He nodded. “And you.” His tone was sincere with a tinge of worry. “How are you?”
“Good,” Aurora replied, sincerely. “And you?”
Alexander inhaled deeply and sat back against the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t give me the same answer you give everyone else. I deserve more than that. I want to know the truth. How are you?”
For a moment, Aurora hesitated. The response she had given was so instinctual. To her people, she was always in good spirits. She had very few friends she could tell the truth. She looked down, composing herself, trying to let her guard down. This was Alexander. She had known him from childhood. He was her friend. “It’s been difficult,” she admitted. “What with the anniversary of Mother’s death approaching.” She hated speaking of her mother’s death. It left her afraid and vulnerable, exposing a side of her she was not willing to share. And then a realization struck her. She lifted her gaze to him. “You know. You know about the attempts on my life. That’s why you are back.”
He nodded, his face void of emotion, his eyes penetrating. “I returned as soon as I heard.”
Aurora nodded. “You didn’t have to.”
“Didn’t have to?” He pushed himself away from the desk. “I remember how shaken you were when your mother died. I remember how scared. I had to come back.”
Alexander had been with her after her mother had been killed. As much as she tried to hide it, he knew her well enough to know how frightened she was now. There was no use denying it. Not to him.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “So when I ask you how you are, I want the truth.”
She turned away from him, pacing to the other side of the room. “I have a kingdom to look after, people who need me. I have no time to be frightened now. I was a child then.” She turned to face him. “I’m not any longer.”
Alexander’s gaze moved over her. “No, you’re not.”
Aurora saw the same look in her old friend’s eyes she saw in other men’s. That darkening, manly stare. The one she felt naked beneath. She clasped her hands in front of her.
“But you still carry the scars,” Alexander added. “I know that’s why you hired me to find your mother’s killer. You want those scars to heal and that’s the only way you think they will.”
“I hired you because Father stopped looking. I couldn’t just leave it at that. Not while… he… is still out there somewhere.” She shook her head. “I don’t care how long it has been. We can never give up the search. Not until he is found. If my father won’t do it, then I will.”
“But you are the one who is still alive. I should be here, with you.”
“I have a bodyguard now,” Aurora told him. “And guards. I’m quite safe.” She tried to convince him, so he wouldn’t worry, even though she knew how vulnerable she was.
“A bodyguard? Who is it? Rupert? Harold?”
Aurora shook her head. “It’s Damien. He saved me in the village. And the second time with the poison wine –”
“Damien? I don’t know him.”
“He is not from Acquitaine. Father hired him.”
Alexander’s face remained impassive, unconvinced. “You should have more than just one bodyguard.”
Aurora shrugged. “The guards are following me around like shadows.”
“Where were these guards when you were attacked?” he demanded.
“Captain Trane was with me, as was Sir Rupert. But they didn’t see the assassin.” She remembered the assassin, the flurry of movement, the flash of the blade. And then Damien was there, like a dark angel standing above her, saving her, protecting her. She glanced at the doorway and saw his strong, familiar outline.
“Do you still have the dreams?”
Caught off guard by the question, Aurora tried to repress a shudder. “Yes.” The flash of silver, the eyes. These images had woken her up for many nights. She secretly hoped when the assassin was caught, the dreams would stop. “We need to find him,” she said softly.
He leaned in to whisper, “I looked. I really did. And I came close.”
She glanced at him. Sympathy shone in his orbs.
“He’s a slippery bas…” He looked at her and corrected, “rogue. Just when I thought I had him, he disappeared. I’ve been tracking his movements, writing them down to see if I can figure out where his home is.” Alexander pulled a piece of parchment from his vest. He laid it on the desk.
Aurora moved to his side. The parchment was a crudely drawn map with ‘X’s scattered throughout.
Alexander pointed to two circled X’s. “This is where he killed.”
The word sent a shiver through Aurora. She fought to stop her body from trembling visibly in front of her friend.
