Defiance (16 page)

I can’t look away from the worry on his face, even though I want to tell him I’ve learned my lesson. The lesson he tried to teach me when he made me promise to strike down the Commander if he ever threatened me. It’s branded deep into the fibers of my being now, and I don’t plan to act like it isn’t.

“How can I trust you to carry your weapons if you don’t know who deserves a death sentence and who doesn’t?” he asks, and slides closer to me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against his chest. “Rachel. I should’ve been with you today. I’m so sorry.”

It’s not his fault.

I should’ve killed the Commander.

I should’ve entered the wagon and attacked without hesitation.

I should’ve kept my promise to Logan. If I had, Oliver would still be alive.

A small whimper escapes me, and tears spill down my cheeks. I try to tell him. To make the words come, but sobs choke me instead. My fingers are icy, trembling, as Logan pulls me down beside him on the couch. I stare out his window, watching the sky darken as tiny stars tear holes in its velvet surface until I cry myself to sleep.

I
wake lying next to Logan on the couch beneath his heavy wool blanket. His arm is still wrapped around my waist, his cheek pressed against the crown of my head. I keep still, letting the warmth and the solidness of his body imprint itself to mine. I want to memorize this moment, a tiny piece of what I once wanted, to hold with me while I face what comes next.

“Are you awake?” His voice is a low rumble against my ear.

I nod, though I don’t want to.

“I’ve been thinking. About yesterday.”

Oliver. I have to tell him. Now.

I struggle to sit up, but his arm tightens. “Please. Just listen for a minute.”

I stop struggling, but tension coils within me.

“I don’t know what happened. But I need to tell you, to convince you, that if he … if there was anything … if he hurt you in the way a man can hurt a woman, it wouldn’t change how I see you. He can’t break us, Rachel, unless we let him.”

“I also want to make a promise to you. Will you look at me?”

I roll over, the leather squeaking in protest beneath me, and tilt my head back to stare into his dark blue eyes. He raises his hand and strokes the side of my face. His touch is far gentler than his words.

“I’m going to make the Commander pay for what he did, Rachel. I swear it. And if he dares lay hands on you today, I won’t stop until he’s dead.”

This kind of response will ruin everything. All the Commander needs is one tiny excuse to take Logan from me forever. And I’m about to tell him something that will make his anger so much worse.

Suddenly I realize this is what the Commander is banking on. Logan will try to Claim me to protect me from the Commander’s machinations, and I’ll blindside him with the Commander’s plan. The only one who benefits is the Commander.

Unless Logan
knows
.

The shadows of grief and loss can’t obscure the startling clarity of this thought. I feel like I’ve emerged from a long slumber, awake and ready to act.

I’d be a fool to take the Commander at his word. I have to protect Logan, and the only way to do it is to trust him the way I promised I would. Logan won’t lose it at the Claiming ceremony and give the Commander an excuse to hurt him if he’s prepared to have me turn him down.

And he won’t try to exact unthinking, furious revenge for Oliver if he has a chance to grieve and then formulate a plan.

My voice is still hoarse from the screaming I did yesterday as I look Logan in the eye and say, “I already knew about the Claiming ceremony. He told me when he—”

My throat closes as the memories hit. Being inside the wagon. Oliver. Crimson everywhere.

Logan reaches up to cup my face with his palm, and I smell him—ink, fresh paper, and musk. “Listen to me, Rachel. You can take this one piece at a time. I’m in no hurry. Tell me about the Claiming ceremony. We’ll start there.”

“He says you’ll try to Claim me.”

“I will.”

“But that’s what he wants. What he expects.”

Logan frowns, and I can almost hear the gears of his mind working, analyzing, and plotting.

“He wants me to turn you down.”

“You don’t legally have that right. Only your Protector does.”

“You’re my Protector.”

“Which is what he’s going to use against me,” Logan says in his I-have-a-puzzle-to-solve voice. “He’s going to say as your Protector, I can’t both Claim you and speak for you. But why bother? What does he stand to gain? He doesn’t want you Claimed by someone else because he’s planning to send you into the Wasteland …”

I can see the answer written in his eyes even as I say it. “He’ll publicly renounce your Protectorship so you can’t legally stop him. He wants us separated because you aren’t going with me.”

