Page 71 of Anice’s Bargain

He spun away from the attack. “We must leave.”

“Now?”

“Aye.” His blade swung toward her, but she knocked it away.

Above them, the sun was rising like a ball of glowing embers from between the low-lying hills. Already, the sky had lightened to shades of pink and gold.

Anice dropped in a crouch and swept her legs against the back of Drake’s knees. “It’s dawn,” she hissed. “We can’t go now, not with everyone watching.”

Drake caught himself. “They’re no’ paying attention. We could leave.”

“And if they did notice?” She whipped around, putting momentum into the force of her blade. “We’d never make it out.”

He knelt, avoiding the strike, while thrusting his sword at her. “Tonight then.”

She leapt to a safe distance. “Aye, long after everyone has fallen asleep.”

After James would return to their bed, following yet another secret meeting with his father. But Anice couldn’t voice such a thing out loud. It was far too intimate.

Drake bowed. “I’ll be prepared.” He straightened and clasped her hand as warriors do with one another. “We will need to plan today. Piquette—”

“Will join us.” Anice did not leave room for him to deny bringing her dog.

A line of concern creased his brow.

“They may hurt Piquette.” The very idea twisted Anice’s gut like a blade. “If they are vengeful.”

Drake’s mouth thinned. “We’ll devise a way to bring him as well.”

“Tonight, then.” Anice released Drake’s arm. “I’ll come to you when I’m free.”

He nodded once and turned to leave as she made her way in the opposite direction.

Yet the decision did not fill her with the relief she had hoped for. There was a hollow ache in her chest, one which James had filled in the short month they had been married. She had hoped what they had shared was real and long-lasting.

She ought to have known better. Leila had predicted it, and now the warning was coming to pass. The pact had failed. Anice’s marriage had failed.

Perhaps if she had been wise enough to have anticipated it, the reality of such loss would not have been so painful.

* * *

The plansfor the raid on Werrick were happening too quickly, and everything that could have gone wrong had gone perfectly right. James ran a hand through his hair. The day prior, he had sent the missive to Lord Bastionbury through a reiver he trusted. His hope was that if Bastionbury was there to side with Werrick, the combination of the two wardens would be too powerful a force for the Grahams to take on.

James wouldn’t get a reply for at least several days. At the rate things were moving, the Grahams might be well underway with the attack before he heard back from Bastionbury.

Dejected, exhausted and frustrated beyond measure, James made his way to the great hall to break his fast. Piquette loped along beside him, abandoned by Anice. It was not surprising for James to wake and find his wife no longer in bed. It was unusual, however, to find she’d gone without Piquette.

In his sorrow, the poor beast had scraped up the lower part of the door. James reached a hand to rub Piquette’s great floppy ears. “We’ll get ye some hearty fare to make up for it, aye?”

Piquette’s forehead crinkled and his large, liquid brown eyes brightened.

The two walked into the great hall amid the hum of conversation and savory scents of sizzling ham and freshly baked bread. It should have left James’s mouth watering, but his stomach had been in knots these last several days.

What if Bastionbury couldn’t come to James’s aid?

Was there a way to resolve this without causing a war?

Did lives have to be wasted on this venture?