Captured by Her Enemy Knight

by Nicole Locke

  She had lost some of her father’s respect and care that day. Now she was attempting to be someone she was not. Her father had made her one way, but she wanted to be Eldric’s way. To hear music, laughter.

  But Eldric wasn’t what she had made him out to be in her childhood fanciful dreams. No matter how strong or mighty he appeared, how handsome, if he could judge her so easily, so callously, then...he wasn’t who she thought he was.

  He sunk further in his chair, fighting to keep his eyes open. One bright flare of pity at his condition had her hating him. He didn’t deserve any kindness. She took a few steps closer to him and weighted her next words with all the meaning they could possibly contain. ‘Yes, I poisoned you. And I’d do it again if I could.’

  Without looking back, she carefully unhooked the latch bolting the small cabin door and left Eldric of Hawksmoor behind.

  * * *

  Eldric couldn’t open his eyes. Couldn’t move his legs or arms. Waves of sleep were overcoming him, but the rage inside him fought back and his mind, though not clear, stayed aware.

  Enough to hear her feet up the steps, to know that if she wasn’t stopped at the top, he would find her. Find the duplicitous Archer who had tricked him. Another wave. Darkness hovered along the edges. He slept, fought it. Lost time. Slowly, his mind became his own again.

  The anger helped. The betrayal. He’d shared parts of his childhood with her, the times he was at Edward’s court. Nothing he revealed compared to the agony of her life, but still she had asked him questions. Her eyes had lit like stars when he told her anything remotely humorous.

  And she was...she was the woman he had danced with last winter. He tried to tell her the significance of that moment for him, knew he failed as his body reacted to her. As she responded. Each touch something new and, because it was her, startling in meaning. His heart...

  The Archer had poisoned him! Killed his friends and... Some memory scraped across his fogged mind. He cursed the poison. Had he known she could do something so vile as to pour it into his mead, to give him...

  Poured it into his mead. He had held the goblet when they argued, but he was given the drink before, when they were merely rising from the shared bed. When he wanted to talk of her father and make plans for his capture. She’d put the draught in his drink then.

  Ah! A tingling in his right foot.

  She hadn’t done it out of anger. She’d poisoned him...to protect him.

  As she told him she’d done before. He should have asked more questions. She had confessed to watching him since childhood, but her father hadn’t ordered her to do so. How had she seen him? Why would he be of any concern to a child. His size? But she had never acted as if that was any significance to her. Which was significant to him.

  When he saw her again, he’d beg to know more. Contradictions were everywhere and this sense of certainty with her did not cease despite knowing her past, her deeds. Who was she? How could he reconcile her acts with who he knew, what every instinct inside told him, she was?

  He had held her while she cried, while she told of her childhood. Just the way she held her body, the way her voice changed when she told of the acts expected of her, he knew she hadn’t liked them.

  But she’d done them...and so he’d lashed out without thinking, his grief battling with the joy. The fact the foundation of both was the woman he held was too much.

  Accused her of the most awful of things. Did he truly want her death? Never. And the most humiliating truth of it all was...what would he have done in her place?

  Because she was right. Her death, any other action than the one she had taken would have only caused more death, more pain.

  Instead, she had warned him away with her arrows across his arm. She had lied to her only protector by covering her actions. For months more, she’d endured more of his punishments and corrections. She’d harmed her body and damaged her soul.

  A soul so bright, he now knew why her hair was the colour it was, why her eyes reflected light like the sun in a white sky.

  Life had taught him that people were either good or bad. There were various degrees of both, but the essential core of them, the essence of the person, was always one or the other. He’d pursued the Archer with this premise: his friends were good and the Archer was evil. The cunning, the malicious personal targeting of his friends. The fact the arrows struck him as well.

  He thought...he’d thought all this time that it was done...for amusement. A game. When he had captured her, he’d continued with this theory. The fact she was a woman hadn’t changed his opinion, just confused it a bit. He understood there was more to her story, but it wouldn’t change the result. He would still deliver her to King Edward, not only to keep his loyalties straight, but also to protect his friends in case King Edward doubted their demise.

  But the more embroiled he became in all this, the more he realised there wasn’t good versus evil. Life wasn’t made that way. Robert and Hugh had already blurred the lines. They had committed treason...for a good cause. And Cressida...

  Cressida was raised by someone who wanted her one way, all the while...

  She had saved him by defying her father, saved him again by throwing that dagger at the mercenary.

  Underneath her deeds, there was...goodness. Her heartbreaking cries from a daughter to her father. Her determination to save a child from her father’s machinations.

  And he felt that goodness when they touched, kissed, when they laid next to each other. When he cried.

  And he...blindly erected barriers. Threw up walls that hurt her. For what? Assumptions. He’d never asked her about those days on the battlefield when she marred his arm. It never occurred to him...until now. The sequence of the arrows shot. But something of her told him that what he believed wasn’t true.

