Free Nightshade by Jaide Fox Page A

“Now!”
     
    Still completely stunned by the man’s audacity, expecting an attack from the men beyond the walls, it took many moments for the defenders to assimilate the fact that the sudden burst of action all along the walls was an attack and by that time the battle was all but lost.
     
    Too frozen with fear and shock to flee, Bronwyn merely stared in complete incomprehension as the castle’s defenders seemed to turn upon each other all along the wall. By the time she grasped that the castle had somehow been infiltrated by the stranger’s army and whirled to flee, the portcullis was rising and the drawbridge falling to admit their attackers.
     
    Whirling the moment her mind finally assimilated the threat, Bronwyn darted between the knots of battling men and rushed down the stairs. Even as she reached the courtyard, however, men mounted upon war horses had begun to spill through the gates. Uttering a gasp of fright, she gathered her skirts higher and ran faster, too panicked to realize she had no hope of outrunning mounted men.
     
    A mailed arm snagged her around the waist, snatching her off her feet and crushing the air from her lungs as she was jerked against an armor plated chest. Fear not common sense inspired her to fight for her freedom, but she quickly discovered that she had neither the strength nor the leverage to offer much in the way of resistance.
     
    “Be still, little rose,” he growled as he locked his arm tightly around her. “I mean you no harm.”
     
    His words penetrated her fear and Bronwyn glanced up at him sharply, trying to see the face of the man who held her. Her heart skipped several beats as her gaze met his for there was something hauntingly familiar about those eyes.
     
    “Who are you?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper.
     
    Something flickered in his eyes. “Am I so different now that you do not know me?”
     
    Bronwyn felt the color drain from her face, but she could not accept that what she believed was truth. It couldn’t be. It must be no more than her imagination, spawned by the hope that had never died, but the desire that had never been far from her thoughts. She ceased to struggle though, as much from hope as from the realization that fighting was useless.
     
    The battle, she saw when she turned to look around them, was all but finished. He’d planned well, whoever he was, though she still could not understand how he had breached the walls of the keep without being detected.
     
    The castle’s defenders, seeing their cause lost, began to throw down their weapons and cry for quarter.
     
    When the man who called himself Raventhorne had ordered his men to round up the weapons and secure the enemy soldiers, he lowered her carefully to the ground and dismounted. It occurred to her to run the moment he released her. The urge was strong, but she knew even if she managed to escape she had no where to run to. She might barricade herself in her chambers, but that was not likely to hinder the conqueror and might well anger him enough to beat her for her impudence.
     
    Instead, she stood docilely as he dismounted, shivering with both fear and the cold. He grasped her arm when he had handed the reins of his horse off to a squire and led her inside. Releasing her once they had reached the great fire at one end of the great hall, he removed his gauntlets and finally his helmet.
     
    Bronwyn stared at him with a mixture of emotions, her mind chaotic. “You are … you are.”
     
    “Marcus Raventhorne,” he finished for her, amusement gleaming in his eyes.
     
    Bronwyn blinked, feeling a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. “I thought … you look....”
     
    He caught her face, forcing her to look up at him. “You do not know me?”
     
    His expression was harsh with some emotion she had difficulty interpreting and Bronwyn felt again an upsurge of hopefulness. “Do I?” she asked a little breathlessly.
     
    His gaze flickered over her face and he swallowed