Heart of Fire (17 page)

“Nay, I’m going to fight them. Stay
on Petal. Be prepared to run for the pass.”

Petal sidled up next to Dragon and
Jessalyne tried to pull the jenny back. This was not staying
behind.

The men were almost upon them. All
four had weapons ready. They slowed as they approached, fanning out
into a semicircle. One of them shot her a wicked smile that gave
her a feeling only a long, hot bath would rid her of.

The men were so filthy it was hard
to make out their features. The stench coming off them wrinkled her
nose. She swallowed and glanced at Ertemis.

His cloak was thrown back over his
broad shoulders, revealing the measured rise and fall of his
leather-clad chest. One hand caressed the hilt of his sword, the
other rested on his thigh, holding the reins. How could he be so
calm?

His hood shrouded his face from the
men but she could see it. A predatory sneer twisted his mouth and
his eyes—his eyes chilled her blood.

From the shadows beneath his hood,
his eyes glittered preternaturally bright with a raw, savage sheen.
It was an unearthly, feral glow as frightening as anything she’d
ever seen. Everything the name Black Death implied seemed right at
that moment and yet, not enough. A reflexive shudder ran through
her.

“Get behind me, Jessalyne.” He spoke
without looking at her, his voice low and menacing.

She tugged at Petal’s reins, trying
to pull the jenny back.

The first highwayman spoke. “We’d
like to thank ya for bringing the wench along. That’s an extra bit
a fun we didn’t count on. Maybe we’ll let ya watch, if yer still
alive. Course the Legion don’t care how we bring ya back.” Spittle
flew from the man’s lips. He dragged the back of his hand across
his mouth, smearing his already filthy face.

“I never had an elf wench before,”
another chimed in.

“She ain’t elf. She ain’t got the
ears.”

The leader spoke again. “Don’t
matter to me what kind of ears she got, so long as her other parts
is the same.”

The four broke into laughter. The
leader nudged his horse a little closer. “Ain’t you gonna fight us,
muddled blood? Ain’t you gonna protect your woman?”

Jessalyne wanted to know the same
thing.

Ertemis raised his head. The man
flinched and the laughter ceased.

“I’m not going to fight you.”
Ertemis’s voice rumbled like thunder. “I’m going to kill
you.”

One of the four started to laugh
again but his partners didn’t join him.

The shush of metal against leather
sang out as Ertemis unsheathed his sword. His Feyre gleamed in his
other hand. He dug his heels into Dragon’s side and the horse
charged between the men. He struck with both blades, unhorsing one
man and opening a gash in the leader’s cheek. Dragon pivoted and
Ertemis was on the next two men before they could turn, a symphony
of horse and rider.

With an angry howl, the leader came
after Jessalyne, his cheek bleeding rivulets through the dirt on
his face. She yanked at Petal’s reins, kicking the jenny into a
run. The clatter of hooves on stone drowned the rush of blood in
her ears. The man was right behind her, cursing at her to
stop.

She fumbled for her dagger, trying
to free it without dropping it. He was so close, so close and
gaining. A sharp pain snapped her head back and jerked her off
Petal. Jagged rocks bit into her as she smacked the ground. She
yelped in pain. Stones tore through her skirt and scored her skin.
The man on horseback hauled her across the ground by her
braid.

He reined his horse and jumped down,
winding her plait around his fist. He yanked her up and looped his
arm around her neck, pressing his bloody face against her. “Now
we’ll see how much yer halfling wants to fight.”

Jessalyne gagged. His breath stunk
almost as much as the muck-crusted fabric of his tunic. She yanked
her arm up to elbow him but the deadly sparkle of his dagger
stopped her.

“Don’t think I won’t use it,” he
snarled, pressing it into her ribs. She staved off the warm
tendrils of fear curling over her skin. If she burned the man, he
would kill her for sure.

“Let. Her. Go.” Ertemis stood over
the bodies of two of the men, Dragon behind him. The third man was
simply gone, horse and all. Ertemis’s eyes glowed like
moonlight.

