Heart of the Hunter

by Lara Adrian

  Now she frowned. "You have no say in what I do. You cannot keep me from going to my brother."

  "I can, Ariana, and I will. I won't permit you to hand over that satchel to his captors."

  "You won't permit me?"

  "That's right. From now on, I decide our course of action. 'Tis the only way."

  She got to her feet, her arms held rigidly at her sides. "What about Kenrick?"

  "What about him?"

  "His life depends on me delivering his ransom."

  "And both of our lives are worthless if you do."

  "I will deliver this satchel to his captors, Braedon. I must. You cannot force me in this."

  Her rising anger did not pique him. He merely gave her a sober look and tried to reason with her, sensing it would be futile. "You would rather willingly go to your death in Rouen?"

  "I won't abandon Kenrick. He's all I have left." Her chin quivered, but the ferocity of her resolve blazed strongly in her eyes. "If you think I will let my brother die, you are more than wrong, sirrah."

  "Ariana, these men have no regard for human life. If your brother yet lives, his fate was likely sealed the moment he was captured by them." She looked at him as if she did not, or could not, understand. He knew she did. She understood, but Braedon felt he had to say it anyway, to make her realize the stark coldness of what awaited her in Rouen. "They will certainly kill him, Ariana. They will have to."

  "Just to get their hands on that satchel?"

  "No. To get their hands on the Dragon Chalice."

  "Is that what he's been studying, then--this Dragon Chalice? I've never heard of it."

  "You are better off if you don't. It's likely too late for your brother."

  "No." Her eyes took on a wild sheen. Vigorously, she shook her head. "Don't say that. Don't--"

  "I'm not trying to hurt you or frighten you. I'm trying to spare you. The moment you turn over that satchel--providing your brother is still alive at all--once these people have what they need, they will kill him. And then they will kill you. Neither of you will be allowed to live once they have the information in that bag. You are walking into a trap, Ariana. A deadly one."

  "I was assured that Kenrick would not be harmed," she replied with tenacious conviction. "I was told that neither of us was in any danger, so long as I delivered what they wanted."

  "Do you really believe that? After seeing what you have in Calais, can you truly afford to believe it now?"

  With a cry of distress, she pulled out of his slack hold and turned away from him. Shrouded in the dark brown blanket, she hugged herself and took a handful of steps toward the opposite side of the cavern.

  Braedon growled an oath. If he cared a whit for his own neck, he would take his stolen mount and leave her to face her business in Rouen on her own. The fact that she was learning the futility of her quest should not bother him in the slightest. He should not feel the need to comfort her. But before he could tell himself it was a mistake to reach out to her, Braedon stalked up to her trembling back and turned her to face him. Mute with her tears, she said nothing as he reached out and encircled her in his arms. Her hair was damp silk against his chin, cool and fragrant beneath his nose. He brought her closer to him, embracing her as her emotions rocked her.

  "Please," she whispered against his chest, her breath warming his skin. "Take me to Rouen. Send me there alone, I don't care. Whatever happens to me, I willingly accept. I know you have no reason to help me. I know I made a bargain with you in London...I know what I already owe you."

  "Do you, demoiselle?"

  "Yes."

  She drew back and lifted her gaze to look at him. Braedon glanced down into that innocent face and felt a pulsing surge of hunger flood him. Mad as it was to desire her when he could all but hear the thundering approach of their pursuers drawing closer by the moment, Braedon did desire her. He wanted Ariana with a hunger he could scarcely reconcile. A base part of him moved to assure him that what she said was true. She did owe him something. Something he dearly wanted to claim.

