by Grant, Donna
Shannon.
“Yes.”
His eyes snapped open. He hadn’t realized he had said her name out loud.
“Here,” she said as she placed a mug of ale in front of him. “I thought you might want this.”
He refused to meet her gaze, afraid she would see the stark hunger for her.
Instead, he kept his gaze on the table.
“Thank you,” he managed past his dry mouth.
He let out his breath when she finally walked away, and when he raised his gaze, it was to find Gabriel watching him. Those hawk-like silver eyes of Gabriel’s missed nothing.
But Shannon and Gabriel vanished from his thoughts when he heard a man whisper something about a sacrifice. Cole leaned forward and tried to listen through the crowd of people all talking over the other.
“…who will be next?”
“…I’m about ready to leave. Too many have died already.” Ah, so they haven’t disappeared. They’ve died. But where? And how?
“…it’ll happen tonight. You watch,” said one old man whose hand shook as he said the words.
Cole watched as the others silently nodded, and as much as he yearned for more information, the quieter they became.
Nothing more was spoken of the dead people or just what would happen tonight, but he knew he and Gabriel would be there to see what it was.
Just as he was about to go to his chamber, the door flew open and a tall, well dressed man in a blood red cloak sauntered into the tavern.
Chapter Seven
Cole knew instantly he was lord of the castle. His hair was so black it shone blue, and his beady eyes missed nothing as they scanned the room. His nose was hawkish in style, and his face lean and angular. He was slim, but Cole could tell there was strength in his body by the way he carried himself.
When the lord’s gaze stopped on Cole, he stared him down, waiting to see what the man would do. To his excitement, the baron walked his way.
Cole leaned back in his chair, and, just as the arrogant lord reached the table, Cole kicked the chair with his foot, sliding it out beside the baron.
“You are new here.”
Cole nodded and looked at the chair. “Have a seat and we can discuss anything you like.”
For a moment, he didn’t think the baron would take the chair, but in the end he did.
“What is your name?” the baron asked as he sank into the chair, his men surrounding the table.
“Cole.”
“Cole?” he repeated. “No surname.”
“Nay.”
“Only bastards go without surnames.”
The entire room gasped and waited for Cole’s reaction. It was quite an insult to be called a bastard.
“And you are?” Cole said, unaffected by the baron’s words.
“Baron Gyles Le Blanc.”
Cole nodded. “Ah. A very important name.”
“That goes along with a very important person.”
“You want me to leave the village, I suppose.” Gyles sat back and leisurely looked Cole over. “From what I’ve heard, you caused a problem in here yesterday.”
“Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t my fault.” Gyles threw back his head and laughed. “I like you,” he said when he finished laughing and leaned on the table. “You may stay. For awhile.” Cole lifted his mug of ale in salute and drank deeply. His dislike of the baron intensified with each passing moment. The baron was too cocky, too confident, and too evil not to be involved with the summoning of the creature.
After another hearty laugh, the baron rose and walked from the tavern. As one, the room seemed to sigh when the door closed behind Gyles.
Cole found Gabriel’s gaze and knew they needed to talk. He watched as Gabriel rose from his table and exited the tavern. Cole drained his ale, laid money on the table, and then rose. He would leave by his chamber again. The last thing he wanted was everyone to realize he and Gabriel were together.
He opened the door to his room and stepped inside. After barring the door, he leaned against it and sighed. He missed having the Shields together, and he still mourned Darrick terribly.
A sound alerted him that he wasn’t alone. His eyes scanned the room and found Shannon beside his bed. She twisted her hands, as if agitated or frightened.
“Leave,” she said. “Leave now and don’t ever look back.” In two strides he was beside her. He gripped her shoulders and made her look at him. “What do you know?”
“That you will die.”
“I’m not that easy to kill,” he said with a smile.
She threw her hands out. “Stop it. Just stop it. This isn’t a joke. Gyles is evil, and he will kill you.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he singled you out,” she said, her voice low as if she had lost a major battle.
She needed to be comforted, and he needed to comfort her. He pulled her into his arms. The feel of her against him once again was like heat from the sun after a long, cold winter. Her arms eagerly wrapped around him as he held her, hoping to take some of her fear from her.
His body instantly came to life at her touch. Never did he know a need for a woman’s body like what engulfed him at that moment. And no amount of telling himself there wasn’t time for any dalliance would make his body listen.
He looked down to find her face tilted toward his, her mouth parted slightly as she licked those beautiful lips—and he was lost, drowning in passion so intense it made him forget everything and everyone around him.