“The hell I’m not.” His face is hard and bright.

“He said …” Grief surges through my chest, burning a path to my throat.

“Tell me.”

“He’s going to kill you.” Suddenly the words are there, tumbling over themselves in a rush to be heard. “He said I’m loyal to a fault, and I’ll do anything to avoid having him kill someone else I love.”

The wagon bed. The cloth-covered lump. Crimson everywhere.

I can’t breathe as the blood-soaked image of Oliver burns itself into my brain and
stays
. Pushing away from Logan, I rush to the back door, wrench it open, race across the porch and fall onto the grass, retching.

He’s behind me in seconds, holding my hair back.

When my stomach is empty, he helps me sit on the bottom porch step, goes into the house, and returns with a glass of cold water and a sprig of mint.

I chew the mint and sip the water in grateful silence, but it’s a brief reprieve. He needs the rest of the story, and I have to find a way to give it to him.

He sits beside me, his shoulder touching mine, and says quietly, “Did he claim to have killed Jared?”

I shake my head, and set the glass down before my shaking hands drop it on their own. “He took me. In a wagon. There was a cloth-covered lump. And he said we were plotting behind his back.” My voice rises as I rush to get through it all. “I thought it was you. I thought he’d taken you, and I prayed it would be a stranger. Another guard like the one in the tower. But it wasn’t.”

My voice trembles. “He stabbed the person beneath the cloth, and there was blood everywhere, and I tried to reach him, but I couldn’t.” I reach a hand out to Logan, for absolution or for comfort, I don’t know. “I couldn’t save him. I thought he was safe, waiting for us in the Wasteland, and I didn’t save him. I’m so sorry!”

My voice breaks, and I drop my hand as terrible awareness comes into Logan’s eyes. “Oliver?” he asks in a voice that begs me to lie. To make the truth something he can still fix.

I nod.

He stares at me, eyes glassy with shock, then jumps to his feet and strides across the yard. When he reaches the sparring area, he takes a vicious swing and sends Bob flying along his wire. Minutes pass as Logan pounds his fists into Bob as if by obliterating the dummy, he can obliterate the truth.

Finally, his arms fall to his sides and he drops to his knees on the grass. I go to him and lay a hand on his shoulder. Turning into me, he wraps his arms around me and drags me against him. I hold him and vow I will make the Commander hurt for what he’s done to us. When Logan finally lifts his face to me, I can see he feels the same. His eyes are haunted, his expression hard.

“I’m sorry.” My voice is small against the weight of our loss, but it’s all I have to give.

“I can’t believe he’s gone.” His voice chokes on the last word, and he scrubs his hands over his face. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“They took him away in the wagon?”

“Guards came in and took him.” I can’t look at him. I can’t bear to see the shadows in his eyes. “They just … dragged him away.”

“I want to see him. I want to …”

Say good-bye. Say the things he now wishes he’d said the last time he saw Oliver. I don’t know if it would make it easier, but I know he needs it. I do too, but we aren’t going to get it. We aren’t going to get another word to say on the matter that doesn’t involve the sharp end of a sword.

“He should have a proper burial.”

“Yes. But he isn’t going to get it.” The words taste like ashes. We’ll never lay Oliver to rest. Never say the words he deserved to hear. Never bring flowers to a sacred patch of ground set aside for Oliver alone. “He isn’t going to get it. But he can have
justice
. If we work together.”

I make sure Logan meets my eyes and say, “You can’t Claim me today, or the Commander will turn it against you and separate us.”

Logan looks fierce. “We’re going to turn his plan against him instead. I’m going as your Protector. We’ll hide our travel bags before we get to the Square. Someone will try to Claim you, and I’ll agree to it, but it won’t matter. When everyone is dancing and celebrating, you and I will sneak away, grab our bags, and be gone before he even realizes he’s lost the game.”

Suddenly, his arms are around me again, and I’m against the hard wall of his chest. “Rachel, I’m sorry you had to see Oliver die.”

