This time, he wasn’t going to run.
He tugged on Avalon’s mane and turned her toward the keep.
Now, he wouldn’t hold back.
Now, he would treat the Armstrongs like a true enemy.
Braya turned fromwatching Torin fight and met Millie’s wide, fearful eyes as someone pounded on the door. She had wanted to see what was going on outside and thought the battlements might be the safest place to go. She’d brought her mother and her two dearest friends to the top of the keep, where a heavy wooden door protected the upper battlements.
Could it be her father, Galien, Will? She didn’t call out and held her finger to her lips to keep the others quiet.
“Open the door, lady,” a voice she had never heard before called out and set her heart to pounding. “We saw you come up here with the others. Open the door or we will break it open ourselves. No one is coming to save you.”
For a moment, her fear vanished and anger took its place. She tilted one edge of her lips in a disgusted smirk. She’d like to open the door and kill him for saying that to her. If she was alone, she might have. Although she had to admit, she did hope someone came to aid them. She could kill—just not more than one at a time.
How long would the door hold?
The man outside the door took an axe to it. Braya startled at the powerful thump and crack. She was thankful she’d been on more raids than she knew how to count. She was afraid, but she’d had men running at her before in the midst of worse chaos than this. She would not lose her command. But her family. She was afraid for them. She hurried to the other women and made certain they had the knives they’d taken from the table ready.
“If one of them comes near you—” Another crack of the wood under the strength of the axe sounded in all their ears. Lucy whimpered. Millie prayed softly under her breath and held her hand to her belly. May Hetherington held her knife at the ready and nodded. Braya thought she could almost hear her mother’s heartbeat from here. “—do not hesitate to kill them,” she continued.
She spun around as another axe joined in with the first. She was going to have to protect her family. She bit down hard to stop her teeth from chattering. There were at least two men outside the door. The metal landed once again and made it through the wood.
Braya lifted Torin’s sword and knew it was too heavy for her to fight with it. But she could still use it. She’d have to come upon their assailant from behind and stab him. She hurried toward the door and waited behind it.
Her heart thrashed against her ribs, through her veins, making her feel a little ill. She looked across the rooftop at her mother. May Hetherington winked at her. Braya smiled, gathering strength from her mother as she always had.
If there was one, she’d kill him. If there were more, she’d kill them, too. She had to.
They were almost in. A few more strikes. She prayed and hoped they were too tired to move with any speed. They began kicking, and the look of horror on Millie and Lucy’s faces told Braya the men were almost through. She readied the sword.
The door splintered and caved in and the first man stepped outside. Braya wasted no time and drove Torin’s sword into his back, using all her body weight. She ripped a knife from a fold in her skirts and turned to swipe it at the next man before the first went down. She slashed his face then aimed it at his neck. He screamed and smashed her across the jaw with the back of his hand.
She flew off her feet and landed on her arse. Her knife went the other way. No! Her mother! She fought with everything she had in her not to close her eyes, not to surrender to the darkness and sleep. She had to save them!
Her assailant grasped his bloody face and then pulled her up by her hair and closed his fingers around her throat. She heard someone scream.
Millie. She looked into the gash going across his face, his eye, and pounded her fist into it. It angered him further and he tightened his grasp until she could no longer breathe.
She felt her fight begin to fail. No.
His fingers loosened, and then his hand fell away from her neck. She sucked in a deep, life-giving gulp of air and almost sank to the ground with him when his suddenly lifeless body was shoved away from her.
Torin stood in his place. His wide, terrified eyes were a startling emerald against his blood-covered face as he reached for her to hold her steady. “Braya!” he breathed, lifting his fingers to her bloody throat. “Are you hurt, my joy?”
She took a moment to look at the three dead bodies behind him and the knife in her assailant’s back. She shook her head and then began to tremble. They would have killed her and the others.
He was there. He saved her. No one had ever saved her before.
Without another word, Torin began to draw her in. She wanted to go. If she didn’t feel so weak, she would have flung herself into his embrace, but her mother and cousins were there to gather her in their arms.
Torin smiled slightly at her as she left his hands. She smiled back.
They heard more footsteps running up the stairs. Torin stepped on her first victim lying dead on the ground and yanked his sword free of the man’s body, then pointed it at the door.
“May!” It was Braya’s father and uncle. Just behind them was Will Noble. They rushed outside and into the arms of their family.
“We cannot stay here,” Braya said after a moment and moved away to look over the wall.
