For the first time in her life, Cassie prayed for death, for blessed unconsciousness that would free her of this horror. But the pain continued, plummeting her mind into senselessness. She was scarce aware when the second man took his turn, for he could not tear her body more than had Andrea. Until Giulio. “Damn,” she heard him curse, “the wench grows too slippery.”
She was pulled onto her stomach. And she screamed, screamed until her voice was a hoarse groan in her throat.
“You rutting bastards.”
It was a new voice, a man’s voice, laden with fury.
She was rolled onto her back and the vicious probing hands left her.
“You did not say that we could not enjoy her,” Andrea said, his voice sulky.
“Get out, all of you. What if someone comes, you fools, the lot of you mucking around with your breeches down. For God’s sake, get out of here and keep watch.”
For a moment, Cassie’s mind detached itself from her torn body, and her eyes focused on the man. Like the others, he wore a black mask. But there was something different about him, other than the richness of his clothing, something that she couldn’t quite grasp.
“Joseph,” she whispered between swollen lips. It did not occur to her to beg mercy for herself. She knew with the hopelessness of certainty that there would be none.
“Pazza fragitara nigli inferno,” he said, his voice low and strangely slurred.
Caesare stared down at her and felt a spasm of revulsion at what his bravi had done to her. He had thought to take her himself, but now he wanted only to leave this place and forget her eyes staring up at him, wide with helpless terror, forget the sight of her naked body, bruised and bleeding. He turned abruptly on his heel and strode to the door. “Andrea!” he shouted. “Do as you like with them. Just be certain, if you value your life, that they are never found.”
“No,” she whispered after him, trying to pull herself up, but he was gone.
Andrea appeared in the open doorway. “No more need of these, lads,” he said, and pulled off his mask.
Cassie stared up at his coarse-bearded face, his mouth slashed wide in a grin. “Let her see your handsome face, Giacomo,” he said, again unfastening the buttons of his breeches.
Giacomo’s thin face was drawn and sharp, his eyes a strange golden color, like those of a fox. He ran his tongue over his blackened front teeth. “Wait your turn, Andrea. She’s mine now.”
Giacomo was angry that they had beaten the fight out of her, for he had wanted to feel her heaving and struggling against him.
She moaned softly, helplessly, when he thrust himself into her, and he could feel her quivering with pain.
“Fight me, damn you.” He slapped her breasts and belly with the flat of his hand.
But there was no fight left in her, only a vast emptiness shrouded in pain. Dimly, she remembered the man’s words, their leader’s words. “Pazza fragitara nigli inferno. May he rot in hell.” She was to die now, as was Joseph. Somehow, the knowledge did not quite touch her. She raised vague eyes to Andrea, and saw him pulling down his breeches. She cried out, deep in her throat, and fell into merciful blackness.
Andrea sat cross-legged on the filthy floor, eyeing his three comrades. “Well, what will you, lads? Kill them now or wait for the wench to come around again?”
“What a bloody waste to carve the wench,” Giacomo said, rubbing his hand over the stubble of beard on his chin. “The Corsican though—” He pulled his knife lovingly from his belt.
Andrea nodded. “Gut the Corsican, Giulio.”
Giulio rose to his feet and drew his stiletto free of its leather sheath. He was caressing its razor edge with the tip of his thumb when a shot shattered the silence of the room, and Giulio screamed, clutching his belly.
The earl hurled into the room, the force of his body tearing the cabin door from its rusted hinges.
“Out, men!” Andrea shouted, and kicked over the lighted lamp, plunging the cabin into darkness. The earl heard a booted foot shatter the back door of the hut. At the same instant, he fired his other pistol, and one of the men grunted in pain. He whirled about and rushed out of the hut, to see three men hurling themselves onto their horses.