Wild and Wicked

  And Payton’s ache for bloodlust had just begun.

  Apryll had been too blind to see it for what it was. Grateful to have some little piece of family left, she’d allowed him too much power, too much authority, too much say in the decisions regarding running the keep. His appetite for authority had only been whetted. His hunger for vengeance had only increased.

  He’d never forgiven Rowelda for keeping him. And his feelings for the man who had sired him, the warrior who had raped his mother, impregnated her and never claimed Payton as his son, had only festered over the following years. That the man was dead was of no consequence.

  And Apryll had been foolish enough not to see his need for vengeance.

  She pulled a blanket about her and opened up the cloth to wipe at her face, but there was something bulky hidden in the wet folds. Something hard and long. In an instant she realized it was a knife, a simple, bone-handled knife with a long, deadly blade. A weapon. Means of escape. From the wife of the big farmer.

  As Apryll turned the sharp weapon in her fingers, the wife’s words ran through her mind. No woman should be bound. No woman.

  At that instant she heard the ladder to the loft creak, then the ring of boots as someone heavy began the short climb to the hayloft. Hurriedly she tucked the knife into the loose hay beside her blanket and began washing her face with as much grace as was possible considering that her hands were tied. Oh, Lord, she couldn’t let him see the knife.

  Her heart banging wildly in her chest, she felt the weight of Devlynn’s gaze upon her, yet she went about her cleansing as if she couldn’t sense him in the dim light, as if she couldn’t hear the sound of his breathing, or smell that now-familiar musky scent that clung to him.

  And yet she could. ’Twas as if all her senses were attuned to his every movement.

  From the corner, Yale gave off a soft, drowsy sigh. Devlynn hesitated only a moment and then he was in the loft, bending low to avoid hitting the ceiling, moving toward her. She pretended not to notice, didn’t so much as glance up as he stood over her, bit her lip when she realized the toe of his boot might at any second scrape against the knife, her only hope of escape and salvation.

  “Well, now, Lady Apryll,” he said, lowering himself into a squat so that his head was but inches from hers, “what are we going to do about sleeping tonight?” His breath fanned her cheek. “I don’t dare let you sleep by yourself or you’ll disappear by morning light, and if I sleep with my hands upon you there is no telling what might happen.”

  She felt his fingertips lift a strand of hair off her face and push it behind her shoulder. The loft seemed to shrink, the animals below were suddenly far away.

  “You tempt me, Apryll. Like Eve did Adam.”

  “I’m offering you no apple.”

  “Nay? Mayhap then I’ll be forced to steal one from you.”

  She swallowed hard, knowing far well that he wasn’t speaking of fruit but of her virtue.

  “You are in no position to deny me,” he reminded her and his hand settled possessively on her shoulder.

  “I have no apple …” she whispered.

  His fingers slid down the slope of her breast, idling at the nipple beneath the rough fabric of the tunic. To her dismay, the wayward bud puckered in anticipation and her breast seemed to fill. Slowly he traced the hard bud through her tunic. “Oh, but you have sweet sin to give,” he said. “Sweet, sweet sin. The kind a man could lose himself in, the kind a man would gladly give up his soul for.”

  Heat raced through her bloodstream and deep inside she felt an awakening, the ache she’d tried to deny. He reached beneath her tunic and his fingers scaled her ribs. She held back a moan, resisted the urge to fall against him, but her breast responded and as he touched the very tip of her nipple, hunger swept through her. His finger skimmed that sensitive skin, then withdrew. She couldn’t breathe. He pinched her then, teasing and playful, but with a sharp little bite that made her want more. She imagined his weight upon her, and in her mind’s eye she viewed his naked body, all hard sinew and muscle, skin shiny with sweat and stretched taut as he parted her legs, thrust into her and claimed that which he called sin for his own.

  “I should wring your neck for all that you’ve done,” he said and she was brought quickly back to the here and now. “But I think instead I’ve found a much more pleasurable way to punish you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Don’t do this.

  Devlynn heard the voice in his head, knew he should stop, that touching the woman, even being close to her, was dangerous.

