Devil's Dominion (53 page)

Teague’s grip on Allaston tightened and she gasped in pain. “That is a fair bargain,” he agreed. “But until I have everything you own deposited before me, she will remain with me. Not to say I do not trust you, but this is business. You promised to make me a wealthy man and you will fulfill that vow.”

Over Teague’s left shoulder, where the kitchen structure was located, Bretton could see movement in the window that Allaston had escaped from. He didn’t dare look for fear of tipping Teague off, but he swore he could see an arm extending from the window, and the hand at the end of the arm held something. He began to suspect that a distraction of some kind was coming so he braced himself, moving in a direction that would make Teague blind to what was going on behind him. He had no idea what anyone else was doing around him and he didn’t care. All he cared about at the moment was keeping Teague’s focus. He had to gain the upper hand.

“I have done everything I told you I would do,” he said. “I have never gone back on my word with you and I certainly will not do it now. Give me Lady Allaston and I swear to you that you shall have all that I own.”

Teague glanced at the woman writhing in his grip. “Why is she worth so much to you, Bretton?” he asked, genuinely curious. “She is your prisoner. You treated the woman worse than a dog when you first abducted her but now you consider her something of a treasure. I do not understand.”

Bretton drew in a long, steadying breath. He couldn’t stand to see Allaston in pain as Teague twisted her neck. If he squeezed any harder, he might possibly snap it. Bretton struggled not to feel a sense of panic.

“Have you ever been in love, Teague?” he asked. Then, he shook his head. “I have never been. My entire life has been full of horrors that I will not describe here, but suffice it to say that loving someone was the furthest thing from my mind. But that has changed.
I
have changed. I didn’t want to admit it before now, but it is true. There is a man standing a few feet away from me whom I swore vengeance upon because he killed my father, but I’ve come to learn that he did not kill my father at all. My father is alive and well. Have you met my father, Teague? He is here, beside me as I have always wanted him to be.”

He turned to John Morgan, who was standing a few feet away, a grim expression on his face and a broadsword in his hand. Bretton smiled at the man.

“He does not know me, but that does not matter,” he continued. “The moment I saw him alive, it was as if all of the pain and hatred I’d ever held in my life was sucked right out of me. That vengeance that has driven me is diminished. I no longer need it, for my father is not dead. It is a truly odd sensation to realize I no longer need that hatred to keep me alive. But what I do need is Allaston.”

Bretton returned his focus to Teague and Allaston, struggling with each other a few feet away. Teague gazed back at him, something hard and dark within his eyes.

“What are you telling me, Bretton?” he asked. “That you no longer hate? I can give you a reason to hate, my friend. If that is what it takes to drive you, to give me everything you promised me, then I can indeed give you a reason to hate.”

Bretton shook his head, knowing what Teague was leading up to. “Do not do it,” he said quietly. “I had my family taken away from me when I was very young and it took me twenty-five years to learn to love again. Allaston has shown me what it means to love and to be loved. If you take her away from me… I doubt I would feel hatred. I would feel hollowness and grief such as the world has never seen. I have promised you all that I have in exchange for her. I beg you to take it and give her back to me.”

Teague opened his mouth to reply but was cut off when he was hit on the side of the head by a small iron pot that came flying out of the kitchen window. Uldward the cook had hurled it at him with great aim and Teague, without his helm, was struck square-on, enough so that he pitched forward, losing his grip on Allaston as he fell.

Everyone standing around the man swooped in. Bretton grabbed Allaston while Jax, Rod, and John Morgan jumped on Teague, stripping him of his arms and beating him within an inch of his life. Bretton swept Allaston into his arms, carrying her towards the gateway that led into the kitchen yard, noticing that, out in the bailey, there was a tide of de Lohr and de Velt soldiers pouring through the open portcullis.

Cloryn was breached but Bretton could not have cared less. He had Allaston and that was all that mattered. The world was crumbling around him but he was oblivious - he had his world in his arms.

