“She is very pretty for a prisoner,” the voice murmured at his side.
Bryce started. He should have heard Grey coming, had always been able to. But now, his mind was occupied by the Angel.
“Is she a duke’s wife?” Grey wondered.
“She is Ryen De Bouriez,” Bryce answered.
“A Frenchwoman?” Grey chuckled. “And this is all your mighty army brought back from France?”
“She is the Angel of Death.”
Grey was silent for a long moment. “A woman? Intriguing.”
Bryce squeezed his tired eyes closed and dropped his head. Yes, a woman. During his days of captivity he had pondered the outrageousness of it for many a moment. He rose out of the chair, stretching his arms above his head.
“You look like death itself.” A smile touched Grey’s weathered features. “Perhaps some food and a drink with old friends will resurrect you.”
Bryce longed to leave his worries behind. He almost accepted. Then, he looked back over his shoulder at the woman lying in his bed. True, she was safer at Dark Castle than on the road, but even here there were people who would wish her ill. He could not leave her.
Bryce turned to Grey to tell him, but before he opened his mouth, Grey smiled a knowing grin as if seeing his innermost thoughts. “Patch will guard her while you eat with us.”
The Wolf Pack had the uncanniest ability to see into his soul. He’d forgotten how the gift could startle him. Finally, Bryce nodded. He needed to say no more.
When they reached the door, Patch was there as if by intuition. She exchanged a nod with them before slipping into Bryce’s bedchamber. Grey shut the door behind them and together they walked the long hallway. Two sets of empty plate armor lined the corridor, silently guarding the passage. They were in bad need of a cleaning.
They turned right and took the first set of steps into the Great Hall.
The Wolf Pack was already seated around a long wooden table that stretched out just below the three stained glass windows, each painted with a snarling red wolf. The hearth fire was blazing, and Bryce felt the warmth cover his body, warming his cold soul. He was home. It had indeed been a long time. Too long. He noticed that the rushes were in dire need of changing. The room stank of soot and rotted meat, not of violets and ale, as had the De Bouriez Great Hall.
Three of his hounds rushed to greet him. He paused momentarily to pat their heads and scratch behind their ears before he followed Grey to the table.
Grey hurled his fur cape over the table onto the back of a wooden chair, then leapt over the table to take the seat. Bryce noted a vacant chair between Night and Grey intended, he supposed, for him.
Bread and ale were before him, and Bryce noted how not one servant had met his eyes, how they’d trembled in his presence. He had grown accustomed to Ryen and her defiant looks and barbed tongue. Their sniveling repulsed him.
Finally, an older maid he remembered as Polly lifted her eyes to meet his before quickly dropping them. She curtseyed and muttered, “It’s good ta have m’lord home,” then raced off.
Bryce was surprised at her boldness. Usually, the servants didn’t dare raise eyes or words to him. Only his steward brought him word of important happenings throughout the castle, and then only when necessary. The villains of his lands feared him as the servants did. As a result, most squabbles were settled before he had to preside over them. Only occasionally did he have to make a judgment.
Bryce watched the maid scurry from the room as fast as her plump little form would allow. An amused smile slid over his lips…he would have Polly care for Ryen.
“It seems you were truly missed,” Night said, hunched over his bread, his eyes on the door through which Polly had disappeared.
“Perhaps no one thought they would see you again,” Hunter murmured, tipping back in his chair.
“We had heard that you were captured,” Night went on. “By some Angel of Death.”
Bryce cast Grey a quick look in time to see a sly smile spread over his face. Bryce reached for the bread and tore off a large piece with his hands, filling his mouth with food.
“Not once,” Hunter snorted, “but three times.” He ripped off a piece of bread with his teeth.
“I thought I had taught you better than that, Bryce,” Night grimaced.
“It was only twice,” Bryce argued softly.
Grey and Breed laughed.
“Prince!” The voice exploded through the room, echoing from wall to wall.
