37. Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

I zzie stood in the rain, the dark storm around her, the blades hanging at her sides glinting in the light from the exterior lanterns. Blood dripping from the tips.

Heaving, she stared down at him on the ground next to her dead father. Her face tortured. Agony of the moment sending so much pain into her eyes, Thomas would have looked away if he hadn’t been transfixed.

Awed by the sheer strength in her small body.

She had vowed, “family first,” on the ship.

Words that had killed him.

Words that had never been meant for her brother and father.

They had been meant for him.

He was her family. She was his.

For the past week he’d been berating himself for falling so easily into her trap. For allowing her to lead her brother directly to him. For her lies. For her callous disposal of him on the ship.

Betrayed, through and through.

Except…not.

No matter what he’d suffered the last week, it was not at her hand. Her hand had been busy finding a way to save him.

Which she had, if he managed to get his ass moving away from the prison before one of those monstrous guards stumbled upon him.

He blinked the rain out of his eyes, and in that second, she was gone. Gone into the dark of night.

Gone before he could say a word to her.

He had to catch up to her.

Leaning over, digging his hands into the crumbles of stone, he shifted from his knees to his bare feet, ignoring the stabbing pain on the left side of his torso. Broken ribs were floating about that shouldn’t be. He’d known that for days.

A grimace carving into his face against the pain cutting into every one of his limbs, he pushed himself upright.

His legs started in a stagger away from the prison that eventually found cadence, his steps moving into a run in the direction Izzie disappeared. Leaving behind him the purgatory of that prison for good.

Fifteen minutes in the dark, the only light on the road shed from the interior of houses and taverns, he moved into the area where the homes clustered taller, with alleyways and side streets.

No Izzie.

Past more and more houses and buildings, he searched, panic starting to set in. She couldn’t have been that far ahead of him. What if she had run back into the prison? Why? He could hear what was going on and that way led only to death.

She wouldn’t opt for that path, would she?

Had he worn on her so much, brought her so low, that she would so easily forfeit her life?

A fresh wave a panic snaked around his bones. Faster. Faster. He had to find her.

He almost missed the lump in the alleyway as he passed.

A lump that didn’t quite look right under the one slice of light cutting across it in the darkness.

His bare feet skidded to a stop in the slushy muck of the roadway.

He slowed as he approached the lump, terrified of what he would find. A body. That much was clear.

He sank to his knees, his hands reaching for the face hidden under the dark hair, turning it to him.

Izzie.

Izzie crumpled like the wrecked mess of a fallen deer.

He set his face next to hers, waiting for breath to brush across his cheek. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

A wisp.

It was enough.

“Iz.” His whisper harsh, trying to wake her, his hands went frantic on her body, trying to discover why she had collapsed.

His fingers down along her waist, and he felt it.

Hot blood, slipping in a thick sticky mess around his hand.

Fuck.

His fingers prodded at her side.

A fucking blade had sunk into her. He hadn’t seen that happen.

He slipped his hands under her body, grunting hard as he lifted her and pressed her into his broken ribs.

Pain that was nothing to him. Not when she was bleeding profusely.

He needed help. He needed safety.

The prison guards would expect him and any of the other prisoners to go straight to the ships in the harbor. Probably already searching them.

There was only one way to turn. To the one place in this hellhole town he prayed to the heavens was still there.

Carrying Izzie, Thomas moved behind the houses in the dark, every step excruciating punishment along his ribs. Stopping when he heard shouting, men running along the main road.

Farther. Farther. Farther.

Just a few houses more onto the outskirts of the town.

He approached the cottage slowly, his back moving along the weathered, flaking boards rattling on their nails in the rain, until he couldpeek in a window.

A fire keeping a glow inside, he saw exactly what he needed to.

Grey hair. Rocking chair. Knitting in her lap, the yellow string of yarn drifting off to the left of her chair into a basket on the floor.

Thomas was both instantly relieved and irate at her.