“Are you well?” Bretton asked as he lowered her to the ground. His big palms cupped her face, studying her. “Did he hurt you?”

Allaston was gasping softly, with joy and relief. “He did not,” she said, her hands moving to his lips, watching him kiss her flesh. “Are
you
well?”

He laughed softly, pulling her into a warm embrace. “I am very well.”

Allaston collapsed against him, savoring the feel of his body against hers. As she held him, she began to weep.

“My father is here,” she sobbed. “Bretton, please… I have begged you so many times not to kill him. What more can I say that will make a difference to you? I will never stop asking you. I cannot. I cannot watch the two men I love best fight each other until the death.”

He shushed her softly. “Did you not hear what I told Teague?”

She sniffled and wept. “I… I am not sure,” she said. “I suppose I really was not listening. I was too afraid he was going to break my neck.”

Bretton squeezed her and released her, holding her back at arm’s length so he could look her in the eye.

“My father is
alive
, Allaston,” he said softly. “It is as I told Teague. The moment I saw him, alive and well, it was as if all of the pain and hatred I’d ever held in my life was sucked right out of me. I felt the vengeance that has driven me diminish because I no longer needed it, for my father is not dead. I no longer need that hatred to keep me alive. I cannot describe what I feel better than that. It is as if… as if I feel whole. That black hole inside of me, the one you once described, is gone.”

Allaston’s hysterics had faded as she gazed up at him, listening to his words.
Was it possible?
She could only shake her head, amazed at what she was hearing, amazed at the words that were coming forth. She could have never hoped for, or imagined, such a thing from Bretton.

“But… how is this possible?” she asked softly. “That hatred drove you. It made you who you are. You told me I could not take it away from you, no one could. You told me once that you were not sure if you could let go of what you have become.”

Bretton sighed. “I know,” he nodded. “I will never be perfect but all I can tell you is that, at this moment, I feel like the most fortunate man on the face of the earth. You told me once that God gave you to me for a life gone wrong. Look around you. My father is here and you are here… this is the most perfect life I can imagine. Nothing else matters, not vengeance or your father or the horrors of my past. Those things will always be a part of me, but they will not rule me as I have let them. I have you now and I’ve come to see that is the most important thing of all. You were right when you said I loved my vengeance more than you, but that is no longer the case. That vengeance has been swept away. I am not sure I can explain it better than that.”

Gazing into his face, Allaston was coming to believe him. She didn’t know why or how it was truly possible for the man to suddenly forget and forgive twenty-five years of hatred, but she wasn’t going to argue with him. If he felt whole, and if he felt like the most fortunate man on the face of the earth, then that was all she could ask for. A smile spread across her lips, one of joy and hope, and Bretton smiled in return. It was time to believe in something other than vengeance. It was time to believe in each other. As Allaston threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly, she heard a familiar voice behind them.

“Allie,” Jax was standing a few feet away, his visor lifted and his dual-eyed gaze moving between her and Bretton. “I cannot help but notice that this is not the behavior of a prisoner.”

Allaston laughed softly, rushing to her father and giving the man the biggest hug she possible could. Jax squeezed his child, tears stinging his eyes with utter joy and relief. When she let him go, he grabbed her face with his two big hands and looked her right in the eye.

“Are
you
well, sweetheart?” he whispered hoarsely. “Your mother and I have been worried sick for you.”

Allaston nodded, kissing her father on the cheek. “I have been fine, Papa, I swear it,” she said, turning to look at Bretton, who was standing where she had left him. His expression was rather uncertain but Allaston smiled at him. “Bretton… well, he is much like you. I think you two have more in common than you can imagine.”

Jax’s gaze found Bretton and he groaned loudly. “You sent a missive to me to come to you at Cloryn,” he said quietly. “Here I am. I am offering myself in exchange for my daughter.”

