My Ruthless Prince (33 page)

Drake smiled in spite of himself. "There you are. Not half-bad. Remember, tell no one. Secrecy."

"And be brave," Stefan repeated.

"Right. Now, our mission will take place this evening. I'll tell you more later, if you're good. You're going to have to wait the whole day until I come and get you, all right?"

"The whole day?" he whined.

"Knights do not complain, Sir Stefan," he informed him. "Come on. I'll walk you back to your room. You should stay out of sight to avoid Count Galtur."

"He smells like onions!" Stefan said with a grin.

"Yes, I've noticed."

"Do we get to wear armor for this?" the boy asked a moment later as they walked down the hallway toward the boy's chamber.

Drake suppressed a laugh. "We won't need it for this job."

"Maybe next time?"

"Sure, next time," Drake murmured grimly, depositing him in his room with an affectionate slap on the back. "Off you go."

After locking the boy in for his own protection, Drake turned, took a deep breath, then went in search of Jacques.

He intended to settle his account with the French mercenaries and send them on their way before he unleashed Armageddon. If anyone asked, he would simply tell the Prometheans that he had given his hired soldiers forty-eight hours' leave, to make sure they kept their noses out of the cult's private business.

But the Frenchmen wouldn't be back, and the Prometheans would never have the chance to realize it had been a lie. In the meanwhile, he had final preparations to make for the eclipse ritual that night.

It was going to be a long day.

T
he whole day had absolutely dragged, and still, there was no sign of Drake.

Emily waited with the others in the forest a few miles from the castle walls, her back braced against a tree, her bow in her hands. She couldn't believe he hadn't joined them yet. She scanned the dappled woods constantly, watching for Drake, waiting for him.

Where in the world is he? What is
keeping him?
Has
something gone wrong?
Oh, he'll probably be here any minute. Just be patient.

It was just that she had been patient for so long.

Lord Rotherstone and she had escaped the castle walls easily before sunrise, and by midmorning had met up with his two fellow agents in the forest.

Drake had told Rotherstone about the secret entrance to the Prometheans' subterranean temple. They had set out directly for the place.

The three agents were in there doing something, she knew not what, ahead of the midnight ceremony.

But all Emily could think about was Drake.

How much longer before he comes?

Every minute of the day crawled. She knew it would not be easy for him to slip away unnoticed, especially since he had to bring the boy. She hated being separated from him.

All she could think about was getting away from Germany, departing the whole blasted Continent. She wanted to go home. When she was back on English soil, she swore she'd kneel down and kiss the ground.

I
nside the rock-hewn temple, Max and his mates strained their muscles, prying the great wooden cap off the old mine shaft.

At last it came free, and he nodded to them. "Let's move it out of sight so they won't notice it."

Rohan hefted the thick wooden circle up onto its side, and Jordan helped him roll it toward a back section of the cave.

"Come on," Max urged, hurrying them along though they all were fascinated by the place. "Watch your step."

It was getting darker by the minute, but they did not dare light a lantern as the firedamp fumes from the depths of the mine shaft began drifting out to permeate the temple.

"We'd better get out of here."

They headed for the long, curving staircase hewn into the cave's stone wall.

Rohan eyed the pair of statues there darkly. "This looks a lot like that place Kate and I found in the Orkneys--the Alchemist's Tomb."

"Wished I could've seen it," Jordan murmured.

"Aye, you would've loved it," the duke said with a grin. "Instead, you had to content yourself with translating the Alchemist's Scrolls."

Jordan nodded with a mysterious twinkle in his eyes.

Then they walked in single file under the arch formed by the figures' joined hands: a heroic male figure and a giant, devilish Prometheus, a large torch between them at the apex.

As they began climbing the stairs, Max paused, pointing toward the sky doors that Drake had described. "It's closed now, but there's the shaft that Emily will need to aim for."

Rohan sent him a skeptical glance. "Can she really do this?"

Max shrugged. "Drake has no doubt she's skilled enough."

"But will she?" Jordan murmured.

"He made her promise." He looked from one to the other and shook his head. "We'll see. Come on, march. Let's get out of here."

"Right."

They bounded the rest of the way back up the long, carved steps, then slipped back out into the woods, rejoining Emily.

Max warned them all to keep quiet, then they moved through the woods, seeking a higher vantage point from where they could watch all that would be happening down there that night. He wanted to see the full parade of the robed Prometheans approaching for their bizarre moon ritual.

More importantly, Max mused, glancing at Emily in private foreboding, they needed a good position from which their fair archer would be able to make her shot into the temple's open sky doors at the moment of total eclipse.

Chapter 22

D
rake could scarcely fathom how his life had come to this . . . The night of the gathering.

The night of the eclipse.

Darkness had descended over the forest, and a huge full moon had crept up over the jagged peaks.

Robed figures, scores of them, faceless in their hooded cloaks, made their solemn trek through the indigo night in silence, snaking up the road from the castle and disappearing into the lightless opening in the mountain.

No lights were lit so that their eyes could adjust fully to the darkness, the better to view the celestial ballet of the stars and the bright moon and the earth's black shadow.

