Never Kiss A Stranger Read Online Free Page A

Or perhaps with his bare hands, as Bevan had tried to do to Piers. All the years of Piers’s life,he had denied himself of his revenge on the man he had known as his brother. No matter how belittling Bevan had been, how cruel. How quick to point out to Piers at every opportunity the life that Bevan enjoyed and that was denied to Piers. Piers had never retaliated. But now, he thought he might savor the moment when Bevan’s evil soul departed his body. Piers would laugh and laugh and laugh … perhaps until he was mad with it.
    Or perhaps Piers was already mad.
    But now he was simply tired. So tired, and hurting.
    Ahead in the foggy gloom, he could see the skeletal ruins of some old keep. Unless he had truly lost his mental capabilities, the decrepit standing ring rising to the foreground in silhouette against a jagged, crumbling central tower indicated he had arrived at the old Foxe family hold. From village gossip, Piers knew the great Fallstowe castle was nearly an hour away by foot, and he was certain that none from the keep would be about the grounds at this hour in the damp cold.
    He looked at the sky, the fat, white moon little more than an impression behind thin, high clouds, then back to the ancient remains. A chill kissed each droplet of sweat on his forehead. Were he a superstitious man, he might fear the old place, rumored to be magic. But Piers Mallory did not believe in magic. Or miracles, or tales of wild people living in the forests, or unicorns. He no longer believed that right always triumphed, or that perseverance made you strong—it only made you weary. He harbored no faith in a benevolent maker, and therefore no fear of demons.
    And so he would rest at the old Foxe Ring. He would rest, and then tomorrow, he would march again.
    Are you certain he’s dead? Hit him again.
    “Oh, I will be certain, Judith,” Piers muttered aloudas he climbed the last hillock leading up to the ruin. “I will be quite certain he is dead.”
    Alys passed the lonely, still time at the Foxe Ring by alternately crying and shivering on the fallen-down slab of rock in the center of the ring. She fancied that perhaps it had long ago been used for pagan sacrifices, and she thought how fitting the idea was as gooseflesh overtook her. She was offering herself up this night, partly in faith, partly in desperation.
    Her newly acquired monkey now kept residence with her other quickly gathered possessions inside the drawstring sack, snuggled up against Alys’s belly. She’d packed a spare amount of clothing, food, and miscellany for herself and the monkey, quite certain that the two of them were hardy enough to spend as many as three nights at the ruin—long enough for Sybilla to feel the shameful pinch of what she’d done and apologize.
    But now Alys cried more out of self-pity than anger at her sister. ‘Twas dreadfully cold—much colder than it had seemed when she’d departed Fallstowe through the herders’ gate. And much colder than she could ever remember being while scurrying about the bailey with her friends in her disobedience to Sybilla. Alys suspected she’d never really felt the cold then because she had no reason to fear it. There was always a warm, comfortable shelter only steps away from wherever she chose to adventure and she’d never given a thought to the idea that she might be unable to retreat to a warm haven once she’d felt the desire.
    She felt like a fool. Like the child Sybilla accused her of being. And so she also cried because she knew she would not last longer than morning at the ruin. She wouldreturn to Fallstowe once the gates were open for the day, defeated, humiliated, and likely with Sybilla never even knowing Alys had spent a cold, lonely night at the old keep. Her defiance had been for naught. Her will, weak. Perhaps simple, watery, whispery Clement Cobb was her ideal match, after all.
    The sack shifted and a small hand poked out of the drawn opening. Alys rose to sit on one hip while she