“I’ll not—” Two guards, Andrew and Gilbert, immediately restrained her. “No, Gilbert, not you—”
A sword rattled. Peter stepped forward. “Let Lord Ware and Lady Clare go, or by all that’s holy, Strahan, I’ll slit your throat my—”
At a nod from Strahan, Sir York, the knight next to Peter, moved as swiftly and silently as a cat. Peter twisted as he was grabbed. The curved blade of dagger glinted hideously in York’s meaty hand.
“No!” Ware cried.
“Take this, you bastard.” With a sickening thud, York plunged his dagger deep into Peter’s chest. Scarlet blood spurted, raining over the walls and York. Clare screamed. Glyn fainted, though Cadell caught her before she hit the floor.
Strahan, staring hard at Ware, said, “It’s your choice, boy. Are you willing to spill more blood?”
Ware glared with hatred at his cousin. From the corner of his eye he saw the slumped body of Sir Peter, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth to mat his beard, the dagger wound staining the dead knight’s tunic red.
“This is madness!” Clare insisted. “Stop it at once! There’ll be no more bloodshed!”
“Quiet, bitch!” Sir Andrew hit Clare across the face, sending her spinning and stumbling backward. Had it not been for Gilbert’s strong hand on her arm, she would have fallen.
As quick as a hawk striking, Strahan flew at Andrew and placed his blade at the knight’s throat. “No harm is to come to her, Andrew. None.”
The stout knight’s throat worked. “But—”
Ware saw his opportunity and kicked the knight full in the groin. Sir Andrew doubled over in pain, and Ware lunged for Strahan. His fingers tightened around his cousin’s throat, and he held firm, like a dog on a bone. Gilbert let go of Clare and, taking vengeance on Ware, doubled his fist and swung his arm quickly, aiming for Ware’s nose. With a sickening crack, pain exploded in Ware’s face, blinding him. His grip on Strahan faltered. Blood poured from his wound, and he cried out. The knight kicked him savagely in the gut. Ware dropped to the floor.
“Damned fool!” Strahan growled as Ware held his hands over the pulp that had once been his nose. Blood trickled through his fingers, and agony ripped through his brain. “Now, Sir Ware, you will be held prisoner in your quarters, and you, Lady Clare, will be locked up as well.”
From somewhere in his consciousness, Ware heard Clare protest. “Strahan, think. Garrick will kill you. You can’t do this. It’s madness.”
“Maybe, but this is how ’twill be.”
“When Garrick returns—”
“He won’t,” Strahan said with a note of finality that turned Ware’s blood to ice. He tried to struggle but was kicked once more, this time in the temple. Pain splintered through his brain before merciful darkness engulfed him.
Garrick took the first watch, as he had the night before. He was too restless to sleep, too anxious to rout out the damned band of thugs and take Logan home with him. He glanced into the shadowy copse of trees and listened. At times like this, he felt melancholy, afraid that the farmer’s story was false, or, worse yet, that the boy was dead.
Standing outside the glow of the fire, his eyes searching the darkness, he whispered a sincere, though long overdue, prayer for his son. He didn’t fall to his knees — he was still too prideful a man, who had all but renounced God at the death of his wife and the kidnapping of his boy — but he did pray, hoping that the simple plea for guidance would quiet the raging demons within his soul.
He stared at the burning wood as the fire, which had once spit flames and sparks into the night sky, slowly died. He added more wood to the blaze and resumed his watch. As he did, he felt a strangeness in the forest. The skin on his scalp rose. He heard a twig crack and turned in the direction of the noise, squinting hard into the murky thicket, grabbing hold of his sword.
In the feeble moonlight a horse and rider appeared, and Garrick wasted no time. He slunk through the trees until he reached the solitary horsemen and then, without so much as a sound, lunged upward. The horse was startled. It squealed and reared, but not before Garrick had grabbed the would-be attacker and pulled him hard off his mount.
As the horse bolted, Garrick wrestled with the rider, a strong, wiry man who kicked and bit as if possessed. He forced the smaller man to the ground, lying atop him, his arm at the attacker’s throat.
“Let go of me, you bloody brute!” A flash of silver and Garrick barely dodged the blow from the knife as he recognized Morgana’s voice.
His heart, already pumping with fear, now beat a new song as he lay atop her. The clouds allowed enough eerie moonlight through their frothy veil to show Morgana’s face, white as alabaster, and her eyes, dark and furious. Though a part of him was glad to see her, he was instantly angry. She’d disobeyed him, nearly killed him, and now was going to make him a laughingstock in front of his men. Much worse, she had put her life in jeopardy by following him. For he’d either strangle her or make love to her until morning. Teeth clenched hard together, he pinned her to the ground and leaned close to her face. “I thought I told you to stay put, Morgana of Wenlock!”
She stiffened at the sound of his voice. “I couldn’t,” she cried, as if suddenly realizing with whom she was dealing.
“Ware and Strahan and Clare were given direct orders—”
“I disobeyed them all,” she said hastily, her breasts rising and falling rapidly, pressing up against his crotch only to fall away with her breathing. Garrick tried and failed not to notice that he was straddling her, that her body warmed his inner thighs, that he was growing hard as steel with each teasing touch of the points of her breast against his legs. “I — I asked Ware to let me leave, but he would not.”
“So you took it upon yourself to … what — steal a horse and leave my castle vulnerable, as you did with your father’s keep?”
“Nay!” she cried and then bit her lip anxiously. She struggled a bit, and the movement of her body between his legs drove all anger from his head. What he was feeling and fighting now was lust, heady, mind-spinning lust. His member ached to be stroked, and he had to drive all thoughts of her from his mind. Though he burned to be touched, to have her hands and her lips on him, he had to resist her obvious charms. His body was hard and wanting, crying out for the hot pleasure that her fingers and mouth could bring.
It took every bit of concentration to keep his mind on the task at hand. “Why are you here?”