Darkness Embraced Read online

  She came to see me fight in spite of last night. She worried for me.

  Dredd started walking faster, the tunnel seeming miles away as she darted into the shadows. He needed to apologize to her, to risk it all and tell her how he really felt about her. To tell her he loved her.

  ****

  Sloane had voiced her strong opinion to the contrary when Ivy insisted on coming to the Tournament that morning. But Ivy would not be swayed. Though she was still very hurt over Dredd’s words the evening before, she couldn’t stay away.

  Ivy lied when she told Dredd she almost wanted to be his mate. She wanted it, more than anything in the world. No, this wasn’t ideal. This wasn’t smart, or sensible, or safe. This was love. She was sick at the thought of him fighting at The Round, at him being injured or possibly dying, without her there. So here she was. Because she was completely in love with him, even if he was a bastard.

  When she recalled the intimate moments between them, how he touched her, cherished her, pleasured her like she had never known, it was difficult to keep her feelings straight.

  You are only staying long enough to make sure he is safef.

  She wasn’t ready to see him yet, to deal with everything.

  There had been no seats left to buy when she had reached The Round, her only option to purchase a ticket allowing her to stand in one of the ground level tunnels surrounding the arena, where servants and guardsmen watched. Ivy hesitated, feeling claustrophobic at the thought of standing amid countless men in the tunnels but she purchased the ticket and made her way below.

  The minutes ticked by mercilessly slow as she watched what seemed like an endless number of gruesome matches, each one seeming more vile than the one before. Ivy did not understand how the people enjoyed watching this, as man after man gave his life upon the sand for mere entertainment.

  Finally it was Dredd’s match, and her heart was in her throat during the tense moments as he fought the albino from Charron. Ivy wished death upon every person in the stands who cheered when Dredd had been cut and she worried incessantly as blood dripped from the wound.

  But eventually it ended. Dredd defeated Morlac, he was the victor.

  Thank you, Gods.

  Ivy felt such relief that at first she didn’t notice the guardsman come to stand beside her. When she did finally take notice, she grimaced.

  It was Gerard.

  Hells, not now.

  She swallowed uneasily, not prepared to deal with him on top of everything else. And with the tight quarters of the tunnel, Gerard was much too close to her for comfort.

  “Ivy, what a pleasant surprise,” Gerard said, his voice dripping with bad intentions. He encroached on her space until she was backed up against the wall of the tunnel, Gerard’s imposing figure against her front.

  Stay calm.

  “Oh, Gerard! It has been too long,” Ivy replied, scanning her surroundings for a chance of escape. “Too bad that was not long enough.”

  Gerard gripped her upper arms. “Again you disrespect me, when I have been nothing but kind to you. Offering you a chance to live the life of a privileged guardsman’s wife instead of a life cleaning up after whores.”

  “Get your paws off me, Gerard.” Ivy commanded, trying to sound in control as she worked to wrestle free of him. But Gerard was strong, and the guardsman chainmail he wore didn’t help. Her fighting only seemed to excite him until she was pinned roughly between him and the wall. Visions of her night tied to the tree flashed through her mind, and Ivy began to panic. “Get the hells off me!”

  “I think the time to be patient has past,” Gerard said coldly, shoving his forearm against her throat. “I think it is time to take what I want. No one here will try to stop me. I’m a guardsman of Dimm. And you are no better than a whore.”

  Panic escalated to icy fear. They were in a shadowy tunnel, and though there were people around, no one seemed the least bit interested in what was happening. Gerard groped her, moving his hand toward her skirt.

  No way will I be a victim again, Ivy thought angrily. She shifted and managed to knee Gerard directly in his groin.

  “You dirty bitch!” Gerard slapped her and spread her legs apart.

  “No!”

  ****

  That cry still echoed in Dredd’s brain as he reached the tunnel and rushed around the darkened corner where Ivy disappeared, pushing past other people. A guardsmen had Ivy pushed up against the wall, his hand on her breast as he worked to untie his breeches.

