He didn’t recognize what was left of his voice, harsh and guttural. The ropes burned and cut more into his flesh.
“Adam!”
His Ruth sounded so frightened, so lost and hurting.
For her—he’d steal, he’d wither, he’d beg. “Let her go.” He reared up. “I could get you money.”
Another blow was his answer. He sank again to one knee.
Then the fiends mocked him. They’d sell him like an enslaved man.
Adam was enslaved to none but Ruth’s love. She was all he needed. If he’d not given in to what she’d wanted, this one time…
No. No, this was his fault.
She screamed, and he dragged his captors to reach her.
Adam was wild, clawing and scratching and flinging his fists.
But the ropes about his neck dug in deeper. He could barely breathe.
She yelled his name and begged for his life.
He tried to tell her he loved her, but words and air couldn’t both exist in his throat.
Then some fool hit her across the skull with her trunk.
She sank to her knees then sprawled headlong into the dirt.
Her curly hair was matted in blood.
Her beautiful body convulsed then stopped moving.
Adam stretched, linking his fingers with hers, and touched a lock of her curly hair for a last time.
A shadow covered him.
A gun butt cracked his skull.
Stars and blackness draped him.
Better to die than to live without Ruth’s love.
Chapter Four
March 12, 1822, London, England
No baby, no whoring, no, none of these things for me.
I wasn’t pregnant, nor any of the horrid remarks my mother’s knitting circle had insinuated for the past two hours.
My special punishment, my personal reminder of hell for loving Adam Wilky.
Tuesdays.
Tuesdays were when the dragons gathered.
Mama’s gossipy friends visited in her parlor at our family’s townhouse at Nineteen Fournier Street. They were the dragon council, gossips who breathed fire with their snide comments, especially when Mama left the room. Thank goodness she was here.
