child’s tap!” he mocked. “You’ve not leveled me, black knight. Come. Right here. Double me over.”
Determined feminine courage eyed his gut as he tapped and taunted. Her right fist hovered near her chin, though it wasn’t building to a punch. He sensed she had never before encountered such opposition. The devil take her soul, if she would not encounter such a thousand times over if she were determined to see the black knight’s goal to the end.
This had to be done. He had to make her understand just how vulnerable she would be in Abaddon’s lair. That she needed him at her side. For he would not allow her to cut him out of this bargain. Whether or not he approved that she was a woman, he would see this quest to its end.
This time Dominique saw her fist lunge toward his stomach—but he didn’t dodge. He wanted to feel her anger, to gauge the fire that blazed in this wounded angel’s heart.
Her fire was more forceful than he had expected. The initial blow doubled him. Breath wheezed out from his lungs.
“Seraphim!”
The squire suspected his master had actually hurt him? And what sort of name was that anyway? Seraphim? An angelic name for a woman whose punches wielded the power of a demon?
Dominique staggered, but he would not fall—not in front of a woman.
Although—on second thought…
He fell to the packed snow. The cold kiss of winter bruised icy crystals into his cheek, and he rolled to his back. A forced groan was necessary to lure his prey. She leaned over him—
“A-hah!” Dominique gripped Seraphim by her upper arms and laid her on the ground with a deft flip and a foot hooked under her mail-sheathed knee. He pinned her hips with his knees and pressed her shoulders into the snow. Her hood had slipped from her head, exposing a wild crop of black hair. Dominique stifled a chuckle. Had the woman thought to change her appearance by cutting her hair? And who was her barber? A fingerless blind man?
“Off!” she rasped, in what Dominique guessed to be a scream.
Her voice was not natural. Most likely she’d been injured. It had served her well for a day or two as disguise, but now…
She struggled like a pinned weasel, her head twisting from side to side, her eyes closed, and her fists blindly beating at his chest. ’Twas a child fighting for freedom from the monsters that haunted her nightmares.
Enough. She now knew the danger that could befall her.
Dominique pressed against her shoulders for leverage, bringing his weight upright to stand. The fallen angel sprang to her feet. Like a rabbit sprung from a trap, she dashed off to the woods.
“Seraphim!”
“Stay away,” she called back to her squire. “Keep him away!”
“What the hell did you do that for?” Baldwin shoved Dominique’s right shoulder. About all the man dared, Dominique wagered, for the flicker of uneasiness in the boy’s heavily lashed brown eyes. “You’ve sent her off in horror!”
“She fares well enough.” He brushed off ice crystals from his braies and cape. “I wanted the woman to see how truly helpless she is against a man. One single man. And do you know how many men await her at Abaddon’s castle?”
Wisely, the squire remained silent, his gaze switching from the woman’s retreat, and back to the ground before his feet.
“Morgana’s blood, a woman!” Dominique said, clenching his fingers into a useless fist. For what sense could his punches press into the woman’s head? She had come this far. And he certainly had no reason to stop her. To see her through this senseless quest would give him the answers he sought.
But a woman?
Dominique sheathed his sword and paced a short tread before the squire. “What devil got into her head to make her do such a thing?”
“Lucifer de Morte.”
He found on Baldwin’s square-jawed face a chill calm. The lank boy scrubbed a hand through his dirty brown hair and stared off toward the wood where Seraphim had retreated.
Lucifer de Morte. Known to many as the Dragon of the Dawn. “I suspected as much.”
“Aye, well you don’t know the whole of it.” Now the squire dared raise his voice and pound the air with an admonishing finger. “And you would do well to show a little more compassion. Sera’s been wounded. And she won’t rest until the demon that haunts her nightmares is extinguished.”
Dominique toed the tip of Seraphim’s abandoned sword. So Lucifer de Morte had set the blaze beneath this angel’s wings. Most likely the dark lord had no idea it was a woman who now stalked him and his brothers in the guise of the black knight. If Sera had been beneath the Dragon of the Dawn’s sword, or worse, his rutting loins, surely the villain must believe her dead.
Why did she yet walk this earth? Mayhap she hadn’t been in Lucifer’s path, only her family? No. It didn’t make sense. Lucifer never made a mistake, nor did he leave a trail. If he’d a grievance against the d’Anges, he would not have left their home until all had given blood to his sword.
But did the reason that Seraphim d’Ange walked this earth really matter? She had survived. And now she sought vengeance. And Dominique had agreed to see her through to the end. They both had their own motivations toward extinguishing the de Mortes. Personal reasons.
Lifting her sword up by the hilt, Dominique tested the weight, found it was surprisingly light for its length, then stabbed it back into the snow. Must have been fashioned especially for her. The black knight had so easily abandoned his—her—weapon. Further proof that this woman was well over her head in the thick of things.
What a hell of a way to begin a partnership. Though he mustn’t consider it such. He would merely serve as guide and protector. Seraphim d’Ange would be the instrument of destruction.
How odd did that sound? He, following a woman warrior? Though, stranger things had occurred in Dominique’s lifetime. He’d best accept Seraphim and get on with it.
“I should go retrieve her.”
“I will,” Baldwin said. “You’ve done enough for one day.”
She clung to the smooth, hard surface of a narrow birch tree. The thin layers of papery bark were cold, like sheets of ice laid around the wooden core. Her breaths worked frantic puffs of condensation before her face, her heart racing—and winning—the pace of each exhale.
Visions, the horrid, horrid nightmares filled her head.
Shoulders pressed to the cold stone floor. Impossible to struggle free. Still groggy; startled awake from a dead sleep—fire everywhere.
One dark man, a face unremarkable in the shadows save the glints of flame flickering in his eyes. Red. Red as the devil’s rage.
“I’ll see you in hell.” The heavy voice curdled over her bones like hoar frost freezing to flesh. He cracked a grin, spat on the floor, and shoved a mail-coated fist against her shoulder.
Pain seared between her legs. Screams