Drake, clad in the same dark flowing garment as they, oversaw them all, standing by the entrance. His hood pushed back, his face was expressionless as he watched them warily, accepting their bows to him as leader as they streamed past.

Beneath his cloak, he was heavily armed in case anything went badly.

Meanwhile, his little assistant "knight," Sir Stefan, waited safely behind the iron door in the underground tunnel that James had made Drake check for wild animals. That was where the sacrificial victims were normally kept until it was time for them to be brought in. Since Drake appeared to be following all the proper protocols, no one seemed to realize yet that anything was wrong.

Inwardly, Drake supposed that half of him was terrified, the other half, oddly serene. He had more or less made peace with his own death, which was imminent, but given the need to focus, he ignored all the churning emotion inside himself and, with cold control, fixed his mind and all his will on the task at hand.

All that mattered on this surreal night was ending this war for good and making sure the boy got out alive.

The Prometheans kept coming in their solemn parade across the moonlit field. It was a beautiful, clear night, but dashed eerie. Drake glanced around, discreetly scanning the tree line. Max and his team should be hiding somewhere in range, with Emily under their protection.

Meanwhile, from inside the cave, an ever-growing chorus of deep male voices made the macabre stone vault resonate with the Prometheans' ancient chants.

The great wooden sky doors sealing the stone shaft remained closed, waiting for all the men to gather. The longer they stayed shut, the better, Drake knew. Opening them would be a high point of the ceremony as the believers turned their attention to the night sky.

Nodding to the last of the men to arrive, again Drake mentally rehearsed the lines he had to say in praise of a force at odds with the beauty that surrounded them. The very shape of these majestic mountains proclaimed the mighty power of their Maker, but the Prometheans were pledged to the rebel angels' side, the sworn enemies of God.

He wrapped his hand around the hilt of the dagger under his robe and reminded himself of the motto of the Order of St. Michael the Archangel, savoring every word.
"He makes His angels winds, and His servants flames of fire."

When the last Promethean had entered the temple, Drake personally pulled the great stone door shut and made sure it was locked.

No one would be getting out alive.

Then he pulled up his hood, his eyes gleaming in the darkness, and began walking slowly down the rock-hewn steps. He could detect no smell of the fumes that had been building up all day in the temple provided Max had done his part.

Because the explosive gas was odorless, Drake had no evidence to put his mind at ease. He could only pray that his fellow agents had opened the old mine shaft.

There was no remedy now but blind faith to hope that this plan was going to work.

It had to. The Order had never in all its centuries-long history had a chance like this. For him, that left no choice but to trust his four allies with his life.

His shoulders squared, Drake walked under the arch with its towering satanic figures. The brethren cleared a path for him, their chosen leader, as he crossed toward the altar.

Ah, James, if you could see me now,
he thought wryly.

After mounting the dais by the sacrificial altar, Drake lifted his hand: The chanting stopped.

As its echoes died away, he gestured toward the men stationed by the crankshaft: "Let the doors be opened to the sky!" he ordered.

Fear of death could make even the most seasoned warrior's heart pound. A bead of cold sweat rolled down Drake's face. But it was already too late for him to turn back. Nor would he.

Emily, my love,
he thought as the heavy wooden sky doors slowly rolled back, exposing the huge, golden orb of the moon.
May your aim be true.

L
ord Rotherstone had led them to a position farther up the mountain, hidden by the forest. Emily stood with them on a rocky outcropping where a break in the trees afforded them a clear view of the strange activity in the field below.

They had seen the line of robed figures streaming into the mountain. Now they heard a ponderous creaking sound coming out of the hill.

"What is that?" Emily whispered. For her part, she was worried. She could not understand why Drake had not yet come. How far was he going to take this before he slipped away?

She had thought he would have joined them hours ago. By that time, they should've already started the long journey home. But perhaps he had run into problems trying to get away. She had asked the men about it. Their responses had been vague.

Below them, the creaking sound ended with a deep-toned slam. She glanced at the marquess in question.

"Doors opening, see?" he whispered. "The cave is now exposed."

His friends exchanged a glance.

Emily squinted in the darkness and could just make out a rounded opening that had been closed before.

"Let's just hope it works," muttered Lord Falconridge, the elegant agent she had once smashed in the head with a potato back in London--to keep him from shooting Drake, naturally. To her relief, the agreeable blond earl wasn't the sort to hold a grudge.

"What do you mean, you hope it works? What is going on?" Emily demanded in a whisper. "Where's Drake? How much longer till he comes?"

All three men looked at her.

"What?"

Lord Rotherstone stared at her, then he slowly dropped his gaze. She glanced at the other two. "What's going on?" she repeated, but these, too, looked away. "Is something wrong?"

"Emily, Drake's not coming," Lord Rotherstone forced out abruptly. "But he left instructions for you. Remember?"

"Wait--what--not coming? I don't understand. He said he would join us."

"He lied, Miss Harper," the large, gruff Duke of Warrington tersely informed her.

She turned to him in confusion.

