by Grant, Donna
He clenched his left hand under the table and promised himself the man would pay for hitting her. It was the lowest kind of man that would strike a woman or child.
“Please, darlin’. I’m dying here.”
She shook her head at him but went to the bar for his ale. While she had her back turned, he hastily emptied his ale in the corner. The woman was on her way back to him when Cole picked up on a conversation at a nearby table.
“Daniel, is it true? Did Marcus go missing last night?” Daniel looked around and shushed the other man. “Not so loud. We don’t want others to hear us or we’ll be next.”
“Here you go,” the woman said, cutting off the conversation between the two men.
Cole smiled at her and reached into his coin purse to pay. “Here,” he said, giving her more than enough.
She looked at the coins, then back at him. “It’s too much,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “The other is yours.”
“I can’t,” she said and took his hand to give him back the coins.
Cole blinked at the tremor that went through him at her simple touch. His gaze jerked to her face to see if she had felt it to, but she didn’t raise her gaze.
He refused to take the coin and moved his hand away from her grasp. “Where are you from?” he asked and sloshed more ale on the table.
She chuckled and wiped the spilled ale. “You’re getting more on the table than in your mouth.”
“I heard that there were rooms to let here. Any available?” For a long moment she hesitated as if she didn’t want to reply. Finally, she nodded her head.
“I would like one.”
She visibly swallowed, her slender throat beckoning for his kisses. “For how long?”
Cole shrugged, giving her that goofy grin again. “Depends. How long will it take?”
She straightened and put her hands on her hips. “For what?”
“To get you in my bed?”
She rolled her beautiful honey brown eyes. “Not in your wildest dreams,” she mumbled before turning around.
“A week,” he called out.
She waved over her shoulder letting him know she had heard him. He smiled to himself. She was going to be a handful for whatever man tried to claim her.
* * *
Shannon maneuvered her way back to the bar. After she had made the arrangements for the customer’s room, she realized she hadn’t gotten his name. She was surprised to find that she actually wanted to talk to him again.
Oh, he flirted with her like the others, but he didn’t try to touch her, which was a huge difference in her book. He might be a drunk and she abhorred drunks, but there was something about him, something different that drew her to him on a level she didn’t quite understand.
It wasn’t in the way he dressed, though his leather vest and shirt were of a different quality than the villagers. Not quite as nice as the baron’s but not as plain as the poor. Just…different. Just as he was different. She couldn’t lay her finger on it, but surely given time she could discover what that difference was.
She walked back to his table. He was staring at the table as if concentrating on something. The boyish smile and drunken charm he had oozed a moment ago had vanished, and in its place she saw the face of a warrior, the kind she had read about in college and seen in movies.
Then, in a blink, he raised his gaze and smiled at her. Her stomach jumped with excitement. How she hadn’t noticed his shoulder length golden brown hair and chiseled face she didn’t know. But as she took a closer look at him, she had to admit she liked his wide mouth, the blonde brows that slashed over his eyes, and his wide forehead.
“Did you get my room?”
“I did,” she answered after swallowing. “However, I need your name.” A slow smile spread across his face sending another jolt through her, and she could have sworn something flashed in his dark brown eyes.
“Cole de Gant. And yours?”
“Shannon. Shannon O’Malley.”
“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”
His compliment shouldn’t have gone to her head, but it did. He was an extremely handsome man, despite being drunk, and handsome men never noticed her.
Then, to her amusement, he reached for her hand as if to kiss it and fell out of his chair. She laughed, unable to help herself. He was an adorable drunk. He smiled up at her, a twinkle in his eye, as he raised up on one elbow.
She bent down to help him up when rough hands seized her and threw her onto the floor. Men from the other tables had gathered around them. Shannon looked at the men, not understanding until one whispered ‘outsider’. She was about to push back through them to help Cole when she spotted one man carrying a dagger.
Before she could cry out all hell broke loose.
Chapter Three
The instant the men surrounded Cole, he shrugged off the drunk charade and leapt to his feet. He could see in the eyes of the men that they were hiding something.
“Get him and save one of our own,” someone shouted just before they rushed him.
Cole was strong, but being surrounded by nearly a dozen angry men left him at a disadvantage. However, they had no idea he wasn’t drunk, which gave him the upper hand, and enough time to ensure that it wasn’t long before he was on equal footing with them.
With just a few punches and jabs, he had knocked four men out. He never saw the dagger coming until it was too late. He shielded his face with his arm and felt the burning as the dagger sliced open his shoulder.
