Roke would be in his solar, preparing for the evening meal. Rumor had spread amongst the men that he bathed in the blood of his enemies before eating. Damien didn’t give a damn if it was true or not. He was not here for rumors. He was here to end a legacy of torture.
Damien brought Imp to a halt and dismounted before the keep. He looked up at the tall stone tower, his gaze moving up its three stories.
A small boy with uncombed, stringy brown hair raced out of the stables to take Imp’s reins.
Damien met the boy’s hopeless stare. In his mind’s eye, Damien remembered the boy in Castle Acquitaine, the one he saw playing in the hall with Aurora. The Acquitaine boy had been happy, laughing and smiling, playing a child’s game. Such a different life. Quickly, Damien pushed the image from his mind. He couldn’t think of that. He had to concentrate on his new mission. Nothing would prevent him from its completion.
The boy reached out to touch his hand. Instinctively, Damien yanked his limb from the boy’s grasp. In Roke’s castle, a touch could mean the difference between life and death. He glanced sharply at the boy.
The boy stared at him through dirty brown strands. For the briefest of moments, Damien saw something flicker in the child’s brown eyes. Could it have been a spark of hope? Aurora had changed him. He was different now. He saw hope. He saw what could be. But the look was gone from the boy’s eyes before Damien had time to figure out what it was. The boy pulled back, cowering from Damien as if a mere glance from him would scorch his young skin.
Damien took the two steps at the doorway to the keep in one stride and entered the tall doors as he had numerous times before. Never had he entered to finish things; it had only been to report on a completed mission, not end it. Although it had crossed his mind like a fleeting breeze, he had never walked into the keep with the intent to kill those he found inside. Now, he was determined to do just that. Aurora’s life was at stake. He could not fail. He would give her the one thing he so desperately desired, that one thing that had evaded him for so long. It was the only thing he could give her. Freedom. And with that freedom she could live her life in peace. Heaviness settled in his heart and he quickly willed it from his thoughts.
He could have only one thought. He had to concentrate. Killing Roke would take all his effort, all his focus.
He passed a hunched servant who raced through the halls. He could feel the fear radiating from the scurrying woman. They were all afraid of failure here. Deathly afraid. It had been so different in Acquitaine. Servants moved through the hallway with purpose. To please. But the Acquitaine servants had been free. Not slaves. They merely worked. And Aurora and Gabriel were kind to them.
Damien came to the stairs and began his ascent to the solar. He could not think of Acquitaine. Not the boy. Not Aurora. He had to concentrate on his mission. He pictured Roke’s death in his mind. Cyclops would be standing guard. He was one of Roke’s two elite guards who went everywhere with him. Cyclops was aptly named. He was a hulking man, but he was quick. His bulk was muscle and his reflexes were honed to near perfection. He had only one eye. The other eye had received a sword wound long before Damien came to Castle Roke. It left that eye useless.
Cyclops.
Damien removed his dagger from his belt. He tucked it beneath the sleeve of his tunic, keeping the handle in his hand. He would take Cyclops out before he even entered the room. One quick, silent swipe…
His only chance was surprise. Cyclops was big. And quick. But he was blind on one side. If he didn’t take him out immediately, the commotion, or any sound of sword fighting that would ensue, would call forth the second elite guard from the room.
Mother. Mother was much more dangerous than Cyclops. He had been with Roke since the dawn of time. He trained all of the assassins. He had trained Damien. Mother’s methods were unorthodox and cruel. Damien knew he was stronger than Mother. But even so, he never defeated Mother in battle. Mother used every dirty trick he could. He once threw dirt in Damien’s eyes when they battled in a room that had no dirt in it. He had not anticipated that deception at all. By the time Damien could blink his eyes clear, Mother had a blade to his throat.
The last time he faced Mother was five years ago in a mock battle. He used Damien as an example of what not to do, humiliating him at every turn. Mother never tired of defeating him. But this time Damien knew he would be the victor. There could be no other outcome.
