Scarlet Moon (Once Upon a Time) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the great beasts shoulder, he nickered softly.
    “He likes you,” William said, his tone sincere.
    “The feeling is quite mutual. He’s a wonderful animal.”
    She returned the file to William. “Can you get me one of the shoes hanging from the first nail on thewall, closest to me. I also need a hammer and some nails from the table below it.”
    He grabbed the things she needed and handed her the hammer, the shoe, and one of the nails. He stood close at hand with the rest.
    She fitted the shoe onto the stallion and drove the first nail into the hoof easily. William placed the next one into her outstretched hand, brushing her fingers with his own. Her skin warmed at the contact, but she tried not to think about it.
    Ruth finished quickly and patted the horse on the shoulder. “Thank you for your assistance,” she told William as she let herself out of the stall.
    “The pleasure was mine,” William said with a smile. “What do I owe you?”
    She shrugged. “Let’s call it even. After all, you did save me from having to kill the tanner.”
    The smile disappeared, and the steel returned to his gaze. “Dear lady, I would have killed him myself before I would have let you stain your hands with his miserable blood.”
    She didn’t know what to say, so she just stood, staring mutely into his eyes. Suddenly he bent closer, and for one heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to kiss her. Instead he whispered low and fierce, “Thank you.”
    “For what?” she breathed.
    He smiled grimly and shook his head before moving to the stall and leading his horse out. He leftthe shop without a word or a backward glance. Ruth walked to the door and watched as he mounted his horse and rode off. Puzzled and feeling slightly dazed, she turned back inside and saw a small pouch sitting on the table next to the file she had used on his horse’s hoof.
    She picked it up and gasped when she saw that it was filled with coins. “Thank you,” she whispered.
    William’s head was spinning as he galloped his horse toward the castle. The girl had seemed so familiar to him; something about her had called to him, but he didn’t know what it was. He hadn’t even found out her name, though her face would forever haunt his dreams. For a moment he had been able to forget all the darkness in his life and he had felt truly free.
    Freedom was not his, though, no matter how much he yearned for it.
Mine is a life already destined, the course of my future plotted, thanks to the actions of my ancestors and this legacy they left me.
He cursed his fate as he spurred his mount on.
    Minutes later the hooves of his steed clattered on the stones in the castle courtyard. He slid from the stallion’s back and tossed the reins to a waiting servant.
    He strode into the main hall of the castle, his boots causing hollow echoes to sound throughout, until he reached the great wall, where a portrait of each marquis of Lauton hung. His father’s was at the end, and next to it was a space where William’s wouldone day hang when his father was dead and he, himself, was marquis.
    He glared at the wall. Four centuries of Lautons all stared back at him, their eyes accusing him as they always did. “I have done nothing to deserve this,” he hissed.
    He looked at each portrait in turn, beginning with the first—William, his namesake. All of them had the same strong jaw, the same high cheekbones, the same wavy hair. There was one thing that not all of them shared, however. The first six Lautons did not have it, but all the rest did. All the rest had a darkness to them, a hungry, predatory look in their eyes. William knew that look; he had seen it in his own eyes when staring into pools of water.
    The eyes mocked him, and he hated them for that. He turned back to the first portrait with those eyes and stood before it for a long time, unmoving. Finally, in a voice hoarse with rage, he asked, “Why?”
    The portrait, as always, refused to answer.
    As Ruth sat down to