The Dark One: Dark Knight by Kathryn Le Veque Page A

falling and the mud on
her skirt, Remington entered the dark, dank room.
         “Rory?” she asked softly.  “What on earth
are you doing?”
         Rory’s head snapped up, her sea-crystal
eyes like flames from hell.  “You!” she yelled. “This is your fault. 
You let them in.”
         Remington was gripped with terror.  “What
did he do to you?”
         “ Do to me?  How can you ask me that
question?”  Rory cried.
         Remington’s fear was now fed by annoyance. 
“Tell me, dammit.  What did he do to you?”
         Rory sobbed in frustration, smacking her
fists against the wall.  “It was…terrible.  He was so heartless, cruel….”
         Remington had had her fill of emotions for
the day; she grabbed Rory roughly by the sleeve and shook her.  “Tell me what
he did to you, Rory, or so help me I will kill you myself.”
         Rory yanked herself away from her sister in
a fit of sniffles and grunts.  She pressed her back against the cold stone of
the wall and eyed her sister.  “He…spanked me.”
         Remington wasn’t sure she heard a-right. 
She blinked and straightened, tilting her head curiously.  “He spanked you?”
         “Aye.” Rory cried.  “And it is your fault. 
If you had not lowered the bridge then they would have never come in.”
         Remington calmed dramatically to the point
where she almost smiled. The knight actually spanked her sister; not beat, nor
thrashed, but merely spanked.  Enough to sting, yet not enough to hurt her. 
She was soundly surprised.
         “Get hold of yourself and go to bed,” she
told her sister after a moment.  “We will have much to do on the morrow, I
fear.” 
         She turned away from Rory, but her sister
was not about to be ignored.
         “You do not care that he put his hand to my
backside.” she accused loudly, racing across the room and blocking Remington’s
exit.
         Remington met her sister’s gaze steadily. 
“Rory, if there is any justice in this country, then you have received it. 
‘Twas you who were terrible and reckless when you put charcoal on his
cup.  And dye on the other knight’s napkin.  What I cannot truly determine is
when you did it; I was in the hall most of the time and never saw you.”
         Rory’s eyes cooled to smoldering embers. 
“Skye put the dye on the napkin, not me.”
         Remington shook her head helplessly. “You
two are a pair. ‘Tis a wonder Guy did not kill you both for the trouble you
caused him.”
         Rory’s jaw ticked.  “I would say, in fact,
the transgressions were far greater on his part.  At least Skye and I never
physically hurt him.”
         Remington was stung by her sister’s words,
although she was only too aware of how very true they were. Still, to hear them
voiced in an accusing manner struck her.  Bitterly, she turned for the door.
         “Go to bed,” she mumbled, feeling the soft
mist caress her face.
         Rory eyed her sister a moment.  “Are you
going to service the Dark Knight as you serviced Guy?”
         Remington paused, slowly turning to her
sister. “What do you mean?”
         “As his whore,” Rory said, her bitterness
and humiliation affecting her common sense.  “Guy always said you were his
whore.  I was wondering if you would be the new lord’s whore, too.”
         Remington slapped her sister across the
face faster than either one of them thought possible.  Rory reeled with the
blow, sorry she had said something so entirely uncalled for.  She did not know
why she had said it; mayhap because Remington was blaming her for her spanking.
She had expected her sister to stand up for her. Rory hated taking
responsibility for anything.
         Remington’s control was gone; she was so
brittle and unbalanced that she continued to fly after Rory even as her sister
tried to recover from the blow.  She picked up a small stool and