Prince of Shadows (22 page)

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it.”

It was so easy to get swept up by that confident claim, surrounded by the cushion of love and care. Relief shivered through her, willingness to relax and blindly trust everything to him. To let him turn back the clock to that time of innocence. She let him guide her, directing her steps, losing herself in the cadence of the voice that had calmed her after her nightmares, that had talked to her of dreams and glory. Here to rescue her at last from the strain, the fatigue, the fear that had stalked her every move and thought.

She couldn’t look at Bram Terriot, at the awful image that flashed through her mind whenever she saw him. His brutal features twisted in rage. Her mother’s stark with shock and pain. Enough. No more. She couldn’t bear the tortuous weight of it, the hurt that clutched about her heart. So she pressed her face into Silas’s shoulder, shutting her eyes to the remembered horror until the sudden violence of his movements shook her back to confused awareness, to the sight of Cale Terriot, his expression sculpted by hate and rage. To the moment he’d pressed the glowing Terriot brand on the inside of Silas’s wrist, marking him forever as no longer his own man.

No more!

She closed her eyes and willed it all away, welcoming the numbness that served her all those years after she was discovered on the floor of her parents’ closet.

No more.

The first thing that swam back into focus was a photograph behind shattered glass hung at a careless angle. She recognized the proud tip of the boy’s chin, the piercing intensity of his gaze, the slight vulnerability to a half smile that was nearly as bright as the diamonds in his ears.

Cale.

Kendra didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Silas intoned quietly, “Don’t worry. You won’t have to see him again.”

She shook her head, trying to make sense of her situation. She was seated in a darkened room. Silas knelt at her feet, her freezing hands pressed between his. Her head ached, her senses reeled, sick and dizzy from the overpowering scent of the Terriot king. She couldn’t seem to breathe.

“What happened? How did I get here?”

Silas’s manner, his tone, was so solicitous and tender. “You kind of zoned out there for a minute. It’s all right. Everything’s taken care of. We’ll be out of here tomorrow, and you never have to look back. Not ever.”

Out of here? Leaving . . . She struggled against the seeping exhaustion, refusing to let it steal any more precious hours from her life. “I can’t leave. I can’t leave Cale.”

Silas’s expression tightened, but his voice remained gentle as he brushed her hair behind her ear so the Terriot diamond was exposed. “Yes, you can. There’s nothing he can do to stop you. You don’t wear his mark, and the rest you’ll forget in time. We can pretend it never happened. It’s all arranged.”

“What’s arranged? Silas, what have you done?”

“I’m getting you away from him. You don’t need to be afraid. He can’t harm you now.”

She shook her head. “He’s never hurt me. Never.”

Silas’s temper flashed hot in his eyes. “He has you wearing that obscenity so the whole world knows you’re his—”

When he broke off abruptly, Kendra froze. “His what?” She pulled her hands free. “His what, Silas?”

“His one of many,” he concluded softly. “He’s using you, the way he’s always used you, taking advantage of your—”

“Stupidity? Ignorance? Are those the words you’re looking for?”

“Goodness,” he amended. “He’s not some little lost boy, Kendra. He never has been. He’s a Terriot. He’s a son of Bram the Beast. He’s manipulating your feelings to get what he wants. Why do you think he hasn’t claimed you?”

Why hadn’t he? Tears trembled on her lashes.

“Kendra, he needs you to sway clan opinion. And when he has it, he’ll put you behind him and never look back. That’s what they do. That’s what his father’s done with his mother, and mine and yours. You need to understand.”

“You’re wrong,” she argued. “You’ve never wanted to believe there’s any good in him.”

“Because there isn’t, Kendra. That’s why I’m here.”

When the two of them exited the main lodge, Cale was waiting alone in the cold. Unaware of what had transpired after his banishment, he looked from Silas’s stony features to the studious way Kendra was avoiding him. When he reached for her, there was no mistaking her subtle sidestep to evade his hand.

Then Silas had his wrist, twisting sharply as he warned, “Back off, Terriot. Don’t make me break my word to your father along with your arm. Get out of the way.”

Jerking free, Cale ignored the command, concentrating on those pale averted features. “Kendra, what’s wrong?”

She looked up at him, distress pooling in her eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t do it,” came her broken plea.

“Do what? Katy? What is it that you think I did?”

Silas caught the front of his shirt, bunching it tightly before shoving him away. “You sonofabitch,” he snarled. “I vowed not to avenge the murder of my family, but I will not let your attempt to kill my sister go unanswered.”

“My
what
? What the hell are you talking about? True, she’s an annoying, sharp-tongued bitch, but—” The rest of his denial was silenced by another, harder blow.

“It was done at your request, you bastard, so she wouldn’t get in your way.”

Cale looked from him to stare into those wide dark eyes, seeing Kendra’s desire to believe in him. But also the wounding doubt. It staggered him. “You think I would arrange the murder of your best friend and then pledge to love you? Is that what you think of me?” He gave a harsh, despairing laugh, then looked to Silas. Cale’s voice was February ice: thick, black, and cold. “Let’s do this.”

He led the way. There was no proud strut to his walk, just quick, deadly purpose. Kip ran after him, his coat in hand.

“Where’s my father? The others?” Cale asked.

“Upstairs with Jamie and Wes. I don’t know about the rest.”

“Did he ask for me?”

An awkward pause, then a telling “No.”

