Chapter Twenty-Three
If rage had a name, it was Nikolai. He heard her screaming from the snowy fields sloping away from Dale’s Peak. He blurred through town, following the cries of a mob and the crackling sound of fire and the smell of burning flesh. As he flashed into the town square, he saw in horror the maddening crowd watching his beloved Sienna burn alive. Her naked body exposed, her fair skin charring blacker with every second. He blurred through the horde, up to the platform, and leapt to the dais with his unsheathed dagger. In a blink, he’d cut her free, scooped her in his arms and bounded back to the platform. She cried out when he touched her burnt skin. Her head lolled to the side as she fell unconscious.
“Sienna. Sienna.” He set her down and removed his coat, not noticing a soul but her until someone spoke.
“Who the bloody hell do you think you are?”
Nikolai stood slowly, white-knuckling the hilt of his dagger, and faced the man whose voice he recognized from when he was bound on the widow’s floor. The man flinched at the expression Nikolai shot him.
“And who are you?” Nikolai asked with such dark gravity, the men behind him stepped backward. The Legionnaires had frozen, watching, none of whom he recognized.
“I—I am Lord Barker. This woman has been condemned as a—”
The lord’s eyes went wide. His mouth fell open as he gurgled blood and tried to suck in air. A deep slit opened in his throat, staining his clean, white shirt and satin vest crimson before he crumpled to the ground. No one had seen Nikolai move. He was dangerous on any other day. But today, he was utterly lethal. He stood over Sienna like a dragon over his most precious treasure, daring any man to come close where he could devour them.
“Who am I?” Nikolai swept his cutting gaze over the crowd. “I am the devil himself. And if one of you even moves in her direction, you’ll be dead before you can take a breath.”
A Legionnaire reached for his sword. Within three seconds, Nikolai had cut the throats of every man on the platform, gutting the vampires from naval to sternum and nearly severing their heads as well. Before they had even fallen into mutilated heaps, Nikolai sheathed his dagger dripping with blood and lifted Sienna in his arms, gently wrapping his coat around her exposed torso.
He walked to the edge of the wooden steps, heaving deep breaths, his rage riding him hard, his voice razor-sharp. “Get out of my way.”
The crowd scattered, mothers clinging to their children. Nikolai sped back the way he had come, taking the south road toward Hiddleston. As he passed Hanover Stables, a man stepped forward onto the road and waved. Nikolai stopped, his inner beast telling him to kill and maim some more. Make them all bleed.
He recognized the startled face of the stable owner, Bart, who held both hands up in surrender.
“Please, I mean you no harm. I heard what was happening today and refused to go to support such villainy.” He cast a sorrowful gaze at Sienna. “This town is corrupt. I knew she was innocent.”
“Yet you did nothing to stop it.”
He twisted his beefy hands in his work apron with regret shadowing his face. “Wait. Please. For a moment. For her.”
Bart disappeared into a workroom. Astrophel whickered from her stall directly across. Ramiel stared out at him. Nikolai had forgotten them entirely. The stable owner returned with a white wool blanket but beckoned Nikolai closer under the overhang. Bart flipped out the folded blanket and spread it wide on the dry hay.
“Set her down and wrap her in this.”
Nikolai did so, cringing when her brow furrowed with even the slightest brush against her right side, which was blackened and oozing from her burned feet all the way up her legs and ribcage to her shoulder. Her face bore a blade-length burn from cheek to chin. And the bite marks. Fucking hell. Nikolai’s knuckles cracked as he balled his hands into fists.
He lifted her wrist and pierced her flesh, giving her his elixir. Though he could not heal this deep an injury, he could numb her pain. Her pinched brow smoothed as the elixir released into her bloodstream. He licked the wound so that it would seal shut.
Bart lifted one side of the blanket.
“I’ve got it,” snapped Nikolai, taking over and wrapping her bruised and burned body gently. It covered her like a butterfly in a cocoon.
“Do you want me to saddle the black for you?” asked Bart, waving a hand to the stall.
“No. I’ll travel faster on foot.”
