Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
A n instant later, Jack is on his feet. He grips me by the arms and levers me up. “Stay here,” he orders. “Don’t move an inch.”
Fear ices my veins. Fortuna, I shouldn’t have asked him to linger. I shouldn’t have risked discovery, even for a moment. Now I’ve endangered both of us.
But there’s no accusation in Jack’s eyes, only fear armored by determination. “I won’t let them take you.” He spins away, fists curling at his sides.
My hand flutters to the base of my throat. He intends to face them, then. To take on Alverton’s men. Alone. With his cursed luck.
“Wait,” I hiss, but he’s already at the door. He shoots me a look over his shoulder, his eyes twin flames in the dark.
Stay put , they say.
Then he’s gone, the door snicking shut behind him.
My pulse beats a staccato drum in my ears. Voices filter in from outside, sharp and excited.
I should probably do as Jack says. Stay put, where my luck can save me. He might already be far enough away for it to work.
But...
Dread claws up my throat. If I’m alone with my luck, then so is he, and his Mark could be his undoing. He could be killed out there, trying to protect me. At the very least, he’ll be captured and turned over to the law.
Before I can complete the thought, I’m moving, my feet carrying me to the door. I yank it open. Outside, the night is moonless, the only light coming from the stars scattered across the sky.
And the torches. At the treeline, two strangers hold flickering flames aloft, their features distorted by the wavering light.
Jack stands halfway across the clearing, facing them with his fists raised.
Except...Fortuna help me.
That’s not Jack.
My chest seizes, my entire body draining of blood. I would recognize that stance in the dark. I do recognize it in the dark, because I’ve clocked its lethal grace a thousand times, felt my heart tugged along by the rise and fall of those fists like a puppet bound by strings.
That’s Weston standing there, with his chin tucked and ready to brawl. Every line of his body looks precisely the same as it does in the ring.
For a moment, I can’t speak. I can’t even breathe.
The sturdier of the duke’s lackeys steps forward, his wolfish gaze fixed on me. “Well, lookey here. You wouldn’t happen to be that Charm that went missing last week, now, would you? ”
Weston glances back at me. “I thought I told you to stay inside,” he snaps, but there’s no heat in it.
“I...” My throat has gone dry. That’s the man I love, under that mask. The one I thought abandoned me. “I couldn’t.”
The invading men venture closer, and Weston turns back to them with a snarl. And goddess, the sound is so very him that I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him, even with that gravelly voice he affected.
Except maybe I did. Maybe my body knew him without conveying the message to my brain.
“Leave us alone,” Weston says. “We don’t like trespassers showing up in the middle of the night, and we don’t know anything about any Charm.”
The duke’s lackey sneers. “No? Then why’re you dressed like a highwayman? Big coincidence, seeing as how one stole the duke’s wife last week.”
I almost shout that I’m no wife of the duke’s, not yet, but I hold back. Not that it matters. Weston has no excuse for his attire, nothing that will convince these men he’s anything other than the criminal who kidnapped Alverton’s intended.
The other man raises his torch to cast me in a brighter light. He sucks on his teeth and hocks a gob of spit. “That’s gotta be her. Look. Long brown hair, just like Alverton said. Pretty, too.”
At that, Weston makes a murderous sound.
“They’re two of us,” the smaller man warns. “And only one of you. So you might as well hand her over. Maybe if you do, you won’t hang.”
A silent scream explodes inside my skull. I won’t let Weston die for me. I can’t. I’d sooner marry the duke and be miserable for the rest of my life .
“Stop,” I shout to him. “Just let them take me.”
But Weston doesn’t listen. He advances, a blur of black in the night. When he reaches the first man—the bigger one—he feints left, then swings right. His fist connects. A sickening crack rings out across the clearing.
The man goes pinwheeling into the grass. Weston wastes no time turning to the second, who squares his shoulders and drops into a surprisingly competent stance.
My stomach twists. After having witnessed Weston’s many fights, I can tell when an opponent will pose a challenge and when he won’t.
This one will. He tosses his torch aside. It sizzles in the dewy grass. A moment later, he and Weston come together, a whirl of fists and fury.
Blows connect. Pained grunts erupt, punctuated by labored breaths. They trade punch after punch, the other man with a quickness that matches his size, Weston with efficient brutality.
But brutality won’t be enough, not with his curse. Not with me standing in the cabin’s doorway, thirty feet away.
The moment I think it, Weston stumbles and goes down. A root, perhaps, or a rock. It doesn’t matter. The man he’s fighting seizes the advantage, pulling back his fist to deliver a savage punch.
“No!” The cry tears from my throat. I break into a run.
Weston’s head whips toward me, his expression panicked, but I don’t slow. I seek him like an aimed arrow. If I get close enough, I can grant him an even playing field, at least.
“Stay back,” he shouts.
I don’t.
The thin man’s fist crashes into his face, and a scream erupts from my chest. It feels like someone’s ripped my heart out. Not cleanly, either. The thing is a bloody mess, arteries and tendons trailing, globules of red spattered all over the place.
I’ll never get used to seeing Weston hurt.
