“Where is it?” I croaked.
“Where is what?” Seton answered sharply.
I could see the hate burning in his eyes as he stared at the man before him
“Where is the missing piece of cloak, Seton? The velvet—” Before I could continue, Seton moved aside, revealing what my mind already knew and my heart dreaded
“We are beyond the worry of velvet lined cloaks, Virago. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Although my mind registered the words, I couldn’t accept what I was seeing. The cloak fell from my hands. In my head, I heard it thud to the ground as if it were made of glass and the ground marble.
There, on his knees, was Cale, his face a mask of disgust, shock, and rage. Blood dotted his throat where Seton’s dagger had pressed. My stomach pitched and I felt the moonlit world around me begin to slide away.
This isn’t true, not true…
My eyes closed, and for a minute I was swept away into a comforting black pitch.
When I felt hands upon me, I opened my eyes and found myself looking at Seton. I shook my head, but he jerked my head towards Cale and forced me to look upon him.
“Look and tell me he doesn’t deserve my blade.”
However badly I wanted to close my eyes, I found I couldn’t. The only thing I could do was stare at the man before me. My eyes struggled to endure his grimacing face, his bloodied mouth leering. He flicked his tongue over his split lip and started laughing.
I saw his pants were undone and his cock hung from the front of his breeches like a sleeping serpent.
Understanding flashed upon me as if the garden was lit not by the mysterious moon, but by the glaring sun.
Seton must have sensed my realization. He started to speak. “He tried to—”
I heard no more. A seething red blindness descended upon me and with it came the terrible humiliation and shame he’d forced upon me and now had attempted to inflict upon another man, a man with whom I’d found love.
“You,” I heard myself say in a voice carried from the pits of hell itself, but I could say no more. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d grabbed for the blade Seton held clasped in his hand and jerked it from him with such force, he stumbled, and I was upon Cale.
“Bloody, bloody bastard shit,” I cursed in the same foul voice, my body no longer my own. I arched my hand so the dagger gleamed wildly in the silvered light, cut through the blood scented air, and made a whipping sound.
Beneath me, Cale at first expressed shock, bucked wildly beneath me, and in normal circumstances would have been able to throw me, if not for the sheer force with which I’d fallen upon him. I heard Seton cry out and felt his hands and arms grappling with my own flailing limbs, but my arm with the knife stayed poised to strike.
“No!” Seton cried. “Not you, Virago!”
Seton’s voice broke through the red rage blinding me. The world stopped. There was Cale, and in his eyes was not rage or disgust, but fear. Behind me was Seton, his arms about me, both our weights pinning Cale underneath us. I felt myself begin to shake with wracking sobs.
I couldn’t kill.
“I can’t,” I wailed and felt the dagger fall from my hands. The sound of it hitting the ground rang like a shot in a silent wood. “I can’t!” I wept bitterly and allowed Seton to pull me from Cale and gather me into his arms.
Cale scrambled, sought the support of a nearby bench, and attempted to struggle to his feet.
We heard what sounded like a scream coming from the direction of the theatre. Seton and I could see people rushing from where the performance had been. We looked at one another.
Cale stared past us to where the commotion came.
“Go,” I demanded. “Go now, or you’ll be killed.”
“Virago, I—”
But I pressed the palm of my hand to his mouth. “Say nothing. I know your heart, for it is the same as mine. I loathe thinking of the words being repeated in this place before this creature.”
As I removed my hand from Seton’s mouth, he grasped it and held it long enough to kiss my hand.
“Go, please go,” I pleaded.
Seton stood a moment, his face a mask of hurt and bitterness. He backed away and I watched as long as I could bear it. Only when the clouds overtook the moon and the garden darkened did I hear his voice.
“The dagger,” it said, and vanished.
As if woken from a dream, I bent to the ground, felt for the dagger and finding its handle, I swept it to me. The sound of the blade along the flagstones struck me cold. The ripped cloak was nearby. I grabbed it and centered my attentions on Cale. He’d struggled to his feet, teetered and tumbled back onto the bench. I went to him, bent over, and jerked the tip of the dagger to his throat.
“How easily I could have slit your throat and returned to the theatre like any other man.”
This time he didn’t try to pull away, his eyes met mine. “You’re no man. You are an abomination of God! A traitor to the King and your neck will meet the block for it!”
The wild peace I’d known when Seton staid my hand vanished. The rush of vengeance flowed forth and I welcomed its return.
I pressed the tip of the dagger into his throat until my hand quivered with anticipation.
Deeper, a velvety voice murmured, deeper.
Seton’s cloak weighed upon my other
