The blocky man planted his hands on his hips and roared with laughter. “I’ll take that challenge.”
“There’s no use. I’ve heard Millvale will be married to the princess in a fortnight.”
Sadler’s world narrowed to a bloody pinprick. Fury thundered through his veins. His heart clamored against his chest wall, prepared for battle. If he had to slay Millvale in the games, so be it. But first and foremost, he was going forth with his plan to kidnap Isolde.
He spun on a heel and strode off toward the castle.
Who do you think you are? You think she can be happy with you—a fugitive living off the land and wearing rags?
His heart told him he had to try. If she was married to Millvale, he might as well put his head on the block now. Besides the pull she had on his body, she had become his confidante, his best friend. After years spent alone and on the run, she was the first person he’d allowed to get close to him. Now, she was the only person he wanted for the rest of his life.
As he approached the courtyard where the events would take place, the trumpets blasted. King Adlard shifted to his feet. The crowed stilled at once to hear the rich, booming voice, but Sadler shook with anger.
“Welcome to the annual games. I look forward to diverting my mind from the troubles of late. I’m certain you have heard a fugitive is on the loose in my castle. But fear not. Airships patrol the skies constantly. My men are armed to the teeth. We will not allow this mutt to sully our event.”
A roar resounded through the yard, and feet stomped the dirt.
Sadler walked hastily toward the castle. He rasped the thick growth of beard on his jaw with his knuckles. When he pulled his hand away, his knuckles were tinged black. Damn, he thought and veered toward an airship. He stepped up to the side, peered into the water-holding tank, and examined his reflection. His face quivered in the surface of the water. His eyes blinked at him from the veil of dark hair and beard.
In this disguise, no one would recognize him as Sadler, fair son of Corbet, which meant he was free to fight for Isolde and wait for his chance to steal her away. His strides lengthened.
Across the grounds, the patch of lawn crawled with people lining up for Princess Isolde’s inspection. Sadler hurried his steps. The prize was too great. Dining with the king would put him in enough proximity to use a small device he’d recently invented from the scraps of the zeppelgonger he’d bested in the forest.
As small as a beetle, it could be dropped into a goblet of wine unnoticed. It exploded upon ingestion but left no outer trace. He’d successfully used its prototype on the boar he’d placed in the great hall.
Sadler passed a woman bearing a wooden tray laden with small loaves of bread. The castle guests plucked a loaf as she went by, and Sadler did the same. At least while hiding on the castle grounds, he ate like a king. Why had he never tried it in the past?
His ears rang from raucous laughter of men, squeals of children, and the high, coarse voices of peasant ladies. He burned to hear one sound—Isolde’s soft gasp.
A cheer rose from the crowd, and he turned to see the king stepping onto a platform. His long leather cape flapped about his form, and a pair of flying goggles made him look bug-eyed. He lifted a hand in gesture of welcome, swished his cape aside, and assumed his high throne.
Sadler’s soul was thick with bloodlust. If he’d had a crossbow at that moment, he would shoot the king in the throat and end it. But the need to soothe his fury at his father’s execution didn’t outweigh his need to steal Isolde and flee. To preserve her feelings for him, Sadler had to take out the king without her knowledge.
Isolde’s older brother, John, broad and tall, remained on his feet, legs thrown wide apart as if prepared to fight. Today he wore a turban about his head the color of the sky, indicating he was the master of the games.
Heart throbbing in excitement, Sadler scanned the shadowed recesses of the castle entrance for the golden head he cherished. A long minute passed. Necks craned to see. Blood rushed in his ears, beating his own drum. The sun heated the back of his neck and the top of his blackened head. Time slowed.
Suddenly the roar of the crowd deafened him as Princess Isolde stepped out on the arm of her brother Prince Colin.
At her sight, Sadler’s throat grew thick and dry, and every male in the kingdom fell still. A collective gasp trickled from the women, and a blanket of silence dropped over the world as Isolde walked to the edge of the platform, removed a small square of fabric from her bodice, and let it drop. The sky blue silk drifted to the ground.
When it touched the grass, a scramble ensued. Twenty young men piled up, bodies slapping one another, fighting and elbowing to reach that bit of fabric. The man on the bottom jumped to his feet and punched the air, the blue cloth wadded in his fist.