"He made his choice," Rotherstone whispered, laying a hand on her shoulder to steady her near the low cliff where they stood. "He's going to finish this."

"What are you talking about?" she breathed. Horror was spiraling inside her, making her head reel.

"Take out your bow, Emily," Falconridge murmured.

She did as he said, but she still didn't, wouldn't, understand.

Rotherstone nodded to Warrington, who took out a handkerchief and a flask of whiskey and proceeded to douse the one with the other.

"Give him an arrow, Emily," Falconridge said softly, nodding toward the duke.

Her hands were shaking as she reached over her shoulder and quickly took an arrow from her quiver.

She gave it to Warrington, and he began wrapping the liquor-soaked cloth tightly around the arrowhead, tying it in place.

"I don't understand," she said again.

"You see that opening in the rock below," Rotherstone murmured, nodding toward it. "Drake wants you to fire your arrow into there. You told him you'd do it, remember? You said you wouldn't miss. It won't be long now. We'll set this arrow afire when the moment comes. Then you'll shoot, and you can't afford to miss."

"Why? What will happen? Tell me!"

"There will be an explosion," Rotherstone admitted grimly. "The cave where those devils all have gathered is filled with a flammable gas seeping up from an old mine shaft."

"But Drake's in there!" she forced out.

Lord Rotherstone gazed at her calmly, sadly. "Yes, he is."

"But . . . he could die!"

The three warriors stared at her.

"Oh, God, no!" she whispered. "No."

"Emily, he is counting on you. Do not fail him. Drake's whole life has built toward this moment. This is what he wants. And as he told you, he needs you to play your part."

"I can't! I cannot possibly do this. I love him! No, this is madness. You cannot ask me to kill the man I love."

"I'm not the one who's asking."

"No." She shook her head. "I won't do it! You all are lunatics. I love him, I want him with me."

"And he wants you, too, but this is his destiny, just as loving him was yours. Do you love him enough to fulfill his final wish?"

"Oh, God." She turned toward the field, dragging her hand through her hair. She stared toward the hidden temple, furiously addressing her cruel, inscrutable lover in her thoughts.
You can't be serious. You cannot really want this. You lied to me! You said we'd be together. You can't ask me to kill you!

But she could see his smiling face in her mind's eye, the kiss he'd given her back in the dungeon, the promise he had coaxed her to make. Shoot the arrow when the moment came.

And now she realized that had been a kiss good-bye.

She shook her head, unable to absorb it.

She had failed. Her warrior had chosen death and glory over life and love. She had failed to save him.

Failed utterly.

She remembered then the first time he had found her in these woods, when he had cornered her and she had begged him to run away without her. She had tried to take him captive, tried to force him to come with her by threatening him with her pistol. Smiling cynically, he had gazed at her in such misery in his dark eyes. He had told her to do it, shoot him.

Better that it should be you,
he had said.

He had known even then that he would never make it out of there alive, she realized, shaking.

She had almost changed his mind the night they had tried to run away; but this "destiny" of his had stopped him from leaving in the form of Malcolm Banks's attack.

She shut her eyes. Love and fury filled her at the memory of that night, like oil poured on fire. Fury built to rage. They had taken him from her. This hateful, secret war, these evil worshippers. She wanted them dead, too, for what they'd done to him.
I'd kill them all for you if I ever got the chance,
she had told him once.

He had smiled cryptically at the time.

She had been prepared to do it with the monkshood, but that plan had fallen apart.

Now a second chance to fulfill her vow had arrived.
But how
. . . ?
She shook her head, tears plunging down her cheeks as a dark dragon in the clouds opened its jaws and began to swallow the moon.
I can't. This is all impossible.

But her whole life with Drake had been impossible . . . a beautiful dream. The earl's son and the woodsman's daughter.

Well, she had failed in her dream, but if this was what he truly wanted--and indeed, he had looked her in the eyes and said so just a few hours ago--then she vowed that at least he could have his. Even if it killed her.

They were one. If he chose to die, then so must she.

Life wasn't worth the living without him.

"Give me the arrow," she said in a strangled voice, putting out her hand.

Falconridge carefully handed the thing to her.

She gripped it, nocked it, stepped up to the cliff's edge, and lifted her bow to assess the shot. Except for the veil of darkness, there was nothing particularly difficult about it. Nothing difficult, but the fact that it meant killing Drake. The end of his life; the end of hers.

God give me strength.

She closed her eyes and lowered her weapon, for the moment had not yet come.

The shadow spread across the moon.

D
rake hauled open the heavy iron door to the tunnel and left it open. He summoned the lad from the darkness. Stefan emerged, dressed in a white robe like a choirboy.

The Prometheans watched, riveted, as Drake led him up the few steps to the dais.

Stefan kept his eyes on Drake, following his every move. He was obviously scared, but he seemed determined to hold on firmly to his courage and trust in his fellow "knight." Drake had told him how everything would happen, to play along, and that everything would be all right.

He gestured to the boy to lie down. Stefan hopped up onto the stone slab, paused, and glanced around uncertainly at the dark cavern filled with men, but he did as he was told, lying on his back.