Chapter 16: From Love to Blood (Part 1 of 2)

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Warning for violence - a certain someone is pissed.

Chapter 16: From Love to Blood (Part 1 of 2)

After two full days of little else but passion and banter, already he was suffering the withdrawals of an hours-long absence of his wife. Drake laid in bed, sleepless and feeling the emptiness of his chambers without his temperamental, playful wife by his side. He could no longer exclude the possibility that he'd been bewitched.

He gathered she'd fallen asleep in her own bed, but there was no reason why she couldn't sleep in his arms. He'd tell his hands and prick to behave for her sake. Just for one night. He could do that.

As Drake pushed the covers off himself, intending to seek her out again, he froze at the prickle of goosebumps across his skin.

The smallest creak of wood preceded movements in the dark. "Guards!" he yelled just as six dark figures burst through the windows of his bedchamber. He rolled off the bed just in time as two poisoned needles whizzed through the air inches from his face.

His men were far more prepared as they rushed into the bedchamber fully fitted with chain mail and bucklers, charging straight at the masked intruders into close combat.

Drake crouched behind his bed and took the opportunity to reach beneath the pillows for his closest stash of daggers. The slightest shift in the air behind him prompted him to spin in place and block an incoming stab from a masked figure who thought to ambush him. In a split second, he jabbed a second dagger upwards into the attacker's throat and withdrew. Warm blood splattered onto his face, fuelling his blood rage.

Spotting the glint of a poison-tipped dagger raised to pierce into the back of one of his men, Drake threw his bloodied dagger right into the assassin's hand with a snarl. As the assassin's weapon clattered to the ground, another guard plunged his sword deep through his heart from behind.

As assassins, they were no match against trained swordsmen once they'd lost the advantage of surprise and subterfuge. Within minutes, there were only two left, both pinned to the ground.

"I want them alive," Drake ordered on an angered hiss.

His men dutifully pulled the remaining assassins' masks down to hold their jaws open, but one of them was already convulsing, having swallowed a poison pill to avoid capture. As for the other, his opportunity for a swift death was foiled as a rounded pill tumbled from his open mouth to the floor. His eyes widened with despair and agony as a guard's foot came crushing down on his shortcut to a painless release.

Drake wiped his face with a sleeve as his men dragged the sole surviving assassin and his comrades' bodies out of the chamber, leaving bright trails of blood across his floor.

Ugh. He now owed another life to the she-devil who saved him last time and warned him about D'Arcy. Since his return from Westdawn, he and his men had prepared for this. Evidently, it has meant the difference between life and death. But it was the thoughts of Amelia too, that had kept him wide awake—

Where is she?

Even in the deep of the night, the manor was coming alive. Guards and servants milled about, shouting, screaming. He'd have expected his nosy wife to come running already.

What if... Sudden fear gripped him like icy claws around his throat and sent shivers down his spine. He called out for a guard. "Any commotion from Amelia's chambers?" he asked.

"Nay, sir."

He loosed a tight breath. She must be deep asleep. 'Twas a good thing she wasn't here tonight after all. Once he has cleaned himself, he will—

His relief was short lived as Duran crashed through the doorway. "Sir," he panted, "the Emira is gone."

* * *

Drake knew she was gone the moment her emerald wedding ring was discovered sitting on her nightstand. Still, he searched. He just about flipped the Steersberg Manor inside out and shook out its contents, clinging onto every last shred of hope.

But she was well and truly gone.

After he told her he'd never let her leave, already he has broken his own promise.

"Should we give chase?" Duran asked.

Drake shook his head sullenly as he slumped in the chair of his study. Gods know he so desperately wanted to, wanted nothing more than to hold her again. But her safety depended on him acting rationally. "They left her ring so we would know she was taken." His voice was slow and dreary, mingled with misery. "Pursuit is what they expect of us, and they will have traps ready. So, no, we will not."

Duran gave a solemn nod and took his leave at Drake's simple gesture of dismissal.

There were other reasons, too. He had an inkling of the plans that were being plotted, and if his suspicions were true, he needed to stay here. He needed to let them think she meant nothing to him. And he will need to attack from the shadows, many, many torturous miles away from his wife. Drake leaned his elbows on the desk and rested his forehead into his palms, letting the sharp talons of despair claw at him, shredding his insides.

Frenzied squeals of a pig sliced through his thoughts, just before a body was flung into the floor before his desk.

"Sir, I found this 'un, sneakin' in the kitchens." The booming footsteps of Drake's cook came to a halt in front of the man he'd just thrown into the study, and stamped a foot into his back to block any form of escape.

"Get off of me ye whoreson of an oaf!" The man flailed his limbs and cussed with all his might, unable to dislodge the foot of the seven-foot giant by even an inch.

Tom bent forward to pull the man's head up by his greasy hair. Drake narrowed his eyes at the sight of the criminal's brand on his forehead.

"'Tis the man m'lady banished, sir," Tom said, having seen the vile man when Amelia adjudged him in the Great Hall.

Drake saw red as anger flooded his veins. The branding and exile was Amelia's punishment to issue. But for Drake, that was nowhere close to what he deserved. He rounded the desk and squatted down in front of Gregor. "You dared hurt my wife?"

Dumb courage must have fuelled the man when he spat at Drake's feet and swore, "That whore!" Next second, he was choking on his own blood as Drake shook out his fist after a punch that broke Gregor's nose.

"Tell me," Drake snarled, "which hand did you lay on my wife?" Gregor shook his head, groaning in pain. "I will pick one then."

Frightened screams reverberated in the room as two of Gregor's fingers were bent back to the cusp of breaking.

"Did you have anything to do with her disappearance last night?"

Gregor's insolent lack of response was rewarded with a loud snap of his fingers.

"Thank you, Tom," Drake said as he rose smoothly and returned to his seat behind the desk.

The cook nodded and dragged the man away. The shrilling squeals of a dying pig sounded throughout the hallways.

Alone again for the moment, Drake clasped his hands together and rested his head on them. Stay strong, my love, he prayed.

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