Beguiled (The Fairest Maidens #2) - Jody Hedlund Page 0,12

cheek was bruised too, likely from Irontooth’s fist. Both sleeves were saturated with blood and stuck to his arms. The front of his tunic was smeared with blood, from the cuts on his arms or elsewhere I couldn’t determine.

There was only one way to find out.

I lodged the torch into a wall holder, set the bag of supplies down, then slid my knife from its sheath. I held it out, letting the light glint off the sharp blade. I kept my attention focused on Mikkel’s face, gauging his emotions. Was he afraid of me and what I could do to him?

Even battered as he was, he was still handsome, perhaps more so now that I’d seen his kindness and consideration toward Gregor and Fowler. Certainly more so than any noblemen I’d ever met.

He didn’t look at the knife but leaned his head back against the wall, his body as relaxed—or as much as possible with his arms spread out and manacled to the crevice where the floor and wall met. His position might not be entirely comfortable, but at least I’d spared him having his arms chained to the wall above his head.

I shifted the knife closer to him. And still he ignored it. Instead, he studied my face—what was visible of it above my veil. “So, will you tell me your real name?”

I slid the knife to the drawstring of his tunic at his collarbone. “I shall question you, my lord. Not the other way around.”

“Then begin the inquiry.”

If he’d had his arms free, I suspected he would have crossed them behind his head. He was too calm. Didn’t he believe I was capable of harming him if I so chose?

I thrust the irritation aside. All my life I’d had to be careful about letting my feelings rule me—whether jealousy or pride or anxiety. I’d watched those emotions control my mother, taking over and turning her into a cruel and vindictive woman at times. I didn’t want to become like her. Ever. But was I fated to resemble her regardless of my desire to be different?

In fact, this taunting him with a knife was too similar to my mother’s tactics. I needed to pull back and do what I’d come to do—tend his wounds. Yet as I started to lift my knife away, his eyes seemed to mock me, as if to say I didn’t have the wherewithal to carry through on torturing him.

I hadn’t planned to torture him—had just wanted to scare him a little. But at his challenge, I paused. Then with a flick of my wrist, I cut away the drawstrings on his tunic.

The light in his eyes remained, daring me to do more.

He needn’t dare me. I’d do so willingly. Careful to connect just with the fabric and not his skin, I slid my knife down, slicing it wide open and revealing a lighter, thinner tunic underneath. The material was of fine silken quality, belonging to nobility and not a pauper. Nevertheless, he must shed it along with the top garment to give me access to his wounds.

I wrenched upward and rent the material so the ripping echoed in the chamber. Behind me, Gregor’s chains rattled as he strained against them. I made another quick slice, cutting first one sleeve loose at the shoulder and then the other. Finally, using the tip of the knife, I tugged the bloodstained linen away.

His tunics in tatters around him, Mikkel still hadn’t moved, still reclined against the wall, as if he made an everyday occurrence of sitting in dungeons, facing women wielding knives.

With his arms and chest now bare, his wounds were visible, but blood covered much of his skin and would need to be washed away before I could examine the extent of his injuries.

I stood and returned to the ladder. “I am ready for the last item,” I called up to Tommy.

A moment later, he lowered a blackened pot with steam rising up from the water within. As I knelt beside Mikkel and opened the satchel, I avoided his gaze. He’d likely figured out by now that I hadn’t come to torture him.

I dipped a rag into the pot, wrung out the excess water, and then gently laid the cloth against his arm upon one of the gashes.

He sucked in a breath and his body jerked against the chains.

I removed the cloth and then dug through my supplies until I found the flask I’d placed there. As I pulled it out and uncorked it, Mikkel shook