The Stolen Brides 02 -His Forbidden Touch (20 page)

The pain in her expression contradicted the
mildness of her tone—and both were like blades in his heart. “God’s
breath, Ciara.” He refused to let himself go to her, forced himself
to remain standing where he was. “Do you know how much I have come
to hate this damnable duty I agreed to? Your father has betrothed
you to that foul whoreson, but
I
am the one delivering you
into his hands.” His voice became sharp. “Do you know how that
makes me feel? Do you know what it
does
to me to think of
you as Daemon’s wife, in his bed?”

She shivered visibly, wrapped her arms
around her waist.

And he felt as if he were being crushed
between the walls of ice that surrounded them. “Do you think I
want
to give you to him, Ciara? Do you know how much that
bastard has already taken from me?”

She turned to look at him, her gaze
searching. “Nay, I do not understand. What did he take from
you?”

As their eyes met, he could not keep the
words from spilling out. “Everything. Everyone I loved. My parents,
my younger brothers. My little sisters. They were not yet ten years
old when one of his commanders slit their throats.”

“Oh, dear God.” Her eyes filled with pain.
“Your entire
family
. But how … when …”

“On the day the war began. My family’s lands
are—were in these mountains.” He looked at the horizon. “Just to
the south. On the border.” His voice choked out.

“And when the Thuringians came …” she
whispered. “Oh, Royce, thank God you survived—”

“I only survived because I was not there to
help them,” he said bitterly. “I was at the palace, in your
father’s service.”

He turned away, struggling to hold his
emotions in check, failing. The rest of the painful details poured
out. “But the Thuringian bastard who killed them paid with his
life. Four years ago, during the first peace negotiations. Your
father sent me as one of his emissaries—and the man who had shown
no mercy to my family was there, as one of Daemon’s military
advisers. And he had the audacity to
taunt
me about it,
about how easy it was, how much he enjoyed …” A haze of fury and
anguish stole his breath. “I ran him through right there at the
table during the negotiations.”

Ciara gasped a wordless exclamation of
shock.

“If I had it to do over again, I would,” he
said. “Without a second’s hesitation.”

To his astonishment, her voice remained
gentle, filled not with accusations but with sorrow. “And that was
when you left Châlons—”

“I did not leave voluntarily. Your father
exiled me because I had broken my word. I had sworn to him that I
would put the cause of peace before my own desire for vengeance.”
He turned to face her. “Do you understand, Ciara? I vowed that I
would put my
duty
before my
feelings
.”

Their gazes held for a long moment, burning
across the distance that separated them.

Until he looked away, to Mount Ravensbruk,
looming in the distance. “Daemon’s men murdered my family, and your
father took the rest. He stripped me of my spurs, my title and
position—”

“So you
are
a nobleman.”

“Was,” he corrected. “After my father was
killed, I became baron of Ferrano, and Aldric allowed me to keep
the title even though the Ferrano holdings had been lost to
Thuringia. He knew it was the only legacy I had left of my family.
The only thing that still mattered to me.” His voice hardened.
“Then he took even that away.”

“Oh, Royce.” She exhaled a low sound of
pain. “How furious you must have been with him.”

“We were furious with each other.” He looked
toward her, remembering, knowing that some of the fault had been
his own. “Too furious to listen, or forgive.” He shook his head. “I
spent a long time hating him while I tried to survive as a commoner
with no money and no name. I wandered through Milan, Castile,
Navarre—wherever a mercenary could earn a little coin. Then I was
fortunate to meet Sir Gaston de Varennes, a Frenchman who offered
me a position as captain of his guards. It was hardly the high rank
I was born to, but it meant a comfortable place to live, among
friends.” The memory made him smile. “Some of the best I have ever
known.”

A light of understanding dawned in Ciara’s
eyes. “And now my father has given you the chance to reclaim all
you once had. All that you
are
.” Her gaze traced over his
face, searching. “You said that you cared about naught but the
reward, but that is not true. You did not agree to serve as my
escort out of greed, but out of honor. You want to make up for what
happened four years ago.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You want
peace to succeed this time. And you want to come
home
.”