Bretton held the man’s gaze steadily. “There was a time when those words would have meant everything to me,” he said. Then, he shook his head, reflecting on bitter memories of the past. This was a defining moment for Bretton, one that would see him move beyond the hatred and accept what life had dealt him, as a true man would. “I had a speech planned for you when we finally met, de Velt. I was going to tell you what you did to my life, how you took my family from me, how I had to fight to survive, and how I spent my life being fueled by thoughts of vengeance against you. I took your castles and I took your daughter and, when you came to me, I was going to take your life, too. You ruined my life and I was going to punish you for it. But… a very strange thing happened.”

Jax stood there with his arm around Allaston’s shoulders, listening to a man who had thoughts that were very much like his own had been many years ago. Anger, greed, vengeance… aye, he had experienced those things, too, so he understood them well.

“What happened?” he asked softly.

Bretton’s gaze moved to Allaston. “A woman happened,” he said quietly. “I abducted her but she turned the tables on me and captured everything about me; my heart, my soul, my mind. But that still wasn’t enough to quench my vengeance against you. I was still going to go through with it which, I am coming to realize, would have cost me the most valuable thing I have ever had – Allaston’s love. Yet, when you and de Lohr showed up with my father, it was as if everything suddenly started to make sense. I have based my entire life on a lie – the lie of my father’s death. I believed you killed him and I hated you for it. I tried to hate your daughter, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And with my father returned… my sense of vengeance is gone. It is true that you set about a chain of events that saw me lead a terrible life for quite some time, but in hindsight, mayhap it all happened for a reason. Ultimately, it brought me to your daughter.”

Jax considered the man before looking to Allaston, who was gazing at Bretton with that same dreamy expression that Jax had seen on his wife, Kellington. It was the look of love, and Allaston had it. Jax lifted his eyebrows in resignation.

“I cannot condemn my daughter for falling in love with a mercenary because my wife did the same thing,” he said with some irony. “I am living proof that the right woman can change a man for good. I cannot say that I am entirely in favor of this union, but I am the last person to condemn this relationship when my wife and I started out much the same way. Therefore, we will speak on it. I am willing to listen.”

Bretton grinned at Allaston before looking over his shoulder at the state of Cloryn’s bailey. De Lohr and de Velt’s men had moved in and were corralling his soldiers. It was clear that Cloryn was returning to the custody of de Velt, but Bretton hardly cared. He had the greatest prize of all in Allaston.

“We do indeed have a great deal to discuss,” he said. “I have a few properties of yours that I am sure you wish returned.”

Jax lifted an eyebrow before kissing his daughter on the head and releasing her. “That is quite possibly true,” he said. “For now, I am going to see what you have done to Cloryn. Mayhap I do not want it back. Mayhap I shall give it to you and Allaston as a wedding gift. I’ve not yet decided.”

He moved past Bretton, heading out into the bailey to see what was happening with his men and with the situation in general. Moreover, he suspected his daughter and Bretton had a few things to say to each other. Well did he remember the newness of his relationship with Kellington and the moments, in the early days, that they had spent alone. Those were precious times. Besides… he had a feeling he would be seeing a good deal of Bretton in the future. There would be plenty of time to get to know the man with a mercenary heart to mirror his own. Aye, they would understand each other well.

As Jax headed out to the bailey, de Lohr brushed past him, heading towards the kitchens. As Bretton and Allaston watched, there was a brief conversation between Christopher and Jax, ending with Jax pointing towards the kitchen and mentioning something that set Christopher to grinning.

The great Christopher de Lohr, perhaps one of the greatest knights to have ever lived, looked off towards the kitchen, seeing a man who looked like Rod standing along with a woman who had her father’s dark hair, and knew he was gazing upon Bretton and Allaston. No one had to be obvious and point it out, he just knew. And he also knew that all was well. Whatever the trouble, whatever had caused them to come to Cloryn, no longer existed. Jax de Velt said so.