by Jade London
My feet carry me, one step at a time, from the chambers of a haughty, handsome, powerful king into the unwelcome frigid embrace of darkness.
Ice bathes my flesh; shadows suck me into an inky pool. Here there is no awareness, no knowledge, no me, no Conrad, no drip of hot cum down my thighs…nothing.
I rage against the clutch of nothingness.
But it consumes me nonetheless.
So complete and thorough is the blank all-consuming expanse of dark that I cannot even weep, for there is no loss, no memory, only the shadows and the cold.
***
Silence.
Perfect, utter silence.
A drowning quiet.
Loss; the first sensation.
What have I lost? Within the confines of my mind there are only scraps and fragments of thought, shreds of memory. A man. A king? His body claiming mine. His relentless possession and protection. I am his. But now I’ve lost him.
I recall his name, now—Conrad Killian. Possession of his name; the second sensation.
He is a man of many guises. But his face is always the same. The essential quiet strength of him is always the same. His ready touch, his fierce, primal hunger is always the same. He is who he is. He is constant.
I must find him.
I must find…there is something else, but it is too obscured in shadows and slippery cold for me to grasp it.
I wake up, then. Fully. The black room surrounds me. The candle flame shudders beside me, perhaps three or four inches of white wax remaining. The candle is burning down—the thought of the candle guttering out frightens me, somehow.
I stand up, moving on silent feet across the empty space to the nearest door, the torch flickering in its sconce beside the frame. I go to the next door, the second to last. The green, familiar door with the plain brass knob, the keyhole scratched from a lifetime of keys hunting for the opening. I cannot bear to look at this door. Cannot. My heart twists painfully in my chest, beats fit to burst, aching and thundering behind my ribs. Tears squeeze at my eyes, looking at that door. I feel nothing more than the pain. No memory, no reason, just the blinding, horrible pain in my heart and soul.
The torch beside that door burns low.
So, too, does the torch at the last door, the plainest door.
The torches, the candle—they provide life, here. Awareness. Without that candle, without those torches, there will be nothing.
There is no time here, except for the measurement of that ever-burning candle.
My existence here in this black room is fleeting. I must find Conrad. He is beyond the doors—
Beyond each door—
I remember each one, now, each version of him. The boxer, the urban sophisticate, the gunfighter, the cunning card-sharp, the king…
Each one is Conrad, but none of them are truly him; the third sensation.
It is the true, real man I must find.
I find myself in front of the sixth door. I am eager, now. My heart trips and skips as I stand before the door. Like the others, the door itself is a plain unadorned black, the numeral 6 in plain silver at the center. But instead of a knob, lever, or even an ornately sculpted ring-pull, this door features a latch of ancient wood. It is a lever of sorts, but primitive. To lift the lever moves a bar from its housing on the frame, allowing the door to be opened. The wood is rough-hewn, hand-planed, and has been worn smooth by generations of hands.
I lift the latch, and the heavy door swings inward.
The smell of burning peat assaults my nostrils, thick, earthy, acrid. There is heat, close and billowing.
I step through; find wood flooring beneath my bare feet. Some automatic instinct has me closing the door behind me and, as I do so, the darkness flees, retreats behind me, replaced by the warm orange glow of a fire in front of me, burning merrily in a fireplace made from huge rough stones joined by crumbling mortar, the interior of the fireplace black from countless generations of fires.
The ceiling is low, made of stout dark wooden beams, as rough-hewn as everything else.
I look around me: there is another door on the wall to the left, standing open, a bed beyond it. The room I stand in is tiny, but cozy. There is a loft overhead, accessible by a hand-made ladder—I can see barrels, bags, and various other supplies. There is a table near the fire, rectangular, wide enough for several people, with six crudely fashioned chairs around it. Crudely fashioned, yes, but well-worn, sturdy, aged. A clay pipe rests on the table, as does a large jar with a cork stopper. A plate, a fork, a small dagger. Along one wall is a bookshelf, handmade as is everything else, with several rows of tattered books, each one ancient and care-worn, the spines peeling.
