Chapter 10 #3
“I was – covered in ice, Niall.” She swallowed, panic rising in her chest. “I was frozen solid, and the voice – it’s never sounded like that, so deep and so scary, like it wasn’t even coming from me at all, but from something – someone – else entirely.
And the shadows, they were so violent, so vicious. It’s never been like that before.”
Niall halted, pulling his hand free of hers. “Because you were protecting me. You were scared, that she was going to kill me, and so it all became that much worse.”
Rory dug the toe of her boot into the ground, shoulders hunched. “Maybe.”
For a moment, the only sound was the wind in the trees and the rustle of leaves, then she reached out and seized his wrists in her hands, tugging him closer.
“Promise me you’ll never tell,” she said, her eyes searching his.
“I saved your life, and you owe me this, Niall. Swear that you will never tell anyone what you saw me do.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know why, I just know that it’s important, that no one can ever know what I can do.” She drew in a long, shaky breath. “You have to promise, Niall. If you are grateful to me for saving you, if you love me at all, you will promise me. Never tell a soul.”
He nodded, mouth parted slightly. “All right. I swear. I won’t ever tell.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.”
She dropped his wrists and threw her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tight.
“I was scared,” she whispered. “I was terrified that you would die. I couldn’t bear it, to think of it.
” A muffled sob against her shoulder, and she clung to him harder.
“I’ll always protect you, Niall. I won’t ever let anything happen to you, all right? ”
He sniffled. “Like Murph and Molly.”
“Yes, just like Murph and Molly. You promise not to tell, and I promise to protect you.”
Niall pulled back, wiping at his nose. “It’s a promise,” he said, a tremulous smile breaking out over his freckled face.
“It’s a promise,” she echoed, then slipped her hand into his. “Now let’s go home.”
It had been so simple then – the homecoming after enduring a nightmare the likes of which neither of them had ever imagined possible.
How resilient are the young, Rory thought idly as she watched Locke approach her, his expression shuttered and watchful.
How vibrant and strong, how enduring, to look upon horrors and walk away with no lingering scars, no wounds that fester and burn black with decay.
She was certainly festering now.
Locke came to a halt a stone’s throw away from her, nodding to the two men who stood nearby, who had been doing a very poor job of pretending to not stand guard over her. “My lady,” he said. “The sun will set in one hour. I have arranged for you to dress in my tent before the ceremony.”
She flashed her teeth in a smile. “Am I not pretty enough for you, Lord Locke, as I am?”
“You are, of course, an utter vision of loveliness,” he said. “But I thought you might like to bathe before we are bound together for the night.”
“Bound together?”
“We are to be hand-fasted, my lady. A year and a day, remember? There will be no feasting tonight – only you and I, exchanging vows, my hand tied to yours as we consider the full weight of what it would mean to make this union more permanent.”
“A chance to think better of it, you mean.”
“Indeed.” His gaze dropped to her hands, still clasped together in front of her. “I will ensure that the bindings you endure tonight are more pleasurable than the ones you were first subjected to when we met.”
Pleasurable. The word rolled through her, a strange, not unwelcome sensation, as his eyes lingered too long on the bare skin of her wrists, her forearms.
He was handsome, those bronze curls and tapered waist and lean-muscled arms. Finn could hardly fault her, if she were to take whatever enjoyment she could from this arrangement before she disposed of him.
“I am glad to hear that my pleasure is of the utmost concern to you, Lord Locke.”
Their eyes met in the fading sunlight. “As mine should be yours,” he said, a bit boldly. “Since you are to be my wife.” He gave a short bow. “I will meet you in one hour, my lady. Under the great oak by the stream.” He gestured towards the tent behind him. “Do not make me wait.”
It sounded, inconceivably, like a threat, and Rory felt a secret stab of admiration for him, this man who had stood by not even a full day ago and watched her drive his cousin to madness and misery with a mere whisper of incoherent words.
He was rather bold, this bridegroom of hers, to threaten her after he had seen what horrors she could bring to life.
She said nothing though, but turned on her heel and glided away, disappearing into the tent without a backward glance, to wash the lingering stench of blood and sweat and despair from her skin, to slip into the gown of snow-white silk and slippers laid out for her on the waiting bed, a makeshift heap of linen and soft furs, to set upon her auburn hair a sweet-scented crown of wildflowers and clover.
How silly of him, to try and hide the monster under a pretty show of blossoms and soft silks and virginal white.
After all, it wouldn’t save him, not any of them, not in the end.
Nothing would.