Page 43 of Heart of the Hunter (Band of Bastards #3)

Lost them because I didn’t follow their trail to their destination but turned back to check on Anora.

Guilt twisted Hunter’s gut again. Twice he’d failed Hawk, and both times it had been because he’d let his emotions overtake his sense.

The fault was not Anora’s, but his own. He’d let her get into his head and it impaired his judgment.

“That is not like you, Hunter,” Hawk said, his voice thick with…skepticism? Concern? Doubt? It didn’t matter which, all of them were a blow to Hunter’s pride. “You have better tracking instincts than my hounds.”

“I—” Hunter stopped talking and clenched his jaw until his teeth were nearly cracking.

That’s how much he dreaded disappointing Hawk.

Or admitting his failure aloud. He could see Bard and Red looking at him with expectant smirks and he wanted to wipe the smug looks off their faces with his fists.

“I was not alone on the ridge. I escorted Galiena’s friend Anora from Oswestry, at her father’s request, and I failed in my duty because of…

an obligation to protect her.” Christ and all his saints!

Why is it so hard to speak the truth? Because even with his most trusted companions, he was not willing to reveal the depths to which Anora had shaken his foundation.

“Anora, you say?” Hawk’s sharp, black eyebrows rose slowly on his face. “ Hmm .”

It was one short, hummed sound, but it felt like the heavy weight of judgment passed on Hunter.

He had to stop himself from shifting on his seat like a chastised boy.

“I made the wrong choice.” Even his tone sounded like that of a petulant child.

“I should have hunted the men down. It is a mistake that will not be repeated.”

“Don’t fail me again, Hunter,” Hawk warned. “Our families and all of Hawkspur are in danger if we do not put an end to the bandits ravishing my tenants’ farms.”

Hunter gritted his teeth again and nodded. “I will find them.”

“I do not have enough men trained yet to station guards at every hamlet and tenant farm,” Hawk lamented, rubbing his knuckles across the short, dark beard covering his chin.

“Bard, I want you to recruit every able man you can find. Hunter, you will lead one of the patrols. And if you catch sight of one of the marauders, you are not to stop until you have run them down or followed them to the ends of the earth. We must catch at least one of them if we are to prove who is behind this.”

“It has to be Payne,” Red growled, “I would wager Montworth is part of it, too.”

“I don’t trust either of them,” Hawk said, “but until we can prove their involvement, we cannot retaliate, or we risk losing the trust of the other lords. We need proof of their duplicity.”

“The worthless arse brutalizes his tenants almost as badly as he does harlots,” Hunter said, his voice rising with his anger.

“That should be enough to gain the backing of the other Marcher lords. He is taxing his tenants to the point of breaking. They are suffering and will likely not have food for the winter. How do noblemen not realize their prosperity depends on their tenants? They deserve at least a measure of the respect they give their horses. Payne is a danger to many, and even if he is not behind the marauding at Hawkspur, he has done more than his share of despicable deeds.”

Hunter scrubbed a hand through his hair, realizing he’d let his anger get the better of him.

When the chamber remained quiet, he lifted his gaze to see all three men staring at him with their brows arched high over wide eyes.

They looked like they had just seen one of the Welsh fairy folk fly across the chamber.

“I’ve known you for a lot of years,” Red said, with feigned shock, “and that is the most I’ve ever heard you say in one breath.”

“What do you make of this strange behavior?” Hawk’s question was directed at Red and Bard, but he kept his eye on Hunter as though he expected him to dart off like a skittish horse.

“He’s been afflicted with it since at least this morning,” Red drawled. “I was on the verge of dragging Anora away from him when he seemed unable to stop talking to her.”

“Is she the disheveled but very lovely lady who was with you at the hamlet?” Bard asked, his overly handsome face breaking into a broad smile that showed his too-white teeth.

“Stay away from her,” Hunter growled. He definitely didn’t want Bard taking notice of Anora. Women swooned over him wherever he went, and for good reason, but if he smiled even once in Anora’s direction, Hunter would have to break his nose and ruin his perfect face.

“I didn’t want to question your methods,” Bard added cheerfully, “but even the wagon managed to make the journey from the hamlet to Hawkspur in an about an hour. Rumor has it you did not arrive until the sun was rising. Did you get lost?”

Hunter glared at both of the men. He opened his mouth to respond to their baiting, but snapped it shut again because every excuse that came to mind was only going to earn him more ridicule.

“Thor’s thunder, he’s in love,” Red said with a stupid grin.

“Shut your gobs, the two of you.” He didn’t need Red goading him to say out loud what he wasn’t ready to admit, even to himself.

Hawk leveled an even gaze at him, his face serious. “Are you in love, Hunter?”

Hunter sighed heavily and buried his hands in his hair as he tipped his head back to stare at the wood planks of the ceiling. “It matters not if I am. She deserves better than the likes of me.”

He snapped his head upright as booming laughter rang through the room from both Hawk and Red. Hawk and Red were his closest friends, but right now he despised them both.

“Do not look so angry,” Hawk chided. “It is what we all say.”

Red nodded. “It’s the telltale sign the affliction really is love. And aye, she does deserve better,” the big Viking continued, with a smirk that Hunter wanted to knock right off his face.

