A Warrior's Heart

by Laurel O'Donnell

  At his menacing voice, all eyes again turned to him.

  “Who is this woman that she merits such protection?” Hunter wondered, drawing the rage in Bryce’s gaze.

  “She is the Angel of Death,” Bryce answered.

  Stunned silence fell over the room, blanketing it with curiosity and shocked surprise.

  As Bryce continued to eat, his mind occupied by thoughts of his captive, he did not notice Lotte when she slithered from her chair and headed for the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  The scream sliced through Ryen’s pain-clouded mind like a blade. She struggled to open her eyes. And when she did, she saw a woman with long, dark hair coming at her with a dagger, her hair disheveled, her eyes wild with hate. Ryen fought to raise her hands to protect herself, but they were too heavy. The pain receded, and relief stitched closed her mind, sealing off the rest of the world.

  The dagger arced down toward Ryen’s heart just as the small whirlwind slammed into Lotte’s side, knocking her to the floor. Patch howled and grabbed the hand that held the dagger above their heads as they rolled across the floor. Lotte’s scream replaced Patch’s roar as Patch pinned Lotte beneath her by straddling her body. Lotte fought for a moment before she was slapped hard across her face. With the jolt, the dagger fell from her fist and clattered across the floor to land at Bryce’s feet.

  He stood in the doorway, staring at the dagger. Then his eyes shifted to Lotte.

  Patch rose, hauling Lotte to her feet. Lotte yanked her arm free, screeching, “She killed him! She killed Runt!”

  Bryce bent and picked up the dagger. At first, his mind refused to accept the fact that one of his own people had almost stabbed Ryen through the heart. Here he was worried about another lord, and Lotte was the one who had tried to end Ryen’s life.

  He turned the dagger over slowly in his hand, watching the candlelight reflect off its shining surface. It wasn’t because Ryen had killed Runt. The woman had no feelings for her son – that alone was enough to make Bryce hate her. He stopped flipping the dagger. It was because Ryen had smashed every security Runt represented for Lotte.

  Slowly his eyes rose, the hate shining from them like beacons.

  “It was in her camp!” Lotte hissed. “She is responsible!”

  “Thank you, Patch,” Bryce murmured.

  Patch nodded and brushed by him as she exited the room.

  Bryce moved forward and Lotte retreated. “And you would kill her as she lay sleeping…defenseless?”

  Lotte’s eyes glinted. “For our son –”

  Bryce’s voice was low and dangerous. “He meant nothing to you!”

  “Of course he did. He was my son, too.”

  “He was nothing to you except an heir to my estates.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “And now you feel that Ryen poses some sort of danger to your security here at Dark Castle.”

  Her voice changed to the controlled, even tone that signified her anger. “Ryen, is it? Not prisoner, not enemy?”

  Bryce turned to her. Lotte’s brown eyes were focused on the bed where Ryen slept. “Raise a hand to her again and you shall be banned from Dark Castle.” Bryce suddenly realized with an absolute certainty that he’d never loved Lotte. She was cruel and manipulative. Even in bed, her touch was calculated not for pleasure, but to control him. He used her for a need and the fact that she had had his child meant nothing to him. He turned his back on her.

  “You would choose the killer of our son over me?”

  His knuckles closed tightly around the hilt of the dagger.

  “If you cannot kill her, I will,” she stated emphatically.

  He was before her in two steps. His large hand wrapped around her arm as he hauled her up to the tips of her toes. “Hear you nothing that I say, woman?”

  “I will take vengeance for our son.”

  “She did not kill Runt,” Bryce snarled.

  “The fire was in her camp! She lit it to kill your son!”

  “She did not know he was my son.” At Lotte’s confusion, he continued, but more to himself, his voice full of agony. “Ryen did not kill Runt! She would not have torched half of her camp to kill a small, insignificant boy.” It had been an accident. An accident. He released Lotte suddenly, almost dropping her. Bryce bowed his head, staring at the floor. “It was because of me Runt was in France at all. And it was me he came after.”

  He smashed his fist into the wall beside Lotte’s head. She cringed, broke away and ran past him.