Bryce didn’t have to raise his eyes to know the voice. He was dreading the confrontation with Lotte. He heard her footsteps race across the hall and stood to greet her. As she rounded the table, approaching him, Bryce saw she had put on weight. Her breasts were large and bounced with each step. Her face had grown rounder, but her hair was just as dark and long as he remembered.
Lotte reached for him with open arms, but Bryce grabbed her wrists to stop her embrace. Confusion washed over her features. She smelled of sweat, ashes, and burnt bread, not the sweet fragrance of roses. Her hair looked unkempt, as if she had not bothered to comb it in days, so unlike Ryen’s soft, silky tresses.
Bryce found himself instantly repelled. He lowered her arms. Had she changed so much, or was it he who had changed?
Yet there was something in her eyes, something familiar that caused his heart to contract with pain. He narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out what it was. Then she gently shook her head and a strand of dark hair fell into her eyes.
Runt. He had his mother’s eyes.
Bryce turned away from her, his throat tightening. “Runt is dead,” he announced.
Lotte gasped. “No.” She clutched her neck and stepped back.
“He was killed in a fire in the French camp,” Bryce explained. He half turned to her, expecting a wail or tears. All she did was lower her head, chewing on her lip. There were no tears, no regret, in her features. Bryce straightened. “He is gone, Lotte,” Bryce repeated.
Lotte glanced up at Bryce. She tentatively reached out to put her hands on his shoulders. “That doesn’t mean that I can’t still be yours.”
For a moment, he didn’t move, didn’t breathe. All Runt was to her was a claim to him, a place in Dark Castle. The fury was sudden and hot. It clenched his fists, hardened his will. He pushed her hands off his shoulders, his face twisting into a mask of disgust. “Get away from me,” he snarled.
Tears welled in Lotte’s chestnut eyes. He could see her sharp mind working, plotting her return to his side. She raised her hands to cover her mouth, weeping. “My son! My son!” She leaned into his chest, resting her forehead against it.
Bryce jerked away. “Your grief comes just a second too late, Lotte.”
As he turned to retake his seat, Lotte reached out a hand. “We can have another boy,” she said desperately.
Bryce tried to control the anger that raced through his veins. It was useless. When he turned to her, his posture was stiff, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. “The boy would not be Runt.”
Lotte backed slowly away from the explodable rage that brewed inside of him.
Finally, when she had taken a seat very far away from him, Bryce was able to turn and sit. His anger fueled his every movement as he ripped off a chunk of bread and stuffed it into his mouth. He stared at his hands and was surprised to find them shaking. He dropped the bread onto the table and clenched his fists in an effort to stop the trembling.
Curse her, he thought. She never loved the boy. He remembered the burning embarrassment because his father was weak and sickly. He resented his father, then. But, through it all, his father had loved him. Bryce could not imagine what it was like to be unloved by your own mother.
The image of Runt lying lifeless in his arms blazed into his mind’s eye. He could not have wanted a more loyal son. And now he was gone. He would never hear him laugh again. He would never have to brush that damn fool lock of hair away from his eyes. He would never get the chance to see him fulfill
his dream of becoming a knight.
Bryce’s eyes darted angrily toward his room, where his prisoner lay. Ryen must be punished for Runt’s death.
It was then that he felt others watching him. He looked around the room to find Grey leaning back in his chair, one leg resting over the arm, casually munching on a piece of bread and regarding Bryce through lazy eyes. As he slanted a cursory glance at his friends, he found they were all surveying him with mild, silent interest.
His gaze finally returned to Grey. He tossed the bread back onto the tray.
Grey grinned sadly and took a long drink of ale.
Finally, it was Night who broke the silence. “The prisoner,” he said, “what will you do with her?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Bryce replied. He noticed how Night looked at Grey, who arched an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders.
“She would bring a good bag of gold if you decided to ransom her,” Hunter announced around a mouthful of bread.
Breed chuckled. “She was quite a piece. Perhaps you could give her to us.” He gestured around the table at the other members of the Wolf Pack.
Hunter snickered lustfully.
