Page 60 of The Duke
And both men had scars. Such awful scars that Imogen had to clear a sheen of sorrow from her eyes with a few rapid blinks.
Argent’s back was to her, but the pale giant’s topography was a map of torture. A web of once-burned skin covered one entire shoulder like a plate of gruesome armor. A myriad of puckered wounds suggested several battles with a knife. And maybe a bullet or two.
Millie LeCour’s stoic husband was certainly more than he seemed.
Imogen couldn’t help but catalogue the differences between the two men. Argent’s decidedly wider shoulders buttressed a bulk not often seen on this island. Surely he came from Viking stock, his skin pink with exertion and lightly freckled. His hair darker than copper but lighter than wine. He moved with an ease not often seen on men of his size. As though the elements made room for his passage and prepared for the brutal force he brought with him.
Trenwyth, on the other hand, stood taller than any man had a right to be. His sinew was forced to stretch over thick bones and layered with veins. His abdomen seemed to have one more flexed ripple than his opponent’s, and Imogen’s gaze hungrily followed the line between them until it ran into a waistband.
He stalked and circled on bent knees, the predatory savagery on his face contradicted by a calculating gleam in his lupine eyes. Here was the wolf she recognized from that long-ago day in the Bare Kitten. Generally so stoic and self-contained, so certain of his uncontested reign.
And yet. He had to perfect his skill, didn’t he? To remain at the head, a leader and noble, he must keep his mind and body honed to a dagger’s point.
Watching them was a lot like Imogen would imagine watching a wolf fighting with a bear. Each of them crafted for killing, but in entirely different fashions.
As they circled, the moonlight illuminated different parts of Cole’s body. A shallow slash on his neck. A perfect round bullet wound in his shoulder. A labyrinth of raised and welted scars scattered in violent chaos across his entire trunk, both front and back.
She remembered some of his scars from before his incarceration, the visual narrative of a soldier’s life. But most of them, indeed, the most horrific, had been inflicted whilst he suffered in a foreign prison, subject to the basest cruelties imaginable.
Cole’s left arm corded, the metallic hand glinting in the moonlight as he lifted it, the buckles strapped tightly to his thick forearm.
How extraordinary, Imogen thought. That he should use his prosthesis as a weapon. That he should turn his hindrance into strength. She remembered the coiled blade hidden at the wrist, and wondered if he’d ever chanced to use it. She remained crouched beneath the ancient tree on unsteady legs. It was like watching a dance, the steps brutish and heavy, but requiring just as much mastery of motion. In this waltz, one misstep had eternal consequences.
Without any sound or warning, Argent lunged forward, aiming low with his knife in an attack so quick and deadly, Imogen was left wondering if he couldn’t shove the blunted weapon right through a man’s heart by way of brute force.
She needn’t have worried, Cole waited until the last possible moment before parrying, using Argent’s bulk against him and sidestepping the attack. Argent seemed to anticipate the move, and performed some sleight of hand, the knife appearing in his left and jabbing once again at Trenwyth, even though he was slightly off balance.
This forced the duke to throw his body back, his left arm crossing his chest to bat away the trajectory of the knife aimed at his throat. He performed a simultaneous attack as he blocked, but the thrust went wild, missing its mark.
“You’re distracted,” Argent accused.
“Am I?” Trenwyth baited.
This exchange gave Argent the time he needed to regain his balance, and he took no occasion to savor it, but struck like a coiled viper, the weapon aimed directly beneath Trenwyth’s sternum.
Now squared to his opponent, Cole caught Argent’s outstretched arm by crossing both of his in front of his body. He maneuvered the weapon out and away from danger, and turned against the extended arm to plant an elbow in Argent’s jaw with a gasp-inducing crack.
Imogen’s hands flew to her mouth, barely containing her cry of astonishment.
Argent caught the knife-wielding hand that closely followed, and spat blood on the grass. The men strained and grappled for an instant, their movements concealed by the substantial shadows they both created with their magnificent bodies.
After a heart-pounding struggle, they both froze, locked in some painful-looking impasse.
“You’re distracted, and you’re dead,” Argent said victoriously, a bit more breathlessly than before.
“Am I?” Trenwyth repeated.
The blunted blade glinted against his neck as Argent made a slashing motion.
“So I am,” the duke relented, and then made a gesture that directed attention to where he held his own blade.
Scandalously high against Argent’s inner thigh where the femoral artery would spill all his blood in less than two minutes.
“So are you.” It might have been the first time Imogen had ever heard a smile in Cole’s voice. At least, the first time in almost three years.
Their sparring ended with a draw, and the men separated with a handshake, then each used the back of their hands to wipe blood from their faces in an eerily synchronized manner.
“Care to divulge what’s troubling you?” Argent prompted mildly.