  He heard different footsteps approach from behind him.

  “She did not kill Runt,” Bryce murmured, his voice thick with sick realization.

  “I know,” Grey answered quietly. “You need time away, brother. Go. She will be watched.”

  Bryce lifted heavy eyes to Grey.

  “And protected, if need be.”

  Bryce nodded. He cast one last miserable look at Ryen, wishing desperately that she was awake, before departing the room.

  Pain cut deep into Ryen’s mind, bringing with it hazy glimpses of people…a dark haired woman, her eyes angry…a small thin girl with a scar across her cheek bending close…Bryce, his dark eyes underlined with rings of sleeplessness, his brow creased with lines of worry…

  Voices floated to her, quiet, hushed. At first Ryen could not understand what they were saying, but after a moment, the mumbling became words as she recognized that they were spoken in English.

  “She’s going to die. Ain’t no hope for it,” a woman’s voice murmured.

  “Do na say that,” a second girl’s voice responded. “The lord would be most dis—dis—dis—”

  “Distraught.”

  “Ya! Distraught. He’s tried so hard ta keep ‘er alive.”

  “She hasn’t been awake for days. And she’s so thin.”

  Ryen’s eyes fluttered as she struggled to open them, groaning with the effort.

  “She’s tossin’ again,” the girl stated.

  Ryen opened her eyes. A young girl was staring at her, a scar etched into her cheek. Her peaceful brown eyes went round in fright. “Gaw!” the girl cried. “She’s awake! She saw me! Me limbs are turnin’ ta stone!”

  The girl merged into the shadow as she leapt away from the bed, out of the small circle of light cast by a single candle.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the woman said, as she moved into Ryen’s view. Brown eyes gazed at her with indifference. “She’s just raving. I’m tellin’ ya, the fever will take her soon and she’ll be out of our lives.”

  Ryen tried to speak, but her lips were brittle and cracked, and her words caught in her parched throat. Finally, she managed to gag, “Water.”

  The girl with the brown eyes peeked over the woman’s shoulder like a frightened child to whisper, “Wha’ that she saying?”

  The woman shrugged her beefy shoulders, nonchalantly pushing a strand of dark hair from her eyes. “French. She’s ramblin’. We might as well bury her now.”

  English, Ryen reminded herself: What was the word for water? Her mind ached as she forced herself to think.

  “We ain’t killin’ nobody, Kit. She’s already dead, I keep tellin’ ya,” the woman said.

  “But she’s seen our faces. What if she comes back for us?”

  “Water,” Ryen gasped in English.

  “Gaw!” Kit cried again, stepping back.

  The woman turned hard, assessing eyes to Ryen. “Ya best get Talbot,” she said to Kit, keeping her gaze on Ryen.

  “Ya mean she might live? Polly! Ya bloody told me I could have her helmet! I already told –”

  “Quiet,” Polly snapped. “Go get Talbot before I leave ya alone with her.”

  Kit fled from the room.

  Polly bent close to Ryen. She placed a cool hand against Ryen’s forehead before turning to retrieve a goblet from the side table.

  Ryen’s head swam as Polly gently placed a hand beneath her head and lifted. The goblet was cold against her lips and, as the wat
er cascaded over her parched throat, Ryen heard Polly murmur, “Ya are a fighter, I must say that. I truly believed ya would not live.” Polly pulled the goblet from Ryen’s lips after she took a few sips. “Not too much, or ya’ll be sick.”

  Ryen ached for more of the soothing liquid, but she saw Polly place it back on the wooden table and did not have the strength to object. She laboriously turned her head to see where she was. Most of the room was in darkness. Soft pillows cushioned her head; warm blankets covered her body. A light, gauzy black curtain separated the rest of the room from the bed, except on Polly’s side. There, it was drawn back. On a table beside the bed was a single candle, the only light in the tomb of darkness.

  “Where am I?” Ryen asked.

  “You are a prisoner.” The answer came from the darkness.

  Ryen tensed. Tingles of dread shot up the back of her neck. I know that voice, Ryen thought.

  Polly rose and turned. “Sir,” she said, “I believe she will live.”

  Silence.

