“Go now!”
My focus was on the chain, seeking a weakness. I ignored the burn in my muscles and the way the manacles bit into my wrists, fresh blood joining the dried blood on my skin. I pulled, I strained, and with a mighty roar, the chain finally snapped.
I heard Lillian’s gasp behind me, but I shifted my focus to the snowy shadows ahead.
“Get up there, Lillian,” I growled, then raised my voice andmy fists. “Human steel is pitiful. My brother could forge something twice this strong in his sleep. Come on then!”
As Lillian scrambled up the boulder behind me, men slipped from the shadows. I glanced over them, assessing dangers and strengths, not entirely surprised Lord Tarbert wasn’t among them.
“He sent ye to do his dirty work, eh?”
The brute in the front, almost as large as an orc, hefted his cudgel. “You’re coming back with us, beast.”
And leave my Mate undefended?
“I think no’,” I growled, lowering my shoulder to meet his attack. We slammed into one another with a grunt, and I quit thinking altogether.
MyKteertook over, howling with glee at the blood and breaking and battle.
I was weak, aye, but not defenseless. The chains which had so recently bound me now became weapons; I wrapped them around my fists to break faces and whipped them about my head to keep attackers back.
But despite this, there were many of them, and I had Lillian to defend, which meant I couldn’t go on the offensive. I kept my back to the boulder,feelingher behind me, tasting her terror. Roaring in outrage, I swung at my attackers, livid that they would threaten my Mate.
The first time a blade slid along my ribs, I bellowed in pain, then cracked the skull of the bastard who did it. Another dead, then another, until a sword pierced my thigh, and my legs buckled beneath me.
The move saved my life as an ax swung over my head, and I used the position to pull my attacker to me, to wrench the blade from my own leg and sink it into his chest. Now I was armed, but there were still so many of them.
Too many.
As blood flowed from my side, I found myself frightened for the first time. Not for me, but for Lillian. Unable to help myself, I glanced up at the boulders, needing to see that she was well.
She clutched her shawl about her, her skin pale with fear, her lips parted and eyes wide as she watched the battle. So much death and destruction for such a gentle soul to watch.
And I was the one dealing it.
My Mate watched me maim and kill. To protect her, aye, but would this change her opinion of me?
A cudgel slammed into my blind side, reminding me of the folly of distraction during a battle, and I went down into the snow, rolling to try to escape the attack. It didn’t work, and when the cudgel—swung by that brute of a human—slammed into my arm, Iheardthe bones crack.
My roar of pain was matched by Lillian’s scream of terror.
That, more than anything, gave me the strength to push myself to my feet and face my attacker. Breathing heavily and favoring one leg, I lifted my fist, the chain dangling. When had I lost the sword? I couldn’t remember, could only focus on blocking the male’s swings.
I was bleeding from a dozen places, and my ribs ached. I kept my broken arm pressed against my stomach—partlyto immobilize it, partly to stem the bleeding—and blinked away the blood which dripped into my good eye from an injury on my forehead. My head swam with dizziness, and I felt something leaking from my eye socket.
But despite this, there was something else I realized.
My attacker, the brute with the cudgel, was the only human left standing against me. I was wounded, aye, but so was he. The other males lay in the snow around me, some bleeding, some groaning, as I panted through my pain.
The brute raised his weapon to attack again, and myKteer—suddenly weary of all this violence—kept me alive once more. As if in a daze, I lifted my arm to block his punch, but at the last moment twisted so the chain wrapped around his forearm. Iyanked, pulling him toward me, then spun so thatmyforearm pulled against his throat.
The cudgel dropped from his fingers as he scrabbled ineffectively at my arm as I slowly choked the breath from him.
“Kragorn.”
I heard the whisper over the pounding of the blood in my ears, over myKteer’showling for blood. When I glanced up, ‘twas to see Lillian, lips set in determination, reaching for me from atop that boulder.
And Iknew.