  With a gentleness he would have thought beyond himself, he reached out to smooth an errant lock from her brow. Her lips parted at the contact, not quite a gasp, nor a sigh. Braedon took her face in his hands, framing the delicate bones of her cheeks as he swept her tears away with the pads of his thumbs. Her long hair, unbound and draped about her shoulders like a veil, felt soft as silk against the backs of his hands. He let his fingers wander deeper into the glorious mass, casually fisting his hand around a thick skein of the feathery strands. Holding her thus, his grip mildly possessive, his hard gaze unable to conceal his want, he let his free hand trace a gentle pattern along her delicate jaw and neck. She trembled under his touch. She quivered, breathing shallowly as he explored her tender skin, but she did not try to pull away. Braedon flicked a glance up to her eyes as he slid his hand along the exquisite line of her shoulder.

  His hand yet bound in the silken rope of her hair, he pulled her closer, pressing her curves against his rigid body. A knowing flash of anticipation darkened her eyes to a delectable shade of midnight blue as she gazed up at him. She sucked in a little breath of air as he coaxed her head back and bent to press his mouth to hers. She drew back at the first brush of their lips, a momentary hesitation, but her tension fled as quickly as it came. Braedon settled his mouth more firmly over hers, savoring the innocence, the wonder, in her untutored response to his tender assault.

  It was that guilelessness that threatened to undo him. Her fearlessness, even now, when she had to know he wanted more. It was all he could do to resist the need that grew within him. With a moan, he broke away, lifting his head before he savaged her with the full measure of his hunger.

  "There. It is done now," he told her, his voice husky and raw from the quickening of his body. She gazed up at him in wordless confusion, her sensual mouth still pliant and welcoming as he drew back to gaze down at her in the firelight. "Your price is paid, Ariana. Don't make any more bargains with me."

  She took the warning with a flush of color filling her cheeks.

  "Your debt is cleared, so you have no reason to fear my intentions," he said, nearly growling the words. "Now, take off your wet clothes and put them near the fire."

  She stared up at him, doubt flickering in her eyes.

  "I'll give you a moment of privacy to change. You'll find a tunic in my pack. You can don that until your things are dry."

  Without another word, Braedon turned and stalked away from her, before he could give in to the desire that was still pounding through his veins. He left her in the cave alone, walking out into the night for fresh air and a clearer head. Outside in the dark, he heard her move to the fireside and drop the woolen blanket that had shrouded her like armor. Her kirtle went next. She was well out of his line of vision, but that didn't matter. Braedon's hearing was acute, accursedly so. And his hunter's mind was all too willing to play along.

  With the same keen skills he used to track any prey, his senses fixed on Ariana. He listened, and caught the rough slide of wool skating down a lithe form, pooling softly on the ground. He heard the wispy crush of her linen chemise smoothing over the sweet flare of her hips, the curve of waist and generous swell of her breasts as she drew it over her head and shed it. He breathed, and scented the warm, woman smell of her, the spicy soap she'd used in her bath at Calais still lingering on her clean skin. He could almost taste the sweetness of her on his tongue.

  God knew he wanted to. And would, if he had to spend another night with her.

  By the time the chemise floated to the earth at her bare feet, he had endured the sensory torture long enough. With a snarl of heated frustration, he slipped farther into the bracing night, before the tenuous leash on his desire snapped altogether.

  * * *

  The sail maker’s shop held the stench of death. It permeated the small, unlit abode, announcing itself the moment the door to the shop creaked open. Outside the threshold, a large black boot paused, the savage-looking spur
at its heel gleaming pale silver against dark in the gathering twilight. A rolling gust of wind blew in off the wharf to snatch at the hem of a long mantle woven of rich, bloodred wool. It rippled in dark, undulating folds, the snap of heavy fabric the only sound in a street gone still and stagnant with the coming of night.

  The shop's vile stench grew worse on the invading chill breeze, but the knight whose muscular frame now crowded the open doorway scarcely reacted. Only the slightest curl of his lip betrayed his revulsion. His anger was kept on tighter rein.

  He stepped inside the cramped shop and took in the signs of struggle with a keen, unfeeling eye. A toppled stool, abandoned work spread out on the table, splattered candle wax coagulated and hard where it spilled across its surface. In a dark corner of an adjacent room lay an old man. He was dead and ripe going on a day, by the stink of him. His head was twisted at an odd angle, neck clearly snapped, his frail body brutalized and broken like a twig crushed beneath the heel of a bear.

