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  He grabbed her by the wrist and turned to haul her onto his ship. To his surprise, she dug her heels in and resisted. “Wait! My horses,” she said, shaking her head. “James's mount and mine are stabled back there, near the tavern. I can't leave them. I will need a mount once I reach France.”

  “Too late for that, demoiselle.”

  The sailors' shouts grew louder. Footsteps thundered on the wharf. Something whizzed over their heads and lodged in the cog's mast with a dull thwunk!

  A crossbow bolt. One of Ferrand's men paused to load another missile, then raised the weapon and let the second bolt fly. Another took up a similar position, leaning against a barrel to prepare a further attack.

  “Down!” Braedon shouted to Ariana, bringing her under his arm. Hunched over with her, he ran a couple paces on the dock, pulling them out of the arrow's deadly path. It missed its mark by a hairbreadth and splashed into the icy river. He crouched low and ran to untie the last line, releasing the cog from its slip. “If you're coming with me, demoiselle, come now.”

  With a shriek, she ran the handful of steps to his ship and gave him her hand to help her up onto the deck. Braedon shoved off from the pier and shifted the cog's wide sail to catch a gust of chilly morning air.

  “Stay down,” he instructed her, directing her to the forecastle at the head of the cog's deck. The elevated square structure rose up on squat, sturdy beams, one of two small watchtowers at either end of the vessel, which also served as the sole means of protection from the elements. “Stay beneath here,” he ordered her. “Don't move until I tell you.”

  She scrambled into place with a quick nod while Braedon ran for the rudder at the stern. Ferrand's men launched a few more bolts, but the cog caught wind and was already gliding out of range, sailing off into the wide swell of the Thames.

  Braedon steered the ship upriver as efficiently as he could, wondering whose head Ferrand wanted more: his, or Lady Mayhem's. He glanced to where she huddled on the foredeck, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them. Her eyes were wild, fixed on him as if waiting for reassurance. Her lush lower lip trembled, caught between the neat white line of her teeth. She was shivering and scared beneath the forecastle, but she was safe.

  God help her if she trusted him to keep her that way.

  Braedon swore under his breath as he left London in his wake and headed for the estuary that would set him on a course toward the Channel.

  Toward France, the place of his birth...very nearly the scene of his demise.

  Jesu. What had he gotten himself into?

  HEART OF THE HUNTER is available now, wherever ebooks are sold.

  ~*~

  HEART OF THE FLAME (Book 2)

  Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award Nominee

  “A richly imagined, paranormal-tinged historical . . .

  dark, exquisitely sensual and beautifully written.”

  –Booklist

  Six months in an enemy's dungeon might have broken a weaker man, but former Templar knight Kenrick of Clairmont has emerged from imprisonment with an unyielding determination, and consumed by a single daunting quest: to find the Dragon Chalice, a mystical treasure said to grant its bearer unlimited power. It is a dangerous chase, one that pits Kenrick against foes skilled in dark, deadly arts. But no obstacle will prove more treacherous--nor more seductively lethal--than the fiery beauty called Haven.

  Caught up in the battle for the Chalice, Haven survives a night of terror that leaves her wounded and near death. Her memory scorched by fever, Haven awakens to find herself in the care of the forbidding, handsome Kenrick, who offers his protection in return for her alliance. A tenuous trust is formed between them, which soon ignites into a fierce passion neither can deny. But Haven's memory of her past is slowly beginning to surface, and it will threaten the fragile bond she and Kenrick share--and embroil them in a fight for their very lives. . . .

  ~*~

  EXCERPT

  Cornwall, England

  May, 1275

  He entered the place slowly, his footsteps hesitant now that he had breached the threshold. After so long an absence from his Father's house, he was not at all sure he would be welcome. He doubted he would be heard. But embraced or nay, his heart was heavy, and he knew of nowhere else to lay his burdens. The blame here, however, was wholly his own; he reckoned he would carry that for the rest of his days.

