Captive

by A. D. Robertson

  “You have no idea how much I want you,” Jeremy murmured as he began to push down her jeans. “I love you, Sarah.”

  Sarah went rigid. She couldn’t breathe and her body numbed.

  I should say something. Sarah didn’t know what she could say. I have to say something.

  “Sarah?” Jeremy touched her cheek. It only made Sarah feel worse.

  “I think we should stop.” As gently as she could, Sarah pushed him away. Did she care about Jeremy? Yes. A lot. But she wasn’t in love with him and she wasn’t willing to lead him to believe she felt something that wasn’t there.

  Jeremy flinched and Sarah felt like a heavy stone was pressing on her chest.

  “I’m sorry.” Sarah rolled off the bed, grabbing her bra and shirt. “I’m not . . .”

  She couldn’t find any words that didn’t sound pathetic, or worse, hurtful.

  “I didn’t mean to—” Jeremy sat up, trying to get his pants back on with dignity.

  “It’s not your fault,” Sarah interrupted. “I just don’t want to do this because I think I might die.”

  There it was. The truth, kind of. Sarah had been fully prepared to sleep with Jeremy because she thought she might die. But she hadn’t been prepared for him to tell her he loved her. Because she didn’t love Jeremy. Maybe she could at some point down the road, but she didn’t yet, and she didn’t want to sleep with him and lead him to believe her heart was somewhere it wasn’t.

  “Okay.” Jeremy stared at the floor. “If that’s how you feel.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah murmured. She threw on her shirt and forced herself to walk, not run, from the room.

  Her heart was pounding and her stomach churning as she retreated to her own room.

  If I die a virgin, then I die a virgin. But at least I won’t die a liar.

  3

  AS USUAL, TRISTAN found the most challenging part of the hunt to be keeping Ares from throwing him. Though one of the finest horses Tristan had ever purchased, Ares couldn’t settle around the wolves. Despite the countless hunts the stallion had run alongside the Guardians, Ares was always uneasy around them—especially once they’d made their kill.

  While the stallion balked and pawed at the earth, blowing hard through his flared nostrils, Tristan watched the Guardians tear the buck to bloody shreds. It wasn’t a proper pack. Only five wolves served at Castle Tierney and they were veterans of the war, older but no longer deemed suitable to serve on the front lines of battle, although that was just as well. No one, including Bosque, expected the war to come to the walls of Tristan’s home. His being hidden away was merely a precaution, and a frustrating one at that.

  Despite the frustrations of his isolated habitat, Tristan had neither expected nor wanted to be one of Bosque’s pack masters. He’d always found the war and politics that consumed the lives of a handful of his fellow Keepers to be tiresome. Particularly since it wasn’t much of a war at all. The nuisance of occasional Searcher attacks near the Keepers’ sacred sites was akin to summer flies that chanced to buzz around Ares’s flank. The pesky creatures might irritate the stallion, but it was only a matter of time before they’d be dealt with by the swat of his tail.

  “I say, man,” Frederic called out. “Should we call them off and head back to the castle? Looks to me like there’s nothing but blood and gristle left at this point.”

  They’ll want the blood. Every last drop, Tristan thought, but didn’t say.

  Frederic waited for his reply sitting astride a Hanover gelding. Unlike Ares, Frederic’s mount seemed to have misplaced its instinctual fear of predators. The horse chomped placidly on grass while the wolves sated themselves a few meters away.

  Tristan half snorted in disgust. Frederic preferred the easier ride. Nary a hair of his shoulder-length, glossy brown locks had strayed from its place tied at the nape of his neck during their hunt. It seemed to Tristan that Frederic had yet to abandon the fashions and attitudes of the nineteenth century, wherein he’d come of age. He’d insisted on donning traditional riding garb for this hunt, which Tristan thought made him look like he was auditioning for a period film. Tristan preferred to ride in a T-shirt, jeans, and the black oilskin duster he favored for keeping warm and dry in the rainy weather so common to the island.

