Wild and Wicked (11 page)

Payton would never give up his prize. Not without a fight. Or compensation.

As she straightened, he held out a hand. “Your weapon.”

“I have no—”

“Do not take me for a fool,” he said through lips that barely moved. He saw the defiance in her eyes, the tilt of her chin. She reached into her pocket and withdrew the small dagger with a bone handle. He grabbed the knife with his free hand, then hitched his chin toward his horse. “You will do as I say,” he asserted. “From this moment forward.”

Apryll didn’t argue. ’Twas of no use. For the moment she would abide by his wishes. But only for the moment.

Devlynn saw the defiance in her eyes, the way she clamped her jaw down hard as if she were controlling her wicked tongue. She was used to giving commands, not taking them, and the flare of her nostrils when he ordered her about would have been amusing if the situation were not so dire.

And her body. By the saints, ’twas perfect. Even now as she walked to the horse and tossed that mane of gold hair over her shoulder, he imagined the curve of her spine, the split of her buttocks, her long, bare thighs. Aye, she was covered now by her huntsman’s tunic and breeches but as long as he lived he would not forget the tilt of her breasts with their button-hard pink nipples, nor the inviting V of honey-colored curls hiding her woman-mound.

Sword drawn, he watched as she reached the horse and, thinking he didn’t see the sideways glance, looked longingly down a path to escape. She was a spirited one, he’d give her that.

Dawn had erupted in a bright, wintry fury, offering a few shafts of light to the gloomy forest and dappling the frozen ground but bringing little warmth to the Lord of Black Thorn’s frigid heart. Yet this woman, Jezebel that she was, caused his blood to heat. With fury? Or desire? Perhaps a little of both.

Long ago, with his wife, he’d learned there was a fine line between love and hate, that passion could be fueled by anger as well as lust. Apryll of Serennog, with her stiff pride, sharp tongue and beguiling body, inspired both.

“We ride now. To my son.” He swung onto the bay’s broad back and warned her, “Do not think of escape. ’Tis of no use.” He sheathed his sword, reached down and offered his hand. Indecision darkened her gold eyes. For a second he thought she would spit into his open glove, or try to run through the brambles and vines of the forest. Her back was ramrod stiff, her shoulders square, defiance radiating off her in palpable waves. “If you disobey me,” he said evenly, “not only will you be punished, but those you love will be as well.”

No fear showed in those intelligent eyes. Only quiet, determined rage. Lips pursed, she placed her hand in his and he lifted her easily into the saddle in front of him, wedging her between the pommel and his crotch. His longer legs were pressed against the back of her thighs and the pressure of her sweet, round rump was impossible to ignore.

Reaching around her, he grabbed the reins and cursed the fates for the hardness in his groin. That he would want her bespoke his foolish masculinity, but the pressure of the split of her buttocks against his shaft was undeniable. As he nudged the bay into a gallop, he felt her rub against him and knew that he was in for hours of torment. It would be so much easier to drop her to the ground, to leave her to her own fate, but she was a bargaining chip and she alone knew where his son was.

Much as he detested the thought, she was valuable to him.

In his mind’s eye he envisioned her beneath him, soaked in sweat, her pert nipples rising upward, begging for his tongue and lips. He saw himself twining his fingers in the shimmer of gold that was her hair as he entered her.

The back of his throat turned to dust.

Oh, ’twould be heaven as well as hell to bed her.

He felt the heat of her body as he leaned against her back and whispered into her ear, “Tell me where I can find my boy.”

When she didn’t reply, he reached upward and cupped a breast in one hand, felt the bud of her nipple between his thumb and finger.

“There are ways of getting the truth from you, Lady Apryll,” he said. “And I vow I will use every one of them on you.”

She swallowed hard but tried to show no reaction. His gloved hand was warm and she despised herself for not feeling revulsion at his touch. The man held her life in his hands, had imprisoned her, had sworn to seek retribution against her and yet she couldn’t keep thoughts of kissing him, of touching him, of laying with him from her mind.

What had gotten into her? Now, wedged between the pommel and his crotch, she shouldn’t be aware of the stiffness pressed hard against her buttocks, of the shaft of his manhood rubbing erotically against that sensitive cleft, but of the danger that surrounded her.

