Page 114

“No.”

Lucien’s arm tightens. “No?”

“I never belonged to you.”

The change in Lucien is immediate. His face empties of everything except rage, and I see the danger before Boone does. The barrel drags slightly against Boone’s temple as Lucien’s hand shifts, and I allow Étoile to move forward a single step.

Lucien’s eyes snap back to me.

“Don’t.”

I stop immediately.

“You want someone to blame?” I ask, because Boone has become the center of Lucien’s entire world and I need to change that. “Blame me.”

His eyes lock onto mine.

“That is what this is really about, isn’t it?” I continue, keeping my voice measured despite the small shake of Boone’s head. “You can’t tolerate that Boone had a choice and chose the monster in the mountain instead of you.”

“Rhys,” Boone says quietly. “No.”

He understands what I’m doing.

I ignore him. Lucien is finally looking at me instead of Boone, and every second his attention remains here is one more opportunity to get that weapon away from Boone’s head.

“You think you won?” Lucien asks.

“I think Boone would rather spend the rest of his life locked inside my castle than spend one night as your husband.”

That does it.

Lucien rips the pistol away from Boone’s temple and swings it toward me, his entire body turning in the saddle as rage wipes away whatever caution he had left.

“Then you can fucking die here.”

The gunshot cracks through the village so loudly that Étoile rears, her front hooves leaving the ground. Boone’s father shouts and grabs for the saddle. I wrench the reins down to bring her under control at the same moment something tears across my upper arm, heat slicing through flesh before blood begins running inside my sleeve.

Then Boone’s father jerks behind me.

His hand tears away from the saddle, and a strangled sound leaves him before his weight slams into my back. For one confused second, I think Étoile’s sudden movement has thrown him off balance.

Then his fingers clutch weakly at my waist.

Something warm spreads across my back that isn’t mine.

“Dad!” Boone screams.

I twist in the saddle as far as I can without losing control of Étoile and catch Boone’s father before he can slide from the horse. Blood is already spreading across his shirt where the bullet passed through my arm and struck him, darkening the fabric with terrifying speed.

People scream, horses shy from the noise and the entire street erupts into movement. The villagers are no longer watching an argument between Lucien and the stranger from the mountain. They are no longer standing aside because Lucien possesses enough influence to make interfering with him unwise.

They just watched him hold Boone bound against his will, press a pistol to his head, then fire through me and into Boone’s father in the middle of their village.

Two men from the blacksmith’s shop move before Lucien can turn the pistol toward Boone, rushing him from the side. At the same time, someone in the crowd shouts for him to put the weapon down. Lucien swings toward them, but Boone throws his entire body sideways at the same moment, wrenching against the leather securing his wrists to the saddle horn and driving his shoulder into Lucien hard enough to knock him off balance.

One of the men catches Lucien’s gun arm before he can fire again. The other grabs him around the shoulders, and suddenly all three are coming out of the saddle in a tangle of limbs. The pistol drops from Lucien’s hand and lands several feet away in the dirt, skidding across the road until someone kicks it farther from his reach.

“Boone!”