He pointed to five X’s with lines drawn through them. “This is where I lost him. You’ve charged me with finding him and I won’t give up until I do.” He looked at her. “I did return because of the attempts on your life. But I was already on my way to Acquitaine.”
Her gaze swept his face.
“I’ve followed him here, to Acquitaine.”
A tremor of terror sliced through her. “Then it is him. He has returned. For me.”
Alexander nodded. “I think so, yes.”
Fear curled tight like a sharp talon inside Aurora’s chest, sending a gashing burst of pain across her breast. She clutched at her chest, willing her pounding heart to slow. Instinctively, she looked for Damien in the doorway. He was there, standing just out of the candlelight.
“I have to go, Alexander. I will speak to you later.” She crossed the room quickly, the air seeming thick and oppressive. She passed Damien and paused in the doorway. Her heart hammered in her chest. The assassin had returned. He was in Acquitaine.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Will you be able to stop him?” she asked and hated that her voice sounded so weak, so frightened. The question just tumbled out. She didn’t know if he would even understand what she was asking.
“Yes.”
He said it with such conviction Aurora was forced to look up at him. His face was bathed with flickering light from the torches in the hallway. There was no hesitation in his voice. Only certainty. A confidence she could believe in. Maybe because she wanted to, maybe because he had saved her twice. Her gaze scanned his face and came to rest on his lips. He would save her. He would protect her.
He lifted a hand and rested it against her cheek.
It was a bold move; no one had ever touched her with such tenderness, such intimacy before. She should have been outraged. Calmness spread from the warmth of his hand into her cheek and throughout her body.
“No one shall harm you,” he whispered.
The words resonated through her like a gentle pulse, banishing any doubt, any fear. It was a promise. When he lowered his hand, she immediately missed the reassurance that his touch gave her. She nodded and led the way into the Great Hall to break their fast.
***
Damien sat beside Aurora when Alexander entered the Great Hall. He watched him take a seat down the aisle from them with the guards. If he recognized Alexander from the other villages he had been in, then there was a good chance the man would recognize him. Damien could hardly swallow his food. He waited, but as the meal progressed, no alarm went out, no one came to slap him in irons. Maybe he was wrong about the man.
When Aurora and her followers rose and departed the Great Hall, Damien accompanied them, passing right by Alexander. He didn’t make eye contact. And he was too busy watching Aurora to notice him. Alexander did not join them as they exited the building.
As they walked beneath the gatehouse toward the training fields, Damien’s concern shifted from Alexander to the knights. Every instinct of self-preservation screamed at him not to go to the training yard. From the moment Helen spoke to Harold, from the moment he had seen their sly, conspiratorial glances, Damien had been certain this little excursion was a trap. Not a threat to Aurora, but to him.
When he heard the
clang of sword against sword and the shouts of excited men as they approached the field, Damien’s mind recalled another time. A time of training. A time of pain. Under Roke, he was taught not to fail. Failure meant severe punishment, from whipping to time in the stocks… or worse. Damien’s gut wrenched at the memory of a man and his brutal decapitation over missing the center mark with his bow and arrow.
Anxiety filled him. Tilting yards and training had never been a place of games for him. It was a place of life and death. His gaze turned anxiously to Aurora. She walked before him, speaking with Jennifer. She nodded in reply to something Jennifer said and cast a glance over her shoulder to meet his stare. Her piercing eyes locked with his and calmed the beast inside him. Her grin settled his restlessness like a breath of fresh air and gave him a sense of peace he’d never known before. Damien could not turn away from her perfection, from the flawless sheen of her hair glittering like spun gold, from the blazing blue radiance of her shimmering stare.
She cast her spell on everyone. Even you, a voice inside him accused. The darkness within him denied the accusation, stirring restlessly. It erased the fond warmth cocooning him and replaced it with his usual cool detachment. He must complete his mission. She meant nothing to him. His freedom meant everything.
