Cloaked
Table of Contents
Excerpt
Cloaked
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
A word about the author…
Thank you for purchasing
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“Please, whatever you are,” Henry begged, “don’t hurt us. Please.”
There was no answer, but Charlotte heard the rustle of fabric and a felt a light breeze on her skin as the shadow whisked by her. She whirled around to face the cell across from Henry’s. Through the haze of her torchlight circle, Charlotte watched as the shadow knelt down, freeing a hand holding a key from the depths of a long, black cloak. With the telltale rasp of iron on iron, the door to the other cell creaked open.
The stranger crept soundlessly inside, returning seconds later with a body slung over its shoulders. The body emitted a low groan, and the shadow lowered its burden to lean against the wall. With unexpected care, the shadow crouched over the emaciated prisoner and murmured softly to him.
Seeing this spark of humanity gave Charlotte the courage she needed. “Help us.” It was a statement, not a question.
The cloaked figure remained kneeling next to its charge, and a man’s voice finally spoke in a low rumble. “But you have nothing to offer me.”
Charlotte hesitated at his unexpected statement, trying to decipher its meaning. “Free my brother, and you can have anything you want.”
Cloaked
by
Taylor Hobbs
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Cloaked
COPYRIGHT © 2018 by Taylor Hobbs
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com
Cover Art by Debbie Taylor
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Tea Rose Edition, 2018
Print ISBN 978-1-5092-2151-6
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-2152-3
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
For Conor
Chapter One
Naked as the day she was born, Charlotte felt the earth’s grip tighten around her with an unyielding hold. Fighting claustrophobic panic, she tried filling her lungs with as much cold, damp air as her narrow confines allowed. Her ribs scraped against the rough stone, hands raw and oozing from dragging her body up from the sewers like an earthworm struggling to reach the surface. The tunnel was too tight, and her shallow breaths would not be enough to sustain her, to keep her conscious.
Charlotte winced as her elbow caught a stone’s razor edge, and the warm blood that welled up caused an involuntary shiver as it trickled down her body. Maybe it will help get me unstuck, she thought, grimacing.
By that point, the scrape only added one more to the hundreds of cuts that marred her skin, but the pain did nothing to make her regret the decision to forgo clothing. It would have gotten in the way, and scars didn’t bother her. None of it would matter if she died there anyway, lodged in the drain, as tight as a cork in a wine bottle. Charlotte wondered how long it would take for someone in the castle to discover her body. Probably weeks, if ever, because the smell of her tiny, decomposing figure would blend in with the rancid aroma wafting up from below.
Curling her toes, she tried to find purchase to scoot herself forward up the diagonal slope. With trembling muscles, Charlotte willed herself to concentrate as she fought off another threatening cramp. A thick blanket of absolute darkness pressed against her eyeballs, making her head throb in confusion as she tried to figure out how much further she needed to go.
What if I miscalculated? she thought. I should be there by now. She blinked hard, vision straining for a hint of light. Still nothing.
Charlotte bit her lip, wanting to scream in fear and frustration before realizing that a strangled yell would only waste precious energy. Blood filled her mouth, refocusing her rage as she spit it out to mingle with the surrounding filth.
Move or die, she told herself. And she really didn’t want to die.
Reach, pull, reach, pull. It might have been Charlotte’s imagination, but it seemed that the confines of the drain were widening ever so slightly. This hope spurred her on as she clawed faster, the cold reduced to a memory as sweat slicked her skin. When her lungs expanded enough to take in her first deep breath, she almost cried with relief. The faintest hint of light appeared in front of her, a gentle flickering that shone down into the drain from above.
With the promise of freedom so near, it took all of Charlotte’s self-control to maintain her quiet approach. If she got caught, then her journey would have been for nothing, and she might as well have sent her brother to the hangman herself.
Finally positioning herself under the grate covering the top of the drain, Charlotte listened and waited for her opening. She could hear the shuffling of other people but was unable to distinguish if they were prisoners or guards. The sound of quiet sobbing reached her hiding place. Thunderous steps slammed on the grate overhead, startling a tiny squeak out of Charlotte’s mouth. She fervently hoped it sounded like a mouse.
“Boy!” a man roared.
The prisoner hiccupped once, and then the crying ceased, already anticipating the rant that followed.
“Shut yer trap, or I’ll do it for ya. Jus’ have to tell the duke you accidentally choked on yer own tongue. He won’t be pleased, but I wager he can still get some sort of information outta you tomorrow.” He chuckled. “Standin’ duty for an old fool and a whelp. Keep me up all night, and fer what? Not like they’re goin’ anywhere…” The guard’s footsteps faded away, and Charlotte heard a heavy door slam.
Now or never, she thought, and braced herself for the next part of her plan.