The crowd cheered, and the man brought the bit of blue to his nose to inhale the light scent of Isolde.
Sadler knotted his fists.
Isolde laughed and blushed prettily. She lifted her fingers to her rosebud lips, pressed a kiss, and extended it to the young man.
Sadler’s jaw locked.
She pinched her skirts, the color of a sapphire blue sky, and curtsied. Pearl-colored fabric corseted her torso, the laces gleaming gold, matching the thin circlet on her crown. Thick golden bangle bracelets lined both arms, and she wore a look that Sadler hadn’t seen before. That look had him moving boldly forward. It was the look of being hunted.
As he reached the edge of the crowd, long legs blocked Isolde from his sight. Sir Lionel removed his sword and bowed with it. “As I compete in the games, I ask for the princess’s favor,” he said loud enough for all to hear.
The king looked on with a knowing smile that Sadler itched to wipe off his face. He gripped the handle of his sword. His foot drifted forward. A renewed sense of purpose washed over him—King Adlard had had Sadler’s father executed in this very courtyard. Twenty paces away, Sadler had heard his father’s head roll into a basket. For that crime committed against a boy, Adlard would suffer.
Sadler jerked himself back.
Ripping his gaze from the king, he fixed Sir Lionel in his sights. The toe of Isolde’s boot bounced. Sadler felt her trepidation, felt his heartstring tug. The crowd was a silent witness to this spectacle.
At last, Isolde dropped her gaze from Sir Lionel’s and gave a small nod. Sir Lionel’s face split in a grin. She located a second blue handkerchief—the color of a spring hyacinth—and placed it into Sir Lionel’s hands. The crowd cheered. The king waved his blessing.
Sadler restrained himself from scaling the wooden platform, sinking his fingers between the tendons on Sir Lionel’s neck, and choking the life from him.
Prince Colin’s voice penetrated the thrum. All eyes lit on him. “The princess is offering her favor to four contestants this year. The man who wins the most games wins her favor. The prize—”
A thousand chests filled with air and held.
“The prize is the right to escort Princess Isolde to the closing feast. The third man of her choosing is”—Prince Colin gave a dramatic pause, sweeping an arm over the crowd as if hand-plucking the man—“the Earl of Millvale.”
Sadler’s knuckles popped in his clenched fists. His chest came up hard against the wooden side of the platform. He hadn’t remembered moving forward.
A ripple of
aww
sounded through the crowd. From across the courtyard, Millvale gained his feet and strode for the platform with his typical swank.
As she watched him cross to her, a blush kissed her cheeks, igniting Sadler. His inner voice screamed,
Mine
. His body bellowed,
The war is on
. His heart cried,
Watch for your chance
. A knot formed in his gut.
From a pocket tucked into the seam of her full skirt, Isolde withdrew a third, darker blue handkerchief. As the earl approached, she placed the silky fabric on his outstretched palms. He bowed over it, slipped the cloth into his breast pocket, turned, and gave the king a courtly bow.
“Who be the fourth man?” came a cry from the crowd.
Prince Colin shifted, glanced at Isolde, and at her nod, continued. “The princess will choose from among ye. If ye are a single man between the ages of twenty and fifty, form a line before the platform and allow the princess to handpick her champion.”
The ground shook beneath the storm of boots rushing the platform. Sadler took his place between a fat pig of a man and a strapping young boy. His eyes never left Isolde as Colin helped her to alight. As she waited for the flurry of activity to cease, she worried her lower lip. Her gaze continually scanned the grouping. Sadler felt the touch of her eyes, and then they were gone, moving past him, seeking.
Once the men were congregated, Isolde began a slow descent down the line, pausing occasionally to peer into a man’s face. When she stopped the third time, Sadler could barely control his smile, realizing she sought fair-haired men. As she neared, passing up every man except blonds, he knew he must gain her attention.
Her hair was bound tight on the crown of her head today, but little wisps had already escaped and danced on her temples. Sadler licked his lips. He knew how her skin tasted there, pooled with sweat after he’d pleasured her. He knew the feel of those wisps against his mouth, so fragile compared to the curls between her legs.