  Dredd roared and leapt onto him. Ivy was pushed out of the way and with a quick slash of his sword—still wet with Morlac’s blood—Dredd cut the man’s throat so deep he was almost decapitated.

  As the guardsman lay bleeding out on the ground, Dredd heard Ivy’s alarmed voice.

  “Dredd, you need to go! They’ll kill you!”

  But Dredd didn’t go. He turned toward Ivy, growing more crazed as he took in her pale face and stricken expression. “Are you harmed?”

  “No, no,” She replied hurriedly.

  “Ivy, We need to talk about last night—”

  “Dredd, you have to go! You will be executed for this! There will be too many of them!”

  And then a chorus of loud footsteps echoed through the hallway, bouncing off the rock walls as dozens of guardsmen descended upon them.

  Before he could think of a better plan, Dredd grabbed Ivy’s hand and bolted in the direction opposite the footsteps. Which led them back out into the brightly lit arena, in plain view of all the spectators.

  His mission had been to make it across the floor of the arena to one of the other tunnels and out before the guards could catch up. But obviously orders had gone out amongst all of the guardsmen working The Round. Before Dredd and Ivy could make it two-thirds of the way across, guards were filing out of the openings of each tunnel, surrounding them.

  Many spectators in the crowd, who had been moving to leave, stopped to see what all the commotion was down in The Round. “There was nothing in the program about this!” a few exclaimed with glee.

  Dredd froze, raising his sword as he shielded Ivy protectively against his back. There were fifty or so guardsmen encircling them now. They stopped short, none wanting to take on Dredd while he still held his swords.

  “Drop your weapons, Beast!” came the order from one, his authoritative tone undermined by his cautious stance several feet away from the Ajax.

  Dredd did the exact opposite, raising them for attack. He could easily defeat a dozen guardsmen, maybe more, but fifty was a tall order even for him. Yet he would have to try. “I do not lay down my weapons.”

  “You can’t defeat us all!”

  Dredd’s words dripped with arrogance. “Yes. I can.”

  The guardsman cleared his throat nervously. “If you kill all of us they will simply send more after you. You cannot kill an entire battalion.”

  “You won’t be alive to see it either way. I’ll kill you first,” Dredd pointed his sword menacingly at the speaker.

  There were nervous glances among the men.

  “She will be,” the spokesmen of the group motioned to Ivy. “And I can assure you once you go down—and you will eventually go down—it will go badly for her.”

  The guardsman dared to threaten his female. Everything within him wanted to send that guardsman directly to the afterlife. But he struggled to maintain reason, to determine what to do. He could perhaps, on his best day, kill all these men. But he couldn’t do it and protect Ivy at the same time. She would be in harm’s way.

  Must protect Ivy.

  Dredd had never refused a fight except that long ago day when Annis tricked him. But if he did not do so now Ivy could die. A long heated look passed between the two of them as he stood there, lost in his agonizing decision, knowing she remembered the story he told her just the night before. Had it only been last night when she was in his arms?

  He could fight and she could very likely die, or he could drop his weapons and become a prisoner of the Dark Is
le. One that would surely be beheaded on the morrow. As he felt Ivy’s frightened shivering against him, his decision was made. If he had to sacrifice himself for her, so be it. She, unlike Annis, deserved no less. Ivy was his mate, his love.

  To the surprise of Ivy, the guardsmen, and the crowd, Dredd complied with the guardsman’s request, lowering his arms, ready to let go his swords.

  “You can take me. But first I want her escorted from here unharmed. Any one of you who moves to touch her dies. Send for the Beast named Gryphon at once.”

  The guards rushed to complete his request.

  The audience members were beside themselves with the excitement of what was unfolding. They began chanting on behalf of the guards, obviously ready for the Undefeated Ajax to get what they perceived as his due.

  “Dredd, don’t do this. They will execute you!” Ivy beseeched him, near hysterical.

  Dredd could not look at her. “I must protect you. And this is the only way. I trust Gryphon to see you safely to Doves. Now is not the time to argue.”

