Free Wild and Wicked by Lisa Jackson

the frozen fields, riding north toward Serennog. If Payton had remained true to their plan, there was a chance she might catch him. Alone, she could take a shortcut while her brother was carrying the boy, pulling extra horses and dragging a small army with him.
    If she was lucky, she could catch them at the crossroads. If she was not, then all was lost, for the specter of death would be chasing them.
    Devlynn of Black Thorn, when he realized how she’d duped him, would be flying after her with all the vengeance of Satan.
    God help us all, she silently prayed, leaning lower over the mare’s sweating shoulders. Her teeth chattered in her head and the reins were brittle in her frozen fingers. Her cheeks stung from the bite of the wind.
    But inside she seethed. Burned with rage.
    What a fool Payton was! And to leave her!
    Oh, if she could, she would wring his arrogant neck. How dare he alter the plan? Go against her orders? Risk the lives of all who resided at Serennog? Again she kicked her mare, hoping to catch up to the other horses and their thieving riders, men she had known all her life, men who were not her partners in the raid on Black Thorn.
    Curse and rot Payton’s sorry hide!
    Her brother was addled, that was it, Apryll thought, as her horse made up lost ground. She shuddered to think what would happen to them when Devlynn caught up with this mad band of thieves and kidnappers. No torture would be too cruel to satisfy him, no pain too great.
    Geneva’s grim words reverberated through her mind. ’Tis about destiny, m’lady. Right now that destiny seemed as bleak as the winter night.
    “Hiya!” she urged the mare as she rode into a copse of trees where moonlight filtered through the skeletal branches. In her mind’s eye, Apryll envisioned Devlynn—his face hard, his eyes cold, his big hands curling into fists of silent fury at the audacity and pain of having his child kidnapped from right under his nose.
    Aye, there was sure to be hell to pay.
    Damn Geneva with her pale eyes and dire predictions. Damn Payton for the vengeance that burned bright in his heart. And damn her for being a dreamer, the ruler who always hoped the fortunes at Serennog would someday turn. She’d been a fool.
    And what about tonight, with Devlynn of Black Thorn? Her teeth gritted as she remembered how she’d flirted outrageously with the baron and even gone so far as to kiss him wantonly on his lips. Her body quivered beneath his touch and she’d wanted so much more. Dear Lord, what had she been thinking? ’Twas to have been part of a well-planned act. But she’d allowed herself to get caught in the spirit of the revels, of the warmth and joviality within the castle, of the merriment.
    And you didn’t expect Lord Devlynn to be so attractive. ’Twas not his square jaw and broad shoulders, though, as much as the glint you saw in his gray eyes, the hint of passion in their flinty depths. And the feel of his lips, the promise of more. Never in her life had she felt such heat in her blood, experienced the pleasure of pure seduction. Oh, bittersweet temptation.
    And now his son is in danger, because of you.
    “You’ve been a fool,” Apryll admonished now, her teeth chattering as she caught her first glimpse of Payton’s band riding in the moonlight. Her brother was astride a huge gray animal, surely the baron of Black Thorn’s destrier, and holding fast to his prize. Though the distance was too great to see clearly, Apryll knew it was the boy, the baron’s son. “Idiot,” she muttered, kicking her mare hard, closing the distance as the band reached a streambed.
    With Payton’s charger in the lead, the horses swarmed through the creek, spraying icy water and scrambling up the far bank.
    How could she have trusted her brother? As her game little mare galloped after the faster horses and the wind streamed through Apryll’s hair, Payton’s words mocked her.
    That is the trouble with you, sister, you are never willing to do what must