The man shook his head. “Drop yer
blades and get on yer knees. Yer life or hers, you
decide.”

Ertemis met Jessalyne’s gaze. He
mouthed the word fire then slanted his eyes away.

He wanted her to use her magic? He
was the Black Death, couldn’t he do something? She shook her
head.

“Don’t move,” the man seethed in her
ear.

The blades slipped from Ertemis’s
grasp, falling to the ground with a dull clang. The sound tore at
Jessalyne’s heart. He was giving up. He dropped to his knees, head
down. She couldn’t use her powers to hurt after what she’d done to
her father. She just couldn’t. She’d vowed not to.

The man yanked her along as he
walked toward Ertemis. His arm tightened around her neck. She
coughed and his blade dug into her side. “Quiet.”

The man tugged her head back and
lifted his blade to her throat while he spoke to Ertemis. “Did ya
think ya could kill my men and I’d let yer wench live? Shame to
snuff such a fair piece.”

He nuzzled his crooked nose into
Jessalyne’s hair, inhaling. The blood from his cheek matted the
loose strands to her face. “Course with all the coin yer hide’ll
bring me, I’ll be able to buy the finest wenches in
town.”

He pushed the blade into her skin.
Something warm trickled down her neck. The man spat on the ground
in front of Ertemis. “Look at me when I’m talking to ya. I want ya
to watch me slice her pretty throat.”

Ertemis raised his head. His eyes
blazed with lethal fire.

The man recoiled. Ertemis sprung. He
grabbed the man’s hand and forced it up with a sickening snap,
whipping the man around and spinning Jessalyne out of his grasp.
She landed on her hands and knees, gulping deep draughts of
air.

Like a great black sea, Ertemis’s
cloak swelled around him. There was a soft crunching sound and the
man dropped to the stones by Ertemis’s boots. She crumpled onto her
side, exhausted, panting. She closed her eyes. It was too
much.

“Jessalyne,” his voice was fraught
with concern. He was at her side, brushing her hair back, cradling
her. “Open your eyes. Speak to me, lelaya.”

He’d killed those men as easily and
thoughtlessly as swatting gnats. “I want to go back to the grove,”
she whimpered. Her throat hurt, her backside and legs were bruised
from riding and scraped from being dragged, the back of her dress
was shredded, her head ached from having her hair pulled, and the
man she had hired to protect her was being hunted by men who wanted
to kill him – men he had no issue killing in return. Time to go
home.

“Open your eyes. Please.”

She did. His eyes were
silver-speckled black again. No lethal glow, no deep threatening
glitter. She rubbed her throat. There was blood on her
fingers.

“I know, sweeting, he nicked you.”
He hesitated, as though it hurt to speak. “You don’t want to go
home,” he whispered. “You want to see Shaldar City.”

She breathed a deep shuddering
breath. “Why were those men after you?”

His mouth creased, but he didn’t
answer. Instead, he lifted her gently and carried her to Dragon’s
side. If he noticed her flinch at his touch, he didn’t show it. He
set her down, unhooked his waterskin and offered it to her.
“Drink.”

She managed a little water, then
asked again. “Why were those men chasing us? That man was going to
kill me.”

“No danger of that now.”

“Answer me.” She fisted her hands to
stop the shaking. It didn’t work.

He went to brush a strand of hair
off her cheek and she pushed his hand away. His jaw twitched.
“There’s a bounty on my head.”

A bounty? She limped to a large
boulder and sat, wincing when her bruised backside came in contact
with the stone. He’d dispatched the highwaymen so fast he’d been
hard to follow. She shuddered, remembering how the leader had
slumped at his feet in a boneless heap. Her imagination took over.
Thief. Murderer. Rapist. She spoke in a very small voice. “Why is
there a bounty on you?”

“I left the Legion without paying my
conscription price.”

That didn’t sound so awful. “Why
didn’t you just pay it? Isn’t that what Valduuk did?”

