A Raven's Heart

by K. C. Bateman

  “I heard he’s dying,” Heloise said quietly.

  He curled his lip. “The bastard’s been threatening to die for the past six years. I don’t care. He can keep his money and his poxy titles.” He scowled at her disapproving expression.

  “Your father’s titles are yours by right. I don’t understand why you refuse to accept them.”

  “I don’t need them, or the money. I’ve made my own fortune, without any help from him.”

  “But you could be the duke one day.”

  “The title will die with my grandfather. He wants forgiveness, but absolution is something I will never give him.”

  “You can’t mean that. Whatever he’s done, he’s still your grandfather, still family.”

  Raven sighed at her endless, unquenchable optimism. “We share blood, but he’s not my family. Your brothers are my family, and my brothers in arms. Tony and Nic, Richard and Kit.”

  She shook her head. “You should still forgive him. He’d lost his son and daughter-in-law. He could have had you, but instead he alienated you. You should pity him that money was more important to him than family.”

  “Christ. You’re so much kinder than me, Hellcat. I can’t do it.”

  She sighed and he steeled himself against her look of reproach.

  “What did you think about?” she asked, clearly realizing he would not be drawn on the subject. “When you were alone in that cell?”

  He considered lying to her. Considered telling her he’d quoted Shakespeare and dreamed of desert islands. But the truth streamed out of him and he was helpless to stop it.

  “The same thing I thought of when that gun was at my head,” he said quietly. “I thought of you.”

  Chapter 24

  Heloise stilled.

  “Me?” she whispered.

  The air between them thickened. The look in his eyes stirred something primitive within her, like the warmth of flames or the need for food and shelter. He threw aside his stone, crossed to her in two strides, and gripped her shoulders so tightly she could almost feel the bruises forming on her skin. Heloise lifted her face, anticipating his kiss, craving it.

  A cry of alarm and gunfire echoed from outside. Raven released her with a curse and sprinted toward the cave mouth. Heloise grabbed the lantern and followed him, stumbling in her haste. Two more shots rang out, their sound a monstrous echo that filled the cave, as Raven fired his own pistols.

  She ran straight into a nightmare.

  There was no sign of Mullaney, but Canning lay facedown in the dirt next to the bodies of two men she didn’t recognize. Raven must have shot them. Three more strangers, each armed with a knife, surrounded Raven, who threw down his spent pistols and drew his own blade as he advanced.

  “Stay back,” he shouted to her.

  One of the men lunged. Raven leaped back as the man slashed, then parried the knife and caught his attacker around the neck. He kicked out a leg and knocked over the second man. While he fell backward onto the ground, Raven put his hands around his captive’s head and gave a quick twist. There was a sickening crack. The man’s shoulders and torso contorted, and his limbs fell limp.

  Raven dropped the body to the ground just as the third man leaped forward. The man swung and Raven hissed as the knife caught him across the ribs. He grabbed his assailant’s arm, pushed the blade aside, and punched him twice in the face, breaking his nose. Blood sprayed onto the dusty floor and the man howled in pain, but he didn’t go down. He swung wildly and managed to catch Raven on the jaw.

  Heloise pressed herself against the uneven rock at the mouth of the cave, her breathing harsh and uneven. Bile rose in her throat.

  The man who’d been kicked to the ground heaved himself up with a groan. Ignoring the fight between Raven and his friend, he advanced on Heloise, an ugly look of determination on his face. She shrank back against the wall, then realized she still held the lantern. As the man came closer she swung her arm with all her might and caught him across the shoulder.

  He batted her arm aside with a roar and grabbed her hair, twirling her around to imprison her from behind. His scrawny forearm tightened across her neck and Heloise froze in terror as she felt the cold sting of a blade at her throat. His other arm caught her around the waist and he started to drag her backward into the cave. Heloise clawed his arm, but desperation had lent him a demonic strength. She cringed away from the overpowering stench of him, rank with sweat and dust. His hand cupped over her breast and he squeezed, hard. He panted something in her ear, and while she didn’t understand the words, his meaning was terrifyingly clear. He inhaled deeply, drawing her scent into his lungs, then sniffed her hair.