But he absorbs the blow without any fanfare. He kicks out, tripping the other man, then struggles with whatever made him stumble—a vine, apparently, tangled around his leg. The moment I draw near enough to nullify his luck, he yanks the thing off and surges upward. He drives a shoulder into his opponent’s midsection just as the man finds his feet.
I’m on the verge of cheering when sturdy arms grab me from behind.
I scream and flail, pummeling my captor with angry fists. Somehow, the bigger one got behind me. He grunts beneath the force of my blows, but doesn’t relent. He just hauls me backward, away from the fray.
Panic licks along my nerves. No. No, no, no. If he drags me any further, Weston’s curse will flare to life again.
I fling out an elbow, catching my assailant in what feels like the nose, because something rubbery gives way with a crunch. The man howls. The hold around my midsection eases.
Pure, dumb luck. The real kind, this time.
I dart away, or try to, but he catches the back of my nightgown, checking my forward momentum. I jerk to a stop, straining against his hold.
Weston throws a punch that lays his opponent out, then pivots toward me. When he takes in my situation, undiluted fury floods his face. “Birdie!”
My heart clenches like a fist. Birdie . That one word has me doubling my efforts, pitching forward in an effort to reach him. But the man behind me hauls on my gown, keeping me in place.
Weston’s focus shifts past me. “If you don’t let her go right this second, I promise you I will break something.”
The man only pulls harder. I lash out with a bare foot and catch him somewhere that must hurt, because he yelps. His grip vanishes. I stumble free. Weston stomps toward me, forgetting his other opponent entirely.
Which proves to be a mistake. The smaller man leaps his feet. Something glints in his hand—a knife, it looks like, catching the torchlight. He lunges after Weston.
My blood surges hot in my veins. Once again, I react without thinking. I dart past Weston and throw myself at the knife-wielder just as he slashes.
I hit him in the elbow, altering the blade’s trajectory. It catches Weston’s shirt, opening a nick in the fabric without breaking skin.
We go crashing to the ground. Pain erupts all along my side. The blade skitters into the dirt.
Weston doesn’t seem to register the close call. Stark fury has swallowed him up, narrowing his focus, and now he won’t stop until he destroys something. He stomps to where the larger man lies on the ground, grabs hold of his arm, and twists. A sharp crack ricochets through the clearing.
The man screams.
I stare from my place in the grass, my jaw slack. Eight. That’s eight bones Weston has broken now in my defense.
When I manage to catch the breath my fall knocked out of me, I haul myself upright. But the smaller man catches my hair and yanks, wrenching my head back. Pain ignites in my scalp. A line of chilly fire is pressed to my throat.
It’s...the knife. Digging into my neck. I go still.
Weston whirls to face us. And freezes.
Silence pummels my ears. How’d the smaller one retrieve the knife so quickly? And how’d he grab me so fast?
Bad luck, I guess. Nothing more.
My captor pulls my hair so hard my spine arches. Tears gather in my eyes. The knife pricks the skin beneath my jaw.
“Alverton said we could bring her back a little scratched up,” my captor says, “if necessary. Which means if you don’t stay over there, he’s going to get her back half-dead.”
Cold rage overtakes Weston’s face. His mask has been torn away in the scuffle, and in the light of the fallen torches, he looks both terrifying and hewn from gold—gold hair, golden eyes, golden skin stretched over hard features. When our gazes lock, that single moment of eye contact drives the breath from me all over again.
He’s so unapologetically, cruelly beautiful. I can see it even with a knife pressed to my throat.
“If you spill a drop of her blood,” he says, dark and deadly, “you won’t leave this clearing alive. I swear it.”
The man gripping me hesitates, I can feel it. “I didn’t realize we’d be up against a pugilist,” he mutters.
“Well, guess what.” Weston’s fists flex at his sides. “You are. And that pugilist has no qualms about adding murderer to his calling card.”
For long moments, no one moves, except for the injured man. He struggles to his knees, his face ashen, his broken arm cradled gingerly in front of him. A dribble of red leaks from one nostril .
Weston doesn’t pay him an ounce of attention. His eyes flicker between my face and the blade at my throat. A fleeting arrow of fear races across his features, then disappears behind a steely wall.
He takes a step backward. Then another.
Panic jolts through me. What is he doing? He’s not...abandoning me, is he? But then I realize. My luck. He’s giving it room to work.
“Wait,” the man holding me says. “What’re you?—”
Weston must cross out of range, because a streak of white and brown swoops from the darkness. My captor shrieks. Wings and talons flash. The knife vanishes from its place at my throat as the man scuffles with what looks like...an owl?
Fortuna’s blessings, I don’t waste time figuring it out. I just hurtle toward Weston, who meets me halfway and catches me by the shoulders, holding me at arm’s length to stop me from burrowing against him.
A pang stabs through me. Even now. Even here.
“Get behind me,” he says.
“I’m not going to?—”
“Birdie,” he growls, a naked command. “Get. Behind me. Now.”
I squeak and station myself behind him, sticking close enough to neutralize his luck. I won’t abandon him, no matter what he says.
The smaller man finally bats the attacking owl away. The bird sails off into the night, leaving a handful of bloody scratches behind.