  She had told him of Thomas and her eyes filled with tears. If she had killed him, it wasn’t intentional. And for the others—had she admitted their deaths even once?

  He needed to confess, to apologise to his friends that died. He didn’t know if he could fulfil his vow to them. They’d probably laugh that he was embroiled in contradictions. His life had been so very easy before all this.

  She was her father’s daughter, yet when she could, she made decisions for herself and even those couldn’t have been easy. She’d hadn’t renounced everything of her life. When she talked of training, of her tries at accuracy, she had such pride. When the conversation turned to her father and his demands, her voice shook. Every arrow she was forced to release hurt her.

  He was a coward.

  He needed to face the fact that even if she’d killed a thousand men, she had reasons, she had had to make agonising decisions.

  And who was he, a warrior who killed on the battlefield, to judge? Even if he was the holiest of men, even then he would not be worthy of her.

  She had left to confront her father on her own. To save the child, whom she believed was her half-sister.

  His hand twitched. Clever Archer. A sleeping draught and a good one. Valerian, possibly, nothing he could taste since she had ordered spiced mead. Regardless, a man his size needed so much more if she wanted him to truly sleep. A bit more time and his thoughts would be clearer, his body strong once again.

  It was time for him to make difficult decisions. If her father didn’t kill him as Cressida thought he would, King Edward certainly would. His only goal now was to protect the Archer and the child she risked it all for.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Hello, my daughter.’

  Cressida clenched the rafter in front of her and somersaulted to land in front of the man who had raised her.

  It had been many seasons since she last saw Sir Richard Howe, also known as the Englishman. It was a name they used to repeat with amusement since few of his enemies knew his true identity. His hair was greyer and the lines around his eyes were deeper. Mostly, he looked
tired. He had to have been to find him this easily.

  The tall, narrow house was as she remembered it from before. Thick, brightly whitened walls and sturdy dark oak beams that matched the carved furniture covered in cream and green linen. The attached residence, she knew, was the same shape, but not so finely decorated. It was no more or less than quarters for his men.

  But this residence, this space was where they used to rest when they travelled. It had made it all too easy to find him. ‘You didn’t travel far.’

  He lifted one shoulder. ‘I like this part of France. With the docks and different people. The commerce keeps me amused.’

  Many a time he had had her positioned at docks or inns. Anywhere people and information flowed. It wasn’t exhaustion that kept him here, it was another of his schemes. ‘What amuses you now?’

  ‘You, coming for me. I thought you’d be here before now.’

  If she had remained the daughter he raised, she would have been, but Eldric had found her, kept her, and she thought...she thought she could be something else. Until it was clear he could never forgive her, never enough to ask for the entire truth.

  It was for the best. He was not who she thought he was and, even if she could change into someone she wanted to be, the scars on her body would always remind them both of who she really was. Who she always had been.

  Nothing was going to change. Nothing, until she changed it. Her wishing and hoping for Eldric was over; she’d always have blood on her hands. There was only one choice for her now: to kill her father and to return a stolen child. When Eldric found her, as he surely would, she’d welcome his blade. She was death and all she deserved was death.

  ‘Where is she?’ she asked.

  ‘Ah, you believe she exists now? My men told me you doubted.’

  ‘Your message made it clear she is real.’

  ‘Of course, your observing her this evening helped make that a certainty for you.’ He laughed. ‘What, you think I don’t know you? You’ve been observing this building all night. It’s almost day now. I’ll be disappointed if you don’t already know where she is.’

  No matter how still she kept or how fiercely she fought any expression, her father always knew her thoughts. She had believed it was because he loved her. Now she realised it was part of his training, his madness, for she did know where her half-sister was kept. Right next door in the matching house, surrounded by five mercenaries. She’d only glanced in the window, hadn’t dared linger in case she was discovered.

  But she should have spared more than a glance to ensure her sister was safe and was all the more a fool to think she could surprise her father by hiding in the rafters of his home.

  She knew everything he had taught her, but all was clear now, there were a few tricks he kept to himself.

  He turned, making his back a perfect target, and strolled to the other side of the room. On a table there was a platter that held a few crumbs of food, an indication he’d been comfortably sating himself while waiting for her.

  He waved to the flagon of wine and two goblets. ‘Are you thirsty?’

  She stayed even with her father. For every step he took, she took one as well. If others stormed in, he would be the first they protected and the first she threatened.

  ‘I have questions.’ Eldric had had some, too. That’s all he had, until he ceased asking any more. He had finally finished with her, just when she wanted to answer him.

  ‘Questions?’ Her father turned. ‘Do you want to know why your sister isn’t here? I would think you know the answer to that.’

  She did, but now was different if rumour was right, if Eldric was right... Things were happening and the Warstone family was divided. Her father could take fewer risks. And he couldn’t have had enough time to put her sister in the convent. If she knew anything of her father, he didn’t move fast.

  ‘Since you failed so miserably with training me, it would be foolish to proceed the same way with her.’

