Not yet anyway.
Enar ran his fingers through his hair as he watched Lily place her clothes in a bag. Allowing a captured woman to bring her things was out of the norm for Watchers. Once he made it home, he’d be laughed out of town for his kindness.
Good thing he was used to it.
Lily didn’t have much to pack. With the exception of the armoire and bed, the room was bare. He thought women liked decorating, putting little touches of themselves on everything. But not his woman. Although the closer he looked at the walls, he realized pictures had once dotted them.
“What happened to the pictures?” Enar pointed to a bare spot on the wall where the surrounding paint had lightened.
Lily blushed, grabbing her bag. “I’m done here. Don’t we need to pick up your things?”
“We do.” He gestured for her to walk in front of him. He’d let her have her pride, even though it tore him up inside that in order to live, she sold her pictures.
When they got to the back door, Lily took out the key. Holding it in her palm, she stared at it for a bit and then left the key on the counter by the door. He pulled the door shut behind them and followed her across the yard. Before she got to the gate, she turned, her front teeth capturing her lower lip. She took a deep breath.
“I have a favor.”
“All right.” Did he actually agree before he heard what she wanted? By all things holy, he was turning into a sap.
“Would you mind stopping by Tom the Shopkeeper’s store and getting back my paintbrushes?”
Enar shrugged, relieved the favor was a small thing, amazed he wanted to grant this woman all her wishes. Ensuring she’d never want for anything again seemed to be his new goal in life, despite knowing the Watchers frowned upon exhibitions of kindness. They’d made sport of him since he was a child, what was one more chuckle?
Chapter 4
Lily ran her fingers over her box of paintbrushes, feeling the smoothness of the wood, knowing she’d never have to sell them again. The look on Old Tom’s face when Enar demanded the paintbrushes back would be permanently engraved in her memory. She grinned. Clearly, bargaining successfully involved taking with her someone the size of a mountain loaded down with enough weapons to supply a garrison. For once Tom agreed to her asking price, one silver, the same coin he paid her with earlier.
She couldn’t put the box down.
Not on the walk to the inn, or when they got Enar’s and Thoren’s horses out of the stables, not even now, as they led the horses to Keara’s. As much as she didn’t want anything to bind her to her old life, she needed a reminder of her parents love for her, needed to remember the joy permeating her soul when she opened the box for the first time. Despite their dislike of each other, her parents had loved her deeply and she missed them.
What would they say about her current partner?
Lily glanced at Enar as he led the horses, glaring at anyone daring to look their way. Not many dared. Most took one look at Enar and pressed against buildings, backs to the stones, white shining in wide-opened eyes, in an attempt to get out of his way.
Not that she blamed them. Enar’s glare could ignite wet wood.
“Do you enjoy glaring at everyone?”
“What? You think I need to be smiling and waving at them?”
“No. I was just wondering.”
“You like asking questions.” A statement, not a query.
“How else am I supposed to learn?”
He shrugged, then leaned over, his voice dropped to almost a whisper. “If I don’t glare at them, then they won’t take my protection of you seriously. Understand?”
“Ah.” She nodded.
A woman could learn to like that kind of protection. A woman could learn to like Enar.
No, no, no. She was not traveling down that road. All that liking business led to broken dreams, broken feelings, broken hearts. Not for her.
So why wasn’t her heart getting on board with her head?
Not even the knowledge that for all intents and purposes he was her captor, her potential torturer, swayed those treacherous feelings that threatened to overwhelm her common sense. The bloody things seemed to revel with the evidence he didn’t mind her odd coloring and didn’t think her a witch.
Provided he told the truth about that.
He had defended her. Came to her rescue. That boded well for her future.
And if it didn’t, she had two legs. Last time she checked, her two legs had no problem running.
As they neared Keara’s shop, the buildings seemed to close in on them, blocking out the light as if they were storm clouds covering the sun. Winding streets grew narrow and Lily began to feel prickles racing against her nape, their staccato beat warning of evil intent.
“Do you feel that?” Lily whispered to Enar, doubting he could feel the same thing she did. No one but her mother had ever been able to.
“What?”
“It feels like someone’s watching us.”
“They have been, but it’s different here. Is that what you mean?”
He knew what she meant. What were the chances of that? “Yes! There’s something not right down this alley. I’m surprised you feel it.”
His head tilted to the side, brows pinched as his gaze pierced hers. “What you sense is a group of soldiers heading this way.”
“Soldiers?” She cleared her throat in an effort to get her voice to return to normal. “We must hurry inside. Soldiers aren’t a good thing. What if they kill us?” In an instant her throat dried up like earth in a drought, as she thought about Lord Simon’s regiment heading their way.
Enar snorted, shaking his head. “Don’t think that’s going to be happening.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m insulted, woman. Enough of this silly talk. Open the gate.”
Lily pushed the gate to Keara’s yard open, inhaling the fragrance from the herb garden, while Enar led in the horses. As soon as he entered, she slipped the box containing her paintbrushes into her cloak pocket and locked the gate. Probably a futile effort as a lock would not keep out a determined soldier, but it made her feel better. Lord Simon controlled the only soldiers in town and he would stop at nothing to get his hands on something he wanted. And he wanted Keara.
Enar’s strength and sword gave a man a fright and she supposed Thoren was equal to Enar in strength, but not even those two would be able to overpower the contingent of soldiers.
Her Mountain Man and his scrumptious kisses were for naught, she would die before he even got the chance to crush her. And after those kisses she looked forward to being crushed. Bedding him did not mean she had to hand him her heart in a box. Unfortunately, she might never get to discover what he’d be like in bed. If the prickles meant what she thought they did, her friend would be taken and the two men who saved them would lose their lives in the process.
Clearly leaving town shouldn’t have been crossed off the to-do list.