  Frederic hunted for the sake of appearance; that, and the enjoyment he got out of emptying his silver flask after the wolves made their kill. Without the challenge of keeping Ares in check while they raced across the rugged island terrain, Tristan wouldn’t enjoy these hunts at all.

  “How many is that?” Frederic tilted his flask at the white bones poking out between the press of growling, furred bodies wrangling for the remaining scraps of venison.

  “This month?” Tristan pursed his lips. “Six, I think. No. Maybe eight.”

  “You’ll need to replenish the herd soon,” Frederic told him. “I’ll have some yearlings and does shipped over. They should last a bit longer. The Guardians prefer going after the bigger kills, I’ve noticed.”

  “More of a challenge.” Tristan nodded. It was one way the Keepers’ wolves differed from their natural counterparts. Wolves in the wild would have picked out the easiest kill. Guardians reveled in the fight.

  Because it’s what they were made for, Tristan thought with a grimace. Not that his Guardians got much of fighting beyond these hunts. He often wondered if these wolf warriors assigned to watch over him were as resentful of their charge as he was of being looked after.

  “Seamus!” Tristan called out, and a hulking wolf with mottled brown and silver fur lifted his head. “Time to head home!”

  The wolf barked gruffly at his companions and the other wolves abandoned their meal and disappeared into the brush. Though the wolves could easily beat the pair of men on horseback in a race to the castle, Tristan knew that the beasts would run beside them, just out of sight so as to keep Ares from spooking. But the wolves wouldn’t stray from their charge, would never allow Tristan to wander too far from their watchful eyes. Guardians had been created to follow orders, to serve and do battle at the Keepers’ bidding. The wolves did their work well. And some days it was too much for Tristan to bear.

  Though he lived alone—for no Keeper would count his servants as peers—Tristan rarely claimed privacy. His movements were observed; his household carefully secured. Nothing could be amiss. No surprises or impromptu actions were permitted.

  Tristan could pass each day as he liked: a ride, a hunt, reading, writing, watching films, or sleeping the hours away. But his life only bore the semblance of freedom. He couldn’t leave the island, and neither could he abandon Castle Tierney to seek his fortune or wander the globe. His fate was tied to this place as deeply as if he were rooted to its soil.

  Ares’s hooves threw up clods of dirt as they galloped back to the castle. Its gray stone walls loomed large as the riders drew closer and Tristan’s mood soured. A hard ride and a good hunt buoyed his spirit, but never for long. When the wind no longer tore at his hair and he’d left the stallion in the stables, Tristan became too aware of how confined he felt. Even when he wasn’t surrounded by the fortifications of the castle, he was barricaded on all sides by a cold, turbulent sea that even the most seasoned fishermen of the mainland tended to avoid.

  With reluctance, Tristan reined Ares in, letting the stallion cool down at a walk for the remaining distance. Frederic pulled the gelding up beside him.

  “You’re off tonight, then?” Tristan asked his companion.

  “I have business in Germany,” Frederic apologized. Looking pointedly at Ares, he added, “I don’t suppose I could talk you into taking him with me.”

  Tristan’s laugh carried an edge. “You come for a visit and then propose to steal my best horse?”

  “Not steal, borrow.” Frederic smiled, but his voice was tight. “I only meant that it’s a shame to keep him here
when his stud fee would be phenomenal.”

  “Because you’re in need of funds?” Tristan asked archly. It was a snide, rhetorical question at best: there was so such thing as a Keeper with pecuniary difficulties.

  Frederic shrugged off Tristan’s acid tone. “There’s no need to get pugilistic. You know as well as I do that withholding that stallion from stud is ridiculous. And there are plenty of other horses in your stable to take on your hunts. He’d only be away for a month or two.”

  When they reached the stable, Tristan swung down from the saddle. Frederic dismounted and handed the gelding’s reins to a waiting groomsman.

  “Have you listened to a word I’ve said?” Frederic asked.

  Tristan offered Frederic a cursory glance. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Do.” Frederic pulled off his riding gloves. “I’ll need to prepare for my journey, but I’ll say my farewells before I depart.”