Nikolai needn’t worry about her equilibrium now. She was already unconscious, and her pulse had slowed to the point his anxiety had taken root, burrowing into the dark places within him. His only hope was to get to Hiddleston and acquire a ship to take them across the Cimarron Sea to Cutters Cove. There he’d find Marius, and with his potent Varis blood Marius could make her vampire, instantly healing her. If he could only get her there in time.
“Is there anything else I can do?” asked Bart, wringing his beefy hands.
“Send word to Duke Friedrich of Winter Hill. He will send a man for the horses.” He cradled her close, the smell of burnt hair filling his nostrils where a tendril had caught fire and singed all the way up to her scalp. “And one more thing.” Nikolai pierced him with a lethal look. “If there is anyone in this godforsaken town who is willing to fight for the Black Lily and not cower behind the aristocracy as slaves, then send them to the Bull’s Head in Hiddleston. But not one man or woman who stood in that square and watched her burn is welcome near us. I can promise you I’ll kill them on the spot if I should see one of them again.”
“Aye,” he said with a definite nod, twining his hands in his apron again. “I know quite a few who are as sick of the corruption under Lord Barker’s rule of this town.”
Nikolai stopped midstep and turned. “You won’t have to worry about Lord Barker anymore. Or his lackeys.”
“No?”
Nikolai continued walking from the stables and called over his shoulder, “I killed them all.”
…
The road back was mostly clear and deserted, as if the world had stopped moving when his beloved was tied to a stake and set on fire. He dodged off the road when he sensed by smell or sound a traveler or carriage in the distance, weaving into and out of the woods with ease, never slowing his frantic pace.
He thanked the stableman in his mind when the wind cut harshly against his cheeks and nose, knowing the pain of his force of speed against the winter wind would be tearing her skin apart. The snow dissipated the farther south he traveled, the landscape covered in yellow and brown foliage before the snows would find their way here.
He stopped for a moment by a gurgling stream, setting Sienna down safely by a fallen log. He quenched his thirst with water when there was nothing else to revive his energy. He wouldn’t dare take a drop from her. After splashing his sweaty brow, he jerked his head at a sound from Sienna. In a flash, he had her in his arms again, her head lying upon his lap.
“Sienna? Sweetheart, did you say something?”
Her pulse had slowed further from when they’d left Dale’s Peak, every unsteady beat stabbing him again and again because he’d not gotten to her sooner. The burns had not entirely covered her body but they’d done their work. She teetered on the edge of death, and he knew it.
“Sienna?” He gently brushed the hair away from her forehead and pressed a soft kiss to the porcelain, unmarred skin there.
“Nikolai.” A faint whisper.
“Yes, my darling. I’m here.”
Her glassy green eyes pooled with tears. “You came.”
“Of course I did. I am”—he faltered, words choking in his throat—“I am sorry I was not sooner.”
“You came. That is”—she dragged in a broken breath—“all that matters.”
“Hold on, Sienna. We’re almost to Hiddleston. I’ll find us a ship there and we’ll make it to Cutters Cove. Marius will—”
“No, my love.” Her words were a breathy whisper, cutting him to the marrow. “I will not make it across the sea. I’ll be gone soon.”
“No. You will not be gone. I forbid it.” He pulled her entirely in his lap, his face only inches from her. “Do you hear me, Sienna? You will not leave me in this damned world alone. Just hold on.”
She smiled faintly and blinked her eyes closed. “I want to touch your face.”
He unwound the blanket enough so that her slender arm was free. Still, she was too weak even to lift it. He cupped her hand in his and swept a kiss upon her palm before pressing it to his cheek.
“There,” she said. “Now I am happy.”
Her mind seemed to be floating away already. “Sienna. Just stay with me. I know we can get there.”
“If you love me, Nikolai. You will take me home. To my beloved forest. My wolves. I want to die there, not on the cold sea.”
“Sienna, please,” he begged as if he were the one dying. In fact, he knew that he would, should he lose her now. There was no joy or light or life without Sienna at his side.
“Take me home, my love,” she said, her eyes still closed, her breath rattling in her chest.
Bundling her close and lifting to his feet, he pressed a tender kiss to her temple. “Yes, my sweet. If that is your wish.”