As they approached the tilting yard fence, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Men drove their horses toward each other, down the length of the field in a mock joust. Knights across the yard cheered them on. Damien recognized Sir Harold as one of the men jousting.
The two knights met in a clash of metal as their blunted jousting poles pounded into the metal breastplates of their armor. Harold’s pole landed square in the chest of his opponent. The knight flew off his horse, tumbling to the earth, showering the air with a thick cloud of dust as his armored body struck the ground. Harold remained firmly seated in his saddle, unfazed by his opponent’s weak glancing strike. Cheers and laughter erupted around the tilting yard.
Harold rode his horse to the fence before them where Helen waved a red scarf in the air. As each step of Harold’s horse brought him closer, tension clenched the muscles along the length of Damien’s shoulders.
Harold eased his jousting pole over the top of the fence, moving the tip past Helen and pointing it directly toward Aurora.
A keen sense of anger unexpectedly speared through Damien.
Helen yanked back her favor with a thinning of her lips and narrowing of her eyes.
“Lady Helen offers you her favor, Sir Harold,” Aurora said kindly.
“Your favor is the only one I seek,” Harold replied.
Damien wanted to take his proffered lance and shove it down the arrogant knight’s throat.
“I have no favors to offer this day,” Aurora replied.
Sir Harold clutched at his heart with his free hand. “You wound me, m’lady.”
Damien remained motionless, forcing his fists to keep from clenching.
“Perhaps another show of strength would impress you enough to win your favor,” Harold said playfully. “Perhaps your bodyguard would care to go a length with me.”
Aurora cast a quick glance at Damien, then looked back to Harold. “He has no horse, no lance. Surely--”
“There are plenty of horses here for him to use. And lances are many.”
Damien read the unease in the depths of Aurora’s eyes.
Helen clapped her hands in encouragement. “Yes! Let Damien joust Sir Harold.”
Damien forced the tension to abate from his shoulders, relaxing his muscles. So this was their plan, he realized. A clumsy attempt to draw him into a fight. His dark eyes trained on Harold. “I am here to protect Lady Aurora, not to entertain you with a joust.”
“Then a quick sword play,” Harold countered. “Every good bodyguard needs to keep his skills fresh.” Contempt dripped from every one of Harold’s words.
They were beginning to draw a crowd as more and more knights gathered around them, making Damien even more uncomfortable with such concentrated attention. This was not the place for him. He did not relish being the center of attention to a growing mob. He kept his face impassive.
Aurora interposed herself before Damien, almost as if protecting him. “Damien’s skills are very adequate. I have seen them in action.”
“But the rest of us have not,” Harold exclaimed. He opened his arms to the group of knights who stood about them now, the armored men looking like the bars of a cage, intent on keeping Damien confined within their perimeter. “Isn’t that right? How many would like to see Damien’s sword skills?”
The crowd around them exploded with applause and “ayes.”
Harold slid from his horse with an easy dismount. He ducked the fence to stand before Damien. “After all, you are protecting Acquitaine’s greatest treasure. I would be betraying my oath to Acquitaine if I demanded any less. I would like to know your skills are impeccable. What do you say, bodyguard? Care to share your secrets with the rest of us?”
The men around them mumbled in agreement; some sneered with open hostility.
Every one of Damien’s senses demanded he attack. His self-preservation instincts told him this knight was a threat. The beast inside him burned through his veins, demanding release, demanding action. But Damien had learned long ago when to keep the beast reined. Now was not the time, nor the place. He placed his hand on Aurora’s back and began to steer her away, moving through the crowd.
The crowd opened grudgingly before them.
Harold dogged their steps, taunting, “Coward. What kind of bodyguard are you to turn your back on a good fight?”
Aurora stopped and spun on Harold. “That is quite enough, Sir Harold.”
