Medieval Ever After (125 page)

Rona caught a flicker of movement over Daniel’s shoulder in the doorway. Slowly, Robert, Burke, and finally Garrick entered the chamber, coming to stand behind Daniel. Burke and Robert lowered their swords so that the tips rested on the chamber’s floor, and Burke set down a tallow candle. But Garrick kept an arrow aimed at her, the bowstring drawn back to his cheek.

“Do you have a shot?” Daniel said flatly, never taking his eyes from her.

“Nay, not a clean one,” Garrick replied behind him, his voice tight with frustration.

Though she knew it went against every fiber in his being, Daniel motioned for Garrick to lower the arrow. Then he forced himself to slowly drop the tip of his sword, though he kept both hands gripped on the hilt.

Once he did, the pressure from the dagger against her throat eased marginally, and she could breathe again.

“What’s your play here, Warren?” Robert said from behind Daniel. “If you had wanted to kill the lass, you’d have done it already.”

Daniel drew back his lips and snarled at his brother’s words, but Rona distantly comprehended what Robert was trying to do. He was drawing Warren out, stalling him. She desperately wanted to scream a warning to them, to tell them that stalling was exactly what Warren wanted.

“Or perhaps I was just waiting for you filthy Sinclairs to arrive so that I could let you watch as I slice her throat and drain the lifeblood from her,” Warren replied.

For effect, he pressed the blade a little harder against her throat once more, causing her to inhale sharply. Daniel’s eyes flared, but he didn’t move.

“If you want to hurt me, here I am,” Daniel said through gritted teeth. “Why don’t you let her go and face me, man to man?”

“You should know by now that appeals to my chivalric side won’t work,” Warren said. “Besides, your brothers taught me that it is much more painful and…effective to go after what a man cares for instead of attacking him directly.”

“So that’s what this is, Warren?” Robert said. “You’re taking vengeance for Alwin and Jossalyn?”

Rona felt Warren shrug behind her.

“More for Lady Hewett than my weakling sister. That reminds me, though.”

Warren stepped sideways, keeping Rona in front of him by guiding her with the knife on her throat. Now she could see fully around Daniel to Garrick.

“I believe I owe you for
this
.” Warren flashed his other hand in front of her, and she noticed a circular white scar on both the back and palm of his hand.

Garrick’s eyes flickered to Warren’s hand, and a cold, deadly smile spread across his face.

“Any time you’d like to repay me for the arrow I sent through your hand, I’ll be more than willing.”

“Perhaps once this little matter is taken care of,” Warren replied calmly, but he began backing up toward the large bed behind them.

Rona kept pace with him, the blade keeping her plastered to him. To her surprise, when Warren’s legs bumped into the bed, he sat on its edge, bringing her down onto his lap. Even through her wool dress, she could feel that heat rolled off him.

Daniel growled again, but Rona knew Warren only had her on his lap to serve as his shield.

“If all you want is to kill her in front of me, what are you waiting for?” Daniel hissed, his eyes burning in rage.

Warren sighed. “I thought I might draw it out a bit. You see, your lovely wife has caused me quite a bit of trouble and pain. I’m sure you have become acquainted with her willfulness, but I must chastise you for not breaking her of it yet.”

Daniel blinked several times, and his eyes locked on Rona as if registering her appearance for the first time. She hadn’t seen herself since she’d been captured, but she could guess at what she must look like to him. Her hair was tangled and matted, her gown dirt-soiled and torn in places. Her face was stiff and achy, likely bruised badly, and she knew that dried blood mixed with fresher red in several places where Warren had hit her.

Daniel inhaled sharply, and his face flashed from rage to anguish and back again.

Warren scoffed behind her. “She’s only just begun to pay for what she’s done to
me
.”

She felt him shift beneath her, and he leaned over slightly so that for the first time, his face appeared to Daniel and the others from behind her shoulder. She saw their eyes widen, and she knew they were seeing the horror she’d witnessed a few hours ago when he’d fetched her from the dungeon.

The wound on his left cheek where she’d bitten him hadn’t closed. In fact, it had festered into a raw, open cesspit. The flesh was red and inflamed, and it oozed yellowish pus. Worse, the festering was spreading. Warren’s left eye was half-swollen shut and as inflamed as the raw wound on his cheek. And there were tendrils of red and purple trailing from the mangled flesh down his neck and up toward his sandy hair.

She hadn’t seen Warren try to cover the gaping, inflamed wound since he’d dragged her from the dungeon. She guessed that it was too painful even for the most soothing poultice or the softest bandage. She’d seem him wince and gnash his teeth several times, however, and knew the wound pained him greatly. Perhaps that was why he was sitting on the edge of the bed, she thought with a flicker of hope. Perhaps the wound was sapping his strength. He was far too hot as well—was fever racking him?

Daniel gazed with revulsion at Warren’s mangled face.

“Please tell me that my wife did that to you,” he said.

Daniel’s barb struck its mark, but too well. The blade was suddenly pressing against Rona’s throat again. A trickle of warmth ran down her neck, and she let out a half-scream, half-cry at the feel of her own blood flowing.

The blade eased back once more.

“I warned you,” Warren said stormily. “Do something foolish again and she’ll pay for it.”

Daniel looked torn between wanting to rip Warren’s throat out with his teeth and staying rooted in place for Rona’s sake. Luckily, Burke diverted Warren’s attention.

“Where is your army? And why have you remained here alone and unguarded?” Burke said with a surprising level of calm.

Warren turned his attention to Burke, who stood farthest away.

“I’m not entirely alone and unguarded,” he replied, giving Rona a little shake. “But about my army, you’ll just have to wait a little longer before all is revealed.”

Though his voice was smooth, Rona could feel Warren slouching deeper into the bed. She risked a glance down at the blade against her throat. Warren’s knuckles were white from his grip on the dagger, and his hand shook a little.