  Punish her, indeed!

  Who would pay the price if he were to bed her now? Was there any chance that he could have his way with her and forget her? Nay, he thought not, and yet he could not resist the temptation of her lips or the dark seduction he’d seen earlier in her gold eyes.

  Here in the darkness with the rain tapping on the roof and the soft bed of hay and straw, how could he withstand the warm seduction of her body?

  Was she willing? She had been only last night. He leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers. She trembled. Didn’t draw away. Nor did she kiss him so ardently as she had the night of the revels.

  “Untie me,” she whispered.

  “So that you can escape?” He was so close he could smell her, taste her. His blood ran hot.

  “Nay. I would not.”

  “And you, my lady, are a liar. A beautiful, bold liar. Nay, your bonds will stay for the night. Come morning I may change my mind.”

  “Morning is but a few hours,” she said.

  “Then you won’t have long to wait.” His body ached for her and it would be so easy to strip her of her clothes, to pry open her legs, to bury himself in her moist, enticing warmth … what would it hurt? God knew it was time he had a woman. Right now, just thinking of it, his manhood was as stiff and hot as newly forged steel.

  But not this woman. Not now.

  He pulled her tight against him, heard her gasp as he rolled them both in the blankets.

  “Sleep,” he said.

  “That is my punishment?”

  Had she the nerve to taunt him? She was shameless. And seductive. And a tease.

  “For now.”

  “And later?” she asked, her voice breathless.

  “Later, we shall see.” It wasn’t chivalry or nobility that kept him from taking her but something far deeper. ’Twas fear. Fear that he might lose his Judas of a heart to her—A kidnapper! A liar! His enemy!

  ’Twas insanity.

  Disgusted with the turn of his thoughts, he curved his body around hers, cupping her smaller frame with his, feeling her buttocks pressed against his cock. He held her manacled wrists in one hand, his other arm surrounded her waist. She was tense. Unsure. Her breasts spilled over his arm while her rump pressed intimately to his crotch. So supple and rounded. So firm. An invitation.

  By the gods, he wanted her. Ached for her.

  But not tonight.

  Not tonight.

  “’Tis as you said,” the boy, Henry, whispered into Father Benjamin’s ear as they walked past the bee-keeper’s hut in the bailey at Serennog. “Father Hadrian is living in the great hall. He sleeps in the lady’s bedchamber.”

  Benjamin sighed, though he’d expected the news. Henry was his eyes, though Benjamin was not as blind as many thought. For some reason they believed that his blindness had affected his hearing, his ability to smell, his touch and most certainly his mental prowess.

  To his dishonor, he hadn’t disavowed anyone of their perception. Let them think they were hiding from him when he heard their footsteps, let them shout at him that they had given up drink when he smelled the ale upon their lips, let them swear that they had been at mass when he had not sensed them in the chapel. Let them think him slightly dithery and addled.

  ’Twas his only weapon and sad as it was, these days all men needed a defense. He knew that treachery abounded. He feared that Lady Apryll was in danger and he realized that those who had plotted
against her also pretended to be her most devoted servants.

  The very ones who lied to him about attending mass. One day, the Father would see to their sins.

  Hadrian was the worst. Wearing the vestments, pretending to be a messenger of God, when he was evil incarnate, indulged in the pleasures of the flesh and lied through his supposedly devout teeth. ’Twas a travesty.

  “We must leave the keep,” he told the boy as he listened to the sounds of the night. Somewhere nearby guards were playing dice, laughing drunkenly, while the wind creaked through the sails of the windmill.

  Henry was an orphan, both his parents having fallen ill to the sickness that had swept through the castle three years before. Since Apryll had left, the lad had no one but Benjamin to see to him. “We will need some supplies, Henry, and a horse or a mule. I will procure the animal and you will find a way to weasel an apple or two from the cook and, mayhap, some dried eel?” A jug of wine would help, but he thought it best if he didn’t ask for too much. He didn’t want to raise any more suspicions than was necessary and these days no one within the keep trusted the other.

  “I will try.”