The significance wasn’t lost on Cale. At the moment, it didn’t matter as much as the business at hand. “Take care of the princess. She goes with no one but me—or him.” He nodded toward Silas, adding, “If that’s what she wants.”

Think of nothing. Be like stone.

He couldn’t find that granite blankness. All he could see was red. A sea of it, on his hands, on his clothes, leaking from the heavy bags he’d struggled to carry while his ears rang with the awful sound of screams.

With Wes and James, Terriot princes bathed in their first trial by fire, all three of them pale and shaken to their souls by the deeds of that day, he’d stood along with his father and the fierce cadre of his men. In the cozy living room of the MacCreedy home, he’d watched Mr. and Mrs. MacCreedy’s faces as the abominations he and his brothers carried were dumped out onto their rug. Saw the horror and agony wake in their expressions as those atrocities bounced and rolled and were finally recognizable as the heads of their loved ones.

Silas’s father was no warrior. He’d been a scholarly, patient man, a teacher who spent countless summer hours tutoring Cale and his less enthused brothers. But he’d stood with unmatched bravery in defiance of Bram, even as Bull started chopping him into pieces, starting with his fingers.

Silas’s mother had always been full of flirtatious smiles and laughter, often making Cale blush and squirm within her impulsive hugs. She was a photographer who saw everything through excited, curious eyes, everything except the slow death of her husband. Still she’d stood unbroken and silent as Bram demanded, “Where have you hidden her? Where is my child?” until the cries of the two young girls above and the sight of her son’s pale and conflicted features forced her to sacrifice her own life to save them.

Cale had known from the very beginning that what they were doing was wrong. Not only wrong but indecent, with no justification other than Bram Terriot’s affronted fury that the child he’d conceived through intimidation with Therese MacCreedy in an effort to strengthen their clan had been secreted away out of his reach. Cale had tried to hold to his father’s claim that they were warriors for their clan, that this was retribution against traitorous acts. But there was nothing heroic in methodical butchery. There was no honor in spilling the blood of families while they wept on their knees. There was no victory in listening to the screams of frightened girls. Cale had known at that moment what his once respected family had become, what he’d become. Vicious amoral animals, above no barbarity in the taking of what they wanted.

When he’d seen the three he’d grown up with, whom he’d loved like family, come down those stairs with their shattered hearts and tattered dignity, he’d risked punishment by nudging the object at his feet over so that the girl he adored wouldn’t look upon the face of her father. He’d been shamed and awed as the arrogant Silas MacCreedy knelt in his parents’ blood to swear fealty for the sake of his sister and cousin. And he knew what it was to be damned when Kendra’s pleading gaze touched on his and he couldn’t respond.

He was going to lose her again, just as he had in that tragic moment when he’d failed to convince her that what he held in his heart wasn’t what he’d done in the name of his family.

The gym was empty. Cale stripped out of his vest and dress shirt to the white T-shirt underneath. No posturing, no one to impress, just the one man who’d been able to best him at everything. They hadn’t faced each other one-on-one since they were teens, but nothing had changed. No matter how hard Cale had trained, how brutally he’d pushed and punished himself, Silas MacCreedy was the better man. Because he deserved to be.

Cale was aware of Kendra standing behind the glass wall with an apologetic Kip at her side. He should have known his youngest brother couldn’t keep her away. The fear in her large eyes was denied by her firm stance. Which of them did she worry over? Both. With her big heart, she was capable of loving them both. Only one could have her. He wasn’t sure at the moment that the right one did.

It took all of Kendra’s strength to remain motionless as the two males circled with wary, inevitable intent. Silas was all sleek, deadly calm weighed against Cale’s fiery aggression, so different yet oddly well matched. Each ferocious in his own way and capable of killing the other. She clung to Kip’s steadying arm, terrified of that outcome.

Cale struck first, as expected, his speed and power knocking his opponent back to shake it off and reassess. Again, harder, faster, with fist and elbow, drawing first blood. She didn’t want to watch, yet couldn’t look away as the viciousness unfolded like a slow-motion traffic accident.

Silas wasn’t a great fighter, nowhere near Cale’s caliber, but he was an intelligent one. It took only a few exchanges for him to realize that everything he threw at Cale’s left side slipped in to make contact. Once he began to concentrate there with a vengeance, the conflict was as good as over.

Cale had no defense. He didn’t see it coming until impact exploded through his face, his ribs. When he tried to wheel away to protect his vulnerable side, Silas pursued mercilessly, beating him right down to the floor.

The second Cale staggered to one knee, Kendra tore away from Kip’s hold to race out onto the court. Wrapping both arms about the one Silas had cocked for another punishing blow, she hung on, refusing to let go even when lifted off her feet.

“Enough! Silas, stop it! Can’t you see he’s done?”

Silas turned, seething, eyes ablaze with the impotent rage that had simmered for years. “Not until he admits he is.”

“Cale, tell him. Tell him it’s over!”

Weaving, trying to hold himself up with a palm to the floor while the other pressed to a shattered rib cage, Cale lifted his head to stare up at them. His face dripped gore and sweat. The eye he could open burned with fury as he roared, “No!” and struggled to stand. Kip caught him by the T-shirt, holding him back as his feet scrambled ineffectively against the blood-splotched floorboards until he collapsed to elbows and knees. Beaten. Done.

Kendra gripped her cousin’s taut face between her palms, speaking low and fiercely. “You say nothing about this. Nothing. Do you understand? You’ve beaten him. That’s enough. Walk away.”