  When Gryphon entered the arena, slowly, brandishing his signature sword, Dredd addressed the guards. “Gryphon will take Ivy and escort her to her home. As soon as she has left The Round, I will drop my weapons and you can take me,” Dredd barked. He then turned toward Gryphon. “I trust you to deliver her safely and protect her with your life.”

  Gryphon nodded solemnly, “I will.”

  The guardsmen looked wary, but they parted to allow Gryphon to walk toward them. Ivy clung to Dredd, obviously not trusting the stranger before her. But her trust in Dredd finally allowed her feet to move. As she let Gryphon lead her toward one of the tunnels, she looked toward Dredd one last time, tears spilling over. She angrily shouted to the raucous crowd, “The Ajax is my mate!”

  And as she disappeared from the arena, guardsmen swarmed a disbelieving Dredd, leading him away in chains.

  Chapter 10

  “I will do all the talking to the guards at the gate,” Sloane instructed as the gate came into the view of the trio of women. The village jail was a square two-story brick building, with a ten-foot stone wall built around the outside. There was only one gate, and it was guarded by two men at all times. “Ivy will hang back and sneak in when I give her the signal.”

  “Yes sir!” Folley said as she giggled, just happy to be included in the excursion as Ivy separated from them to hide in the shadows.

  Once Gryphon, who turned out to be a true gentleman, returned Ivy to Doves, she immediately ran to Sloane and began hatching a plan. Sloane was hesitant to help the Ajax at first, but when Ivy told her everything that happened, she agreed and enlisted Folley to help. “Two prostitutes are better than one when it comes to distracting guards,” she said matter-of-factly, as if she had a great deal of experience storming jails.

  Ivy was beside herself over the events at the Round. Dredd had done what he despised most, for her. Tears threatened when she thought of how hard it must have been for him to lay down his weapons in front of everyone. Surely he thought of what happened with Annis, fearing it was happening all over again. And he was going to pay for his sacrifice with his life if she didn’t help him. She knew in that moment, when he went against everything within him to save her, that he loved her. And now he needed her help.

  When the two Doves approached the gate, the guard to the left yelled, “Halt!” He was a rugged and stocky man in his forties, with a no-nonsense expression on his pock-marked face. Ivy gathered he was definitely the one in charge, as the young guard to the right said nothing, simply eyeing them curiously. “What is your business here?”

  Sloane walked a few steps closer to the stocky man, so that the hanging lanterns flanking the gate would better illuminate her appearance. She smiled. “Sir Lionel, it’s me, Sloane.”

  The man’s entire demeanor changed immediately, his expression heating as he gave Sloane an obvious once over. “Why Sloane, you are always a welcome sight. What brings you here this fine evening?”

  “We heard you have the Undefeated Ajax inside and I just had to come check on you. You and the other guardsmen must be so strong and brave to be able to imprison a beast like him.” Sloane came to stand just in front of the Sir Lionel, placing her hand on his chest and fluttering her eyelashes.

  The guard fell right in to the trap, his chest puffing with pride. “You don’t need to worry, Sloane, I was one of the men who brought him in, and he knew better than to try anything.”

  Sloane cooed an appropriate response while Folley moved to chat with the younger guard. Once both men were obviously preoccupied, eyes heavy-lidded as they admired the cleavage of the two beautiful Doves, Sloane signaled behind her back to tell Ivy it was time to make her move. She tried not to think about the serious payback Sloane would demand for this favor as she crept through the gate, no more than five feet behind the oblivious guards. She also tried not to think about the several more guards walking the grounds of the courtyard that she would have to avoid.

  Ivy moved swiftly through the courtyard entry, sticking to the shadows of the perimeter. After several agonizing minutes she made it to a doorway which led to a staircase. As was common with jails of Dominion, all of the cells were located on the second floor to help prevent escape.

  Just as Ivy was about to enter the doorway, a guard making his rounds came too close. Ivy slunk down, making herself flat against the jail wall. Luckily, the man was too busy studying what his cohorts at the gate were doing with the beautiful courtesans. He turned and began walking back the other way, tripping as he never took his eyes off the goings-on.

