He ended up stumbling, falling against the wall and sinking to the floor as Allaston maintained her grip on him. As he fell, she released his leg and pounced on him, her arms around his neck. Bretton, slumped against the wall, sat on his hands to keep from holding her. He knew if he did, all would be lost.
“Listen to me,” he hissed. “Allaston, listen. It is true that I love you and, God knows how honored and touched I am that you would love me as well. Hearing those words from you has somehow made my life worthwhile. I have lived my whole life to hear it. But it does not change what I must do… it does not change the fact that my vengeance against your father must be exercised. It does not change that I must kill him.”
Allaston didn’t say anything for a moment. After a lengthy, brittle pause, she released her grip around Bretton’s neck and sat back, pulling away from him. He watched her, distraught, as she sat back on her heels, eyeing him, seemingly confused or lost in thought. In either case, it was evident that there was a good deal on her mind. She was at the end of her wits and pure instinct took over. She appeared pale and disoriented as she stumbled over to the chair she had once sat in, near the hearth, and plopped down on it. As Bretton began to push himself up from the floor, Allaston spoke.
“I understand that my love cannot stop your revenge against my father,” she said, her voice dull and hollow. “But hear me now. The day you kill him is the day I take my own life. I cannot live knowing the man I love would choose vengeance over my love. Life would not be worth living. There would be nothing left for me.”
Bretton felt as if he’d been hit in the gut. He rose to his feet, slowly, and went to stand before her. His expression, as he looked down on her, was a mixture of horror and sorrow.
“Nay, Allaston,” he beseeched. “You must not say that. You must not….”
“Why not?” she looked up at him, cutting him off. “If my father’s life is not of value, then surely mine is not of value. I am a de Velt, after all. What difference does it make if one or more of us dies?”
His jaw ticked. “It matters to me,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It makes all the difference in the world to me because I love you.”
“You do not love me more than you love your vengeance against my father.”
He growled, frustrated and grief-stricken. “Can you not understand that this is something I must do?” he begged. “It is a part of me, it is who I have become. Why must you threaten to kill yourself unless I give up this one thing that has kept me alive all these years?”
Allaston was shattered, cold, alone, and empty. She looked away from Bretton, devastated that her love was not enough to deter him from his revenge. She was not enough. Therefore, it didn’t matter what became of her. At the moment, she didn’t care one way or the other.
“Go away, Bretton,” she told him, a lone tear trickling down her cheek. “I do not wish to speak with you any longer. Go and do what you must do. I will do the same.”
He felt as if he couldn’t breathe. “Please do not do this, Allaston,” he begged softly. “Do not leave me with this horror.”
She wouldn’t answer him and Bretton had never felt so broken or hollow. Allaston’s head was turned away from him and it took all of his strength not to reach out and stroke that dark, lovely head. He couldn’t stand it and his control broke. A big hand extended, the dirty fingers barely touching the dark strands, like the brush of butterfly wings. Allaston felt the touch, gentle and faint, and she broke down into gut-busting sobs. She wanted to grab his hand, to kiss it and touch it, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The hands meant to touch his ended up covering her face.
Bretton fled the room before he started weeping, too.
*
It was dawn.
Allaston hadn’t slept the entire night. She’d been up thinking about Bretton, about their life that was never to be. It was odd, truly. Thinking back to the moment she met him as Alberbury burned around them, she would have never imagined falling for a killer. Aye, he was a killer. She had always acknowledged that. But Bretton de Llion was a complex creature. He was intelligent and skilled, driven by something that happened to him in childhood, something that had both fed and destroyed his soul.
She wondered what he would have been like had Jax de Velt never killed his father. He would have probably grown up with love, fostering in the best homes, and emerging a stellar knight with a bright future. Instead, Bretton had been forced to scratch and claw and fight for everything he had. It was all he knew. And now, she was asking him to change that way of thinking. Perhaps she had been wrong all along. Perhaps it was unfair of her toask him to become something he wasn’t. That very question had been tearing at her all night.
Shades of sunrise were beginning to color the eastern horizon. Allaston could see it clearly as she sat in the oriel window that faced over the eastern portion of the castle and a section of the bailey. She could see men moving around down below, going about their tasks, and she could smell the scent of baking bread. It would grow strong when the winds changed after sunrise.
Thinking that perhaps she should go down to the kitchen and help Uldward, she slid off the bench seat of the window and headed over to the wardrobe against the northern wall, the one that held the clothing she had borrowed from Lady Miette, garments Grayton had brought her so long ago. She hadn’t seen Grayton for quite some time and was told he had remained at Comen Castle. Not that she cared. The man had been against her ever since the day she hit Bretton with the poker. In fact, she sensed that all of Bretton’s men were against her to varying degrees. But none of that mattered now.
Bretton.She hadn’t seen him since he fled her chamber the night before, and it was probably best that she hadn’t. They were both too emotional about the situation and needed time to gather their wits. As Allaston changed into the yellow garment that Bretton had torn down the front during his fit of passion, the mending of which was now covered up with the bib of a white apron she had stitched on, Allaston knew without a doubt that she would never leave the man. He could try to send her back to her parents but she wouldn’t go. She was determined to remain with him, to convince him that they belonged together, because she knew once she left him that her life would be a lonely and desolate thing. She didn’t want to leave the only man she had ever loved.
So she cinched up the surcoat, tightening it over the linen shift, and pulled on her boots, boots she had borrowed from Lady Miette. She combed her hair thoroughly and braided it, pulling a kerchief around her head to keep loose strands out of her face and out of any food she would work with. On the table was a small polished mirror she had found in Lady Miette’s possessions and she held it up, inspecting her face, seeing a woman of determination gazing back at her.
She seemed to have aged over the past several weeks. When Bretton had first abducted her, she had been a somewhat naïve girl. Now, she felt as if she had done enough growing to spread over a lifetime. She had seen much, and experienced much, and the love she felt for Bretton was engrained in her very fabric. Nay, she would not leave him, not even if he tried to force her. The only thing that was going to separate them was death.
As she set the mirror down, she began to hear a commotion down in the bailey. She could hear men shouting and, curious, she went to the window to see what the fuss was about. Her gaze was naturally drawn to the men below, running around, and she could see a portion of the gatehouse but not beyond it. She could, however, see over the wall towards the east where there was a sharp slope and groves of trees, and then the rolling green hills of Wales beyond. As she looked off to the east, it began to occur to her that, upon the horizon, a black tide seemed to be moving.
There it was, spreading across the green fields, moving towards Cloryn in a long, dark line. She watched, curious, until she realized that she was looking at the approach of an army. She had no doubt who was at the head of the army. Her blood ran cold.
Allaston bolted from the chamber, racing down the dark, narrow stairs towards the keep entry. Bolting through the door, she took the steps far too quickly and almost stumbled at the bottom, but she caught herself and began to run towards thegatehouse. All she could think of was warning her father off, of telling him to go back and away from Bretton’s wrath. She was halfway across the bailey when someone caught her around the waist.
Frightened, she looked up to see that it was Teague who had a hold of her. She had never had much interaction with the warrior but she knew, like the rest of Bretton’s commanders, that he was not friendly towards her. Panicked, she began to fight him, kicking and hitting, until he was forced to loosen his grip. But he didn’t release her entirely. He held on to her. A shout filled the air and they both stopped their wrestling.
Bretton was heading towards them from the direction of the gatehouse. As he drew near, he brusquely waved Teague off, who obediently let the lady go and vacated. As the big knight with the piercing dark eyes headed off, Bretton moved closer to Allaston, his eyes riveted to her.
“Where were you going?” he asked softly. “I saw you running out of the keep.”
