Beneath a Midnight Moon - By Amanda Ashley Page 0,82
“The Sea Dragon has been seen off the northern coast. If you wish me to spare her life, you will tell me what I wish to know.”
“There’s nothing to tell!” Hardane exclaimed, the pain that racked him swallowed up in his fear for Kylene. “Don’t you think I’d tell you if there was?”
“We’ll soon see, won’t we?”
“Renick, for the love of God, leave her alone. Kill me now and be done with it, but don’t touch Kylene. If I’m gone, the prophesy can’t be fulfilled. You and Bourke can rule Mouldour. Cut me down and I’ll write my father a letter, extracting his promise that he’ll never attack Mouldour again. If necessary, I’ll have him send Bourke half of all our crops, all our goods. . . .”
Hardane groaned deep in his throat as the Interrogator shook his head, his expression one of boredom and disbelief.
“Renick, if that’s not enough, I swear I’ll give you everything I own.” He took a deep breath, knowing even as he prepared to humiliate himself by begging that it wouldn’t be enough. “Please, Renick, please don’t harm Kylene.”
The Interrogator stared up at the prisoner, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“What aren’t you telling me, my lord wolf?” he mused. “There’s more here than concern for your woman. What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.” Hardane took a deep breath. “Kylene and I are life-mated. There’s a bond between us. I don’t know how to explain it, except to say that she’s a part of me, closer than my own blood kin.”
“What causes this bond?” Renick asked, his earlier conviction that Hardane was hiding something forgotten as he considered the implications of this new bit of information.
“It’s peculiar to seventh-born Wolffan offspring,” Hardane answered cautiously.
“If I should mate with a seventh-born Wolffan, would my mate and I share such a bond?”
A feeling of unease, a premonition of disaster, skittered down Hardane’s spine.
“I don’t know.” The lie slid smoothly past his lips.
The Interrogator’s eyes narrowed ominously. “I think you do.”
Renick tapped the crop against his thigh, his brow furrowed thoughtfully. Perhaps, if he were to life-mate with a seventh-born Wolffan woman and share the bond of which Hardane spoke, he might also be granted the secret of shape shifting. Perhaps he didn’t need the heir of Argone after all.
“Tell me, Hardane, does this bond pass to all seventh-born Wolffan?”
Hardane kept silent, the sense of impending danger growing stronger.
Without warning, Renick struck his crop against the half-healed wound on Hardane’s right thigh. “Answer my question, Wolffan.”
Fighting the urge to vomit, Hardane shook his head.
“Answer me,” Renick demanded, “or what happened here today will be as nothing compared to what will happen on the morrow. Does this bond pass to all seventh-born Wolffan?”
Hardane licked lips gone dry. “No.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.” Hardane gasped as Renick wielded his crop again.
“Explain!”
Hardane stared at the blood trickling down his thigh. Bright shafts of pain darted the length of his right leg, making it hard to think coherently.
“Explain,” Renick repeated softly. “Only tell me what I wish to know, and I promise no harm will come to Kylene.”
Hardane swallowed the bile in his throat. “Your word?”
“Of course. Only tell me what I wish to know and I’ll send someone to bind your wound. You’ll have food and wine. A blanket to turn away the cold.”
“Kylene . . .”
Her name whispered past his lips, soft as a sigh, and for a moment he saw her face, her warm brown eyes filled with concern, her lips moving in a silent prayer.
“Kylene . . .” He was fighting to stay conscious now. His hands curled around the bar over his head, and he stared at the Interrogator through a red haze of pain, felt the room begin to sway, felt himself falling into the darkness that hovered all around him.
Impatient to hear what Hardane had to say, Renick plied his quirt one more time.
Hardane gasped, his body twitching convulsively, as a fresh wave of pain jerked him from the brink of unconsciousness.
“I’ll do her no harm, Wolffan,” Renick said. “Only tell me now, quickly, what I wish to know.”
“Only the seventh born . . . of one who . . . is also . . . seventh born.”
“Your mother!” Renick exclaimed, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before. “Of course.”
But Hardane was past hearing.
When he woke, he was lying on the floor of his cell, his arms chained behind his back. He groaned softly as he struggled to sit up. His wounds had been treated and bound. A blanket of