He clenched his jaw, unable to speak, both
pained and more touched than he dared say that she could know his
heart so well. “Aye. But there is one problem, milady,” he said
hotly. “I also want
you
.”

His declaration brought a rush of color to
her cheeks. Longing shone in her eyes. “Royce—”

“But if I act on that wish,” he continued
quickly, “your father and your betrothed will be drawing lots to
see which one wins the privilege of cutting my heart out.”

She flinched, shut her eyes, “
Nay
, I
would never allow anyone to—”

“You would have precious little say in the
matter, Ciara.”

There was no point in discussing it further,
in trying to deny the inevitable. Unable to bear looking at her any
longer, he turned his back, glancing up at the clouds—and a flash
of silver on the slope high above them caught his eye. Made him
freeze.

“Royce—”

He held up a hand to cut her off, a chill
skidding down his spine. The flash might have been sunlight
glinting off the ice.

Or the polished steel of a sword.

He searched the cliffs around them, suddenly
aware of how vulnerable their position was, directly in the middle
of the pass. If riders came at them from either end, they would be
trapped.

His heart pounded against his ribs. In
seeing to Ciara’s comfort, he had neglected her safety. “It is time
to ride on, milady.” He kept his voice even, trying not to alarm
her.

She made a sound of frustration. “Why must
you always—”

He closed the distance between them and
scooped her into his arms, giving her no further chance to protest.
“My apologies, Princess, but there is no time to explain.” He
carried her toward his destrier, still studying the peak above
them, certain he had seen something. Someone.

Ciara pushed at his chest. “You are the most
maddening person I have ever met in my life.”

Royce ignored her, swiftly reaching
Anteros’s side and lifting her into the saddle. Hera was growling
in her basket and yapping nervously.

Only then did he hear the rumble.

Distant. Oddly familiar. Like thunder, or
the hoofbeats of a hundred horses charging into battle.

Some instinct, some memory made him look up.
Not at the open ends of the pass, but up. Just in time to see a
sight that made him freeze where he stood for one second of
paralyzed horror.

Ciara followed his gaze, and her voice was
hollow with terror. “Holy Mary, Mother of God.”

The entire top of the mountain seemed to be
sliding toward them, lethal tons of snow raining down.

Avalanche.

He had no time to think, to save
himself—only to strike Anteros’s flank, hard.

And send Ciara out of harm’s way.

S
ome instinct made
him drop to the ground instead of vainly trying to run. He could
hear the avalanche thundering down toward him, drew his arms and
legs close, protected his head with both hands—and felt the snow
hit him like an explosion.

It swallowed him whole. But instead of
crushing him into the ground, it shot him forward as if he were a
ball in a child’s game. Swept him helplessly toward the open end of
the pass.

It was then he tasted the fear. Black, raw
fear that made him strike out and fight wildly for his life. He
battled against the snow as he would a drowning current, but the
river of white was too strong, smashing everything in its path,
filling the air with an unearthly roar as if the mountain had come
to enraged life.

The force of it pushed him through the
opening of the pass and down the slope beyond, carrying him like a
leaf caught in a rushing waterfall. He struggled for breath, for
consciousness, battered by chunks of ice, rocks, branches. The
world tumbled insanely around him until sky and sun disappeared,
until earth and mountain vanished, swallowed by the cold,
smothering sea of white.

And then it all stopped. As suddenly as it
had begun, the pounding flood slowed, then calmed. He slid to a
halt, hovering on the edge of consciousness, aware only that he was
no longer moving.

With an immense effort, he managed to pry
his eyelids open, found himself surrounded by darkness. He could
not see or hear. Or breathe. His limbs were weighed down. Pinned
beneath a killing weight of snow.

He had been buried alive.