She had to get away from him, to elude him again and to reach Payton first, try to reason with her brother and to return Yale to his keep.

Mayhap then she could get away from the devil of Black Thorn.

Then again, mayhap not.

At last the torturous ride was over, Apryll thought as Devlynn reined in his sweating mount near the campground, little more than a fire pit with a spit, one tent and a tethering line for five or six horses. Nearby a creek gurgled as it cut through frozen banks. A few men milled around the fire and they all looked up as horse and riders approached.

Shame burned her cheeks as the soldiers watched the Lord of Black Thorn help her off her mount and onto the hard ground.

“So you found the woman, did ye?” a fat one asked, his slitted, feral gaze running up and down her body. “And dressed like a huntsman. I thought she was locked away at Black Thorn.”

“You were mistaken,” she snapped.

“Mayhap that’s not such a bad thing.” The soldier’s voice was lusty and Apryll inwardly cringed. “We could use ourselves a woman here, to cook and clean and keep a bed warm at night, eh?” he said, winking broadly at the others gathered around the single tent in a small clearing where the fire smoldered in a ring of mossy stones.

“Aye, she’s a pretty one, she is, and feisty, too, I’m willing to bet,” the man added, his thick lips rising into a hideous grin.

“Touch me and you’ll wish you never had,” she said angrily, stepping closer to the pig-eyed man. She didn’t bother to toss her tangled hair from her face or stiffen her spine. Nor would she cower. It was enough that she held him in her steady glare. “If you value your hands, you’ll keep them to yourself.”

He laughed. “What will you do to them, bite off my fingers, eh . . . ooh, that you would try.” He wiggled the dirty digits in front of her face.

If she expected Devlynn to come to her rescue, she was disappointed.

“Ow . . . I like a woman with a bit o’ spirit to her.” The soldier wheezed at his little joke and she wished she had her little knife to keep him at bay. As it was, she would have to use her wits.

“’Tis not spirit, it’s a simple fact.”

She lifted a haughty brow, then, as she’d seen Geneva do so many times before, dug the toe of her boot into the dirt and drew two runes, a pentagram and, next to the five-pointed star, the symbol of a male. “Since you are so fond of your hands, I’ll curse another part of your body,” she said and, using the heel of her boot, dug deep in the earth, cutting off the arrow part of the circle, the point that indicated it was male.

“Wha—?” the man exclaimed.

Others laughed.

“Know you not that the women of Serennog are known for the spells they cast? That there is a curse about the keep? That all within have magical powers?”

“’Tis . . . ’tis a lie. A joke.”

She glanced down at the juncture of his legs and lifted a shoulder. “You should know soon. Within the fortnight. But if you want me to reverse the spell, if you would not take a chance, then stay away from me. And that goes for the rest of you.” She glanced around the small circle of men who had pledged their fealty to the Lord of Black Thorn and were now his most trusted soldiers.

“If you be a witch,” one of the men ventured, “then why have you not escaped?”

“I have once,” she reminded him. “I can again.”

“Yeah, yeah, then just snap yer fingers and disappear.”

She clucked her tongue as if they were schoolboys who were so stupid she could not believe it. “’Tis not how it works. But you will see . . . all of you . . .” Again she slid a knowing look at the bulgeless crotch of the pig-eyed soldier’s breeches. “Such a pity this one here will never sire a son.”

“Enough,” Devlynn growled, though, in truth, he was amused at her handling of Sir Lloyd, for the man was a pain in the backside with his bawdy jokes and constant complaining. Were he not sure with a bow and arrow and loyal to Black Thorn, Devlynn would have left him at the castle.

Hitching his chin toward the fat soldier, Devlynn ordered, “You, Lloyd, take two men on a hunting party. Don’t return without a stag or boar.” He turned to a tall, dark-eyed, surly looking man. “Bennett will scout ahead on the trail and you . . . Dennis, ride back to Black Thorn and explain that we have Lady Apryll prisoner. Tell my brother that there are traitors within the keep and I’ll not rest until every last one of them is exposed.”