  A quick grin. ‘Ah, prick my pride to rile a response. This hasn’t been your way before. What other skills have you learned since we’ve parted?’

  Parted. As if that was what she wanted to do. She thought her heart had broken when her father banished her. She thought the bits still in her chest were destroyed when she received the message he wanted her dead. But nothing was like this moment before him. Without Eldric.

  Because even before Eldric captured her, he was hers. To listen to, to watch, to yearn for. Now, he rejected everything about her, even the part that was trying to be good. She no longer had the hope of Eldric and all he had represented to her since she was a child.

  But she might...she might have a sister. ‘Who is she?’

  He sighed. ‘What are we doing here? Answering questions as if we are strangers? Don’t you want to simply kill me and be done with it? I wrote you a message.’

  To kill her father and not have answers. No. ‘It’s not like you to be blunt. You like to talk and explain. One would think you meant not to answer me.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, you have learned skills.’

  Days of conversing with someone had changed her, yes, but she wasn’t about to admit that to him.

  ‘Maybe I’ve chosen to follow in my father’s footsteps.’

  Frowning, he took a step back until his legs hit the chair behind him. ‘She is mine, that is all you need to know.’

  But not all she wanted. ‘You intend to kill me. Wouldn’t it amuse you to reveal secrets you’ve cleverly held from me first?’

  A familiar gleam in his eye, one she only saw if he was particularly proud of her.

  ‘Come sit. We’ll converse until the end. I find I have some questions for you myself. Should we begin at the beginning? Would that help your curiosity?’

  ‘I’d like to know why you always punished me when I asked about her.’

  Slowly he arranged himself in the chair. ‘Your mother meant nothing to me. She was simply another in a long line of women I borrowed for a time.’

  She didn’t need to know. Still she asked, ‘Without their consent.’

  ‘I did always choose those who would put up a fight. I wasn’t sloppy about it. I didn’t want a breed of bastards, but there were a couple. You, the girl. I don’t think I left any others, but I do like to check. That’s how I found you. I returned to the village a year later. Look at your hair, your eyes! There was no doubt you were mine. So...after removing your mother, I took you. Named you after her, or what her name should have been. I thought such a duplicitous name, Cressida, was appropriate for you. After all, you weren’t supposed to exist.’

  He splayed his fingers to the side. ‘Sit.’

  Cressida had guessed the truth of her mother’s death, wished she didn’t carry such a hateful name, but locked her knees against his words. ‘I’d rather stand.’

  He tsked. ‘I did the same with that child next door. The woman I laid with was uninteresting except for a powerful family and glorious red hair. When I returned to the area, she had a husband, which surprised me. The man was beneath her family connections. He came from a more simple upbringing and they must have wedded quickly, perhaps because of her being pregnant.’

  She didn’t want to hear of marriages and husbands, of mothers being slaughtered. ‘You’re conjecturing. Why?’

  ‘I can admit to you, my daughter, it surprised me because she seemed happy. Can you imagine?’

  Her entire life, she’d given her father her undivided attention and being in his presence reminded her why. His charisma, the way he’d study the person he conversed with as if they were his entire world.

  And he did that now. The soothing tone, his large eyes rapt on her. She felt the pull to keep her attention solely on him, partly from her lifetime of obedience, the other because of who he was. A predator.

  But she knew what a dangerous game that was. Knew it and,
this time, she ensured she kept abreast of her surroundings. A glance to the window by straightening her clothing. A perusal of the door’s latch as she stretched her limb or neck.

  Oddly, it remained only them. Having her father to herself was a rarity and one she meant to take advantage of.

  ‘I’m not your daughter,’ she said.

  He appeared affronted. ‘When would you ever doubt that?’

  ‘When you sent your men to kill me—’

  ‘Train you,’ he emphasised. ‘You understand how it has been. You betrayed me; you are being punished for your disobedience. When I deem that you are sufficiently chastened, we can begin again.’

  She felt the pull. The need to believe him. After all, this was her father. The man who had raised her. He was all she had longed for for months. It was merely days ago she’d been in abject desolation because he’d shunned her. All she’d wished, all she wanted, was her father’s love and approval once again. Except...

  ‘You wrote me a message. Your parchment, your seal, your writing. I read it, over and over. There was no other interpretation.’

  He crossed his legs. ‘Don’t you know my cruelty has to be all that much more when it comes to you? How can it be a punishment if you believed I cared for you still? Haven’t I always been firmer with you than any of my men? Didn’t I push you long past when I stopped their lessons?’

  Repeatedly. Hours of throwing daggers from both hands. More times than that to run around the camp. And run around again. All while the men sat in the centre of the camp laughing, drinking, enjoying the warmth from the fire. And she...she had no fire. Even on the coldest of nights, her father allowed her no fire. She had to remain in the darkest parts of the forest so she’d remain safe and unseen.

  A strategic location to surprise anyone foolish enough to attack, for she always remained near her father’s place of rest.