  Fine silver spurs rode at the heels of his boots, ticking softly on the smooth stone floor as he advanced, their tinny music the only disturbance of sound in the vacant chamber. Unwarmed, unlit save for the hazy overcast glare that washed in through a high arched window, the vaulted space held the cool stillness of a tomb. Fitting, he thought, his eyes yet burning from the sight that had greeted him upon his arrival.

  For a moment, as he reached the end of his path, the knight could only stand there, his limbs leaden from his days of travel, his throat scorched and dry like the bitter chalk of ash.

  Golden head bowed, he closed his eyes and sank to his knees on the floor.

  “Pater noster, qui es in caelis...”

  The prayer fell from his lips by rote, familiar as his own name. Kenrick of Clairmont had said this prayer a thousand times, nay, countless repetitions--a hundred times a day for seven days straight, as was required every time one of his Templar brethren had fallen. Although he was no longer of the Order, he wanted to believe that where his vow was broken, some scrap of his faith might still remain. The prayer he recited now was for a friend and that man's family, for Randwulf of Greycliff and the wife and young son who once lived in this place.

  Each breath Kenrick drew to speak held the cloying tang of smoke and cinder. Soot blackened the floor of the chapel where he knelt, as it did the walls of the small tower keep beyond. The place was in ruin, all of it dead and cold some weeks before he had arrived.

  Rand and his cherished family...gone.

  Kenrick needed not question why, or whom. The annihilation bore the stamp of Silas de Mortaine, the man who had held him hostage in a Rouen dungeon for nigh on half a year, and surely would have killed him anon, had it not been for his daring rescue a few months ago. Kenrick found it hard to maintain his relief at that thought now. While he was recuperating from his torture, Rand and his loved ones were meeting a hellish end.

  All because of him.

  All because of a secret pact he had shared with his friend and brother-in-arms, a pledge sealed more than a year ago at this humble Cornish manor near Land's End.

  God's blood.

  If he had known what it would cost Rand, he never would have sought his help.

  “...sed libera nos a malo...”

  Too late, he thought, bitter with grief and remorse. De Mortaine's evil was inescapable. His grasp was far-reaching. He was a menacing force, a wealthy man who dealt in dark magic and commanded a small army of mercenary beasts to assist him in his malevolent goals. He wanted the Dragon Chalice, a legendary treasure of mystical origins. Kenrick had stumbled upon the Chalice tales in his work for the Order. In truth, he had thought it mere myth, until he had held part of the fabled treasure in his hands and witnessed the astonishing breadth of its powers.

  The Dragon Chalice was real, and the carnage here was merely one more demonstration of Silas de Mortaine's intent to claim the Chalice for his own. For Kenrick of Clairmont, who still bore the scars of his incarceration, the travesty surrounding him at Rand's keep was further proof of why he could not allow de Mortaine to win.

  Not at any cost.

  “Amen,” he growled, then brought himself to his feet in the charred nave of the chapel.

  For a moment, he allowed his gaze to settle on the wreckage of the place, at the modest gold crucifix hanging above the altar, unscathed. He bit back the wry curse that rose to his tongue, but only barely.

  Not even God could stop de Mortaine from visiting his wrath on these noble folk.

  A mild blasphemy to think such a thing, particularly in a place of worship.
All the worse that it should come from a man once sworn into God's service, first as a novitiate monk, then, later, as a Knight of the Temple of Solomon.

  “Saint” was what Rand and his friends had often called Kenrick in their youth, a name given in jest for his rigid nobility and scholarly ways.

  But those days were long past. He would waste no further time dwelling on old memories than he would now afford his grief. There would be time for both once his business here was concluded.

  As eager as he had been to arrive earlier that day, now he longed to be away. His scalp itched beneath the cropped cut of his hair, a lingering reminder of his captivity, when his head and beard had crawled with lice. He had cut it all away at first chance, preferring to be clean shaven daily, his dark blond hair kept shorter than was stylish, curling just above the collar of his brown tunic and gambeson. He scratched at his nape, cursing the bitter reminder.