This is a home. Rough, rustic, but everything has been made with care and love and an eye to last for generations.
And I am utterly alone.
****
I’m startled by the opening of the door behind me. I jump forward, squealing in fright and shock. As the door opens, a blast of ice-cold wind and blowing rain spatters against me. The door swings open, smashes against the opposite wall, and I am immediately drenched by sheets of rain and skirls of knifing wind. I shrink away, toward the fire, putting the table between the door and me.
Between me and the figures standing in the doorway.
Three of them.
Tall, broad, shadowy figures filling the frame, cloaked in darkness.
Not for long are they obscured, however. They step through, into the small house. My heart skips a beat, and then thunders madly when they step into the glow of the firelight. Terror fills me.
Each man is clothed identically in thick white wool leggings or breeches, with heavy scarlet coats whose hems brush their knees, the edges trimmed with thick white bands that cross over their chests in a wide X. Belts of the same white color encircle their waists. Heavy gray greatcoats hang on their shoulders, open despite the blowing rain. Each man carries a long rifle in one hand, wears a three-corner hat on his head, and has a sabre at his side.
They merely stand staring for a long moment, and then a leer crosses the face of the soldier in the center. His pale blue eyes pierce me from his place across the room. Lank wet yellow strands of hair stick to his golden-stubbled cheeks, the rest queued at his neck. He is frightfully beautiful, a demon in angel’s guise—a demon, I say, because his eyes give him away.
“Killian’s bitch,” he says, stepping toward me, “discovered alone. Quite a treat, I’d say, eh, Martin?”
The soldier on the left—Martin—grins evilly, his eyes raking me. “Oh quite, Charlie. A rare treat indeed, I’d say.”
The man standing on the right speaks next, with a lick of his plump lips. “And she ain’t wearin’ nary a stitch, Charlie. Lucky day for us.”
I back further away, until I bump into the wall beside the fireplace. The heavy stone of the wall is cold against my bare skin. I am, as the last soldier pointed out, totally naked.
Cold.
Wet.
Terrified.
And faced with three lecherous redcoats.
Charlie, the centermost, circles the table in a rush, his damp, cold, strong hand snagging my arm. “Martin, get over here and hold her.”
Martin tosses his rifle onto the table and joins Charlie, circling behind me, taking my both my arms in his cruel hands, holding me. Pulling me backward. Forcing me to the floor.
Charlie stands above me, lips curving in a wicked leer, tongue sliding along his lower lip, hands working at the buckle of his belt.
There’s a wet sound, then, behind us, a metallic squish and then a thump. “I’ll run you through where you stand, Markham,” a deep, grating voice snarls. “I’ve already got a price on my head. A few shillings more won’t bother me.”
Charlie freezes, his grin fading. “Conrad Killian. Thought I’d caught you away.” He stands, re-buckling his belt.
“You had,” comes the voice, that rough, familiar voice. “But I heard whispers of a certain trio of redcoats sneaking about the highlands.”<
br />
“Whispers, eh?” Charlie says, his hand settling on his sabre. “If I find the whisperers, I’ll cut their tongues out and feed them to the crows.”
“Let her go, Martin,” the voice rumbles. “You know my reputation. Neither of you will clear steel before I’ve separated your ugly head from your uglier body.”
The hands release me, and I scramble to the side, find my feet, and scurry back against the wall as far from the redcoats as I can get—which isn’t far in this cramped space.
Conrad, standing in the doorway, a sword nearly as long as I am tall gripped in both hands. A forest green tartan kilt wraps around his waist and hangs at his knees, with the tartan crossing his chest and over his shoulder. A heavy cloak hangs from his shoulders, and a thick black leather belt circles his waist, with a pouch at his belly—a sporran.
His sword is stained red, a redcoat dead at his feet. Conrad’s face is a rictus of hate, knuckles white around the hilt of his claymore.
“Come to me, Hannah,” Conrad murmurs. I scurry to his side, and he slings off his cloak and drapes it around me. “Out. On the horse.”