“And you, m’lord?” Dennis asked, his gaze sliding to Apryll. Her response was chilly indifference.

“I shall interrogate the prisoner.” With that he nudged Apryll forward, indicating the single tent. She hesitated and all her boldness of a few minutes before faltered. He felt a moment’s satisfaction. “Inside.”

“Why not here?”

“Where you can run away? I think not.”

Her spine visibly stiffened as she preceded him into his tent. He glanced over his shoulder to see that his men were doing his bidding and saddling their mounts. Good. He wanted a few hours alone with Lady Apryll of Serennog, the angel Aunt Violet spoke of, the woman whom Collin found intriguing, a self-proclaimed witch and Devlynn’s own personal nemesis.

This day he would find out all there was to know about her and then decide her fate.

 

This was a poor excuse for a camp, but it would damned well have to do, Payton decided as he eyed the dilapidated building surrounded by brush and brambles. He hauled his hostage, the baron of Black Thorn’s groggy son, over one shoulder and the boy moaned incoherently. He’d be waking up soon and Payton wanted him firmly imprisoned.

As the boy groaned more audibly, Payton strode quickly, hurrying along an overgrown path toward what had once, in more thriving times, been an inn. That was long ago, before the bridge spanning the river had washed away in a flood and the road had been diverted to a more prosperous village. For half a century the building had been left to fall into disrepair and few remembered that it existed.

Payton’s mother had told him of it long ago and he found it fitting somehow that the very site where she’d been ravished and impregnated by the beast of Black Thorn’s father was now a prison for his son.

His back teeth ground together. He’d grown up knowing he was unwanted, the product of a rape, ignored by the lord who had sired him, tolerated by the baron who had raised him, Lord Regis, a man who had never been able to sire a son of his own. Apryll’s father.

Even now the taunts of childhood rang in his ears.
Payton the Bastard, Payton the Unwanted, Payton the Devil’s Spawn.
He’d heard the taunts, borne them, broken his hand on more than one boy’s face, but it was the whispers that were the worst, quiet gossip that followed him and his mother about.

“Poor thing,” some of the old hens of Serennog had clucked, looking upon his mother with pity in their eyes. “Ever reminded of that horrid time.”

“She should never have borne him. ’Twould have been better if she would have drank something . . . you know, to get rid of it.”

“Or ended her own life. I would have. Never would I have borne such ill seed.”

The tops of Payton’s ears had burned bright red, for he’d heard the comments over and over again, suffered the pitying glances cast his mother’s way and realized that many in the keep believed that because of his mother’s rape and pregnancy there was a curse cast upon Serennog; that it was
his fault
for the troubles that had beleaguered the castle for close to two decades.

And now he would finally return the favor.

The boy moaned in his arms as Payton ducked through the sagging doorway where the door itself, a few rotting boards, hung drunkenly from rusting hinges. The walls were a drab gray color, weathered by the years that had stripped the shutters from the windows and allowed the brambles to claw upward. The building reminded Payton of a dying beast, broken spine exposed where the thatching from the roof had given way, ribs made of cross beams evident.

Inside, faint sunlight filtered through the holes in the siding as Payton dropped the boy into a musty pile of straw.

“Oooh,” the urchin cried, opening one eye a crack and rubbing his head. Black, tousled hair fell over his forehead, freckles dappled the bridge of his nose and his curious gaze bored into his captor. “Who the bloody hell are you?” he asked, showing not a smidgen of fear. “Where am I?”

“You can call me sire,” Payton said, enjoying the moment.

Blinking rapidly, as if to clear the cobwebs from his mind, Yale scowled. “You’re not Longshanks.”

“Hardly.”

“Then why should I call you sire? Be you a king?”

“Not yet,” Payton said and smiled inwardly.

Propping himself onto one elbow, the boy glanced around the shabby old inn. The floor was packed earth, a chimney crumbled at one end of what had once been a large, open room and supplies, carried in by the mule and cart a few days earlier, were piled near the blackened grate. A broken bench had collapsed against the back wall and spiderwebs and abandoned wasps’ nests hung in the darkest corners. Owl droppings and scattered bones littered one corner beneath a high, sheltered beam.