Years of training took over after that. The Fae had taught him well, and he used every bit of that instruction to his advantage. He ceased to see faces and concentrated on connecting his arm and legs to bodies.
When he next looked up, he was the last man standing. He stood in the middle of bodies that lay sprawled on the floor, his breath coming in great gasps.
“Impressive,” said a man standing beside Shannon, the same man that had hit her earlier. “Benton Ducre, owner of this establishment.” Cole nodded and started for the stairs. “Which room is mine?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Third on the right,” Benton called out. “I thought you were drunk. I’ve never seen an inebriated man fight the way you just did.” Cole stopped and turned. “Fighting has a way of sobering a man.” Benton smiled. “That it does, my friend. I’ll have food brought up to you.” Cole couldn’t wait to get into his room. It was toward the end of the hall, which he liked, and he wasn’t disappointed when he stepped inside. A table and two chairs sat near the hearth. The bed was on the opposite wall and another smaller table stood next to it. There wasn’t much to the room, but at least it was clean.
With the blood soaking into his tunic, he jerked the ruined garment over his head and reached for the looking glass. It took him a moment to adjust the glass to be able to see the cut.
It was just as he expected. Deep but not so deep that he would need the aid of Gabriel’s herbs to help with the healing. Though he hated to admit it, Gabriel and his herbs would speed the process along. As he looked at the cut, he realized that stitching it might not be a bad idea to stop the flow of blood and keep him from becoming weak.
After the attack downstairs, there wasn’t such a thing as too careful, not when he needed all his strength to fight the evil.
He built up a fire and cleaned his wound. Then he opened his small pack he always carried with him and found a needle for just such occasions. It took him a moment to thread the needle and then situate the looking glass somewhere so that he could see into it so he knew what he was sewing. He didn’t mind tending his own wounds, but he didn’t want to be stitching skin that didn’t need it.
After several attempts he was about to give up with there was a knock on the door.
“Enter,” he said and watched as the door opened and Shannon entered carrying a tray of food.
“Oh, my,” she exclaimed and hastily set the tray down. “I had no ide
a you were injured.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
She raised her dark brows at him. “A scratch that is deep enough that it needs to be stitched. You’re right,” she said with sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Just a scratch.”
He smiled and nodded to the tray. “Thank you for bringing the food,” he said and tried again to angle his shoulder so he could stitch it.
With a sigh, Shannon took the needle from him. “Let me,” she said and pulled the other chair around so that she sat facing him. She glanced up and smiled. “Trust me.
I know what I’m doing.”
He watched, mesmerized, as she poured some of his ale over the needle before she moved to him. The shock of her soft, gentle hands on him startled him more than the needle that pierced his skin.
“Do you stitch many of Benton’s customers?” he asked as a way to distract his mind and his growing rod.
“Not
hardly.”
The scorn dripping from her voice left him smiling. “You never told me where you were from.”
“Somewhere far, far away.”
“Did you arrive in England on purpose?”
“No. It was quite by accident, but I would love to return to my home.” Cole couldn’t help but be curious as to why she was being held against her will.
“Where are you from?”
For the first time in his life, Cole wanted to tell the truth. Instead, he told a half truth. “I don’t know. My family was killed when I was only a small child. I was taken in by another family.”
Shannon stopped sewing and raised her gaze to his. Their eyes caught and held.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
He smiled and shrugged his left shoulder. “It’s life.” She nodded and lowered her eyes to resume her work. “What brings you to this small village?”
“By accident,” he lied. “I was traveling and ended up here. Why?” he asked with a grin. “Is there something I should know?”
“You know as much as I do,” she mumbled right before she lowered her face to his arm.
Cole’s entire body jerked at the feel of her soft lips on his skin. His body came alive and the need to have a woman in his arms was as strong as the need to breath. But not just any woman would do.
He wanted Shannon.
“There,” she said and straightened after biting off the thread. “You’re all done.” He feasted his eyes on her face. She had a pert little nose and a stubborn chin, high cheek bones and a mouth made for kissing.
She was, to put it plainly, exquisite.
He had the urge to reach up and smooth away the tendrils of hair that were tangled around her face, yet he controlled himself. Somehow.
Cole reached for the looking glass and examined her work. The neatness of the stitches surprised him, as did the tightness of them, as if she worried it might leave a scar.
“It’s very good work,” he said and watched her smile brighten at his compliment.