  “My lord will be pleased,” she continued.

  Ryen watched as one of Polly’s hands wrung the other, again and again.

  “Yes,” the voice finally said tightly.

  Her heart stopped as she recalled the last thing she had seen before the darkness took her; dark eyes staring at her through a silver visor.

  Bryce!

  Ryen’s stomach tensed and she pushed herself up until she was in a sitting position. Pain flared through her head, and she put a hand to the origin, the base of her skull. She found a mended wound. Slowly, she lifted her head and saw the woman backing away from her, the fear in her wide eyes. She heard metal hiss and recognized the familiar sound – a weapon being drawn.

  The sword came toward her out of the darkness, pointing straight at her face. “Don’t think to try anything, Angel.”

  The room swam before her eyes and she willfully shook away the darkness that threatened to overcome her. He stepped forward and Ryen’s eyes widened with recognition. She knew him immediately. His hateful gaze locked on her now as it had in her chamber. His right arm was in a sling, but other than that, he looked unscathed! How could that be? They had fallen fifty feet! They should both be dead!

  “Bryce,” she gasped, the anguish of months of thinking him dead rising into her throat. “Where is he?” Her heart beat hopefully, fluttering at the mere thought of him.

  “You stupid bitch!” Talbot snarled. “He left you and still you cry out his name! He told me how you spread your legs for him, you ugly whore. You are nothing to him!”

  Her own doubts from the mouth of another hurt her worse than if he had run her heart through. She sat stunned, unable to look away from his vengeful gaze.

  “Don’t you think if he cared for you he would be here?” he mocked.

  The darkness crept forward from the edge of the room.

  “Instead, he is in the arms of another,” he whispered through clenched teeth.

  The thought of Bryce’s loving face hovering above the dark-haired woman who had haunted her dreams, fluttering kisses over her naked body – kisses she had imagined Bryce giving to her – sent Ryen reeling back into the blackness that opened its arms to welcome her.

  The voice came to her through a haze.

  “Come on, now. Ya cannot sleep yer life away. I got orders ta get ya up. Ya should be eatin’.”

  Light assaulted Ryen’s closed eyes and she groaned, tentatively opening one eye to squint into the morning sun.

  Polly came into her view, her body blocking the light, her hands on her ample hips. “Now, ya can’t be abed forever. ‘Taint good for…” Her voice trailed off.

  Ryen raised her eyes to meet Polly’s and saw sympathy in the woman’s gaze before Polly turned away.

  Ryen raised a hand to block out the light, but her palm brushed against wetness. Startled, she ran her fingers over her cheek to find her face was wet. Dumbfounded, she gazed at her moist fingers. After a moment, she brought them to her lips. The salty taste of tears tingled the tip of her tongue. Surprised washed over her, followed immediately by humiliation. She wiped at her cheeks with her hands and then with the sleeve of her nightdress.

  Nightdress? She glanced at the silky garment. It was more beautiful than any she had ever seen. It laced up the front and was made of the softest, smoothest white cloth she had ever felt. Who had dressed her? Who had attended her while she was unconscious?

  “This will help.”

  Ryen looked up to find a towel dangling from Polly’s hands.

  Angry with herself for her weakness, Ryen turned away, burying her face deep in the pillow. She felt the bed bend beneath the maid’s weight as she sat beside her.

  “Ya needn’t fret over a few shed tears,” Polly said. “Many a maid would have lost their senses by now.”

  But I am not a maiden, Ryen thought, her fists clenching the pillow until her fingers ached.

  “Why, jus’ the other day I was sayin’ ta Melinda what a –”

  Ryen whirled on Polly, half sitting up. “Stop your prattling and get out!”

  Polly rose, her large brown eyes wide with surprise. Quickly, her look darkened. “Well, now. Ifn that’s how ya feel…” She turned on her heel.

  Ryen watched her storm across the room. Stupid woman, she thought. The Angel of Death fretting over a few tears? Why, she didn’t even know why she shed them! Just because she was a prisoner in a foreign land, kept by a man she’d once loved who’d used her, and who must now hate her.

