His sword plunged into the colorful waistcoat.
William drew it out. Thrust again. Drew it out. Thrust again. Drew it out—
Digby toppled forward, the mud softening the thud of his fall, as a river of blood seeped out from underneath him. His fingers flexed, curled, then stilled.
William flung the sword to the ground. With sweat rolling down his temples, he lifted his eyes to the men circling about him.
If they were going to kill him, now was the time.
He had no more fight left in him.
Everything was still except her heart. Isabella stared at the body in the mud, with his fingers half fisted on the ground and sunlight blinking off the jewels of his sword.
Nausea struck her. She tried to look away from the blood as it ran like trails from his abdomen, but she couldn’t.“I always attain what I desire.”Over and over, the words stung as quickly as William’s sword had pierced Lord Livingstone.
He was dead.
The reality pushed back some of her terror as she lifted her eyes to William. Her heart hurt for the slashes of blood across his chest, his arm, his side. He had suffered such wounds for her sake. Indeed, she had inflicted them.
If she had not screamed out, if she had endured Pike’s blows without sound, perhaps things would have ended differently.
But perhaps it would not matter anyway. They would both die.
William knew too. He stood in the center of the circle, clutching his side, and glanced about the faces circled around him.
Silence. No one moved.
Pike’s fingers sank deeper into her flesh. Had she not wanted it this way? Had she not longed to die next to William? Death would be kind to them. How warm and restful it would be to lose all her hunger, all her fear, into dark oblivion. Just so long as they were together, she could bear anything.
With the sky behind him fading to pink, William stepped over the body and walked toward her. His face was granite, and when he reached for her hand and tugged, Pike released his hold.
They pushed their way through the circle of men.
Her heartbeat buffeted so fast she felt its throb in her fingertips. Her knees shook. She waited for the gunshot to blast her back, or shatter the back of her head, just as it had done to Cressida.
But when they reached the hole in the rocks, no piercing shot hit the air. When they climbed through to the other side, no one shouted or ran after them.
Disbelief moistened her eyes as William increased their speed down the narrow trail.
They had made it out alive.
With the sun’s heat burning her face, Isabella focused on not tripping in the oversized boots William had placed on her feet.
They did not speak. Strange that after so much had happened and so much begged to be discussed, they should be silent with each other now.
Perhaps he hadn’t strength.
Perhaps she hadn’t either.
For the second time, her boots skidded from under her, and she would have smacked the ground had his arms not swept her back up. How long had they been walking? She could not remember. Everything was faint.
Had it been an hour? Two? Had the mountain no end?
“Here.” He pulled her down onto a smooth rock alongside the trail, and for the first time, he sank to the ground too.
She wanted him to look at her. She wanted him to climb onto the rock next to her, drape his arm across her shoulder, and let her cry against him as she’d done at the seashore.
But those days were lost to them.
