“
The men are ready to ride,” Ioan said as he came up the stairs behind him.
Christian nodded. “Knowing Adara, I’m sure we’re already packed as well. I just need to don my armor and I, too, will be ready.”
Ioan was about to leave him when they heard something shatter inside Christian’s room. A heartbeat later, Adara screamed.
Terror, panic, and anger descended on Christian as he swung open the door to find her in the room with two other men who were trying to hold her down. “I’ll make you pay for that, bitch,” the one holding her said as he tore open her gown.
Christian flew across the room, ready to kill them both. He grabbed the one holding his wife and knocked him against the wall, then turned to knock the other one back. But when the one who had touched her came back to swing at him, he lost all control.
All he could see was the man ripping Adara’s gown, the terror on her face. He slugged her assailant repeatedly, then grabbed his head and banged it against the floor until he felt Ioan pulling him back. “Christian, stop! You’re going to kill him.”
Enraged beyond reason, he slammed the man’s head against the floor one last time, then turned on the other, who was pushing himself up from the floor. His lip was busted as he stared at Christian in disbelief.
“Go see to Adara,” Ioan snapped, pulling him away from the other attacker. Needing to make sure she was all right, Christian went to her. She was huddled on the floor, weeping. “Shhh,” he said soothingly as he pulled her into his arms. She looked up at him, her lips quivering, to show him her battered face. It was more than he could stand. Rising, he went after her attackers again, only to find Ioan blocking his way. “Get out of my way, Ioan, or I’ll thrash you, too. I mean it.”
Ioan refused to budge. “Let the sheriff handle this.”
“Why are you so angry?” the taller attacker asked. “You are one of us. ’Tis only fair we take a Saracen whore—”
Christian shoved Ioan away from him as he lunged for the man and cut his words off with a vicious backhand. “That is my wife you speak of, you bastard. My wife you attacked.”
The color faded from the man’s face.
Suddenly Phantom was there, pulling him back as Ioan came forward. “Let go of me!” Christian shouted. “I want justice.”
“I can’t let you hurt them, Christian,” Ioan said apologetically. “They are the ones who have just come back with Agbert and Dagger. They spent the past seven years in a Saracen prison.”
Still, he fought against Phantom’s hold. “It doesn’t give them the right to attack an innocent woman, and most especially not mine.”
“Nay, it doesn’t,” Ioan agreed. “I will see them into the sheriff’s custody.”
Far from appeased, Christian finally succeeded in shoving Phantom away from him to return to Adara’s side.
”
”