Iona #2
The sergeant follows.
“You’ll be safer if you don’t make noise.”
“That is almost never true.”
I open the garden door and run.
They come after me.
Frost crunches beneath my shoes. I take the rose walk, exactly as planned. Narrow walls. One way through.
A strip of black cloth hangs from the first thorn, Torgan’s marker for the turn.
I pull it free as I pass.
Behind me, the sergeant orders the men to spread out. They cannot. The rose walk is too narrow.
I reach the potting wall and turn.
Knife in my hand.
The sergeant slows.
“You don’t know how to use that.”
“He showed me this morning.”
“Who?”
I pull the whistle to my lips and blow once. The note cuts through the garden.
Vess drops from the wall behind him.
The first man goes down before he can shout.
The second turns and meets Ghenn coming through the side gate.
The sergeant knocks the whistle from my hand and lunges for me.
I slash his forearm. Too shallow.
He knocks the knife aside and catches my hair.
Pain tears across my scalp.
I drive my knee into him.
The mail blunts his fist when he strikes my ribs, but the impact still steals my breath.
He pulls me against him and puts a knife beneath my jaw.
Everything stops.
Vess has one man under her boot. Ghenn has the other against the wall. Neither moves.
The sergeant’s breath is hot at my ear.
“Call them off.”
“Do you know what he can smell?” I ask.
His grip tightens.
“What?”
“My blood.”
The garden changes.
Pressure arrives before sound. Every animal instinct in my body goes still.
Torgan stands at the mouth of the rose walk.
Barefoot. Bare chest. Black trousers. The green ribbon from last night wrapped around one fist.
His lips are drawn back from his fangs.
Every claw is out.
He looks at the knife under my jaw.
The voice that comes from him is not meant for conversation.
“Release her.”
The sergeant drags me backward.
“Stay where you are.”
Torgan takes one step into the narrow rose walk. He is three strides away now.
The knife bites enough to sting.
He stops.
I feel warm blood move down my throat.
Torgan smells it.
His face empties.
The sergeant understands too late what that means.
I tuck my chin harder against the blade, catch his knife wrist with both hands, and stamp down on his instep. When his balance breaks, I drop my full weight and turn into the trapped arm.
The edge skates along the mail collar instead of opening my throat. His grip tears free.
I drop.
Torgan crosses the distance before I hit the ground.
One hand catches me. The other closes around the sergeant’s throat.
The man leaves his feet.
Torgan slams him against the wall once.
The knife falls.
Again.
Stone dust shakes loose.
“Torgan.”
He does not hear me.
The sergeant claws at his wrist. His face darkens.
I put my palm against Torgan’s ribs.
The contact makes his head turn.
“Alive,” I say.
The old blood looks through me.
“We need him.”
His fingers tighten.
“For me.”
The grip opens.
The sergeant drops hard and curls around his throat.
Torgan steps over him and comes to me.
His hands stop inches from my body. Claws fully extended. He cannot touch me safely yet.
“Where?”
“My ribs. Hair. A shallow cut.”
His gaze finds the line of blood at my throat.
A sound tears out of him.
“Not the bite,” I say quickly. “Not my pulse.”
He leans close and smells the cut without touching it.
His claws retract one at a time.
Then his hands close around my face.
“Look at me.”
“I am.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Bruised.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me near you?”
“Yes.”
He gathers me against his chest.
The embrace is too tight. I hold on anyway.
Behind him, Vess binds the sergeant’s hands.
Ghenn looks at the three prisoners.
“Five paid men,” he says. “Two at the east gate, these three here. We have the men, the courier, and the signed order.”
“Alive?” I ask.
“Four.”
I look at Vess.
She shrugs. “One made a poor choice near the wall.”
Torgan lifts me.
“I can walk.”
“No.”
“This again?”
His eyes meet mine.
I stop arguing.
He carries me inside.
In his chamber he sets me on the edge of the bed and cuts the mail shirt away where one ring has driven into my ribs. His hands are steady now. His breathing is not.
The cut at my throat is barely an inch long.
He cleans it three times.
“Torgan.”
He keeps working.
“They did not take me.”
“They touched you.”
“I knew they might.”
His gaze snaps up.
“So did I.”
“And you still agreed.”
“Men inside my walls would have opened a gate. You were right. I agreed to the trap.” His mouth tightens. “Not to a knife on you.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
He puts down the cloth.
“No more gardens alone.”
“I was not alone.”
“No more bait.”
“We may not need more bait.”
“Iona.”
I take his hand.
“No more solving danger by putting me in a room.”
His fingers close around mine.
“I will give you guards.”
“Yes.”
“A blade-master every morning.”
“Yes.”
“You carry the whistle.”
“Yes.”
“You tell me before Vess uses you in another trap.”
I consider that.
“Yes.”
His eyes narrow.
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
He lifts my hand and smells the blood on my knuckles.
“I heard you ask him what I could smell.”
“It frightened him.”
“It frightened me.”
I touch the hinge of his jaw. The hard pressure there is easing, though the fangs remain exactly where they always are.
“You came when I needed you.”
“I will always come.”
The promise settles between us without touching the rite.
A horn sounds three times from the outer wall. Ghenn enters without knocking.
“Osk broke camp before dusk,” he says. “A little over four thousand on the north road. A day and a half, perhaps less.”
Torgan rises.
“Council room.”
Ghenn goes. Torgan looks down at me.
“You are leaving at first light.”
“No.”
His claws come out again. Neither of us gives ground.