I charged forward, my fingers circling around the first neck I came in contact with, and something exploded inside me. My vision blurred, my senses muted; I could feel and see nothing but the fire raging inside me. My skin was sparking with my rage.
“No!” A voice penetrated my shell of fury, but it couldn’t extinguish the wildfire running rampant. It was as if I was watching my life on a movie screen, knowing what would be coming next, screaming at the girl on the film, but not able to make a lick of difference in what happened.
“Bryn.” I felt his hands connect with my skin for a split second before they fell away. I heard his body crumble to the ground beside me as the rage within dulled enough to clear my vision, but I didn’t need my sight to know who I’d find.
“William!” I screamed, aware of nothing around me but his body lying dormant at my feet. “Please, God, no.” I fell to my knees at his side, reaching palm-first for his heart, dreading the silence I might find there.
“Don’t touch him!” a voice commanded before I was thrust away from William with a force that jarred my insides. It was only then that I noticed the absence of John’s army, the addition of five Haywards, and the three bodies sprawled in awkward positions over the red stained dirt. The metal taste flowing in my mouth was evidence of where the red had come from.
Charles had a hand on each of his downed sons, his eyes closed and his face contorted in concentration. It was in these seconds that aged me in centuries that I finally understood why the Council had denied us again and again. Why they’d not, and would never, agreed to William’s and my Union. It was because they feared this very day.
The day when I’d kill him.
Looking at his expressionless face, not knowing if his eyes would ever open again, I wished with all my might that I could travel back in time to the day seven sets of hands attempted to take my life from me. I wished they would have succeeded.
Charles’ eyes opened into mine, fifty yards away, and there was hate in them. “They’re alive,” he said, his eyes leaving me as if he never cared to look at me again. “Barely.” He moved to the third body, the one whose neck I’d interlaced my fingers over.
I already knew what he’d say before he hung his head. “This soul was not so fortunate.” He closed the eyes of the man before standing. “Nathanial, Abigail,” he said, nodding at the pair whose eyes hadn’t left the bodies of their brothers. “You carry Patrick back to my house. Cora and I will take William.”
With the mention of her name, Cora shook, as if being awakened from a coma only to find herself in a nightmare. Joseph wrapped both of his arms around her as she broke into sobs.
“Joseph,”—Charles nodded at his son—“take this man’s body to your place. I need to seek the advice of the Council as to what to do with him. We’ve never been faced with this kind of situation before.”
Four sets of eyes glanced back at me, save for Charles’, and they were filled with a mix of fear and anger. Even Cora and Joseph were looking at me as if I was the enemy. I didn’t blame them though, I was the enemy—the wolf in sheep’s clothing—and they’d nearly lost two of their brothers because I’d been welcomed into their flock.
I watched William’s limp body being hoisted over Charles’ and Cora’s shoulders and carried off before I curled into a ball, closed my eyes, and let my agony tear me into pieces.
CHAPTER FIVE
COWARD
I watched the last flood of yellow light inside Charles’ house extinguish before I worked up the nerve to come out from my hiding spot beneath one of the combines on the farm. The same combine William and I used to sneak away to so we could be alone. The same combine where only a month ago he’d begged me in between our parted lips to leave with him. If I’d listened, lord only knows where we’d be, but we’d have been together and he would have been vertical.
I crouched as I ran towards the house, hearing a neigh of welcome as I passed the barn. I’d already said good-bye to the precocious filly William had given me several months earlier and it hadn’t been easy. She’d looked at me with liquid brown eyes as if to say, Why are you leaving me? What did I do?
That good-bye had been hard enough and I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through the next one, but I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I could say good-bye and he could live, sure to find happiness one day in the arms of another woman, or I could stay behind and end up killing him. It should have been an easy decision, but it had been the hardest I’d made to date.
I sprinted across the yard and hugged the east side of the house, side-stepping my way until I was beside his window.
Sometime after I’d awakened in the arena hours ago and realized it hadn’t all been just a bad dream, a layer of numbness had crept through my body, entombing it in a balm of nothingness. It was my only defense mechanism to protect me from having a total breakdown when I faced the fact I’d have to leave—I’d never be able to see him again after tonight.
I sucked in a breath, praying it would get me through these last moments I’d ever have with him. I slid open the window and ghosted in through the sheer panels until I was standing beside him.
The motionless, expressionless form of William would have dropped me to my knees had I not been stiff from the numbness. The pale moonlight diffused through the curtains, casting its spell on his face, and had it not been for the rise and fall of his chest, he could have been a corpse.