He sped through the woodlands, taking the fastest and straightest route not the winding road. Night had fallen by the time he came upon Hiddleston. The full moon shone bright and full among a starry sky. A beautiful night. Lovely and clear.
He wanted to veer toward the port and commandeer the fastest ship immediately, even if it meant coercing a captain with violence and intimidation. But she was right. The voyage would take a week if seas were calm. This time of year, it would take longer. And even now, her pulse had slowed to the point he could hardly detect it at all. Unable to come to terms with what was happening, he wound his way toward Silvane Forest, obeying her last wish, slowing as he came upon the trail where he’d encountered her the day he landed from Cutters Cove.
He walked past the knotty oak, remembering how she’d spilled her basket of pears. Remembering the lovely pink blush that had crawled up her neck upon seeing him. And her confident walk as she led him to her cottage, even as her pulse tripped so fast. He’d sensed her attraction but also knew her will was made of steel. Her strength had lured him like a fish to the hook. And she’d caught him for certain, digging the hook deep.
Hart wolves howled in the nearby Silvane Forest. They sensed her approach. Nikolai gently shook her in his arms.
“Sienna,” he whispered. “Your friends are welcoming you home.”
He crossed into the dark woods, sensing a supernatural arm wrapping around him and Sienna, sending a chill down his spine. His boots crunched on the leaves. The howling drew closer. Her hart wolves were coming to her.
She stirred. “Nikolai?” Her head sagged against his chest, her body still cocooned in the woolen blanket.
“Yes?”
“I can feel the forest.”
Stepping under a grove of black oaks, the cool wind shook through the thinning leaves, knocking bare branches together in a somber lament for the Woman of the Wood.
“Yes, love.”
“Let me see.”
He stopped along the path of thick black oaks, moon and starlight shimmering on the silvery leaves. Kneeling on one knee, he set her down gently, bracing her torso up in his arms. He unwrapped one fold. She winced when the fabric stuck to her charred skin. His elixir had worn off.
“I’m sorry,” he said in earnest, pulse pounding that he’d hurt her in the slightest.
“Oh, Nikolai.” She stared up at him, her chest rising slowly. “You are so beautiful.” Her gaze moved to the sky. “The night…the forest is so beautiful.”
She was right. It was as if night’s beauty had come out to kiss her farewell. The moon shone perfectly in her round eyes, dark from the shadows’ embrace. He cupped her hand in his and pressed it to his heart, her pulse horribly faint now. “I am so sorry, Sienna.”
Her dazzled gaze moved from the boughs and the stars above to Nikolai. Her mouth creased into the loveliest, warmest of smiles, a tear slipping from one eye into her hair.
“I am not. I am sorry for nothing, dearest Nikolai…man of my dreams…man of my heart.”
Her eyes glazed wide, her mouth frozen as if she might say something more.
“Sienna.” He pulled her close, feeling for her pulse at her neck. Nothing. “Please don’t leave me. Please. God, I beg you.”
He begged the heavens to spare her. They did not. He thought this the cruelest punishment for his crimes. This was the final payback for his darkest sin, the one that still stained his soul. Fate had given him the loveliest maid in all the world only to take her away with brutality and pain.
He remembered the moment he fell in love with her. He stood in that small chapel at Marius and Arabelle’s midnight wedding ceremony. It was only them four and the priest. He heard not a word the priest said at the altar, the moon shining through the rose window, the candelabras gilding the room in warm golden light. All he could see was the lovely creature standing by Arabelle’s side, her auburn hair hanging in loose waves down her back with small braids crowning her sweet head. All he could think was how her silky cream skin shone by candlelight and her full lips tipped up in a gentle smile for her friend’s happiness. He’d memorized the haunting beauty of her green eyes and the way they’d flicked toward him repeatedly during the ceremony, before darting away nervously. It was then that he knew he was lost. In love.
“Please,” he begged again. “Please don’t take her from me.”
He cradled and rocked her in his arms as a torrent of wind swirled around them, crashing through the trees and pouring down a shower of sable-silver leaves, mourning the loss of the fair lady of the wood. Nikolai crushed her to his chest and wept. And the forest wept with him.
Sienna was dead.