  The bear was, in fact, a mercenary soldier, one of three who'd been dispatched to Calais to keep a watch on the harbor's comings and goings. They had all failed in the task. Now, this one was dead, lying prone on the floor of the workroom, his lifeblood spent from a dagger wound in his back. A coward's death for a barbaric man who had seemed to know no fear while he was breathing.

  His commander, the tall, red-and-black clad knight who stood over the soldier's unmoving bulk, spared his murder nary a thought. He stepped around the bloody pool and strode to the sole window in the tiny room. With a hand gloved in black leather, he wiped away a smattering of frost crystals from the diamond-cut panes of glass and let his gaze sweep the quiet harbor beyond.

  "Did anyone see the girl?" he asked, addressing another knight who stood behind him.

  He did not have to turn around to know that the dolt was nearly pissing himself in terror. As well he should. The idiot and his companion had left their horses unattended while they searched one of the city's inns, an error that had cost them both mounts to thievery. This one had waited for further orders, but his partner had decided it more prudent to be absent for this accounting, having evidently left to give chase on foot.

  As much as he despised failure, the knight understood that it was not his place to mete out punishment. For that, he answered to a higher power. And besides, why waste precious time whipping one's hounds when the hare might yet be quivering in the bracken nearby?

  "The girl," he repeated, when it seemed fear had robbed the soldier of his dubious wit altogether. "Did either of you happen to see her, or the man she is traveling with?"

  "N-no, sir. The pair was gone from their room when the innkeeper admitted us entry."

  No doubt speeding away on a couple of geldings that were all but handed to them for making their escape, the knight thought with a grim lift of his brow. They could be leagues away from Calais, were that the case. If they set foot in any of the coastal towns between here and Brittany, he would hear of it soon enough, for he had taken care to post guards days ago at all the ports along the Channel.

  Not that his coastal defenses were much good to him now. His quarry had fled, and had no doubt been chased inland. If she thought to head directly for Rouen--and if she knew her way around France--she could be there in a matter of days. That did not leave him much time.

  "We did get descriptions of both from the innkeeper," the soldier said from behind him, rushing on to fill the silence of his commander's contemplation. "The girl is fair and petite--a golden-haired beauty, so says the innkeeper."

  He gave a caustic grunt. "That will certainly narrow things down." He felt a bump against his calf and looked down to see a fat tabby cat twining between his feet. "And the man," he said, hardly bothering to gauge the worthless information he was getting from the soldier. "I don't suppose we have aught to go on where he is concerned."

  "Aye, well, the man should be easier to spot, sir. He bears a scar on his face, as I understand it. An old knife wound that runs the length of his cheek."

  The dark head came up at that news, and although the knight registered an inward note of surprise, he gave no indication of his reaction as he turned at last to face his man. "Which side?"

  "Sir?"

  "His face," he growled, knowing the answer but needing to hear it voiced nevertheless. "Which side of his face was cut?"

  The dullard frowned for a moment, considering. "Why, the left, sir." He nodded his big head. "Aye, the innkeeper said 'twas the left side of his face what bore the hideous mark."

  Le Chasseur.

  The name chased through his head like a ghost. Could it be? he wondered. Was it merely coincidence, this scarred stranger's interference, or had the famed Hunter not learned his lesson the first time--what was it, a year ago, mayhap closer to two years now?

  The knight in the bloodred mantle began to chuckle, low under his breath. He felt certain it was Braedon le Chasseur who accompanied the girl.

  It had to be.

  Who else but his old friend would have the ballocks to cross him after what happened that night in Normandy?

  In the cramped space of the little shop room, the soldier began to fidget under his commander's cold stare. "Do you reckon we should take word to Rouen of the girl's arrival...and, er, her escape, sir?"

