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three on foot captured her within a few strides, grabbing her by her long hair. They tackled her to the
ground in a plume of snow. She let out a scream that was quickly cut off when one clapped his hand over
her mouth. Damien held back a roar of rage, for surprise was his only advantage. Murder in his eyes, he
lost sight of her momentarily as he hurtled toward the rise.
When he came up over the ridge, he saw one man steadying the horse s reins, while the other two held
the girl by her armpits and her ankles, struggling to hand her up to the man on the horse. She fought them
fiercely, kicking and clawing until the one who had hold of her upper body pulled out a knife and
threatened her with it.
Damien felt something dark inside of him open its red, demon eyes, roused to wakefulness at the silver
glint of the knife, the beast in him scenting blood. Jumbled memories flashed through his mind: nights on
piquet, bayonet charges. His awareness was distant, yet crystal clear, controlled to the point of eerie
tranquility; everything seemed to move slowly. The greasy brigand sheathed his weapon again in order to
lift the uncooperative girl; then Damien was upon them.
Ignoring their Cockney shouts, he elbowed the man with the knife in the face, snapping his head back,
seizing Miss White around the waist to catch her from falling as the man staggered back. The horse
skittered sideways, but the terrorized beauty swiped at Damien s face with her nails, too panicked to
realize it was him.
His eyes widened as her kick connected with the chin of the hefty man who was trying to hold onto her
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legs. Damien pulled her free of them and carried her two or three steps away, placing her roughly on the
snowy ground behind him, swiftly positioning his body between her and her attackers.
The hefty man she had kicked in the chin was already back for more. Damien punched him in the face
with such force that the big fellow reeled and fell, stunned. Damien glanced back for a split second to see
if the girl was all right. On her knees in the snow, she looked up and met his gaze. Realization flashed in
her eyes who he was, that he had come to help.
Then a deafening shot exploded a few feet away. From the corner of his eye, he saw the pistol s flare,
felt the bullet s bite as it grazed his left biceps, searing through the sleeve of his red uniform coat. He let
out a curse and clapped his hand over the wound as the girl cried, No!
With sweat beading on his face, Damien slowly looked up from his bleeding arm at the one who had
shot him, a wiry, unkempt man with a gold tooth. Deaf to the threats and shouts of the other men,
Damien stared at the gunman in an icy silence for the space of a heartbeat, the pain in his arm diminishing
into numbness.
The criminal lowered his gun and began reloading, but fear and haste made him clumsy. Lowering his
hand from his wounded arm, Damien wiped the blood off his palm down the front of his scarlet coat, his
pulse thundering in his ears like cannon fire in the distance. Reality wavered like the king s colors
billowing slowly on the breeze. It buckled, split and suddenly, fractured. He was back in Spain, the
guns roaring around him, the French flinging themselves at his battalion. His confusion receded, narrowing
down to one blissfully simple goal:Destroy .
 Run, he ordered the girl in a low, vicious growl as he stalked toward the gunman.
He did not want her to see this.
It all happened so fast.
Miranda hesitated, her heart pounding with dread to see the big, gray-eyed stranger walking straight
toward the man with the gun. She had seen the chilling look that had come over his hard, angular face
upon being wounded, though he had hardly flinched with pain. In that split second, she did not know
what to do.
She felt she should obey his order but how could she abandon him to save herself? He was
outnumbered and already hurt. It was all her fault. Something like this had been bound to happen to her,
venturing so close to Mud City.
She did not know what these cretins wanted or how they had known her real name. She only knew she
was unutterably grateful to the big, handsome officer for so gallantly rushing to her rescue. In the next
moment, however, any notion of him as her knight in shining armor turned to horror. He attacked the
gunman, launching at him like a wolf. The man screamed, though the soldier had no weapon. Almost too
quick for the eye to see, the soldier raised his fist, fingers curled in a savage hook, and struck the outlaw
in his windpipe, fairly tearing the man s throat out with his bare hand, letting out the most terrifying,
barbaric snarl she had ever heard from human lips.
The air left her lungs in a whoosh. She felt her gorge rise as he dropped the body and turned to the
others with a mad glint of blood lust in his eyes. The others took the Lord s name in vain, backing away
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from him in shock.
Miranda needed no further instruction. She stumbled to her feet, tripping on the hem of her lavender
gown as she began running back toward the lights and people around the Pavilion. Her mind was blank
with shock. She had never seen anything so horrible in her life, but somehow, through her hysteria, she
had the presence of mind to run in the right direction.
There was another scream behind her, but it was not the soldier s deep voice. She winced, realizing he
had just killed another one, then ran faster until the man on horseback galloped his lanky mount past her,
heading her off well before she reached the theater. Terror rose up in her anew.
Herded around like a wild filly, she turned on a sixpence and ran back the other way, bolting in the
direction of the bridge over the River Cole the way back to Yardley.
She ran until her lungs burned, taking a zigzagging path like a fleeing rabbit, but it only bought her a few [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]