Chapter Thirteen
Cloryn Castle
Allaston was on her hands and knees in front of Bretton, her buttocks in the air. It was such a perfect target and he knew it, but at this moment, he was so furious at her for pushing him in front of his men that he could hardly see straight.
He was a killer, and he was her captor, and he was more than capable of taking her life in a most heinous manner.
Everyone looking at him was expecting him to do it, waiting for the moment when he would ram the sharp end of the pole into her intestines, punishing her for her insolence and disobedience once and for all.
Aye, he knew what his men were expecting and had anyone else been the target, he would have complied without hesitation.
But it wasn’t just anyone else. It was Allaston.
He was angry with her. Positively furious.
So much so that when she turned her round little buttocks into the air, he came up behind her with the pole and, just to scare her, rammed it underneath her so that it slid up between her knees and hands, underneath her body.
Startled, she barely had time to shriek before he was grabbing her around the waist and spanking her within an inch of her life.
At least five good whacks, right on the backside, and Allaston howled in pain.
Then, Bretton grabbed her by the long, dark braid of hair and pulled her through the forest of bodies until they reached his horse.
She was weeping and gasping with pain, and fright, as he picked her up and tossed her, belly down, across his saddle.
Mounting up behind her, he spurred his charger towards the group that was preparing to accompany him to Newtown. He positively bellowed at them.
“Return to Cloryn,” he yelled. “I am going to teach this wench a lesson once and for all. Go back and wait for me!”
He was so mad that Grayton and Teague didn’t question him in the least. They immediately directed the escort party back to the great gates of Cloryn while Bretton thundered off down the road with Allaston slung across his saddle.
As the escort party moved back into the bailey, the two commanders lingered at the gatehouse, watching Bretton race down the road with the prisoner, suspecting he was going to do to the woman what he should have done at the beginning.
He was either going to murder her and bury the body, or he was going to make her wish she was dead. Either thought pleased them greatly.
But Bretton wasn’t going to kill her. He had to publicly beat her so he wouldn’t lose the respect of his men, and even then, he was sure they were suspicious of his intentions towards her.
He knew that Grayton’s argument about the fact that she was Jax de Velt’s daughter, their greatest asset and a prisoner to boot, would have some effect on his men.
Grayton was very loyal to him but he also had strong opinions.
Bretton was fairly certain Grayton wouldn’t turn his men against him, but he would certainly turn them against Allaston.
So he had to remove her, to get her away from the situation, and as he pounded down the road from Cloryn, he came to a crossroads within a quarter of a mile and began to head south.
Then, and only then, did he slow the animal’s pace because he was certain the rough ride was not at all comfortable on Allaston as she lay on her belly in front of him.
To her credit, however, she hadn’t muttered a sound.
The horse slowed to a walk. Bretton shifted his reins to the other hand and promptly smacked her on the butt again, hard enough so that she grunted. He eyed her dark head.
“Are you conscious?” he asked.
Allaston nodded her head. “Aye.”
She sounded ill. Grasping the back of her surcoat, he slid her off of the horse and onto the ground. Allaston hit feet first but she lost her balance and fell back onto her sore bottom, wincing as she did so. Bretton pulled the horse to a stop and looked down at her.
“Well?” he said, sounding displeased. “What do you have to say for your behavior back there?”
Allaston was slowly getting up, brushing off her bottom as she moved rather unsteadily. “What would you have me say?” she asked, refusing to look at him. “You killed that woman and her family. It was….”
He cut her off. “Allow me to clarify the situation,” he said. “I did not kill her and her husband. My men did. As for the boy, I am not sure who did that, but everything that was done was completed at my direction.”
She looked at him, then. “But why?” she wanted to know, pain in her voice. “Why would you do such a thing? You allowed that lady to be… abused horrifically and then killed. She committed no crime against you!”
Bretton would not be reprimanded and he struggled to hold his temper in check.
“Such is the nature of conquest, lady,” he told her.
“Your father did the same thing. He killed everything that moved because anything left alive, no matter how seemingly innocuous at the time, can at some day or some time be a threat. I am a perfect example of that. I escaped to live as Jax de Velt destroyed my home. Now, I have come back to kill him. And I shall.”
Allaston wasn’t going to be sucked into another argument against killing her father. They’d had that conversation too many times. “You had the chance to hurt him very badly back there,” she said. “You should have put me on a pole.”
“And, yet, I did not,” he said. “You are more valuable to me alive than dead at the moment, but that may change.”
“So you have said.”
“You do not believe me?”
Allaston wasn’t in any mood to be toyed with.
“I believe you like to play games with me,” she said bitterly.
“You have moments when you are quite rational and quite human, and I feel comfort with you, and then you have times like this when you are mad with vengeance and all you do is threaten. Do you know what I think? I do not think even you know what it is you want out of life. You want to kill my father, that is true, but I do not think you know what you want to do after that is accomplished or even what you want to do with me. Sometimes you treat me like a prisoner, other times like a companion. You are a man in great turmoil, de Llion, and you have sucked me into the turmoil with you.”
As always, she was quite astute. His first reaction was to rage at her but he found that he couldn’t because she was right.
Everything she said was correct. Puzzled, and feeling reprimanded, he did what he often did when faced with such things – he withdrew.
He didn’t want to talk about it anymore because he didn’t want her to get the better of him.
This novice nun, this prisoner, and this beautiful woman he couldn’t seem to get out of his mind, had increasing control over him.
When Bretton fell silent and turned away from her, Allaston studied the man closely.
He tended to brood when he didn’t have an answer to what she was saying.
She’d seen it before. Be kind to him. She’d tried that before but it hadn’t worked.
She’s tried to fight him, too, and that hadn’t worked, either.
However, now they knew each other better and she was coming to understand him a bit more.
Deep down, his vengeance was a result of a horrible sadness, something inadvertently perpetrated against him by Jax de Velt.
Just like everyone, Bretton wanted to be satisfied in life.
He was not satisfied now and he believed that killing Jax would lead him to gratification.
Allaston thought a moment on how she could help him find contentment and perhaps save her father at the same time.
After the man had refused to put her on a pole, even after she’d provoked him, she had a feeling he might be more apt to listen to her persuasion.
“De Llion,” she said softly, moving in his direction. “Bretton. May I call you Bretton?”
He looked at her, seeing that she was coming towards him. “You will whether or not I want you to,” he said, rolling his eyes with exasperation. “You never do anything I want you to do.”
She smiled agreeably. “Bretton,” she began quietly. “When my father set out to conquer Four Crosses those years ago, it was not with the express intent to hurt you or ruin your life. You were simply collateral damage. Surely you understand that.”
“I do.”
She thought carefully on what she would say next.
“I do not believe that we are all born predisposed to what we will become,” she said.
“In other words, you were not born to be a killer. I am sure you were born a very sweet little boy who loved his parents very much. You probably had pets and toys like all children do. What you have become since that time… you chose to become a killer and to seek vengeance against my father, who inadvertently ruined your life. Killing him will not bring your parents back and it will not suddenly make you a happy and content man. On the contrary, I believe it will leave you more empty and angry than before. You will not find the true happiness you seek in another man’s murder.
Therefore, I want to make you a proposal. ”
He was trying not to look interested. In fact, he waved her off. “There is nothing that you can propose to me that will satisfy me.”
“Will you at least hear me?”
He rolled his eyes again. “I am sure I have little choice but I will tell you again that it will do no good.”
Allaston was going to give it her best try. She had always been persuasive. She hoped her luck would continue to hold.