  “After I finish up here, I’ll have a drink in my study,” Tristan replied, flipping Ares’s reins over his bowed neck. “You can find me there.”

  Frederic gave a curt bow and headed toward the castle while Tristan led Ares into the stable. After Tristan had tethered the stallion outside his stall, he went about unsaddling and brushing the horse. There were groomsmen to perform this task, of course, but Tristan preferred to look after his mounts himself. The only way to truly know a horse and its habits was to do more than ride the beast and then put it away.

  As he brushed Ares’s neck and shoulders until they were glossy, Tristan considered Frederic’s suggestion. Maybe it wasn’t right to keep the stallion penned up on this island. He was fine stock, from a nearly priceless bloodline that could be traced back to the Godolphin Arabian. Not sending him to stud could well be a missed opportunity, and the isle Tristan called home didn’t have the space to set up a proper broodmare barn for rearing foals.

  Of course, he wouldn’t ship Ares off to be bred to just any mare. The bloodlines would have to be properly matched. Champion lines.

  Tristan paused midstroke. A sick feeling twisted through his gut.

  That’s all I am at the end of the day. A stud in Bosque’s stable. With the sole purpose of continuing Eira’s ancestral line as he sees fit.

  Tristan wondered, rather sardonically, how long it would be before Lord Mar suggested a female Keeper for Tristan to wed and father children upon. Would Bosque order some woman there to be sequestered from the world with Tristan? Perhaps he’d parade the eligible Keeper ladies through the castle until Tristan found one to his liking.

  Neither scenario was appealing.

  A polite cough at his back turned Tristan from the horse.

  “Yes, Owen?” Tristan greeted his steward.

  To describe Owen Banks as an unconventional steward was generous. His dress—a leather kilt and harness—gave him the appearance of a gladiator and revealed more skin than it covered.

  Tristan knew Owen’s wardrobe choice accommodated his broad, batlike wings, but Tristan half suspected that Owen selected gauche attire to mock his own role at the castle. As an incubus, Owen was accustomed to serving his master, but overseeing the mundane business of Tristan’s household must have felt like a glorified babysitting post to the nether creature, far less enjoyable than the usual work of incubi and succubi: seducing and manipulating feckless humans to feed off their emotional torment.

  “You’re needed in the castle,” Owen told Tristan. “I’ll have a groomsman finish up for you.”

  “I’ll finish myself,” Tristan said, irked by Owen’s presumption that he could so easily be commanded. He gave the incubus his back and continued brushing Ares.

  “Lord Mar is waiting in your study.”

  Tristan went still. When he turned around, Owen offered a bland smile.

  “But by all means,” Owen continued. “Take your time grooming the horse. Perhaps you’d like to braid his tail?”

  Tristan pivoted around and slammed the brush into Owen’s chest. The incubus stumbled back. Where the brush had struck his bare skin, a red welt bloomed.

  “You forget your place, Owen.” Tristan locked Owen in a cold stare. Anger made him breathe hard. His fists clenched.

  “Forgive me.” Owen bowed his head in submission, but Tristan could see his smile broaden.

  Dammit. Tristan knew better than to let Owen provoke him. The incubus was always eager to stir Tristan’s darker emotions and make a meal of them.

  Without any further acknowledgment of Owen’s apology, Tristan took long strides to swiftly exit the stable. He hurried up the stone steps of Castle Tierney’s keep.

  The study door was closed and Tristan heard no sounds emanating from within, but when he stepped into the room a fire crackled in the hearth and Lord Bosque Mar—who reigned over all the Keepers and was the very source of their power—leaned against the mantel. His appearance was as meticulous as ever. A well-cut, yet conservative, suit; dark hair neatly slicked back.

  Bosque wasn’t alone. Frederic knelt opposite Bosque’s imposing figure. Frederic’s head remained bowed, as if he were afraid to look directly at Lord Mar. The scene was familiar to Tristan. He was used to his fellow Keepers cowering in the presence of their overlord. Though he sometimes wondered if it was a fatal character flaw, Tristan had never understood the inherent awe that his peers showed when they encountered Bosque firsthand.