The man’s lip curls. He scrubs at his ruined cheek and fixes on me. “Witch,” he says. “Demon.”
I blink. Witch . Huh. That’s one I haven’t gotten before .
Weston raises his fists again, but otherwise, no one moves, the fight apparently at an impasse.
I take a quick inventory. The other man has a knife. We have Weston’s skill. And no luck to speak of, good or bad.
Which probably renders our chances an even fifty-fifty.
My mind spins, searching for ways to tip the balance. If that man gets near us with his blade, this could go catastrophically wrong, and I can’t allow that to happen. But we can’t let him leave, either. He’ll only return with reinforcements.
Then I land on an idea that sticks. One I can make work. I think.
I hope.
“You work for the duke?” I call over Weston’s shoulder.
The armed man narrows his eyes. He holds his knife loosely and with a disturbing degree of familiarity. “Wouldn’t be here, if we didn’t.”
I ignore the patent condescension in his tone. “Alverton’s paying you, then? How much?”
“Birdie?” Weston whispers from the side of his mouth. “What’re you doing?”
“Bribing them,” I whisper back.
The duke’s man scans me with hateful eyes. “Enough to make this worth it.”
“Nothing’s worth this,” the larger one interjects, hunched over his ruined arm.
I seize on that. “No, nothing is worth this, is it? Risking injury? Death? You’d be better off letting me top the duke’s price, because I can give you enough to last you months. You wouldn’t have to work for Alverton anymore. You wouldn’t have to work at all. ”
The smaller man’s expression twitches, hardening into something I recognize, because I’ve seen that look on Brendan’s face plenty of times. Calculation. Hunger .
“How much are we talking?” he ventures.
“I have a hairbrush,” I say. “Inside. Sterling silver and gold. It’s worth a small fortune, just by itself.”
Skepticism passes over his face.
“And a brooch,” I hasten to add. “Rubies and diamonds. Lots of diamonds.”
He makes a thoughtful sound. “Hmm.”
“You can have them. All you have to do is leave us alone. And make sure the duke doesn’t find out we’re here.”
Weston grumbles a protest, but I silence him with a tug on his shirt. I know he’d rather make these men pay the same way Theodore did—with pain and blood and suffering—but I can’t let him risk himself.
The lackeys exchange looks, weighing their options. They don’t have many. They can either fight and risk Weston’s wrath, or take my offer.
The smaller man spits on the ground. “Fine.”
My heartbeat catches. “You’ll do it?”
“For that price, I’d be stupid not to.”
“And you won’t tell anyone where we are? Or come back?”
His jaw works. “No. I swear it. But you’d better pay up.”
My attention slides to the man with the broken arm. “And you?”
He regards Weston for long moments, his eyes burning with resentment. I hold my breath.
“Yes,” he finally says. “Deal.”
I nearly sag. But I shore myself up with fistfuls of Weston’s shirt and tug him backward toward the cabin with me. No way am I leaving him alone out here, at the mercy of his bad luck.
Inside, I dig through my trunk for the brooch. It’s one my mother bought on a whim, utterly meaningless and without sentimental value. I palm the thing and retrieve the hairbrush I abandoned near the hearth.
Weston crosses his arms and scowls. “You’re sure about this?”
I give him a look. One he knows me well enough to interpret. “Of course. These’re just things. Useless ones.”
He peers down at the objects in my hands. “Maybe, but I’ve never owned anything that valuable. I can’t imagine having them, much less giving them away.”
“Losing them’s better than letting those men report back to the duke. And it’s definitely better than you trying to kill them and ending up hurt.”
He snorts. “I’d gladly kill them, for you. And I’d succeed. I’d enjoy it.”
That brings me up short, but I swallow past the sudden thickness in my throat. If he thinks he can distract me from the very incendiary conversation we’re about to have—about him lying to me for over a week—he’s sorely mistaken.
“Weston,” I say.
His jaw flexes. “Birdie.”
“Get out of my way.”
“No. Give me those. I’m not letting you anywhere near those two.”
I contemplate, then do as he asks.
Outside, the duke’s men watch with wary eyes as Weston approaches. I stick close to him, shielded by the breadth of his body .
When we draw near, I see that sweat has broken out on the injured man’s brow. The smaller one’s eyes jump back and forth like he’s trying to puzzle out the dynamic between Weston and me.
“Sorceress,” he mutters. “Temptress.”
Weston stiffens, but I yank on his sleeve to keep him from surging forward. Which probably only strengthens the impression that I’ve somehow ensorcelled my kidnapper.
I only wish that were true. Goddess help me, how I wish that were true.
“Take these.” Weston practically throws the brooch and brush. “And don’t come back. And if you tell the duke about us, I’ll hunt you. And find you. And do very, very bad things to you, once I do.”
The bigger man blanches. The second scans Weston with hard eyes, then gives a grudging nod.
When they stagger away into the trees, Weston turns to me.
The cabin glows behind me, its thrown light gilding the austere lines of his face. He doesn’t even have the grace to look contrite. “So,” he says. “I guess we need to talk about this.”
“Yeah.” I snort. “I’d say so.”