Red Rider RIsing: Book 2 of the Red Rider Saga by D.A. Randall (best books to read for beginners .TXT) 📗

at the center of its web. The Duke’s royal advisor, Simonet, sat in the next chair, wearing his usual callous expression. They all studied me with violent disdain.

I grabbed my crossbow and rose from the stool.

“Mademoiselle?” Touraine asked, turning suddenly. “Mademoiselle, where are you going?”

he demanded in a whisper.

Once more secured, the crossbow hung at my hip as I strode toward the table. The table where the Lycanthru gathered to celebrate their victories after attacking people in the village. After chewing on the flesh of innocent mothers and fathers and five-year old girls. My boots clomped across the floorboards as I marched at them, my 287

cloak rippling behind me. They set down their drinks and sat taller, their backs rigid, their attention focused. Nearby observers shrank back, hunching over their drinks, eager to avoid us.

I stood before the Lycanthru and stared straight at Laurent. No one moved.

Duke Laurent squinted, confused. He

blinked in surprise. “Helena?” A strange smile twisted across his lips. “Is that Helena Basque beneath that hood?”

He recognized my scars across the lower half of my face. I no longer cared.

I grabbed a nearby chair and slid it to the end of the table, opposite Laurent. I sat, with all eyes on me, as I lifted my hands to draw back the hood, revealing my face and blonde hair. Their eyes bulged in an odd mixture of horror and delight. They seemed outraged to discover their adversary was a mere girl. Yet they seemed all the more eager to take their revenge, now that they had seen my face.

“So,” Laurent said, breaking the thick silence. “I haven’t seen you since – oh, yes. Since your little sister’s funeral.”

Blood surged through my neck and

temples. I wanted to lunge across the table and strangle him. But I could do nothing here, with so many witnesses. People who only knew Duke Laurent as I once did: a generous benefactor to our tiny community, a man we were all blessed to have leading us. He was a true wolf in sheep’s clothing.

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Seeing he had rattled me, he continued to study my reactions with measured calm. I couldn’t let him unsettle me again.

“Well,” he went on. “… What new things have you been up to lately?”

I stiffened my posture. “A lot of hunting.

Late at night.”

Scorn lined every face around the table. I could almost feel, almost smell, their hatred of me.

Even Simonet narrowed his eyes with bitterness. I was only a girl, but they wanted to destroy me at least as much as I wanted to destroy them.

Laurent twisted his lip. “So I hear.”

“So you witnessed,” I said. “From your platform.”

The men around the table drew a sharp intake of breath. Sharrad bared his teeth, looking so savage I thought he might spring for my throat.

Laurent fingered his mug, lifted it and drank. Then he continued to study me. “You seem to have learned a lot in one night.”

“Not enough. I know what you are. What you become. But I don’t know which of you attacked me, or which of you banded together to kill Francois Revelier. Or the rest of my family.”

Laurent squinted at me, cockeyed. “You’re accusing us of attacking you, Helena? And of killing your woodcutter friend? Forgive me, but I thought you were both attacked by a wolf. Isn’t that the story you’ve been telling everyone?

Weren’t you attacked by a big, bad wolf?”

The men snickered.

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Laurent continued, like the ringmaster of a traveling circus troupe. “If you change your story now and say you were attacked by a man – well, I’m not sure how many people will believe you.”

“There were witnesses.”

“Oh?” Laurent asked in a mocking tone, as if this was new information. “Where are they now?

Was that woodcutter one of them? Or your Grand’Mere? Or your Papa?”

Hot blood filled my temples.

Laurent folded his hands, satisfied. “Seems you’re the only one left to tell your tale, Helena.

And reasonable people don’t often listen to hysterical little girls who lose