Shannon saw Cole’s brown eyes darken right before he bent his head and captured her lips. His kiss stole her breath as his passion rained down upon her. His hands roamed her body as if memorizing every inch of her. She plunged her hands into his silky hair and molded herself against him, feeling his hardness against her stomach and wishing for more as her sex clenched in need.
The kiss sent her spiraling into an abyss of desire that she had only read about in romance novels. The urgency in his kiss only spurred her onward. He drained her of all emotion save one—passion.
She forgot all about traveling to another time and continent, forgot being kept prisoner, and forgot that she was alone.
Her entire being centered around Cole and the most erotic kiss she had ever experienced. It awoke her body and desires she had never known she had. The intense feelings frightened her, but she didn’t turn from them, couldn’t turn from them.
When he ended the kiss and pulled away, she wanted to cry out for him not to stop. Instead, she let him hold her against his chest as she struggled to get her breathing under control. It helped to feel that his breathing wasn’t any better than hers.
“I’m not leaving,” he suddenly said.
She was ashamed to admit she was thankful he wasn’t going. He was her only friend, the only person she could turn to if in need. If he left, she knew she wouldn’t last long alone. She wasn’t a strong person.
“Then don’t prove me right,” she said and stepped out of his arms to look into his dark eyes. She hated to leave, but she needed to return downstairs before she was missed.
Without a backwards glance, she walked from his room before she did something foolish like offer her body to him.
* * *
Cole stared at the door Shannon had just walked through. He wanted to go after her, to pull her back into his room and never let her leave. He wanted to strip her of her gown and gaze upon her naked flesh. He wanted to run his hands, lips, and tongue over her entire body to learn what pleased her. He wanted to see her head thrown back in passion. But most of all, he wanted her to want him with as much desire as he wanted her.
Of a sudden, he realized he wasn’t alone and turned to the window to find Gabriel in the shadows.
Before Cole could say anything, Gabriel held up his hand to quiet him. “I had no idea ….”
“I know,” Cole said and sank onto the bed, grateful to have something take Shannon ou
t of his mind before he went daft. “I take it you heard my conversation with the baron?”
“I did,” Gabriel said as he walked to the table near the hearth and sat in one of the chairs. “Come. Your stitches need to be removed.” Cole was appreciative that he didn’t bring up the kiss with Shannon. He didn’t think he could talk about it, not when the emotions Shannon stirred within were so raw.
He sat and removed his tunic so Gabriel could see to the wound.
“I also heard bits of a conversation downstairs that the people aren’t disappearing, but being killed,” he said as he recalled the reason he wished to speak to Gabriel.
Gabriel reached for one of his small daggers and moved to the stitches.
“Interesting.”
Cole nodded and waited for the stitches to be removed. Once Gabriel was done he tugged back on his tunic. “What’s more interesting is that something is going to happen tonight.”
Gabriel smiled and rubbed his hands after putting the dagger away. “About bloody time.”
* * *
The moon was high in the sky when Cole and Gabriel finally saw movement.
They had set up watch between the castle and the village, and for many long hours, the night was as quiet as death.
Then the creaking of the castle gate reverberated in the darkness. Cole fingered his double headed war axe, eager to begin the battle.
With nary a sound, Gabriel reached for one of his special arrows and notched it in his bow. Cole glanced at the tip of the arrow. It was a tip designed by the Fae for it was made like a mace with a small ball that had spikes all around it.
Cole counted twelve guards as they filed past them in two rows. The guard’s weapons were numerous, as if they expected resistance of some kind.
He and Gabriel watched as the guards marched to the village. Without a word to the other, both men rose from their spots and raced after the guards. They reached the village in time to see the guards burst into a house and take a young woman, her parents trying desperately to touch her one last time and their cries filling the night air.
Cole’s ears rang from the screams and tears the girl and her family cried. He stepped forward to intervene, when Gabriel stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Why?” he asked, not believing Gabriel wouldn’t want to save her.
“You don’t know that this has anything to do with the creature.”
“And you don’t know that it doesn’t.”
Gabriel sighed. “Let us just see where they take her.” Reluctantly, Cole agreed. He looked about the small village to see if anyone watched, if anyone would dare to help the girl. Yet he saw no one.
Until his eyes found the tavern.
Shannon stood in the window, her hands pressed against the shutters. She needed to hide, and he was about to make her do just that when one of the guards spotted her.
“Won’t be long now,” he taunted her as he pulled the girl along behind him.