“No sense in fighting it,” Hawk said with a shake of his head.

Hawk and Red knew what it was to fall in love with a woman, but that did not mean they knew what Hunter was going through.

Like him, they were born bastards, and like him, they had learned to make their own way in a world that would dismiss them as unworthy.

But Hawk and Red had found redemption for themselves.

They’d proven their worth to the world. And to themselves.

Hawk was a protector, a leader of men, and a favored knight of the king for his valiant deeds.

Red had saved the life of the king’s son, saved his wife from the clutches of an assassin, and was a breeder and trainer of the most coveted war horses in the realm.

Hunter was beyond redemption; of that he was certain.

He’d been a boy of no more than nine or ten years the first time he’d killed a man for beating a harlot in the bawdy house in which he grew up.

He’d jumped on the man’s back and stuck a blade clean through his neck.

It had taken every bit of his strength to drive it through the sinew and bone.

He’d hung on to the man with one arm around his neck and his long, thin legs wrapped around his waist as the man writhed and lurched to dislodge the dagger and Hunter.

But he’d clung on and twisted the blade until the man slumped to the floor to take his last breath in a thick pool of his own blood.

He’d felt no remorse. By that time in his life, he’d witnessed enough violence, most of it committed against the women, but some of it against him, and he’d vowed he would tolerate it no more.

He couldn’t kill every man who hurt the harlots in the house—the madam had convinced him that would cause more harm than help—but when they crossed the line he’d set in his mind, he would strike.

After the first killing, he had learned to be more discreet, often luring them outside or following them when they’d left, to slit their throats in a dark alley or along a deserted road.

And every time, he’d told himself it was justified because the man dying in his hands could have been the same man who killed his mother when he was only four.

He remembered the event well because he’d been sleeping in the corner of the room on a pile of old blankets.

When the sounds became unfamiliar and frantic, he’d awoken.

He’d tried to stop the man from hurting his mama, but he’d failed.

Hunter could still feel the sting of the back of the man’s hand smashing into his cheek.

His head had felt like it had exploded and then everything had gone black.

In the more than two decades since he’d killed the first man, he’d been judge and executioner without remorse to perhaps a dozen more sadistic and irredeemable men.

For countless others, he’d been their punisher, finding them in the night, bringing them to the edge of death, and while the fear was still in their eyes, convincing them the next time they lifted their hand against a harlot, they would die by his hand.

As a selected warrior in Hawk’s elite army, he’d killed men in battle and assassinated others when summoned by Hawk on behalf of the king to do so, which he did without question or guilt.

It was what he knew how to do, and it had come to define him.

He was skilled at being lethal because he’d sacrificed his soul to the devil all those years ago when it had become apparent God was not meant for men like him and was not present in the world in which he lived.

He was tainted and Anora was perfect. If he had a soul and a conscience, he’d stay as far away from her as possible. The tiny bit of his heart that had not yet turned to stone had tried to protect her from him.

But then she’d touched him, and it was like a balm to his scorched heart.

The beast that raged inside him, that was always clawing to get out, and that he fought with constantly to stay caged had calmed for just a little while.

The part of his brain that told him to run, to hide, to not let anyone near had quieted while she was in his arms.

He didn’t deserve her, but the selfish part of his hardened heart that had started to beat again because of her wasn’t willing to let her go.

“Since you don’t deserve her,” Hawk drawled, “then I trust you will not object to putting some distance between the two of you. I have a job I need done.”

“Of course,” Hunter said evenly, though his stomach curdled at the thought of leaving Anora.

“I want you to go to Gloucester and find out what you can about what Payne was doing there,” Hawk said.

“Find out who he met with and what they discussed. And bring back anything you can about Gilbert de Clare and his latest activities. I want to know everything, even the rumors. I expect you will be gone a few days but try to be back here before the meeting with Payne. I don’t trust him, and I want all of you here to be my eyes and ears. ”

Hunter nodded, then cleared his throat. “There’s one more thing about Payne you should know.”

“What?” Hawk asked warily.

“He is a threat to Anora.”

“How so?”

Hunter explained the relationship between Frode and the old baron, and the current baron’s insistence that Anora become his mistress since she’d refused to become his wife. “That does complicate matters,” Hawk said with a disapproving stare.

“Aye. Payne cannot know that Anora is here.”

“She will be protected,” Hawk assured him. “But I expect you to remember the purpose of your mission and not let your judgment get clouded by your hatred of Payne. If you kill him before we get proof of his duplicity, it will not bode well for you.”

Hunter pinched his lips together to keep himself from saying something regretful.

“I know you are aware of what will happen if you defy me and put your personal vendetta with the baron ahead of my directives.” Hawk narrowed his eyes and glared at Hunter.

“I am,” Hunter acknowledged in a flat tone, meeting his commander’s gaze.

Hawk let out a long sigh. “But it matters not to you, does it?”

Hunter shook his head. “I’ll find out what his business is with Clare, and I’ll not interfere with your meeting as long as he comes nowhere near Anora.”

Hawk pinched the bridge of his nose, obviously frustrated with him. “And after the meeting?”

“He’s a dead man.”