The room snapped back into focus. He traced the rim of the cup, experiencing the delicate fragility of the china against his rough fingertip. Beside the cup sat a smooth piece of gleaming amber. Her worry stone. It was hard to touch the small, flat sphere so loaded with her scent and the remnants of her energy. His connection to her was already too strong.
He forced his finger to the smooth surface. He pictured her as he saw her so often, head bent over a book, the stone in her slender hand, her fingers rubbing back and forth in an easy rhythm as lamp-light shone on her hair, highlighting the blond streaks that glowed like lingering rays of sunshine. He picked up the amber and carefully put it in his pocket. She’d need her worry stone.
He turned to go and made it halfway to the door before he stopped. He glanced beyond the door, the anonymity of the night calling him. Behind him the cup and saucer sat, a ritual incomplete. The amber burned in his pocket. Rituals mattered, kept a body sane. He, more than anyone, understood that. He hesitated a moment, and then returned to the table. The sense of connection increased as he picked up the delicate china. Tea sloshed in the cup. A growl rumbled in his throat. She hadn’t even gotten to finish her tea.
He rinsed out the cup and saucer and placed them on the drying towel, completing her ritual. He paused an instant, his fingers resting on the fine material of the lace-edged white towel. Even her mundane items were delicate and fancy, little tells of the vulnerable femininity she tried to hide because she saw it as weak. His dark fingers lay in stark contrast against the fragile needlework, the network of scars on the backs the opposite of beauty. The opposite of peaceful. And tonight that was good.
The sound of wind roared in his ears, but outside the window the branches of the willow tree didn’t sway. The scent of blood blended with the scent of sweet dough. He blinked slowly.
Not real. It’s not real.
Real or not, it didn’t matter. He felt the icy lash of rain against his cheeks as if it were yesterday. Felt the pain as the scars split into gaping wounds that never healed, spilling blood until it stained the field of his vision. He blinked again and pulled his hand away. The towel slid off the counter, but it was white, unmarked by blood. Just another trick of his mind, heralding the split building inside as all the rituals he’d devised over the last three years to protect the world from himself tore off, layer by layer. He put the towel back to rights, but inside the destruction continued, and the beast howled to be so near its freedom. And this time he didn’t fight it back.
He would have stayed invisible forever, blending with the shadows, enduring the cacophony of his life until something brought it to an end if they hadn’t touched her. But they had. They’d slipped into his private sanctuary and threatened the only thing that mattered. The only good he knew. He turned on his heel, melting comfortably into the shadows of the room, heading out the door, no longer human. No longer anything but the deadly specter he’d been taught to be.
The early morning air took him into its cold embrace. The smooth leather of his knife grip settled into his palm with the familiarity of a trusted friend. He hadn’t asked for this. The choice had been theirs. Foolishly and arrogantly, they’d ignored the laws of nature that called for balance, the laws that kept evil circling good, and with their actions had released the evil circling her. Him.
He knelt at the foot of the steps, his night vision illuminating the pattern in the dirt. The prints told the story. Three men. All wearing boots. The one with a tendency to roll his right foot to the inside held her. She’d fought. The scuff marks told that story. He followed the tracks back to the narrow alley behind the building. Dark splotches in the dirt drew his touch.
Blood. He brought it to his nose. Hers. The beast snarled and bared its canines. Inside, the hunger surged. Inhuman. Dangerous. The end to her struggles hadn’t been painless. For that they would also pay. He scanned both sides of the alley. No bodies. They’d probably made it to their horses without notice. Which probably meant she was still alive. He grunted, pressing the sand between his fingers, holding on to the essence of her as if through sheer force of will he could keep her alive. She just needed to stay alive and he would find her. No matter where they took her, no matter how they tried to cover their tracks, he would find her. And he would bring her home.
His gaze was drawn to the remaining splotch of blood—growing, spreading until it swallowed the ground. Rivers really could run red because the ground wasn’t always thirsty enough to soak up men’s violence, and when that happened, there was no stopping the carnage. He took a breath and then another, fighting the urge to tumble into the growing vision, to accept the stain that was so much a part of him, to accept that there was no rebuilding a past that had been stolen so long ago.
The old anger rose, feeding the emptiness he’d lived with since before he could remember, before they’d taken away what little he’d had. With a snap of his teeth, he won the battle to stay in the here and now. At the end of the alley, between the rough wood sides of the buildings, the horizon flushed with the first hint of morning. A new day. One more night survived without succumbing.
Isaiah rested his forearm on his knee and formed a mental picture of the terrain beyond the town. The men who’d stolen Adelaide would likely be relying on their lead to get them through so it’d make sense for them to take the easier southwest route. If he cut through Ambush Canyon, he could make up a lot of ground. Assuming they continued southwest.
He stood. That was a pretty safe assumption. In his experience, men kidnapped a woman for only three reasons—money, lust, or revenge. This had the feel of all three, seeing as the woman was beautiful, salable, and of good family, with strong protectors.
Only someone mad as hell would risk setting the Camerons on his tail. There wasn’t a more relentless or deadly force in the Territory, if he discounted himself, than the Cameron men. The fact that the kidnappers had targeted a member of their tight-knit clan made this personal. He’d figure out why after he brought Adelaide back. He didn’t leave dangling threads from a threat any more than he left witnesses.
The kidnappers would likely ride through the night before they felt comfortable enough to stop. And when they stopped, the lust and revenge angle would come into play. His mouth set into a grim line. The thought of what that would mean for Adelaide hardened his resolve. They weren’t going to touch her.