Cole’s hand tightened on his war axe, eager to split the guard’s head open. He saw Gabriel slip behind the building to retrace their steps, and, for a moment, Cole debated on whether to follow him or go after the guards himself.
It was a foolish thought, and Cole was anything but foolish. With a vile curse, he turned and followed Gabriel. He caught up with the other Shield just as Gabriel reached their hiding spot.
“Didn’t think you were coming.”
Cole sighed. “Almost didn’t.”
He felt more than saw Gabriel’s stare in the darkness.
“We’ve never failed,” Gabriel reminded him.
“We’ve never been split up before either,” Cole replied.
There was no more time for conversation as the guards approached them.
“Please let me go,” the girl begged. “I haven’t done anything.” The guards laughed and the one holding her jerked on the rope around her neck, sending her to her knees. He continued walking, dragging the girl until she could regain her feet which was difficult considering her hands were tied in front of her.
“Of course you haven’t done anything,” the guard said with a sneer.
Cole tightened his grip on his axe. It wasn’t until they neared the gate that the roar they had heard earlier in the day sounded again—this time louder…and closer.
“What the bloody hell is that?” Gabriel whispered.
“The
creature.”
Gabriel grunted in response, readied his bow, and let loose the arrow. The arrow struck one of the back guards in the throat. He never made a sound as he fell to the ground.
Without missing a beat, Gabriel let loose three more in quick succession, freeing the girl. She tugged the rope from her throat, picked up her skirts with her tied hands, and raced back to the village.
While Gabriel prepared to fire three arrows at a time, Cole walked out onto the road and waited for the guards to see him. It didn’t take long.
Gabriel let loose the three arrows, leaving the rest for Cole. He swung his massive axe over his head and let it fall, cleaving one guard in two.
He then pivoted, ducked a sword that was aimed at his neck, and imbedded his axe in a guard’s abdomen. Cole kicked the guard off his axe as another attacked him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Gabriel’s arrows took the remaining two out, leaving one for Cole.
Cole and the guard circled each other. Whereas the guard was anxious, fearful, Cole was ready and eager for the fight. Holding his axe in both hands, he brought it up and broke the guard’s nose with the handle.
The guard sputtered and cursed as he backed away holding his nose while blood gushed through his fingers. Cole stood his ground, and Gabriel came to stand beside him.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” the guard said as another roar sounded.
“Then tell us,” Gabriel said.
The guard retrieved his sword and shook his head. “Never.” Cole prepared to take the guard prisoner to make him talk, and as the guard rushed towards him, his sword raised, an arrow zoomed between Cole and Gabriel to imbed in the guard’s heart.
Gabriel and Cole dove into the trees. Without a backward glance they raced from the castle toward the village. Cole knew that whoever had killed the guard would be looking for them next.
He gave Gabriel a nod as they split up and he snuck back into his chamber. With fingers aching, he hung outside his window for long moments, listening to make sure no one was inside waiting to ambush him.
When he heard nothing, he quietly slipped inside and inspected every inch of the room before he shed his clothes and weapons and lay atop the bed.
He didn’t have long to wait before he heard banging on the front door of the tavern.
Chapter Eight
Shannon nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the bang on the tavern door. Ever since the castle guards had taken the girl and then taunted her, she hadn’t been able to think of anything other than getting away from the village.
Escape plans rushed through her mind only to end with her being caught. She couldn’t leave on her own. She knew that now. Help was what she needed, and there was only one man who could aid her.
Cole.
The sound of men’s voices intruded in her thoughts, and she wondered if her time to be taken to the castle had come. She had never seen the guards get more than one person at a time, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t.
To her amazement, it wasn’t to her door that the footsteps sounded but up the stairs to stop directly above her. To Cole’s room.
Her hands trembled and her lungs stopped moving as she listened for voices.
Dimly, she heard faint steps, probably Cole’s after he rose from his bed. All she could make out of the voices was one big mumble, and she nearly screamed her frustration.
For too long she had sat and did nothing, it was time to take matters into her own hands. On tip toes, she walked to her door and eased
it open until the slit was wide enough for her to slide through. She inched toward the stairs, and the voices become clearer, louder with each step.
“Where have you been?”
She heard Cole chuckle and could imagine him running his hand through his hair.
“I told you I’ve been in my bed,” Cole said.
“Sleeping?”
“Well, that is one thing a body does in bed,” Cole replied.
Shannon leaned around the stairs to see the four guards crowded around Cole’s door. It was one of the middle guards that said, “You don’t look like you’ve been asleep.”