***
Talon
Talon grabbed his longsword at thefirst scream and bolted halfway out the hall by the second, aprimal wail that sent shivers up his spine, which was nothing tothe sudden quiet after.He was out the kitchens’ door when a shrillvoice called from the stables amidst the frenzied whinnies ofhorses, followed by Lara running out of them with Wolf at herheels.She glanced Talon’s way, then raced across the courtyard forthe back gate as if a horde of bloodthirsty Saracens were afterher.
Talon ran over to the open door of thestables and found a man writhing on the floor in front of theBlack’s gate while the stallion stomped and snorted at him from hisstall.Fulrad.
“In the stables,” Talonyelled to the men pouring out of the hall.He looked toward theback gate, which was only large enough for one person to passthrough and unguarded, in time to see Lara throw it open, so hedoubled his pace.
The girl could run on those long legsof hers, he’d give her that.She’d made it the hundred feet to theriver by the time he’d made it through the gate, holding her skirtshigh and wading across the knee-deep water to disappear beyond thetree line as he made his first splash.Matching his stride to hisbreath, Talon concentrated on the trail she was leading him on.He’d grown up hunting and tracking game in the wilds of Neustriawith his father and older brother, and he’d tracked men as a scoutfor the army.Tracking a woman with a dog shouldn’t prove toodifficult.
The snapping of twigs andcrackling of leaves ahead told him she wasn’t gaining any ground onhim, though she wasn’t losing any either.He thought again of herlong, lean, well-muscled legs as she’d stood him off in the riveryesterday, and he was hard-pressed between admiring and cursingthem.Hell, he was hard-pressed between admiring and cursingher, as she had him.Andshe had admired him.He’d seen the look in enough women’s eyes toknow it when he saw it.Yet she was the only woman who’d everlooked at him like that and then run away from him.Twicenow.
She led him through a mazeof thick brambles that grabbed and bit at his bare arms, leavingtrails of blood trickling down them.Beyond the brambles it openedonto a meadow, and on the other side of the meadow an even thickerwood.He pushed on, ignoring the biting brambles, for he had a gutfeeling that if he didn’t catch Lara before she made the woods, henever would.She was halfway across the meadow when Talon burst outof the brambles.Wolf slowed to turn and look at him, and Talonsucked in a big gulp of air, then yelled, “Hold.”
The dog turned in a slow arc andheaded for him at an easy lope.
“No, Wolf,” Lara calledover her shoulder.“Come.”
Wolf slowed, hesitating, and Talon letout a loud snarl.The wolf-dog crouched low and then sprang into afull run as Talon set his feet and held his longswordhigh.
“Wolf.Noooo.”
Lara’s scream rang in Talon’s ears asWolf leapt and Talon jumped aside, slamming the flat of his swordacross the beast’s shoulder and sending it sprawling to the ground.The hound scrambled to get its feet up under it, and Talon kickedits head.He didn’t want to kill the beast, but he didn’t want itcoming back after him either.Wolf lay breathing but motionless asLara ran toward them and stopped ten paces away, leaning towardWolf one moment, the woods the next.
“He’ll live,” Talon saidwith more effort than he cared to show.If she bolted again, hewasn't sure he’d be able to catch her.“Lara.”He called her by hername, getting her full attention, her expression wild with fear.“Wolf lives.”
He stepped back from the dog’s proneform, and Lara approached, step by slow step, watching Talon untilshe stood on the opposite side of Wolf, out of Talon’s immediatereach.He held his empty hand up, palm out, and Lara dropped hergaze to Wolf and let her breath out in a rush when his chest roseand fell.She stood there watching the dog breathe while Talonworked on slowing his own breath and trying his damnedest to not somuch as twitch in her direction.
After what seemed like an eternity,she looked back up at Talon.“What of the man in thestables?”
Talon held her gaze, glad to see someof the wildness gone.“He was alive when I saw him,” he told her.She sucked a quick breath in and blew it out.“What happened?”heasked, though he could have guessed.Fulrad was the only drunkardamong his men, and a mean one at that.
“He was drunk.”Her voicequaked, yet she kept her gaze even with his.“He made a lewdsuggestion.I told him I didn’t want any trouble.”Talon quirkedhis brows and held up his bandaged hand.“Well, I did,” she said,raising her chin a notch.She pressed her full lips tight and shookher head.“He wouldn’t listen.He grabbed me, we struggled, I, Istepped on his knee, trying to get away, and then Wolf—”
She dropped to her knees, cradling theunconscious dog’s head in her lap as she ran her hands over hishead, neck, and shoulders.
“Why did you run away whenyou saw us?”Talon asked as she moved her fingers over the hound’sribs.“We wouldn’t have let anything else happen toyou.”
She raised her brows, her distrustobvious.“He’s a king’s soldier.I thought Wolf killedhim.”
Talon ran his bandaged hand backthrough his hair, wet and slick with sweat.“Well, lady, you andWolf do defend yourselves ably, if not wisely.”
She stared at his bandaged hand andher chin trembled.“What now?”
“What now?”he repeated,forcing himself to be Captain, whose man lay injured, possiblydying, back at the Keep, and not Talon, who wanted nothing morethan to cup her quivering chin and tell her everything would be allright.“Now I take you back to the keep, where we’ll see to theextent of the man’s injuries and get his side of theaffair.”
“He may not be able totell his side.”Her voice of smoked honey cracked as she strokedthe dog’s neck.“Wolf had him by the throat before I called himoff.”
“Bloody hell.”Talontensed his jaw and shook his head.“The man’s name is Fulrad andhe’s not just a soldier: he’s the king’s cousin.”Which was theonly reason the drunken lout was a part of Talon’s troop.As afavor to Charles himself.“Cousin or not,” Talon told Lara, “theking’s laws do allow for defending your person.”
Her gaze held his, wide and pleading.“Do you always follow the king’s laws to the letter?”
She was asking him to turn around andlet her run away, to escape into the woods as he had yesterday.Butyesterday it’d only been about Talon and Lara.Today it was about aking’s subject injuring a king’s soldier.“I’m a captain in theking’s army, lieged directly to Charles himself.It is my swornduty to uphold the king’s laws.And the king’s law decrees that yoube brought before the valley’s count next Mallus.”
Her face went white.
“Until then, you’re myprisoner.”He held his hand out.“Give me both of your knives,hilts first.”
