Chapter Twenty-Two

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

H e'd seen her emerge from the cottage.

Odd that Darwish had never seen Athdara enter the cottage. He'd only seen her as she exited sometime around the midnight hour. It was all rather fortuitous because he'd just been thinking about finding somewhere to sleep for the night. The village was dead to the world at that hour.

But then Athdara left the cottage and his plans swiftly changed.

He'd spent the past several hours in a small, ruinous shed that was next to the Leviathan's cottage. From that shed, he could watch the front of the cottage very closely. He couldn't have been more than twenty feet from it. He was so close, in fact, that his first clue Athdara might be inside the cottage was the fact that he heard muffled cries of pleasure about two hours before she came out through the front door. That told Darwish everything he needed to know.

The duke's daughter was here because she was the trainer's whore.

When she slipped out, he followed.

He wasn't exactly sure why she was carrying a satchel. She also wore a cloak, clearly dressed for travel. Her behavior was most puzzling, but he followed, staying to the shadows. When she began to run, he ran after her, though it was more difficult to conceal himself at that point. She ran straight for the stables of Blackchurch, and he raced after her, ducking behind trees and trying to make sure no one saw him.

He needed the element of surprise if he was going to take her.

The woman went through one dark stable block before heading toward another. Once Darwish was inside the stable, it was easier to see what she was doing. In the second stable block, there was a horse, saddled and waiting, and that was evidently what she'd come for. She was leaving.

He couldn't let her get on that horse.

Silently, he slipped in through the stable block's side entrance and came up behind her.

"The duke's daughter," he said quietly in French. "We meet again, lady."

Startled, Athdara spun around, looking at him with some curiosity but mostly anger. She was quite prepared to be furious with him for surprising her until something flickered in her eyes. Her angered expression morphed into one of bewilderment. Concern.

Fear.

"I know you," she said incredulously. "I've seen you before."

Darwish nodded. "You have," he said. "I traveled with Kane."

Her eyes opened wide. "Of course," she said. "You were at Amesbury."

"I was."

"You were with Kane when he captured me."

"Indeed, I was."

That seemed to stoke the fear she'd been trying hard to keep contained. "What do you want?" she said. "Get out of here or you will suffer the same fate Kane did."

Darwish shook his head. "I do not think so," he said. "There is no one around, certainly no one to get to you before I kill you and take your head back to your uncle."

Athdara looked at him in horror. "Take my… what ? Take my head back to my uncle?"

Darwish nodded. "He wants you alive, but you will be too much trouble alive," he said. "If I take your head to him, he will still give me the reward. I will leave your body for the man who pays for it. He can put it in his bed and fuck you nightly if he wishes. All I want is your head."

It was clear that she could hardly believe what she was hearing. "You vile bastard," she said. "Get out of here before it is too late."

"It is already too late for you," Darwish said. "But I wanted you to know who, in the end, had taken you. I have followed you for two bloody years, you bitch. Two years of hell, and now I want my reward. And I shall have it."

He didn't give her any time to react before he charged. Unfortunately, Athdara was in a bad way. The stool with the horse blanket on it was lodged back against a wall that effectively prevented her from running away. There were walls and stalls on either side of her, and the bounty hunter was rushing her from the only way out.

Truthfully, she was terrified. She was back in the trenches again, running from her uncle, running from the bounty hunters and murderers he'd paid to find her, only now, there was only one left, and he was furious at having to have chased her for so long. He wanted his pound of flesh, and he wanted his reward. Anger and frustration was charging at her, and Athdara knew that if she panicked, it would be over before it began. It was what Fox had been trying to teach her.

If an enemy knows he can upset you, he has already won the battle .

She wasn't going to let that happen, not with this battle. As the bounty hunter came at her, she went into survival mode.

