.

ignored him. She kept her eyes on Rhys, studying him intently. She knew not to show fear. She knew not to show weakness. She did not, however, know how much she mattered to Rhys, so consumed as he was with his quest.

      Hoping that her father’s mind was not completely beyond reason, she gestured to the partially dissected cadaver behind them. “That corpse was days dead, father. There’s not much time left in him before his stench drives us to put him in the ground. Give this living man to me. I’ll tend him for a few days. If he dies, he is yours, and no murder or suicide will stain your conscience.”

      Rhys tightened his hand on his scalpel. It was poised over the belly of the man between them. Suddenly Olwyn hated her body, so slim and slight. She simply could not cover the dying man with her form, and her arms, slender and feminine, were no match to Drystan’s strength and her father’s madness. If Rhys chose to plunge it deep into the naked gut stretched out before him, there was nothing Olwyn could do to stop him.

      “I do not care to be dragooned by my own child,” Rhys said, his tone dangerously calm. “How dare you.”

      Olwyn changed her tactic. “Father, I beseech you. If I mean anything to you, anything at all, grant me this man’s life. Please. I am begging.”

      In the yellowish, dingy light of the tallow lanterns, Olwyn saw Rhys’s eyes change. He still looked at her with his penetrative stare, but something changed. She thought he looked hurt, and maybe just a bit embarrassed. As he spoke, her heart broke just a little. “You have never had more of the look of your mother than you do just now, Olwyn.”

      “I am not like her,” she whispered.

      “You think I am a monster.” He sounded distant, but his grip on the scalpel was firm and still poised above the man’s belly. “If you could have gone with her, Olwyn, would you have left me, too? Tell me the truth.”

      Olwyn remembered the day Talfryn had left the keep. The morning had dawned as it always did, but something had been wrong. Fires were lit and breakfast was served, but no mistress presided over the table, and her father had sat with his head bowed. He had turned to Olwyn, who was only three and ten, and said, “You’re the woman of the house now.”

      And now her father dared to ask the question that hung between them all these years. Would she have left with her mother if she’d been asked to go?

      The sting of Talfryn’s abandonment never faded. Nor did the longing for her mother’s touch, scent, and laughter.

      “Of course not, Father,” Olwyn lied. Instead of the truth, she said exactly what she knew Rhys wanted to hear. “My loyalty is to you. I am Olwyn Gawain, the proud daughter of Rhys Gawain.”

      She watched as Rhys’s chest expanded a bit with pride, his chin rising with her words.

      And then he changed again, his mercurial moods dangerous. “You tried to leave.”

      “I told you before, Papa, that I was only hoping to find Mother and bring her home.” The lies burned in her mouth, along with the sting of her own submission to her fate. She’d wanted to escape, had dreamed of it, had planned for it for so long that it had become the only thing that kept her sanity. But after the night when the dogs had attacked her, she’d lacked the courage to try again. “Haven’t I been a good girl? Haven’t I done everything you’ve ever asked of me?”

      Silence filled the space between father and daughter, the only sounds that of dripping water and scurrying rats. They faced each other in the watery, yellow light, with a naked, nearly dead man between them. Drystan turned away, busying himself with tidying up the burlap sacks that the bodies had been brought in. As he folded them, a musical clinking sounded on the stone floor.

      Olwyn did not dare to look to see what made the noise, but kept her eyes on her father’s. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Drystan drop to the floor in search of what had fallen.

      In the flickering light, she saw Rhys’s decision. Olwyn pulled her pistol and took aim. “Drop it. To the floor.”

      Rhys froze; he knew she wouldn’t miss. He let go of the scalpel, and she heard its metallic clank on the stone floor. When she didn’t lower her weapon, Rhys grew angry. “You can’t be serious.”

      “A daughter doesn’t hold a gun on her father if she’s anything but,” Olwyn said flatly. “Take a step back.”

      Rhys twitched, as if he’d been slapped. “You wouldn’t.”

      “If there will be a murder in this dungeon, it won’t be of this defenseless man.”

      Olwyn thought quickly, plans forming fast. No more witch in a crumbling keep, she would take this man and leave Wales, once and for all. Just like her mother before her, she would escape and never be seen again.

      All her nights spent dreaming of running away would finally serve her purpose. She had everything she needed—stolen money and maps given to her by the kindly trader who was the only man who’d ever shown her sympathy.

      She steeled herself, letting every bit of her desire to escape fuel what must be done.

      “Drystan. Grab her,” Rhys commanded.

      “Try it, Drystan,” Olwyn invited with a smile. She spoke to her father then, and truth rang in her voice. “I’ve wanted to shoot him for years, for his perverted perusal of my body, and his disgusting advances when he’s drunk. Go on and risk the life of the only man who has stuck by you since you began your ghoulish obsession. I’ll put a shot between his eyes, and it will not trouble me to do so.”

      Caught as they were in the moment, neither of them noticed that the man lying between them opened his eyes.

      Drystan saw, however, and began whispering a prayer, begging for God’s mercy even as he concealed what he’d found on the floor.

      Rhys’s voice sounded more like a growl, a prelude to violence. “Olwyn, you are playing a dangerous game. Put the pistol down now, and I’ll not punish you overmuch.”

      “Step away from this man,” she countered, her voice ringing off the wet stones of the dungeon walls.

      With every word, Rhys grew louder and louder, until he was shouting, “And then what? Will we go on with our lives, with me pretending my daughter did not pull her traitorous weapon on me, and threaten my life?”

      “No,” Olwyn answered calmly. “We won’t.”

      She gestured to Drystan, snapped her fingers. “Drystan, take my father, by force or willing, I care not.”

      Drystan’s eyes flicked from the man between them to Rhys, and then again to Olwyn. He seemed to be weighing the course of least danger.

      “That’s right, Drystan. I will kill you if you don’t obey me,” Olwyn said with a certain amount of cheer. She withdrew her dagger. The hilt fit perfectly in her small hand. “Take him and put him in the cell.”

      “This is madness!”

      “Now, Drystan, or I’ll plant my blade in your gut and still have a shot to finish you.”

      Both men knew Olwyn capable. And she suspected that Drystan heard the ring of sincerity in her words, for he moved to Rhys. Rhys scrabbled away and put up a fight, but Drystan was younger, faster, and much stronger. He grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to the nearest cell, pushed him inside, and slammed the door shut.

      “Turn the lock and bring me the key.”

      “I’ll beat you senseless, girl! I’ll whip the skin off your back,” Rhys raged, his fists tight around the iron bars.

      Olwyn ignored him. “Carry the man up, wrap him in furs and blankets.”

      “He’s awake,” Drystan whispered.

      Olwyn glanced down and saw that the man had indeed awakened. He stared at her intently. She’d wondered what color his eyes would be.

      Blue.

      Deep,