“My apologies, my lady,” he said, bowing. His judgmental stare remained fixed with acrimony on Damien. “But I believe we do not need an outsider to protect you. We are able knights, worthy of first consideration.” He stepped past her to Damien. “Tell me why he is afraid to fight me, if he is so good. Tell me why he will not raise a sword to prove his worth.”
Aurora opened her mouth to reply, but Damien answered instead, “Because I would kill you.”
Hatred glared from Harold’s eyes. Damien had seen the look many, many times before. He stood still, his body relaxed, ready for anything.
Aurora’s hand surrounded Damien’s. Tingles shot up his arm, replacing his readiness to battle with something warm and soft and… dangerous. Dangerous because he should be concentrating on the menace before him. Her tiny tug moved him forward because he let it.
“We must go,” she said.
Damien remained still for a moment longer, facing down his adversary. He would have loved to show Harold just how capable he was. Aurora’s insistent tugs begged him to leave. He chanced a look at her. Her eyes were wide with concern, her lovely brow creased with worry as she stared at Harold. Damien couldn’t stand seeing her so frightened. She looked at him then with imploring eyes, and Damien knew exactly what he was going to do. Nothing. The anguish on Aurora’s face was not worth the price. He wasn’t here to fight this conceited knight. He wasn’t here to prove himself to these people.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Harold’s punch landed hard against Damien’s jaw, rocking his head, forcing him to take a step back.
Damien never once relinquished his hold on Aurora’s hand.
“Damien!” Aurora called in alarm.
Damien pulled her behind him, rage swirling inside him. The coppery taste of blood seeped into his mouth, but he ignored it.
“An adequate bodyguard would have seen that coming,” Harold mocked.
“Damien,” Aurora repeated, half begging, half gasping.
Damien spared her a glance. The tears in her eyes only fed the stirring beast inside him, demanding revenge. “Stay here,” Damien commanded.
With no indication, he suddenly rushed Harold, catching his tunic in curved fists, and slamming him hard into the fence. The wooden post bent beneath the impact, but Damien didn’t
let go as he pushed himself close to Harold. “An adequate bodyguard would never have risked hurting Aurora like you just did. Had I ducked, you would have hit her.”
Harold pushed forward, but Damien smashed him back against the fence again, holding him immobile. “Aurora is my responsibility. Go near her again and you will not live to see the sun set.”
Harold’s gaze shifted to Aurora.
How dare he even look at her! Damien felt a moment of pure, raw animalistic rage and shoved him aside, being sure to put enough force in the movement so Harold ended up on the dusty ground. “I will not risk Aurora’s life for your entertainment. Even the lowliest of knights would know that.” He whirled, knowing Harold’s pride would not stand for him to be so degraded. And Damien was right. He heard the sound of a sword being drawn. He saw Aurora jerk forward.
Damien baited the knight on purpose. The way Harold looked at Aurora, as if he desired her, as if he had a right to her, as if he could protect her better than Damien, sent waves of blind anger through Damien.
The small cry of warning that issued from her lips pulled at his heart. He was suddenly very afraid she would rush forward in a feeble attempt to save him. He held up a hand to her, motioning for her to remain where she was, and then he let instinct take over.
He ducked and the sword hissed over his head like an angry snake. He whirled, lashing out with his foot, connecting solidly with Harold’s mid-section.
Harold fell to the ground, landing hard on his back.
Damien was on him before he had a chance to recover, pushing Harold’s own sword, in his own hand, against his throat. It would have been child’s play to finish him. A simple movement of the arrogant knight’s own wrist and the sword tip would drive into Harold’s throat. The demon inside him cried out for gratification. It was used to getting what it wanted.
Time froze. Harold’s eyes widened, filling with the knowledge that Damien was more than capable of following up on his promise. He was a killer. That was what he did. Damien felt Aurora’s gaze on him and hesitated. Would she look at him the same if he easily and swiftly snuffed out the life of one of her guard?
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