She shrugged as if it meant nothing, but he knew otherwise. “If you ever find you need someone to bandage you, you know where to find me.” He flexed his injured arm and threw a smile at her as she rose and moved the chair back. As she was about to turn away, he caught her hand.
Her eyes jerked to his face. He searched her depths for something, anything that would stop the lust searing his veins. Instead, he found fear and sorrow.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Her gaze dropped as she gently pulled her hand from his grasp. Cole allowed her to move away from him when all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and taste her lips, to sink into her heat and ride the exquisite pleasure he knew they would share.
She looked over her shoulder once more just before she opened the door.
Shannon didn’t want to leave. It was the first time since her “appearance” in England that she truly felt as if she might have found a friend. But she knew Benton would keep a close eye on her.
Still, knowing that and finding him standing outside Cole’s room surprised a gasp out of her. She knew how hard he could hit and had seen men the size of Cole run from Benton. She didn’t wish to see Cole hurt, so she hurriedly tried to explain herself.
“I was just coming down.”
“You’ve been up here a mighty long time,” Benton drawled as his eyes moved past her to Cole.
Shannon’s mind whirled with possible explanations, then she decided on the truth.
“He was cut. I know how you hate to have blood on the floors, so I helped him stitch it.” She knew her words tumbled out faster than if she was on some drug, but once they started, they wouldn’t stop. Her hands shook as she waited for Benton to respond.
She didn’t dare look at Cole, for if Benton thought she cared what happened to him, Benton would kill him just for spit.
The sound of movement behind her drew her attention. She squeezed her eyes closed, wishing Cole would stay where he was and not interfere. Didn’t he realize she was trying to save him?
“Is there a problem?” Cole asked from behind her.
Benton inhaled deeply as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Actually, there is.
You’ve kept Shannon from her work, which has cost me coin.” The curiosity was too much for Shannon. She stepped to the side so she could see both Benton and Cole. The hardness of Cole’s face alerted her to just how angry he was.
His dark brown eyes flashed dangerously. With his high forehead, dark brows and square jaw and chin, Cole wasn’t a man who people questioned.
Shannon raked her eyes over his wide, muscular shoulders, abdomen that could compete with a washboard, pecs that any body builder would envy, and arms that rippled with muscles. Even his neck was corded with muscles that his shoulder length golden brown hair.
Her gaze was drawn to his lips. Wide, full lips that had smiled playfully at her just moments ago were now pressed firmly together as he regarded Benton with…distaste.
“How much?” Cole finally spoke.
A slow, wicked smile spread over Benton’s thickly bearded face. Shannon shuddered at the smile and wished Cole would just bash his head in so she could escape and be done with it all.
“Ten
crowns.”
Shannon felt the blood drain from her face. Even she knew it was an extraordinary amount, yet somehow she wasn’t surprised when Cole reached into his pocket and pulled out the coins to hand to Benton.
Benton tossed the coins in the air and caught them, giving Cole a sneer. “My kind of man.”
The tension was nearly electrifying and Shannon knew it was about to explode.
Cole might be able to take Benton and a few of the other men on at once, but she knew how many men Benton had waiting for something just like this to happen.
“Let’s get back downstairs,” Shannon said and tried to push Benton out of the room.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Benton raise his fist and knew it was going to land on her face. She braced herself expecting another agonizing slice of pain.
Then there was nothing.
She opened her eyes to find Cole had a hold of Benton’s arm as the two men glared at each other.
“I would appreciate it if you no longer hit her,” Cole ground out between clenched teeth.
Benton yanked his arm loose. “’Tis none of your concern. Remember that or the next time you won’t be left standing.”
Before Shannon could look at Cole, she was jerked out of the room and down the stairs.
Cole kicked the door closed as one of Benton’s men took a step toward him.
With the way he felt, a fight was just what he needed. He waited, hoping the man would open the door, yet it stayed shut.
With a growl, Cole turned toward the table and his now cold food. It was time to find Gabriel anyway, so he locked his door, donned another tunic, and slipped out the window.
Chapter Four
Cole walked
soundlessly between the buildings until he came to the spot where he was supposed to meet Gabriel. And, just as expected, Gabriel was waiting, casually leaning against a tree as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
In some ways Cole envied him. Gabriel remembered nothing of his past life, not where he came from, how old he was, if he was immortal. Nothing.
To not have memories was better than to have glimpses as Cole did. Some nights he would dream of a beautiful lady with light brown hair he had wound around his fingers as she sang to him. He had no idea if it was his mother or something his mind conjured to torture him.
