Page 53 of The Traitor's Curse
But the human body’s instinct to survive would override Benedict’s rational mind. Before he reached that point, he wouldn’t be able to resist the urge anymore, and he’d take the nearest man who offered himself. He’d bind himself to Clothurn. They wouldn’t have to do anything but wait.
“He is formidable,” I said, and I wasn’t speaking to Tavius, but to Benedict. He deserved to know that I did see him for who he was. Too late, but at least I’d seen him. “More now than ever.”
“He’s a filthy bastard,” Tavius spat, and shook me again, hard enough that my teeth rattled and my vision blurred. “Andyou’re his willing slut, his thing. You make me sick. You thought you could trick me, eh? But you couldn’t hide the way you feel about him. You’ve chosen him over your own brother. And now you’ll have to face the consequences. I’m disappointed in you, Lucian.”
Face the consequences.
That could only mean one thing. And I wasn’t surprised, I’d been expecting this, but my sudden terror and desperation shocked me, the visceral difference between knowing he meant to kill me andknowing.
I started to fight in earnest, struggling in Tavius’s hold, reaching back to claw at his face, kicking, until his arm locked around my throat—and then he was dragging me away, away from Benedict. I’d never see Benedict again, and everything had gone all hot and spinny as panic overtook me at last. The gatehouse whirled around me. Bile rose up, burning my esophagus, and my legs were numb.
“You don’t need to do more than get his trousers off,” Tavius called out, and I realized with sick horror he was talking to Clothurn. “He’ll beg for it when he’s desperate enough, or he’ll run out of strength to stop you, and that’ll be that. Two men’ll stay right inside the door to make sure you’re safe enough. And get a bit of a show.”
A show. Clothurn forcing himself on Benedict and binding him into slavery in the process, a show for the guards, and meanwhile my cousin Tavius, my brother, would be murdering me and discarding my body in the mud.
We were almost out the door, and I did my best to drag my feet, to throw my arms to the sides and catch at the walls, because I knew I’d be dead as soon as he had me outside. My forearm knocked painfully into the doorframe with a sickening crack, and I felt the chill of the night on my face, a glimpse of moonlight through a crack in the clouds, but I’d never see thesun again—
Someone screamed. Clothurn? And then a shout and a thud and a ringing of metal on metal, and Tavius cursing as he flung me away from him, back into the gatehouse. I flailed through the air, limbs windmilling, and crashed to the floor in a dizzy heap, gasping for air through my bruised throat.
I pushed up on my hands. I had rough wood under my palms, a splinter digging into my thumb. The sting of it grounded me. I rolled up to my knees.
The shouts and thuds and scuffling came from a struggling mass of men, at least two of Tavius’s men-at-arms and—Benedict, who roared in fury, grasping them by their hair and slamming their heads together, tossing them aside like matchsticks.
One of the others was already on the ground, blood pooling around his head. Benedict had broken his skull. Clothurn was scrabbling backward on the floor away from the body, mouth hanging open in shock, face streaked with crimson.
Benedict stepped over the dead one and picked something up: his sword, the one they must have taken from him when they ambushed him. He tossed the scabbard aside and straightened up, gasping, face as white as milk but eyes sharp and focused, dark and burning with fury and purpose. The blade glowed reddish in the torchlight, eerie and grim.
Tavius had drawn his own sword, and he stood waiting. His last man-at-arms took up a position beside him. Two to one. They ought to have been confident, but the corpse and the two groaning, half-unconscious casualties of Benedict’s rage that lay on the floor seemed to be giving them pause. They didn’t charge him, and the tip of Tavius’s sword shook slightly.
“I don’t have—my army,” Benedict said, chest hitching, his voice ragged and raw. “Or my magic at the moment. But I have my, fuck, my sword. And that’s more than enough to dealwith the likes of you.”
“Fuck you,” Tavius snarled, and attacked at last.
I shoved up to my feet and stumbled toward the other fallen men. There. A sword, and I snatched it up, spinning around and lunging at the man-at-arms, distracting him and drawing him away from Benedict. He struck at me, and I parried with a horrible scrape of metal on metal and fell back.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Clothurn dash out the door, heels flying, the cowardly little fucking son of a bitch. It distracted me enough that my assailant almost had me, and I leapt back, the point of his sword whistling past my nose. The hilt of my sword slipped in my sweaty hand, and I batted his next attack away, barely—and his foot caught on an uneven board, sending him cursing and staggering to the side, off balance for a crucial second.
My military training had only consisted of the usual fencing practice of any young nobleman, but it was more than enough for me to know how to press an advantage. I jumped forward and ran him through his right arm, wrenching my sword back out with a horrible scrape of bone and pull of tendon, and he screamed and dropped his weapon, stumbling back and clutching at the ruined mess of his arm with his face gone horribly pale.
For a moment I stared down at the blood-slicked blade in my hand. I’d never actually hurt someone with a sword before, and it gave me a strange shuddery feeling in my stomach.
Another metallic clash pulled me out of my shock and I turned in time to see Benedict parrying Tavius’s thrust, and then Tavius lunging at him again, mouth open in a snarl. For a moment I stopped breathing: Benedict listed to the side as if he might fall—and then he brought his sword up in a motion so quick and smooth and almost casual that I thought it was an accident. The sword disappeared.
And Tavius froze, his sword slipping to thunk point-first into the ground. He lifted his head, staring at Benedict, eyes wide. And then he choked, gurgled, and slumped forward, blood dripping from the corner of his open mouth as Benedict lowered him down, the sword still buried in him.
Benedict collapsed too, landing on his knees with a grunt. Their bowed heads almost touched, and I swallowed hard against a violent convulsion of my stomach.
I dropped my sword with a clatter that rang loudly in the sudden silence. The fight was over. Tavius was dead, and Benedict had saved my life and my throne.
And I realized, with horrible, belated certainty, that I didn’t care about my throne or even about whether I lived or died if I couldn’t save him too.
Chapter Eighteen
Benedict slowly toppled over, and I scrambled to him and caught him barely in time to be knocked sideways under his unmanageably heavy weight. He landed against my chest, waves of shudders going through his big frame, and then pushed himself off and up again with what appeared to be pure force of will.
With a horrid squelch and scrape, he tugged the sword out of Tavius’s body, gripping the hilt of it with knuckles gone white and resting the blade on the floor.
Of course Benedict would keep hold of his weapon even while so weakened from poisoning and pain that he couldn’t stand up anymore. I’d have laughed, but I didn’t know if I could ever laugh again. Tavius’s body slumped to the floor. Thank the gods he’d fallen with his face turned away from me.