Grabbing the horse blanket, she tossed it over the man's head when he came near, taking away his vision as he crashed into the wall. But it didn't stop him—it did not even daze him. He simply began slashing at everything, and as Athdara reached down to pick up the stool so she could bash it over his head, he managed to nick her with the tip of the dagger.

It was like a razor.

But that didn't prevent her from taking the stool and smashing it over him even as he tried to rip the blanket free from his head. She ended up hitting him in his shoulder and right arm, but even that didn't slow him down. He dived for her feet and managed to catch her right leg. Athdara's response was to kick the dagger away from him while using the same foot to smash him in the face.

The fight was on.

The bounty hunter tripped her, and she ended up on her knees as he grabbed her braid, yanking on her hair and trying to snap her neck. But that meant he pulled Athdara close to him, and she used her elbow to smash him in the throat. It was a brutal action that finally slowed him down, but not completely. The fists were flying, and Athdara was being pummeled.

But she gave as good as she got.

The horse that had been tied up, waiting for her, was startled by all of the fighting and things flying around and managed to pull free of his tether. As he bolted off, the sleeping servant awoke. His route out of the stable was cut off by the battle, so he cowered back in the stall, hoping to not be seen.

The fight, from what he could hear, was an absolutely brutal one.

Athdara was battling for her very survival. The bounty hunter tried to get her around the neck, to choke her, but she rammed her fingers into his eyes and he fell away, grunting with pain. When she started to scream, however, he grabbed her around the mouth and neck, throwing her to the ground and putting his hands over her mouth. Athdara knew that he was trying to suffocate her, so she brought up a knee and rammed him in the manhood as hard as she could.

Darwish fell off her, holding his privates, but he was still mobile. The dagger she'd kicked away from him was several feet away, and he staggered over to it and picked it up. By this time, Athdara had rolled to her knees and was struggling to her feet when she realized he was armed. She had braced herself for another charge when he did something completely unexpected—using the dagger like a spear, he hurled it at her. She was unable to get out of its way quickly enough, and the dagger caught her in the torso, just below her ribcage on the left side. It buried itself deep, and Athdara fell to her knees then toppled onto her side.

She was down.

Snorting in triumph, Darwish stumbled his way over to her, thrilled that he'd finally crippled her. He fully intended to rip the dagger from her body and cut her head off with it while she was incapacitated. He could already feel those gold coins in his hands, his reward for having been persistent enough to kill Anton de Ghent's daughter. She lay on her left side, unmoving, and he was going to end this after a surprisingly nasty battle.

As he reached down to roll her onto her back so he could collect his dagger, something shocking happened.

Athdara wasn't unconscious, though she was badly injured. The moment he grabbed her, she grasped the hilt of the dagger with her right hand. As he rolled her over, she yanked the dagger from her body and slashed upward with all her might, catching the bounty hunter in the throat. She slit his throat from one side to the other, severing the windpipe.

Darwish released her, his eyes wide with shock as his hands flew to his neck. Blood was pouring and he couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak. He was drowning in his own blood with no way to stop it. He stumbled back a few steps before collapsing completely, bleeding out all over the hay-strewn floor of the stable.

But he wasn't the only one bleeding out.

Athdara had been cut by that enormous dagger, and when she drew it out, it had brought something from her belly out with it. Something was coming out of her that shouldn't have come out, and she was bleeding heavily. She knew she didn't have much time. With a hand over her wound and whatever was protruding from it, she staggered to her feet on sheer willpower alone. She knew there was a sleeping servant nearby, so she tried to walk in his direction but ended up stumbling against the wall.

As the servant came out of his hiding place, they made eye contact.

"Help me," she said weakly. "Please… help me."

The servant was absolutely terrified. He ran toward her, reaching out to catch her as she collapsed completely. But he couldn't hold her, and she fell, face-first, into the dirty straw of the stable. As he bolted from the stable's front entrance, shouting for help, another figure emerged into the stable from the side entrance.

Ming Tang, who had been coming to see her off at this late hour, had arrived.