And then, he would face Roke. He had never seen Roke fight, nor had he heard of anyone who ever fought Roke, because no one made it past Mother and Cyclops. Damien wasn’t sure if Roke could even handle a sword. It didn’t matter. He would find out.
Damien moved down the hallway, silently. He was ready. More ready now then any other time in his life. The solar lay just ahead of him. Determination and resolution filled Damien. He would not fail.
As he neared the doorway, he realized suddenly what that look had been in the boy’s eyes in the courtyard. It was not fear. It was not hope.
It was a warning.
Damien did not miss a step. He did not give away his surprise when he saw both of Roke’s elite guards standing in the hallway, flanking the door to the solar. Sentinels. Gargoyles. Death.
Something was wrong. Mother never left Roke’s side. Shivers of apprehension shot up Damien’s spine, but he betrayed none of his emotions. He kept moving toward the solar, as if returning from any other mission to report to his master.
Cyclops grinned at him, more a grimace than a smile. There was satisfaction in Cyclops’s crooked grin.
“Lord Roke is waiting for you,” Mother said quietly.
Damien gripped the handle of the door. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. He pushed open the door.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Damien eased the door open. Every one of his senses screamed at him not to enter that room. But he had to. If he didn’t, if he even hesitated, the elite guards would be on him.
He entered the solar, scanning it as he moved into the center. The well-lit room surprised Damien. Roke lived in darkness. He thrived in the blackness of the night. To have this much light was unlike him. Candles lined every surface of the room. Even the hearth blazed behind Roke where he lounged in a rich, blood-red velvet chair. His legs were crossed; his hand rested over one of his knees. His dark hair fell in straight locks to his shoulders. His gaze burned into Damien, hotter than the fire from the hearth.
With one glance, Damien took in the rest of the room. A square table at Roke’s side held all types of instruments of torture. Roke used these tools to punish those who failed. Damien’s gaze moved on, past the windows framed with thick red velvet curtains. The curtains were closed. Every time Damien was in the solar at night those had been open. The only light Roke loved was the moonlight. It was the only light that belonged to the night. What was hidden behind those closed curtains? An archer? More men?
Damien continued his quick perusal of the room, moving to Roke’s elaborately engraved wooden bed. The thick black curtains were pulled closed around it, hiding its interior.
Behind him, Damien heard the footfalls of Cyclops and Mother as they entered the room, closing the door behind them.
Damien stopped before Roke. His face betrayed none of the anxiety he was feeling.
“Tell me,” Roke hissed.
Damien forced himself to keep from clenching his jaw as a thought occurred to him. Roke knew. He knew he had not completed the mission. The candles in the room. The table arrayed with instruments of torture. They were all for him. Roke wanted to see him suffer his punishment. Failure was not tolerated at Castle Roke. Not ever.
“Did you kill her?” Roke demanded in a silky voice.
“Why do you ask me when you already know the answer?”
“Say it,” Roke commanded. “Tell me of your failure.”
Damien took a step toward him. “Why did you send me there with the promise of my freedom if you had no intention of giving it to me?”
A deadly smile slid o
ver Roke’s lips and he leaned back in his chair. “You’ve never failed. Not once. I knew this would be one mission you could not complete.”
Damien’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “You wanted me to fail?”
“I wanted to see if you would obey me. No matter what the cost.”
Coldness spread through Damien. Roke’s need to control his life was all consuming. From the food he ate to the people who served him, Roke’s domination was god-like. “I could have finished the mission if you had not sent others to do it,” Damien told him.
Roke’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Really? Even after you saw her for the first time?”
Damien thought back to the moment he first laid eyes on Aurora, to the first time he saw her walking into the village square. She was beautiful. And innocent. Like an angel from heaven. He remembered the simple desire of wanting her to speak to him, of wanting her to just look at him.
