Faye is more important to me than you can possibly imagine.”
“Ah, but I can imagine.” Brant smiled.
Shaking as if wracked by palsy, Torr roared. The cry echoed through the bailey. Violent, impulsive, it voiced what Brant suspected: Torr knew about the missing journal.
“You care for Faye, then.”
“I . . . Of course! She is—” Torr spluttered. “I—”
Daring to push
the knife a fraction further, Brant rested the sharp tip against her smooth neck. A collective gasp rippled through the onlookers. “I will not ask again. Give the command, Torr, or she is dead.”
Chapter Seventeen
Her heart slamming against her ribcage, Faye awaited Torr’s decision: release the drawbridge, or force Brant to slash her neck.
Oh, God. Oh, God!
The moments dragged like an ogre’s footsteps. Strange, how the tip of the dagger no longer felt cold against her skin. She could almost imagine ’twas not there at all, save for the guards gaping up at her with the fascinated horror of a crowd watching a macabre play.
And the silence . . . Intense. Unnatural. Eerie, like the moments before a tempest.
She forced herself to blink. To breathe. As she inhaled, the sound rattled at the back of her throat. She exhaled through tight, dry lungs.
By her knee, Val shifted. He whined.
The last sound she might hear before she perished.
The bailey blurred before her eyes to become a sea of muted grays and browns. Anger and regret crushed the foolish memories still lingering in her mind: Brant tipping up her chin to kiss her; his roguish grin as his fingers swept over her breast; and his gaze darkening with passion while he lowered himself onto her with delicious determination, a master of the intricate sorcery of lovemaking.
She closed her eyes, mentally shutting out the visions and staring faces. The Brant in her memories existed no longer. Like a spell gone awry, he’d transformed from a loving protector into a ruthless murderer bent only on self-preservation.
How stupid she’d been to fall in love.
Elayne, forgive me. I failed myself. You. Angeline.
The bailey’s silence became a roar in her ears akin to the hiss of fast-flowing water. It catapulted through her body with blessed numbness, carrying her along in its wake—
A shout, followed by a shrill sound.
A scream?
Aye, her own cry, torn from her as the knife sank into her flesh. Her last, dying breath, voicing every last shred of her frustration and . . .
And yet, the harsh sound seemed more like metal rubbing against metal. No piercing pain stabbed her neck. Nor did she feel the warm gush of blood.
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