  Ryen’s shoulders slumped. She raised her head to cry to Polly to wait, but the door slammed behind the maid. Ryen sighed quietly. A hundred questions raced through her mind. Why was she here? And why was she in this room as if she were a guest? She should be in the dungeon if this was Bryce’s castle.

  His image rose before her eyes. Dark, dark hair waving in a soft breeze. Black eyes staring at her, calling to her with a hypnotic power. The corners of his mouth turned up in a devilish grin, the scar on his cheek looking white against his bronzed skin. He was leaning against a wall, his right leg bent at the knee, crossed over his ankle.

  She had dreamt of him. The image was so familiar Ryen could have sworn it had been real. But she could not remember how the dream had ended. All she could recall was that he had stood like a dark god.

  Ryen swung her legs out of bed. She faltered as a wave of dizziness crashed over her, sending the room spinning around her. She closed her eyes, forcing the swirling to stop. It took a moment before the sickness dissolved.

  From her seated position on the bed, Ryen surveyed the room. It was sparsely decorated, with one chair near the window next to a small table by the four-poster bed. A dark woven tapestry on the far wall depicted a horned man rising from a cave opening. Around the cave were wolves, their mouths dripping with saliva, their eyes glowing red. Two wolves faced the man, subservient, their heads hanging down to their chests. The two others were turned away, growling at the people who cowered and crawled over one another to reach the man, their hands outstretched toward him, some empty, some with offerings. Behind him, the large moon shone as a silver sliver.

  Something was agonizingly familiar about the smug look on the horned man’s face, but Ryen couldn’t place it.

  Suddenly the door creaked and Ryen snapped her head around to see it pause halfway open.

  “C’mon. I paid ya a shillin’. Ya said I could see her,” a man’s voice echoed in the room.

  “But she might be awake. I – I don’t think –” Ryen recognized the voice as the girl she had seen with Polly. Kit. “I could get a beatin’, ya know.”

  “I won’t let that happin’ ta ya,” the man whispered.

  There was a moment of silence before the girl giggled. “Awright! Don’t do that. It tickles me ear.” The door swung open.

  Ryen knew she should be angry at being displayed like some animal, but somehow she admired the girl’s ingenuity. Her lips twitched with humor. As she straightened her back, ready for the confronta
tion, her feet swung and knocked into something.

  She quickly looked down to see a small stool near the side of the bed. Her eyes flashed to the open door where two shadows were entering. An idea popped into her head and a grin lit her face. Without taking her eyes from her victims, she positioned the stool beneath her feet.

  The girl entered first, her shoulders hunched. The man followed her. The girl lifted her head only steps into the room to lock gazes with Ryen. “Gaw!” she cried, and froze. “She’s awake!” She backed up as if to flee, but bumped into the man, stepping on his foot.

  “Ahhh!” he cried, and shoved the girl forward to the floor. “What ya tryin’ ta do, Kit?” He hobbled, holding his wounded foot. Then, seeing the girl gesturing wildly at Ryen, the man shifted his stare to her.

  Ryen raised her eyebrows and pouted, hoping to look defenseless.

  It worked.

  The man put his foot down. “Is this the bloody Angel of Death? She looks scared!” He turned a dark look on Kit. “Is this a trick?” He raised a fist to strike her. “I ought ta –”

  Fear gripped Ryen’s heart as her eyes focused on his raised fist. “I am Ryen De Bouriez,” she said suddenly.

  He turned his full attention to her and stepped forward, lowering his hand.

  Ryen stared at him, carefully keeping her face blank.

  He moved forward, one tentative step at a time. “You’re the one whose looks can turn a man ta stone?”

  Closer.

  “You’re the one who can turn a man’s blood ta ice?”

  Closer.

  “You’re the Angel of Death who sacrifices our children to your dark lord?”

  He was directly in front of Ryen when he looked back at Kit. “There must be another one.”

  But when he returned his gaze to Ryen, she towered above him, arms outstretched, fingers clawing the air inches before his face. Her eyes were wild, her teeth bared.

  “Give me your heart! I must feast!” she growled in an inhuman voice.

  He screamed and clutched his heart as he raced for the door.