A Knight of Honor (39 page)

Taylor bent and grabbed his arm, pulling the man over onto his back.
 
She froze, staring at the face.
 
Even battered and bruised she knew that face.
 
Her insides swirled in agony and contempt.
 
Finally, she stepped away from him, her face a mask of loathing.

“Who is he?” Slane wondered, emerging from the castle.

“My father,” she whispered.

S
lane bent beside the fallen man, putting his ear to his chest.
 
The faintest tremor of a heartbeat drummed against his ear.
 
Slane lifted his head and placed a hand near the man’s lips.
 
Faint whisperings of air hit his hand at regular intervals.
 
He lowered his hand and shifted his gaze to the man’s closed eyes.
 
“Lord Sullivan?” he called.

The man groaned and his eyes slowly worked themselves open to the merest slits of life.

“Who did this?” Slane demanded.

Lord Sullivan opened his mouth, but no sound issued forth.

Slane turned to Taylor.
 
The night’s wind gently lifted the wispy curls of her hair and placed them back over her shoulders delicately.
 
Otherwise, she had not moved.
 
She stood like a granite statue, watching through cold eyes.
 
“He’s dying,” Slane hissed, furious with her inactivity.

But even with his admission, she didn’t move to her father’s side, didn’t kneel with tenderness and weep.
 
“He’s your father,” Slane reminded her, shocked at her coldness.

“Taylor?”

Lord Sullivan’s broken voice turned Slane’s attention back to the man.
 
His eyes had widened to pools of deep brown.
 
His gaze moved past Slane to lock on Taylor with a renewed vigor, a wish granted.
 
But the joy and happiness Slane saw for a brief moment on the old man’s face faded.

Slane turned back to Taylor.
 
She hadn’t moved.
 
Hadn’t even batted an eye.
 
God’s blood! Slane thought.
 
What is wrong with her?
 
He stood and moved to her.
 
“He’s your father!” Slane whispered harshly.
 
“Go to him.”

But she didn’t move.
 
She never turned to look at Slane; she only glared at her father with such condemnation that Slane was taken aback.

“Taylor,” her father pleaded.
 
“I’ve finally found you.”
 
He lifted an old, trembling hand to her, his fingers outstretched, grasping for something.
 
“Forgive me, child.”

Taylor stiffened, her jaw clenching, her eyes narrowing.

“Forgive me,” he begged.

Slane waited, as did her father, waited for the words that could heal them.
 
Slane turned to look at her, urging her to forgive.
 
She parted those lips, but the word that came forth was not one of absolution.

“Never,” she snarled.

The old man’s hand clenched into a fist and dropped to the ground.

“Taylor,” Slane exclaimed.
 
“He’s dying.
 
Let him go in peace.”

“And what of my mother?” Taylor snapped.
 
“Did she die in peace when those flames ate her skin from her body?
 
Did she?”

Lord Sullivan groaned.
 
As Slane turned to him, his eyes rolled into his head before his body sagged to the earth and he sighed his last breath.
 
Slane knelt by his side, placing a hand near the man’s mouth.
 
But he knew lord Sullivan was dead.
 
He placed a hand on his chest, saying a silent prayer for him.
 
His final request had gone unfulfilled.
 
He had not been given the forgiveness he sought.
 
After so many years, so much pain...
 
Taylor could have let him die with honor, in peace, but she knew nothing of honor, nor of love.

Slane whirled on her, glaring up at her in disbelief, as if she were some dark goddess deaf to the desperate pleas of her subjects.
 
“He’s your father!
 
And he is dead!
 
Now you will never know his love.
 
Never.
 
Why?
 
Why not forgive a dying man his faults?”

“Why should I,” she demanded, “after what he did to my mother?”

“He wanted your forgiveness, Taylor!
 
Now he’s dead.”

“Good,” she snapped.
 
“He deserved it.
 
He killed my mother with no regret, no remorse.
 
He showed her no mercy.
 
Not even when I asked him for it.
 
He refused to listen to my pleas.
 
And I begged him.
 
I begged him not to hurt her.
 
I begged him not to take her away from me.”
 
Tears rose in her eyes.
 
“He wouldn’t even let me say goodbye to her.”

Slane saw the shimmering sadness fill her eyes, but he felt such an incredible rage at her insensitivity that he couldn’t stop himself from clenching his fist and taking a threatening step toward her.
 
“He was your father!” Slane roared.
 
“He gave you your life!
 
You’ve cursed him to a horrible death that he can never escape!
 
You could have given him one moment of peace with three damn words!
 
Just three words, Taylor!”

Taylor did not retreat under his approach.
 
She stood her ground.
 
“Did he forgive my mother?” Taylor hollered back.
 