Shifting Izzie in his arms, he quickly moved to the back of the cottage and knocked his elbow into the door.

His eyes wary about him, he could hear the creak of her chair and the footsteps that followed.

She opened the door, as was her way. Always said death was coming or it wasn’t, there was no need for precautions when opening a door.

It had driven him mad—never mind that peculiar philosophy had once saved his life.

Her look caught sight of his face, then dropped down to Izzie passed out in his arms.

“I been hoping I would see ye soon. I heard word they got ye back. Get yerself in here.” She stepped back, ushering him into her cottage.

Thomas stepped into the cottage, the dread in his chest lifting tenfold.

He glanced around the interior. Nothing had changed.

He looked to her as she closed the door behind him and hustled to window after window, drawing the curtains she’d knitted long ago. Not exactly normal, but she liked anything knitted. Curtains, coats, tablecloths, blankets, pillowcases. Anything that could be knitted, was.

“Frannie, you got my coins? Why are you living like this? It has been enough to leave here and live without worry anywhere you wanted to.”

“Posh.” Her thick hand waved in the air, dismissing him. “Aye, I got the coins, but I don’t need much more. Never did. I don’t know why ye send it again and again. That much is a waste on me—so I make sure the ones that have had their men taken away by those bastards are fed and housed.”

He stifled a groan. “Let us argue about that later.” He lifted Izzie in his arms. “You need to help her.”

She nodded without questions, her robust form waddling to her cupboards to grab strips of linen. “Get her on the cot and cut her dress by the wound.”

Thomas did as told, pulling Izzie’s dagger from the scabbard at her waist and cutting free the black cloth of Izzie’s dark blue dress around the wound. “When is the next safe ship out of here?”

“Daybreak out of Port Twalia.”

“Twalia is how far away?”

She dumped a pile of linens onto the table next to the cot and went to get a bowl of water. “Two hours on horseback, longer in a wagon.”

“When is daybreak? Four hours away?”

“Six at most. I was about to retire for the night. Ye’ll get there in time.”

Thomas nodded. More pain ahead. Riding on horseback while holding Izzie in front of him would be torture. But torture he would willingly take.

Frannie dunked a fold of the linen into the water and pushed Thomas aside, bending over to pull free the bloodied cloth around the wound on Izzie’s side.

Though he’d felt the blood seeping through his fingers as he carried Izzie here, it was the first look he had at the wound as Frannie dabbed away at the blood. His stomach flipped and his gaze instantly went up to Izzie’s face.

So pale. She made no motion, not even a twitch as Frannie poked her fingers about the wound, pressing in on the skin. More blood oozed out of the wound.

Too much blood.

Surely she’d already lost too much blood—how was there still more?

Frannie nodded to herself, muttering in her low raspy voice. “It be a clean stab. Good…good. That will be good.”

He had to swallow back the bile in his throat before he spoke. “There’s too much blood.”

“I’ll stop it.” Frannie glanced over her shoulder at him, then paused to study his face. “Then I need to see both yer ribs and yer foot before ye go.”

“My ribs are fine. My foot is fine.”

“Really? How many toes ye have broken down there?”

Probably all of them. He shrugged. “Maybe one.”

“Not fer how ye hobbled in here dragging this skin-and-bones girl.” She looked down at Izzie, her hands busy wiping away the blood surrounding the wound. “Who is she to ye?”

Thomas paused at the question, his breath catching in his lungs, burning.

Who was Izzie?

He clearly didn’t know what he needed to of her. That was obvious. Her brother. Her father. Half-truths and lie upon lie.

And he sure as hell wished she hadn’t cracked the butt end of a pistol across his skull a week ago on that ship.

Still, Frannie’s question had only one clear answer.

“She is mine.”

Frannie’s hands stilled and she looked back to him. She studied him for a long moment, then gave one nod.

She turned back to Izzie, her weathered fingers working faster than before. “Then I best patch her up right quick.”