She was five steps away. The breeze freshened and brought the scent of her to his nose. She carried the crisp, underlying note of flowers, making him think she’d walked in the gardens this morning, and he cursed himself for not dragging himself out of the hay-fuel pile sooner. To catch her against the oak tree and crush her body beneath his was one of his fantasies.
Her steps slowed. She stepped up to a man, leaned in, and peered beneath the brim of his hat. He quickly doffed it and held it over his heart.
Isolde nodded to him and continued on. Sadler’s heart quickened. How to gain her attention? To touch her would mean trouble—Prince Colin, standing guard over her, would never allow it. If Sadler valued his teeth, he would need to reveal his identity in another way. Or…
She skipped over the chap next to him pretty quickly. Her step edged past Sadler. Heart thudding, he shifted his stance, and in a blindingly quick move, caught the edge of the handkerchief and tore it from her skirt pocket, so fast that even she looked stunned to see the blue square float to the ground.
A sharp intake of breath sounded, and Isolde froze. A fine sheen of sweat appeared on her brow, and her eyes raked over his thighs in the tight leather breeches. He shifted his hips slightly.
He swiped the fabric off the ground, remaining in a low bow. “Why, thank ye, Princess. I’m honored to champion ye,” he said in a voice she wouldn’t recognize, hoping she was as well-bred as he suspected—that she wouldn’t snatch away the handkerchief but would allow a common man to fight in her honor.
He heard a little huff of breath that told him how angry she was, but she was too well mannered to make a scene. She whirled away and ran up the wooden steps to the platform.
Sadler was jostled as men clapped him on the back in congratulations. He lifted his gaze to the princess and saw her staring back, her cheeks flushed deliciously, spawning the memory of her beneath his touch.
He kissed the blue silk and held it toward her in tribute. Her face dropped, but not before he saw the dangerous flash of her eyes.
* * *
Sadler stood poised before the gauntlet, one foot dangling over the immense, grinding, growling gear, ready to snap his bones if he fell onto it wrong. This event required precise control.
And he’d never run a gauntlet in his life.
At the rail separating the dangerous gauntlet from the crowd below, Isolde stood, her face tense and watchful. He dared not meet her eyes now, afraid he couldn’t control his reaction, that he’d give himself away.
He stared down the length of the gauntlet at a mishmash of blades and boulders strung from ropes, ready to sweep him off and eliminate him. He firmed his jaw with resolve. He had to get through this and await the moment he could kidnap Isolde.
The roar in his ears ebbed. His heart slowed. He drew in a breath slowly, deeply, held it for four counts, and released. He cleared his mind of the jeers of the crowd, the high, yodeling music in the background, the two blue-green eyes burning up at him. Everything. Clean, white, blank.
He sprang onto the gear. His boot heel scraped the teeth, and he tore it free before he could be sucked in and his leg bones crushed. He clutched two ropes and swung forward, narrowly missing the cross blades. They sliced the air at his back, sending a shiver of wind over his neck. His body swayed like a pendulum, to and fro, in macabre time to the razor-sharp blades.
His grip grew moist, slipped, and he hoisted himself farther up the rope, tucking his legs and leaping the high blades.
All at once his hearing returned. The crowd’s screams struck him like a body blow. He sailed over the steel, released the rope, and fell to the wooden platform with a
thunk
. There was no time to pause. He ran into the maze of gears, dodging and shouldering the tiny ones out of his way. Over his head, smaller boulders wheeled, threatening to cave in his skull if he stepped into their path. He scampered low, bobbing up and down to avoid them. He gripped a post on the platform, wrenched it free, and fought the whipping rocks with it.
Pandemonium broke loose on the ground. Fists drummed the edges of the platform; spectators jumped up and down, their faces fierce and sweaty, calling his name, which he’d given as Marvic.
Another string of blades met his makeshift sword. The blows jarred his arm to his shoulder, and he fought on, parrying the blades that only a giant could sheath. His heart was a hammer in his chest, his cock hard as a stone.
The gears again, tighter and narrower space, brushing his shoulders. Screaming in his ears. Grinding doom. His face felt hot and tight as he dreaded the final stretch. He threw himself into the grinding teeth.
He tripped through five revolving disks, stomping his way through them with speed and without hesitation.