Page 111 of A Vow of Embers

If I could get to his eyes ... I thrashed my hands up toward his face and felt a blade cutting down into my left forearm, burning as it went.

There was more than one attacker here.

Instinct had me opening my mouth to scream but I forced myself to stop. I would only fill my lungs with water and drown faster. I had to concentrate. Focus. I didn’t have a sword. I had left the xiphos on my bed.

Stupid girl, a warrior should never be more than an arm’s length away from her weapon!

I had to think my way out of this. What could I do? Continuing to struggle, pushing against the man trying to drown me, I snuck my hand out to feel along the pool’s edge until I found what I was looking for.

One of my long dress pins. I grabbed it and brought it up to where I thought his head would be, slamming it into his neck. The hands went slack and he fell into the water above me. I raised my head above the surface for a moment, grabbing a deep breath before going back under.

It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I didn’t want to drown but I couldn’t make myself an easy target by climbing out of the pool. They would cut me down before I was even halfway out. I looked up, trying to see how many men were in the room.

A hand dived into the water and I went under the dead body, using it as a shield, making it so they couldn’t reach me. There was yelling, but it was distorted. They were carrying torches, making the room brighter. I had to think. I didn’t know how many attackers there were. I didn’t have a weapon. I began to feel along the body, trying to see if he had something attached to him. I came up with a small dagger. It was better than nothing.

Someone yanked hard at my hair. I hadn’t even thought of that—how it would float up and give away my position. I struggled against the man as he pulled me clear of the pool, out onto the tile floor.

“Look what I landed!” he called out to the others.

With his free hand he hit me as hard as he could in the face, and my head rang. I had to push past it, protect myself.

He raised his sword and I took the dagger and cut the tendons across the back of his heel. He let out a scream of pain as he dropped to the floor, no longer able to stand. I immediately backed away from him. I counted four other men besides him. And I only had a dagger and was bleeding heavily from my arm.

One of the men came forward and swung his sword at me. I ducked and backed into the wall. They’d cornered me.

Demaratus is going to kill me.

“Lia! Lia!” Someone was furiously calling my name and banging on the door.

It was Xander. My husband had come to save me. How had he known?

“Xander! Help me!” I screamed back.

One, two, three times he banged against the door. The man who’d attempted to hit me stood still in front of me, probably wondering whether he could cut me down before Xander came in the room. One of the attackers shouted back, “We just want the Locrian!” and the others were yelling at each other, trying to find something to brace the door shut.

“Grab the girl!” someone said, and the assassin closest to me reached out his hands. I gripped my dagger tightly, readying myself.

Right then the door flew off its hinges, skidding along the floor. Xander stepped into the room and I had never seen him this angry. He burned with glorious, righteous wrath, here to mete out divine punishment to anyone who dared oppose him.

“Get away from my wife!” he roared.

He threw me a sword and then he started swinging.

It had been unnecessary for him to give me a weapon. The fight was over in seconds. If I had thought him incredible when he fought the pirates, that was like a single raindrop compared to a full rainstorm. He moved like a man possessed, cutting through the assassins like they were made of water, his blade never slowing, never stopping. When he came to the last man standing, Xander impaled him with his broadsword, lifting the assassin up in the air before slamming the body back onto the ground. He withdrew his blade and surveyed his work—every attacker who had tried to challenge him lay dead on the floor.

The man whose tendons I had cut, the one who had pulled me out of the water, lay on the floor and was laughing. “Your whore is going to die and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“No, wait, we need one alive!” I called out just as Xander twirled his broadsword in a circle only to bring it down straight into the man’s skull.

Too late.

Now we’d never know who had sent the assassins after me.

He dropped his sword and came over to me, picking me up in his arms. I clung to him, shivering. Not only because I was cold and wet and naked but because I had been so sure I was going to die. He took me back into the bedroom and sat me down on the bed. He let go of me and I didn’t want that. I needed him.

“Don’t leave me,” I pleaded.

“I’m not leaving you,” he said. He grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around me tightly, then pulled me into his lap. “I won’t ever leave you again.”