Free Dark Immortal by Julia Keaton

stockings on and
shoved his feet into the boots.
     
    He’d
be crippled, he thought wryly, if he had to walk far in the things for he had
to curl his toes to get them on.  It still beat the hell out of frozen feet and
toes. 
     
    When
he’d finished, he dragged the naked man over to the others and tied him up, as
well, then settled in a chair before the room’s small brazier to warm himself
and think.
     
    He
would need an army to reclaim what was rightfully his and he must take what was
rightfully his before he claimed Bronwyn as his wife, else he would not have
the wherewithal to hold her against the king.
     
    Fortunately,
he had an advantage no one else had. 
     
    He
had built Raventhorne.  He knew all of its secrets.

 
     
    Chapter Nine
     
     
    Bronwyn
had had a good deal of time to regret her emotional outburst.  Indeed, she
could not fathom what had come over her.  She had managed to remain stoic in
the face of William’s cruelties, even the beatings.
     
    And
yet Nightshade’s gentleness had undone her!
     
    She
could only think that he had believed nothing that she had said for weeks had
past and she had seen nothing of him. 
     
    It
was impossible to keep her fears at bay.  She had imagined so many reasons for
his absence that she was nigh sick with worrying herself.  The worst fear was
that she had, somehow, done or said something that had altered the curse upon
him in some terrible way, but she could not dismiss that as pure imagination.
     
    He
no longer guarded the front gate of the keep.  Trapped inside by the blizzard
that had held Raventhorne in its grip for weeks, she had not discovered that
until the servants began to whisper that Raventhorne’s guardian had vanished. 
Fear had gripped everyone within the castle from lowliest servant to the
highest.  The absence of the guardian of the keep filled them all with a deep
foreboding that they were perched on the eve of disaster.  Everywhere she went
there were whispers of all sort of disasters that would befall Raventhorne and
the people within in the event the keep lost its guardian.
     
    Bronwyn
did not know whether the tales she heard were a part of the original curse or
if everyone was making them up out of fear.
     
    There
were whispers that he had attacked soldiers of the keep and then cursed them
and flown away.
     
    She
did not know what to think, but she found she could not quake over some
unnamed, possible disaster.  To her mind nothing could be much worse than the
marriage the king would force upon her when she loved Nightshade.  Nothing
could be worse than the fact that he had left her thinking terrible things, she
was certain, and she might never get the chance to make him understand that she
cared for him.
    * * * *
     
    At
any other time, the troupe of men that appeared at Raventhorne’s gates would
have caused some consternation, but it would not have put the entire keep into
a panic.  Weeks of speculation about the ‘curse’ had severely undermined
morale, however, particularly since the winter had been more violent than
anyone recalled and stores had already begun to run low since the heavy and
frequent snowfall made it impossible for men to go out and hunt to replenish the
meat supply.
     
    The
banner displayed only added to the uneasiness, for it depicted a great black
bird perched upon a thorny vine.
     
    It
was not the husband the king had promised.  Bronwyn was certain of that even
before Sir Fitzhugh had ordered the gates closed and routed the men from the
great hall to man the walls of the keep. 
     
    The
king had promised her six months.  Moreover, few traveled at such an ungodly
time of the year unless they had very good reason to do so, and the snow only
meant less likelihood that the troupe of men would have stirred to brave the
elements.
     
    The
banner piqued her curiosity, however, and Bronwyn found she couldn’t resist the
urge to bundle up and see for herself what the men outside the gates