With just enough room to crouch in her hiding place, Charlotte reached up to her plaited hair and pulled a long, lethal pin out of the tangles. Clenching the weapon in her hand, she pushed her shoulders up against the heavy grate with a bowed head, willing it to give. After the long crawl, her arms were next to useless. The metal groaned but remained in place.
Undeterred, Charlotte contorted herself to press her bare feet up against the last barrier to the outside world. Pins and needles pricked her legs as blood flow shot to the muscles. All the fear and uncertainty of what lay beyond disappeared as she pushed the barrier with all her might, forgetting to care that it opened into a dungeon.
The grate conceded the struggle, popping into the air before landing on the stone floor with a reverberating clang. Cringing at her stupidity, Charlotte remained frozen in the
drain, clutching her weapon. She waited for the guard to return, determined to do some damage if he laid a hand on her.
“What was that?” a familiar voice asked.
Henry, please, for once in your life, be quiet, Charlotte prayed. She imagined her brother’s wide eyes looking around in panic for the source of the noise. How anyone could ever think he was capable of treason, espionage, and the rest of the numerous charges brought against him, Charlotte had no idea.
As the moment stretched and the guard still hadn’t appeared, Charlotte’s heartbeat slowed. She raised her head, and her eyes sparkling in the torchlight gave the only evidence of her location. While she stood up slowly, her damaged body merged with her surroundings, the dirt and filth and mud camouflaging her within the prison. She threw one leg over the edge of the drain and clambered up.
Charlotte shook off a wave of dizziness that threatened to overcome her as she stumbled forward. Pools of blood formed at her feet, leaving bloody tracks as she made her way over to her brother. The boy crept forward in his cell, propelled by a morbid curiosity to see the person mad enough to break into a dungeon through the sewers.
“Henry,” Charlotte whispered.
At her voice, her brother stumbled backward onto his rear. He was thinner than when she had last seen him, even though it had been a mere four days. His lips were chapped, eyes red from crying, snot ran down in rivulets from his nose, and Charlotte had never seen a more wonderful face.
Henry crawled to the bars of his cell and pulled himself upright. “Are you real?” he asked, reaching for her.
Charlotte closed the gap between them, clasping his hand within her bruised and bloody one. She felt for broken bones in the hand she gripped, and was relieved to find none. That was good; it meant the duke hadn’t started on the torture yet. From the information she had gathered earlier in the week, Duke Belaq rarely deviated from his preferred routine with the prisoners—namely, leaving them to imagine all the horrors he would inflict before personally administering them.
“How did you get here?” Henry asked. “They said they were going to torture me tomorrow! Why won’t they believe me? I’ve already told them, I don’t know what they’re talking about!”
“Keep your voice down,” Charlotte hissed. “I’m here to get you out.”
“Out? Escape? How are we going to escape? This place is a fortress.”
Charlotte pursed her lips as she pulled away from her brother, her attention already on the cell lock keeping them apart. Kneeling down, she slipped her metal hairpin into the mechanism. Her deft fingers searched for the right touch that would spring the lock, but it eluded her. Every passing second increased the possibility that the guard would return, and Charlotte’s adrenaline began to betray her. Her hands shook, and she slipped again. “Blast!”
“Charlotte?”
“What?”
“I think I heard something.”
Charlotte froze, ears straining as she realized her brother was right. She slowly removed the pin from the lock, hardly daring to breathe as they both stood, terrified, wholly unprepared to face whatever came through the door.
But instead of the guard barreling through to apprehend Charlotte, the door opened with hardly a creak. A shadow glided into the room, sweeping over to extinguish all but one of the torches with a seamless movement. The dungeon plunged into darkness, save for the small circle of light that surrounded the siblings.
The warm light that still illuminated Charlotte was anything but a comfort. Acutely aware that the mystery shadow could now see her while she couldn’t see it, she whipped her head back and forth. She risked a glance at Henry, who opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.
“Whoever you are, j-just leave us alone,” Charlotte said, cursing herself internally for the tremble in her tone. Her order sounded less than menacing, and she could only imagine how she looked in her vulnerable state, unable to at least orient herself to face his attack.
“Please, whatever you are,” Henry begged, “don’t hurt us. Please.”
There was no answer, but Charlotte heard the rustle of fabric and a felt a light breeze on her skin as the shadow whisked by her. She whirled around to face the cell across from Henry’s. Through the haze of her torchlight circle, Charlotte watched as the shadow knelt down, freeing a hand holding a key from the depths of a long, black cloak. With the telltale rasp of iron on iron, the door to the other cell creaked open.
The stranger crept soundlessly inside, returning seconds later with a body slung over its shoulders. The body emitted a low groan, and the shadow lowered its burden to lean against the wall. With unexpected care, the shadow crouched over the emaciated prisoner and murmured softly to him.