“No, I’m sorry. If I’d just stabbed the Commander like you said—”

“This wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t mine. It was the Commander’s. And one day, I’ll make him pay for it in full.”

“No, one day
we’ll
make him pay for it in full,” I say.

“Yes,” he says, holding my gaze. “We will. Starting today.”

R
achel doesn’t want breakfast, but agrees to eat something when I point out she can’t execute our plan on an empty stomach. I don’t want breakfast either. The knowledge that I’ve lost the only father I’ve ever known burns within me.

My heart aches, a constant pain that makes it hard to breathe. Losing Oliver is like losing the best part of me. The part that believed I could rise above. The part that said I was worth something even before I proved him right.

I don’t know how to move forward without him, but I have to. I have to put our plan in motion. Get Rachel away from here. Find the package. Find Jared before a Rowansmark or Baalboden tracker finds him first. And return to Baalboden with a foolproof plan for destroying the Commander and avenging us all.

I don’t have solid plans in place for all of it, and I’m worried the grief that tears at me with bitter fingers will compromise my ability to think, but I do know how to get us through the Claiming ceremony and into the Wasteland, so I decide to focus on that alone. There will be time for both grief and planning later.

Rachel dresses in the bathroom, and when she enters the living room, I take one look at her and feel as though all the oxygen has been suddenly sucked out of the air.

The dress
fits
her. The neckline dips down and curves over breasts I didn’t realize until just this minute were so … substantial. I force my eyes to scrape over her trim waist, but in seconds I’m staring once more at the way the glittering line of thread along her neckline barely contains her.

Every man who sees her will be paying attention.

Me included.

I don’t want to admit my attraction to her is strong enough to rise above my grief and my sense of responsibility, but they’re
breasts
. And they’re nearly spilling out the top of her dress. I look around for a scarf or some other piece of cloth to cover her up, but all I have is a scrap of a kitchen towel, and I already know she’d never agree to it.

Which settles it. I’ll have to stand in front of her the entire time.

The deep blue of the dress brings out the blue in her eyes, and the diamonds sewn into the bodice sparkle in the light.

Which draws the eye straight to her breasts.

She’s wearing the dish towel. I don’t care what she says.

“Acceptable?” she asks, and bends to look down at her full skirt. I want to tell her to straighten up and never bend down again, but my mouth has unaccountably gone dry.

Acceptable? She’s breathtaking.

I nod, but when she slides her skirt up her leg to strap her knife sheath to her thigh, I turn around and begin rummaging aimlessly through the papers on the kitchen table.

“How am I going to reach this in a fight?” she asks, and I make the incredibly foolish mistake of turning around while her pale leg is still completely exposed.

I turn back around and address my comment to the table in front of me. “Make a slit in the silk and that stiff, crinkly stuff beneath it. You can hide the slit with your arm while you’re on the stage, but you’ll be able to reach your weapon if you need it.”

I wait until I’m sure she’s had enough time to cover herself again before turning. Her leg isn’t showing anymore, but she’s bending over her travel bag, packing a box of flint.

What kind of man looks at his ward like she’s a temptation? Especially on the heels of such trauma and grief?

I instruct myself to regain my common sense and focus on getting ready for the day. Closing my eyes helps. First order of business: Make sure Rachel isn’t in danger of going into a homicidal rage at the wrong person again.

“Be sure you know if the person you’re drawing on deserves what you’re about to give him,” I tell her. I have to trust that she’s found enough of her equilibrium to handle herself. There’s no way I’m sending her into Center Square today without a weapon.

Second order of business: Make sure we have everything we need. “Let’s do a last bag check,” I say, and realize I can’t do my end of it with my eyes shut.

Which isn’t a problem because I can just look at my bag. I don’t have to look at her and see her double-check the contents of her pack—fuel, clothing, Switch, dagger, and a bow with arrows. I don’t have to see the way the sunlight plays with the red-gold strands of hair she’s left unbound.

She ought to look girlish with her hair down below her shoulders. Instead, the wild strands make her look both fierce and feminine, a combination I’m confident every single man signed up to Claim today will find irresistible.