  Heloise cried out in disgust and renewed her struggles. She threw a desperate glance at Raven and saw him deliver a brutal punch that sent his opponent sagging to the ground, unconscious. Chest heaving, he turned and advanced with the predatory grace of a stalking panther.

  “Don’t come any closer or I’ll kill her,” her captor shouted.

  Raven’s eyes flashed.

  The man holding her must have read their murderous intent. “I mean it. Stay back.”

  He pressed his knife harder into her neck. Heloise whimpered as it pricked a sharp slice into her skin and a hot trickle of blood slid down the side of her throat.

  Raven tilted his head, as if pondering the many ways to end the man’s life. His relaxed smile was chilling. “Let her go and I’ll kill you quickly.”

  His voice was low and mesmerizing, a total contrast to the other man’s panicked squeak. Her captor backed away, dragging Heloise with him, using her as a human shield. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands. Put down your weapon.”

  “All right.” Raven made a show of straightening his fingers away from the knife hilt. He bent and placed it slowly on the floor. “Now what do you suggest?”

  “Kick it away. That’s better. Now, I’m—”

  Raven’s arm moved so quickly it was a blur. Heloise saw him move at the same instant the arms restraining her went limp and the man’s body dropped away. A thud and a hideous gargling noise sounded behind her. Confused, she started to turn, even as Raven shouted, “Don’t—!”

  She glanced down. Her captor was on the ground, a knife protruding from the front of his throat. He clutched at it feebly, his eyes wide with shock. His heels dug tracks in the stony gravel as he writhed and then stilled.

  Horror crawled like maggots under her skin. That was Raven’s knife. He’d thrown it right past her head. She backed away. A wave of nausea threatened and she pressed her hand to her mouth. A buzzing sounded in her ears.

  A muffled whimper made her turn. The soldier Raven had punched had regained consciousness and was trying to crawl away back to the horses, dragging his injured body over the rocky ground. Heloise turned her head and found Raven watching her with an expression that was impossible to define; dark and helpless and furious all in one.

  “I told you not to look,” he said.

  There was no inflection in his voice. He shot her a last hard look, as if to satisfy himself she wasn’t going to faint, picked up his discarded knife, and strode over to the retreating survivor.

  Heloise murmured a protest as he grabbed the man’s shirt and threw him over onto his back. The man cried out and raised his hands to protect his face but Raven dodged them easily and slapped him across the face with an open palm.

  Heloise let out a moan at his brutality. “Don’t—”

  He ignored her, bent down to place his face in the whimpering man’s line of vision. “Why are you here. Who sent you?”

  The very quietness of his voice acted as a warning. Raven rarely raised his voice; a whisper was far more effective than a shout. The man was trying to scuttle backward like a crab, but Raven kept hold of his shirt.

  “No one! We were just going to steal the horses, that’s all. I swear.”

  Another slap. “I don’t believe you. Who sent you?” Raven raised his hand again but did not strike.
>
  It was threat enough. Blabbering now, the man spat blood and wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. “I don’t—nobody sent me.” He glanced in horror at his two dead comrades and started to sob. “Let me go. I just want to go home. Please. Just let me go home.”

  Raven nodded, as if the information were confirmation of what he already knew. He transferred the knife to his right hand.

  “No!” Heloise cried.

  He looked over at her and his eyes were cold. He bent over the man, ready to kill.

  “No!” she repeated. She kept her eyes on him, knew they must be wide with horror and fear. “Don’t kill him.”

  “Why not?” The cool, inhuman look on his face was terrifying and Heloise took a step back from the casual savagery she read there. He seemed a stranger, suddenly remote, with infinity between them; a distance so vast it could never be breached.

  “Let him go.” She heard the quaver of panic in her own voice but didn’t dare look away.

  Raven’s knuckles whitened on the man’s shirt. He shook his head. “He would have killed you. Raped you.”

