laughter but a moment ago now lay sprawled across the threshold of the door. The head, with its conical steel helmet, was almost completely severed from the neck, and blood was gouting in thick, steaming pulsations to form a slick red pool on the stone.
“Servanne?”
She jerked her gaze upward at the same instant the monk pushed back the gray horsehair hood to reveal, not the tonsured baldness of an almoner, but a full, gleaming mane that fell thick and gloriously unkempt to the broadest pair of shoulders in all of Christendom.
“Lucien?” she gasped. “Is it … really you?”
“Name another man fool enough to chase after you on a night such as this,” he said, grinning with the heartbreakingly familiar slash of strong white teeth.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered, not believing what her eyes were seeing. “When no one came … when I heard nothing … I thought you were dead.”
“Did you think you could be rid of me so easily?” came the softly chiding rejoinder.
Her eyes flooded with tears, Servanne flung herself across the width of the cell and felt the long, powerful arms sweep her into a crushing embrace. The blood-slicked poniard dropped forgotten onto the ground and his hands raked into the tousled mass of her hair, holding her against him, tilting her lips up to his for a kiss as passionate and consuming as a physical act of love.
“Lucien!” a voice hissed from the doorway. “Can you not celebrate later, when we have the time and leisure to do so?”
Servanne could not withhold the cry as the hungry caress ended abruptly on a ragged curse. The taste of him, the feel of him, the scent of the courage and freedom that lingered on his skin drowned her senses and she was not aware of the hurried exchange that passed between the two men, she only knew Lucien was alive. He was here with her. He had come for her despite the treachery, the betrayal, the deceit, and the lies!
The second cowled figure crowded the doorway and for the briefest flicker of torchlight, his lean hawklike features glowed in the saffron light.
Alaric! Sweet merciful Virgin Mary, they were both alive: Lucien and Alaric!
“My lady.” Alaric’s easy smile belied the concern in the soft brown eyes as he swiftly assessed her battered, deteriorated condition. “Are you well enough? Can you walk?”
“I shall run as fast as the wind if need be,” she assured him without hesitation, her own beautiful smile shining through her tears.
Lucien took Servanne’s hand in his and, cautioning her to duck low, led her out of the dank stone chamber and into the brisk night air. Wind snatched instantly at the shreds of her skirt, sending the silk swirling around her ankles in a yellow corkscrew. As eager as she was to flee, Servanne stumbled across the width of the rocky ledge and froze. Where the path continued down the cliff, it was barely three feet wide; the slightest misstep would send them hurling into the black and boiling frenzy of the sea two hundred yards below. The moon was on the downward slide of its journey across the sky and offered no relief from the heavy shadows. What light it shed fell mainly on the mist-shrouded walls and ramparts of the castle at the top of the cliff.
Bloodmoor Keep, perched on the very edge of the precipice above them, loomed like a black and monstrous predator, the tall battlements and jutting barbicans silhouetted against the night sky, impregnable, cold, and silent as death.
Servanne shuddered involuntarily and Lucien, noting she was as blue from cold as she was from the abuse she had endured, stripped himself of his robes and handed her the woolen garment.
“Here, put this on,” he ordered. “We have a way to go yet and—”
“Lucien—” Alaric called softly. “Come quickly.”
Lucien followed Alaric’s outthrust finger and saw a line of bright orange dots spilling out of the postern gate at the base of the castle wall. A dozen guards carrying a dozen torches were making their way down the side of the cliff, lighting the way for a dozen more armed with swords and crossbows.
“Go!” Alaric shouted, ridding himself of the hindrance of the monk’s robes. “I’ll loose a few arrows their way to discourage them long enough for you to get Lady Servanne below.”
Lucien hesitated, the desire for blood and revenge warring • with the need to see his love to safety.
“In God’s name”—Alaric had to shout to penetrate through the