A combination of desperation and hope surged through her. The longer Warren stalled, the more likely it was that his plan would be unstoppable. But on the other hand, his strength seemed to be flagging. The festering was spreading quickly, sapping his energy. How long could he withstand the damage from such a wound? He’d already been sickly when he first visited her in the dungeon almost two days ago, but he’d deteriorated even more since then.

She locked eyes with Daniel. He was barely holding on to the thread of his composure. His own knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword, so torturous was it for him to stand before her and be unable to strike down her abuser. She tried to silently communicate with him, to tell him to hold on just for a few more moments, that she was all right and that Warren wouldn’t be able to restrain her for much longer.

“You see, I have been on the defensive for too long. Ever since the battle of Roslin, I have been forced to stay behind the walls of Dunbraes rather than search out and rid the land of you Scottish barbarians.”

Despite his shaking hand and the feverish heat rolling off him, Warren seemed to be savoring drawing this out. It was his last play, Rona knew.

“And with King Edward dead, I was beginning to lose hope that the task of cleansing the Scottish scourge from lands that should belong to England would ever be completed. His son has proven himself an ineffectual weakling who will never take up his father’s title of Hammer of the Scots,” Warren went on.

Rona tore her eyes from Daniel and shifted her gaze to Garrick, who stood to his right and behind him. Garrick still had an arrow nocked, though his bow was lowered at his side. He flicked his eyes to Rona and away again so quickly that she wasn’t sure he’d understood what she was silently trying to communicate.

“…so close to the Borderlands for so long,” Warren was saying. Rona was hardly paying attention to him. Her stomach twisted in anticipation. She had to do something. She had to take advantage of his loosening grip on the dagger at her throat. She knew Warren was backed into a corner now. He’d run out of time. He would tell them his plan now that he’d stalled them, but once he had, she was no longer of use to him. She had to strike before he no longer needed her as a shield.

“…realized I didn’t have to wait. I could finally go on the offense against you savages. I could attack.”

It was time.

Suddenly Rona threw both hands around the wrist that held the dagger to her throat. Pulling Warren’s wrist away from her throat as hard as she could, she slammed one elbow into his ribs. As Warren grunted and crumpled slightly behind her, she caught a glimpse of Garrick dropping to one knee and drawing back his bowstring in one smooth movement.

She flung herself forward onto the floor just as Garrick let his arrow fly. In mid-fall, she heard a whir next to her ear and felt a breath of air as the arrow shot past her face. She landed hard on the floor, but turned to look back over her shoulder at Warren.

He half-screamed, half-wheezed as his free hand scraped and pulled at the arrow buried in his chest. He looked down at the arrow, his good eye wide and his infected one dripping pus.

All of a sudden Daniel was at her side, crouching next to her on the floor and pulling her into his arms.

She had held herself together for so long, finding strength she never knew she possessed. But her composure shattered at the feel of Daniel’s warm, large hands running all over her, checking for injuries. She dug her fingers into him and clung to him for dear life, sobs ripping through her.

Rona lifted her head to look up at Daniel, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Robert, Garrick, and Burke moving in on Warren, who leaned back on top of his bed, propped up by one elbow.

“He sent his army to Loch Doon last night,” Rona cried out through her tears. “They will set siege to the castle when they reach it in a few hours.” She had taken away the last thread of power Warren had over them, his last secret, the last surprise he could spring on them.

“You stupid bitch!” Warren hissed, his good eye wild with fury.

Robert, Garrick, and Burke froze in their advance upon Warren and exchanged a dark look. Rona felt Daniel tense against her as well.

“None of you will kill me,” Warren rasped, tugging their attention back to him. He was dragging himself backward on his large bed. “I won’t give you the satisfaction.”

Just then, he raised his hand, and Rona realized he still held his dagger.

“You’re right!” she blurted out, somehow finding the strength to spring to her feet.

Warren’s frenzied gaze jerked to her.

“None of them will kill you, because I already have!” She bared her teeth at him in savage rage, taking a step closer to the bed. “If only I could watch my bite kill you slowly and painfully.”

Warren pushed himself farther back on the bed, brandishing the jeweled dagger, but a terrified look transformed his mangled features. Before any of the men could make a move toward him, he brought the dagger to his own throat and with one swift jerk, drew the blade across his throat.

Blood spurted from Warren’s neck as he fell back onto the bed. Though part of her was horrified at the sight before her, Rona forced herself to watch as the life seeped out of him. He twitched a few times, but in a matter of moments, he lay still, his good eye wide and unseeing.

Large hands encircled her shoulders and turned her away from the horrendous scene. Then all she could see were Daniel’s stormy blue-gray eyes, which shimmered in the candlelight.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered, pulling her to him in a rough embrace.

“Never,” she choked out through the tears that once again overcame her.

He hugged her tighter, and she couldn’t prevent a moan of pain from escaping her lips. She’d been suspended in a haze of terror, which muted the pain, but now as relief washed over her, all the wounds Warren had inflicted returned to her.

Daniel instantly released her at her moan. “What is it, love? Did he hurt you?”

She took a shaky breath. “Aye, but I survived.”

He gently took her face, bruised, blood-crusted, and swollen as it was, into his hands and locked eyes with her.

“Aye, love, you survived. I’ve never known anyone as strong as you.” His voice was thick with emotion, which sent her reeling into overwhelmed tears once more.

Daniel pulled her back into his arms once more, this time softly, and held her for several long minutes as sobs racked her body. Just as the tears began to ebb, she heard Robert conspicuously clear his throat nearby.

“I know you’ve been through hell, Rona,” Robert said, stepping forward. “But we must move. Can you tell us anything else about Warren’s plan?”