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if you want something done right, do it yourself.”
    He puller her closer. “If you have anything else to say to me, my lady, you would do well to choose your words carefully.”
    His hands on her, thighs on either side of her, and breath on her face, were almost enough to make her believe he was real. Only a figment. He holds no more power over you than the next dream.
    “Do you understand?”
    “What is there not to understand?”
    He stared at her, then released her arms and turned her forward. Before she could gulp down the view from atop the horse, he gripped an arm around her waist and spurred the animal through the trees.
    She was riding sidesaddle. How much worse could it get? Though she tried to shut out memories of her last horse ride, she remembered exactly how bad it could get. She squeezed her eyes closed. Where was Wynland taking her? And if murder was on his mind, why the stay of execution? No one would hear if she cried out—
    He wasn’t alone. The thundering of hooves had surely been of many riders, meaning others could have seen her flight. Fortunate for her, unfortunate for Wynland.
    She opened her eyes. Trees sped by at breakneck blur, the forest floor rose and fell, shafts of sunlight blinded.
    She retreated behind her lids again and was all the more aware of the hard body at her back and the muscled arm against her abdomen, the sensation so real she felt the beat of Wynland’s heart through his armor. She chalked it up to it being a long time since she had been in a man’s arms, which was more her fault than her ex-husband’s. Graham would have held her if she had let him, but the marriage had coughed its last long before the onset of her illness. Kennedy Huntworth was no more—not that she had gone by her married name. At the urging of Graham’s mother, she had retained her maiden name for “professional purposes.” In the end, it had worked out for the best. Or was it the worst?
    Wynland dragged his horse to a halt, and a grateful Kennedy opened her eyes, only to wish she hadn’t.

CHAPTER THREE

    H e had returned her to the gore, the smell of butchery. Add to that twenty armored men who moved among the dead, impervious to the horror, it should have awakened her in a cold sweat. Instead, the dream gripped her more fiercely.
    One of the soldiers, a man who aspired to just over five feet, stepped from the upset wagon. Like several of the others, but unlike Wynland, he wore a white sleeveless shirt over his armor, the breast embroidered with a green shield dissected by a black cross. Perched on the shield was something like a dragon.
    The man shook his head. “All dead, my lord.”
    Kennedy searched out the one who had spoken of the medallion. He stared wide, but he had seen his last living day.
    “Thieves?’ Wynland asked.
    The soldier strained his neck to look up at him. “’Twould appear so, my lord. The king’s men have been stripped of armor and weaponry, their horses taken and, excepting a trunk beneath the wagon, all of the lady’s belongings are gone.”
    “You have searched the attackers’ bodies?”
    “There are none to search, my lord. More, the ground is bloodied only where the king’s men lie.”
    Kennedy felt Wynland’s disbelief. He probably hadn’t expected his hitmen to fare so well against the king’s soldiers. How convenient for him.
    “’Tis like nothing I have seen,” the soldier said. “As if—”
    “—they knew their attackers,” Wynland finished, then more gruffly, “Is that how ‘twas, Lady Lark?”
    His charade was for the benefit of his men, but as much as she wanted to set the fools right, she knew it was a battle best left for when Wynland wasn’t so near. She looked over her shoulder. “I don’t recall.”
    His left eyebrow arched on either side of the scar, forming a sinister M. “Do you not?”
    “I. . .hit my head.” She rubbed a spot above her right ear.
    “You were attacked?”
    Kennedy feigned offense. “You ask that with all