Chapter Ten #2
Mercifully, Father hadn’t anticipated I would find a way out of my room. When we reached the bottom we found the front door was locked only from the inside. I waited for Raleigh to deal with the latch, then followed him out into the yawning dark.
But it wasn’t freedom waiting on the other side.
Nor was it an eternity of marriage to a monstrous prince.
His facial features were little more than a blur in the dark, but I’d recognise his silhouette anywhere: Yann.
He stood barely yards from the door, his uninjured hand half concealed behind him, hefting something heavy I couldn’t make out.
‘Clara.’ He said my name softly, stepping closer as he spoke.
‘You again,’ Raleigh said. ‘How’s your hand, boy?’
‘Healing,’ Yann said tersely.
‘Don’t want to risk reopening old wounds now, do you?’
Yann only scowled.
‘Why are you here?’ It was Raleigh who spoke, but it felt like he pulled the words from my own mouth.
‘I have to protect Clara.’
‘Define “protect”,’ Raleigh said lightly, ‘because I’d say that being abducted and kept prisoner by your father is rather less ideal than living freely with your fiancé.’
‘You’re the one who abducted her.’
‘But she’s the one who chose to stay,’ Raleigh purred.
Even in the darkness I could make out the fury on Yann’s face. ‘She wouldn’t have—’
‘Clara, would you rather stay here with him or come home with me?’ He already knew the answer. This was for Yann’s sake, not his.
‘I have to go with Raleigh,’ I said.
Yann clenched his teeth, taking a shuddering breath. ‘Don’t.’ His voice wavered. ‘He’s the devil, Clara. You can’t let him take you.’
‘He’s not the devil. If he were the devil he’d be a lot more charming.’
‘I am charming.’
Neither of us acknowledged him.
‘He’s a monster.’
Raleigh’s hand twitched.
‘Maybe,’ I said, keeping my voice level. ‘And yet I’d still rather go back with him than spend another moment here with you.’
His mouth fell open. ‘He has brainwashed you. Have you really forgotten everything he’s done. He killed my parents … your mother.’
Raleigh stepped forward, putting himself between me and Yann. ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘She’s given you her answer. We’re leaving. And trust me, baker, your hand was a warning. You don’t want to see what else I can do.’
Yann mimicked Raleigh’s posture, rising to his toes so they stood nose to nose.
‘I don’t think you can do anything.’ He thrust out his uninjured hand and through the moonlight I could finally see what he had concealed at his side.
It was a large silver crucifix I recognised from the altar in our nigh abandoned church.
Raleigh staggered back, hissing like a cornered cat. And then, to my horror, he cowered. His face was lit with cold fury, his whole body shaking.
‘So it’s true,’ Yann said. ‘You are a monster.’
‘No more than you,’ Raleigh spat back. His fangs were fully protruded, eyes narrowed to slits.
There was a wildness to him I had never seen before, as if whatever held him back from his true nature had been dislodged.
He couldn’t tear his eyes from the cross, as much as it pained him. He was a lion, terrified by a mouse.
Yann stepped closer. Raleigh scrambled to distance himself.
‘You see what he is?’ Yann said. ‘Who you’ve chosen to be with.’
‘I didn’t choose him,’ I cried. ‘I’m trying to save Orlfen, so for God’s sake put that down and let us go.’
‘Your duty is to your husband,’ Yann said.
My whole body went rigid at those words. My teeth clenched, as if they knew what I was about to say and were trying to stop it. ‘I have no husband,’ I said. My anger was a magma flow, smooth and molten and impossible to contain. ‘But I am engaged to the Prince of Rostenburg.’
Yann inhaled. Exhaled. His breath shook, but something behind me caught his attention and his shoulders relaxed. He smiled. ‘Unfortunately His Serene Highness won’t live to appreciate the sentiment.’
I whirled around. Raleigh’s face was clouded in confusion and pain, still immobilised by the cross. He hadn’t noticed that Yann was looking behind him, and he was too distracted to hear the footsteps, to sense death’s lingering presence.
Father stood in the entry hall, his crossbow levelled at Raleigh’s back. I cried out, but too late. He fired.
Raleigh choked on his scream, falling to his knees as the bolt buried itself in his shoulder. Terror forced his eyes as wide as they would go, the expression alien on him. His lips moved but no sound came out.
Father reloaded and took aim again. There was no time to think.
I lunged forward and grabbed Yann’s hand.
Not the one holding the cross, but the one that hung limply in his sling.
I squeezed hard, my fist closing around his shattered bones.
His scream echoed into the night, and I knew it would ring in my ears for years to come.
The crucifix fell into the dirt and I dived, scooping it up before he could recover, shrugging off my robe to conceal it completely.
A sharp twang cut through the night air as Father released the next bolt, but Raleigh had already vanished. The bolt sailed through empty air, whistling past me, and finally lodged itself in Yann’s thigh. His cry was louder this time, hollow with rage.
‘I should raise your taxes if you have this much silver lying around,’ Raleigh said from behind me. Father’s bolt stuck out of his shoulder.
Father levelled the bow once again. ‘You won’t have the chance.’
Raleigh grinned, looping his arm around my waist. ‘Time to leave, my love.’
And then the ground was gone.