“You see?” Roke said, easily reading Damien’s expression. “Even then it was too late.”
“Then why did you send me?”
“A chance for retribution,” Roke whispered, spreading his hands over the instruments of torture on the table beside him, lovingly stroking their gleaming surfaces.
“She scorned you and you sent me as the final punishment for her,” Damien guessed.
“Oh no,” Roke said. “This was no punishment for her. You are thinking of this all wrong.” Roke leaned forward in his chair, whispering, “This is for you. It has always been for you.”
“My punishment?” Damien frowned. “What does Aurora have to do with punishing me?”
“Of all my men, you were the biggest challenge to me. The strongest, the smartest. I could never fully control you. Certainly, you did as I asked. But when I looked in your eyes… I saw defiance. Fear is a powerful motivator for most. But you feared nothing. I had you whipped for insubordination. You never cried out. Not even when the flesh was being ripped from your back. Death never bothered you. You sought it as a reward. The one thing you cared for was your freedom. And as strong as your desire for it was, I was always suspicious that one day you would still walk away from me.”
Damien stood, awash in amazement. “What does sending me on this mission have to do with your insecurities?”
Roke’s eyes flashed with anger, before subsiding. He grinned, leaning back in his chair. “You see? No one but you would dare to speak to me thus. So I waited. I am, if nothing else, a patient man. And then came that day. So long ago. So very long ago. When I sent you out to kill Margaret.”
Margaret? For a moment, Damien didn’t know of whom he spoke. He had killed many in his years of servitude to Roke. Margaret. Then he realized. He was speaking of Aurora’s mother.
“I remember you came back after killing her and there was something different about you.”
Damien forced himself to relax even though every fiber in his body remembered. It was even more painful now, realizing he had killed Aurora’s mother, that he had hurt Aurora by taking her mother’s life.
“It was not the act of killing the woman that bothered you, remember? It was the girl. She had seen you. She had looked at you. But it was not the fear of identification bothering you. I believe in the moment that she saw you, in that one moment that she laid eyes upon you, she brought forth something human in you. Some form of compassion. I believe you could no more have killed her in that moment than you could have in any other.”
A disbelieving realization dawned in Damien. He was right. Roke was right. He could not kill Aurora all those years ago, just as he could not kill her now. With this realization, came a sudden dark dread. He remembered telling Roke of Aurora all those years ago. Her eyes. Her beautiful clear eyes. He had not been able to disguise the emotion he felt when he spoke of her. Oh Lord, Damien thought. What kind of power have I given him?
“You remember,” Roke hissed with an approving nod. “It took you months to forget that girl. But I never did. I thought that somehow, someway if I could use your feelings for her… if I could somehow feed on your compassion… I would have control over you.” His jaw hardened. “She is, indeed, beautiful. And virtuous. A good woman.” Roke spit the last words from his mouth with distaste. “When her father decided to betroth her, I could not let her slip away. I could not let another take that kind of power from me. The power to control you.”
“She means nothing to me,” Damien insisted.
“Really?” Roke asked. “Then why didn’t you kill her? Why did you become her bodyguard instead?”
“Because you sent more assassins after her. I wasn’t going to let someone take my freedom from me.” Damien stood unmoving, hoping Roke would take his reasoning as fact.
Roke’s gaze bore into him. He shrugged. “She upset many powerful men with her refusals.” He ran a finger along one of the blades on the table. “Still, I gave you ample time. You had an entire week. Why didn’t you finish her?”
Damien did not answer. What answer could he give Roke? That he had failed? Never. In keeping Aurora alive, he succeeded far beyond anything he could have imagined. And he would see her safe, no matter the cost to himself.
Roke was silent for a moment, studying him. “And you returned here to…?”
Damien was quiet. He could not tell him the truth of his intent. A new mission which he had every intention of completing.
Roke’s lips twisted into a smile of grim disappointment. “Why did you leave Acquitaine?”