  On second thought, he reflected, pivoting sharply, perhaps the niggling crawl of his scalp had more to do with the sudden feeling he had that he was not alone in the abandoned keep. There seemed a mild disturbance in the stillness of the air, as though someone--or something--breathed amid the death that permeated the place. Outside in the yard, one of the townsfolk who had witnessed the carnage waited with Kenrick's mount. The graybeard's portly form had not moved from where he stood.

  Still, Kenrick felt eyes on him, surreptitiously watching. Waiting....

  “Who is there?” he called, the low command echoing hollowly off the vaulted walls.

  No one answered.

  His sharp blue gaze flicked into every shadowed corner, quickly assessing his surroundings. Nothing stirred. Nothing met his eye but cold stone and vacant silence. The chapel, like the adjacent tower keep, was empty. He was alone here after all.

  That there were few around to meet him when he arrived, nary a peasant or neighbor willing to come forth and speak with him about what they might have witnessed, would have seemed unsettling had this not been Cornwall. Folk were different in this far-flung end of the realm. They kept to their own affairs, and they were not in the habit of welcoming strangers.

  It had required a sizable fee to convince the man outside to provide his account of what had happened at the keep a fortnight past. Kenrick's head still rang with the terrible details: a band of raiders attacking the small manor in the night, the screams of women and children, plumes of fire and smoke as the keep was set ablaze, its inhabitants locked inside....

  He swore aloud, cursing himself and the uncaring God who had allowed this to happen. Rage churned in his gut as he quit the chapel for the yard outside.

  The old townsman looked at him as he approached, and somberly shook his head. “Like I told you, m'lord. 'Twere an awful thing. Hard to think of anyone who might wish to harm Sir Randwulf and his family, kind as they were. Naught a bit anyone could do about it, though. Whoever attacked this place came and went like ghosts in the dead of night. I don't reckon the poor souls had a chance.”

  Kenrick said nothing as he strode farther into the court, struck anew by the decimation. He paused only a moment, unable to prevent his eyes from straying across the scorched spring grass and muddy yard to where a child's toy cart lay overturned and broken.

  A memory flitted through his mind. Rand's son, laughing as he tugged the painted wooden wagon behind him, fast as his five-year-old legs could carry him. Elspeth was there, too, Rand's pretty wife, waving to the three men--Rand, Kenrick, and jubilant Tod--as they passed her in the sunlit gardens of the keep. It had been the last he had seen of Rand and his family. He had come there to enlist his friend's help; instead he had delivered their death warrant.

  “Stay here,” Kenrick ordered the old man, not wishing to hear any more of what Rand and his family suffered. “I wish to be alone for a while.”

  “As you will, m'lord.”

  The solitude would suit him well in his next task, Kenrick admitted as he drew his dagger from the sheath at his belt. Above him now, the sky had turned from dull overcast to a mass of dark, gathering clouds. It would not be long before the cool sprinkle of rain that misted his face and bare hands would worsen to a downpour. He needed no better excuse to be quick about his work and have done with this place. Walking briskly, Kenrick left the courtyard and headed around the side of the chapel.

  A small cemetery plot huddled in the shade of the westerly wall. The graves of Rand's forebears--thieves, scoundrels, and whores, Greycliff would admit with a reckless grin--lay burrowed beneath the staggered row of a dozen granite markers. Three oblong patches of raised brown earth indicated the newest additions to the plot. If Rand's neighbors avoided the place now, at least someone had taken care to see the slain family was properly laid to rest. Thinking on that somber event, knowing who lay buried under the damp mounds, Kenrick swallowed back a fierce wave of regret.

  He entered the cemetery with reverent care, treading softly, his gaze searching out a squat pillar of chiseled stone near the back of the place, where the oldest of the graves were located. He had taken only a few steps when his spur clinked on something metallic beneath his boot. A pendant necklace, he realized, stooping down to retrieve it from the mossy ground. It was Elspeth's; he had never seen her without it dangling from around her delicate neck. The chain was broken now, the pendant dirtied from its time in the elements.