“He murdered her!
 
He took her life by burning her at the stake!
 
What more horrible death is there?
 
I’ll give him no peace.
 
Let him rot for what he’s done to me.
 
To her!”

“Listen to you!” Slane cried.
 
“Listen to what you’re saying!”

But she wasn’t listening.
 
Her voice broke as she tried to speak.
 
“You don’t know what it’s like to have your mother taken away from you!
 
I’ll never forgive him.
 
Never!”

Slane lowered his voice.
 
“Don’t you see, Taylor?
 
Don’t you see what you just did?”
 
Slane waited to see the ugly realization dawn in her teary eyes.
 
But the realization never came.
 
“You have abandoned your mother forever.”
 
Slane paused.
 
“You’ve chosen to make your father’s rage and hatred your own.
 
You now have his cold heart beating in your chest, not your mother’s.”

Taylor began to shake her head, to deny his words, but she halted, frozen in disbelief.
 
Her mouth opened in silent denial, but her voice choked on the agony of his revelation.
 
The pain of what she had become overflowed her lids, slipping down her face.
 
She stood, trembling, her entire body shaking with misery.

Slane opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly Taylor whirled, running to her horse.
 
In one fluid movement, she pulled herself onto her steed’s back and was off, racing away.

“Taylor!” Slane hurried to his horse and quickly mounted.
 
“Taylor!” he cried out again at her fleeing back, but he knew she would not stop.
 
She was riding like a woman possessed, her hands cracking the reins again and again, her hair flying wildly out behind her.
 
He spurred his horse forward, snapping sharply on the reins, demanding the beast ride as fast as it could go.

Taylor continued to charge ahead, racing toward a nearby forest, and then vanished into its deep shadows.

“Taylor, stop!” Slane cried, following her into the thick trees.

He knew she was an expert rider, but he also knew she was not concentrating, not thinking where she was going.
 
Slane watched her horse leap a fallen tree and felt his own heart leap as she teetered precariously for a long moment before righting herself.
 
He had to catch up with her.

Slane urged his horse deeper into the thick expanse of trees, dodging fallen trunks, ducking beneath attacking branches.
 
He saw Taylor’s horse stumble and he spurred his horse on.
 
His heart twisted inside of him, knowing the agony she must be experiencing.
 
Knowing that he had inflicted it on her.
 
But she had to see the truth!

He knew he would have to catch her if he wanted to stop her.
 
Blood pounded in his ears; the wind rushed by him.
 
His horse cleanly leapt another fallen tree and he found himself racing just behind Taylor, bursting into a small clearing.

Just then a dark shadow fell over Slane, obscuring the moonlight.
 
He looked up to see a huge wall of trees filling his vision on the opposite side of the clearing, a mass of hard trunks and jagged spiked branches that were impenetrable for a horse.

“Taylor!” Slane screamed.

S
lane spurred his horse hard and the animal surged forward.
 
He lunged for Taylor, extending his hand as far as he could.
 
Wrapping his arm around her waist, he yanked her sharply from her horse.

Taylor pushed backward, struggling against his hold, and toppled both of them from Slane’s horse.
 
They hit the ground hard; she landed on her right side, Slane on his back.
 
He winced at the sudden pain in his back, but it disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived.

Taylor tried to roll away from Slane.
 
“I don’t think so,” Slane told her and grabbed her wrist, yanking her back to him.

She pounded on his shoulder, trying desperately to break free of him.

He forced her legs down with the weight of his body and crawled on top of her, pinning her flailing arms to the ground at her sides with his hands.
 
“Enough!” he roared into her face.

To his surprise, she stopped struggling, stilling her efforts at escape.
 
He gazed down in wonderment at her broken face, shocked and guilt ridden by the tears covering it in a sheen of sorrow.

She stared up into his eyes with such misery that it shattered his soul.
 
A broken sob escaped her full lips.
 
He wanted to take all her agony away.
 
He wanted to touch her pain and erase it.
 
He wanted to heal her broken soul.
 
He rubbed his fingertips against her cheeks, tracing her cheekbone, wiping her tears from her skin.

She parted her lips to inhale a shaky breath and Slane’s gaze was drawn to her mouth.
 
She was so lovely.
 
And so hurt.
 
He dipped his head and pressed his lips to her quivering mouth to comfort her.
 
Only to comfort her.

But something happened he had not planned on.
 
A jolt rocked him as his body came instantly alive.
 
It was as if he were feeding off her vibrancy, her need... and found the same need within himself.
 
He pulled back to stare into her eyes.
 
They were swollen from crying, but there was also something else, something hidden deep within them.
 
Something that called to him.
 
Something he could not deny.