Fear slithered through him, followed hard
and fast by a vicious shot of fury. He would not die. Not like
this. Murdered by traitors. Spineless cowards who sought to bury
him on a mountainside, to kill—

Ciara.
He had to get to Ciara. If she
had escaped the avalanche, they would be after her. He had to get
free, help her. Protect her. Twisting his head, he found a small
pocket of air, just enough to allow him to draw breath.

He began to move. First his hands, then his
feet. Arching his body, clawing, kicking, he pushed and fought to
clear a tunnel through his freezing tomb. Using all his strength,
he struggled upward. At least he hoped it was upward. He had been
tumbled and turned so much he could not tell.

Desperate for more air, he shoved aside
handfuls, then armfuls of snow. It clung to him, heavy, wet, like
cold armor, holding him down. But he filled his mind with an image
of Ciara’s face, her eyes, her smile.

Lungs burning, he broke into daylight at
last, stuck his head through the opening, and gasped a mouthful of
frosty air. It seared his throat, leaving him coughing as he pushed
himself up and out, like a moth emerging from a cocoon. Shuddering,
weak, he collapsed atop the snow, sprawled on his stomach, unable
to move.

Only now did he feel the pain—from cuts
across his chest, his ribs, his back. From dozens of bruises. His
tunic and leggings had been shredded by sharp edges of ice and
rocks. He felt the cold against his bare skin, felt his blood
seeping into the snow. And agony in his left leg. The muscles hurt
as if his limb had almost been twisted off. And his sword was gone,
the belt and sheath ripped from his waist.

Choking out a curse, he opened his eyes,
aware of the silence surrounding him, strange and eerie after the
avalanche’s deafening thunder.

Gentle flakes of fresh white drifted down
from the clouds. The craggy peaks soaring above appeared the same,
the sky unchanged. It was as if nature had failed to notice the
chaos on the mountainside.

Failed to care whether the human beings
below survived.

Ciara.
He lifted his head, thought to
call out for her—then stopped himself. Looking up the slope, he
sought any trace of the rebel he suspected had caused the
avalanche, or accomplices the bastard might have had. He saw no
one.

No doubt they had fled to a place of safety
after starting it, confident that the snow would do their lethal
work for them. He dared not call out and alert them that their
treacherous plan had failed.

His lips twisted in a snarl as the desire
for retribution heated his blood. From some deep reserve, he found
the strength to push to his feet.

Half dazed, he turned fully around, trying
to orient himself. He had been carried out the western end of the
pass and halfway down the slope. He was standing on ground that he
and Ciara had covered earlier, little more than an hour ago, as
they rode up the mountainside.

Except that now, the easily followed path
had been transformed into an expanse of deep drifts.

And Ciara would be on the opposite side of
the mountain. When the avalanche struck, Anteros had been carrying
her away from him, toward the east.

He started moving upward, as fast as he
could, whispering a prayer that his swift destrier had had time to
get her out of the pass before the torrent of snow reached them. If
not—

Nay, he would not think of the
possibilities. His heart filled his throat at the idea of
Ciara—slender, delicate Ciara, who weighed no more than one of her
silk veils—buried as he had been. She would not have the strength
to get free.

He kept his eyes on the summit, forcing his
way through the drifts, ignoring his wounds, the blood, the pain.
Hampered by the shifting snows beneath him, he made frustratingly
slow progress back to the top.

It took what felt like an hour to reach the
place where he had seen her last, in the middle of the silent,
empty pass between the towering cliffs—the very spot where he had
joked with her about his epitaph.

Despite the fact that he was already chilled
to the bone, the memory sent a fresh shudder through him.

Finally he reached the opposite end of the
gap, where the eastern opening spilled into a long, gentle
slope.

But as he stood there, breathing hard,
staring out across the smooth expanse of white, he saw no sign of
her.

Anywhere.

“
Ciara!”
Her name tore from him
before he could hold it in, and echoed back from the cliffs, as if
the empty valley below were mocking him.

She was gone.

He clenched his fists, shaking his head in
denial, fury. Guilt. He never should have stopped in this place.
Should have been thinking of her safety rather than her comfort.
God’s blood, he was her guardian, her protector, and he had failed
her.