  The staircase was pitch black, the hanging lanterns in the courtyard providing no illumination to the interior. Ivy crept up slowly, hindered by the darkness and her own apprehension. She didn’t know what to expect when she reached the cells.

  There was a dead end at the top of the stairs with latched doorways to the right and the left. Between the two hung a ring of keys.

  Could it be this easy?

  She grabbed the keys and placed them in her dress pocket. She then took a guess undoing the latch on the door to her right,

  She entered a small room, the entire back half of which was a cell. There was one window, in the front half of the room, on the wall to Ivy’s right, and the moonlight streaming through it served as the only light. But it was plenty for her to be able to see her Ajax.

  He stood in the front right corner of the cell, closest to the window, with his large beefy hands gripping the bars. His towering frame was almost too tall for the low ceiling, his head all but brushing it. The cell was small by any standard, but for an Ajax as large as him, it was even more so. He could walk one end to the other in probably four strides, and since the entire back wall of the cell held a long plank bench with a sad-looking cushion, presumably to serve as a bed, he could probably walk front to back in only a couple moments.

  Ivy’s heart instantly constricted.

  He should never be caged like this.

  His silver gaze pierced her, and his hands clenched and re-clenched the bars. That was his only reaction, though Ivy knew that he had been aware of her presence for awhile. Dredd would have heard her, much less scented her, long before she entered his line of vision. Ivy’s attention was drawn to his still clenching hands. He was a dangerous and proud warrior, brought low because of her.

  She drank in the sight of him, his dirty and disheveled appearance which once disgusted and frightened her, now heartwarming. His hair hung in his face, and she longed to reach out and brush it back.

  She removed the hood of her cloak and he growled menacingly, the exposure of her face to his gaze finally garnering a reaction.

  “Dredd, I—”

  “How did you get in here? You need to leave,” He hissed, managing to sound commanding despite the hushed tones.

  Though it was ridiculous in the circumstances, her feelings were hurt by his harsh tone. She had expected...well, she wasn’t sure what she had expected after everything that had happened
, but it wasn’t his censure. “I have my ways. I came to help you escape.”

  “I do not need your help, little warrior. I but wait for the right moment. These bars will not hold me when I decide to move. But it is not safe for you here. Soon I will come for you and I will take you from this place.” His voice was softer now.

  Despite her thick cloak, Ivy shivered. A part of her bristled at his proprietary tone, thinking the old Ivy would walk right back down those dark stairs the way she came, collecting Sloane and Folley on the way. But the other part of her, the new Ivy, was happy to go with him wherever he wanted to take her.

  She reprimanded him half-heartedly, just because she was starting to like their dance. “I hate it when you talk about me like I’m property to be claimed.”

  Dredd continued to grip the bars rhythmically, his manner intense. He called to her softly, “Not my property. My mate.”

  Something clicked into place inside her. Dredd wanted her. That was the motivating factor behind all of his actions since the moment they met. He simply wanted her to be his. And she wanted that to.

  He continued speaking, slowly and methodically, as if he had rehearsed. “If it is a monster you see before you...I deserve that. I was wrong to say what I said to you last night. And I have done you many other wrongs, which I regret. It is not my wish to hurt you, naya rhum. But I am done playing games. You are mine and you belong with me.”

  She knew there was a storm of emotions swirling inside her Ajax. He spoke this way, with this intensity, because of what happened in the arena. Gerard had touched her, and Dredd had unhinged. He was unhinged still, his primal need to protect her, to claim her, ruling his words and actions. But instead he was apologizing to her, and it was more than she needed to hear.

  She walked up to him, right in front of the bars he gripped. “You will not need to take me, Dredd. There is no need to take what is freely given,” Ivy untied her cloak and it pooled at her feet. She wore an old, comfortable lavender dress with an empire waist. It was far from seductive but she had grabbed the first thing her hands had landed on back in her chamber. She undid it quickly and it joined her cloak on the floor, leaving Ivy in only her shift, her hard nipples visible under the thin fabric. She was aroused, the thought of her proud male claiming her again making her so.