  "No," answered the knight. "Breathe naught of this to anyone." He stepped away from the window and strode past the man with deadly purpose. "I will handle it personally."

  Chapter 10

  For some long hours into the night, Ariana did not sleep. She dozed once or twice, but for a duration that felt like mere moments. Most of the time, she lay awake on her improvised pallet of blankets, her mind spinning to make sense of the strange course of events that had carried her from the dull cocoon of safety she had known within Clairmont's fortress walls to this cold, dangerous place across the sea. She had gone into the task of rescuing Kenrick with a clear enough head; after all, it had seemed so simple a thing to manage. Locate the papers he had been working on, deliver them to the appointed meeting place in Rouen, then collect her brother. So straightforward, yet none of it had played out the way she imagined. Least of all her unwilling dependence on the scarred warrior who shared the cramped space of the dimly lit cavern.

  Now it all felt to her as part of a dark dream--her ill-fated dealings with Monsieur Ferrand and James' terrible demise at the London docks, the treacherous journey from England through Calais, the mysterious findings contained in Kenrick's journals, the strange and deadly enemies suddenly in pursuit of her....

  And Braedon.

  Blessed Mary, she knew not what to make of him at all, perhaps less so now than when she had first encountered him in London. He was dangerous and forbidding, she knew that just to look at him. He held no mercy where his enemies were concerned; his wrath was swift and thorough and unforgiving. But there was a tenderness about him, too, a fact Ariana suspected he preferred to keep hidden behind the mask of detachment he wore so well.

  And but a short while ago, he had kissed her for the second time.

  He hadn't meant it, of course. Not really. He had done it to prove a point, to distract her from what he probably feared would be an oncoming fit of emotional hysteria, or perhaps to mock her even as he dismissed one of her many worries. But as fleeting as it had been, whether falsely offered or nay, Ariana's lips still burned with the memory of his mouth pressed on hers. To her utter bewilderment, more than any measure of fear or distress, that kiss was the true source of her present state of restlessness.

  Ariana lay curled on her side, her back to the fire, staring at the dance of shadows cast on the cavern wall and high, arced ceiling. Seeming of their own volition, her fingers released the ratted edge of the woolen blanket and slowly crept up to her mouth. She pressed her fingertips against her lips, touching the place where Braedon's kiss still lingered.

  Without thinking, she flipped over on her pallet and let out a lengthy sigh. As the soft exhalation sifted into the quiet of the cave, he
r gaze lit on him. He had returned to the cave and sat guard while she slept, a position he maintained still. Sitting half in darkness, a brooding figure amid the shadows just outside the reach of the fire. His back was braced against the granite wall, one leg stretched out before him, the other bent at the knee to support the elbow that rested on it. Even in the dim light, she could see that his dark gray gaze was locked on her face, as if he had been watching her for some time.

  "You're still awake," she whispered, rising off the pallet of old blankets to sit up. It was freezing in the cavern, she realized once her coverlet slipped off and the rush of night air seeped through her the weave of her borrowed tunic. She bundled herself into the blanket's warmth and shivered off the last of the chill. "Aren't you cold? You gave me all of the blankets."

  Braedon didn't answer her. His dark gaze dragged from her to the crackling little fire in front of them. Ariana got up and crept closer to the flames' warmth. On the ground nearby was Kenrick's satchel and its scattered contents. She eyed the collection with more than a small bit of disdain. If not for the information it held, her brother might be safe and happy at Clairmont. James, her guardsman, would be alive, and she would not be at the mercy of the dark, brooding man who seemed presently intent on ignoring her.

  Distant and perplexing, he had only gotten more so after what happened in Calais. Ariana thought she would never purge from her memory the sight of what occurred in the sail maker’s shop. Nothing she had ever seen, read, or heard about in all her eighteen years could explain the shifting form of the man Braedon killed before her eyes. She was not one given to superstition, nor had she ever credited such things as magic or the dark arts, but she could hardly dismiss the bizarre incident as anything less than unexplainable.