Page 9 of White Horse Black Nights

“Lord Rian stole that girl from me,” he shouts loud enough for the whole street to hear. “Lord Charlin promised to give her to me as a bride. The least I am owed is a long look at what should have been mine to take on my wedding night!”

Wolf jerks around to face me. “Is there truth to his claim?”

“No.” I sear Thom with a scorching look. I knew him vaguely as a child—he was a miserable teenage lout then, and I’ve heard nothing but ill about him since. “My father might have strung him along to wring coin or favor from him, but he would never have married me to a commoner. His aspirations were always as big as his thirst.”

It’s all Wolf needs to hear. He drops his rucksack on the ground and then eats up the distance between Thom and us. The sneer instantly melts off Thom’s face to see a beast of a man closing in on him.

Wolf’s fist smashes into Thom’s face before his sneer fully fades.

Blood spurts from the wound like a mouse crushed beneath a wagon wheel. Thom screams. I don’t think the possibility of violence entered his head when he devised this little stunt. But he didn’t know about Wolf Bowborn.

Thom cups his shattered nose as he doubles over, but Wolf takes no pity on him. He pulls back for another swing. His fist slams into the side of Thom’s head, knocking him to the ground. Thom curls in a ball. Plaintive little squeals come from his throat. Wolf drops to a knee in the dirt, bringing his fist down on Thom’s shoulder.

He hits him again, again, again, until my stomach feels hollowed out.

Beneath me, Myst prances, wanting to bolt. There isn’t much that spooks my brave mare, but something about Wolf has her as on edge as if we were facing down his namesake.

The woman in the tavern’s upstairs window blanches and runs inside for help. Mud streaks both men now, but Wolf doesn’t seem to care as he beats the man bloody.

I have no love for Thom, but I still look away.

Even with my eyes closed, the sound of Thom’s whines sting like wasps.

They can have my body, I recite.But my mind is my own. They can have my body . . .

At the convent, the beatings stopped one month before I returned to Bremcote. Sister Gray received my father’s letter about the engagement contract and delivered it to Matron White. The next morning, I was dragged from my cell into the main living quarters and locked in a room to give my wounds time to heal. Sister Gray and Sister Red force-fed me rich butter and fatty veal to plump me up in order to hide the evidence that they’d starved me. After a few days in that room, I started to go stir-crazy and walked in circles on the floor and did exercises.

They didn’t like that, so they tied me to the bed, so that I’d stay soft and slight. Silk ties so as not to leave bruises on my wrists and ankles, of course.

For the next thirty days, I stared at the ceiling, listening to Myst whinny for me from the stables, hating every one of those blackhearted women, hating my father for trading me to a stranger, hating him for stupidly gambling away our fortune in the first place, and most of all, hating Lord Rian for shaminghimby makingmeendure this twisted game.

Wolf finally stands, tossing back his loose hair. Blood coats his bare knuckles. He wipes them on Thom’s shirt back as the man moans pitifully, the only sign he’s still alive.

Wolf strides back toward me as though nothing happened.

“Let’s continue,” he says, checking the sun’s position.

There’s no point in thanking him for defending my honor. He didn’t do it for me. He did it because another man dared to claim the property of his precious master.

As Myst walks on, I run the pads of my fingers over the cockleshell braided into her mane.

If I had any doubts that I had to escape this ride, they’re gone now.

Wolf Bowborn is a devil.

And something tells me his master is the same, only dressed in a finer suit and with a lot more coin in his pockets.

Chapter4

Wolf

True to their word, no one besides that one peeping bastard watches Sabine ride naked down the streets of Bremcote, but that goodwill doesn’t last in the next town. Or the next.

Once we’re outside the boundary of Lady Suri’s influence, people flock to the streets, anxious to see if the rumor about Lord Rian’s shocking command for his new bride is true. They hang out windows, calling down slurs to Sabine. Pubescent boys snicker from the alleyways. Men hoot and holler, trying to get her to flinch so that her carefully arranged hair will give them a glimpse of curves they can beat off to later.

Through it all, Sabine remains a mask of indifference, almost as if she’s used to taking abuse and giving nothing back.

I’ll admit that I’m surprised, maybe even a little affected.

---