WolfeStrike (De Wolfe Pack Generations #2) - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,119
threw the paddle aside and ran to Fraser, who was just rising to his knees. She fell down beside him, her hands reaching out to steady him.
“Fraser!” she gasped. “What happened?”
Fraser was beaten and bleeding, but he was alive. Breathing heavily, he had one hand over the dagger wound near his hip, but the other one came up to cup Isabella’s panicked face.
“Easy, Bella,” he said softly, breathlessly. “I am not as bad as I look, I promise.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “What happened? Who is he?”
“That is the sick man we brought in for Barbara and Lenore to heal,” Fraser said between heavy breaths. “I saw Barbara ride out on a horse with what I am guessing are that man’s saddlebags and I discovered him taking Isalyn outside of the postern gate, so I… Isalyn! Where is she?”
Isabella shrieked as she and Fraser started looking around in a panic for Isalyn. Men were starting to spill out from the postern gate, including Blayth, Ronan, and finally Tor, who had been summoned from the great hall by a terrified servant. Tor saw a bloodied Fraser, a dead man with an arrow in his back, a wet horse on the other side of the moat, and Barbara and Lenore down by the moat’s edge.
“Tor!” Isabella screamed. “We must find Isalyn! She must have fallen down the slope!”
Tor was on the move. He had no idea what had happened. But at the mention of Isalyn, he was moving, sliding down the slope, searching for Isalyn somewhere in the grass and muck. He finally caught sight of her lifting her head out of the tall grass down by the moat’s edge. She had a hand to her head, and her dirty hair was all over her face. Tor rushed towards her as fast as his legs would carry him. He ended up slipping because of the angle of the slope, falling heavily on his left side, but he scrambled and clawed his way over to Isalyn.
His arms finally went around her, holding her tightly as if to never let her go.
“Isalyn,” he said, his voice trembling. “What in the hell is going on? What happened to you?”
Isalyn was groggy, a hand on her aching head. “Lenore,” she muttered, trying to remember what had gone on. “She said that she and Barbara wanted my forgiveness. They wanted to make amends. She said they had a gift for me and they brought me out to the postern gate, but a man grabbed me. I don’t know who he was and… God’s Bones, where is Isabella? He hit Isabella!”
“She is well,” Tor said, feeling lightheaded with both relief and fear. Fear of what could have been. “She is with Fraser. You said that Lenore and Barbara brought you out here?”
Isalyn collapsed against him. “They tried,” she said, closing her eyes because her head was killing her. “That man was waiting for me and he tried to kill me. Tor, they brought me right to him.”
Tor still didn’t really know what was going on, but he had heard enough. He turned to see his uncle halfway down the slope and he called to the man.
“Uncle Blayth!” he shouted. “Barbara and Lenore – get them to the vault!”
Blayth was on the move and, along with Ronan, managed to grab Barbara and Lenore. Tor could hear them screaming but he didn’t care. They could have drowned in the moat at that very moment and he wouldn’t have cared. Any semblance of concern he’d ever had for them was gone forever.
Forgive me, Jane.
They had committed the last crime they were ever going to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Armathwaite Nunnery
One week later
The moon was full overhead, the stars beyond like a sea of diamonds against the black expanse of sky. As Tor walked away from the walls of the ancient nunnery, he could still hear the sobs of Barbara and Lenore as the nuns took them away, pleading with him not to leave them. Begging him to reconsider. Telling him how Jane would not have wanted it this way.
But he was immune to it.
For the first time in almost seventeen years, he was numb to it.
Barbara and Lenore were dead to him now.
Blayth, Fraser, Ronan, and Christian were waiting for him in a group. They were mounted, with Ronan holding the reins of Enbarr and the two other horses that had brought Barbara and Lenore to their final destination. Tor took his beloved steed from Ronan and deftly climbed into the saddle.