I obey him immediately, trotting outside into the gale, gratefully wrapping the thick wool cloak around my naked body. A horse stands in the rain, head down, munching on grass, reins tied to the pommel. I climb up, not without difficulty. The saddle is blisteringly cold on my bare buttocks even through the thick wool, but there’s nothing for it.
Conrad follows me out, backing slowly out of the house. He’s got his claymore in one hand, and a musket tucked against his side in the other, aimed at the two men.
“You’re a fool if you think you’ll get away with this, Killian,” Charlie says. “The price on your head will double. Poor George here is at least one of His Majesty’s soldiers you’ve slain, that I know of. Then there’s that bloke at the hanging—when was it? A year ago? You’re making quite a name for yourself as an outlaw, Killian. Take your little slut with you, if you wish, and run to your friends. I’ll find you.”
“I’ll be waiting when you do, Markham,” Conrad says, standing at my knee.
“Oh, but I won’t be alone, though, will I? I’ll have an entire company of friends behind me.” Charlie grins, and despite his handsome features, that grin is not a pleasant sight. “We’ll have us a merry scrum then, won’t we, mate?”
Conrad stuffs a foot into a stirrup and swings up behind me, leaving the reins tied to the pommel, and nudges the horse into motion with his heels. “I look forward to the meeting, Sergeant Markham.” He lays the musket across my lap, his claymore held in one hand, the flat resting on his shoulder.
We’re off at a fierce gallop. Rain dashes against my face, slides down my back, splatters in my eyes. The wind is razor-sharp and colder than shards of ice, but Conrad is warm around me, behind me, broad and hard and powerful.
“Where will we go?” I ask, trying to huddle deeper into the cloak that is my only protection against the elements.
“No worries, lass. I’ve a friend close by.” We’ve slowed for a moment so Conrad can sheathe his claymore and strap it to his back; our best defense is now the musket, and putting as much distance between the Englishmen and us as possible.
We ride in silence for a time, the horse tireless, hooves squelching in the mud. Trees rustle in the ceaseless wind, the branches reaching and grabbing in the wild, seething, storm-tossed night.
Then, apropos of nothing, Conrad’s voice buzzes in my ear. “Why were you naked?”
I hunt for an answer, come up with nothing. “I—” a certain truth strikes me. “I was waiting for you.”
His deep voice is rife with amusement. “I see. A surprise I’d have enjoyed much more did we not have unwelcome company.”
“Charlie…will he make trouble for you?” I ask.
“Trouble enough, piled on what I’ve already brought on myself. I’ve nothing but hate for the damned lobster-backs, and they for me. My sword swings a little too eagerly when there’s redcoat blood to spill.”
“What will we do?”
“I say again Hannah: have no worries. I’ll keep you safe from the likes of that scum.” A moment of silence, and then, in a darker voice that sends shivers down my spine, delicious, heated shivers, “Whether you’ll be safe from me is another story entirely, though.”
“If he comes for you with a whole company…what then?”
His voice is fierce. “Then I’ll bring the ransom of an entire company’s worth of English corpses down on my head, as I’ll slay every man jack of ‘em and piss on their corpses when I’ve finished.”
A different kind of shudder runs down my back at the venom in his voice—I do not doubt him. Not his intentions nor his ability, nor his thirst for English blood.
“Can he muster that many men to hunt for only you?”
A bitter curse, then, “The bastard is dreadful well-connected. It may not be tomorrow, or even next week, but he’ll come. A few well-placed messages to friends back to London-town will have a company of bloody-backs marching to his drum. And yes, they’ll come for me.”
“I’m sorry to have brought so much trouble down on you.”
He nuzzles the back of my neck. “To fash is for fools, lass. I’d have had the trouble one way or another.” He rests the musket across my lap and curls his arm around my waist. “At least this way, I get a moment with you out of the bargain.”
“Only a moment?” I ask, turning my face to brush my cheek against his.
“As many moments as I can steal, mo chroi,” he growls, “I’ll spend showing you how worth the fight you are.”
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Copyright © 2016 by Jasinda Wilder and Jade London
THE BLACK ROOM: DOOR 5
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover art by Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations. Cover art copyright © 2016 Sarah Hansen.
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