IF he touched her again, Adelaide was going kick to him between the legs, and to hell with the consequences. She tossed her hair out of her eyes. It fell back into her face immediately, blocking her field of vision. The even cadence of her breathing snagged on a moment of panic. The leader glanced over at her from where he knelt by the fire. His mustache twitched with his grin. She pulled her hands apart, using the pain of her bonds cutting into her skin to bury the emotions battling for dominance. Oh God, she wanted to scream, cry, throw herself on the ground and rage, do anything but stand here and pretend she wasn’t terrified. But giving in to emotion wouldn’t gain her freedom. She needed her wits about her to get out of this mess. A mess that had just gotten worse by the addition of the ten other men who’d joined her three kidnappers as soon as they’d forded the river.
The leader stood and approached, the cruel-looking spurs on his boots clinking with every step.
“You are a proud woman,” he said as he drew even, reaching out.
She jerked her head out of reach. He studied her defiance for an instant, his hand open, level with her cheek, the fingers drawn back in a threat. The split in her lip burned from where he’d struck her before. Fear rose, but she wouldn’t cower. She didn’t blink or look away, just stared at him as impassively as she could manage, giving herself a focus for calm through memorizing the details of his face. Her cousins would want to know what he looked like so they could hunt him down and kill him. When they asked for a description, she would like to have something to give them beyond “filthy and stank of horse and old sweat.”
“I was raised to be a lady, no matter what the provocation.”
The man looked to be in his thirties, with lank black hair and swarthy skin. From the dirt that was ground into his pores, he obviously did not believe in the saying “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” He was missing his right eyetooth and one of his lower front teeth. His face was broad, so much so that his eyes looked too small above his flattened nose. He had a thick, droopy mustache, which hid his lips but showcased the remains of whatever he’d eaten the last few days. She shuddered as everything else faded to unimportance. “Disgusting” was the description she came up with. Her cousins would not be happy with her.
“You’re damn uppity for a prisoner,” the man informed her, his rolling accent mellowing the threat inherent in the observation.
She waited one breath before answering. One breath in which she recovered from the shock of his stench. “I prefer to think of myself as composed.”
His eyebrows went up into the shaggy line of his uncombed hair. “Composed?”
“Yes. Composed. As in not carrying on and giving into hysterics at the least little thing.”
Like being kidnapped by the king of filth and his entourage of dirty minions.
The leader cupped her chin in his hand. She couldn’t suppress her shudder. He didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “I think you will find we’re not such a ‘little thing.’”
She refused to think of him as big. If she did, she’d lose all hope. His filthy thumb touched her cheek. “I’m sure.”
His head canted to the side. “But you still intend to keep yourself composed?”
One of the new men, dressed in black from his hat to his boots, taller, leaner,
cleaner
than the others, looked up from where he hunkered down, rummaging through a saddlebag. His expression was blocked by the brim of his hat, but she knew he was listening. And he didn’t approve. Whether of her or the situation, she wasn’t sure. “Absolutely.”
“Why?”
The leader’s accent turned the question into two syllables. She motioned to the double row of ammo draped over his shoulders. “Why are you a bandit?”
His mustache twitched, either with a smile or a grimace. She couldn’t tell beneath the overgrowth of hair. “It is what I do.”
She shivered and hunched lower into the horse blanket they’d thrown around her shoulders. It stank but it was infinitely preferable to freezing. “Well, being composed is what I do.”
His fingers slid down her jaw, toward her mouth. “One wonders if you would be so composed were I to kiss you.” His thumb crept toward her mouth. “I think you would scream.”
She shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t.”
Again, that twitch of the mustache. His head tilted back as he looked down his nose at her. Who knew bandits could be so arrogant? “You are so sure?”
“Yes.”
He took a step nearer. She looked him straight in the eye, stopping him with two words that were the absolute truth. “I’d vomit.”
She was about to vomit from his filthy hand being so close to her mouth.
“Then I would kill you.”
She wanted to roll her eyes. He was probably going to do that anyway. Instead, she breathed steadily through her nose, trying to suppress the gagging urge as the wind swirled his odor around her. “Vomiting just happens. Threats will have no effect on my reaction.”
The man in the black hat made a sound. Laughter?
The bandit pulled a big knife. He held it near her face. It was ten times cleaner than his hand.
“What do you say now?”
“I’m relieved to see you keep your weapons clean, at least.”
He blinked. She couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. She was just too nervous to think straight. The knife caught the sunlight, flashing the glare back over her face. “It will not matter if the blade that kills you is dirty.”
It would matter to her. “That makes sense.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “I cannot determine whether you are very brave or very stupid.”
Well, she wasn’t brave. “Does it matter?”
His mustache spread and his eyes crinkled at the corners. The aura of friendliness was disconcerting. And wrong, because it didn’t extend any deeper than his expression. His hand dropped away from her face. “No. Your value rests in other places. What is your name?”
“Adelaide. What’s yours?”
The mustache twitched. “You may call me José.”
Not “my name is” but “you may call me,” which meant she didn’t have any more to give her cousins when they came for her. They weren’t going to be pleased. She’d have to do better or they’d chew her out.
“Thank you.”
José touched the knife to the tip of her right breast through her dress, gauging her reaction before dragging it down to her stomach, lingering at her navel. When she didn’t flinch, he slid it a few inches lower and poked it into the folds of her skirt between her legs.
She forgot all about memorizing details and focused on controlling her reaction. She hadn’t expected this weakness in herself. She’d spent the whole afternoon going over in her mind all the possibilities about what might happen to her, and certainly being raped was number one on the list. She’d thought she’d prepared herself for the eventuality. Logically, she knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant, but she was sure she’d survive it. Common sense said the act was survivable. Otherwise, the ladies at the White Dove Saloon would be disappearing faster than Miss Niña could replace them.