  Benjamin grabbed the boy by the sleeve. “Do not fail me, Henry. I fear the lady is in grave danger and it is up to us to save her.”

  “Really? An adventure?” Henry was suddenly eager.

  “Aye. Now, off with you. Come back at dawn and as soon as the gates are lifted we shall leave. I will tell Hadrian that I must visit those in the village who are too weak and old to come to mass.”

  “You would lie?” The boy was awestruck and it bothered Benjamin. Not only the lying, but the fact that the lad was impressed.

  “All in the name of God,” Benjamin said, then cringed, for he wasn’t certain he was doing God’s will … and yet he felt as if he had no choice. The fate of Serennog appeared to be in his old, tired hands.

  Payton groaned. He felt as if his head had been flattened on a rock, beaten with a stick, then pounded to a pulp. Rolling over, he blinked and saw a ring of men standing around him. In their midst was Geneva and for once her placid expression had turned to worry. “Christ Jesus,” he swore, rubbing his eyes with his palms and wishing something would stop the painful banging in his brain.

  “Here, drink this.” Her voice was a balm, her hands cool as she touched him and offered him a mazer. He took a sip. Water!

  “Wine,” he muttered and pushed himself to a sitting position. “I need wine.” He eyed the men surrounding him—nearly a dozen of them, men whose allegiance he had bought and others, traitors to Black Thorn, who had their own reasons for joining him.

  He could not be seen lying here like a pig wallowing in mud. His spine snapped to attention and he stood so quickly he nearly fell over. “Where are they?” he demanded with a sickening feeling as he surveyed the empty old inn.

  “Your hostages?” Rudyard, the thin, shifty captain of Black Thorn’s guard, asked.

  “Aye.” He was walking now, striding through the decaying, drafty building, searching the cobweb-infested corners, his gaze scraping every nook and cranny where a boy might hide.

  “They’re gone,” Rudyard said. “Black Thorn stole his son and your sister.”

  “No—” But the reality set in and the pain in his head increased. By the gods, no! No longer caring what the rest of the men thought, he strode to his hiding spot. Dread took a stranglehold on his heart as he removed the stone. The hollow beneath it was empty, the pouches missing. “Damn!”

  “That’s right,” Rudyard said, his voice irritating over the murmur of the rest of the men. “Black Thorn took back the gold you wrested from him. Now you have nothing. No money. No hostage. Not even his steed.”

  Rage fired Payton’s blood and burned out the last of the cobwebs in his mind. How could this have happened? How could he have become so careless? He remembered sitting at the fire with his sister and that impudent boy, eating the charred meat and drinking a cup or two of wine, and then he’d become so sated and drowsy that he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes open, that rather than ride out, he’d insisted they rest. “Damn it all to hell,” he muttered, then swiped at the air with a fist, for he understood the depths of Apryll’s betrayal. She’d drugged him rather than the boy. Cursed, cursed woman! He swore under his breath.

  “What?” Geneva asked, walking up to him, her serene expression once again in place.

  “I was drugged,” he growled, casting an embarrassed glance over her shoulder to the men he’d banded together. One found a jug of wine and began passing it around. “With the potion you gave me.”

  “How?”

  Again Rudyard’s grating voice as he stood at the fire, declining a drink from the communal jug. Payton’s gaze fixed on the heavy vessel and he remembered Apryll offering him “one last cup.” Oh, she was a clever one, his sister, but not clever enough.

  “I don’t know, I thought I gave it to the boy, but now I think Apryll slipped some of the potion into my cup and somehow filled the vial with something else—or mayhap she split the last dose …” Why had he trusted her? Why hadn’t he tied her as he had the boy?

  “Then you failed,” Rudyard said with a lift of his palms, as if it was a simple fact anyone should understand.

  “I made a mistake. ’Twill be soon fixed.” Payton glowered down at the gaping hole where he’d hidden his pouch of stolen gold, coins and gems.

  “You failed,” Rudyard repeated and this time his voice was much closer. His breath brushed Payton’s back.