Seeing this spark of humanity gave Charlotte the courage she needed. “Help us.” It was a statement, not a question.
The cloaked figure remained kneeling next to its charge, and a man’s voice finally spoke in a low rumble. “But you have nothing to offer me.”
Charlotte hesitated at his unexpected statement, trying to decipher its meaning. “Free my brother, and you can have anything you want.” Desperation clouded her judgment, but Charlotte was out of options.
Her original plan hadn’t been strong to begin with, and this stranger offered the chance for her and Henry to actually get out of the situation alive. The only plan Charlotte could come up with in four days was to crawl through the sewer, free Henry with her hairpin, evade the guard, and then run like hell through the castle until they stumbled upon a way out. There was a strong possibility it was a suicide mission, but Charlotte wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if she hadn’t made every attempt to save her little brother.
Her definitive statement must have piqued the shadow man’s interest, because he shot up onto his feet, toeing the line of her illuminated circle. She refused to shrink back, and held her ground while he towered over her.
“It is not wise to make open-ended promises,” he murmured, face cloaked in his hood. “Then again, you slipped into a dungeon of your own volition, so maybe wisdom is not your strength.”
Jutting out her chin, Charlotte said, “Maybe not. But I’m not letting you leave here until you open Henry’s door.” She swore she heard him chuckle, but it was covered up by the groans of the prisoner on the floor.
“We haven’t much time.” The cloaked man pushed past her and pulled out the key. Moments later, Henry stumbled out and embraced his sister.
“This is where I leave you,” the shadow man said, turning his attention back to his charge.
“You can’t leave us!” Charlotte said, and then winced at the echo. She tensed, hoping that her outburst hadn’t put them all in jeopardy.
As the shadow man prepared to load up the prisoner again, he said over his shoulder, “The contract was for one, not three. You have nothing to offer.” With the body on his back, he suddenly stopped, head cocked toward the hallway. “We have lingered too long. Guards are coming.”
“Let us help you,” Charlotte insisted. If she and Henry could prove their worth, then maybe the stranger would return the favor.
“We need to move now. You may follow me, but be prepared if you outlive your usefulness.” He didn’t need to clarify the sentence for Charlotte to understand what he meant. His ‘contract’ would be completed with or without Charlotte and Henry. With those final words, he extinguished the last torch and plunged the room into darkness.
Charlotte grabbed her brother’s hand and dragged him behind her through the main door, listening for the quiet groans of the prisoner to lead her the right way. None of the torches along the hallways were lit, leading Charlotte to suspect the shadow man had many contingencies in place to ensure his success. It’s a good thing the shadow man has a passenger, Charlotte thought, as she stumbled over yet another broken flagstone. Without his pained breathing to follow, they would have been left behind in the maze of blackened tunnels. She had no idea where they were or how far they had gone.
The stra
nger moved like a ghost. If he wasn’t weighed down by the burden across his back, Charlotte knew that he would have been outside of the castle already, the siblings a regrettable casualty in his wake.
Charlotte didn’t realize how comforting the darkness had become until she was blinded by a bright light at the far end of a hallway. The shadow man froze, and Charlotte followed suit. She watched as two guards descended from a staircase, ale mugs in hand, and guessed that this was the same staircase that they needed to ascend in order to escape.
Henry clutched her hand, silently conveying his unease. She squeezed it back, and then dropped her grip, using both hands to tuck her sole weapon back into her braid. This won’t be the moment when we are thrown to the wolves, she decided, and stepped into the hallway. The shadow man tensed, but didn’t stop her, almost as if he approved of her brazen actions.
Charlotte approached the guards with slow, even steps. When they finally looked up from their conversation to realize that a naked woman stood in front of them, the guards gaped at her.
“Where—where did you come from?” one guard asked.
“No matter, Amis,” the second guard said. “All that matters is that she’s here for us. Our little present.” He leered at Charlotte in a way that made her want to cover herself with her hands, but she resisted the urge to show any attempt at modesty. So far her plan was working, and the shock at her appearance had distracted the guards. She had no weapons in hand and nothing to hide, and the guards were too fixated on her to notice the true threat sneaking up on their right, blending in with the shadows.
“Yes, our present,” Amis agreed, dropping his mug as he lunged for Charlotte’s arm, broken teeth winking through his predatory grin.
Charlotte allowed the hand to close around her bicep, gagging as she breathed in his foul smell. His breath is worse than the sewer, she thought. He yanked her closer, and it was all Charlotte could do not to pull back. Wait, wait, she told herself.
“You’re a plucky little bird, aren’t you?” he said. “We’ll see how long you last until you scream.” Charlotte’s free hand moved to touch her hair, not recoiling as the guard expected. “You don’t think she’s one of those dumb mutes, do you?” Amis turned to ask the other guard.