Bryce straightened, his eyes narrowing on Breed. “No one will touch her while she is in my castle.” His voice was dangerous, his posture stiff, threatening.
At his menacing voice, all eyes again turned to him.
“Who is this woman that she merits such protection?” Hunter wondered, drawing the rage in Bryce’s gaze.
“She is the Angel of Death,” Bryce answered.
Stunned silence fell over the room, blanketing it with curiosity and shocked surprise.
As Bryce continued to eat, his mind occupied by thoughts of his captive, he did not notice Lotte when she slithered from her chair and headed for the stairs.
Chapter Twenty Seven
The scream sliced through Ryen’s pain-clouded mind like a blade. She struggled to open her eyes. And when she did, she saw a woman with long, dark hair coming at her with a dagger, her hair disheveled, her eyes wild with hate. Ryen fought to raise her hands to protect herself, but they were too heavy. The pain receded, and relief stitched closed her mind, sealing off the rest of the world.
The dagger arced down toward Ryen’s heart just as the small whirlwind slammed into Lotte’s side, knocking her to the floor. Patch howled and grabbed the hand that held the dagger above their heads as they rolled across the floor. Lotte’s scream replaced Patch’s roar as Patch pinned Lotte beneath her by straddling her body. Lotte fought for a moment before she was slapped hard across her face. With the jolt, the dagger fell from her fist and clattered across the floor to land at Bryce’s feet.
He stood in the doorway, staring at the dagger. Then his eyes shifted to Lotte.
Patch rose, hauling Lotte to her feet. Lotte yanked her arm free, screeching, “She killed him! She killed Runt!”
Bryce bent and picked up the dagger. At first, his mind refused to accept the fact that one of his own people had almost stabbed Ryen through the heart. Here he was worried about another lord, and Lotte was the one who had tried to end Ryen’s life.
He turned the dagger over slowly in his hand, watching the candlelight reflect off its shining surface. It wasn’t because Ryen had killed Runt. The woman had no feelings for her son – that alone was enough to make Bryce hate her. He stopped flipping the dagger. It was because Ryen had smashed every security Runt represented for Lotte.
Slowly his eyes rose, the hate shining from them like beacons.
“It was in her camp!” Lotte hissed. “She is responsible!”
“Thank you, Patch,” Bryce murmured.
Patch nodded and brushed by him as she exited the room.
Bryce moved forward and Lotte retreated. “And you would kill her as she lay sleeping…defenseless?”
Lotte’s eyes glinted. “For our son –”
Bryce’s voice was low and dangerous. “He meant nothing to you!”
“Of course he did. He was my son, too.”
“He was nothing to you except an heir to my estates.”
“That’s not true!”
“And now you feel that Ryen poses some sort of danger to your security here at Dark Castle.”
Her voice changed to the controlled, even tone that signified her anger. “Ryen, is it? Not prisoner, not enemy?”
Bryce turned to her. Lotte’s brown eyes were focused on the bed where Ryen slept. “Raise a hand to her again and you shall be banned from Dark Castle.” Bryce suddenly realized with an absolute certainty that he’d never loved Lotte. She was cruel and manipulative. Even in bed, her touch was calculated not for pleasure, but to control him. He used her for a need and the fact that she had had his child meant nothing to him. He turned his back on her.
“You would choose the killer of our son over me?”
His knuckles closed tightly around the hilt of the dagger.
“If you cannot kill her, I will,” she stated emphatically.
He was before her in two steps. His large hand wrapped around her arm as he hauled her up to the tips of her toes. “Hear you nothing that I say, woman?”
“I will take vengeance for our son.”
“She did not kill Runt,” Bryce snarled.
“The fire was in her camp! She lit it to kill your son!”
“She did not know he was my son.” At Lotte’s confusion, he continued, but more to himself, his voice full of agony. “Ryen did not kill Runt! She would not have torched half of her camp to kill a small, insignificant boy.” It had been an accident. An accident. He released Lotte suddenly, almost dropping her. Bryce bowed his head, staring at the floor. “It was because of me Runt was in France at all. And it was me he came after.”
