Warrior Untamed Read Online Free Page B

features.
    “I’m the only one here who’s seen the sword. I’m the only one who can easily recognize it.” Her gaze lit on the Tinkler wagon and the blonde perched on the seat staring curiously at them. “And I ken that the lad who’s taken it is too close to his cousin not to come looking for her.” She pointed toward Eleyne, feeling confident she’d made her case.
    “Perhaps you have a point, Brie,” her brother acknowledged, a smile breaking over his face ashe reached out to tug on her braid. “And now that you’ve shared yer knowledge with us, it seems that wee golden-haired lass looking in our direction might be the one we need at our sides to help us capture our thief, rather than you.”
    Brie stood rooted to her spot in disbelief, her mouth open, watching as her brother and his friends left her behind in their haste to reach the Tinkler wagon.
    Damn him! Damn them all if they thought she’d give up so easily. If this was how it was to be, she didn’t need them. Not any of them. If she’d learned anything from her harrowing experience at Tordenet, it was that she was much stronger than any of them knew. Stronger even than she had known.
    With a deep breath, she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders before starting toward the keep.
    Jamesy’s rebuke was but a minor setback, of no more importance than Halldor O’Donar’s refusal to take her with him. She didn’t need either one of them. She could do this on her own. Once she was rested she’d figure out a plan, and then she’d be on her way to find Mathew and retrieve the sword.
    And if doing that meant going it alone, so be it. She’d show them that she wouldn’t be left behind.
    The fact that it was Halldor’s face, not her brother’s, that she saw in her mind’s eye as she stomped up the stairs to the keep of Castle MacGahan was something she refused to waste her time worrying over.

F ive
    N OW THAT I think upon it, mayhap I do have a memory of the lad you mention.” The old stable keeper gazed down at the coin cradled in his dirty palm, his toothless smile almost invisible within his grizzled beard. “It was a fine mount I sold the lad. A fine, fine animal.”
    Hall studied the other man’s eyes, noting the deception pooled there. Whatever he learned from this conversation would have to be well vetted before he acted upon it.
    “And?”
    He expected better than that poor tidbit for the money he’d just handed over.
    The stable keeper scratched his whiskers, nodding as if to himself. “And? There is no and. That’s all I ken of the one you seek. The lad left here on an excellent steed, headed for I know not where.” The man’s eyes darted over Hall’s shoulder, and he shook a fist. “Out of there, you lazy cur! Get back to yer chores!”
    Hall turned, catching sight of a young boy scurrying out through a small door at the side of the stable.
    “Damned worthless stableboy,” the old man grumbled. “Not worth the oats it takes to feed him. Always sneaking around, listening in on me. Like as not, he steals me blind when I’m no watching.”
    “Perhaps if you were to think harder,” Patrick suggested, encouraging the old man back onto the proper topic. “Perhaps then you might remember something else about our friend. Perhaps even the direction he took when he left.”
    Hall’s companion held out another small coin.
    The stable keeper allowed Patrick to drop the coin in his palm but continued to hold the hand open, as if he waited for more. With his other hand, he continued his incessant face-scratching.
    It was clear to Hall they’d about exhausted this source of information. The old man might know more, but he obviously wasn’t going to share that knowledge.
    But perhaps there was another resource close at hand.
    “I’ve a need to relieve myself. Maybe by the time I return, your memory will have improved.”
    Outside the smelly stable, Hall quickly caught sight of the real reason he’d come outside. The stableboy