  As Tristan crossed the room to greet Lord Mar his only emotion was resignation.

  “Good evening, Tristan,” Bosque said.

  Tristan inclined his head in reply. He couldn’t quite stop his derisive glance at the still-simpering Frederic. Bosque noticed Tristan’s smirk and smiled.

  “Rise, Frederic,” Bosque said with a wry, mocking tone. “Your obeisance is duly noted.”

  “Th-thank you, m-my lord,” Frederic stammered as he awkwardly unfolded from his kneeling position.

  Bosque clasped his hands at his back. “I understand you’re leaving us.”

  “I have business—” Frederic’s eyes widened, as if he expected an admonishment.

  “Of course you do.” Bosque cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “And I know you would never neglect matters of great import.”

  Tristan’s brow furrowed. Something in Bosque’s tone was off. His voice was smooth, but beneath the surface it seemed coiled like a snake ready to strike.

  “Tell me,” Bosque continued. “When did you last visit your Swiss château?”

  Frederic blanched. “I’m not sure . . . a month ago, maybe two . . .”

  “It is a vacation home, is it not?” Bosque’s silver eyes flared with cold light. “Your visits are infrequent.”

  “I suppose,” Frederic tittered.

  “Guardians sometimes fail in their duty,” Bosque said. “As lower creatures, one can only expect so much. However, in this case the failure lies with the master, not the servant.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord?” Frederic had gone very pale.

  “What’s happened?” Tristan asked. The flat, unyielding clarity of Bosque’s tone set Tristan’s teeth on edge. Something was about to happen, and it wasn’t good.

  Bosque offered Tristan an apologetic smile. “Your guest saw fit to forbid his Guardian retinue entry to his home. He also saw fit to reduce the patrol to one Guardian.”

  “It’s just a château—” Frederic began.

  “A château that Searchers broke into two days ago,” Bosque told him.

  “Searchers?” Frederic blurted. “But why? There’s nothing—”

  “Of course we don’t know why,” Bosque replied. “Because a single Guardian was unable to repel the attack. The Searchers escaped and we have no idea what they may have gleaned from their little excursion.”

  Frederic collapsed to his knees and began blubbering.

 
Sensing movement at the study door, Tristan half turned and saw the wolves stalking into the study.

  “Lord Mar.” Tristan glanced in alarm at the tall man.

  “A lesson must be learned, Tristan,” Bosque told him, keeping Frederic locked in his gaze. “Guardians are exceptionally skilled at their work. To forget why they serve us is a dishonor to our cause and their special place among us.”

  Tristan’s throat constricted, knowing there was nothing he could do to help Frederic.

  The Guardians silently approached Bosque; when they reached him, the wolves dropped to their bellies and licked the tips of his shoes.

  “Frederic.” Bosque smiled at the shaking, sobbing man. “Let me show you how proficient Guardians are in their work.”

  Tristan didn’t even see Bosque signal the Guardians to attack, but in the space of a breath the wolves were on their feet. They wheeled around, snarling at Frederic.

  Frederic only had time enough for utter horror to register on his face before the wolves were on him. Their teeth tore through his clothes, seeking flesh. Frederic screamed as the Guardians ripped chunks of skin and muscle from Frederic’s arms and legs.

  Despite the appalling scene, Tristan knew he wasn’t permitted to leave the study until Bosque said otherwise. Tristan went to a table where several crystal decanters rested. He poured himself a scotch before he turned to face Bosque. He wasn’t surprised to find the tall man’s assessing gaze fixed on him. Tristan had the sudden sensation of the two of them in a space apart from the brutal execution taking place only a few feet away.

  “You don’t care for Frederic,” Bosque said. It didn’t sound like a question.

  As if that matters now. Tristan shrugged. “We have different passions.”

  A slow smile overtook Bosque’s lips. “And what are your passions, dear Tristan?”

  Cursing his choice of words, Tristan quickly said, “I only meant that I prefer a brisk day and a hard ride, where Frederic would as soon watch others at sport rather than exert himself.”