’Twas idle hopes. Lurking in the shadows were soldiers who had been hiding in the towers, behind the hayricks, under carts. They came forward with bows strung tight and arrows aimed at Wolf’s heart. Oh, love, Megan silently cried, and her mouth was suddenly dry with fear.
The horses, sensing danger, fidgeted, pulling tight on their reins, whinnying and snorting, but Wolf held them firmly.
Holt was not finished. Swaying slightly, standing as if with great effort, he said, “Before I send you to hell where you belong, you pathetic outlaw”—he ran a hand over the fresh wood of a support beam of the gallows—“you’ll watch each of your men die, one by one. Now!” He snapped his fingers and grimaced in the pale moonlight.
Megan shivered, not from the cold of the wind that blew past the thick stone walls, but from the despair gathering in her heart, the fear that she’d never see her beloved Wolf again. “Please be with him,” she murmured to a fierce God who, she sensed, had abandoned her this night. “Save him and my child.”
Sentries in the watchtower opened the door of the gatehouse and pushed their captives into the bailey. Jack, Jagger, and young Robin shuffled forward, their eyes blindfolded, their mouths gagged, their hands tied in front of them.
Megan’s legs threatened to give way, and had it not been for Wolf’s strong arm supporting her, she would have swooned on the frozen grass of the bailey.
“For the love of Jesus, what’s going on here?” Like a mother hawk swooping from the heavens to save her chicks, Father Timothy, robes askew and billowing behind him, ran barefoot across the bailey. He blinked rapidly, as if fighting to maintain his courage as he shoved his way through the armed men. “Lord Holt, I beg of you, do not shed any more blood!”
“And why not?” Holt demanded, his jaw tight, his skin pale as death. “These men and my own dear wife are traitors of Dwyrain.” A dark bruise and bloody cut discolored the skin above his eye, yet the wounds Megan had inflicted hadn’t been mortal, and though he was not as strong as he had been, he appeared to be able to survive. “The outlaw turned my bride against me.”
“Nay, Holt, you did that yourself,” Megan said boldly, finding her courage and pushing off Wolf’s restraining arm to step forward to face the man she’d thought she’d killed. All the pain and suffering was her doing, and she would willingly sacrifice herself if only Wolf and his men were allowed their freedom.
“Stop!” Wolf shifted quickly, dropping the horse’s reins and throwing himself between her and the soldiers’ arrows. “Do not be foolish,” he said under his breath, but Holt heard the command and laughed.
“Isn’t that touching? The outlaw and his would-be murderess of a lover! Who would have thought that there was such devotion between criminals?”
“ ’Tis not God’s will that innocent people die!” Timothy proclaimed, his lower lip trembling nervously.
“Innocent?” Holt said with a lusty laugh as he slowly climbed down from the raised floor of the gallows. Grimacing in pain, he repeated, “Innocent? Did ye not hear that my lady tried to kill me, first with my own knife and then with a piece of kindling? Believe me, priest, no one here is innocent this night.”
His stride faltered a bit as he strode across the trampled grass. His steps were not firm, and he was still pale as death. A crusted bruise was beginning to show over his temple, where a vein throbbed in anger. “You!” he said, his voice echoing through the castle and in Megan’s heart. His eyebrows slammed together and his lips were bloodless and flat against his teeth, his eyes hot coals as they found hers in the night. “You, wife, come with me. We have unfinished business.”
“If you want her, then you must kill me first,” Wolf invited, his voice smooth as glass.
Megan’s heart sank. “Nay!”
“Gladly.” Holt’s grin was pure and intense evil as he unsheathed his sword. “Why wait?”
“No!” Frantic, Megan tore herself from Wolf’s possessive grasp. “Nay, do not kill him,” she cried, the ugly thought too horrid to bear. “I’ll go with you. Willingly.” Tears filled her eyes, and despite the knowledge that she was inviting her own doom, she turned to Wolf and stared into his blue eyes one last time, searing their image into her mind for all eternity. She felt a deep rending in her soul and she fought the urge to break down. Tears streaming from her eyes, her fear suddenly abated, and she sniffed, lifting her chin and refusing to weep any more. In a choked voice, she vowed, “I will love you forever, Wolf.”
A muscle worked in Wolf’s jaw. His fingers clenched until his knuckles showed white over the handle of his sword. “As I love you, Megan,” he said, his voice deep with conviction. “Until the day I die.”
“Which will be soon,” Holt announced. “Spare me the pitiful scene.”
Megan’s heart caught. She heard not Holt’s scorn, only that Wolf had said that he loved her. She would carry that sweet drop of heaven with her to the grave.
With a howl, the brutal wind swept through the bailey, moaning eerily, as if God himself were watching Dwyrain and voicing his disapproval. A cloud crept over the moon as Holt stalked up to the outlaw.
Wolf’s eyes narrowed savagely on his enemy. Fearless, he ground out, “Harm her, and I swear that I or my very ghost will hunt you down like the filthy cur you are, find you wherever you cower, and rip out your throat.”
“Bastard!” Holt’s fist crashed into the side of Wolf’s face. Pain exploded behind Wolf’s eyes and Holt nearly stumbled with the effort. “Take him away,” he snarled at his men. “Haul his pathetic hide and the rest of the traitors to the dungeons. I want a dozen of you to stand guard. There will be no escape! Not this time. Do you hear me?”
When no one answered, he clenched his fist. “Do you?”
“Aye, m’lord,” a fat knight agreed anxiously, his Adam’s apple bobbing in fear.
“They’ll be hanged at dawn, and everyone in the castle, every man, woman, and child, from the oldest crone to the newborn babes, will witness how I deal with those who betray Dwyrain and deceive me.” Yanking her roughly, he pulled Megan toward the great hall, and though he had lost blood, he was strong, his grip punishing, his strides long.
“Lord Holt, wait!” a sentry in the watchtower shouted, his voice ringing over the commotion that erupted as the doors of several huts began to swing open. Men and women, bleary-eyed and confused, filtered into the bailey.
Holt stopped dead in his tracks and turned, his head uplifted in harsh fury. “What?”
“There are men outside the gates,” the sentry yelled.