Rab began to close the distance between them. He looked beyond Jack and nodded at the guards, who freed Jack’s hands.
“Lift your arms,” Rab said.
Jack could hear the condescension in his voice, a tone he wanted to rip apart. But he had no choice but to do as Rab said and to allow him to slip the breastplate over his head. The armor settled on Jack’s shoulders, constraining his chest like an unfamiliar embrace. While Rab tightened the leather buckles on the sides, Jack stared at him. The blond stubble that sparsely grew on his chin. The woad tattoo that sat around his neck like a torc. The broken blood vessels framing his nose.
“I believe the last criminal who wore this armor died in it,” Rab said with a sigh, standing back to look Jack over. The guards dutifully bound Jack’s hands together at the small of his back. “I do hope you have better luck, John Breccan.”
“And I must thank you, Rab Pierce,” Jack said. “You believe you have done something grand, something sly. You are quite proud of yourself in this moment but know this: tonight is not my appointed time to die. There are forces at play that you cannot even imagine with your small mind, and one might even say that I was always destined to stand in this moment. You were merely a pawn of the spirits to get me here.”
Rab worked his jaw as he listened. His eyes narrowed, but he managed to scrouge up a sharp-toothed smile and say, “Anything else, Mad Thief?”
Jack returned the scathing smile. “Yes. When I lie beside my wife tonight, when she learns of all you did to bring us back together, I’m sure she will personally want to thank you.”
“Ah yes,” Rab said, stepping closer until Jack could smell the garlic on his breath. “Cora.”
Jack’s stomach wound into a cold knot, listening to the way Rab spoke her western name. How he drew it out. It made Jack want to fill Rab’s mouth with dirt. To slice his tongue into a serpent’s fork. To crack every tooth from his gums and watch him swallow the fragments.
“Perhaps the spirits will be merciful and allow you to bleed out painlessly tonight,” Rab murmured. “Perhaps you will find eternal rest knowing I will keep her bed warm. That I’ll be drawing my name from her mouth in the dark. Because she will never know you were here.”
Jack snarled, his control finally slipping away. He lunged at Rab, teeth bared, but was caught in the mouth as a guard roughly gagged him with a strip of plaid, the wool tasting like smoke and salt.
“Put the moon helm on him,” Rab said tersely. “Check it twice to make sure it’s locked. His face needs to remain concealed tonight, understand?”
Jack strained against the gag, his anger crackling through him like fire. He didn’t register Rab’s words until a dented helm was forced over his head. Jack felt the metal chin strap pull tight beneath his jaw, followed by the unmistakable click of a lock. He was trapped, lost within this heavy helm that afforded him only two slits to see the world. His breaths quickened as he chewed against the gag, but it was knotted tight.
But through the eye holes, he saw Rab cross his arms and grin.
“Coward,” Jack began to say, but the wool muffled his words. He lifted his voice and shouted it again, as clear as he could. “Coward!”
Rab heard him and flinched, but Jack’s time in the dungeons had expired.
The guards hauled him forward, through a door that fed into a stairwell. Up they went through the cold shadows, their footsteps echoing off the walls. Jack had far too much time to think, to let fear ripen and command him. To anticipate the worst, regardless of how confident he had sounded to Rab.
Ascending the stairs, growing closer to his destination, he could sense how the air changed, shedding the dankness of the underground.
Focus! His mind shouted frantically. You’re almost out of time. Form a new plan.
With the gag and a helm locked to his face, Jack’s initial plan to reveal who he was in the arena had crumbled. But instead of focusing on coming up with a new solution, Jack inevitably thought of Rab in Adaira’s bed, and his blood boiled again. Rab had made that remark only to wound Jack, but the thane’s son obviously had forgotten how fiercely wounded creatures fight.
Jack channeled that anger as he finally reached the top of the stairs. It kept him upright as the guards escorted him down a long corridor and through a thick wooden door. But even his fury couldn’t make him oblivious to the terror of an arena built for bloodshed.
He stumbled on the sand and squinted against the brightness of torchlight.
He could hear himself breathe—loud ragged sounds that filled up his helm, warming the metal against his face. His heart faltering, melting like wax down his ribs, he lifted his eyes to the crowd and looked for Adaira. There were so many blue plaids, they were all a blur. But then Jack saw the balcony, and his gaze stopped. His pulse thundered in his ears as he strained his eyes to see . . . yes, it was a woman with moon-blond hair and sharp-cut features, sitting on the balcony with a clear view of the arena.