In Debt to the Enemy Lord
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Nicole Locke
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HarlequinPrologue
Helplessly, he stood beside her in the early morning light. He stood partly in darkness, but she knelt on the cold stone floor at the entrance of the fortress and the sun’s light cut like spears across her huddled form.
She wept.
Tears streamed from swollen eyes and fell to clenched hands. Her fine grey gown gathered around her like shadows and her black hair, tangled, writhed to the floor. She pulled her head back, suddenly, like a wounded animal showing its jugular to its killer and the cruel light slashed across muscles strained with sobbing. She opened her mouth, but the only sound that came out was a guttural crackling deep in her throat. Then silence. Then with a sound he would never forget, he heard her scream a name he would never allow to be spoken again in his presence.
‘William!’ Her body contorted upwards, her face raised in an effort to throw her voice. The name whipped around him as her breath came in small pants.
Teague watched his mother weeping. Watched, as she tore at her dress and as the deep jagged sounds shuddered and tore through her body. He watched and could do nothing to change the truth. No matter how long she cried for him, his father could not hear his mother’s call. His father was dead. He had been standing by his mother’s side when the messenger delivered the news.
Now, he stood behind a pillar and clenched his fists against his sides. He did not grieve. His pain came from a much deeper and darker emotion. Anger. The anger he’d felt since he heard his mother and his aunt arguing a fortnight ago.
Their voices had been soft, but discordant, and he had hidden behind the green-linen wall coverings to hear them. It did not matter that he was only a child. He had understood then, in their rushed accusations, his father was never coming back. His father was dead, but he paid no heed to the news. To Teague, his father had died when he had forgotten his son and forsaken his wife.
He did not mourn his father’s death, but he was helpless at the sight of his mother’s grief. She wept, when he could not. She loved him still, when he would not. They were both unwanted. They’d been betrayed. Yet, he could hear the love she felt when she screamed his father’s name. Teague stepped out from behind the pillar and placed his arms around his mother’s neck. He held her for only a moment before she suddenly stilled and let out a new sound. One hand clutched her heavily swollen stomach, while the other clenched his hands.
‘Teague! Teague, get help!’ she gasped.
Beneath his mother’s knees the stones darkened with water and rivulets of red. The foreboding liquid pooled and streamed towards his feet before he let go. As he raced to find some help, Teague made his heart a promise.
