Landyn was so proud of her. So enamored with her. So in love with her. She was everything to him. Everything. He never thought he would love again, and he had resisted it, resistedher, for so long. Somehow, she had snuck into his life, and now he did not want to spend a day without her.
Rolf rose, wiping a sleeve across his eyes. He strode to Raven and pulled her into a fierce bear hug. “Thank you for saving my family, Raven. Thank you.”
She stood stiffly in his arms for a moment before melting into his embrace.
As Rolf returned to his family, Landyn and Raven stepped into the hallway. “What are we to do with the last mercenary?” Raven wondered to Landyn. “The one at the table in the main room?”
Landyn peered at Rolf, who lifted his head from embracing his family to hear their conversation. “Rolf can take him to the magistrate. He can dispense justice.”
Rolf stared at him.
“Boucher’s men will exact revenge on Rolf and his family when they find out Boucher was killed here,” Raven whispered so the family would not hear her.
Landyn rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “What else can we do?”
Rolf climbed to his feet and approached. “I’ll get us some ale.”
Landyn nodded and moved aside, watching him walk down the hallway. He glanced at Rolf’s wife and son. She was speaking to the boy quietly, brushing tears from his cheeks.
“We can take the mercenary downstairs to a different magistrate,” Raven suggested.
“It won’t matter. The story will spread.”
She lifted her hands helplessly. “There’s also the mercenary we left tied in the forest.”
“He won’t tell anyone, particularly the squadron. If he did, he’d have to explain howhetold us where to find Boucher. He’d be branded a traitor.”
“We’ll set that mercenary free.”
Landyn nodded.
“In time,” Raven said with a grin.
Landyn found himself smiling with her. Despite all they had been through, she was still able to entertain him. He looked back at the woman and her child. Slowly, his happiness faded. Boucher’s darkness had touched another family. “Let’s give them some time alone,” he suggested and led the way down the stairs.
Raven followed him.
Landyn suddenly paused halfway to the main room.
Rolf stood behind the mercenary in the chair, gazing at him with clenched fists and hatred burning in his eyes.
The mercenary’s head was still on the table as if he slept, but there was a dagger protruding from his back.
Raven halted, following Landyn’s gaze.
Understanding and disappointment filled Landyn. He remembered the consuming sorrow and rage he had felt after Viola’s murder. Landyn couldn’t blame the innkeeper for killing the mercenary for what he had brought upon his family.
Rolf shifted his hard gaze to them. “It was the only way. The magistrate would do nothing about him. The vermin would tell the rest of the men, and me and my family would be punished.” He spat on the dead man. “We’ve been punished enough.”
Landyn cast Raven a glance. He lifted his eyebrows in resignation before continuing into the main room. He stopped across the table from Rolf, his gaze on the dead man. “Men from the squadron will still come here looking for Boucher,” Landyn said.
Rolf nodded slowly, his lips thin. “I’ll take this one far away from here and let the wolves have him. We’ll tell the men we never saw Boucher. We’ll tell them he never stopped at our inn. Lord knows I wish he hadn’t.”
Landyn hoped that would work. He hoped the innkeeper and his family would have no further trouble.
When Rolf looked at Raven and Landyn, his wrinkled face softened. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did. He would have killed all of us. You saved us.”
Landyn nodded in agreement and acceptance. He did not doubt Rolf was correct. Landyn was glad Boucher wouldn’t be able to harm anyone ever again.
