She nodded, her lip trembling again. “You are being so sweet . . . thank you.”

He shook his head, drew her into his arms, and dropped a soft kiss on her mouth. “I love you, sweetheart. Never forget it.”

She gave him the first smile—if a bit tremulous—since she’d entered the room. “I won’t.”

He left her—reluctantly—and paused to hear the door lock behind him before heading down the tower stairwell and out into the yard. He had just entered the corridor outside the Great Hall when he saw a door open and Sir Phillip Gifford straggling out, holding his hand over his hip.

Not dead, then.

At least not yet.

Rage unlike any Alex had ever experienced flashed through him like a lightning bolt. It didn’t build or grow, it didn’t give him time to think or rationalize, it was just there. Dominating. Permeating. Clouding his vision in a red haze.

Gifford barely made it out of the room before Alex’s fist to his jaw sent him soaring back into it. Foolishly, he tried to get up. Alex hit him again. And again. Gifford tried to say something, but Alex wasn’t hearing it. All he could see was the man who’d tried to rape the woman he loved.

He struck blow after blow, pummeling him to the ground until he didn’t get up. And still it wasn’t enough.

Alex drew out his dagger, lifted the “knight” up by his surcoat, and held the blade to his throat. For the first time in Alex’s life he knew the kind of raw hatred and murderous rage that could make a man forget honor, chivalry, and whatever other tethers of humanity kept him fit for a society. Brigand. The old accusations he’d hurled at Boyd came back to him. Maybe he had more of it in him than he realized.

Gifford must have read the murder in his gaze through his swollen, half-lidded, and bloody gaze. “P-please . . .”

“Mercy?” Alex seethed. “Shall I give you as much mercy as you were going to show my betrothed? How does it feel, Gifford, to be at the mercy of someone stronger and more powerful than you?”

“I didn’t do anyth—”

A fresh wave of rage surged through him. “Don’t,” Alex warned. “Deny it or say one word against her, and it will be the last lie you ever speak.”

If Gifford’s eyes could have widened, they would have. They flashed with fear. “S-sorr-ry.”

Alex tossed him back with disgust. The man was nothing but a coward. He stood over him. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

For once Gifford showed a spark of intelligence and didn’t respond.

Alex looked down at him in disgust. He wasn’t worth it.