The flames weren’t going to win. They weren’t going to take Torrie.
Not Torrie.
Not the best of them.
Blackness in front of her. Charred cloth. Seared skin. Her arm, Torrie’s legs.
But the flames were out.
They were out.
Her head twisted.
Jacob. Where was Jacob?
She squinted through the flying embers and smoke.
No.
No, no, no.
He couldn’t have gone back in.
“Jacob. Jacob!” She couldn’t hear her own scream. Didn’t know if her lungs made sound. She couldn’t find her feet. Her head down, battling against the pain that threatened to flatten her to the ground, she dragged herself across the scorched earth toward the cottage.
She hadn’t made it a foot before an explosion of spark and ash flashed in front of her, filling the air. The rest of the roof collapsed inward. A flaming hell searing everything to a crisp. To soot. To nothing.
Jacob. Torrie’s mother, brother and father. All of them.
It didn’t matter that she was still gasping for clean air. Didn’t matter that her burnt left arm hung limply along her body. None of that stopped the raging pain searing through her veins.
She looked up at the corner of the cottage—the one corner that still stood and hadn’t crashed inward with the roof. One of the blackguards that had set a flaming torch onto the cottage roof stood three steps from the flaming corner, watching her, a jeering sneer on his face.
The red that hit her eyes blinded her, blinded her to everything except for the bastard. Vicious fury surged through her limbs and she found her feet, picking up the dagger that Jacob had discarded to the ground.
She charged.
He had to pay.
Someone had to pay.
{ Chapter 1 }
Lincolnshire, England
Late August 1816
Her toes butting up against the weathered grey stone, Sloane craned her neck, looking up at the wall looming before her, thick vines snaking their way upward.
She could do this. She’d done it hundreds of times growing up at Vinehill.
She reached out, her kidskin-gloved fingers wrapping about the hefty vine and tugging it.
Sturdy.
Sturdy enough for her weight.
A quick glance to her right and the soft glow of hundreds of torches lit on the grounds of Wolfbridge Castle flickered around the curve of the tall tower that marked the end of this wall. Between it and the three-quarter moon above, she could just discern the line she would need to take upward to be able to pop into the open window on the third level.