“There was no reason to stay,” Damien admitted. And it was the truth. He couldn’t stay in Acquitaine. Not seeing the agony and condemnation in Aurora’s eyes every time he looked at her.
“You had not finished your mission.”
“My time was up.”
“You never give up.”
“I didn’t give up,” Damien insisted. “She was gone. And my time was up. There was a good chance she was already dead.”
“But she wasn’t.” Roke rose out of the chair.
Dread seized Damien in a tight grasp as Roke stepped forward. How did he know she was not dead? Alarm tightened his stomach. “Where is she?”
“You knew she wasn’t dead because you brought her back to her father.” Roke stood before the flaming hearth, the firelight making him glow like some evil demon. “I will ask you one more time. Why did you come back to Castle Roke?”
He knew! Damn him to hell, he already knew! This was another game he was playing. “To kill you,” he said quietly. In the next moment, Damien had his sword out.
He heard the pounding footsteps of Cyclops before he could swing at Roke. He whirled, assessing the charging giant’s position in barely the time it took to blink, and let fly the dagger in his hand. It hit the one eyed man square in his remaining good eye and the big man dropped.
Damien spun back to finish Roke, but he was gone.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Damien caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.
Roke darted around him, toward the curtain.
What was there? More men? Damien cut him off in two steps, blocking his escape. He knew instinctively there were no more of Roke’s men behind the curtain, because Roke would have called for them.
Roke backed away from Damien.
Damien could not afford to take his gaze from Roke, but he listened for Mother. Nothing. No sound. Mother was as silent as the night, and as deadly as poison. There would be no sound before Mother’s attack. Damien quickly circled to Roke’s right, so his back was against the wall and he could see the entire room.
Roke skittered back away from Damien, farther back from the curtain.
Damien quickly surveyed the room, but Mother was nowhere to be seen. Was he hiding? Behind the bed? He would never have fled without Roke.
Damien eased toward the curtain. He was between Roke and any form of escape. Damien knew there was one other exit in the room, an escape route, in the corner of the room, near the bed. Roke would have to get past him to escape through either exit.
&nb
sp; Roke stood absolutely still. His long black robe covered any movement, any weapon. He appeared to be at ease. Too much at ease.
Damien stepped up to the curtain. He grasped the blood red fabric and pulled, yanking it down. It fell to the floor in a thick pile.
The small alcove behind the curtain was empty. The light of the rising full moon shone in through the open shutters on the window. A gentle breeze pushed passed Damien and snuffed out the candles around him.
“What did you expect to find?” Roke wondered.
Damien knew his mistake immediately. A trap. The curtain had been closed to attract his attention. His gaze darted to the bed. The black curtains on one side of the bed had been pushed aside to reveal its occupants. Mother’s large hand encompassed Aurora’s neck as he knelt behind her on the bed. He held her close against his body, using her as a shield.
Damien’s horror was only surpassed by his rage. Mother’s dirty hands were on her! Aurora, Aurora, his mind continued to call. He saw the terror and the tears in her bright eyes. If Mother hurt her there would be no end to the blood bath that would follow. Damien felt the beast inside him shifting, rising, demanding retribution. His gaze remained riveted to the only light in his life, holding the beast in check for a moment.
Instinct took over, and he scanned the scene. Aurora’s arms were behind her back, probably tied. A gag was firmly in place in her mouth, the cloth tied behind her head. She wore the same chemise she had been in when he rescued her one day ago. A sharp stab of guilt pierced his chest. He should have stayed with her. But he pushed that thought aside and concentrated on observing.
Mother’s hand wrapped about her throat like a collar. His dirty, calloused hand was on her pure skin! Outrage stirred the beast and it took Damien every ounce of control he could muster to keep it in check. Damien’s teeth ground. Mother’s other arm wound around her waist like a belt. Damien’s hand tightened around the pommel of his weapon.
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