Sterling stopped suddenly and glared at her, then grinned.

The blow came so fast and so unexpected Willow barely had time to blink. It sent her tumbling off the stone, her head hitting the ground and blood pouring from her lip that she felt already swelling.

“Something to anger him and make him lose control,” Sterling snickered.

Willow got to her feet and went to wipe the blood away with the edge of her cloak.

“Don’t,” Sterling ordered. “It looks much worse with the blood.”

Willow remained on her feet and kept a steady eye on Sterling, ready to avoid another blow if necessary. She wondered what her sister Sorrell would have done in this situation. She would have tried to escape him by now or she would have driven him crazy with her endless chatter and curiosity.

That gave Willow a thought.

“How is it that you and Sterling resemble each other?” she asked.

“That’s a tale better left for Slatter to hear,” he said with a chuckle.

“If I were to take a guess, I would say you both have the same father but different mothers and seeing what an evil man you are leaves me to assume your father is just as evil. Slatter’s mum must have realized it and wisely left him.”

“She was a whore and her son a bastard. Neither of them meant anything to my father,” Sterling snapped, then turned an angry glare on her.

“Perhaps but she outsmarted him, running off, no doubt, to keep her son safe,” Willow said a slight snicker to her tone.

His hand shot out, but Willow was prepared and he stumbled forward missing her.

“Willow!”

She turned and ran at the sound of her husband’s voice, though she hadn’t spotted him, barely missing Sterling’s hand that reached out again to grab her.

“Willow!”

Her husband continued to call to her, his voice filling the surrounding woods and she was so excited when she spotted him that she didn’t see that Sterling had gotten close. His hand clamped around her neck, jolting her to a stop.

Sterling dragged her to the middle of the clearing where they had been waiting, and she gasped for a breath since his grip was tight.

“Let her go, you’ve got what you wanted now… me,” Slatter said, rushing into the clearing. He kept his eyes on his wife, not only seeing the fear in her eyes, but feeling it, and it wasn’t only fear for herself that dominated both, but for him.

Sterling shoved Willow away and when she went to run to her husband, she saw one of the two men that flanked her husband had a blade pointed at his back, and she stopped where she was.

“Dunn would only be too glad to stick Slatter as he did his grandmother,” Sterling said, his grin smug.

Dunn laughed, poking Slatter with the tip of the blade, not drawing any blood, just enough of a poke to let him know what awaited him. “The old crone failed to give me what I came for so I left her to die a slow death. You’ll have a slow death yourself while watching us enjoy your wife.”