  “He’s a victim, too.” She took a tentative step toward him, maintaining eye contact, certain that if she broke the connection, the man would die. “Desperate men do desperate things. You of all people should understand that.” She kept her voice low, reasonable. “Let him go. You don’t need another murder on your conscience. Have mercy.”

  Raven shot the man a disgusted, uncomprehending glance, like a wolf being ordered to spare the lamb. “He would have killed you,” he repeated. “How can you have any compassion for such a piece of human filth?” He made clemency sound like the worst kind of insult. A defect. A weakness.

  “Please,” she whispered. “For me.”

  He stilled. And then all the tension leeched out of him. He gave the man a disgusted shake and dropped him back into the dirt. The man moaned in wordless relief, then shrank back as Raven leaned in close.

  “You will not touch her. Not so long as I draw breath. If I see you again, I will kill you.”

  The man whimpered in agreement.

  Heloise almost sagged in relief as Raven sheathed his dagger and stepped back, but then his fist whipped round and he punched the man clean across the jaw, causing him to slump senseless onto the ground. She shot Raven a look of reproach, of condemnation.

  He returned it with his own, mocking, insolent. “Stop looking at me like that. He’s not dead, is he?”

  Her breath caught on a shuddery sob as she pressed shaking fingers to her lips. “You were going to kill him.”

  “Yes.” He looked at her as if she were an idiot. “He hurt you. And if I have to choose between you or him, it’s simple. I choose you.”

  The words hung in the air between them like a dark promise, a vow. He sent her an immeasurable look; both savage and beautiful at once. Heloise’s stomach lurched. He was a terrifying sight, his fists red with blood, his lip split, his hair dirty and disheveled. Her heart gave an uncomfortable jolt as he strode toward her, stopping a foot away.

  His eyes narrowed. “For God’s sake, cover yourself.”

  She glanced down and realized that the front of her bodice had been torn. Her left breast was almost completely exposed to his view. She clutched the sagging cloth to her chest as a hot wave of shame and outrage scorched her skin. He raised his hand and she flinched. A bitter smile twisted his lips at her unguarded reaction. He reached out again, slower this time, his expression silently challenging her to stay still. He steadied her jaw and brushed the pad of his thumb over her lips, the silent gentleness at odds with the fierce expression on his face.

  Her lower lip tingled as he rolled it down and brushed the slick inner lining. The tension that had started inside the cave sprang to life again. Total prickling awareness. It arced and fizzled in the air, so tangible she half expected to see it.

  Her breath caught in her throat. A bright red smear of blood streaked his thumb. She watched, spellbound, as he brought it up and licked it clean, exactly as he had done with the rose-flavored sweet. She stilled, both repulsed and inexplicably aroused by such a primitive gesture. Her blood in his mouth. She felt faint.

  “Are you afraid now, Hellcat?” He leaned in, and his huge shoulders blocked out the sun. “Because you should be.”

  She swallowed painfully and nodded.

  “Good.”

  Chapter 25

  The moment was broken by a rustle from the bushes. Heloise braced for another attack, but Sergeant Mullaney staggered into the clearing, almost bent double.

  “Bastards jumped me from behind,” he groaned, sinking down on a rock and trying to staunch a wound at the back of his head. He pulled his hand away and scowled at the red smear.

  A pitiful groan diverted their attention.

  “Sergeant Canning!” Heloise rushed to the boy’s side and turned him gently onto his back. His right eye was a mess, swollen shut and turning black, but he was alive. Heloise breathed a silent prayer of thanks.

  He struggled to speak. “I’m so sorry, my lady. I—”

  Heloise stroked his forehead. “Shh, it’s all right. Don’t try to talk.”

  He tried to sit up, the stubborn child. She rubbed his back as he linked his arms around his bent knees and dropped his head onto them in an attitude of pain and exhaustion.

  Raven strode off into the scrub and returned leading Hades. He stopped in front of Canning.

  “Let’s get you back to camp. You’ll ride with me.”

