Angel's Assassin (31 page)

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 over 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.

D
amien 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.

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.

“Put down the sword, Damien,” Roke said
softly from behind him.

Damien almost instantly dropped the weapon
for fear they would kill her. But then his fingers tightened over
the handle. If they killed her, they would have no power over him.
“You won’t kill her.”

“Kill her?” Roke asked, startled. “What good
would she be to me dead?”

Mother removed his hand from her waist and
loosened the gag, before pulling it from her mouth. Never once did
he release his hold from her throat.

A strangled sob escaped her lips.

Damien couldn’t take his stare from her. He
couldn’t look away from her light, for fear it would whither
beneath Mother’s grasp. This was all his fault. He should never
have looked at her. All those years ago when he had killed her
mother. If he had only looked away. If he had only… But then, he
never would have known her. Aurora’s light would never have touched
his dark life. And he would rather die than never know her. “Damn
you, Roke,” he growled.

“I already am,” Roke said solemnly.

Mother slid from the bed, pulling Aurora with
him like a child’s play thing.

Damien remained still. He needed to
concentrate. Mother would make a mistake and Damien needed to be
calm so he would not miss it. He needed his assassin skills to free
Aurora. He needed the darkness inside him to contend with these
monsters.

“Put down your weapon, Damien,” Roke
ordered.

As an assassin, he would never be parted from
his weapon, no matter what. If he put his weapon down, how could he
stop Mother from hurting Aurora? He straightened. He would strangle
the life from him with his bare hands. Damien locked eyes with
Aurora for a moment, trying to instill faith, trying to reassure
her. Fear radiated from her entire body. From one trap to the next.
How had Roke gotten her? Damien left her with her father. “What
happened to Lord Gabriel?”

Tears welled in her eyes.

“He is a failure,” Roke sneered. “But he did
grant me a wife before his untimely demise.”

Wife. It didn’t matter. Roke would be dead
before he touched Aurora. Damien heard the gentle ting of metal
against metal. He shifted his stare to Roke, without turning his
head.

Roke stood near the table with the torture
instruments on it. His hand gently moved back and forth over the
devices as though he were stroking a lover. “Some of these you’ve
seen before,” Roke said, affectionately. “Some of these you have
not.” Roke picked one up that had a sharp edged side and another
side that looked like a claw. He studied it keenly. “I’ve never
used any of these on a woman… before now. I imagine her screams
will be just as loud as a man’s. Perhaps even louder.” He put the
blade beneath the flame of a candle.