He smashed his fist into the wall beside Lotte’s head. She cringed, broke away and ran past him.
He heard different footsteps approach from behind him.
“She did not kill Runt,” Bryce murmured, his voice thick with sick realization.
“I know,” Grey answered quietly. “You need time away, brother. Go. She will be watched.”
Bryce lifted heavy eyes to Grey.
“And protected, if need be.”
Bryce nodded. He cast one last miserable look at Ryen, wishing desperately that she was awake, before departing the room.
Pain cut deep into Ryen’s mind, bringing with it hazy glimpses of people…a dark haired woman, her eyes angry…a small thin girl with a scar across her cheek bending close…Bryce, his dark eyes underlined with rings of sleeplessness, his brow creased with lines of worry…
Voices floated to her, quiet, hushed. At first Ryen could not understand what they were saying, but after a moment, the mumbling became words as she recognized that they were spoken in English.
“She’s going to die. Ain’t no hope for it,” a woman’s voice murmured.
“Do na say that,” a second girl’s voice responded. “The lord would be most dis—dis—dis—”
“Distraught.”
“Ya! Distraught. He’s tried so hard ta keep ‘er alive.”
“She hasn’t been awake for days. And she’s so thin.”
Ryen’s eyes fluttered as she struggled to open them, groaning with the effort.
“She’s tossin’ again,” the girl stated.
Ryen opened her eyes. A young girl was staring at her, a scar etched into her cheek. Her peaceful brown eyes went round in fright. “Gaw!” the girl cried. “She’s awake! She saw me! Me limbs are turnin’ ta stone!”
The girl merged into the shadow as she leapt away from the bed, out of the small circle of light cast by a single candle.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the woman said, as she moved into Ryen’s view. Brown eyes gazed at her with indifference. “She’s just raving. I’m tellin’ ya, the fever will take her soon and she’ll be out of our lives.”
Ryen tried to speak, but her lips were brittle and cracked, and her words caught in her parched throat. Finally, she managed to gag, “Wat
er.”
The girl with the brown eyes peeked over the woman’s shoulder like a frightened child to whisper, “Wha’ that she saying?”
The woman shrugged her beefy shoulders, nonchalantly pushing a strand of dark hair from her eyes. “French. She’s ramblin’. We might as well bury her now.”
English, Ryen reminded herself: What was the word for water? Her mind ached as she forced herself to think.
“We ain’t killin’ nobody, Kit. She’s already dead, I keep tellin’ ya,” the woman said.
“But she’s seen our faces. What if she comes back for us?”
“Water,” Ryen gasped in English.
“Gaw!” Kit cried again, stepping back.
The woman turned hard, assessing eyes to Ryen. “Ya best get Talbot,” she said to Kit, keeping her gaze on Ryen.
“Ya mean she might live? Polly! Ya bloody told me I could have her helmet! I already told –”
“Quiet,” Polly snapped. “Go get Talbot before I leave ya alone with her.”
Kit fled from the room.
Polly bent close to Ryen. She placed a cool hand against Ryen’s forehead before turning to retrieve a goblet from the side table.
Ryen’s head swam as Polly gently placed a hand beneath her head and lifted. The goblet was cold against her lips and, as the water cascaded over her parched throat, Ryen heard Polly murmur, “Ya are a fighter, I must say that. I truly believed ya would not live.” Polly pulled the goblet from Ryen’s lips after she took a few sips. “Not too much, or ya’ll be sick.”
Ryen ached for more of the soothing liquid, but she saw Polly place it back on the wooden table and did not have the strength to object. She laboriously turned her head to see where she was. Most of the room was in darkness. Soft pillows cushioned her head; warm blankets covered her body. A light, gauzy black curtain separated the rest of the room from the bed, except on Polly’s side. There, it was drawn back. On a table beside the bed was a single candle, the only light in the tomb of darkness.
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