  Canning cried out as Raven helped him to his feet, but made no complaint when Raven swung up behind him on the horse. His face was as pale as a ghost. Heloise winced in sympathy. From the odd angle of his left arm it was clear he’d broken a bone.

  She helped Mullaney bind the gash on his head with his sash, untied Persephone, and followed behind without a word. Canning passed out before they even made it halfway down the hill, which was probably a mercy. Raven was ominously silent.

  The setting sun pained the landscape with a glorious palette of colors, as if mocking her dark thoughts with its beauty. A wave of guilt washed over her. Canning’s injury was all her fault. He could have been killed. If she hadn’t insisted on ignoring Raven’s advice…

  The silence began to wear on her nerves. Her teeth began to chatter and she wished Raven would just shout and rail at her for her stupidity. She deserved it. But no, this was worse, this silent, brooding disapproval.

  Their arrival at the palace elicited cries of alarm, but Raven brushed them all aside. Directed by a visibly shaken Scovell he carried Canning to his barracks room, sent someone for a doctor, then strode off without a glance at Heloise. He remounted Hades and started toward the doorway.

  “Where are you going?” she called out after him, hating the catch of panic in her voice.

  “Wherever I damn well please,” he growled.

  —

  Raven headed out of the city. Bloody woman. She probably thought he was going back to finish off that last attacker. He wasn’t. Not that he wasn’t aching to kill the bastard, slowly and painfully. The whoreson had threatened her. He’d make it last a full week. The ones he’d killed straightaway had been let off too lightly. Swift deaths had been far too merciful. But no, he’d told her he wouldn’t, hadn’t he?

  When he reached a stream he stripped off his clothes and waded in. He washed the blood from his swollen knuckles, then ducked under the water and washed his hair.

  The frigid water was a relief. It cooled some of his anger and cleared his head. He closed his eyes as the appalling truth crystallized. He’d killed four men. Right in front of her.

  He kept seeing her face, white with fear, eyes wide, lips bloodless, that murderous knife at her throat. She’d been bleeding—her lip from where she’d bitten it in her struggles, her neck from where the bastard had nicked her with his knife. His stomach rolled. That knife had been right over her artery. All that spirit, gone in the blink of an eye.

  A black tide of despair engulfed him
. He’d tried to warn her. He’d told her he was a killer. But she hadn’t comprehended the horrifying, visceral reality of it. Not until today. Despair gnawed away at his insides.

  He groaned and sank under the water again. She’d seen him at his most violent. His most feral. And yet she’d cut through his black rage. The little idiot had begged for mercy for her attacker. And, miracle upon miracle, he’d listened.

  He should have known she wouldn’t sit meekly and wait for him back at the palacio. If he hadn’t been so intent on finding Kit he’d have remembered she wasn’t the kind of girl to take no for an answer. She was disobedient, stubborn, headstrong, infuriating. He hated the turmoil she aroused in him. Hated himself for wanting her so fiercely.

  Raven scrubbed a hand over his face and winced at a bruise forming on his jaw. He should have comforted her at the cave, should have gathered her into his arms and just stroked her back or something. But how could she welcome his touch when she’d seen him kill with those same hands? She was going to be terrified of him now, and rightly so. Part of him wanted it, but most of him rebelled at the idea. She had to know that he’d never hurt her. He’d rather kill himself than harm a single hair on her head.

  He dropped his chin to his chest. At least now she’d keep her distance, exactly as she’d done after that god-awful night six years ago.

  He’d made her hate him then, too.

  Her brothers had always taken advantage of her inability to turn down a challenge, no matter how outlandish, and that day they’d told her to go and hide, knowing she was such a stubborn little devil she’d refuse to come out unless she was actually “found.” They’d enjoyed a good hour of uninterrupted fishing, and when the time came to go and find her, Raven had drawn the short straw.

  He’d had a fairly good idea of where she was hiding: the grotto, a shell-encrusted monstrosity created by one of his ancestors, right on the border between their two adjoining properties. The folly had been built to resemble artless ruins, with a series of seashell-covered caves built into the natural tunnels that led through the cliffs to caves at the coast.