  “’Tis not a failure but a misstep.” Payton spun quickly, just in time to see a flash of a blade.

  Geneva screamed.

  Payton ducked but wasn’t fast enough. Rudyard’s sword plunged deep into his stomach. Twisted. White hot pain burst through his gut. He couldn’t believe it. The coward had run him through? A satisfied smile contorted Rudyard’s lips, showing off his crooked teeth.

  “God in heaven, no!” Geneva cried.

  Payton’s legs trembled, couldn’t bear his weight.

  “Nay, nay, nay!” Geneva threw herself upon him as he fell to his knees. “Payton, oh, God, nay. Please spare him, please …” Tears streamed from her eyes. “I love you … I carry your child … do not die … do not!” He gasped, his breath rasping, and he knew the fight was over.

  With a horrid sucking sound Rudyard retrieved his blade. “You failed. A leader has but one chance.”

  Geneva’s tortured face swam before his eyes, the entire room spun. “Payton, oh, love, your son needs you.”

  A father? He was to be a father? He reached out and she took her hand in his and, as if understanding what he needed, placed his palm on the flat of her abdomen. Blood streaked her tunic—his blood, he realized as his gaze shifted to the man who had double-crossed him.

  Rudyard, the unfaithful captain of the guard, was not his ally after all. The world shifted, became blurry.

  Geneva, holding Payton, rocking slowly, glowered up at Rudyard. “A curse upon you.”

  “There may be many already, woman.”

  “I’ll see you in hell,” Payton rasped, fixing his eyes upon Rudyard’s bony face. ’Twas that of a skeleton already. Darkness threatened from the corners of his vision.

  Rudyard laughed and the sound was like dry leaves crushed under a destrier’s sharp hooves. “Don’t wait for me.”

  Geneva sobbed, or was it another woman? Apryll? His mother? His mind was foggy again and, by the gods, he was cold, bitter cold as if he were buried in the snows of winter.

  “What shall we do with her?” a deep voice asked as the woman holding him was dragged away, her warm arms no longer about him. Payton tried to locate the owner of the voice, but his gaze was fixed and dark; he knew he should try to stop what was about to happen, but his body wouldn’t move. Couldn’t.

  “Do whatever you want with her. I care not,” someone—Rudyard, aye, Rudyard—said heartlessly.

  Somewhere a woman screamed, crying, begging … “Nay, do not do this … nay, nay, na
y, oh, Mother, do not make me suffer so …” Payton couldn’t reach her or say a word. There was laughter, men’s drunken laughter, and the sound of rutting and a woman’s terrified howls … and then nothing but a soft buzz in his ears. Nothing.

  As the lifeblood seeped out of him, Payton of Serennog, born a bastard, raised by a lord who hated him, never realizing that one woman had loved him, gave up his battle.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  A rooster crowed so loudly that Apryll started. Blinking, she tried to rise, but was held fast by a strong arm.

  Devlynn. He was lying beside her, pinning her against him, his breathing soft and gentle against the back of her neck. It felt so natural, so warm, so right to be snuggled against him.

  He is your enemy, Apryll, her mind taunted. Forget it not. Has he not bound your wrists, kept you prisoner? Did he not promise to punish you for your sins against him?

  She thought of the knife buried somewhere beneath the matted hay. Where had she hidden it? Slowly, moving with painstaking deliberation so as not to awaken him, she explored the area around her with her hands, gently patting the straw, probing carefully with the fingers of both hands. She’d tucked it away quickly but had barely moved from this spot. It had to be nearby. Was it stuffed in the hay beneath Devlynn’s body? Or somewhere else? It was still dark in the loft, though the animals were stirring and she heard the creak of footsteps in the house. Again she sifted through the dry hay and her fingers brushed against something cold and sharp.

  At last! Pretending to stretch in her sleep she managed to grab the hilt and draw it downward as she lifted her leg so that she could slide it down the inside of her boot. There was no time to use it now—the farmer was already up, his gruff voice filtering through the thin wood walls.

  “Mina! Up with ye! There’s milkin’ to be done and me breakfast to see to!”