“I tried. Every time I had enough,
the amount increased. They didn’t plan on letting me leave.
Ever.”

“Why leave, then? You made it seem
like it wasn’t such a bad life.”

“It wasn’t the life, it was the work
they made me do.”

“Why? You said you were a
messenger.”

He scanned the area. “Leave it at
that.”

“No, I won’t. I paid you to protect
me. I deserve to know.” You kissed me, she wanted to say, you
kissed me and that gives me some right, doesn’t it?

“You ask too many blasted
questions.” His eyes swept the horizon.

“Ertemis.”

“What?”

“Tell me,” she demanded.

He looked at her then, his jaw set,
his eyes dark and liquid. “I was the Legion’s most proficient
assassin. That’s why I’m called the Black Death.” His mouth
twisted. “I couldn’t do it anymore.” The sky rumbled, threatening
rain.

She sat quietly staring at the
stones by her feet. An assassin. Who’d saved her. Held her. Kissed
her. A man whose values went against everything she believed in.
“Why not? Killing those men didn’t seem to bother you.”

He shifted his weight to his other
foot. “Those men would have killed you. Or worse.”

“Wouldn’t make for good business,
would it? Dead employers give poor references.”

“Jessalyne, that’s not—”

“Please, I’ve had enough.” She
twisted away from him, the pain in her legs now seeming like fair
payment for aligning herself with such a creature.

“Do you think I enjoy the blood of
others on my hands? Do you? Do you know that my senses let me hear
each dying heart beat? Let me feel the waves of fear and pain and
pleading desperation? With every death I’ve dealt, I’ve died a
little myself. I had to leave before there was nothing left of
me.”

“You were right to leave, then.” She
picked bits of debris off her skirt. “Perhaps you should have left
sooner.”

“I tried.”

“Really? That implies failure. I
don’t see you as a man who fails to get what he wants.”

“I wouldn’t expect a healer to
understand.”

“Good, because I don’t.”

“Would you rather I let those men
take you?”

She met his eyes then.
“No.”

“Then let that be your first lesson
in understanding, healer.” He exhaled a long, ragged breath. “That
nick on your throat needs cleaning.” Wetting a corner of his cloak
from his water skin, he knelt beside her and gently wiped off the
crusted blood. “Why didn’t you call fire when I asked
you?”

His soothing touch couldn’t keep her
chin from lifting. “You had no right to ask me to use my power to
hurt someone. I’m not....” She wanted to say like you, but didn’t.
“I just won’t is all.”

“All I wanted was a distraction,
something to get his attention away from you. I wasn’t sure I could
get to him before he hurt you.”

“A distraction?” She twisted her
hands together.

* * *

Ertemis felt shame and guilt swirl
off her, sad replacements for the fear he’d felt from her earlier.
It gutted him that she now held him in such low regard, but why
should she be any different from anyone else. “What aren’t you
telling me?”

“Nothing. I’m ready to
go.”

He put his hands on hers to keep her
seated. “I told you the truth, Jessalyne, and regardless of how
poorly you liked it, you will do the same for me.”

Her anger washed over him then.
“Fine, you want to know? I’ll tell you. I’m the reason my father
left. I am. I couldn’t control my power and I burned him so badly
he couldn’t stand to be near me. That’s why I wouldn’t help you.
After he left, I vowed never to use my powers to hurt anyone. Ever.
Do you understand?”

Haemus’s scars were from her.
Ertemis nodded. “But you didn’t burn him on purpose, did
you?”

“Of course not. He was my father.”
She rested her forehead against her palms. “My mother had just
died, I was upset, he grabbed me...it just happened. I didn’t even
know I was capable of such awfulness.”

“You can’t blame yourself.” He
tipped her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “It wasn’t your
fault.”

“Yes, it was. If I were normal, it
never would have happened. You don’t know what it’s like...” The
words spilled out of her, anguish burnishing her eyes.

“I know very much what it’s like to
be despised for something you can’t help.”