Once they secured the horses to the hitching post, Enar grabbed Lily’s hand as he strode into Keara’s shop. Keara stood in the middle of the back room of the shop, a packed bag at her feet, surrounded by Jamie and Thoren. The women stared at each other, their fear mirrored in each other’s eyes and in the sharp scent of their sweat.
“Company?” Thoren stepped toward Enar.
“A group of men-at-arms heading this way. And they aren’t being too quiet about it.”
“Lord Simon!” Keara whispered. “We’ve got to leave before he gets here! He’ll kill you!” Keara spoke to Thoren, motioning toward the back door.
“I said I would protect you.” Thoren glared at Keara, his forehead furrowed into rows.
Enar had said the same thing to her, but everyone knew men exaggerated their sword-wielding abilities, among other things. Although she had to admit the two men overwhelmed Keara’s shop, making the room seem smaller. Perhaps that impression boded well for them surviving.
Lily heard the noise of footsteps in the alley, closing in on the yard, more murmurs from the front of the shop. She swallowed, running her tongue around her dry mouth, trying to stop drawing in air like a bellows. If she kept it up, she’d hyperventilate.
The noises stopped as the soldiers paused, obviously waiting for the command to storm the shop. Lily felt her heart stop pumping and then Thoren reached into his pocket, pitching Enar a round ball. “Take the boy!”
Holding Lily tight around the waist, Enar grabbed Jamie against him as he squeezed the ball, causing the air to shimmer around them. Keara screamed, staring at them wide-eyed. Thoren lunged for Keara, clasping a hand over her mouth, murmuring in some language Lily didn’t understand before both disappeared from view.
Enar clamped a hand over her mouth before the squeak she emitted became a scream. Where did they go? Was she invisible to them, like they were to her? If so, that would explain Keara’s scream when Enar squeezed the ball.
And a good thing they were invisible since with a bang the front and back doors burst open, allowing soldiers from Lord Simon’s regiment to spill in.
She glanced down, noting Jamie possessed the good sense to remain quiet without the benefit of Enar’s hand clamped over his mouth. Smart boy. She couldn’t see Keara or Thoren, but knew they still stood in the last place she saw them. Their energy waves reached her, assuring her of their presence.
Enar dropped his hand from her mouth and she turned, pressing her face against his chest, breathing in the pleasing scent of sweaty man. He rubbed his hand across her back, soothing her, not enough to make her forget the situation, but enough to calm her breathing.
With her face buried in Enar’s shirt, she heard Lord Simon storm in, directing his men to search upstairs while squeaking chair legs indicated he sat at the table beside where she last saw Keara and Thoren. As her breathing hitched, Enar stroked her back faster. Part of her wanted to continue burying her face in his chest and not see what happened, while another part wanted to look death in the eye.
Or maybe she could do both.
Lily left her face pressed against Enar’s chest, and opened the eye that faced the room. Lord Simon sat at the table, eyes scanning for any sign of them. Enar’s fingers ran down her spine then up, down then up, stilling her tremors. She felt safe in his arms, held by his strength.
The soldiers began spilling back into the room, each man bringing more of a scowl to Lord Simon’s face.
“Sir, we checked outside, there’re horses. Look like they’ve been ridden, but we don’t find evidence of people. They ain’t outside, sir.”
“Sir, they ain’t upstairs either.” Boots clomped against wood as the soldiers strode downstairs.
“They were just here, you lily-livered sons of goats, I heard them! Now search again. Tear up the floors if you have to, they have to be someplace!” Lord Simon jumped to his feet, gesturing at something on the floor. “See here. It’s a bag, packed and ready to go. They have to be here, search again!”
The men hustled, kicking the rugs around until they located the trap door to the cellar.
Lily stared at Keara’s bag lying in the middle of the room. If Keara’s man could make them all disappear, shouldn’t he be able to make a bag vanish? And how did he manage to make them all disappear anyway?
The only way she knew of to make things disappear was with magic, and she couldn’t work magic. Magic was different, like her white hair and Keara’s red locks, and different was evil. Did that mean the man who had claimed Keara was evil? What about Enar?
Who and what were these men?
Perhaps she had more to fear than being crushed by Enar. What if the men planned some nefarious ritual death for them? Instead of rescuing them, they were leading the women, and Jamie also, to their deaths? Painful deaths at that. What if this invisible spell Thoren cast wore off and Lord Simon killed them right here? What if...
She could kill herself worrying about what-ifs. Her heart pounded hard enough already without the extra thoughts. Might as well live in the moment and face death once it came closer.
Lily slowly looked around, afraid if she moved too fast whatever magic kept them invisible would snap and cause them to be seen. Lord Simon’s men stomped up from the cellar and in through the back door, making enough noise to obliterate the loud thumping of her heart. Which was a good thing considering her tunic fluttered with its pounding beat.
“Nothing down here, sir.”
“Well, search again. They have to be somewhere.”
“Maybe, sir, they left some other way. Because, no offense sir, but they ain’t here.”
Lord Simon glared at the soldiers and shoved a strand of hair behind his ear. “They can’t be far, their horses are still outside. Peter and Markus, take your men and search the area. Hun and Geo, guard the front with me. The rest of you hide in the yard. If they come back for the horses, take them. I only want the apothecary. The rest are expendable.”
What a donkey’s arse. Why did Lord Simon want Keara badly enough to lie in wait for her? It wasn’t done. Nobility did not marry shopkeepers and yet the lord had been chasing Keara for the last several weeks.
They only needed to make it through the next few minutes. Which they just might do, seeing how Lord Simon marched out of the shop, stopping in the doorway to stand with legs wide and arms crossed. His men took up a post on either side, generating stares from the few passersby. Lily craned her neck watching. Being invisible was a lot better now that he left the shop.