To a warning.
“You will leave Lady Araminta alone.”
The voice was gruff. Nasally. Unfamiliar.
Pain swam through Clay, nausea roiling in his gut as he slowly became aware of his body once more. His eyes blinked open. The world was blurry and dark. A shadowed face loomed over his. Something cold and wet hit him in the cheek.
Spittle?
Bloody hell, where was he? What had happened?
“Ara,” her name was the first word on his lips, a cry into the night. “Where is she?”
“She is not here,” the stranger clipped, digging the blade deeper into Clay’s skin.
Fuck, it hurt. The pain of his head met and swam together with the pain in his cheek. A fresh roil of nausea rolled through him. He choked back the bile. Swallowed it down. He had to be strong. For Ara.
Everything for Ara. Always.
But the blade pressed deeper. He was being cut apart. Flayed. Laid open. A warmth slid down his face, dripping, dripping. Wetness coated his neck. The knife sliced deeper.
“There now, not so pretty anymore are you?” the voice asked.
He blinked, tried to see the face of his assailant. Nothing made sense. His mind was jumbled. All he could think of was Ara. She was to meet him here. They were to be married. What had happened to her? Where was she? Had she come?
“By God if you have harmed her, I will tear you limb from limb,” he managed, though the words were weak. The blows he had taken to the head had made the world seem like it was distorted. Everything hurt. He hurt.
His face. His head. His back. Why the hell couldn’t he move? He struggled, trying to free his arms, to defend himself. Realization sank through the murk. He was bound. He was helpless. All the strength he had honed, all the ways in which he had built his body so it would never fail him, were useless to him now. With a few blows to the head, he had been felled.
The blade sank deeper. Slowly, slowly, deeper, stroking downward. And the pain was fierce and his blood ran, hot and sticky and wet, down his throat, soaking into his coat.
“Won’t be so easy to charm the ladies after this, Duke’s Bastard. You’ll be marked forever now.”
He tried to speak again. “Wh-where is she?”
“She is where she belongs, you son of a whore,” his attacker said. “She’s safe in her bed at Kingswood Hall, regretting the day she ever spoke your name. You will leave her alone from this moment forward.”
“No,” he denied even as the man’s knife cut deeper into his flesh. He would not believe—could not believe—Ara would do this to him. To them. She loved him. He loved her. They were meant for each other.
“A letter from the lady.” The man tucked it rudely into his coat. “Read it at your leisure,Your Grace.”
He did not miss the scorn in his assailant’s voice, even as the blade continued its slow and steady path of destruction.
“Cannot be,” he muttered, though half his face felt as if it were on fire. The pain was blinding and numbing and hot all at once.
“Your blood for the blood you spilled,” the man said as he finished drawing the knife down Clay’s face. “The earl considers the debt paid now. You will never speak to Lady Araminta or look upon her again.”
“I…no.” It was all that would emerge. He was losing blood. Growing dizzy. The pain sank its fangs so deep into his belly it gave a violent heave. He was going to vomit. To cast up his accounts.
“Believe it. The lady confessed all to her father. She has realized the error of her ways, and she wants nothing more to do with you. Read her letter. She will not be coming to meet you, Duke’s Bastard. Not today. Not ever.”
No.
Not Ara.
He could not believe her capable of such treachery.
She was going to become his wife. Today. The license was in his pocket.
