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He’d crossed more battlefields than he could count, yet that walk through his halls had been harder than any of them.
Then he heard it—or thought he heard it—the long, mournful, drawn-out cry of a wolf somewhere beyond his castle’s walls.
An omen or a blessing?
He reached his destination before he could ponder the answer. Three men stood outside her chamber, their swords drawn and coated with blood. They donned suits of chain mail armor. Rowan felt naked in his jerkin and leather trousers.
Whose blood? He thought of the baker’s boy who stole sweets from the kitchens and of the kennel master’s daughter, whom he’d taught to wield a sparring sword.
And, of course, he thought of his wife and child. He thought of them most of all.
Rowan’s longsword was free of its sheath before he realized what he was doing. Close quarters made poor grounds for swordplay. The point of his blade shot through one of the guard’s throats.
Then the other two were on him. Rowan ducked beneath a strike and countered with a fierce undercut, taking the second guard through his chain mail. The third guard seized his opening while Rowan’s sword was down. Rowan felt the bite of steel skim his shoulder and neck. Good God, the blade nearly took my head off. Pain spiked through him as he raised his longsword with a wild groan and met the guard’s blade in midair. A shrill scream echoed from inside the chamber.
Rowan’s and the guard’s blades locked. Rowan shoved forward, fully embraced by his fever now, and violently kicked the guard in the stomach.
He toppled back like the fool he was. An instant later, Rowan stood above him and drove his sword through the man’s heart.
The fight was over.
Yet the battle had just begun.
He shoved open the heavy oak door, his longsword slick and dripping with blood, that panicked feeling rising inside him.
He saw the shape of Beatrice’s body on the canopied bed, but before he could register any details, another man was on him. This one wielded a dagger, its metal shimmering with red.
Whose blood? Beatrice’s?
Or Mary’s?
Rowan moved fast despite the pain in his neck. It was over in an instant. They stood near each other, the man’s impaled body closing the distance between them. Rowan released a guttural cry as he disengaged the sword and then dropped it. It clanged loudly within the quiet. Rowan raced over to the canopied bed, taking in the scene piece by piece—his wife’s splayed body, the bloody sheets, Mary’s wailing from inside the wardrobe—yet he perceived nothing.
Nothing and everything, all in the same breath.
Rowan collapsed beside the bed and carefully adjusted his wife’s body.
Let her live for Mary, if not for myself.
He smoothed down the sodden material of her nightdress and found what he already knew to be there—several dagger wounds. All the while, Mary’s piercing cries echoed shrilly. Across all the battlefields, he’d never heard a worse sound.
Rowan cupped his wife’s cheek and felt tears coat his face. He ran his thumb over her parted lips. She was beautiful, dark-haired and dark-eyed, her skin as pale as fresh-fallen snow.
His gaze tracked down her body to the ruffled sheets and her bare legs. Her gown was bunched around her waist as if someone had urgently hiked it up. And the blood…
Mercy, so much blood.
Her thighs were bruised and stained with it.
Rowan followed the sound of Mary’s cries and opened the wardrobe, his hands strangely steady. Beatrice had bundled her in a pile of skins and dresses on the floor. Mary’s sweet face was flushed a bright pink, her chubby arms and legs flailing. Rowan picked her up and held her tight against his chest. He kissed her forehead and rocked her in his arms as her wailing dug at his soul.
And maybe—just maybe—the melancholy howl of a wolf joined in that song.
* * *
He was in the great hall of Winslowe Castle again. The sweet feel of Blanchette’s touch reeled him back into the moment. He turned to her, hardly believing he’d told her everything… and outright refusing to accept the yearnings the mere sensation of her touch elicited.
They stood a foot apart. He watched the firelight play off her curls and glitter in her beautiful blue gaze. Images from his dream surfaced… the way the crown had blended into her hair effortlessly like it’d be made to rest there… and how she’d teased and touched him until he’d exploded from his desire.