  She would despair of its loss, even in death, for it had been a gift from her husband. Kenrick palmed the simple piece, fisting his hand around the cool metal. It belonged with Rand's wife; it seemed the least he could do to repair the crushed golden chain and bring the necklace back.

  As he loosened the drawstring of his baldric pouch, he heard a rustle of movement somewhere nearby. Or perhaps it had only been the rain, which was pattering down a little harder than before, slapping gently on the rounded tops of the gravestones. He slipped the pendant into the pouch and stood up, pivoting to make certain the old man hadn't followed him.

  No one was there. Only stillness, as it had been in the chapel.

  The dagger he held felt cool and heavy in his hand, the sword sheathed at his hip an added measure of security he was fully prepared to use. In his fury over what had befallen his friends, Kenrick almost wished he would encounter Silas de Mortaine on this scorched plot of land.

  His palms itched to deliver unholy vengeance...but first, the task at hand.

  Kenrick stalked to the lichen-spotted marker at the far end of the cemetery and crouched down before it. With the point of his dagger, he found the hidden cleft in the chiseled design. Off-shape, no bigger than a child's palm, the secret compartment was disguised by the scrollwork and lettering hammered into the granite ages ago. Rand and he were not the first ones to make use of it. One of the early Greycliff brides had employed the marker to receive communiques and gifts from a royal lover.

  Now the stone held a secret of a far more dangerous sort.

  Kenrick dug the sharp tip of the blade into the seam of the compartment, working the slender edge of steel around until the piece began to loosen. The granite rasped as it gave way, inch by inch. The final corner pried loose, Kenrick eased the wedge of stone out into his palm and gazed at the small compartment it revealed.

  “God's blood.” He exhaled the oath, tossing down his dagger and narrowly resisting the urge to drive his fist into the slab of granite before him.

  It wasn't there.

  The shallow hiding place carved into the tombstone, which had contained a folded square of parchment when he had sealed it up a year ago, was empty.

  He stared into that vacant space, a thousand questions--a thousand dire possibilities--roiling in his head. Who had found the seal? How did they know where to look? How long had it been gone? Would they know how to use it--what to do with it?

  And perhaps more crucial, now that it appeared he had lost it, how could he go about finishing his quest without it?

  As it stood, he wouldn't have much time. It had taken him several years to realize precisely what he ha
d uncovered, to understand the importance of protecting it from those who would use it for their own gain. Countless days and nights he had spent, toiling with his journals and ledgers, sifting out every fact from the troves of fiction buried within decades of dusty records and reportings of the Order.

  “Christ on the Cross, how can this be?”

  The final key to his discovery--enveloped within a single sheaf of parchment--now likely resided in the hands of his enemies.

  He had not come this far, survived all he had, only to fail here and now. Nor would he permit Rand and his family to have died in vain. Placing the dislodged wafer of chiseled granite back in place on the grave marker, Kenrick pushed to his feet.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught an unmistakable flicker of movement. His head snapped up, his gaze cutting sharply over his shoulder.

  Damn it, he was being watched.

  A fleeting splash of color moved near the wall of the chapel, too late to fully escape his notice this time. Kenrick caught a momentary glimpse of pale white skin and wary, wide green eyes. A mere blink was all the time she paused--just long enough for Kenrick to register the delicacy of the woman's heart-shaped face, which was caught in an expression of startlement as she looked back at him in that frozen instant. A drooping mane of unbound auburn hair framed her striking countenance, the rich russet-red tangles glowing like fire against the persistent gray of the morning. She was plainly garbed, a commoner by her modest attire of cloak and kirtle, but hardly plain of face or form.

  As tense as he was, his blood seething over the loss of his friends and the prized item he sought, Kenrick was not immune to the beauty of this unexpected intruder. Indeed, he was tempted to stare, having found such incongruous beauty amid the smoldering ruins. His observer seemed in no mind to afford him the chance. Her eyes lit on the dagger still clutched in his fist, then she lunged, quick as a sprite, dashing behind the front wall of the chapel.